Nick Jasprizza

Alejandro, a tough and ambitious Latino street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junkyard on the outskirts of Queens, New York. In this chaotic world of adults, young Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and his 16-year-old sister, Isamar.

A wired but charming and educated junkie couple ("we prefer the term chemically dependent") run their stolen car into a nice well to do thirty-something couple and when it gets all too hard, end up staying with them - first for a night, then a week and then for way too long.