Facts of Life (14 page)

"It's Travis's fault," he muttered. "If he hadn't shown up, that guy wouldn't be growling at me." But he knew the blame was weak. He was just lurking behind a car, and the owner had resorted to threats. Boys his age responded to threats.

Ryan jogged until he was finally in front of Safeway, a touchstone of safety. He caught his breath and brought out the forty-five cents. He pounded on the vending machine, hoping it might burp a nickel or—this had happened before—a free soda. But the machine gave up nothing. His pounding just started the motor.

"Stupid machine," Ryan muttered. When he turned, he saw his mother exiting the store with two bags in her arms, struggling to keep the bags from slipping. He considered running over to help her, but he played it safe and lowered himself behind a car. He couldn't risk the public humiliation of his mother bawling him out about the D in English.

"Now who in the world is that?" he muttered.

A boy had approached his mother and taken one of the bags from her. She smiled at him in a way she never beamed at Ryan, her only son. She said something that made them both laugh. Ryan's jealousy grew when his mother set the groceries in the backseat, opened her purse, and pressed money into this do-gooder's palm. The do-gooder protested and returned the money. She smiled at him and then, leaning into the car, brought out a soda from one of the bags.

"That's mine," Ryan murmured. He narrowed his eyes at the boy and hurried away, ashamed—no, mad. Who was that kid, anyway? And why was the kid helping Ryan's mother? That was
his
duty.

Ryan decided to head over to Freddie's house. He found his friend on his knees in front of his father's big old Chevy station wagon. He looked like he was praying before the old clunker, but he was actually scrubbing a tire with an old toothbrush.

"Hey," Ryan greeted. He picked up the garden hose, which was running on the lawn.

"My mom better not see you," Freddie said cautiously. He looked toward the front window of the house.

Ryan lowered his face to the hose and drank. With dribbles of water falling from his chin, he asked, "Why?"

"She thinks you're the reason I got a D in English
and
Spanish."

"Me?" Ryan pointed at his chest.

"Yeah!" Freddie snarled. "Now get over here, dude—don't stand on the lawn." With his chin he motioned for Ryan to hide behind the station wagon, which had decals on the back window that read
ZACATECAS.

"Hey, isn't your last name Fernandez?" Ryan wondered.

"It is," Freddie said.

"Then how come you got that word Zaca-something on your window?"

Freddie clicked his tongue. "You don't know nothing. That's where my family is from."

"Oh," Ryan muttered. "I thought you were from Mexico."

Freddie repeated, "You don't know nothing."

Ryan shrugged and squatted next to Freddie, who had taken the toothbrush to the next tire.

"Man, I didn't do your homework," Ryan said as he returned to Freddie's complaint.

"I know that," Freddie said. "Mom just thinks it's your fault because you're a bad influence." His eyes shifted to Ryan's mismatched socks. "Man, your
calcetines
are all mixed up."

Licking his lips, Ryan was about to update Freddie on his poor choice of socks when Freddie's mother pushed open the screen door with her hip and came out with a pot in her hands. She said something in Spanish that Ryan couldn't understand. But Freddie knew: His mother needed help. He dropped the toothbrush as Ryan quickly wiggled under the car. He lay with his hands over his heart and listened to Freddie's mother say more in Spanish and—was it possible?—banter his name around. He thought he made out "Ryan, Ryan," but it might have been "Iran, Iran." But why would Freddie's mother be speaking to her son about the Middle East?

Freddie opened the car door for his mother, who sat in the passenger side with the pot in her lap. The car squeaked under her weight. Ryan worried that Freddie's father was about to come down the stairs, too. And he did.

What should I do?
Ryan wondered. He considered gripping the underside of the car when it started to move. He had seen the maneuver in a movie about a criminal terrorizing a law-abiding family. But that criminal was superstrong, and Ryan had to admit that he was noodle-armed.

When Freddie's father plopped himself into the driver's seat, Ryan wisely decided it was time to escape. He rolled out, duck-walked along the side of the car below the window level, and left a trail of fingerprints before he rose and ran away. He didn't look back, didn't quip
Adiós, amigo
to Freddie.

Once out of sight, Ryan meandered slowly to the playground, but paused when he saw Travis the bully on a motorized scooter. A smaller boy ran after him, crying. One day when Travis had pushed him around, Ryan had gotten a D on a math quiz and had been so troubled he forgot to do his English homework. Travis, Ryan convinced himself, was the reason sixth grade was not turning out to be a good year.

He stole it,
Ryan figured. He leaned into a tree and, when Travis spotted him, wished he had climbed into it. Travis made a loopy circle, let the scooter fall in the road, and advanced toward Ryan while running a comb through his hair.

"Fool, what you doing?" Travis greeted. He ran a thumb down the comb.

"Nothing, man." Ryan pushed himself away from the tree. "I'm looking for ... fruit," He raised his eyes toward the network of limbs.

"Fool, you think I'm a fool? That's a sycamore. No fruit." He put the comb into his back pocket.

Ryan swallowed. He shifted his attention to the scooter that the smaller boy had righted. Shoulders heaving, the boy was dropping dime-sized tears on the black asphalt and gunning down the street. Ryan pointed. "Look, the little man's stealing your ride."

Travis smiled. "Gonzalez, you weenie." He hooked a thumb at the boy. "That's my brother. I ought to hit you."

"You already did that. Twice." Ryan began to recount the times in fourth and fifth grades, but Travis advised him to shut up. He was in a hurry. He plunged one of his hands into Ryan's pocket and pulled out the forty-five cents.

"Is that all you got?" Travis asked.

"Yeah," Ryan answered weakly.

"I ought to smack you one." He wagged his head. "I can't believe you got a D in English."

"How do you know?"

"Everyone knows. You and that ugly dude Freddie. You're bringing the male species down."

Ryan almost uttered, "Are we a species? I thought only animals were species," but he ground the words on the back of his molars. He thought,
Just keep your trap closed.

Travis flipped a dime and slapped it against his wrist. "Heads or tails."

"Heads," Ryan guessed.

When Travis brought his hand away, it was heads. "You're right, but you still lose." He sneered at Ryan and lumbered off, hitching up his pants.

Bullies, Ryan assumed, didn't get grades higher than Cs. But as he walked down the street, pockets no longer jingling with coins, he remembered that Travis had been the spelling bee champ in fourth and fifth grade and had taken a test that suggested he was a genius.
Sweet,
Ryan thought.
To be strong and smart, plus know the names of trees!

"Dang, I'm thirsty," Ryan complained. "I could use a soda." Still, he didn't dare return home. His mother would turn up the fires of anger and roast his ears with accusations about laziness. He walked aimlessly toward downtown and soon found himself near the library.

"They got a drinking fountain there," he told himself.

As he entered, Ryan was happily surprised by the cool air. It was only April, but the weather was already warm—and his foxlike running about didn't help. He wished he could strip off his hoodie, but decided that decency was required in a public place.

He found the drinking fountain, then spent time looking at a large globe of the world. He spun it, closed his eyes, and let his finger trail the surface until it stopped, telling himself,
This is where I'm going to die.
He opened his eyes and lowered his face to read where he would die, in old age, of course: Estonia. Ryan had never heard of the country. He spun the globe again to get an answer he liked better when he spotted a familiar face.

"It's that dude," he muttered. Ryan was sure it was the boy who had helped his mother with the groceries, who had drunk what was
his
soda, and who may have taken his place in his mother's heart. Ryan approached the boy, who was stuffing papers into his backpack.

"You're the one, huh?" Ryan asked.

The boy's large, luminous eyes fell on Ryan. He shrugged the backpack onto his shoulder and fit a small pencil into his shirt pocket. "I'm the one, what?"

"Who helped my mom at Safeway," Ryan answered.

"Mrs. Gonzalez?" the boy said brightly.

"Yeah," Ryan answered and gritted his teeth. The word
yeah,
usable in the streets, suddenly sounded stupid in the library. No wonder he got a D in English.

"She's very nice," the boy said seriously. He introduced himself as Gregorio Mendez. He told Ryan he had to go to his tutoring job and invited him to see his class.

"What class?"

"The ESL class," Gregorio answered. "I'll show you."

Gregorio walked down the hall with long, sharp, and purposeful steps. Ryan followed, noticing that his own steps were scrambled; his feet were splayed like a duck's and his shoelaces whipped about like skinny snakes.

"I've been tutoring for three months," Gregorio said. An idea sparked in Ryan's mind:
Hey, maybe he can help me.
But he discarded the idea. He couldn't see himself being tutored by a kid smaller than he was.

"It's a special day," Gregorio whispered. He began to tiptoe as they got closer to the classroom.

"What do you mean?" Ryan found himself tiptoeing as well.

Gregorio didn't answer and prodded Ryan into the classroom. Ryan stalled like a stubborn donkey. His hair, sweaty from running around, nearly bristled when he spotted Freddie Fernandez's mom in the front row.

Gregorio bowed his head slightly at the teacher, and Ryan, not knowing what to do, did the same. Shaken by the presence of Freddie's mom, he followed Gregorio timidly to the back of the room. He considered lifting his hood over his head, but decided to be brave.

"Mrs. Fernandez," the teacher said in a jolly voice.

Freddie's mom rose. There was applause from her classmates as she seemed to cha-cha-cha to the front. She gazed briefly at Ryan, and her smile, already wide, seemed to get even bigger. She didn't seem mad at Ryan for supposedly bringing down Freddie's grades. Had Freddie been making it all up?

"Your certificate," the teacher said. "Excellence in English. Congratulations." Mrs. Fernandez took the certificate, shook hands with her teacher, smiled at the class, and returned to her seat in a hail of applause.

Ryan felt weak. He took a seat and listened to the names of the certificate winners: Nui Ying Yang, Soon Kim, Hikari Oda, Thalia Kisro, Michaela Liedkate, the husband-and-wife team of Samuel and Ester Ortiz, a dozen others from faraway countries but mostly from Latin America. Each of them pranced to the front of the class to accept their certificates.

"Now for the real reason why we're here," the teacher said. He jokingly glanced over at the potluck food on a long table. He rubbed his stomach and asked the class, "What are we?"

"We are hungry," the students said in a variety of accents. They rose, some beginning to speak in their native languages.

Everyone appeared happy as they got into two lines. Ryan was amazed. At school he would have crowded to the front or begged a friend to let him cut. He looked down at the desk, embarrassed. He was born in this country and a native speaker of English; how could he get a D? And these people? They worked hard all week and came to study English on Saturday afternoons.

"Come on," Gregorio urged. "Let's get in line."

"Nah, I ain't hungry" Ryan said. He twiddled his fingers for a few seconds, and then clicked his tongue.
I got to grow up,
he admonished himself.
Maybe I'm what Travis called me: a fool!
He pushed his hands into his pockets and then brought them out. He fiddled with his hood and crossed his arms across his chest. He couldn't find a comfortable position.

"This is for you,
mi'jo,
" Freddie's mom beckoned as she came toward him. She held two plates brimming with Chinese and Filipino food. Her smile revealed a gold tooth.

He swallowed and felt tenderness toward her. "Thank you," he said, and meant it. He sat up and smiled as he took the plate with both hands.

"You and Freddie are like this." She crossed her one finger over another. "So close.
Amigos
" Ryan was glad that she didn't say anything about their Ds in English.

Freddie's mom lifted a
lumpia
with chopsticks and nibbled. "All you have to do is eat different to be somewhere different."

"It's true," Ryan agreed, though he wasn't sure what she meant.

Freddie's mom continued to talk in English about a two-for-one sale at Target, and he nodded after each completed sentence. He didn't mind that it went long, that she sometimes changed the subject to Freddie, that her grammar was shaky. No, he wanted to encourage her, to tell her with his eyes and smile that she was all right.

Ryan had experienced a growing spurt the previous summer. He was now taller than his mother and almost as tall as his father. That day Ryan had another kind of growth. He could no longer play like a little kid in a vacant lot. He had to dust the dirt from his pants, tie his shoes, and stride in long, meaningful steps. He had to walk as a young man.

ay, dios mio:
oh, my god

bueno:
hello (when answering the telephone)

calcetines:
socks

cállate:
shut up

camarones para mi:
shrimp for me

"
Canción de mi Vida":
a song; means "song of my life"