by Gary Soto
“Tana,” I ask, “what school do you go to?” She told me the previous Christmas, but I’ve forgotten.
She puts down her fork, swallows, then says, “Boston Latin.”
A school for eggheads, I’m certain, each egg with two or three languages already in the shell. For a second, I see Tana and her classmates floating around campus in togas — togas and stone tablets chiseled with smart-aleck quips from Socrates and other robed wise guys. I lower my fork, for the breakfast is dangerously hot. I ask, “So what’s your school motto?”
She picks up her fork. Smiling brightly, she says, “Sumus primi.”
This means, I believe, “We are first.” Could there be any doubt? She and her classmates will probably attend Harvard when they graduate from high school — Yale or Harvard or Princeton or MIT, universities for those born to be successful.
We stir our breakfast, releasing more engines of steam. When my napkin falls to the floor, it looks like litter. I pick it up un-prettily. It’s nothing but paper with brown chili smudges, while the napkin in Tana’s hand is a crinkled origami flower. How does that work? How does the same object in her grip seem dainty?
She asks, “Did your high school have a motto?”
The vapor between us has dispersed. We’re comfortable with each other. How did I get so lucky as to know a bright ninety-seven pound girl? “Yeah,” I answer, “it was in street Spanish, but I can translate it into English.”
I let a few seconds pass while she waits, her body leaning forward as if to say, And? I stall, smile, then reveal our motto: “Run like you stole something.”
She laughs, hand over her mouth, and the napkin falls to the floor again. I like how she does that — how she drops the napkin. Happiness leaps in my heart as I fetch it for her.
THE FAMILY FORTUNE
The young man was named either Barclay or Basil. As he was from wealth, he most certainly kept a string of polo ponies and hunting horses, the noble profiles of the finest rendered in oils and hung above mantels. I came to know him — briefly — in a biography of an English writer who did his best work in the 1930s.
Memory fails once again. Was his name Barclay or Basil? I imagine him with a mallet — is that what they call it? — clad in a wool hunting jacket, white britches, knee-high leather boots tooled in Bradford. His silver flask was etched with his name — Barclay or Basil? His family estate was near Knole in County Kent, not far from the Churchill estate, Chartwell. I’m thinking of him and his family’s friendship with Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West, a notable couple of the 1930s, doers in literature and gardens, considered eccentrics by the neighboring landowner — and also, as I’ve learned, political conservatives.
This young man, possibly the only son of a family that included five girls, became excited when he was named an assistant in a publishing firm near Fleet Street. Unattached and lighthearted, recently come into his inheritance, he accepted a job reading and responding to author queries. He arrived in late morning and left by four in the afternoon, part-time work when we consider the office scene these days.
I recall tidbits of a biography, but of whom exactly? I see it like this: Basil or Barclay was at Oxford for two years before he was sent down; still, he wore his college’s tie and pin. His family’s fortune came from Jamaica and their five-hundred-acre plantation (a word they avoided) of sugar cane, crisp stalks rustling and sweetening the air. He had visited the island once and remembered that the sea, blue as the china in the breakfront at home, was almost never out of view. There also were tea and banana plantations in British Guiana, and investments in South Africa. On his mother’s side, they had land in Scotland. What worry could pleat his brow?
He was called home by family for the weekend — something about the pending marriage of a distant cousin. He boarded a train at Waterloo station, then took a taxi to the family’s estate, where black bulls roamed on a far hill and lambs gathered by a fence. The sky was wide and a row of clouds paddled in the direction of London. Two muddy Labs greeted him, while the butler hurried across the gravel with an umbrella.
Rain kept the family indoors most of the afternoon. The young man was wise enough to stay away from his mother. She would probe about the girl — or girls — in his life and he would have to tell her all about their families. He unpacked, hurriedly ate a sandwich alone, then visited the horses in their stalls. He spoke with Lawrence, the new boy, and Nigel, one of the three gardeners, who had been with the family nearly twenty years. Their conversation regarded the heated floors in one stall and a chicken coop ransacked by a fox. Rain fell on them equally, and rain filled their shoeprints when the three of them went to see the calf, born in April. As it was now September, the calf had a place on the hill among other cows.
Before dinner, there were drinks: near the fireplace, a visiting uncle with a tumbler containing two fingers of Scotch, his monocle like an immense wet raindrop gleaming on his lapel. The young man — Barclay or Basil — reported gaily, “Uncle, I’ve got a job,” expecting his uncle to reply, “Spot on — let’s hear about it!”
But his uncle frowned at this news. He lowered his drink, where it was momentarily lit and colored by the fire, then placed it onto the mantel. “A job, you say?”
“Yes, Uncle — a job,” announced the young man.
The uncle ran a hand over his chin and muttered, “A job — really.” He turned his face toward the fire, breathed in, then exhaled. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
WHY DO I REMEMBER THIS?
When I was twenty years old, a college instructor and I talked about starting a literary magazine. As I had written some poetry, he figured that we could collaborate. He himself had published poems, earned an MFA, and had many things going for him, including a job that appeared easy to me, though I now know better: correcting student papers.
I arrived at his house a little frightened, for he had been my instructor and was to be respected, if not feared, for his knowledge. Plus, I had seldom been to anyone else’s house — just relatives, just my best friend’s house. He opened the door and was surprised to see me, though he had told me come at that hour on that day. He let me in but not before eyeing my shoes, which had me instinctively brushing the soles against the welcome mat in an exaggerated manner — my shoes were like the wheels of a locomotive spinning to leave the station.
I was immediately struck by how quiet the house seemed. Shy, I didn’t dare glance around and may have even walked through the hallway with my head lowered. I followed him to the kitchen where there was another person, also a college instructor, as I later found out. This man turned and said hello but nothing more. He then continued to peer into a cupboard.
“Could you wait for us?” my college instructor asked.
Wait for us? I furtively eyed the kitchen counter: lunch meat, a single tomato, a block of yellow cheese, bread, and mayonnaise. There was a bag of potato chips on the kitchen table, some apples and bananas in a bowl. The clock over the sink was paddling ahead and a single fly was buzzing on the sill.
“Where?” I asked innocently.
My college instructor led me to the living room and left me there. With nothing to do, I sat on the couch and slowly sized up the room: lamps on end tables, books, magazines, black telephone, potted plants, yarn and knitting needles, an oil painting of the sea. So this is how college instructors live, I thought. I stood up and quietly went to the French doors. With a hand over my brow, I looked out. My eyes paused on an overturned wheelbarrow with long strands of grass struggling to climb up its metal sides. I studied this contraption, nothing more than a big bucket on wheels to ease things from one place to another. As it was a faded and chipped red, I remembered William Carlos Williams’s poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” and its theme: small details matter. Later in my own writing life, I would consider my former college instructor’s haul of poems as not weighing much, a little load that required no wheelbarrow, only his hands. But at the time, this person seemed old, although he was only in his early thi
rties.
I returned to the couch. I heard the two instructors eating, heard them talking in near whispers. Lunch lasted no longer than ten minutes. Then the chairs scraped against the floor. The dishes were put in the sink; water ran for a few seconds. A cupboard opened and closed. My former instructor called, “Gary.”
I didn’t move. When he called a second time, I got to my feet, sensing that I had experienced something unpleasant but not knowing what.
By his late thirties, this college instructor had given up writing poetry, given up something that makes others survive. He had written a chapbook of twenty poems.
We never started the literary magazine. The instructor taught remedial writing until he retired, his wheelbarrow carrying only the wooden pencils for correcting student papers. The pencils rolling off his table made more noise than him.
RICE
I was ten, thin as a tapeworm, shaggy-haired, a climber of trees and, unfortunately, the middle son. Outside in the yard, I watched the geese darken the sky of an autumn afternoon, V after V of them winging south, their eyes filled with the memory of lakes. They would settle on or near these lakes, while I would live here, in Fresno, in a household that was loud and mean. For most of my childhood, I wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere nice.
I was ten for a very long year, the wheels of time frozen. I didn’t seem to grow or to learn very much, but I recognized that school could be fun — and I liked my friends. One night after dinner I said to my mother, “I missed two questions on a math quiz.” I believed that this might make her happy, mother of so many children, and me doing so well in school. She said, “You also missed something else, tonto!” She had been angry about something and now it came out. “Look at your fork!” she said, then waited for me to understand her meaning.
I inspected my fork: embedded between the prongs was a grain of rice, pale as a tapeworm. We were having mashed potatoes that night, not rice. Suddenly, the fork in my hand was a dirty thing. I understood that I, the dishwasher of the previous night, had not done my job properly. My mom had let me eat from that fork to teach me a lesson. Oh, I learned.
Rick and Deborah had already left the table and were in the living room; they were very quiet, neither of them involved. Now it was just me at the table, dirty dishes like dirty countries, all over the map. Tears, each the length of a long grain of rice, appeared in the corners of my eyes. It wasn’t something to cry over, really. But there I was, the lakes of memory filling my eyes.
Sometimes I will do the dishes and pull up a fork, a grain of rice stuck between prongs. I’ll watch the soap bubbles crawl down the fork and that year will re-surface — 1962, when I was ten for a very long time.
CUPCAKES
In anticipation of our daughter’s wedding, my wife baked a test run of vegan cupcakes. Our daughter has several vegan friends, none of whom wears leather, including shoes. How one pats about stylishly in cloth and rubber is a mystery to me. Nevertheless, my ever-dutiful wife intended to provide desserts for all. She baked a batch of “Strawberry Delights,” reddish, mushroom-shaped cupcakes that held their shape when pried from the muffin pan.
“Do you know any vegans?” I asked my wife, as she carried the vegan butter, almond milk, and a nearly empty basket of strawberries past me. Like a doorman, I quickly opened the refrigerator.
“Vegans? I don’t know even know any vegetarians.”
Into the refrigerator went the vegan butter, almond milk, and strawberries; out came a can of diet root beer. Then my wife took the root beer away to her sewing room, leaving me in the kitchen with not much to do but tackle the dishes and wait for the cupcakes to cool.
Twenty minutes later, I nibbled one. I examined it through my reading glasses and squeezed it like a bath toy, concerned that it offered not the juicy appearance of real fruit but of artificial food coloring. My palate judged the flavor tasty but not to die for.
My wife returned with a crushed soda can. She stood over the rack of cupcakes and selected a smallish one. She took a bite and chewed robustly before the machinery of her jaw slowed. She, a gourmet, grimaced. The recipe had not lived up to its Internet billing as the best ever.
“I like them,” I remarked, then took the unfinished cupcake she was offering me.
“Yes, and you like Cocoa Puffs too,” she answered.
I smiled then, opening wide, fit a good portion of her cupcake into my mouth.
Since neither of us possesses a sweet tooth, my wife suggested that I “give them away,” meaning for me to offer them to the homeless who ghost around the Berkeley Public Library.
I boxed two dozen cupcakes, drove downtown, and parked in a yellow zone (legitimate business sticker on the back bumper). Then I began my search for persons who might like to sample cupcakes. I walked around, debating whether this person approaching or that person crossing the street or those six on a bench — jurors, in a creative moment of mine — were homeless. Surely the man in the oversize Oakland Raiders sweatshirt was on the streets — or was he just a poorly dressed sports fanatic rooting for a losing team?
I stopped a young man with dreadlocks, his brow puckered with distress and weariness. Unsmiling, he lifted one cupcake from the box and bit into it. After a few chomps, he said, “Like it needs more sugar.”
“It doesn’t have real sugar,” I explained. “My wife used Splenda.”
“There you go,” he responded, then resumed chewing. “You need real sugar.” He helped himself to two more and continued down the street, the reddish cupcakes like a bouquet of flowers in his hands.
I next offered cupcakes to two young men seated on an army blanket. Large tarot cards were spilled out in front of them — were they reading their own fortunes? If so, what did the future promise? They also had a crushed pack of smokes and a can of Pepsi.
“Try one,” I suggested brightly, lowering the cardboard box.
“Like, wow,” crowed the younger man. His smile was genuine.
“Like, I could have used these about an hour ago,” the other remarked, running a hand through his flamboyant orange hair. He picked up his Pepsi can.
“Why an hour ago?” I asked innocently.
“Man, I had, like, the munchies.” He swigged properly on his Pepsi.
The younger man lifted three cupcakes and set them on the blanket, where they suddenly resembled gnomes.
I’ve been in Berkeley for thirty-five years, more years than I lived in my hometown of Fresno. Berkeley is a university town, a magnet for youth, some of whom are from out of state, perhaps children of stoner parents. I know a little of their existence because I was even younger when I lived on the street (sleeping in cars at night) in Burbank in 1969. No one offered me cupcakes then.
“I haven’t had the munchies in years,” I volunteered, thus establishing a brief rapport between us.
“Ah, man,” the youth moaned, pounding his knee and beginning to chuckle. “That’s like sad. I could hook you up.” The fuzziness of the good stuff he had smoked put a smile on his face. He giggled shallowly, then retrieved a plastic bag of marijuana from his backpack.
“Nah,” I said, waving a hand at the baggie. “No do.”
But it seemed lame to end our relationship there. “Let me smell it,” I asked. The young man peeled open the Ziploc bag and let me sniff. I didn’t know what to say except, “Righteous,” wondering if that word still had street currency.
I continued my search, stopping next for a young man with a dog in tow. I briefed him on the history of the cupcakes (daughter’s pending marriage, etc.), squeezed one like a toy, then lowered the box and let him look.
“Oh, wow, like, my ex-girlfriend would have loved these.” With delicacy, he took one between his thumb and index finger. He brought it to his nose, lanced with a doodad, and sniffed.
The cupcakes were a test run, I informed him, once again using the word “righteous.” The dog, seated princely at his feet, looked up with sad eyes. Since our daughter is a veterinarian, I knew enough not to offer thi
s man’s best friend a bite. (Something toxic about sugar and dogs, or was it chocolate and dogs?)
The young man moaned that it was the most delicious cupcake he had ever had in his whole life. He couldn’t have been older than twenty. His eyes were clear and his teeth were white. Was he really homeless, or just a college student? His duffel bag suggested the former, but the good hygiene hinted at a wayward son on his journey to somewhere nice.
“You like ’em?” I asked.
“Hella Berkeley,” he crowed.
Hella Berkeley, I mused. If I had a bakery, it could be called “Hella Berkeley.”
When the young man licked his fingers, I offered him the five remaining cupcakes. Then I petted the dog. I was just starting to leave when the man said, “That’s great news ’bout your daughter. Tell her congratulations from me.”
Tell her congratulations from me! What a nice thing to say, what sweetness from his lips, which were as pink as natural strawberries. He himself might marry in time, might get himself off the street and into an apartment — let’s hope and pray.
I petted the dog again and felt the clover-shaped tag under his chin. “Lucky,” the tag read. I started off for my car, then stopped, turned on my heels, and hurried back to the young man.
I took one cupcake from the box, my way of breaking bread with the young. At the cautious age of sixty-two, I lamented that I would never again enjoy the delicious problem of afternoon munchies.
SLOW LEARNER
“Ghastly,” claimed the anonymous Booklist reviewer of my 2000 novel Poetry Lover. I blinked at this two-syllable pronouncement and examined the book’s cover, which featured me and a teacher friend hugging, the supposed protagonists of this potential bestseller. “How could this be?” I murmured.
I had so enjoyed writing this comic romp, featuring lowlife poet Silver Mendez. For Pete’s sake, there was even romance! Silver falls for a girl he knew in junior high who started off her teen years with a C-cup bra size but, after twenty-plus years of fast food, now boasts a DD. By Silver’s rationale, there was more to love and hug. This is how my novel begins: with flowery love, followed by an ass-kicking from the ex-boyfriend. Silver is not unlike Don Quixote — brave, visionary, and full of hope. His means of getting around is not a horse, however, but a bicycle with a bent rim, plus the worn soles of his thrift-store shoes. Despite my anticipation of the literary world’s attention, the book garnered only a few reviews, none of them glowing.
