Last Flight of José Luis Balboa

by Gonzalo Barr

  Can anyone really change that much in a few days? Trip Perez on Channel 8 showed a boy who was struck by lightning while waiting for a bus. Not only did the boy survive, he started to levitate. He went from average kid to an inexplicable phenomenon in less than a month. Could Rolly have undergone a similar metamorphosis, from nerd to jerk, in a matter of days? Did Lizette have that much sway over him? More specifically, can having sex change people that much?

  Teri and Gloria tell everyone about the boy on the beach, so the rumor gets around the school that we were out on the beach, making out with some foreign guys we’d just met. That’s not exactly the kind of rumor I want to get around, but I can’t stop it. There’s nothing on the radio or the Net about the boy we found dead on the beach. It begins to feel as if I dreamt it up, as if it never happened.

  Later that day, I’m standing in line to pay for my lunch in the cafeteria when I see Rolly. He’s working his way past people, telling them that he’s with me.

  “Hey,” he says.

  I ignore him.

  “Got your message.”

  The cashier tells me what my lunch costs. I open my purse and pay her.

  “You’re mad, I guess,” Rolly says.

  The cashier gives me some change. She lays the bills on my palm, then puts the coins on top of the bills, which means that I have to use both hands to take the money. (Can’t someone teach these people how to return change? I think irritably.) I put away the money and look for a table. The spaces I see are all next to people I don’t know or people I do know but don’t want to sit next to.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you’re mad. Really, I wouldn’t. It would be perfectly natural for you to be mad. In fact, it would probably be unnatural if you weren’t.”

  I’m walking toward the tables. Rolly’s behind me, but I don’t look back.

  “I wanted to say—”

  “Rolly, I know what you want to say,” I turn, holding the lunch tray between us.

  “You do?”

  “I know exactly what you want to say. There’s no need for you to say it.”

  “But you are mad?”

  “I’m not mad. Right now, I’m hungry, which is why I’m holding this tray of food. And I’m looking for a place to sit and eat my lunch.”

  “That’s a good idea. Let’s sit and talk.”

  “No. I will sit and eat. After that, I’ll go to the library until the end of the period and start studying for finals.”

  Rolly looks at me, at my food, then away. I look out the large windows, down the straight, wide road lined with royal palms, and the light-speckled bay at the end of the road, the water never blinking twice in the same place.

  22. NEWTON’S THIRD LAW

  Monday night at dinner, my father lectures me about responsibility, consideration, discipline, sexual predators, STDs, white slavery, and the failed British policies in the Middle East. My mother brings the conversation back: no car, except to go to school; no going out for two weeks. “Counted after your last final,” my father adds, which means almost one month under this new regime. “Everything has consequences,” my mother says. My father nods. No one says anything for a longtime.

  After dinner, I watch all the local news shows and surf the Internet again. Nothing about the boy.

  23. CODA

  The rest of the week, I spend most of my time in the library, digging up quotes and stuff I can put into footnotes to pepper my essay for Mrs. Eden. The more footnotes you put in an essay, the more authoritative whatever you write looks. I also page through my vocabulary exercise book and change a few words. “Tiny” becomes “diminutive.” “Showoff” turns into “exhibitionist.” Mrs. Eden likes it when you use big words.

  Monday, a rumor gets around that Mr. Pennington’s moved in with Ms. Rodriguez and he’s divorcing his wife. I’ll believe that when I see it. Another rumor spreads that the parents of a freshman took him out of the school after an incident involving some inappropriate touching perpetrated by one of the social science teachers. The police show up midway through the week and question the teacher, which lends some weight to that story. People say that the boy’s parents will sue the school for, like, millions of dollars and that’ll kill any plans to build a new gym next year. Others say that the nuns have a lot more money than anyone imagines and the gym will be built as planned, even if they have to pay off the parents.

  Tuesday, Rudy Menocal asks me out. I’ve never liked Rudy. He’s not very mature, always yukking it up in class, but I’m grounded anyway, so the point is, as they say in Debating Club, moot.

  Wednesday, Gloria tells me that Teri’s seeing a shrink. “She’s a little freaked about finding the dead boy.” My stomach drops. I ask her if it’s my father she’s seeing, but Gloria says no, the shrink’s name is weird. Then she tells me that she exchanged phone numbers with Alan.

  “No way. You did that?” I ask her.

  She nods, like she’s really proud of herself. And I feel something open up inside me. I might see Michael again.

  “Why? You interested?”

  Even as I shake my head, I start thinking what I would say to Michael when I finally get the nerve to call him. One more thing on my to-do list.

  What else happened?

  Wednesday night, my parents announce that we’re all going on a cruise to the Caribbean. And that I do not have a choice to opt out. I add up the days. The cruise plus the time I’ll be grounded eat up half the summer. A cruise is, like, the last thing I want to do, worse than seeing my gynecologist.

  My mother also announces that she’s starting a diet. The cruise is all she talks about at dinner. Attempts to change the subject by my father or by me are unsuccessful.

  What else? Sister Edna catches Richard Gagliano and Karen Mestre doing it in the Moon Temple on Thursday, the next to last day of class. Talk about a dumb move. Both are expelled. The nuns press charges against Richard after he confesses that he’s been the one keying the nuns’ van, scratching quotations from the Gospels. So the police come for a second time in one week. The word is that the Moon Temple’s going to be razed by bulldozers over the summer.

  And one more thing. Turns out Rolly and Lizette stopped seeing each other less than a week after they started. Lizette’s telling everyone that she dumped Rolly because he was bor-ing and a waste in bed. I feel bad for Rolly, but everybody knows the kind of girl she is. He should have known what was coming.

  Also on Thursday, for the first time since we broke up, Rolly texts me, starting with the reasonably plaintive lets talk? and the undeniably mature-sounding try to understand me to the feisty its ALL about U!!!! tempered by the irresistibly cute LUV U ♥♥!!!

  I don’t answer.

  On Friday, the last day of class, Mrs. Eden has the five of us read our essays. While I wait my turn, I think about next year. That’s the year I’m supposed to pick a college. It’s the year I’m also supposed to have a general idea what I want to do with my life. It doesn’t have to be specific. I assume I’ll be married some day. Maybe I’ll have children. I hope I’ll fall in love. I pray that I’ll meet someone who will love me. Everything else is kinda extra stuff.

  Gloria’s going to Europe with her parents for the summer. Teri and Francesca are taking a couple of courses at the university for college credit. We’re all prepping for the entrance exams.

  The fourth student reads her essay, meaning I’m next. I work on my list of things I need to do next year. I write “I’m a surfer’s dream” in the margins and cross it out.

  When Mrs. Eden calls my name and reads the title of my essay, the boys whoop and howl. “Children,” Mrs. Eden says. “Yes, I said ‘children’ because you are acting like people half your age.” That only encourages the boys to whoop louder.

  I read my essay and concentrate on the paper. I try not to think about anything that’s happened in the last two weeks, not even about the boy on the beach. Every so often, someone makes a rude remark like, “Is this from experience you’re talking, Silvia?�
� And Mrs. Eden points her finger at the offender, once interrupting me to say, “Don’t think it’s too late for me to hand out a little extra homework, young man. I’m sorry, Silvia. Go ahead.” I don’t look up because I don’t want to lose my place. By the second page, the class is quiet. By the third, I’m thinking only of the words that I hear myself say. By the fourth page, the paper has become transparent.

  When I’m finished, there is a second of silence. Then polite applause. Mrs. Eden is standing. She’s motioning to the class to applaud louder. More whoops. More howls. I keep my eyes on the floor.

  After class, Gloria, Teri, and some of the other girls congratulate me. Someone taps my shoulder. Mariella Poza is standing behind me.

  “You seem interesting,” she says, folding a stick of gum into her mouth. “Next year, remind me to talk to you.”

  I add Mariella’s name to the list of things I have to do.

  The Last Flight of José Luis Balboa

  PETE BURGER

  I’ve never cheated on Cheryl. She and I have been dating for five years. I think it’s stupid to say that you’re dating when you’re both over thirty. Cheryl tells people that we’re dating and going steady. I cringe when she says shit like that.

  I’ve never even thought about cheating on her. But now I’m on South Beach, sitting on the sand near two beautiful girls who are lying with their tops off, and I’ve been thinking about nothing else. Not that I would ever do anything.

  One girl sits up to turn over and lie on her stomach. When she does so, her blondish hair falls forward into her face. She uses both hands to pull her hair back and tie it, giving me a view of her breasts, which are tanned and full. And though I don’t want to, I can’t help but think how pale Cheryl’s breasts are. I know I shouldn’t, but that’s just what pops into my head.

  The blondish girl’s done with her hair. She catches me looking at her breasts but instead of making a face or a snide remark, she smiles at me. Then she rests her chin on the towel and closes her eyes. I look at her, hoping to get her attention, but she keeps her eyes closed. Her back is smooth and tanned too.

  The other girl has short black hair and wraparound sunglasses. Her breasts don’t look as pretty, but I won’t be able to tell for sure until she sits up because right now they’re just lying flat against her chest. I can see her hipbones.

  There’s no way I’m going to take off my shirt even though it feels as if it’s about to melt onto the skin on my back.

  I’m on my third beer. It’s getting warm and it tastes bitter, but I drink it anyway. I think about Cheryl and feel a little guilty for what I was thinking earlier, about the breasts, I mean. I wish I could delete the guilt, uninstall it like a program. Problem solved. Everything runs faster.

  Forget the girls. I think of the sun lighting up half the planet, from Prague to Honolulu, and it makes me feel expansive. I look out to sea, past the waves breaking on the beach and the dark heads of the bathers and strips of green water lit by the sun, past the Wave Runners and the small boats and even the large cargo ships on the horizon, gray cutouts doing nothing. And I try to picture what’s on the other side of the horizon. Is it Africa?

  Africa’s where my brother, Tom, lives.

  The blondish girl asks me if I have the time. I nod and look at my watch. She taps her friend on the shoulder and says something in Spanish. Her friend laughs but she doesn’t look.

  “How complicated,” the blondish girl says, pointing at my watch. What the hell, I think. I show her all the features—the twenty-four time zones, the five alarms, stopwatch, countdown watch—speaking over the sound of the wind and the waves. When I look at her, I focus on the spot between her eyebrows.

  Now the other girl turns around and rests her chin in her hands. She’s smiling. I’m encouraged, so I keep talking about the watch. Then I introduce myself.

  The blondish girl says her name is Maylin. I hear Marilyn, but she corrects me. I have trouble understanding her. The accent, I guess. The dark-haired girl says her name is Jasmine and shakes my hand. Then Maylin does the same, soft, ladylike. Where I come from, girls never shake your hand.

  Maylin, Jasmine. I try to make a joke, emphasizing the rhyme in the second syllables of their names, but they look at me as if I’ve just rattled off random numbers.

  I’m feeling self-conscious. My underarms smell, and I run my hand over my face.

  Girls like Maylin and Jasmine usually look right through me. After years of working in windowless rooms with fluorescent lights, living on Coke and pizza, it’s obvious that I’m not from here. Everyone else is practically naked.

  The company flew me down to troubleshoot a program. Nothing major. It’s happened before with this version of the software. All I had to do was take the system offline, install the patch, and reboot. That simple. Even running the diagnostics, the whole thing took me less than four hours. So I’m left with the entire day to lie on the beach, drink some of this Presidente beer, and enjoy the view. I could have caught a plane home this morning, but any change to my itinerary would have come out of my pocket. Plus Cheryl’s been in a bitch of a mood since Thanksgiving when her younger sister announced that she’s pregnant. For three never-ending days her mother asked us mercilessly. How about you? What are you waiting for? You two ever going to get married? Each time she did, I felt blood rush to my face and an almost irresistible impulse to set her house on fire. She made Cheryl cry. Her father was more diplomatic. He said people who don’t have children are self-centered and immature. Tom’s a priest in Nigeria helping people with AIDS. He doesn’t have children, so I guess he’s what Cheryl’s father would call self-centered and immature.

  My own parents warned me not to lead Cheryl on. They told me to many the girl or let her be, as if I kept her chained in a dungeon, with nothing to eat but bread and water. When I was your age, my father e-mailed me around New Year’s, your mom and, I were married, we had Tom, and I bought our first house. That was my father’s way of telling me, in twenty words, that he wants me to get married, have a family, and buy my own place. My father thinks people who rent are suspect.

  One Sunday morning in January, Cheryl was making coffee in the kitchen. I shuffled in and was about to say something when she told me that marriage and babies were off-limits. We were not to talk about those two subjects. OK, I said, unconvinced that I had given up anything before I watched her finish pouring water into the top of the coffee machine. Peace and quiet fell over us like nightfall in a valley, until last Saturday. On my way to her place, I called her to ask if she needed anything from the supermarket. Cheryl said she’d expected to have a baby by now. The statement, a non sequitur, apropos of absolutely nothing, made me wonder if my cell phone had picked up a stray signal. I repeated the question, more slowly this time. She’d expected to be someone’s wife, a mother by now, she said louder. I pretended to lose the call. Hello? Hello? I said. Like I really needed that shit.

  So why take an earlier flight and hurry home when I can sit here, talk with Maylin and Jasmine, and enjoy a beer and the view? There’s an ultralight buzzing overhead. It has wings that are different shades of yellow.

  I catch Maylin looking at me.

  “Kay pah-zah?” I say.

  Maylin covers her mouth and laughs. I point at the ultralight. And either she really doesn’t know what I’m talking about or she’s pretending. Then she comes over to where I’m sitting, crouches down behind me, places both her hands on my shoulders, and looks down my arm to where I’m pointing. I can feel her breath on the back of my neck. She says something in Spanish, but I understand about eight words in that language, and I’ve used up two of them already. Anyway, I’m not thinking about the damn ultralight anymore.

  RICHARD JOLICOEUR, PH.D.

  I’m driving my taxi from South Beach to downtown. In the back are two Americans. They are dressed in dark suits and carry briefcases. One of them speaks a little Spanish and addresses me in that language. He asks me to turn off the music. I am playing Beethov
en’s Pastorale from a set of CDs of Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. I wasn’t even playing it very loud.

  “I prefer silence too,” I tell him in English. “The music is for the benefit of my passengers. If they do not like it, I turn it off. I want all my passengers to relax and enjoy Miami,” I say. “I am from Haiti,” I say, but the Americans say nothing. Occasionally, a passenger notices the “Ph.D.” after my name, which I wrote in a thick black marker on my cabdriver’s license. Then I’m asked what kind of doctor and why I left Haiti and so on. I watch the two men in the rearview mirror. They seem distracted, looking out their windows. So I decide to take the scenic route. We’ll go down Ocean Drive, right on Fifth, across the bay on the causeway so I can point out Fisher Island and the other island, where Gloria Estefan lives. On Watson Island, they can see the cruise ships and the buildings downtown across the bay. It is my favorite view of Miami. On days when business is slow I’ll park my cab to watch the sun set. At night it is especially beautiful. After the causeway, I’ll turn south on Biscayne Boulevard, point out the Arena, the Freedom Tower, Bayside, then turn into downtown. My best fares are tourists who want me to show them the sights. A fare like that can make me fifty to one hundred dollars because I’ll take them all over—the Design District, the Grove, the Gables. “We have so many beautiful things to see in Miami,” I tell the Americans in the back, but they do not respond. Their heads are down. I hear them shuffling papers.

  We are stopped at a red light on Ocean Drive. Young girls in tangas on their way to the beach cross in front of my taxi. The Americans do not look up. Maybe they like men. I try to not judge.

  MARÍA ISABEL COSTA

  With a pair of scissors, I cut the line to the phone in the study, cut the line to the phone in the bedroom and the phone in the living room. Then I take the answering machine, open the sliding glass doors, and throw it over the balcony. I throw out the cell phones too. What else? I cut the TV cable and the computer cable and the whole spaghetti mess of wires behind his stereo.