Mofongo

by Cecilia Samartin

  “That’s enough, quiet down,” Ms. Ashworth said, but there was such an overwhelming roar of whistles and cat calls and hoots and laughter that Ms. Ashworth had great trouble getting things quiet again. Sebastian felt he might be swept away by the energy of the class, and in spite of his embarrassment, he enjoyed it, and a part of him didn’t want it ever to end. Afterward, Ms. Ashworth presented Sebastian with his gift certificate and he walked back to his seat feeling that he was not the same person who’d stood up a moment ago. A shimmering presence was filling him up, and when he took a deep breath it fluttered with new life.

  He took up his pencil as the next lesson began, and glanced to his left. Kelly Taylor was looking directly at him, and there was such a smile on her face, that he couldn’t help but smile back.

  Sebastian marveled at the fact that every afternoon for the next four weeks, he’d be the first person excused at the end of the day. He could’ve used this privilege before when the situation with Keith was so difficult, but he was nonetheless grateful when Ms. Ashworth announced that he could leave. He took up his book bag and waltzed out of the classroom with his gift certificate tucked safely in his front pocket. It would’ve been nice to take Kelly Taylor to McDonalds, but he thought it best to see if Abuela Lola felt like cooking today. If not, he’d take her instead, although, he had no idea if she liked hamburgers.

  Mid way to his grandmother’s house someone swooshed out from the bushes and nearly knocked him over. Then he felt a tremendous force yanking his book bag away from his shoulder.

  “Give me that,” Keith growled.

  Sebastian watched helpless as Keith dumped the entire contents of his book bag on the ground, throwing things around this way and that.

  “Where is it?” he asked looking up, his eyes darting back and forth wildly. He hadn’t brought any friends with him this time. They were alone.

  “Where is what?”

  “The gift certificate,” Keith said, holding his hand out and impatiently snapping his fingers. “Hand it over.”

  Sebastian took a breath and squared his shoulders. “It’s not yours,” he said.

  “You better hand it over Monkey Boy.”

  “I’m not a Monkey Boy anymore,” Sebastian returned.

  “Why? Because you won that stupid award?” A sinister grin stretched across Keith’s face. “You won because Ms. Ashworth feels sorry for you. She knows that pretty soon you’re gonna drop dead.” He stepped in so close, that Sebastian could smell his body odor, a musty foul smell. Then Keith grabbed him by the collar, shoved his hand into Sebastian’s front pocket and grabbed the certificate. When Sebastian saw him with it, his rage surged and he flung himself at the bigger boy, nearly knocking him to the ground, but Keith wasn’t off balance for more than a second. He easily subdued Sebastian, then swung back and punched him hard on the face. Sebastian staggered like a drunkard on the sidewalk, stepping all over his pencils and erasers that were scattered on the ground.

  Disoriented as he was, Sebastian couldn’t see Keith’s coiled fist slung back and poised to sock him even harder. He held it at the ready, waiting for the best moment to strike as he watched Sebastian pant and flail his arms up and down in an effort to regain his balance. He looked so pathetic, that Keith couldn’t bring himself to hit him again, and he relaxed his fist and lowered his arm.

  Sebastian came to his senses just in time to see Keith running down the street, his strong legs pumping like pistons as he turned right at the streetlight toward the McDonalds restaurant only a couple of blocks away. Sebastian wiped his face with his shirt. There was some blood and his head felt as bloated as a melon, but he gathered his things together as best he could, and continued on his way to his grandmother’s house. Once he arrived to Bungalow Haven and he realized that he was still wearing his student of the month medallion, he went directly to the back of the complex, removed the medallion from around his neck and tossed it into the bin.

  Sebastian was amazed by his grandmother’s brute strength as she dragged him by the wrist down the street. And all the way to McDonald’s, he begged her to stop and think about what she was doing. Attempting to confront Keith, probably the wickedest person on the planet, was sheer madness.

  “If you think that I’m afraid of that little shit,” she said. “Then you don’t know me very well. I’m Jibara don’t forget, and I know how to take care of things.”

  “Abuela please. I don’t care about the gift certificate. I don’t even like hamburgers very much.”

  But she didn’t slow down, if anything she sped up. Sebastian couldn’t do anything, but trot along next to her, certain that this once glorious day would soon end in even worse misery than he’d already experienced.

  When they entered the restaurant they were met with a long line of customers at the counter. Most were kids just out of school, but there were some adults as well. Several people turned to stare at Sebastian’s tear stained bloody face, and at the strange red haired old lady who still held him firmly by the wrist.

  “Which one is he?” Lola asked.

  Sebastian had spotted Keith immediately. He was up near the front, behind the person currently ordering. He was so busy studying the menu he hadn’t noticed them come in.

  “He’s not here,” Sebastian lied. “He probably ordered his food to go.”

  “You’re lying to me,” Lola replied. “I’m going to call out his name and make an even bigger scene.”

  “No please Abuela, he’s the one ordering now.”

  “The kid with the freckles?”

  Sebastian nodded as his stomach fell to his feet. Only then did Lola release his wrist. She marched straight to the front of the line. “You Keith?” she said, nudging his shoulder.

  “Yeah,” he replied, and he did a double take when he saw who was asking.

  “Give my grandson back what you stole from him.”

  Keith made a face and waved her away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about old lady.”

  The young man at the counter said, “Are you going to order or what?”

  “He’s not ordering anything,” Lola said. “He stole that gift certificate he’s planning to pay with from my grandson and now he’s going to give it back.”

  Keith swung his head around. “You’re fucking whacked you…”

  But before he could finish his sentence, Lola flicked her wrist and snapped him hard on the mouth. “Don’t you dare use that language with me,” she said.

  “You tell em lady,” A man back in line said.

  Keith was shocked, touching his lips and checking his fingers to see if she’d drawn blood. Lola stared at Keith’s hands and then at his face, and her expression softened for an instant, but she quickly resumed her tough as nails demeanor, turned to the counter clerk and said, “Call the police. I want to report a theft.”

  At this, Keith threw the certificate on the floor. “Forget it. It’s not fucking worth it.” He backed away quickly, his eyes wide when he realized that he’d cursed again and might be in store for another smack. Then he raced out of the restaurant without looking back.

  The man who’d spoken up in line reached down for the certificate and handed it to Sebastian. “This must belong to you,” he said and then he insisted that Sebastian and Lola take his place in line. Nobody dared complain.

  They decided to eat their hamburgers at the restaurant, and Lola said that she didn’t realize how tasty they were, and she thanked Sebastian for inviting her.

  “You’re welcome,” he muttered, not remembering having actually invited her.

  Lola placed her sandwich on the table. “You have to understand that I couldn’t allow this boy to steal from you. I had to make it right.”

  “No Abuela, you don’t understand. Things were getting better for me at school, and now everybody’s going to know that my grandmother had to stand up for me, and it’s going to be worse than before.”

  “Nobody will know,” Lola said, nibbling on her fries.

  “Keit
h will tell everybody what happened and what a coward I was.”

  “First of all,” Lola said, pointing a French fry at her grandson’s face, “You’re not a coward, and second of all, do you really think that Keith is going to tell everyone how an old lady pushed him around?” Lola was thoughtful as she ate her fries. “That boy reminds of me someone. Did I ever tell you about the one we called Monkey Boy?”

  Sebastian nearly choked on his burger. “What…what did you say?”

  “Monkey Boy, did I ever tell you about him?” she asked again. Sebastian shook his head, and she continued. “Everyone believed that his mother was human and his father was a monkey, and that if he touched us, we would become half monkey like him. It was all very entertaining. In the day we played Monkey Boy chase games running through the jungle, and hiding behind trees. And at night after we were tucked safely into our beds, we told scary stories about how he swung from the branches like Tarzan looking for some poor helpless girl he could steal to keep him company.”

  “Was he for real?” Sebastian asked.

  “Oh yes, and from time to time, he would creep out of the protection of the jungle and sneak into the villages to steal food. I saw him up close only once when he was reaching into our kitchen window to take some freshly baked pork empanadas. Without realizing it was him, I grabbed his hand and he dropped the food and ran away as fast as the Patas monkeys he was named for. But I caught a glimpse of his face that day, and all I saw was hunger and a deep aching loneliness that I will never forget as long as I live.”

  “Did he just go on living in the jungle forever?” Sebastian asked.

  “No, he drowned in a flash flood and they found his body on the river bank. Eventually, we learned that he was just a normal little boy who ran away from home because his step father beat him, and his mother did nothing to protect him. Many people didn’t believe it. They wanted to hang on to the Monkey Boy myth, but I knew it was true because I saw him up close. For a moment, when I saw Keith, I could’ve sworn I was back in my old kitchen on the island watching Monkey Boy run off into the jungle.”

  “Keith calls me Monkey Boy sometimes,” Sebastian muttered.

  Lola’s eyes widened in surprise, but then her expression grew discerning, as though she expected as much. “Why does he call you that?”

  “To make fun of me,” Sebastian said, and he felt so bitter that he couldn’t say any more about it. He hated Keith with all his heart and soul, and as far as he was concerned, this story about Monkey Boy was an incredible coincidence and nothing more.

  Lola was pensive as she finished the last of her French fries. “Tell Keith that I’d like to see him again. Invite him over for a meal.”

  Sebastian couldn’t believe his ears. No matter how amazing the Monkey Boy story was, it didn’t justify what his grandmother was asking him to do. “Are you crazy Abuela? After what just happened, I promise you that Keith would never go to your house.”

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  “No we won’t see, because I’m not going to invite him,” Sebastian replied with a belligerence that wasn’t typical of him.

  “Why don’t you ask the black haired old lady about it and see what she says?”

  Sebastian looked up at his grandmother more incredulous than before. “It’s not like I can ask her stuff whenever I want. She tells me stuff when she wants to.”

  “Are you sure? Have you ever tried?”

  Sebastian had to concede that he’d never tried asking the black haired old lady anything, probably because he preferred to think that she didn’t really exist, that she was nothing but an idea that popped into his head every now and then or one of those weird déjà vu moments that everybody has and nobody really understands.

  “Who is she Abuela?” he asked.

  Lola shook her head and began to tidy up the remnants of their meal. “Just ask her,” she said.

  When Sebastian arrived home that evening, he went straight up to his room to lie down. He had a headache and a stomach ache and he was worried. He’d expected his mother to be upset when she saw his swollen eye, but he didn’t expect her to lose her senses completely. It was all Abuela Lola could do to keep her from running out of the house and going straight to the police station. If she’d known where Keith lived, she would’ve gone directly there, and she had every intention of filing a formal complaint at school the following day. If that wasn’t enough, she called Sebastian’s father from Lola’s house to tell him what had happened, and from what Sebastian could tell, his father agreed that something more had to be done.

  Sebastian closed his good eye (the other one was already swollen shut) and tried to conjure up a picture of the black haired old lady in his mind. Perhaps if he concentrated on her face hard enough he’d be able to ask her about Keith and she would answer him. And if she answered his first question, then maybe she’d reveal who she was. He had no difficulty picturing her. She had such a distinctive face, those piercing eyes, that long crooked nose, and expressive mouth. And then he thought of her rough voice, and the blunt way she spoke.

  “Who are you?” he murmured. “Are you an angel or a ghost? Why are you haunting me?”

  Sebastian heard a distant thumping, although he quickly recognized the source of the sound and moments later, his bedroom door burst open. “Dad’s here,” Jennifer said, out of breath after running up the stairs. “He and Mom are talking in the kitchen.”

  Sebastian sat up in bed. His father hadn’t stepped foot in the house since moving out several weeks ago. Jennifer stared at her little brother’s face. “Little man,” she said. “What happened to you?”

  “I got into a fight,” Sebastian replied, rather liking the sound of it.

  Jennifer shook her head in disbelief and said, “That must be why Dad’s here.” She motioned for Sebastian to follow her down the hall so they could listen in together from the landing at the top of the stairs.

  “He can’t go on like this Gloria, why don’t you understand that?”

  “All kids get into fights, and this Keith sounds like the typical bully. There’s one in every class.”

  “That’s right and they all go for the weakest kid, the one who can’t strike back. My God, our boy can’t even run away without collapsing. Have you ever seen his face when he watches other kids playing, and running around? His heart is breaking, Gloria, and he needs that surgery.”

  A long silence followed.

  “You won’t go through it alone, honey. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

  Gloria coughed and her voice was weepy and strained when she spoke. “How can I trust what you’re telling me? How can I ever trust you again?”

  “For the sake of our children, I beg you to try.”

  “And if I don’t agree, you’ll never let up will you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sebastian’s surgery. You won’t let it rest until you get your way. That’s why I didn’t want you to know in the first place, because I knew you’d mess everything up…God damn you Dean.”

  “Don’t you see what you’re doing to him?”

  “I’m trying to keep him alive.”

  “Your fear is killing him, Gloria,”

  “No. You were wrong before, and you’re wrong now.”

  Another silence ensued, during which Jennifer tried to usher Sebastian back into his room, but he refused.

  “I would give my life for Sebastian to be healthy, and I’m sure you would too. But if that isn’t possible, do you really believe that sacrificing our marriage will save him?” Dean asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I want you back Gloria. I love you and I love my family. Give me another chance, and I promise that neither you nor our children will be sorry.”

  Never in his life had Sebastian prayed, but he dropped down to his knees, clasped his hands together and prayed to God and the angels, to Jesus, and the saints and whatever or whoever was willing to listen to his pleading. �
��Make her say yes. Please, make her say yes. I’ll do anything you want me to do if you just make her say yes,” he muttered over and over again.

  The kitchen chairs could be heard sliding across the tile floor, and Sebastian imagined his parents embracing and kissing passionately. Then his mother said, “I don’t believe that you’ve spent all your free time writing notes to every pretty woman who crosses your path. I forgive you for what you did, Dean.” She paused. “Even so, I can’t go back to our marriage, not now and maybe not ever. Something inside of me died a long time ago, and trying to pretend that it’s still alive is more difficult than accepting that it’s gone for good.”

  After several minutes of silence all they heard was the back door opening and closing, and then the rumble of Dean’s jeep out on the driveway.

  Jennifer stood still at the top of the stairs. She gazed down at her little brother still kneeling with his hands clasped before him. She thought about her parent’s many arguments over the years, her mother’s dismissive tone, and the lost and wounded look in her father’s eyes. She thought about his stupid jokes and realized that he didn’t know what else to do to raise the dank spirits of his family. Most of the time it didn’t work very well, but at least he was trying.

  She rushed downstairs to the kitchen, leaving Sebastian still kneeling on the landing. “That was the stupidest thing you ever did Mom,” she cried.

  “That was a private conversation, young lady.”

  “I don’t give a shit what kind of conversation it was.”

  “You don’t understand…”

  “I understand that Dad just apologized and threw himself at your feet, and you gave him some bullshit about something inside of you dying or whatever.”

  “It’s the truth, and one day when you’re older…”

  “And one day when you’re a lonely old woman you’re going to look back on this day and regret it. I swear to you, Mom, you’ll be on your death bed wishing to God you’d found your heart.”

  “Jennifer…”

  “You think you’re the only one who suffers. But everybody suffers Mom, and some people suffer even more than you.” That said, she ran outside and down the street after her father.