This Side of Providence

by Rachel M. Harper

  He sighs, but picks up the book, reading the poem in English. He goes slow and stutters a few times, but it sounds much better than I thought it would.

  “Night, you fabricator of deceptions, insane, fantastic, and chimerical, who show those who derive delight from you the mountains flattened and the seas gone dry; Whether I sleep or wake, half my life is yours: if I’m awake, I pay you the next day, and if I sleep, I sense not what I live.”

  “That’s pretty good.”

  “It’s all right.” He shrugs. “I like other stuff better.”

  “I was talking about how you read.”

  “Oh.” He sits up in his seat. “I’ve been practicing.”

  “By reading Lope de Vega? I’m impressed.”

  “You told us to practice. Last year, at the end of school. Remember?”

  “I didn’t know anyone was listening.”

  He nods, as if he understands the frustrations of teaching children. The door to the library opens with a squeak and Marco slides inside, closing the door gently behind him. I instantly see Cristo’s expression change as his mood lightens. He raises his hand to wave and Marco waves back, a big smile on his pale face. But instead of coming to our table, he looks around the room until he sees Mrs. Reed, who waves him over to a small table where she sits with a new girl I don’t recognize.

  “Who’s that?” I ask Cristo.

  “Graciela,” he whispers. “She’s Colombian. She’s reads all the time, just like Luz.”

  After pointing out a few pages to Marco, Mrs. Reed leaves them alone. Graciela reads out loud while Marco listens, making corrections to her pronunciation when necessary.

  “That’s nice of Marco, to help her catch up.”

  “Sure,” Cristo says. “With Marco’s help I’ll bet she moves into Regular Ed by Christmas.” I can hear the resentment in his voice.

  “I’m sure he would help you, too. If you asked.”

  “What makes you think I want his help? I don’t want to be in Regular Ed. I like it where I am just fine.” He closes the book and pushes it away.

  “Really?” I move closer to him and try to keep my voice down. “Because I heard you weren’t doing so well. I heard you were barely passing in fact.”

  “I’m passing, Teacher, don’t overreact.”

  “Ds don’t count as passing. Not in my class.”

  “Well I’m not in your class anymore, am I? So it doesn’t matter what you think.”

  I stare at him for a long time, letting the words sink it. “Is that really what you believe?”

  He looks away, blinking to keep his eyes from filling with tears. I don’t want to see him cry, but a part of me feels happy that my words can still affect him. I reach out to cover his hand with mine. At first he doesn’t react, but after a few seconds he squeezes my hand.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Don’t worry,” he says after a while. “This new project, it’s going to give me a chance to catch up. I’ll do a good job, you’ll see.”

  I want to believe him but I just don’t know how that will ever happen. He squeezes my hand again and I wrap my other arm around him, giving him a quick hug.

  “I know you will,” I say, trying to sound encouraging, but even I’m not sure it’s possible.

  I look around the tiny library, knowing that what he needs to really catch up isn’t here in this mildewed room that’s only open during lunchtime and has no circulating books. He needs a different space, with more light, more books, and more people. He needs a real library.

  “What are you doing after school today?”

  “I’m working.”

  “Okay, how about tomorrow?”

  “It’s Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh. How about after that?” I open my planner. Another weekend void of plans.

  “Don’t know,” he says. “Nothing, I guess.”

  “Well, now you’ve got plans with me. We’re going out.”

  “Where are you taking me, Teacher?”

  I shake my head. “It’s a surprise.”

  He gives me a crooked grin. “A good surprise?”

  “Have I ever given you a bad one?”

  When he shrugs, I pretend to punch him in the arm, which makes him smile. For the first time in months, I leave him feeling a real sense of hope.

  Snowman

  I was fifteen the first time I walked into the downtown branch of the Providence Public Library. It was during a snowstorm and I was walking home from school. My momma had just died. The snow was coming down so hard it stuck in my eyelashes. My plan was to stop in for a minute or two, to escape from the burning wind and wait until I could feel my ears again. My sneakers made wet, gritty tracks on the hardwood floors as I squeaked across the lobby, but nobody said anything. The inside walls were covered with sheets of polished wood and in the main lobby there was a painting of angels on the ceiling. It was neat and quiet like my Uncle Dayton’s funeral home, and I liked it right away. Something about it was comforting, like the darkness of a movie theater.

  I walked around slowly that first time, looking at magazines laid out in clean plastic covers and flipping through a dictionary so big it needed its own table. I walked through the stacks, which were no taller than I was, and cocked my head to scan the titles of books I would never read, many in languages I couldn’t make out. I heard classical music coming from a closed door and stumbled upon a kid playing the piano in a room that was barely bigger than his upright. Through a small Plexiglas window I could see the kid jamming away, pounding the keys so hard I thought he was going to break his fingers. I sat down on a plastic chair in the hallway and listened to that kid play for at least five minutes. When he stopped and left the room after his time was up, I still sat there listening to nothing.

  I stayed until eight o’clock, when the lady came from behind the counter to say she was closing early because of the storm. I watched her pull the blinds down one by one and turn off every light in that room, more than a dozen, with just one switch. I helped her dig out the front door, which was propped open by packed snow, and watched her lock it with a key no bigger than the ones in my pocket. The next day I went back and checked out my first book: The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I’ve gone there almost every day since.

  The first time I see Cristo at the library, it surprises me. I’m not prepared to see anyone I know in this building, let alone a kid from my neighborhood. He stands alone in the periodicals room, balancing a pile of books between his hands and his chin. He looks even smaller in such a big room. There’s a huge wooden table behind him, as big as two pool tables, and he leans against it without putting down the books. A lady comes up to him carrying a bunch of papers, a librarian I assume. She’s got a pretty face, even though she could stand to lose a few pounds, and she looks like she takes everything way too seriously.

  When I approach him he finally sits down, as if the sight of me makes him weak. He gestures toward the woman and says, “This is Teacher,” but doesn’t tell me her name.

  She looks at me, her face beginning to harden. “And you are?”

  I hesitate, trying to think of what to say.

  “My boss,” Cristo says before I can speak.

  She gives me her hand so I shake it. It feels strange to hold a woman’s hand, and I wonder if I’m doing it wrong. It’s warm, like she just took off her gloves, and her fingernails, painted a shade I never saw before, are long enough to scratch the palm of my hand. She surprises me by saying she’s heard all about me. I can’t remember him ever talking about her or school or anything else having to do with his life outside of me. Take that back, he has talked about his sisters a few times. And he told me a story about his father taking him fishing in Puerto Rico, the only thing he claims to remember about the island, or his old man.

  “I guess you got a term paper or something?” I motion toward the books.

  Cristo nods. “I need to do well on this. For extra credit.”

  “He’s putting together a book of
poems,” his teacher says, restacking the books. “We’re trying to find a wide variety.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Do you want to help?” Cristo asks me.

  “I don’t read much poetry,” I say.

  “How about this one?” He pushes a book by Langston Hughes across the table. I recognize the name from high school English. I pick up the book and thumb through it quickly, looking for the one poem of his I remember having to memorize and recite to the class. I don’t find it, but I find a short one that talks about New York City.

  “Here.” I hand the book back, opened to the page I was reading. “You’ll like this one.”

  “Is it about a girl?” Cristo’s face brightens.

  “No, it’s about a city.” I don’t bother telling him that I think Langston Hughes was gay. “Sometimes cities are better than girls. They’re more predictable, and you don’t have to take them out to dinner.”

  He looks at his teacher before dropping his head to laugh. I shrug and look away. She takes a dollar from her purse and tells him to go buy a soda in the lobby and to finish it out there and not spill anything. He runs away without questioning her.

  “Listen, I don’t know how much you know about him,” she drops her voice. “About his home life and his mother—”

  “I know enough.”

  “Well, good. Then we don’t have to waste any time on catch-up. The bottom line is that he’s not doing well. Not in school and not in life.”

  I cross my arms. “He seems fine to me.”

  “He’s failing the fifth grade.”

  “Come on, he’s a smart kid.”

  “Yeah, but he’s still a kid.” She waves a book at me. “He needs to do his homework, go to bed at a reasonable hour, and sit down at a table to eat his dinner. He doesn’t need to be running the streets with you.”

  “I don’t run the streets, lady.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t.” I put my hands on the back of the chair in front of me, gripping it like a steering wheel. “I don’t know what he told you about me—”

  “He didn’t have to tell me.”

  “But you think you know me?”

  She sits back in her chair. “I know your type.”

  I laugh and force myself to relax my hands, loosen my grip on the chair. I spread my fingers out wide. “I don’t have a type. There is nobody like me.”

  She drops her eyes and I can see her notice my bleached-white hands, the spotted brown of my knuckles. She starts to rub her own hands.

  “Look, I know he needs men in his life. And he obviously latched onto you for a reason. I’m not stupid enough to think that will change. But what you need to ask yourself is this: Who do you want to be for this kid? What influence do you want to have on him? Because we all know you’re going to have one. Good or bad. Right or wrong. He’s going to get something from all the time he’s spending with you. And it’s up to you to decide what that is.”

  “I don’t have that much control, lady. Who do you think I am?”

  She gets up from the table, her eyes on the copy machine. “I have no idea,” she says. “Like you said, only you know who you are.”

  One of the books she leaves behind catches my eye. It has a crazy cover with all these little faces, and an even crazier title: Every Shut Eye Ain’t Asleep. According to the cover, a black person wrote every poem in it. It’s weird to think there are that many of us writing poetry. Enough to fill up a book, I mean.

  I pick it up and flip through it, scanning the pages for something I recognize. Not a poem necessarily, but a word or an image that’s familiar. One poem catches my eye because it has a whole bunch of short sections, like little fortunes. Before I know it I’ve read every one of them. One stanza blows me away and I read it over and over again. I memorize it right then, without even trying to, and I know I’ll never forget it. It’s the epigraph I want on my grave.

  There is the sorrow of blackmen

  lost in cities. But who can conceive

  of cities lost in a blackman?

  They call me first. Not the police or the lady he lives with. Not his teacher. They call me and ask me what I want them to do. When I ask about protocol, Tony, the night manager, tells me the pharmacy doesn’t have a strict policy on shoplifters.

  “Either we call the cops or beat the guy up in the vacant lot.”

  “Christ, Tony, he’s only eleven.” I balance the phone on my shoulder as I pull on my boots. I can already tell I’m gonna have to go down there.

  “When I was eleven I dropped out of school to work full-time in my father’s cigar shop.”

  “So what, are you proud of that?”

  “I’m not ashamed,” Tony says.

  “And when’s the last time you read a book?”

  “I don’t read books.”

  “Nuff said.”

  I hang up the phone after telling him I’m on my way. Before walking out of my place, I put my dinner in the oven to keep it warm and leave several candles burning. I hate coming home to a dark apartment.

  I walk up to the pharmacy and find Cristo in the back office, sitting on the floor with his arms tucked around his knees.

  “Why’s he on the floor, Tony? He’s not a dog.”

  “He didn’t want a chair. We asked.”

  I look down at him but he won’t make eye contact.

  “You ready?”

  He doesn’t say anything so I bend down to his level. I lean into him and whisper, “You want to stay here all night or do you want to leave with me?”

  After a few seconds he says, “Leave with you,” his voice so soft it’s like I imagined it. He stands up slowly, unfolding his body along the wall like an inchworm.

  “Did you give them back the stuff?”

  He nods. I look over at Tony, who is pretending to clean the shelves outside the office.

  “Is it all there?” I call to him.

  “Sure, Snow, it’s all here.” He pulls two large bottles of Advil from his pocket and shakes each one, as if that will convince me that every pill is there.

  “Did you check?”

  “He didn’t open them. They’re fine.”

  I pull a fifty-dollar bill from my wallet and hand it to Tony.

  “Here. For your trouble.”

  “No, no, we don’t need that.” Tony puts up his hand, as if taking the money would burn him. “Everything’s okay now.”

  I tuck the bill into his chest pocket. “Thanks for calling me,” I say, patting him twice on the shoulder, something I saw in a movie once. Then I walk out through a back door marked EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. Cristo lags a few steps behind me.

  I stop short in the alley, even though it’s too cold to stand outside for long. A stray dog at the corner sniffs the ground for food. I count to ten, waiting for my pulse to stop racing. When I turn to face him, Cristo takes a deep breath, as if preparing to go under water.

  “Are you trying to embarrass me?” I bend down to look him in the eye. “’Cause that’s what it seems like.”

  “I didn’t ask them to call you,” he says. “I swear.”

  “What else are they going to do? They know you work for me.”

  He takes a step back, hiding his face in the shadow of a Dumpster.

  “Do you need a raise?” I ask him.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Do you need to make more money? Maybe I don’t pay you enough?”

  “You pay me good,” he says. He pulls the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, hiding most of his face from my view.

  “Then why steal?”

  He shrugs. “It’s easier.”

  “Just because it’s easy doesn’t make it right.”

  He tucks his hands into his jeans. The pockets are so deep his hands disappear almost to the elbow.

  “Do you always know what’s right?” he asks me. When I make a face he says, “I’m serious.”

  I spit onto the ground before answering. “Sometim
es. Usually.”

  He rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. His ankles lift out of the heel when he bends forward, reminding me that he’s wearing somebody else’s shoes. I wonder if he’s ever owned anything brand new.

  “But do you always do it?” he asks. “The right thing?”

  I pull off my hat to scratch my head. “Look, this conversation isn’t going exactly as I’d planned.”

  He looks up at me. The edge of his hood covers his eyes, but I see his mouth, opened in a half smile. The silver caps on his teeth sparkle in the darkness like he’s got a mouth full of diamonds.

  “Here’s the thing: I don’t always want you to do what I do. In fact, I usually don’t want you to do what I do.” I put my hat back on, pulling the brim low to cover my ears. “I’m a businessman, Cristo, and I’ve got to make hard decisions. Sometimes I don’t like my choices, but I have to live with them. That’s part of being an adult. But you, you’re still a kid. You’ve got time to make mistakes. And you have to learn from them. I’m hoping that’s what’s going to happen here.”

  He nods his head and keeps looking at me. “Am I gonna get in trouble?”

  “With who? You know they didn’t call the police.”

  “My teacher. School. You.”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone else about this. I’ll take the fifty I just gave Tony out of your check this week and as far as I’m concerned, we’re done on this topic. Is that all right with you?”

  He nods again. Then he looks away. “I’m sorry,” he says to the ground.

  “Sorry you stole or sorry you got caught.”

  He thinks for a second. “Both.”

  I want to laugh, but instead I say, “I guess that’s fair.”

  “I won’t do it again,” he says. “If you don’t want me to.”

  “It’s not about what I want. What do you want?”

  He shrugs. “Don’t know.”

  “Well, figure it out,” I say. “’Cause if it happens again you’re on your own.”

  I walk away, leaving him alone in the alley. My hands hurt from the cold so I blow on them repeatedly. A hollow sound comes out, like some pathetic birdcall, which makes a cat crossing in front of me stop its prowl.