by Maria Padian
Of course, he volunteered the information.
“It’s lookin’ like Amherst for me,” he said softly. So his teammates couldn’t hear. “My dad spoke to the coach yesterday. Said I’m on his list.” I nodded.
It figured. Alex Rhodes would be the sort of guy who’d have an admissions deal with a college before the rest of the world had even sent in their applications.
“Congratulations,” I told him. “I can see you in purple. Remind me … what’s their mascot? The Little Lord Fauntleroys?” Alex colored. The Amherst College mascot is Lord Jeff, named after the college’s founder, Lord Jeffrey Amherst. Who had made a name for himself handing out smallpox-infected blankets to the Indians back in colonial days.
Damn. I had definitely been spending too much time reading college guidebooks. But still: the Jeffs? We both knew it was freakin’ ridiculous.
And way more than I had up my sleeve in the college department.
“I think this paint is dry.” Mike Turcotte. Who was even more eager than I was to get the hell out of there.
“Go for it, man,” I told him, and Mike pried the lid off the red.
The two teams were strangely silent as Mike painted the letters R and O in front of the CK. The black was still a little gummy, but the red didn’t run.
Principal What’s-His-Name was making final blathering sounds, and we were pressing the lids back on the paint cans when Alex delivered his parting comments. He stepped in close and spoke quietly, for my ears only.
“I feel sorry for you, Bouchard. You could’ve been good, but instead you’re stuck in a crap program. Playin’ with Osama over there.” My glance automatically shifted to where Saeed stood, a little off to the side of our group. I didn’t think he’d heard Alex.
My anger was quick, deep, and familiar.
“You know what, Rhodes?” I said, loud enough so that a few of the guys standing right near us could hear. “Eat shit.”
A satisfied grin spread across Alex’s face.
“What was that, Tommy?” he said. “What did you just say?”
“I said, how about a little friendly bet?”
This I said clearly as I looked at the principal.
“How about,” I continued, “if we beat you guys next time around, you all have to paint your own rock. I’m thinkin’ … instead of ‘Maquoit’ you paint in ‘Chamberlain.’ So it’ll read You rock, Chamberlain!” The suggestion drew some energetic clapping from my guys.
“Yeah, but what do we get out of it when we win?” Alex declared above the clapping. Big cheers from Maquoit. This was feeling more and more like a dueling pep rally. The principal looked uncomfortable.
When the noise died down, I spoke.
“If we lose, which we won’t, by the way, I’ll come back. Alone. And I’ll paint whatever the hell you want on your rock.”
Even the guys on my side liked that one, especially because they sure didn’t want to come back. If Maquoit beat us, I was gonna be on my own.
Everyone started to leave. I gave the principal the unused brushes and what was left of the paint. The Maquoit guys knocked off the last of the Munchkins; Alex and I made a point of shaking hands over this latest deal. Mike was already in the car.
As we pulled out, he looked at me skeptically.
“I feel sorry for you, Tom,” he said. Which was strange, that he would repeat what Alex had just said. What was it about me that generated all the pity?
“Why?” I asked.
“Because our next game against Maquoit is scheduled for the second week of October. Right smack in the middle of Ramadan.”
This sick, cold feeling settled in my stomach. Trust Mike to know that. Trust me to … not. To not know that precisely when we had to take on our biggest, toughest opponent in the conference, our best strikers would be running … no, staggering … up and down the length of a soccer field after fasting all day.
At that moment I felt sorry for me, too.
Chapter Eleven
When I was little, I went through a stage when I pestered my folks for a sibling.
We knew a lot of big families. Kids-spilling-out-of-the-house families where there always seemed to be a new baby and there were a lot of toys. The televisions were always on in the houses of big families, tuned to Nickelodeon and Disney and, if there were older kids, MTV: all stations my vigilant parents refused to purchase on their cable contract. There was always a pan of something freshly baked and just lying out for the taking in big families, and lots of sugary drinks in the fridge. In the backyard, older brothers were always organizing the games, or spying on the girls, or building something with a rusty whatever-they-found-in-the-garage, which often resulted in a bloody gash, a trip to the emergency room for stitches, and a tetanus shot, which, if you weren’t on the receiving end of all that treatment, was pretty exciting.
Our home, by comparison, was dull. Healthy snacks stocked in the cupboard, sweets served only after dinner for dessert, books outnumbering toys, and PBS the channel of choice. It never occurred to me that these were conscious child-rearing decisions my parents made: I figured we just didn’t have enough kids, and as a result, the “fun factor” was way too low in our house.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Mom said when I told her I wanted an older brother. “You can only get younger brothers at this point.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’d like … two.”
“And of course,” she continued, “you might wind up with sisters. Little sisters.”
That option had never occurred to me. I’d seen plenty of little sisters in the homes of the big families, and as far as I was concerned, they were a complete drag. True, a few could swing a bat and sink a basket as good as anyone, but for the most part little sisters were whiny tattlers, convinced the boys were forever up to no good.
When I didn’t respond, Mom played her trump card.
“And you know, Tommy, you really almost already have a brother.”
“Who?” I asked her, bewildered.
“Donnie,” she said. “He’s your best buddy, and an only child, too. You’re more like brothers than friends.”
And that’s how it rolled. I think my parents would have been happy with more kids, but that’s not how things worked out for them. Meanwhile, I stopped bugging them and focused instead on the brother I did have.
At first he looked out for me. That’s because he was bigger for a long time, one of those early growers who shoots up fast, then stops, and ends up short or only average height. But back when we were five, he was bigger and bolder, egging me on to take my training wheels off, or climb the tree, or swim in the deep end. I was actually sort of shy, a little timid, and Don, with his preschool swagger, would pull me along. No one dared mess with me, because otherwise Donnie Plourde, the biggest kid on the playground, would mess with them.
Things started to change in third grade because that’s when school changed. You were expected to know how to read. Fill out worksheets quietly. The kids who couldn’t sit still weren’t so cute and “kinetic” anymore. They were disruptive. Undisciplined. Dumb. All of a sudden, Timid Tommy was in the driver’s seat, while Donnie was sitting in the corner, the nuns’ favorite place to put him. I would finish my work fast, then volunteer to help him with his. In the cafeteria, I was our table’s monitor and always overlooked Donnie’s “violations,” like getting up and walking around, or leaving trash behind. I would pick up his trash. Wipe up his spilled milk.
Maybe that didn’t really help him in the long run. Especially because by senior year in high school, most of us were pretty tired of wiping up his spilled milk. Even me, and I knew him better than anyone. Sometimes it felt like the things that happened to him happened to me. I’d wince when he scraped a knee, cry when he got cut from teams, feel the same rage when his deadbeat dad, who was supposed to show up with Red Sox tickets for his birthday, failed to show at all. On the rare occasions when Don’s dad did show, he was usually drunk. Or with a new girlfriend.
Still, there was a li
mit. And Donnie leaving me to face Alex and Co. by myself at the rock was so not cool.
After we finished up at Maquoit, I gave Saeed and Ismail rides home. I was headed to the K Street Center and they both lived nearby. I doubted there would be much homework help needed on a sunny Saturday afternoon, but with ninety-nine hours of service ahead of me, I figured I could find something to do there. Maybe Myla would let me count hours spent playing soccer with Abdi as service.…
That section of town used to be one of those old Franco neighborhoods. Walking distance from the river and the old mills. As we drove down Saeed’s street, I saw all these French names on the little convenience stores and businesses tucked between the apartment buildings: Thibeault’s Market, Morin’s Grocery, Coulombe’s Auto Repair. Now they faced Somali grocery stores advertising specials on goat meat and international phone cards.
One word caught my attention.
“What’s halal?” I asked Saeed, pointing to one storefront. The word was scrawled in black marker on a piece of paper taped to the window.
“Is good,” he replied. “Is … okay. For the Muslim peoples.”
“Is in Koran,” Ismail added. “What is halal. What is haram.”
That word again.
“Like, dogs are haram,” I said.
“Dogs is not clean,” Saeed corrected. “Pig meat is haram.” I sighed.
“Okay, so what’s halal?” I asked them.
“Goat,” they replied at once.
“If is made halal,” Ismail added.
“Wait. So goat is not automatically halal? You gotta do something to it?” He nodded encouragingly. Like the stupid Amreekan was finally getting it.
“Yes, is way you kill it make it halal.”
“But pork always haram,” Saeed added.
“Sounds kosher,” I said, grinning. They looked at me blankly. “Never mind,” I said. So much for humor.
When I pulled up to the curb in front of his building and started to get out, Saeed looked surprise.
“I’m going to the K Street Center,” I explained. He said something in Somali to Ismail, they clasped hands for a moment, then Ismail disappeared up one of the dim staircases that ascended like a maze between the apartment buildings. Saeed fell into step with me.
“Why you go to Center?” he asked.
“I have to help out. Volunteer. Because of what I did at the rock,” I told him. He laughed.
“That is good. Lot of peoples need help there. Samira work there. You know?”
“Yeah, actually, I did know that.” It occurred to me that this was as good a time as any to ask him about his sister.
“You know, Saeed, I get the impression she doesn’t much like me. Samira.” He frowned.
“Samira like all peoples,” he said.
“Not me,” I said. “I think she’s still annoyed about the permission slip thing. Do you remember?” Saeed stopped walking. He looked thoughtful.
“You not know Somali girls,” he finally said. “Somali girls is … different from Amreekan girls.”
“I understand, but some things? Especially in the girl department? Some things are the same.” I laughed, a little. Saeed did not laugh with me.
“Somali girls different.”
Something about his expression wiped the smile right off my face. He didn’t have the English to bridge the gap between our respective understandings of girls any more than he had the English to explain how one slaughtered a goat according to the Koran. But he did have enough body language to make one thing very clear: the gap between us was deep. Like, Grand Canyon deep.
I changed the subject. We talked soccer for the rest of our walk.
The Center was alive with kids when we arrived, and I was beginning to suspect the place was never quiet. They raced in and out, spilling onto the sidewalks and running across the street to the big municipal park where there were benches, swings, and a basketball court. Somali women sat on the benches, a few holding babies. I felt like they’d been sitting there since my last visit.
When we walked into The Center, we practically crashed into my little pal, Abdi. “Dude!” I said to him. He skidded to a stop. He was about to reply, but then he saw who I was with. His expression took on something like awe. He said something to Saeed in Somali that made Saeed laugh. They went on, back and forth for a few sentences, leaving me completely in the dark, until Abdi turned to me.
“Tom, man, how you know Saeed?”
“We play soccer. How do you know him?” Abdi looked amazed. “Man, everyone know Saeed!” He ran outside, zipped across the street without looking, and disappeared into the sea of children milling around the park.
Saeed meanwhile had walked ahead of me. The room was full of kids trying to blow up these cheap balloons that simply wouldn’t blow up, and in the thick of it I saw Myla’s blond cropped head. She caught sight of me.
“Tom Bouchard!” she exclaimed. “Look, guys, just what we need! A pair of strong lungs.” She wove through the kids toward me, holding out a limp blue balloon.
It was stupid, but Donnie’s comments about my supposed thing for Myla popped into my head at that moment. Hot? Not?
Here’s what was really weird: neither. She was just herself. This little person wearing flip-flops and khaki pants that ended halfway down her calves. Her toenails were painted bright red.
I took the balloon. It was a little damp at the opening.
“Hmm. How many kids just put their mouths on this?” I asked her. She flashed one of those oh-give-me-a-break looks and rummaged in the package for a fresh balloon.
“Just me, Mr. Germs,” she said, holding one out. I backed up and raised the first balloon to my lips.
“Oh, your germs are good with me,” I replied. She colored, which, I admit, was my intention. Yes, Ms. Mumford Student, this is how we roll.
I blew. For a moment the balloon resisted, and I realized I was going to wind up looking like a complete idiot with my cheeks puffed like some chipmunk with his pouches full of nuts, but then it yielded into this long, narrow tube. A few of the kids shrieked, and then they started jumping up and down and holding their balloons toward me.
Myla turned out to be an energetic balloon animal maker, so after I inflated and tied off each one I passed it to her and she transformed it into a mouse … a fish … an alligator. Her creatures didn’t actually look like any of these animals, but the kids didn’t care.
“So I guess I don’t have to tell you that no one around here is doing any homework,” she said at one point.
“Yeah, I figured as much,” I said with a shrug. “But you’ll put me down for a few hours of heavy labor with balloons, right?”
“Dream on, Captain Bouchard,” she said dryly.
“Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” I said. “Captain. I’ve been waiting to get a little respect around here.”
She laughed.
“Don’t kid yourself. You’re just my assistant balloon boy. Hey, everyone!” she shouted. “This is the last, and I want you to guess what animal it is!” The kids shouted the names of animals that didn’t look anything like the balloon knot Myla had created, which reminded me of a slug with warts, but she handed it to a girl who called out “cat,” so what did I know? Anyway, once the balloons were gone the kids drifted outside, and it got quiet.
“Wanna help me sort cans?” Myla said, heading for the kitchen without waiting for my answer. I followed her.
The industrial-style kitchen in the back of The Center had big ovens and long metal counters. You could cook enough food in there to feed an army, but it looked like they were only using it for storage. Namely, dozens of cardboard boxes and paper grocery bags stuffed with canned and packaged goods.
“A local high school did a Stuff the Bus project and gave us some of the food they collected,” Myla explained. “I’m sorting through it, pitching the crap, and trying to put together boxes we can give out to new refugee families. You know, staples to get them started?” Myla peered into a b
ox, rummaged, and pulled out a can of peas and a crushed bag of something labeled Splenda.
“For example, this is crap,” she said, holding up the Splenda and unceremoniously dumping it in the metal trash can next to the counter. She held up the peas. “This is food you can use.” She shook her head in disgust.
“Some people think cleaning out their cabinets once a year and donating their garbage counts as charity,” she said. She shoved a box toward me and I began emptying the contents onto the counter.
“Once,” she continued, “we got a load of donated used toys. Books. Some plastic stuff which was still okay once you gave it a good scrub in the tub. But there was this doll? One of those super-expensive American Girl dolls? With a busted face. It looked like someone had taken an ice pick to her eye. I couldn’t believe somebody thought that sad, scary doll would be a decent toy for a child. But I guess some people think if you’re poor, you’ll be happy with anything. That you should be happy with just anything.” Myla pulled cans from a paper bag on the floor. She was fast, and sorted as she went, into corn, beans, tomatoes …
“Dolls creep me out,” I commented. “I don’t get why girls play with them.”
“I know, right?” she laughed. “And a broken doll? Totally creepy.” She shuddered. We sorted in silence for a few minutes: boxes of mac and cheese, instant cake mix, SpaghettiOs …
“So how’d you find out I’m a captain?” I couldn’t resist asking her. She shrugged, not looking at me.
“Samira. We had a conversation about you after you left the other day.”
I put down the cans I was holding and forced a smile.
“Hmm. Why do I get the feeling that didn’t go so well for me?”
She laughed.
“Yeah. Samira’s definitely not your biggest fan.”
I felt my smile fade.
“Okay. Enlighten me. What did I ever do to piss her off?”
Myla stopped sorting as well.
“Let’s just say she doesn’t think much of your taste in women.” Wow. Completely unexpected response.
“Huh?”
“She knows your girlfriend,” Myla explained. “So I guess it’s a case of guilt by association.”
