by Jon Pineda
“Pweeple,” Tom mimicked.
Tom’s friends laughed.
“All right, all right,” Mr. Rochambeau continued. “The sooner we settle down, the sooner we can sign these yearbooks. And go about our lives.”
Some kids who were running the bleachers paused at the resounding oddity of this last sentence. Others had grown tired and found a seat. There were even the unfortunate few who had to be singled out and ordered to a cordoned-off spot in the parking lot behind the stadium. Ms. Smith, one of the gym teachers, had staked out a detention area on short notice. She held to her chest a battered clipboard and kept a chewed plastic whistle pressed between her thin lips.
. . . .
When all of the students had finally taken a seat, Mr. Rochambeau smiled and made an announcement. This year, they were going to begin a new tradition. Each grade sat in a distinct section of the bleachers, dividing the main side of the stadium into three parts. Mr. Rochambeau would point to one section. That would be the signal for the chosen grade to make as much noise as possible.
“So who’s the best?” Mr. Rochambeau said.
The students looked around, confused.
Mr. Rochambeau shook his head in disgust. “I said, ‘So who’s the best?’”
Now they understood.
Each of the grades let out screams, hollering and whistling in between gaps of strained fervor. The ninth graders, including Tom and his friends, were convinced they were the leaders of the school. This time was their time, and there was no way they were going to surrender to the younger students, especially the lowly seventh graders. That would be an embarrassment.
Down by the track were special-needs students who had been brought over from the nearby center. They had only just arrived. Some entered the stadium and heard the roar and thought the students were welcoming them. Many of these visiting students were in wheelchairs, their arms one giant mechanism of jerking movements that made them appear robotic and slightly out of control. The remainder of their bodies did not move.
Mr. Rochambeau asked the junior high students in the bleachers above to welcome the visiting students, and this gave the throng yet another opportunity to unleash its collective crowing. Tom cried out, as did those around him. He closed his eyes and screamed louder than he had in a very long time. It felt amazing. Then the sounds fell away, everyone temporarily exhausted.
When Tom opened his eyes, he saw a girl waving at him from near the field. It couldn’t be, he thought, but then he remembered his mother telling him earlier that morning. He realized it had been to prepare him.
“Hey, there,” Teagan yelled. She was the only one. “Hey, there! Hey, there!” She was standing on her chair and waving up at all of the students. Tom realized she wasn’t just waving at him.
Many of the kids started laughing. Then more joined in.
Tom wanted to put his head down.
But he didn’t.
He stood up and waved back.
“Tommy!” Teagan said and clapped her hands. She seemed happy enough to cry. One of the teachers nearby guided her back down into her seat. It took some coaxing. Tom continued to stand, suffering the ridicule of his school.
“Young man,” Mr. Rochambeau said and pointed excitedly in Tom’s direction. “Yes, you there. Report to Ms. Smith, pronto. Hurry up now! You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Tom shook his head, said, “Later,” to his friends, and clutched his yearbook as he made his way among the others still sitting. A few rows up, Mario started following him. He had also stood and waved at Teagan, though Tom hadn’t seen it.
Mr. Rochambeau continued, “Any other jokers out there want to join them? No? All right, then . . .”
Ms. Smith glanced down at her clipboard and asked for their names. She scanned the columns and then circled each one on the mimeographed list. “Go grab yourself a nice seat of asphalt,” she said, replacing the whistle between her lips. Luckily, there was still a good portion of the pavement covered by the shadow of the stadium. Mr. Rochambeau’s voice sounded muffled now, as did the screaming of their classmates.
“How long do you think they’ll keep us?” Mario said.
Tom didn’t answer.
He focused on the other students who sat lined up in front of him, their backs hunched and unmoving, as if the sound of their friends’ happiness weighed on them.
“How is she doing?” Mario said.
Tom looked over at him. “You don’t talk about her.”
Scuffed traffic cones had been placed along the perimeter and formed a barrier separating them from the teachers’ cars that were parked in the lot.
“She seemed really happy,” Mario offered.
Tom stared hard at Mario and eventually smiled.
“How’s your uncle liking jail?” Tom said.
After school, Tom came home to find his father already there. His father had brought home a few empty boxes from the base supply center.
“What are these for, Dad?” Tom said, lightly kicking one of the boxes as he walked into the kitchen. His father mumbled something Tom couldn’t understand. He realized too late it was in Tagalog, his father’s language. He wished he could remember some of the words, some of the history.
“Sorry, Dad,” Tom said.
“Your sister’s getting her hair cut,” his father said. “When they come back, you should tell her it looks good. Don’t forget.”
“I saw Teagan today,” Tom said.
“You what?”
“I saw her at school. She was at our yearbook signing. I think the center brought her on a field trip or something.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she be at your school?”
“Dad, I just told you,” Tom said. He watched his father search around the kitchen, looking confused.
“Where did she put it?” his father said, moving some of the things away from the wall. It was obvious to Tom that nothing was hiding behind the squat, lidded containers of flour, sugar, and tea. “Your mother . . .”
“Put what, Dad?” Tom said.
“Where did she put my crossword?” he said without turning around. “She is always moving the paper around, you know that, right? I look away for one minute, and it’s gone.”
Tom checked the kitchen table, but there was only a magazine sitting beside the napkin holder. Then he went over to the empty boxes and peered into one of them. There was a folded newspaper resting at the bottom, though Tom wasn’t sure if it was the one his father was looking for.
“One of these days,” his father said, “I’m going to have my things in order. You’ll see, Tommy. Everything will have a place.”
That same evening, Mario stayed in his room and didn’t come out until he had memorized most of the periodic table. His parents were bewildered by the student he had become. Mario had heard his chemistry teacher say that anyone looking to go to college would be best served by committing the periodic table to memory. Mr. Sawyer had meant it as a joke. It was supposed to get a reaction, to gauge who was paying attention. The groan from the class would be one indicator. Mario, instead, had written in his notebook, Memorize the atomic weight of everything.
May 3, 198–
In regards to: Exequiel X. Guzman
DOC#331VA-77XX
Honorable Members of the Parole Board
Virginia Department of Corrections
P.O. Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261
Dear Honorable Members of the Parole Board:
My name is Mario Guzman. I am fourteen years old. I have been a straight-A student at J. E. B. Stuart Junior High School for three years. I am now finishing the ninth grade. I am the nephew of Exequiel Guzman DOC#331VA-77XX. I promised my uncle I would do well in school. I am keeping my promise.
My uncle is not up for parole, but I thought I would write to you anyway. If there was some way to consider him for parole, my family would be grateful. Especially me. I know he has been working to complete his GED. He has also told me that he
plans to take college courses, maybe. I think that’s great. Don’t you think that’s great?
I hope he will be up for parole soon. I don’t think he is guilty for the crime they say he did, but you shouldn’t ask just me. He will tell you he is sorry. My father Paul Guzman told us the other night the company he works for is hiring new people. My uncle could be one of those new people.
I know you can’t just let him go. I’m not stupid. But I hope you will think about it. He really, really is a good man. Thank you for taking the time to read my letter to you.
Sincerely,
Mario Guzman
Tom came home from the soccer game. It had been his last for the high school team. All that was left was to prepare for graduation and he could be gone. He found his father in his usual khaki polyester uniform, lying on the couch, having come home early from work. There was an unfinished glass of red wine less than a foot away from his father’s draped arm.
Tom paused. His mother had an excuse, at least—she was with Teagan; he could forgive her—but an earlier version of himself would have gone over and kicked the glass, left it for his father to clean up. Or had he ever had the chance to be that kind of kid?
Then the nagging, boyish voice in his head: How hard would it have been to swing by the school on your way home and catch the last minutes, see your own flesh and blood on the field?
His father stirred and turned onto his side. His hand brushed the glass. Tom held his breath. The wine nearly spilled, tilting, sloshing slightly, but then didn’t.
Tom wished, at the very least, it could have fallen; and now there was the irascible thought blazing up like a phoenix. He couldn’t remember his father ever once threatening Exequiel Guzman.
Years ago, when Tom had been in the courtroom, watching the trial move slowly from question to question, exhibit to exhibit, never once did his father stand up, as Tom had wanted him to, and hurl a chair at the man sitting silently and staring at his hands. Never once did his father scream at Exequiel Guzman.
There was none of that.
There was just one man doing nothing to the one man who had already done everything.
. . . .
Around the living room were small piles of things, especially magazines and newspapers. His father had been declaring that almost everything was necessary. His mother disagreed. There had been fights over the gathering presence, but mostly, his mother conceded. Items were beginning to pile and lean against one another, like the motionless barges along the Elizabeth, the still river cleaving the city.
His father turned onto his other side, facing Tom.
His eyes opened.
“What are you doing here?”
“The game’s over,” Tom said.
“What game?”
“My soccer game, Dad. My last game.”
“Oh.”
Tom had not changed out of his own uniform. The gold jersey was covered in grass stains. Tom had not peeled away the shin guards that were streaked with mud, small proof that he at one point had actually fought for something. Even if that ball, wrapped in all of its ephemeral beauty, felt wholly insignificant now.
He could check items off his mental list, counting down the remaining responsibilities he had as a graduating senior. It was not for him to be the kind of son his father would dote on. He wasn’t going to play at the University of Virginia, he wasn’t that good.
“So who won, Tommy?” his father said, closing his eyes.
“I guess we did.”
Tom didn’t explain how he was already beginning to remove himself, how he was no longer thinking of his high school team with any sense of loyalty. And he wasn’t going to mention to his father how he had been the last to take a penalty shot, how the net had pulled taut from the momentum, catching the ball, and he had stood there stoic, frozen like a statue, while a wave of strangers came rushing toward him.
Manny Serafino dreamt of Fely, the one girl in his school who knew more English than even the teachers. Her grandfather was an American soldier from Tennessee who had come to the Philippine Islands at the turn of the century to fight Filipinos. But after the war, he had stayed behind. Fely used to smile and say it was because of love.
“He had only glimpsed my lola,” she said to Manny. “And he was smitten with her.”
“Smitten?” Manny said. He didn’t know this word.
“It means to be taken with someone.”
This didn’t help.
“Enamored,” Fely tried again.
“Oh, right,” Manny said. Then he said the word love in Tagalog. She laughed at his pronunciation, so American-sounding now.
Even though he was dreaming, he licked his hand and wiped the back of his hair. The part his own lola used to call stubborn.
“I wonder if you will remember me,” Fely said.
“Why do you say it that way?” he said. “I’m remembering you now.”
“When you get older, you will leave for the States and marry someone else and never come back.”
“That’s not true,” Manny said, but then he realized it was. He loved Elinor, but his younger self remained with Fely. He could see her as she would be now, older. Slender. Her black hair all one length, tied back and resting between her shoulder blades. The hair not cropped and fashionable.
There was also the fact that she was mestiza. She had her grandfather Frank from Knoxville to thank for her straight nose, her hazel eyes.
“After you left, some evenings I would sit by the water and just listen for fish,” she said. “The startled ones surfacing. Splashing the moon into pieces. I would sit there and wait. The image always surprised me.”
“How could you do such a thing?” Manny asked.
She didn’t care that he would be confused by her story.
“I needed to see things come back together,” Fely said.
With that, she vanished.
Manny woke with the vague recollection that his son had been standing in front of him wearing a bright gold jersey. A number in the upper-right corner of the jersey, like one of the squares of his crossword puzzles, the emptiness of his son mocking him.
When Manny closed his eyes, he returned to Fely, but he had willed it this time.
“Do me a favor,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Don’t come back for me.”
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I had an opportunity to leave, and so I did. The money I made, I sent most of it home. My brother went to the university because of this money. My mother and father could finally make ends meet.”
“It would have happened without you,” she said and unfastened her hair.
He didn’t move.
He watched strands fall in long black lines. Blank music sheets, scores never written.
“When I was living in California for that brief time, no one would look at me,” he said. “My friends, yes, but on leave from the base, I would walk the streets downtown and most of the young pretty women I saw would never meet my eye.”
“You were thinking about me.”
“Yes.”
“You would see their passing reflections in the storefronts.”
“Yes, in the glass.”
“You would think you saw me and then would turn around, only to find that I wasn’t there. I was never there.”
“How did you do that?”
“What do you mean?”
“How could you appear and disappear that way?” he said.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she said.
It had not been a dream, though it had felt like one. Fely in his arms as they lay in the shallow boat and drifted out beyond the breakers. In the distance, they could hear faint explosions, and Manny knew his cousin Tranquilino and a gang of boys were throwing sticks of dynamite into the sea. Floating among the cluttered chunks of loosened coral was the occasional stunned fish, its yellow stripes blazing like flames on the water’s surface
.
“He’s going to hurt himself,” Fely said, without looking at Manny. The silence on the water was a line of deep blue he could snag, even with the boat’s meager anchor, and pull to them.
“We should go back,” he said.
He thought he had seen a fin, triangular and dark.
“Why? The only things there are the same things. Your loud cousin. Your aunties’ wretched voices singing while they do their chores by the river.”
Manny laughed now.
“It’s terrible,” Fely said. “It’s a crime, really.”
“Where would we go then?”
She sat up, keeping one hand in his lap, and looked around. He wondered if she was aware of how close she was, how easily she could be seen. Back in town, she would have to lie to her family. She had been on a boat alone with Manny Serafino. Hindi, hindi. God, no.
She lay back against him, holding her arms out so that her fingers gripped the sides.
“I don’t care where we go,” she said, exasperated.
In the distance, another explosion.
“I can’t take you if you don’t tell me where,” he said.
She sighed. Her back pressed harder into him, her eyes softening. She sat up and turned around, grabbing the sides of the boat again, rocking this time.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“We’ll fake our deaths.”
“What?”
She said it again.
The boat dipped to one side and then slid back. The sloshing caused it to take on water. It was thirsty, wanting the ocean.
“Stop it,” he said.
“What’s wrong?” she said, laughing. “You’re a good swimmer. You can pull me to shore, can’t you? They’ll find the boat. They’ll assume we’re dead.”
Near the far edge of the island, they could see his cousin and the other boys coming around the bend. Before Manny could say anything else, she threw her weight in a jolt to one side. The boat dropped down and filled with a rush, as if a giant hand were pushing the gunwale toward the sea’s depths.
