This Side of Providence (18 page)

He turns away from me. “Then what will they blame me for?” he asks, his voice starting to break.

“What do you mean, blame you?”

He walks into the field, his legs swallowed up by the tall grass. I hear the sound of twigs snapping.

“None of this is your fault, Cristo. You know that.”

“I promised him, Teacher. I promised him that everything would be all right. And he believed me. That little shit believed me, but I was wrong.” He's crying now, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“You had faith, Cristo. There's nothing wrong with that.”

I take him into my arms and hug him as tightly as I can. At first he holds back, as stiff as a dead bird, but when I don't loosen my hold or abandon the hug, he gives in, sinking further into me. He buries his face in my coat and sobs into the wool, the sound of his ragged breath muffled by the dense fabric. His body goes limp in my arms and I know that I'm the only thing keeping him off the ground.

We stand like that for several minutes, rocking together in the chilly November afternoon. The temperature is dropping along with the sun, and the wind kicks up gravel and bits of garbage, but I'm not about to let go of him. I'll stand here all night, in the bitter darkness of Manton Avenue, if it will make
this boy feel better.

Finally, he peels himself off me and takes a few steps back, squinting as his eyes adjust to the light. He wipes his face on the sleeve of his sweatshirt and sniffs loudly, then spits several times into the grass before looking at me.

“Sorry, Teacher,” he says.

I smile but don't say anything.

He crosses his arms. “So, what'd you want to talk about?”

“I just wanted to see you, to find out how you're doing.”

He sniffs again. “I guess you got your answer.”

“Part of it, maybe. But not everything. How's Trini?”

“I saw her last week, for Halloween. She was a stray cat.”

“That's pretty ironic,” I say.

“What's that mean?”

“It means it's fitting. You know, because she doesn't have a home.”

“Scottie thinks she does,” he says. “With him.”

“And what do you think?”

He looks at his hands. “I think I miss my sister.”

I want to hug him again, but I don't. “And how's Luz?”

“Good. You hear she got class president again?”

“Yes, I heard.”

He shakes his head. “Sometimes I can't believe we come from the same family.”

“You're just as smart as she is, you know that. You just don't work for it.”

“I work, Teacher.” He looks across the lot toward the street.

“But you don't study. That should be your only job.”

“Sure, Teacher, whatever you say.” He starts to walk away from me.

“Any word from your mother?”

I feel bad for mentioning her, but I do it because I know it will make him stop. He turns to face me.

“She's supposed to get out next month. An early Christmas present, I guess.”

“For her or for you?”

He shrugs. “I'll let you know.”

“And you're okay until then, staying with Kim?”

“What choice do I got?” He's looking at me, but also somewhere over my head. “Where else can I go?”

As he walks away, I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I'm sending a kitten into a pack of wolves.

“
Adios,
Cristo.”

“
Adios
,” he calls out without turning back around.

He walks back to the corner and takes up his position on the telephone pole. The wind blows harder and he steadies himself against the pole, as if he's afraid he could blow away. Soon there are several men standing with him, creating a barrier against the cold. They are smoking shared cigarettes and passing a forty-ounce bottle of beer back and forth. One man holds a pizza box under his arm like a magazine. Cristo doesn't take the cigarettes or the beer, but he still looks like one of them. Like he belongs. An eleven-year-old boy hanging out on the corner like it's his job. And I guess maybe it is.

As I walk away I hear someone ask him if he speaks Spanish. I turn around to see him wearing a look of disgust, as if they had asked if he ate dog shit.

“Hell no,” he says, looking straight through me.

I spend the next few weeks trying to figure out how I can help Cristo without hurting myself or compromising my career. Some nights I can't sleep, so I make chocolate chip cookie dough and eat half the batter before I even bake one cookie. I watch old movies and write long letters to my parents that I know I'll never send. I count time like I'm in prison, which makes me wonder what Arcelia does to pass her days, and if she, too, is up at night worrying about the fate of her son.

A few days before Thanksgiving vacation, while spending my lunch break in the library to replace the librarian laid off during cutbacks, I watch as Mrs. Reed brings her fifth-grade class into the large, empty room. She had warned me that they would be coming, to work on a class project about poetry, and I had tried to prepare by bringing all the tables into the center of the room. She goes to the meager poetry section and pulls
every book off the shelf, randomly handing them to the kids. For those who read only in Spanish, she takes some books from the L
IBROS EN
E
SPAÑOL
section, which comprises a single aisle in the stacks, even though the Spanish-speaking population in our school is about sixty percent.

A few of the girls I had last year come over to me, begging me to read the poems out loud, and asking which one is my favorite. I read them everything from Shel Silverstein to Robert Frost and they seem to love every word, especially the ones they don't understand. I see Cristo look over at us from time to time, and then look away, pretending not to listen. After the girls have chosen their favorites and are carefully copying the words into their spiral notebooks, I walk over to the small table where Cristo is sitting by himself. There is a small book of poems in front of him, but he has not picked it up. Instead, he's reading a comic book that he tries to hide under the table as I approach.

“Read something to me,” I say, pushing the book toward him.

He flips through it quickly, and seems to stop on a random page.

“
Noche, fabricadora de embelecos, loca, imaginativa, quimerista, que muestras al que en ti su bien conquista los montes llanos y los mares secos; Que vele o duerma, media vida es tuya: si velo, te lo pago con el día, y si duermo, no siento lo que vivo.
” He puts the book down, giving up after the first stanza.

“Now in English.” I push the book back to him.

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 E
MERGENCY
E
XIT
O
NLY
. 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. “Sometimes. 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?”