Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens Page 14

  Captain America is respectfully silent whenever Lupe speaks. Baby Chato’s real name is Chatham. If Wayne ever adopts him, like Lupe wants him to, baby Chato will be Chatham Wayne. The baby has brown skin like Lupe and Alberto, so he looks more like a Chato than a Chatham. When the bottle is empty, Alberto puts him on his shoulder and pats him. Soon the burp comes.

  “Sunday mornings you go shopping and I stay with Chato,” Alberto says.

  “Not this Sunday,” Lupe responds firmly. “I’ll get Becky upstairs to take care of Chatito for a couple of hours.” Becky is fourteen and is never mean to Alberto. She doesn’t call him names like Luis does, even when she catches him speaking to himself. Wayne spends a lot of time talking to Becky whenever Lupe is not around. “Go to the high school and watch the kids play soccer. You can’t stay here today. It’s not good for you to work all week and work on Sunday, too.”

  “Chato’s not work.”

  “No?” Lupe asks, and laughs. “Give him to me.” She stands and takes the baby from Alberto’s shoulder. She lowers him into a playpen beside the sofa, and baby Chato cries. “Go change. I’ll make some food for you, and then I’ll keep John busy so he doesn’t see you leave. Don’t come back up until this afternoon.”

  Is it an incidence that Lupe wants him out of the house the same day that Captain America is telling him to leave?

  —The word is coincidence, and no, there are no coincidences. Everything has been leading to this day. The forces of the universe pointed to this moment since the beginning of time. Lupe felt them coming and yielded to them.

  Sometimes Captain America uses words Alberto doesn’t understand. That’s how Alberto knows it’s not him talking to himself. The other day Captain America called him recalcitrant. He had to ask Becky what it meant, and she looked it up on her tablet. She read to him: resisting authority or control, not obedient, refractory. Then she looked up refractory, which meant the same. Becky asked him why he wanted to know and he said it was something he had read, but she didn’t believe him. Becky knows he can barely read baby Chato’s books.

  “Can I ask you something?” Becky asked.

  He nodded.

  “Why aren’t you in school? You’re sixteen. Shouldn’t you be, like, a freshman in high school?”

  “I have to work,” he told her.

  “Why? Doesn’t Wayne own this building and a few more like this?”

  “I think so.”

  She waited for Alberto to say more, but he didn’t. Then she said, “Wayne’s a creep. He gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

  Alberto didn’t tell her he was not smart enough to go to regular school. When Lupe was eight months pregnant, Wayne let them move into the apartment. The following week Lupe took him to the headquarters for all the public schools in Queens, where a nice lady took Alberto to a room. There he was given things to read and math problems to solve and circles and squares to figure out. Lupe had her heart set on Alberto going to the high school a few blocks from their apartment. But the lady told Lupe that Alberto had an intellectual and developmental disability. He belonged in a school where his special needs could be better cared for. She gave him a list of schools. Most of them you had to pay to attend. That night Lupe and Wayne had a big argument, and the next day Alberto joined Wayne’s painting crew.

  —Intellectual and developmental disability. Special needs. What the hell does that mean? Big deal! So you’re not as smart as some average kid your age. Who cares? You got me, don’t you? I make you special. There’s the bag—now let’s pack. Today is the day. Now or never.

  There are voices coming from Lupe’s bedroom, but they are not angry and that is good. Lupe left him a paper bag with two sandwiches. There’s a Coke can and small plastic bag with vanilla wafers, which baby Chato also likes. Just before he steps out, Alberto looks back and sees baby Chato asleep in his playpen. Just because he packed Wayne’s gym bag and has done everything Captain America has asked so far this morning doesn’t mean he’s leaving for good.

  —It’s a good first step. I’m proud of you, son.

  He stands in front of the apartment building. It is June, and the days are warm but not too hot. If he sleeps outside like Captain America wants him to, he will need the brown sweater that’s in the gym bag. The playground across the street at the park does not have one of those plastic tunnels that kids use to crawl from one end of the jungle gym to the other. Those tunnels are good to sleep in. Captain America pointed one out to him when he was driving with Luis to paint an apartment in Brooklyn, but Alberto knows he’ll never find that playground again on his own.

  —It’s too early to start worrying about where you’re going to sleep. You’re outside. That’s what matters. The day is yours. You’re free. Can you feel how free you are? This is what I’m talking about!

  Captain America is more pleasant outdoors. Trees, for some reason, lessen his power. Alberto crosses the street and enters the park. There is a bench under a giant oak tree, where he likes to sit and watch the geese and ducks on the pond. One day he saw a green garbage bag move by the edge of the water, and when he looked closer, he saw a turtle struggling to get out. The bag had a knot at the end, which meant someone had tried to harm the turtle. The turtle scurried into the water when Alberto tore open the bag.

  If he lived out on the streets, he could spend his days going to the different parks rescuing turtles. Captain America hasn’t told him what he is to do once he’s on his own. It is early, and there is no one on the dirt path that circles the pond. He finds the bench under his favorite tree and sits. The water in the pond is a deep green, almost black. It amazes him that there are ponds and trees and shrubs and turtles and ducks and birds in the city. Alberto reaches back and touches the bark of the tree. It is rough and old. He looks up. Branches that size with so many smaller limbs take dozens of years to grow. He learned that from his father. In San Antonio Chel, the town in Mexico where he was born, there were more trees than people.

  —There’s no going back now. Look ahead. The future is in front of you.

  All the money that Wayne pays him, Alberto gives to Lupe so she can send it to Mami. Mami and Alberto’s two sisters, Candelaria and Concepción, live from the money that Lupe sends every month. Lupe used to work as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan until she met Wayne. Wayne is going to marry Lupe and live with them full-time as soon as his divorce with a woman named Roxanna is final. Lupe wants Wayne to send Alberto to a special school, but Wayne says that’s like burning money. Wayne thinks Alberto is one of the best painters in the crew. There’s only three of them—Alberto, Luis, and Jimbo—but Alberto is the only one who doesn’t complain about the job. The spiderweb in his room has 134 connected threads. It is a mystery how the spider linked the threads from one wall in his room to the other. When he counts the threads on the spiderweb, Captain America is silent. Wayne is probably looking for him right now. On Sundays, Wayne “rents” Alberto out to tenants to do odd things. Luis says that Wayne owns more than six hundred apartments, and there is no end to the painting. Whenever a tenant leaves, the apartment gets painted. But they also paint apartments with people living in them, which is harder. Luis listens to rap on his earphones while he paints. When Luis put the earphones on Alberto’s head, the rapper’s voice came from both inside and outside, like when Captain America speaks to him. It makes Alberto sad when Captain America insists that he leave Lupe and baby Chato. Lupe needs him, and Mami and his sisters back home depend on him. If he goes back home, Captain America will be disappointed in him.

  —That apartment is not your home. You’re living someone else’s life. You’re living for them. All of them. I want you to live for you. Are you happy? Just answer me that simple question.

  “It doesn’t matter if I’m happy.”

  —That’s what people who are not happy tell themselves. Okay, forget about happiness. Just be free.

  “What will I do … out here?”

  —I don’t know what you will do. I can’t se
e into the future. Out here is the opportunity for something new to happen. When the thing that makes you happy comes, you can take it. Now you are free to look and wait and grab happiness when it comes.

  “Lupe…”

  —Lupe, Lupe, Lupe. Wayne, Chato, Mami, and all the rest of them back in Mexico. They are sucking the life out of you, and that’s the truth. Will you at least be honest with yourself?

  “I don’t think of them sucking my life! I don’t know why you talk like that. I wish you’d leave me alone!”

  A squirrel, startled, stands on its hind legs, looks at Alberto. It is the first time that he has lost his temper with Captain America, and Alberto is not sure what his reaction will be. Captain America says he wants what is best for him. He’s a friend, isn’t he? He’s kind, deep down. But he’s also powerful. There’s no question that he’s powerful. Maybe Captain is right. He should try to be happy. He was happy as a child in Mexico, making flowerpots and vases out of clay with his father, selling them in the marketplace. But that’s not possible anymore. He is not happy now. But he hadn’t known he was unhappy or that it was bad not to be happy until Captain America showed up.

  —You’re afraid. I’m here to make you brave. You’re a man, not a worm.

  “I’m no worm. I am brave … already. Please go away!”

  “Alberto?”

  But it is not Captain America talking to him. It is someone else, standing in front of him, a thin girl with a hoodie, holding a plastic bowl. It takes Alberto a few moments to recognize Becky and then a few more moments to realize he is not imagining her.

  She sits next to him and places the plastic bowl she is holding on her lap. She’s wearing red shorts and a gray sweatshirt with a hood over her head. Becky has freckles on her legs. Her black sneakers are untied. “Bernie died this morning,” she says, removing a blue top from the plastic container and tilting it toward Alberto. Alberto sees a goldfish belly-up at the bottom. “I don’t want to flush him down the toilet. It doesn’t seem right. He was a good little fish. He was with me for two years. I thought I’d drop him in the pond. It seems like that would be more appropriate, somehow. Don’t you think?”

  “Yes.”

  They stare at the pond in silence. Becky says after a long while, “His brain is probably about as big as a grain of salt, but I swear he knew who I was. When I came back from spending the weekend at my dad’s, he swam around and around the bowl. Mom fed him while I was gone, so it was not the prospect of food that got him excited. It was me. What else could account for that craziness except he was glad to see me?”

  “Probably he was.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Becky turns to look at Alberto. “Are you all right? Who did you want to go away?”

  Alberto lowers his head, shakes it. “No one.”

  After a few moments Becky continues, “There were two of them at first. Bernie and his girlfriend, Bernice, but she died about a month after we brought them home. Bernie kept looking for her after she was gone. I mean, his fishbowl at home is not much bigger than this.” Becky lifts the plastic container and then puts it down again. “You think he’d know she wasn’t there. I mean, where could she hide? But he kept looking and looking for about a week and then went into a deep depression. He wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t poop. He kept opening his mouth like he couldn’t breathe. I thought he was a goner, too. But he pulled out of it somehow. I talked to him. Just whatever came to my mind. Mom said that’s what did it.” She pauses. “I flushed Bernice down the toilet when she died. Dad said it was time for Bernice to take a ride down the porcelain express. He and Mom hadn’t gotten divorced yet, and I still believed in his intelligence. He said it was either that or wrapping her in tinfoil and the garbage. I felt bad seeing Bernice swish around like a little orange caca.”

  The Spanish word makes Alberto smile. Becky knows a few Spanish words, which she practices on him now and then. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right. It’s sad, but it’s still funny.” Becky stands. “I’m going to drop Bernie in the pond. Will you come with me?”

  “All right.”

  They walk to the edge of the pond, and then Becky turns to Alberto. “Do you know any prayers?”

  Alberto thinks. “I used to know some in Spanish.”

  “I think Spanish will still work. Do you mind? I’d feel better if I sent Bernie off with a prayer.”

  Alberto waits, half expecting Captain America to mock him. Free people probably don’t pray for dead goldfish. He is grateful when Captain America doesn’t say anything. Becky bows her head, and Alberto starts. “Dios te salve, María, ruega por nosotros los pecadores … no nos dejes caer en tentación … mas libranos de todo mal … ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte. Amén.”

  Becky empties the bowl into the pond. Bernie disappears immediately beneath the green surface of the water.

  “I think I got a couple of prayers mixed up,” Alberto says.

  “It’s still better than what I could have said. All I know is the Pledge of Allegiance, and I’m not sure that counts as a prayer. I’m basically agnostic. Adeeos, Bernie.”

  Becky turns and walks back to the bench, and Alberto follows. They sit with the gym bag between them. A breeze rustles the leaves of the oak tree above them. It is so quiet everywhere. It could be that Becky’s presence has chased Captain America away. Would it be better if Captain America wasn’t around? Yes and no. Alberto could get more sleep, for one thing. He could go on believing that life was hard and there was no use complaining. You take what is given to you. It’s still better than it is for so many others. But Captain America is also a friend. Alberto has come to accept that. He wants things for Alberto that Alberto is afraid to want. There are times when Alberto knows that Captain America is there even though he is quiet. Was it wrong of him to tell Captain America to go away? Captain America didn’t have to call him a worm and tell him to be brave. As if he wasn’t. That was mean. What if Captain America doesn’t come back? He’ll be the same dumb Alberto who doesn’t even know he’s unhappy. Becky’s goldfish sank straight down, but Alberto has seen dead fish float on the surface of the lake near his house in Mexico. His father told him they could eat a fish that floats if it didn’t smell like rot or was too slimy. Alberto cuts his fingernails short so paint doesn’t get under them, but Becky’s fingernails are shorter than his because she chews on them. Alberto unzips the gym bag and takes out the paper bag with the lunch that Lupe packed for him. He offers a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to Becky.

  Becky looks at the offering and shakes her head. “I’m not hungry right now, thank you,” she says.

  Alberto is not hungry, either, so he puts the sandwich back in the gym bag. Becky notices the gym bag as if for the first time but doesn’t say anything. Wayne pays him eight dollars an hour, but Luis and Jimbo get paid fifteen. That’s the kind of thing that Captain America doesn’t like and one of the reasons he wants Alberto to move out of the house. Lupe told Wayne that Alberto should get paid the same, but Wayne said that Luis and Jimbo don’t live for free in one of his apartments. Lupe and Wayne had another fight over what Alberto got paid, and Wayne shouted that he had never agreed to support two kids. Captain America told him that things would be better for Lupe if Alberto wasn’t around, but he is not sure. What if Wayne gets so angry he decides to hit Lupe one day? What if Alberto’s not around when that happens? How did the spider get a line of web from one wall in his room to another? Eight dollars an hour adds up to eighty dollars a day. It becomes more than four hundred dollars by the end of the week. Lupe sends half of it to Mami. The rest is for them to live on. What they don’t use, she hides under the mattress of baby Chato’s crib. Wayne will never look in there. Lupe is saving the money so that Alberto can go to pottery school someday, but also just in case things don’t work out with Wayne. Captain America told Alberto to take the money because it was his, but Alberto refused to do that.

  He is thinking all this and
doesn’t even notice Becky’s quiet sobs. Becky is almost a young woman, and he can’t touch her the way he touches baby Chato when he cries. Lupe says he’s got the touch. His father used to say that to him as well when Alberto made things out of clay. His father died when he accidentally touched an overhead transmission line. Now Becky is crying next to him, and he doesn’t know what to do. He wants to put his hand on the back of her head. When he touches baby Chato’s head like that, Alberto can feel the calmness leave his hand and enter baby Chato.

  —She’s not your responsibility. It’s about taking burdens off your shoulders, not piling on more. Let’s move on. It’s time to meet the future. It will be hard going at first, but you will come out on top. You could have made it easier on yourself by taking the money that was rightfully yours, like I told you.

  Captain America is there listening to his thoughts like he always is.

  —And I will always be here. I’m here to make sure you live your life. I protect you from people sucking the life out of you. Get up. Let’s go. Now’s the time.

  “He was just a silly little fish.” Becky sniffs, wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She lets one more small sob come out of her and then takes a deep breath. “Gosh.”

  “He’s okay now,” Alberto says. His father was connecting an extension cable to the town’s electric lines so that the barrio where they lived could have electricity. He had done that many times before. Every time the electric company discovered the pirate wire and cut it, his father would climb up and connect it again. A neighbor said his father was dead before he hit the ground. Sometimes when Alberto closes his eyes, he sees his father on the ground with little puffs of smoke coming out of his ears.

  “Layla’s been wanting me to have a good cry. About my parents’ divorce. But I never could cry. And now here I am … bawling over a silly little fish.”

  —Say some nice words. Time heals all wounds. The usual. You’re sorry about the fish. Then get up and go. She’s going to suck more life from you if you stay. I can feel it. Stand up. Now. Make something up, if you must. You must go to work. You’re late already and you need to go. There could be painting supplies in the gym bag for all she knows. Now.