Interfictions 2 (14 page)

Because little Timmy was more embarrassed than hurt—his forehead was red and plenty dirty, but no lump emerged—the principal took it easy on me. He just sent me home for the day with a note for Papi to sign. Because it was too early to take the bus, Mrs. Dravlin, one of the assistant principals, drove me home. She and I were buds; I had known her since I was in kindergarten and had always been one of her favorites. She wasn't as pretty as Mami or as chubby as Mami or as vivacious as Mami, and she didn't know any more Spanish than you need to get licensed as a teacher in Connecticut. But she smiled as big as Mami, a huge, scary, dental-exam smile, as if she wanted you to be able to count her teeth.

I loved her teeth.

She wasn't smiling then, though; she had to watch traffic as she drove, but she kept sneaking fretful, motherly looks at me and saying things like, “Salvador, you're too smart to get in fights,” and “I want you to apologize to Tim tomorrow,” and “Maybe you should have your dad call me."

I wasn't at all sorry about pounding stupid Timmy's head into the ground, but Papi had taught me to respect teachers, even when they're wrong. So I agreed with everything she said, and, once she had parked in my driveway, I said to her, “I'm sorry I was bad, Mrs. Dravlin."

Something in the way I said it? She cried exactly three tears. The first two tumbled out of her eyes like the boulders of a surprise avalanche. I was a little scared; I'd never seen an assistant principal cry before. As she erased the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, a third skittered down her face without her knowing and hung pendulously from her chin. It refused to let go of her face as she spoke. “Listen to me, Salvador. You are not bad. You're a very, very, very good boy.” Then she leaned over to the passenger side and hugged me. The tear on her chin sank through my T-shirt. Long after it must have evaporated, I felt its warmth and wetness on my shoulder.

I waved goodbye to Mrs. Dravlin, who was waiting to make sure I could get in the house, and “snuck” past Papi. After the settlement came, he was always home. He sat in the living room with his chin in his hand, studying a Rithomachy board on the coffee table; I could've brought a dead cat into the house and he wouldn't have noticed me. To prove it, when I was nine I actually did bring a dead cat into the house, but I'll tell you about that later. For now, I went to my room.

On the bed lay an illustrated encyclopedia of dinosaurs. It was the biggest book I'd ever seen, even bigger than Mami's Bible. The inscription inside read, in Papi's plain and serious script, “The best way to honor Mami is to better ourselves."

At the end of that school year I became the youngest winner ever of the school's science fair for my project “How the Dinosaurs Really Died,” where I explained, based on the exciting new research of this wicked-smart Latino named Walter Alvarez, that the dinosaurs had actually been killed by a huge chondritic asteroid with the cool name of Chicxulub that had blasted the Yucatan Peninsula about sixty-five million years ago. The judges must've known Papi wrote it, gathered the research, made the graphs—this was stuff even the science teachers hadn't heard about yet. But, in my defense, I
memorized
every last bit of it. I won because it's cute to hear an eight-year-old say phrases like “unusually high concentrations of iridium” and “nemesis parabolic impactors."

To celebrate, Dad bought us tickets to go see locally famous prestidigitator Gary Starr make a giraffe disappear. But Papi was unimpressed by Gary Starr; he told me after the show, “That guy couldn't even fool his own giraffe.” But after seeing with my own eyes a full-grown camelopard disappear off the stage and reappear in the theater's parking lot, where it was waiting for us, next to a Gary Starr flunky selling Gary Starr T-shirts and Gary Starr prepackaged magic tricks, I was hooked. Papi wouldn't buy me any Gary Starr tchotchkes, of course, but he would gladly take me to the library. I checked out the fattest magic books they had.

By the time I was nine, I had become a not-too-shabby magician and could even fool adults right in front of their faces. You know the trick where you cut the rope into pieces, only to pull on both ends and—tada!—it's back together again? I did that one for show-and-tell and pissed off my fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Liss, when he couldn't figure out how I did it. And, of course, I wouldn't tell him. Magician's code.

But my best trick of all was a bit I did with the help of Roadkill the Magic Dead Cat. Roadkill wasn't a stuffed animal. Roadkill was a dead black cat, stuffed and mounted and made—why?—into a piggybank. The taxidermist had done a good, if cliched, job with her: she had a permanent arch in her back, an eternal horripilation of the hair along her spine, and a look in her glass eyes that said, “I am three-quarters demon.” I got her for ten bucks from Mr. Strauss at the magic shop I frequented after school because he was getting remarried and his wife hated it, had threatened to call off the wedding if he didn't get rid of it. I think he made up that story just to get a sale, but who cares. A dead-cat bank for ten bucks?

Here's how the trick went down, as per the performance I gave to Mr. Liss's class. I went to the front of the room and put Roadkill on Mr. Liss's desk. Everyone said, “Ooh!” One girl, Jenny Chalder, said, “That's gross."

I said, “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Roadkill the Magic Dead Cat!” I pulled out a phone book and handed it to Mr. Liss. Then I turned back to the class. “My dad's a math teacher, and he's always saying that math lets you do magic, but I didn't believe him until I got Roadkill. Roadkill's going to predict what name we pick out of a phone book, using math."

Jenny Chalder said, “Cats can't do math."

I pulled a slip of paper and a new, sharpened pencil out of my bag. “First, we have to give Roadkill stuff so she can write her answer down.” I stuck the piece of paper in Roadkill's mouth, then used the eraser end of the pencil like a ramrod to jam it down her throat.

Jenny Chalder said “Don't hurt her!"

And I said, “You think that hurts, watch this!” Then I took the pencil and strugglingly pushed it all the way in Roadkill's mouth. Kids squealed and laughed, in that order.

"Okay,” I said, “Roadkill has paper and pencil. She's ready to predict which name we pick out of the phonebook. So now we have to pick the name. Mr. Liss, call on someone."

"Why?” asked Mr. Liss. His brain was working overtime, trying with all its might to figure out the trick.

"So everyone will know I'm not cheating. Everyone knows you would never help me."

"You got that right.” He scanned the room, then villainously smiled. “Okay. Jenny Chalder."

Everyone oohed. Perfect choice.

"Okay. Jenny, say a three-digit number."

She scrunched her face at me. “What's a three-whatever number?"

"Pick a number between 100 and 999, Jenny,” Mr. Liss explained.

She scrunched her face again and said, “I don't know. 1-2-3."

I said, “Okay, one-hundred and twenty-three. Mr. Liss, can you go to the board to do some math for us?"

Still suspicious, he asked, “Why don't you have a student do it?"

"Because kids are always messing up math, and the trick won't work if the math is wrong."

He went to the board. I said, “Okay, please write 123 on the board.” He did. “Okay, now reverse it and write down that number.” He wrote 321. “Okay, subtract 123 from 321.” That gave us 198. “Okay, reverse that number.” He did; 891. “Okay, what's 198 plus 891?” He did the math: 1089.

"Okay,” I said. “That means we go to page 108 in the phone book and go down to the ninth name. Can you find that, Mr. Liss? Don't tell us what it is. Just find it."

Mr. Liss went to the phone book, opened it to page 108, and dragged his finger until he got to the ninth name. “Got it,” he said.

I picked up Roadkill and said, “Okay. Roadkill's going to give us the answer now.” I put Roadkill over my shoulder like I was burping a baby and patted her on the back. “Okay, she's got it!” I said, and brought her over to Jenny Chalder's desk. “Okay, Jenny, reach in to Roadkill's mouth and pull out the answer she wrote down."

She flared her nostrils. “I ain't putting my finger in no dead cat's mouth."

Instantly the class exploded in yells and boos. Two cannonballs of paper bounced off Jenny's head. Our resident bully, Willie Toomer, got up from his desk and made like he was going to whale on her right there, but Mr. Liss made him sit down again.

Jenny was so intimidated she said “This thing better not bite me” and stuck her finger in Roadkill's mouth and hooked out a slip of paper. “Okay. Read what the paper says to the class, Jenny,” I said.

Jenny was having trouble with the last name; she practiced a few times to herself, mouthing the syllables like a dying fish gasping for air. Finally she said: “Rosa Ber-to-li-ni."

"That's impossible!” said Mr. Liss, charging for Jenny Chalder's desk. When he got there, he said, “Let me see that,” and snatched the piece of paper out of her hands. He read it over several times, flipped it over, rubbed it between his fingers, even smelled it.

The whole class waited for his judgment. One kid fell out of his desk, he was leaning forward so far. Finally, quietly, he said, “It's not even your handwriting, Salvador.” And then he smiled. “The cat got it right, children! The name in the phonebook is Rosa Bertolini!"

Children shot out of their desks and formed two circles: one around Mr. Liss and the phonebook, where he happily showed them Rosa Bertolini's name, and another around me and Roadkill. They asked me over and over if she was really a magic cat. Over and over I said, “Yes."

That moment remains my second best childhood memory. I walked from the bus stop with Roadkill under my arm, thinking that maybe I would be a magician when I grew up. But, as I walked up the driveway to my house, I could feel that something wasn't right. My chest suddenly felt like I had swallowed a beehive. As I got closer, I thought I saw the house ... waver. Like a mirage. And then, like any good mirage, it became solid again, reasserted its reality.

There were voices coming from the house. One was Papi's. He was shouting. Papi never raised his voice about anything anymore. And there was someone else in the house shouting at him. In Spanish. A woman.

I walked in. There was Papi, in the living room. “It's just a stuffed cat...” he was saying.

But Mami interrupted him.
"?No te atrevas hablarme en ingles!"
she screamed.

Then they both saw me. They went quiet, just like they always used to when I caught them fighting.

I looked from Mami, to Papi, to Mami, to Papi. He shot me a look that said,
She's in one of her moods. Don't say anything to make her angry
.

Mami came over to me, knelt so she was at eye level, hugged and kissed me.
"Ay, mi hijito,"
she said.
"?Como te fue la escuela?"

Her eyes were less green than I remembered. They were more of a hazel that went green the closer the irises got to the pupils. “Good,” I said. “I did magic today."

She laughed. “Do no' tal' to jour Mami
en ingles,
” she said. “Tal' to her
en español. ?Hiciste magia hoy?
"

"Si."

"?Y te fue bien?"

"Si."

"Que bueno,"
she said, and impressed another kiss on my forehead.
"Pero tenemos que hablar seriamente de algo."

I didn't quite follow. My Spanish was rusty. Papi said, “She wants to talk to you."

Mami shot him a look that said
I know how to talk to my own son
. Papi put his hands up, took a step back. Mami looked at me again, sweetly.
"?Sal, por que estes andando con ese gato negro?"

I understood “cat” and “black” and deduced she meant Roadkill. “It's for...” I started, but then, catching the look on her face, tried Spanish:
"Es ... por ... magia."

She patted my head.
"'Para.' Es para la magia,"
she corrected.
"?Pero por que tienes que usar un gato negro? ?No sabes que ese es symbolo del Diablo?"

I couldn't follow her. I couldn't understand my mother. I said in English, “I don't know.” And I added, sotto voce, “I can't understand you."

She looked at Papi. This time she wasn't angry; she looked worried.
"?Que le pasa?"

"Nada mas que necesita un poco de practica con el español, mi vida,"
said Papi.

"?Practica?"
said Mami. She looked more confused than I did.
"?Mi hijo necesita practica en español? Yo le habl? esta mañana, y le dije que dejara ese maldito gato aqu” en la casa, y ?l me dijo, ‘Si Mami' como un niño bueno, y me entendia perfectamente."

She was getting pissed again. She stood up to face Papi, looking glorious and powerful and unmistakably alive.
"Pero me desobedecia, por que
tu
le diste permiso a traer ese gato endiablado para hacer magia negra. ?Y ahora tu me vas a decir en cara que el no me puede entender?"

Papi stumbled out the beginnings of a response, but she cut him off:
"?No quiero la magia negra en esta casa!"

She charged for the door to the house, then turned one more time to Papi.
"Voy a dar una vuelta por el barrio. ?Cuando yo regreso, si ese gato no este en la basura, se va a formar el titingo!"
Then she looked at me. Her face was both soft and stern; she pointed at me and said, tenderly,
"El titingo."
Then she walked out of the door.

The beehive in my chest stopped buzzing. I turned back to Papi. “Papi?” I asked.

He knelt so we were eye to eye and put a hand on my shoulder. “I don't know, Sal,” he said. Then he looked past me, at the door, and started carpet-bombing the carpet with his tears. “We'll just have to wait and see."

We stood for a long time, hands on each other's shoulders, watching the door. But she never came home.

"Salvador, is your father okay?” asked Mrs. Dravlin. I mean, Ms. Anbow. She had gotten divorced last year, much to the delight of the fifth-grade boys who were just coming into their first erections.