An Appetite for Miracles Read online

  I want to tell her,

  I don’t care.

  When Mrs. Choi

  hands me back

  a failed test,

  I want to tell her,

  I don’t care.

  When Mr. Rodriguez

  asks me

  to stay after school,

  I want to scream,

  I don’t care.

  I don’t care.

  I don’t care.

  I don’t.

  But then I think about

  that five-minute phone call.

  Mom’s questions.

  My answers.

  I have to give her answers.

  So I take the test

  and fix my mistakes.

  And I meet Mr. Rodriguez

  after school

  to practice

  balancing chemical equations,

  pretending

  the elements

  are all the things

  outside of my control.

  My life

  in numbers and letters

  stacked wrong,

  so close to

  combustible.

  Until Mr. Rodriguez

  moves a symbol

  here,

  a symbol

  there,

  showing me

  how to

  make things right.

  “You’re getting it,”

  he says.

  And for a split

  second,

  I wish

  I cared.

  That I could get it.

  That I could make things right.

  That it would matter.

  Safe

  For some reason

  Manny chooses

  to brave

  the cafeteria

  every day for lunch.

  It is a cesspool,

  a lion’s den,

  the ninth circle of hell.

  But he says

  they have good

  nachos.

  I wouldn’t know.

  I brown-bag it:

  a plain cheese quesadilla

  burn marks

  from where I leave it

  too long

  on the comal

  while I brush my teeth.

  After I transferred,

  I followed Manny

  that first day

  to the back of the line,

  the smell of

  canned cheese

  turning

  my stomach,

  as I looked

  out

  on a pack of wolves.

  But where I saw

  snarls and

  glinting canines

  ready to swallow

  me whole,

  Manny saw

  mouths

  primed for laughter;

  an expectant audience.

  On Sundays,

  he’s always trying to

  steal the show

  with drum solos,

  and flailing arms.

  At school,

  he is the show,

  telling

  the kinds of jokes

  only teachers find funny

  and then impersonating

  those teachers behind their backs

  while the other students

  laugh hysterically,

  phones out

  catching

  every exaggerated gesture

  and quintessential catchphrase.

  While he has them

  rolling,

  I roll out

  to a shady spot

  in the courtyard

  to eat my quesadilla

  in peace.

  All day

  I lug

  my guitar

  around

  on my back,

  waiting for the

  thirty minutes at lunch

  when I can

  work out

  a new chord

  progression,

  toy with

  a new melody

  that’s been

  stuck

  in my head

  for days.

  The first day,

  people pointed;

  some laughed.

  The next day,

  they took

  a closer look

  at my beat-up

  guitar,

  face scratched,

  and said,

  “What happened?

  Did you drop it

  in the Rio Grande?”

  Something the kids

  at my old school

  never would have said

  (instead, they would have

  clowned on me

  for never even having

  been to Mexico;

  for mangling the language

  como un pocho).

  But when they took

  my mom,

  my school changed too.

  Everything changed.

  Except

  this.

  My callused fingers

  gripping

  the neck of my guitar,

  the tinny sounds,

  vibrations

  waking up

  my skin.

  Without it,

  I’m sleepwalking,

  but

  inside

  those sounds,

  I’m safe.

  Masks

  The flea market

  was packed

  with tables of ceramics

  and bootleg DVDs;

  winter coats with the security tags still on them,

  old tools and textiles and tajin-covered fruit—

  plastic bags full of it

  that Mom wouldn’t

  let me hold

  because my hands

  were too small.

  Even though

  all they wanted to do

  was touch things.

  The soft cobijas

  that I pretended

  were real tiger fur.

  The pocketknives

  in leather holders

  with Bible verses

  embossed on the side.

  The squishy conchas

  stacked high in clear plastic bags.

  My mother’s hand.

  I circled her

  like a fly

  and when she swatted

  me away

  I disappeared down

  the aisles,

  each row like

  the entrance to its own

  little world.

  Worlds where I could be

  Wolverine running from the Texas Rangers

  or Zorro avenging my wife’s murder

  or a gun-slinging outlaw robbing a bank.

  Masks I tried on

  over and over and over again

  until Señor Velasco

  snatched me up by the shirt

  for running inside

  and I looked behind him

  and saw a giant wall

  of tiny guitars.

  Perfect

  for my small hands.

  And it was like they knew,

  reaching before I could

  even ask permission.

  It was like they knew

  we’d fit.

  Señor Velasco noticed it too,

  handing me the instrument.

  He adjusted my fingers,

  showing me how

  to hold down the strings.

  How to make them sing

  with a single strum.

  When Mom finally found me

  she was screaming and crying and thanking God

  that I was safe.

  As she dragged me

  through the parking lot

  and back to the car

  I screamed and cried

  just as loud.

  And I didn’t stop.

  I cried all the way home.

  I cried in between bites of Hamburger Helper.

  I cried in the bath while Mo
m tried to keep the shampoo out of my eyes.

  I cried through bedtime prayers

  before screaming into my pillow

  after she’d closed the door.

  I cried

  for the world

  I finally belonged in;

  for the mask

  that finally fit.

  The One

  The next day

  Mom was late

  and I sat on the steps

  with my first grade

  teacher Ms. Pham

  while the parking

  lot emptied

  and the sun started

  to sink behind

  the clouds.

  When she finally

  pulled up

  her makeup was smudged,

  her eyes dark.

  She kissed me

  without a word

  and that’s when

  I noticed the bruise,

  purple

  and

  angry

  like something painted on.

  Another mask.

  Except when she tried to smile

  and it didn’t quite reach

  her eyes. When she winced

  I knew

  it was real.

  We drove in silence

  until the car slowed

  in the flea market parking lot.

  Just as the stall owners

  were closing their doors.

  We ran,

  Mom holding my hand

  the whole way

  until we reached

  Señor Velasco’s stall.

  He looked up,

  surprised to see us.

  Then Mom finally spoke.

  “Which one, mijo?”

  She dug in her purse

  for her wallet,

  pulling out

  a clump of wadded bills.

  Señor Velasco

  looked down at me.

  Then he looked at Mom.

  He closed her hand,

  pushing the money away,

  before reaching

  for one of the little guitars,

  and saying, “I know just the one.”

  Armor

  Mr. Rodriguez

  is waiting for me

  after school.

  “Glad you could

  make it.” He smiles

  and I almost

  let it disarm me.

  But then I remember

  where I am,

  tugging

  my armor

  tight.

  “Thanks for helping me,”

  I say, because I know

  what adults want to hear.

  I hand over my homework

  and he starts to scribble,

  his red pen

  crisscrossing

  until the whole thing

  is drenched.

  A massacre of mistakes.

  He looks up at me,

  searching.

  He sighs. “We’ve gone

  over these, Raúl.

  You’ve been coming in

  for tutorials

  for weeks. A few days ago

  you were really

  making progress.”

  I shrug, not meeting his eyes.

  “Is something else going on?”

  he asks,

  the words

  like an arrow

  aimed straight

  for the only

  chink in my armor.

  Something, I think.

  More like

  everything.

  And nothing.

  My head

  both

  empty and

  bursting at the seams.

  “I just don’t get it,”

  I say,

  because it’s true.

  “You know,” he says,

  his voice changing,

  shrinking,

  “when I was your age

  my father went to prison.

  Armed robbery.

  He was locked up

  for ten years.”

  He kneads his hands,

  like the memories

  still make him

  cold.

  “Missed

  my high school graduation

  and my college graduation

  and the birth of my first son.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “I’m not telling you

  for your sympathy, Raúl.

  I’m telling you

  because I know.

  I know how hard it is

  to focus on school,

  to think about anything

  else.”

  I just nod.

  “But all of this is temporary.”

  He turns my homework

  facedown on his desk.

  “And one day

  your mother

  is going to come home.”

  He pauses,

  waiting for me

  to meet his eyes.

  “Who will you be

  when that happens?”

  Danna

  Third Period

  Six months ago,

  when the clock ticked

  to 12:50

  my heart would leap

  into

  my

  throat.

  Because I knew

  Yeong Kim,

  captain

  of the basketball team,

  DECA president,

  and the only boy

  I have ever loved

  would be

  sitting

  in the desk

  right next to me.

  Elbow partners.

  Soul mates.

  One day,

  I was going to

  show him

  one

  of my poems.

  And not the ones

  Mrs. Maldonado

  makes us write

  to show

  we understand

  where to break

  the line,

  where to splice

  the comma.

  But the ones I write

  to show

  I don’t understand

  a thing.

  Except, maybe

  how to take

  ugly things and

  make them pretty,

  how to scream

  with a single word.

  How to paint

  the face

  of a boy

  in em dashes

  and semicolons

  who

  doesn’t even know

  I exist

  outside the walls

  of this classroom.

  In the minutes and seconds and hours

  between school days, between class periods.

  I thought about taking the poem

  and tucking it

  under his notebook,

  slipping it into his locker,

  maybe even

  dropping

  it in his backpack.

  I imagined him finding it there,

  reading it,

  that goofy smile

  on his face,

  knowing

  from the first

  line

  that it was my pen,

  my bleeding heart on the page.

  Me.

  But that was six months ago.

  Before Mrs. Maldonado

  gave me a pass to the office.

  Before I saw Papi

  still in his coveralls from work

  because Mami was

  already at the hospital.

  Before I saw Grandpa

  held

  down

  by straps,

  shivering and

  scared.

  Before the doctor said the word

  dementia.

  That was six months ago.

  And now I sit

  in the far corner

  of the room,

  tensing

  ever
y time

  the door opens,

  every time

  one of the aides

  hands Mrs. Maldonado

  a note,

  every time

  she scans

  the room,

  her eyes

  almost

  landing

  like an X

  on my face.

  Now my elbow partner is Naomi Duncan,

  who tries hard

  to make me laugh.

  And Yeong Kim

  asked

  another girl

  to homecoming.

  A Haiku about Math

  Hell is a math class.

  We’re always solving for X

  but no one knows Y.

  Rescue

  In fourth period

  when one of the aides

  hands a pass

  to Mr. Nguyen

  I know

  it’s for me.

  But there are no

  heart palpitations

  or sweaty palms.

  Instead,

  I try to hide

  my smile

  as I pack my things