Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish Read online

  “I’m just up ahead there,” he says, pointing to a two-story building close to Main Street.

  “That’s your house?” I ask him.

  “Nah, that’s where my mom works,” he says. “She’s a tax attor—”

  “Thought you wanted me to take you home?”

  “It’ll save you some time if I just go there. You have to get back to school to pick up your brother, right?”

  He points down the street. I nod.

  “I’ve seen you guys walking home together,” he says. “You live close by?”

  I nod again. I’m kind of shocked he knows this.

  “Maybe we can hang out? The three of us. Like a playdate or something.”

  “I don’t do playdates.”

  “Right, well, thanks for walking me,” he says.

  “You can pay me half, then. For walking you halfway.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says.

  “If I drop you off here, it’s half. No free money.”

  He agrees. He starts to leave, but before he goes inside, I stop him.

  “Hey.”

  He turns to face me.

  “What’s your name?” I ask him.

  He looks around as if I was speaking to someone else.

  “Um, Danny,” he says. “It’s Danny.”

  I nod and take off.

  * * *

  I finish my homework at 4:55. I leave my office in the library and walk out to the reception area. Ms. Mary, the librarian, waves at me and I nod at her. She smiles with her whole face. It’s the kind of smile that makes you smile back even if you weren’t in the mood before. She asks me if I was able to finish everything.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “I’m glad,” she says. “Hey, Marcus?”

  I stop and wait.

  “How’s your brother doing?”

  “Good,” I say.

  “How’s he adjusting to life in middle school?”

  “Seems to like it,” I say. “I think.”

  “Good. If you need anything, you know I’m here,” she says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Good night,” I tell her.

  I walk to my locker and grab my things. My brother’s therapist has an office next to the principal’s. From behind me, a voice booms in my ear.

  “Hi, Marcus!”

  It’s my brother, Charlie.

  “Hey, buddy,” I say, patting him on the shoulder. “I was just coming to get you. How was therapy?”

  “Good. Smile! You promised.”

  I do my best.

  “No. This is a smile. See?”

  He grins and reveals a row of crooked teeth. He squeezes his eyes shut, causing his glasses to slide down the bridge of his nose. His brown top hat almost falls off his head. He snags it before it does, and places it carefully back on. This hat is basically part of my brother’s school uniform. It’s a replica Willy Wonka hat from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The one starring Gene Wilder. He loves that movie.

  “Try again,” he says.

  I curl my lips higher.

  “Better,” he says, and hugs me.

  “Ready to go home?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  I finish putting my books away and close my locker. Charlie pats me on the forearm and walks with me down the halls. He’s about a foot shorter than I am. He smiles at the few students left in school as we pass them. He knows kids’ names and makes it a point to call out to them.

  “Hey, Tom! What’s up, man?”

  “Oh, hey, Charlie. Not much. Thanks.”

  He shakes Tom’s hand and smiles brightly. Then he goes to another kid and waves.

  “Hey, Christy! Cool shirt! Heart emoji. I have the sunglasses one! I am slick,” he says, and mimics slicking back his hair.

  He laughs and Christy responds with an awkward grin.

  “Dude, don’t say stuff like that,” I tell him, moving him along.

  “Why not? I do. I am slick. Ha!”

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  My brother keeps high-fiving students as we head outside. They return the high fives but don’t really look at him, or me, for too long. Kids just prefer not to pay attention to us unless they have to.

  It took a lot to get my brother into Montgomery Middle. There were parents who weren’t thrilled about having a kid with Down syndrome in classes with other kids. Stephen’s mom seemed to be the loudest opponent.

  In the end, a large national association stepped in and put pressure on the school district to let him attend. There was already a special education class in the school, but Charlie became the first kid with Down syndrome to attend Montgomery Middle.

  Principal Jenkins sent a letter home to every student’s family saying it was the right of all children to receive a public education. My brother is in a few general education classes like PE and art and stuff, and he spends the rest of the school day in special education classes with kids who have different kinds of learning disabilities. He sees a speech therapist three times a week and an occupational therapist two times a week. I do most of my homework during his sessions.

  “This way,” Charlie says, leading us home.

  My brother never forgets a place after he’s been there once. He never gets lost.

  “Man, we’ve walked this route a thousand times. I know that.”

  “Just checking.” He looks at his watch. “You are going slow.”

  “No, I’m not,” I tell him. “Hey, man, why don’t you take off the Wonka hat and put your beanie on? It’s getting cold.”

  “No. I want this hat. Because . . . ?”

  “You love Willy Wonka.”

  “Yes!”

  He starts singing as we walk.

  “Don’t sing it so fast,” I tell him, tying a scarf around his neck. “I can’t understand the lyrics when you do that.”

  He smiles and closes his eyes while he sings, stretching his arms wide and twirling around.

  “Man, you’re going to get run over by a car! Open your eyes.”

  He stops and looks at me. His glasses have slipped to the bridge of his nose again. He pokes my chest and leans so close that I can see his breath in the cold air.

  “You are not fun.”

  I smack the top hat down and cover his eyes. “You’re no fun,” I tell him.

  “No, you are no fun,” he says, lifting the hat back onto his head.

  “Man, fix your glasses. You look like a mad scientist.”

  He cracks up. Then he pushes his glasses back into place and makes a wacky face. I put my arm around his shoulders and he puts his arm around my waist.

  We cross the large intersection, and the neighborhood starts to change. The houses get smaller. Closer together. We live on the corner in a little brown house that’s about five blocks from the train station and forty-five minutes from the big city. It was my grandparents’ house before they passed away. I take my brother’s hand as we cross another street.

  “Come on, buddy,” I tell him. The last rays of sun disappear behind us as we walk on this chilly evening.

  THREE

  PURE IMAGINATION

  I’ve lived in this house since I was two. I was born in Puerto Rico, where my dad’s from, but I don’t remember even the slightest thing about it. Charlie was born here in Springfield. He’s never lived or been anywhere else.

  The rest of the houses around here have a fence, but not our little brown house. Just a stone driveway that leads to a side entrance, where a rickety door always gives me trouble. I have to jam it a few times before it pops open. We walk in and take our shoes off in the mudroom. Charlie immediately runs upstairs.

  “Hey, man, take your backpack with you.”

  “You bring it!” he yells from the top of the stairs.

&
nbsp; I grab his backpack and walk up to his room. When I open his door, he’s already in movie mode.

  “Did you do your homework?”

  Charlie ignores me and keeps messing with the remote control to get his movie to start playing.

  “Yo, Mr. Wonka, did you hear me?”

  He shoos me away.

  “Seriously, Charlie,” I tell him, bringing his backpack to his bed. “You’re in middle school now. You gotta get your work done before you start watching stuff.”

  “I did it,” he says, not looking at me.

  “Really?”

  “Yes! Go away.”

  I check his backpack and pull out his binder. I open his homework tab and check through the assignments. His handwriting has gotten way better, thanks to Grace. There are a few misspelled words, but it looks like he’s doing pretty well. I check his math. He got all of it done. I see the last assignment is a book report. It’s on Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

  “You’re reading it in class?”

  “Yep,” he says, still not looking.

  “That’s awesome, man.” It’s cool his teacher is trying to challenge him with the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

  “How do you like it?”

  “Good,” he says.

  “Cool. Wanna tell me about it?”

  “No,” he replies. “Go away. It is my relax time.”

  He shoos me off again, and this time I listen. On my way out, I pass the five-foot Stormtrooper cardboard cutout that he won shooting free throws at the town’s Fourth of July festival last summer. Before I could tell him to let me shoot the ball, he clutched it in his left hand, kept his right smoothly on the side of the ball, and launched it in a perfect spin toward the hoop.

  Nothing but net.

  I remember the people behind me cheered and congratulated him. Charlie kept his left hand in the air with his wrist bent for emphasis. He had just made a basket and he wanted the guy at the booth to know it.

  It was pretty awesome.

  “Good shot, kid,” he said, handing Charlie the Stormtrooper. “Wanna try your luck with another one?”

  “Nah,” Charlie said. “I swished one in your face.”

  My brother, the smack-talker.

  I throw my backpack into my room and go downstairs to the kitchen. My mom left a note on the fridge. She works at the ticketing counter for a big airline at Philadelphia International Airport. Her commute is long, so I usually take care of the stuff at home.

  Hey, hon,

  They asked me to cover gate assignments, so (ugh) gonna be late.

  Hopefully not later than eight. (Fingers crossed there aren’t delays!)

  I left some food in the fridge.

  Please make sure Charlie bathes. And tell him to wear his bathrobe! It’s supposed to drop down to the twenties tonight. And text me if there’s an emergency. Or if you just want to talk. ☺

  I love you both.

  Go team go ☺

  My mom ends every note with Go team go. She calls my brother and me her all-star team.

  She’s been working at the airline for over ten years. She started off as a reservations associate, then moved to gate agent after Charlie was born. Mom wants to get her business degree so she can get promoted, earn more money, and have a better schedule. I think she feels guilty that she works morning shifts and sometimes has to work at night and doesn’t get to see us. She leaves long notes about how much she loves us and how she’s going to get a promotion and take us on vacation and all that. She’s always stressing.

  I take out my earnings for the day and put them on the kitchen counter. I count out fourteen dollars. Not bad for a day’s work. I walk over to the Cookie Monster jar and drop in the cash. My mom calls it our Cookie Monster Cash. She adds whatever change and loose singles she has, but she doesn’t know I do too. She thinks the money she’s dropping in is just adding up.

  Last spring my brother and I came home from hanging out at the playground and found the entire bottom floor of the house flooded. A leaky pipe had dripped water all day and messed up the carpets. When the repair guy came, he said it was going to cost over three hundred dollars to fix the pipe. My mom asked the guy if he could fix the leak now and she would pay him at the end of the week when she got her paycheck. The guy said he’d only agree if he could take her out on a date.

  We had a leaky pipe for a week. Charlie loved it. He splashed around, acting like he was a pirate on a sinking ship. We decided to create the Cookie Monster Cash relief jar so we could have cash in case of emergencies. Soon after, I started my businesses at school, and I’ve been secretly adding cash to the jar ever since. Our heating unit busted right at the start of winter, and luckily we had enough to pay for it without my mom having to deal with another creepy guy.

  I close the cash jar and open the refrigerator. I don’t know why my mom insists on leaving peanut butter in there. She says it can go bad, but all it does is get hard and impossible to spread. I scoop out a lump of peanut butter and dump it into a bowl. I grab some honey from the cupboard and squeeze it in. I pop it into the microwave and set it for thirty seconds. The beeping echoes through the house, and I hear Charlie crawling under the table and moving between the chairs.

  “I know you’re under the table,” I tell him, watching the microwave warm up my peanut butter. “You think you’re slick, trying to sneak up on me?”

  He’s giggling, but I don’t turn around. The microwave beeps a few times when it’s done, and I take out the bowl, throw a few Ritz Crackers in, and grab a spoon. I walk toward the dinner table, knowing Charlie is under there and ready to pounce. By now he’s laughing so hard, he can barely contain himself. He would be the worst undercover agent ever.

  I look under the table, but he’s not there. I hear footsteps in the kitchen. I hear him trying to sneak up behind me. With every step, he gets closer and giggles louder. Right when he’s inches from pouncing, he holds his breath and I can see from the reflection of the plates hanging in the dining room that he’s crouching down and about to leap. He gets ready to spring.

  “AHHHH!!!!”

  He jumps behind me and my chair tilts forward.

  “Yo! You’re gonna knock me down, man!” I say, putting the bowl of peanut butter on the table.

  When I stand, he dives for my legs and clings to my knees. I buckle and fall to the floor. Charlie climbs up to my shoulders and digs his hands into my sides, trying to tickle me.

  “I got you, Marcus!”

  He knows my tickle spot and digs his fingers in relentlessly.

  “Hey, man, that really tickles!” I squirm around, laughing as he continues to move his fingers right under my shoulder. I roll over and flatten him on the ground.

  “Ahhh!!! You’re . . . uuu . . .” He lies flat on the ground, completely still.

  I quickly get up, thinking he can’t breathe. His eyes are closed.

  “Hey, man. You okay? You okay, buddy?”

  He doesn’t move. I start feeling nervous. I check his face and it’s still. I’m about a hundred pounds heavier than he is. He’s probably out of breath. I put my head down to his chest to check his breathing. He had heart surgery when he was an infant. The doctor says he’s fine now, but it still worries me sometimes. I check his heartbeat. When I do, he sneak attacks me, jamming his fingers under my armpit and wiggling them.

  “GOTCHA!!!”

  He moves with expert speed, and I can’t help tumbling to the floor, cracking up. He jumps on top of me and continues to tickle.

  “Mercy, mercy!” I say, trying to stop laughing.

  “Who is your master?”

  “You are!” I tell him as he continues to tickle. “You are!”

  “WHO. IS. YOUR. MASTER?!”

  I can’t stop laughing. The more I do, the more powerless I am. He tota
lly got me.

  “You. Please, Charlie. Please! Mercy! Mercy!”

  He finally stops and stands up, his two hands in fists resting at his sides. He smiles triumphantly and reaches a hand out to help me. I take it and roll up to standing, using him for balance.

  “You got me good, Charlie. You got me real good.”

  “Yep,” he says, going to the table to scoop some peanut butter from my bowl.

  “Did you do your homework?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I tell him.

  “Watch Wonka with me.”

  “Thought you wanted to watch it alone.”

  “Come with me and you see . . . in pure imagination!” he says, trying to sing the song.

  “Why don’t we change it up a little? Let’s watch Hulk.”

  “I watch Hulk every day.”

  “What?”

  “You’re the Hulk and I tickle him!”

  Charlie goes for my armpits again, but he can’t reach when I’m standing. I pretend to laugh, but he knows it doesn’t tickle me for real.

  “I will get you when you are sleeping,” he says, and puts two fingers to his eyes then points at me. Then he laughs and hugs me. I put my arm around him and hug him back.

  “All right, we can watch Wonka again, but you have to take a bath. Mom says.”

  Charlie slumps over and grunts his disapproval. “I get water in my ears.”

  “I know, man, but do like I told you, cup your hands over your ears when you get water in them and then pump the water out.”

  Charlie copies the motion I make with my hands and pumps his ears.

  “Go, and then we’ll watch the movie and eat dinner.”

  He doesn’t move.

  “Come on, man. Don’t you want to watch Wonka?”

  He still doesn’t move. This is one of the things Charlie does when he doesn’t want to do something. He just stays still. But it’s only because he’s thinking about it. He wants to be convinced that what I’m asking of him is worth it. I respect that.

  “Okay, I’ll make sure you don’t get water in your ears when you take a bath.”

  He thinks about it for a minute. When he sees me walking over to the bathroom, he starts to follow. He waits outside in the hall and watches as I crouch down to turn on the water and fill the tub. I move my mom’s stuff to the bathroom sink and make room for Charlie to sit. I squeeze some body wash into the tub and move my hand around the bottom until bubbles start forming.