Marcelo in the Real World Read online

  To the right as you drive in are playing fields of various sizes and shapes. Large oaks and elms line the edge of these fields so that in the summer you can walk around the edge and never leave the shade. In back of the playing fields are the stables and the riding tracks.

  Aurora parks the car in the parking lot closest to the stables and we get out. Jane, one of the therapists, is leading Gambolino and a little girl I don’t recognize around the oval track.

  The larger circular track is empty. When summer session starts in a few days, the tracks will be bustling with instructors, therapists, kids, and volunteers. The day will start at eight and go until six in the evening. I see Harry in front of the barn, waving at us.

  “Come, I want to show you something!” he yells. I begin to run. Aurora speeds up. I already know what he wants to show me so I run past him into the barn. Inside one of the stalls is a newly born pony sucking from the teat of his mother, Frieda.

  “He was born yesterday in the middle of the night. Didn’t even have to call the vet. Out he came, easy as the morning sun.”

  “He is sooo beautiful,” Aurora says.

  I am stunned. I have seen newly born Haflinger ponies before but this one is…sweet. Sweeter than sweet.

  “I wanted to call you last night so you could be here, but he came so sudden. When I checked at eleven all was fine. Frieda was breathing a little heavy, but I thought for sure the pony was a week or so away like the vet said. Then at midnight, I hear some barking and it’s Romulus telling me something’s up, and there’s the little fellow halfway out, headfirst and all.”

  Romulus is the German shepherd that my uncle Hector gave to Paterson. He is sitting down next to Frieda’s stall, guarding the little fellow. Romulus and I look at each other until he winks at me with both eyes.

  “Have you named him yet?” Aurora asks.

  “Oh gosh. The kids named him ever since we mated Fred and Frieda. Following with the general Prussian theme, it will be Fritzy. It would have been Fredricka had he been a she.”

  “Fritzy,” I say out loud.

  “I would have preferred something more like Shanny, short for Shannon.”

  “Good Irish name,” Aurora said.

  “But Haflingers are originally from Prussia. The Amish use them in America,” I point out.

  “And as good a working horse as any and better than most. They’ll plow your field all day long and into the night. Perfect for these kids, with their backs broad enough for easy balancing and their centers low to the ground.”

  “May I sit with Frieda a while?” I ask.

  “You may,” Harry answers quickly. “She is still a little under the weather. It will do her good to have you next to her.”

  I open the door to the stall and go in softly and I sit near where Frieda is lying down, her knees folded. Fritzy is looking for another teat to suck. I sit close enough to her head to touch her but I don’t touch her. There’s no need to touch animals unless they ask you to do so by the various ways that they communicate: by coming to you, or by lifting their heads toward you, or by the way they look at you. I close my eyes and fold my arms and breathe the smell of hay and of Fritzy. In the distance I hear Aurora ask Harry if she can talk to him for a few minutes.

  On the drive home, I sense that something unhappy is about to happen and my mind is trying to find the source of this foreboding. Aurora asks if I’m okay and she’s waiting for a response but I ignore her question and remain silent. Aurora doesn’t ask again. She knows that if I want to, I will speak in my own time.

  We are halfway home and now I have identified what this strange feeling feels like. It is like when you are going down a staircase in the dark and you don’t know where the last step is. I have also managed to pinpoint the origins of the feeling. I remember Aurora telling Dr. Malone that Arturo wants me to attend Oak Ridge High for my senior year. I remember her pause in the middle of a sentence when we were talking about working at the stables. I remember Aurora asking Harry if she could talk to him for a few minutes. I notice so many details of what is happening and remember just about all that I notice, even though sometimes it seems as if I am not paying attention. What is hard is interpreting all the details that hit my brain at once. But sometimes I can do that. Like right now. What I gather from all that I have noticed is that my plans for next year are about to change.

  When we are almost home, Aurora says, “Are you remembering?”

  “Remembering” is the word that Aurora and I use to refer to those moments when I am listening to the IM or reciting in my mind a passage from one of the many holy books I like to read. When I was a child and prone to tantrums, Aurora would ask me to go someplace quiet and remember. Listening to the IM or reciting Scripture helped to calm me down. Now I choose on my own to “remember,” whether I am upset or not. The fact that she asked me if I was remembering must mean that she knows something is bothering me.

  After a while I tell Aurora, “Father is wrong.”

  “I haven’t heard you refer to your father as ‘Father’ in a long time. What is Father wrong about?”

  “About going to Oak Ridge High next year. I know that’s what you are reluctant to tell me. Paterson is where Marcelo belongs. There I will learn to be independent like Arturo wants me to be. There is where I am learning to function just like he wants Marcelo to function.”

  “He wants to talk to you when we get home. Be open to what he has to say. Perhaps he is right.”

  “I am open. I have thought about it more than you know. But he is not right about taking Marcelo out of Paterson.”

  “He was not in favor of you attending Paterson, but you have been there since first grade. He objected to your visits with Rabbi Heschel, but you have been seeing her every other week for five years now. He didn’t approve of the sessions with Dr. Malone. He didn’t want you living in the tree house either. Yet he allowed you to do all those things despite his misgivings.”

  “He was wrong about the benefit to Marcelo of all of those as well.”

  “What I am suggesting is that maybe it is your turn to trust his way. At least be open to it. Just listen to him with trust. Do you trust your father? Do you trust that he wants what is best for you?”

  “Trust” is one of those abstract words that is hard for me to understand. Here I can substitute the word “believe” for “trust” and it seems to work. Do I believe that my father wants what is best for me?

  “Yes,” I say. “But he is wrong nevertheless.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I get out of the car and head for the back door. I see Arturo in the backyard grilling steaks. I hoped to enter the house without him seeing me. I am not ready for the discussion that I know will take place and I need more time to anticipate his questions and memorize my replies. But Aurora yells at him from the back door.

  “Sorry we’re late. We got stuck in traffic.”

  He answers her without turning around. “I didn’t see any dinner cooking, so I thought I’d grill something.”

  “I’ll make the salad,” Aurora tells him, and goes in the house.

  I am about to go in when Arturo speaks. “Marcelo, can I talk to you?”

  I walk as slowly as I can. Arturo is stabbing the red meat with a giant fork.

  “Not done yet,” he says. He closes the black lid to the grill and sits on one of the white iron chairs. “Sit down for a minute.” He pulls out a chair. “How was Dr. Malone?”

  “He was well.” I’m still standing. I’m looking at the red needle of the thermometer attached to the grill. It is moving past three hundred degrees.

  “Marcelo,” I hear him call. He is holding a goblet half-filled with ruby-colored wine. I know Arturo is not fond of my visits to Dr. Malone’s office. He believes the tests imply there is something wrong with me, which he does not think is the case. “So, what did the good doctor do to you this time?”

  “The brain was scanned while Marcelo listened to music.”

  “Try saying that again.
”

  “My brain was scanned while I listened to music.” I remind myself not to refer to myself in the third person. Also, I must remember not to call him Arturo.

  “Thank you. Is that right? Real music or the kind you alone can hear?”

  Talking about the IM, I have learned, makes Arturo nervous. I attempt to change the subject. “After Dr. Malone we went to see the newborn pony at Paterson.”

  “That’s good. But you didn’t answer my question.”

  There is no chance of ever changing the subject with Arturo. “Real music,” I answer. It is not a lie. The IM is as real as any other kind.

  “How long will these visits go for?”

  “They last about an hour.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, how much longer are these experiments or observations going to go on?” Before I can answer, he says, “I have a proposition that I want to discuss with you.”

  I feel my chest begin to tighten. “I am not going to Oak Ridge High.” I can hear my voice tremble as I say this.

  Arturo’s face turns serious. I brace myself. I know how Arturo can switch from father to lawyer in an instant. The face of Arturo the father does not come out as often for me as it does for my sister, Yolanda. I get more of Arturo the lawyer: his eyes unblinking and fixed on my face, the volume of his voice modulated with complete control. He becomes a person who will lose his composure only if he wishes to.

  “Here’s what I would like to propose.” I expect him to pause because he is speaking faster than he usually does. But he goes on speaking as fast as he speaks to Yolanda. “I want you to work at the law firm this summer.”

  This is a total surprise. It takes me a while to find words, any words. When I do, I say: “I have a summer job at Paterson.”

  “You’ll help in the mailroom.” He doesn’t hear or chooses not to hear what I say.

  “I have a job already,” I repeat.

  “Sit down, please.” He points to the chair. I sit.

  He moves forward on his chair so that our knees are almost touching. He lowers his voice. He is a father now. “Son, I want you to have a job where you interact with people, where you have to figure out new things by yourself. What do you do at Paterson that teaches you what you don’t already know?”

  “I will be learning to train the ponies.”

  “But this is the stage of your life when you need to be working with people.”

  “Why?”

  “It is an experience you haven’t had, really. At Paterson you are in a protected environment. The kids who go there are not…normal. Most of them will be the way they are all their lives. You, on the other hand, have the ability to grow and adapt. Even your Dr. Malone thinks this is the case. He’s said so since the very first time we saw him. All these years, it wasn’t really necessary for you to go to Paterson. You don’t really belong there. I know you realize this yourself. There’s nothing wrong with you. You just move at a different speed than other kids your age. But in order for you to grow and not get stuck, you need to be in a normal environment. It is time. Here is what I propose: If you work at the law firm this summer, then at the end of the summer, you decide whether you want to spend your senior year at Paterson or at Oak Ridge High.”

  Now he pauses. He knows I will need time to sort this out. One summer at the law firm versus a whole year at Paterson. I miss out on Fritzy’s early months, but I still get to train him next year. Arturo interrupts my thoughts. “There’s just one thing.” I see him pick up the glass of wine and raise it to his lips. This time his words come out very slow. “You can do what you want in the fall…” He waits for my eyes to meet his eyes and then he continues. “But this summer you must follow all the rules of the…real world.”

  “The real world,” I say out loud. It is one of Arturo’s favorite phrases.

  “Yes, that’s right. The real world.”

  As vague and broad as this term is, I have a sense of what it means and of the difficulties that it entails. Following the rules of the real world means, for example, engaging in small talk with other people. It means refraining from talking about my special interest. It means looking people in the eye and shaking hands. It means doing things “on the hoof,” as we say at Paterson, which means doing things that have not been scheduled in advance. It may mean walking or going to places I am not familiar with, city streets full of noise and confusion. Even though I am trying to look calm, a wave of terror comes over me as I imagine walking the streets of Boston by myself.

  Arturo smiles as if he knows what is going through my mind. “Don’t worry,” he says soothingly, “we’ll go slow at first. The real world is not going to hurt you.”

  There is a question floating inside of me but I can’t find the words for it just yet. I open and clench my fists as I wait for the question to formulate itself. Finally, it arrives. I say to Arturo, “At the end of the summer, will Marcelo, will I decide where I want to spend my senior year…regardless?”

  “Regardless? I don’t follow you.”

  “You said that if I follow the rules of the real world this summer, I will get to decide where I go next year. Who will decide whether I followed the rules? I am not aware of all the rules of the real world. They are innumerable, as far as I have been able to determine.”

  “Ahh.” It is Arturo the father who is speaking now. “Well, look. The corporate world has its rules. The law firm has its rules. The mailroom has its rules. The legal system has its rules. The real world as a whole has its rules. The rules deal with behaviors and the way to do things in order to be successful. To be successful is to accomplish the task that has been assigned to us or which we have assigned to ourselves. You will need to adapt to the environment governed by these rules as best you can. At Paterson, the environment adapts to you. If you need more time to finish a test, you get it. In the mailroom, a package will need to go out by a certain time, or else. As to who will determine what, it seems to me that for this exercise to have any meaning, there must be something at stake. If you go through the motions and just show up every day and not try, then no, you will not have the ability to decide where you spend next year because you will not have followed the rules of the real world. It seems to me that at the end of the summer, we will both know with absolute certainty whether you succeeded or not. But, if for some reason we disagree, it seems to me that the ultimate decision should be mine. I am the father and you are the son. I will be your boss and you will be the employee. Does that make sense?”

  I nod that it does. I never lie. But I do now. There is something about what Arturo just said that does not make sense.

  Arturo is waiting to see if there are further questions. He knows it takes me a while to process information. I do have one final question. “How will Marcelo be successful in the mailroom?” I would like to have a diagram or picture of what this means so that I can prepare for it.

  “Each assignment given to you will have its built-in definition of success. You have a right to ask for instructions from anyone in the law firm who gives you an assignment. Success will be based on your ability to follow those instructions. I know this is very vague and you would like more clarity. You have to trust me. You are not going to be asked to perform tasks that are beyond your abilities. Do you trust me? I have always been fair, haven’t I?”

  This time I don’t know how the word “trust” is being used. But “fair” I understand. “Yes,” I say. It is true. Arturo has always been fair.

  “Good,” he says. “I will be honest with you. I am hoping that after this summer, you will choose to go to Oak Ridge High. There is a life out there that is healthy and normal that you need to be a part of. So, is it a deal?”

  “There are some things I cannot do even if I wanted to,” I say.

  “Like what?”

  “There are so many things I still have difficulties with. I cannot walk by myself in a strange place without a map. I get flustered when I am asked to do more than one thing at once. People say wor
ds I do not understand or their facial expressions are incomprehensible. They expect responses from me I cannot give.”

  “Maybe the reason you can’t do those things is not because you are not able to, but because you have not been in an environment that challenges you to do them. Jasmine, the girl who runs the mailroom, will show you the ropes. I’ve talked to her about you. She’ll go easy on you at first. But going slow doesn’t mean you won’t need to expand beyond your comfort zone.”

  I am thinking that next fall, I will be able to work full-time at Paterson training Fritzy and the other ponies. I can visit the ponies on the weekends this summer. Arturo is basically asking me to pretend that I am normal, according to his definition, for three months. This is an impossible task, as far as I can tell, especially since it is very difficult for me to feel that I am not normal. Why can’t others think and see the world the way I see it? But after three months, it will be over, and I can be who I am.

  “Think about it. Let me know first thing in the morning.”

  “All right,” I say. “I will think about it.” I start to walk toward my tree house. Namu, who has been lying at my feet all the time, walks by my side.

  “You are getting too old to live in a tree house,” I hear Arturo say behind me.

  I pretend his words do not reach me.

  CHAPTER 4

  The tree house was Yolanda’s idea. When I was ten, we were in the basement watching a movie called Swiss Family Robinson, and that’s when it came to her that I should have a tree house. She thought it would be good for me to have a place of my own where I could confront my fear of sleeping in a place other than my room. A tree house would allow me to be more self-sufficient, according to Yolanda.

  Yolanda went to work immediately. She found a Web site dedicated to tree houses and downloaded plans for one of them. The next morning she took the plans to school and convinced her high school shop teacher to make the construction of the tree house a class project.