At Risk of Being a Fool (25 page)

Jeanie felt smaller than usual. “Mr. Perea?”

Horacio Perea turned, showing only a mild surprise. “Yes, ma’am? Can I help you with something?”

“Um . . .”

He seemed to read her discomfort. He jumped to the ground. The truck shook. Facing her squarely, he said again, “Help you with something?”

“I’m Jeanie McCoy, Mr. Perea. I’m glad to meet you.”

Mr. Perea’ eyebrows rose. He shook her hand and waited.

“I’m a teacher. I work with your daughter.” She watched him closely, but his face remained bemused. “Your daughter, Rosalie.”

His eyes blazed at her. His shoulders lifted, and he bulked a little larger. Involuntarily, Jeanie took a step backwards.

“I’m quite fond of Rosalie,” she said. “She’s a loving child.” That was a mistake, she realized, seeing the curl of his lip. She hurried on. “What I mean to say is, she’s affectionate with cats and dogs, and that’s been a great help to her. Mackie Sandoval found her a job at a kennel, walking dogs, feeding the animals. She’s moving along with her GED studies, too.”

Hostility radiated from every line of his body.

“Esperanza, her transition facility, is pleased with her. They had a little celebration for her, sixty days clean and sober. She’s putting forth tremendous effort.” Jeanie’s hopes died. It was obvious that Mr. Perea had not contacted his daughter, through Arturo or directly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Perea. I know you’ve had a lot of pain with Rosalie. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“They should have told you.” His words were clipped and even. “She’s not our daughter, not any more.”

Her mind slipped a gear. The girl’s life was a like a huge game board, tilted inexorably towards one corner, one outcome. The only piece on the board was Rosalie, and the outcome was prostitution, drug addiction, and death. Take a host of well-meaning teachers, social workers, and counselors, and they tilted the board out of shape, temporarily creating a new path for Rosalie on a more level playing field. But probation would cease, her time at Esperanza would end, and she’d be free. And as the benevolent fingers released it, the warped board would spring back to the old orientation. Step by sliding step, Rosalie would descend into hell on earth, dragging Dominic with her.

“She loves you.”

“Huh.” He loomed over her. “Her love means nothing. She steals money from her family, brings drugs into our home. We tried, we talked to her, went to a counselor, even that. Again and again, she promises. One day, she brings a man
, un cabrón
. To our home, an evil man.” He swallowed hard, as though he were nauseated. “I find them in our bedroom, while the man handles my rifles. With her sisters there, she brings him, to look for guns.
Out
, I tell her. But still, her mother begs me, let the girl come home. I go to the courthouse, I talk to Judge Hodges. He listens to me. I make promises, Rosalie makes promises, we all promise each other, never again. But again, it all happens, all over. Is this the life for my younger daughters to see? To break the law, to break their mother’s heart?” His fists clenched. His voice was low, controlled. “No. I say it, no. It will not be so.”

Fiery intelligence burned in his eyes; pain lay naked on his face. Hispanic, plumber, refugee from
South America
, she’d thought, and without knowing it, she’d pigeonholed him as under-educated, and had tailored her approach accordingly.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Perea,” she said humbly.

“It is your job. I understand that.”

“Mr. Perea, Rosalie’s put your family through misery. And you’re right; it’s my job to teach Rosalie. But it hurts, teaching her, and knowing that she’s got no real future. Because, with everything I know, still—” Unconsciously, Jeanie’s hand went to her heart.

Horacio Perea glanced at her hand. With a visible effort, he calmed himself. “She has a job, you say. That is good.”

“She’s got the job, she’s getting the education. What she hasn’t got is any kind of anchor. And without an anchor, she’ll drift right back into what she left.”

“She would anyway.”

“She talks about her family a lot. She talks about you most of all.”

“Rosalie knows nothing of love.” Horacio was still, watching his own thoughts unfold in the sky in front of him. “When I was a young man, I lived in
Chile
. The government there, it was not good. When my uncle disappeared, my father sent us away, my brothers, my sister, and I, each, to a different country. My father stayed, to sell the property. Who can fear him, he says, if his children are gone? He is just an old man. My brother went to
Germany
, another to
Argentina
, my sister to
Brazil
, and I to
America
.

“My friends and I, we had a small fishing boat. We went out to sea during a storm, so they will think the boat is lost. Two weeks we travel in the ocean. It does not sound dangerous, does it? But I remember. That boat, that boat.” He gave a short laugh. “We landed in
San Diego
, claimed political asylum until the coup comes. Then, said
America
, we can go home again, yes? Repression is no more a factor. But I hear from my father in
Chile
. My brother from
Argentina
, he came back, and they killed him. Two cousins died also. I told my father I would come for him, but he said no. He was a stubborn man.” Horacio’s eyes met Jeanie’s briefly, and turned back to the clouds. “I went back and got him. My father saved his family, and his family saved him. That is love.” His eyes challenged her.

“I am a citizen now. I have a wife, and four daughters, all born here. All this they have: opportunity, education, freedom, the love of their family. An easy life. We made this chance for them, my father, my wife, and me. For love.”

Jeanie asked quietly, “Were you a plumber in
Chile
?”

“Engineer, six years university. Teresa is at
Western
Oregon
University
now. Margarita and Alicia are in high school still. Rosalie was my second daughter.”

“She
is
your second daughter,” Jeanie said, stressing the second word.

“To bring drugs and gangsters into my home? To bring danger to her mother, her sisters? No.”

“Rosalie is a engaging person,” said Jeanie, trying a different tack. “Has she always been that way? So open and friendly?”

“She has her secrets, that one. Don’t be fooled. But yes, always. From a little girl, always dancing, skipping, laughing. She was,” he said sadly, “a candle-flame in our lives. Always the little joke with Rosalie, the pretty picture. Sparkling like fireworks.”

“Dazzling light, glittering colors?”

“Yes, that. And as quickly gone again, leaving smoke and darkness behind her.”

“She seems fond of her Cousin Arturo.”

His eyes flashed. “She has no cousin named Arturo. Secrets. Always with Rosalie, the secrets, the lies.” He blocked her speech with the palm of his hand. “Please, no. No more.”

“Just one more thing? And please don’t get angry with me. You’re quite intimidating, you know.”

“So my wife tells me.” A hint of a smile touched his face.

“There’s the baby, Dominic.” Seeing the gathering thunder in his face, she plunged on hurriedly, “He has a foster mother who wants to adopt him. Rosalie won’t give him up, because he’s all she has left. Mr. Perea, what kind of life is he going to have with Rosalie as a mother, the way she is now? He’d be much better off with his foster mother. Couldn’t you talk to Rosalie and ask her to give him up?”

“No more.” Horacio Perea stood rigidly, rock-solid. “The child is nothing to me. Rosalie has chosen her life. She must live with it. Perhaps she will rise to the challenge.”

“Mr. Perea—”

“Good bye.” Mr. Perea slammed the rear door shut and strode to the cab. With a grinding of gears and a shudder, the truck took off, spitting pebbles from its tires.

The dust settled back into the gravel at Jeanie’s feet.

~*~

The Dandridge Residential Transition Facility for Boys was a world away from Esperanza. Its supervisor, Mr. Maldonado, scorned sofas and wallpaper, magazines, and practical lessons like using a microwave or tape measure. The resulting regimented “I am the boss” atmosphere resembled a cross between a boot camp and slave quarters.

Jeanie’s ID was insufficient, though she talked to staff members every week, and knew most of them by voice. Suspicious looks were directed at her, her purse, her thin pile of reading materials for Quinto, and last but not least, her cat carrier. Jeanie tired of the conversation, and embarked on the strategy her friend Annalisa had pegged as “vintage McCoy.”

“Perhaps you should put my cat through a metal detector,” she suggested helpfully, extracting the cat from the carrier. Rita hung limply over her hand, in boneless-cat mode.

The clerk looked at her sharply for signs of sarcasm. “That won’t be necessary, Mrs., er . . .”

“Wonderful, I’m glad this is over. Now, if you’d just let me in—”

“I can’t do that.”

Jeanie opened her eyes wide. “Oh dear, you poor thing. You mean to say they’ve locked you in here, without a key?”

“Well, no—”

“No, of course not, how silly of me. You could simply go out the front door, and climb over a wall, couldn’t you? Perhaps I could try that,” she said, with an air of vague consideration. “Only I’m afraid I’ll need you to come with me, to hand the cat over the fence. I could manage the chain link, I suppose, but I wouldn’t want to hurt my little cat.”

Variations on this gentle theme baffled the staff, apparent concessions on her part accidentally cornering people in locations of her choosing. The strategy worked as well with adults as on any batch of teenagers she’d taught. In theory, of course, she deplored such tactics, but there was a singular advantage to them: they worked. It was just too much work to eject the befuddled white-haired old lady, carrying a cat under one arm.

Thus, with only mild surprise, she found herself in Dandridge’s small study room with the doors closed and Quinto plopped in a chair. Rita refused to be a lap cat, feeling that a cat’s job was to be in as many places as possible, as rapidly as possible. She pounced on Quinto’s feet, leaped on the table, and skidded to the other end, executing 180-degree turns at the slightest rustle.

Despite the cat’s distraction, Quinto looked dreadful. He’d developed a tic under his right eye. His hands flailed restlessly, picked at his clothes, roamed through his hair, and rattled the tabletop. He talked convulsively, his hands moving independently of his conversation. Jeanie pushed a tablet and a pencil under his hand. His speech never paused, but his hand picked up the pencil, and jabbed it at the tablet, in lines of fire and jagged glass.

“Mr. Rivera, but he says he ain’t working now, and I understand it, ‘cause, on account of, the guy was his friend, Mr. Dunlap was. They use to do stuff together, work on cars, and like that, like homeys, you know? And now he’s dead. And right after Mr. Wogan was hurt, too. Two of his pals, it’s real hard on Mr. Rivera, I know it’s hard, like if somethin’ happened to one of my buds, you know? But what am I gonna
do
? Stay at this fuckin’ place for the rest of my
life
?” Under his hand, layer after layer of rough cinder block coated the paper, each one sharply edged. Each block carried the rapid-fire sketch of a face. She recognized Danny Rivera, Bryce Wogan from the newspaper photo, and the new foreman with the clipboard. A fourth face looked oddly familiar. Oh yes, it was Mackie’s friend, the security guard from the courthouse.

“Quinto, I’m sure Mackie will find you—”

“I don’t
want
no other job,” he exploded. “I don’t. I like this stuff, building things, Jeanie, I can’t tell you. It’s like, you know
...
oh God, I can’t explain it.” He seemed lost in thought, as he began drawing bloody drips from the fourth face. Involuntarily, Jeanie put out a hand towards the paper. Quinto seemed to notice the tablet for the first time.

He started a fresh sheet, his face rapt. He sketched a rough piece of ground. “Like this, Jeanie, see? First there’s just dirt and trash and stuff, and then you dig, and the foundation goes in, and the footings.” As quickly as he spoke, the picture grew as a perfect reflection of his words. “And your rebar and stuff like that, all gotta be up to code. Then you throw up your braces.” As he spoke, he erased lines, and added others, dirt fading away, replaced by clean lines, square corners, and foundations, quickly hidden. He was crying, the tears coursing down his face like a river, plopping onto the paper.

“Quinto.” She put her hand between his eyes and the paper. “Quinto, I didn’t know. I thought—” She’d thought he loved the job because he liked Danny, because he wanted out of the House for a few precious hours a day. But it wasn’t like that at all. It was the frustrated need to create, to build, to see his creations blaze across the world. This was what graffiti had been for him, just the desire to create. Danny Rivera had shown him the way. “I’ll tell Mackie how important this is. Believe me, she’ll try hard to get you into another crew. But it’s going to be hard to replace someone like Mr. Rivera. You might wind up with someone not so understanding.”