Marcelo in the Real World (2 page)

“I’m seventeen,” I blurt out.

“Meaning?” Aurora inquires.

“It should be Marcelo’s decision.” I gather up all my strength and lift my eyes to look first at Aurora and then at Dr. Malone. “I should be allowed to finish the last year of high school at Paterson, where I’ve always been.”

“Ahh, I think I’m going to stay out of this one,” Dr. Malone says.

“Is Marcelo’s developmental age the same as other seventeen-year-olds’?” I’m looking at Dr. Malone.

Dr. Malone nods. That means he understands the nature of my question. “Developmental age? What does that mean? Everyone is different. In some respects you’re about fifty years ahead of other kids your age.”

Aurora smiles.

Dr. Malone never likes to give easy answers to complicated questions just to make people more comfortable. What I want him to say is that given who I am, I’m better off at a place like Paterson.

“Maybe it will be good to have a different experience,” Aurora says.

“You know how I feel about that,” Dr. Malone says to Aurora. “I don’t believe in suffering. If a kid is happy, understood, and appreciated, he will bloom in his or her own time. Paterson has been good to Marcelo. Look at the results.”

Yesss! Thank you, Dr. Malone,
I say to myself.

“Mmm.” The sound is coming from Aurora.

“What does ‘Mmm’ mean?” I ask first Aurora and then Dr. Malone.

Dr. Malone decides to answer the question. “You definitely asked the right person about that. We in the medical profession know all about ‘Mmms.’ I think that in this case, your mother’s ‘Mmm’ means that she thinks there are still some things you need to learn and that maybe, if it were up to you, you would not choose to learn those things. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Aurora answers.

“Mmm.” The sound comes from me this time. I do not mean to be funny.

O
n the drive to Paterson I think about the nine Haflinger ponies that I will be taking care of during the summer. I know every one of their names, their ages, and the birth dates of some of them. I know how hard to work them, how much to feed them, when to water them. I especially know where they like to be brushed. As stable man, I will be in charge of their upkeep, which includes keeping the stable clean, the way Harry likes it to be kept, which is to say spotless. Prospective students and their parents are always coming in to see the ponies, and Harry wants to make sure the stables and the ponies are perfect. I am that way naturally, so I am perfect for the job.

But it is not just physical upkeep that I will be doing. As the stable man, I will be in charge of the ponies’ well-being. I will determine when a pony should be fed and watered and rested. I will be consulted by the instructors and therapists on which pony is best suited for a kid with a particular disability. The truth is that all the ponies are trained to be comfortable around kids with all kinds of disabilities. Visually or hearing impaired,
kids with autism, kids with cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, spina bifida, Down syndrome, attention deficit disorder—it doesn’t matter, the ponies are always peaceful and even-tempered. The trick, as Harry pointed out to me, is not in picking out which pony will be the most comfortable with a kid but in picking out the pony that
the kid
will like the most. Harry thinks I have a knack for this.

“You are really looking forward to your job as stable man, aren’t you?” I hear Aurora ask me. It is not like Aurora to ask me unnecessary questions. Of course I am looking forward to this summer job, just like I am looking forward to my last year at Paterson. The job of stable man will continue into next year, only next year I will be involved not just with the upkeep of the ponies and the stable, but with the actual training of the ponies. Fritzy will be ready to be trained in early fall. It is an unbelievable process, to take these ponies and get them accustomed to anything and everything a disabled kid can do. No amount of noise or discomfort or even pain will cause them to hurt a child if they are well-trained.

That is why the possibility of attending Oak Ridge High is so troublesome. It cannot be allowed to happen. Arturo needs to be convinced that the best way for me to be like everyone else is to continue at Paterson, where I can learn at my own pace, where I am learning to make decisions and becoming responsible and independent, all the things he wants me to be.

“Aurora knows the answer to that question. Why does she ask?” It is possible that my words sound rude, but with Aurora I am at ease and can speak in a natural way.

“It is just that…” She pauses. A pause in the middle of a
sentence, I have learned in my Social Interactions class at Paterson, can mean that the person speaking is about to say something that might hurt the feelings of the listener. In my chest, I feel a twang—a discordant note, like when the string on a guitar breaks in the middle of a song.

“Arturo.” I mean to form this as a question but am unable to do so.

Aurora does not answer. I do not pursue it. We are entering the Paterson grounds and I always make it a point not to talk as we enter Paterson. I have been coming here since first grade, and I still get a sense that here at last is a place where I will not be hurried.

To the left as you enter the long driveway is a set of one-story brick buildings that touch each other like a crossword puzzle that has only been partially completed. Sidewalks connect the buildings and you can tell even from afar that it would be easy for someone in a wheelchair or someone who cannot see to navigate from one building to another.

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.”

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.