An Island Like You Read online

  The thing is, I don’t have anything against these handicapped people, but I don’t want to spend my whole summer with one. Stuck in a tiny space. And really, there’s nothing for one of them to do here. Besides, how is it going to look to Bob Dylan and my other friends? They’re not going to want to hang around the store with someone like that around. Let’s face it, that VACANCY sign on their faces gets to you after a while.

  But there he is. My new partner is being led in by Mrs. O’Brien. I am watching them walk very slowly from her office, across the playground, and toward my store. She called me a few minutes ago to tell me that Mr. Carey has decided that it would be a wonderful opportunity to place Valentín as my assistant in the store. He is Puerto Rican like me, thirty years old, and mildly challenged. He has the IQ of a third grader, she tells me. A bright third grader. And he is an artist. I can’t help but wonder what others are going to say about this guy. It’s hard enough to get people to believe that you have normal intelligence when you’re Puerto Rican, and my “assistant” will be living proof for the prejudiced.

  “He’s brought some of his creations,” Mrs. O’Brien told me in a cheerful voice. “We’re letting him sell them at the store.”

  “You’re letting him sell his crayon drawings at the store?” I couldn’t believe my ears. If this woman had deliberately tried to humiliate me, she couldn’t have thought of a better way to do it.

  “They are not crayon drawings, Teresa,” she said, a little less cheerfully. “I told you Valentín is gifted in art…. Well, you’ll see in a few minutes.” Then she hung up and I watched them coming.

  Old Valentín has the posture of a gorilla. And so much hair on his head and his arms, and overflowing his shirt collar, that my first impression is that he should be put to work in a cooler place. I mean, he is furry. And he’s carrying a huge shopping bag that seems to drag him down. Great. Wonderful. I glance over at Bob Dylan, and I see that he is spying on me through his binoculars. Under other circumstances I’d be enjoying it. At the moment I feel like quitting the job. My mother tried to talk me out of taking this job because it’s so far from home, and she thinks I’m going to fall in the pool and drown or something. Now I wish I’d taken her advice.

  Mrs. O’Brien steps up into the store and sort of takes Valentín’s hand and guides him in. But then she is distracted by yelling and running at poolside. No running is allowed. Bob Dylan is supposed to blow his whistle when the little kids do it. But he is nowhere in sight. Mrs. O’Brien takes off for the pool without another word, and I’m left facing Valentín. He’s standing there like a big hairy child waiting to be told what to do.

  “I’m Terry,” I say. Nothing. He doesn’t even look up. This is going to be even worse than I thought.

  “What’s your name?” I say it real slow and loud. Maybe he’s a little hard of hearing.

  “Soy Valentín,” he says in Spanish. His deep voice surprises me. Then he hands me the big shopping bag. I try to take it, but it’s really heavy. He takes it back very gently and lifts it onto the counter. Then he starts taking out these little animals. They are strange-looking things, all tan in color and made from what I first think is string. But when I pick one up, it feels like rubbery skin. They are made from rubber bands. Valentín takes them out one at a time: a giraffe, a teddy bear, an elephant, a dog, a fish, all kinds of animals. They are really kind of cute. The elephant and the fish are about three inches tall and both chubby.

  “Is it a whale?” I pick the fish thing up, and Valentín takes a long look at it before answering.

  “Sí,” he says.

  “Do you speak English?” I ask him. I can speak Spanish, but not that good.

  “Sí,” Valentín says.

  He arranges his rubber-band menagerie on one side of the counter, taking a long time to decide what goes next to what for some reason. Mrs. O’Brien walks in looking very upset.

  “Teresa, does he do this often?”

  I know she’s talking about Bob Dylan clowning around on the job and taking off to talk to people sometimes.

  “This is only my second day here,” I protest. And maybe my last, I think.

  “Teresa, someone could drown while that boy is away from his post.”

  I don’t say anything. I was not hired to spy on Bob Dylan. Although I do plan to keep my eyes on him a lot for my own reasons. He’s fun to watch.

  “We’ll discuss this again later.” Mrs. O’Brien turns to Valentín, who is still taking animals out of the bag and lining them up on the counter. He must have brought a hundred of them.

  “I see you two have met. Teresa, it is Valentín’s goal to sell his art and make enough money to buy himself a bicycle. He lives in a group home on Green Street and he wants to have transportation so that he can get a job in town. I think it’s a wonderful idea, don’t you?”

  I’m saved from having to answer by Valentín, who is handing me a handful of price tags. They all say $2.00.

  “He wants you to help him price his art, Teresa.” No kidding, I think. Mrs. O’Brien is acting like she thinks I’m as slow as her newest employee here. She sighs, looking out at the pool again. Bob Dylan is back in his lifeguard chair. His whistle is going full blast, and his arms are waving wildly as he directs people in the pool to do this and that. She and I both know that he’s making fun of her, putting on a show for a girl’s benefit, or maybe mine. I try not to smile. He looks so good out there.

  Mrs. O’Brien says again, “Teresa, if anything goes wrong, use that phone there to call me. At five I’ll come get Valentín. See if you can get your friends to buy his art. It’s for a worthy cause!”

  Valentín watches her leave the store with the look of a child left at school for the first time. It’s so strange to see an adult acting like he’s lost and maybe about to cry. His face shows every emotion he feels. As Mrs. O’Brien leaves, he looks anxious. His hands are trembling a little as he continues to line up his little rubber-band zoo on top of the counter. I decide to go ahead and put the price tags on them, since I’m not doing anything else. Each tag is like a little collar, and I put them around the necks of the creatures. They feel oddly like living things. I guess the rubber is like skin and takes in the heat from the sun. I press the teddy bear down, and it bounces off the counter. Valentín catches it like a ball and puts it back precisely where it had been. He is frowning in concentration as he once more checks to see if anything has moved since two minutes ago when he last looked. It’s beginning to get on my nerves. His lips are moving, but nothing is coming out.

  “Please speak louder, Valentín. I can’t hear you.” I have put a $2.00 tag on each rubber-band beast, even though one big sign would have done the job just as well. I turn to face him, and he points to his shopping bag.

  “You have more art in there?” I hear the sarcasm creeping into my voice, but I am not here to baby-sit a retarded man who has a thing for rubber bands. Soon Clarissa, Anne, and my other friends will be here, and I’d like to talk to them in private.

  Valentín moves around me cautiously toward his bag. He acts like he’s afraid I’m going to bite his head off. It’s really annoying. I get out of his way — as I said, the place is very small — and he takes the bag and goes to sit in the folding chair near the soft-drink machine. He pulls out a big box with his name printed in huge letters in different color markers. He opens the lid and sticks his hand in. He shows me a bunch of thick rubber bands like fat worms. He smiles.

  “Trabajo,” he says. Work. It is his job.

  “Yes. Make more animales,” I say. That will keep him busy and out of my way. I watch him wind a rubber band around his index finger into a tight little ball. He attaches the ball to a frame he shapes out of very thin wire. He does it so slowly and carefully that it makes me want to scream. A real animal could evolve from a single cell in the time it takes Valentín to make the first quarter inch of one of his creations. I am so distracted watching him that Bob Dylan’s deep voice startles me.

  “Hey, is
that your new Puerto Rican boyfriend there, Terry? I thought you were my girl.” He is pulling himself up onto the counter by pushing up with his hands. The muscles on his arms are awesome. He’s all shiny because he’s rubbed oil on his body, and his long brown hair is wet. He looks like Mr. July on my hunk-of-the-month calendar.

  “Hi.” I cannot think of anything else to say because what I am thinking is not suitable material for a family park. This is what I took this job for — the view.

  “Give me an o.j. on the rocks, little mama. And introduce me to el hombre over there. And what are these …?” Bob Dylan always talks like a combination of TV jock and radio announcer from 1968. It’s his parents’ influence. They lived in a commune when they were hippies, and even now they sign Christmas cards with a peace sign. They also grow their own food in their homemade greenhouse. People at school say that it’s the mushrooms in the basement that make Bob Dylan and his family such happy campers. The Kalinowski adults wear ponchos in the winter and tie-dyed T-shirts with embroidered jeans in the summer. Bob Dylan is like them in his personality, but he has to wear a suit and tie at St. Mary’s. With his body he looks like Clark Kent about to flex his chest and let that big S burst through.

  “This is Valentín.” I point to him, and Valentín quickly ducks his head like someone’s going to punish him. His rubber-band ball is about a half inch in diameter now. “He makes them to sell. To buy himself a bicycle.”

  Bob Dylan picks up the fish and brings it up to his face. He makes his eyes cross as he looks at it. I have to laugh.

  Valentín stops what he’s doing to stare at us. He looks afraid. But he doesn’t move. I take the fish back and put it in its place on the counter.

  “VERY NICE, MY MAN!” Bob Dylan says, too loud. Valentín drops the little ball, and it bounces and rolls under the counter. I can tell that he’s upset as he gets on all fours to go after it.

  Bob Dylan laughs and jumps down from the counter and kisses my hand all in one motion.

  “My Chiquita banana,” he says, “stay true to me. Don’t give my whereabouts out to the enemy. I shall return.”

  “Bye,” I say. I am such a great conversationalist, inside my own head. Really, I say brilliant things all the time. It’s just that nobody hears them.

  I hand the can of orange juice and a cup of ice to Bob Dylan. He struggles to dig some coins out of his black Speedo trunks, which seem to be spray-painted on. Art is one of my best subjects, and I stand back and admire the simple, tasteful design of the trunks.

  “Thanks,” I say when the quarters pop out of his pocket, continuing to show off my amazing vocabulary.

  “You are always welcome. Tell me the Spanish word for always.”

  “Siempre.”

  “Siempre,” Bob Dylan repeats. But he’s already looking away. We have both heard familiar giggles. It’s Clarissa and Anne, one tall and one short blond in their skimpy bathing suits. I see his eyes go from one to the other. More than one girl at a time is difficult for Bob Dylan. He specializes in the one-to-one approach. Lock eyes with her, say a line from one of Mrs. Kalinowski’s old sixties records, something like “Light My Fire.” And that’s all it takes. That’s all it takes with me, anyway. I see him veer off in the direction of his lifeguard stand while waving to them, letting them get a view of his entire, glorious self. He will let them come to him separately: divide and conquer. He looks over his shoulder at me and winks, covering all the bases.

  I hear a sort of grunt and jump away from the counter. It’s just Valentín, who has finally retrieved his rubber ball out from behind some cartons and is struggling to get back on his feet. He looks a little embarrassed, and I guess that he’s really been hiding. This isn’t going to work. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to keep this job, but I do have a responsibility to train this guy while I’m here.

  “Valentín, let me show you how to pour drinks. You see those two girls coming this way? They’ll order a root beer and a diet cola. I’ll do the cola and then you do the root beer. Watch.”

  He watches me very closely, following my hands with his eyes like someone playing chess or something. Clarissa and Anne are at the counter, so I nod at him to pour the root beer.

  “Hey, Terry. How’s the job going?” Clarissa booms out. She’s not only the tallest and strongest girl at St. Mary’s but also the loudest. I hear a crash behind me and turn around to see that Valentín has dropped the cup of ice all over everything. Clarissa startled him. He’s really a case. The most nervous human being I’ve ever seen. He just stands there with a look of such shock on his face that both my friends start giggling. Valentín’s expression changes, and I see that he’s turning red from his neck up. Embarrassed. He is so easy to figure. I’d hate to have a face that showed the whole world what I think all the time.

  Then he starts all over again, filling new cups with ice and pouring the drinks so slowly and carefully that Clarissa pretends to be snoring and Anne starts playing with the rubber-band animals, making the giraffe fight with the horse. When Valentín brings the drinks to them, his hands are trembling. I can see that he’s really having to concentrate not to spill the drinks on the counter, especially since his eyes are glued to the empty spots where the giraffe and horse are supposed to be. I hand the drinks to my friends.

  “This is Valentín,” I say, not smiling, to try to let them know not to upset him by laughing, even though his constantly changing facial expressions are really funny. “He’s helping me out, and he’s selling these so that he can buy himself a bicycle.”

  “You make them yourself, right?” Anne is trying to be nice, I can see that. And she should be; after all, it’s her father who hired Valentín. But she’s still fooling around with his animals, making them slide across the counter and messing up the perfectly straight row that Valentín made with them.

  “Dos dólares,” Valentín says to Anne, and extends one of his hairy hands out.

  “He says they are two dollars each,” I translate for Anne and raise one eyebrow to try to communicate that she’d better either buy or put back the merchandise, or he may just stand there watching her hands all day.

  “I know that much Puerto Rican, I mean Spanish, gracias very much, Terry.” Anne puts the horse back in line and sticks the giraffe into the top of her bathing suit. She hands me a five-dollar bill. Valentín watches every move, following me to the cash register while I make change. I hand him two one-dollar bills. He inspects them and puts them into his shirt pocket, which he then buttons. He smiles at me. Then he goes to the back and starts to pick up the ice cubes he dropped, one by one.

  When I turn back to my friends, they are both grinning. The giraffe is peeking out of Anne’s top, which makes me laugh.

  “Well, Teresa, we were just saying that we think you’re going to have a very interesting work experience this summer,” Clarissa says, looking pointedly in Valentín’s direction.

  We talk for a while, mainly about Bob Dylan, who has been looking at us through his binoculars. Anne is pointing to her giraffe so that he will zoom in on it. Soon I get a crowd of kids asking for drinks and snacks all at once, and one harassed mother trying to get them to order one at a time, so I have to get to work. Valentín really gets the hang of pouring drinks after a few minor incidents, but I still feel that it’s a little crowded back here. I’m hoping that he’ll get tired of the work and quit — it seems to take a lot of mental effort for him to do more than one simple thing at a time. After we fill the orders, he sits down on a box in the far corner and closes his eyes. It must be tough to have to work so hard at every little thing you do. He catches me staring at him while he takes the rubber-band ball he’s been working on out of his pocket and starts a tail or a leg on it. But he just smiles at me and a peaceful look settles over his face. I guess that means he’s happy.

  Everything settles into a routine for Valentín and me for the next few days. The only problem I have is Mrs. O’Brien, who calls me a lot to ask me about him and about Bob Dylan. I just
say everything’s okay, even though Bob Dylan has zeroed in on an older girl, actually, somebody I know from El Building, and he’s disappeared with her at least once that I know of. I found out after she left her two-year-old son alone, asleep on a lounge chair. When he woke up, he started crying so loud that I had to go out there and get him before someone called Mrs. O’Brien. I brought him into the store, and it was instant friendship between the kid and Valentín. Valentín sat down on the floor with Pablito, who told us his name after he calmed down. The two of them played with the rubber-band animals until his mother, Maricela Nuñez, finally showed up looking like she’d been having a good time. Her hair was a mess, and she had grass stains on her white T-shirt and shorts. I was furious.

  “Is Pablito having fun with his new friend?” she says in a fake-friendly voice, showing no anxiety over the fact that the kid could have drowned or just walked off into traffic while she was in the woods fooling around with Bob Dylan. But Maricela is a special case. She practically brought herself up when her mother left her and her father years ago, and her old man was never home either. She dropped out of school in tenth grade and had Pablito a few months later. Now she works at night at the Caribbean Moon nightclub as a cocktail waitress, while her father stays with the kid; and she spends her afternoons on the front stoop of our building flirting with the men who hang out there. She’s staking out the pool now, where she’s working on Bob Dylan. I heard that she called him her “boy toy” the other day from someone I know in my building, Anita, who is also fast-tracking her life, taking lessons from the champ, Maricela.

  My mother uses Maricela as a warning to me of what I’ll become if I don’t get an education and stay away from boys. I sometimes remind my mother that if Maricela’s parents had given her a good home life, maybe she would have turned out better. But now, seeing her standing there looking totally unconcerned about the danger her son could have faced in the last hour, makes me want to turn her in to family services. She doesn’t deserve to have a cute little kid like Pablito.