This Side of Providence Read Free Page B

building.
    Last week Teacher took me to the indoor pool at the Y for my birthday. She said I could do anything I wanted and I said I wanted to dive into a pool so big I couldn’t touch the bottom. They put a blow-up dinosaur in the deep end and all the kids climbed it like a mountain and jumped off into their parents’ arms. Teacher sat at the edge with a T-shirt over her bathing suit and only put her feet in the water. Her legs were soft and white like marshmallows. I tried to get her to come in but she kept saying “no thanks,” so I finally splashed her till she was all wet. She pretended to be upset but really she wasn’t. On the way home we stopped at a Del’s Lemonade truck and got frozen lemonade with chunks of real lemon peel in it. Teacher smiled when I told her it was the best birthday I could remember. She looked like a little girl with her hair all wet and slicked back and I thought of punching all the kids at school who call her Señorita Gordita, because even if she is fat, she’s still the prettiest teacher at our school.
    I asked her if we could do it again sometime and she said sure, but when I said I wanted to bring César she said she wasn’t really supposed to be taking me there so it should just be our secret. Otherwise she might get in trouble for showing me special treatment. During school most teachers say they want to help you out, but when the bell rings they act like they can’t see you on the way to their fancy cars. Teacher ain’t like that. She acts the same, inside and outside, and I know she’s gonna be there if I really need her. Maybe it’s because we’re both Puerto Rican or maybe she misses a nephew she used to have back in New York, but all I know is she treats me like I’m special, even when I’m pissed off and saying things I don’t mean and everybody else is scared to go near me. I guess it’s kinda like family except she doesn’t hit me or yell for no reason and she hugs mewhen I say I’m sorry, even when I’ve broken something that can’t be fixed.
    Thunder booms in the distance, and the rain starts to fall harder. The storm clouds are so dark they’re almost black and they hang over the city like smoke. Mami hates being out in the rain so I start to wonder where she could be. Not worry, just wonder. What could make her leave the house in weather like this?
    I decide to keep reading signs for the rest of the walk home, just to practice. Anthony’s Drugs; Apartment for Rent; Tenares: Spanish and American Foods; Calvino’s Auto Repair; Bill’s Liquor Mart . I never noticed there were so many words on the street. A bright yellow sheet of paper stapled to a telephone pole says, “Need Clean Needles?” with an address and phone number for a place called ENCORE. When I was in third grade I found that same piece of paper in Mami’s room and when I asked her about it she said she grabbed it for one of the guys in the neighborhood who hurt his back on a construction job and got hooked on painkillers. When I asked her what the needles were for she said the medicine gets into his body faster if he puts it straight into his veins but that I should never do that, even if I was in a lot of pain and thought I was gonna die. She said using needles like that was a lot like dying. I know she was talking about that construction guy, but later I figured out she was talking about herself, too. Her veins are always bruised and she’s got marks on her arms like the other junkies she tells me to stay away from. Luz don’t want to know, but I asked Mami straight out one day and all she said was there are things a son shouldn’t know about his mother. That’s what she’s like—she won’t lie to your face, but she won’t always tell you the truth either.
    But for real, Mami don’t have to worry about me and needles. I still turn away when I have to get a shot or