Paige: The King of Taco Makers by Nathan Leslie

I show up late for work because my Dad was off somewhere looking for a job, and I can drive or walk three miles but I don't want to. I try to explain to the boss but she walks away telling me mop the men's room. I saw a giant wooden ostrich for sale in a store downtown, all painted oak wood with a red saddle. $5,000. My boss is like that ostrich.

"We shouldn't do that again," she says. "Should we?"

I shake my head no. I feel sorry for her because she's missing part of her middle finger. She says she lost it when she was trying to fix her mother's lawnmower. I wonder if her mother is still alive, and what she's like. What if her mother never read her nothing? I tell her I don't like to be late. I like making tacos I say. But I lie; I like making burritos. When I go to get the mop this new girl giggles, "It's not like we're busy." I tell her I like mopping cause you can see the wet swishes where you mopped and the dry areas where you didn't. The floor is yellow-tiled, maybe to look like corn. She says her name's Brandi.

My teacher comes over every morning at 7:30. Mom wanted to get things going for me early. We do biology, English, or math. We prepare for the government test required for Maryland.

Around 9:00 he leaves, sometimes earlier. Some mornings he's tired and I think he's been up late. When he's feeling lazy or generous he shows me a video on killer bees or the great coral reef. It's not like real school, it's better. I learn better when people aren't around and things have to sink in because there isn't much else to think about.

This time it's writing. He says I can write better than I think I can. I'm not real interested in what he means, but I do it anyway. I'm good at doing what I need to do. I write on this grayish recycled paper.

Last year I had Mr. Wilson also but was too upset to work good. I broke down sometimes. We met at the Laurel library in a tutoring cubicle. They haven't painted over the gray cinder blocks there. I read Black Boy and liked it. I hated studying geology. I was angry at my mother for leaving Dad. One day I made her write out a contract when Mr. Wilson could witness. Things are better now.

Mr. Wilson talks to me about flatworms and roundworms and microscopic parasites. He talks about scientists who discovered things and made small improvements. I like the guy with the meat who discovered flies don't come from nowhere like they thought. I think Mr. Wilson wants to do that, be a great somebody. He likes fooling with his change, and sometimes I think he puts it there just for that. He stands up, sits down, stands up restless. I like studying the monerans and the protists. We go back through the book the best we can and every other week there's a quiz. I like biology now, and I got a B last quarter.

I live in Jessup, near where all the warehouses for Baltimore and Washington are. I'm applying for jobs, but for most you got to be 18. My dad's house has got pink furniture and framed pictures of white women wearing green and yellow that he bought at K-mart with gold borders. He used to have a nice leather bar in the living room corner, and sometimes I'd sneak a swig of something. Now the bar's a fake leather TV stand, pressed against the wall. When Mom left him last year the house fell apart. Stuff everywhere. He smokes more now, and drinks more coffee. He says he needs something extra.

When I get to sleep I can hear the rigs rumbling up Route 1 and turning into the different warehouse drives. Somedays I make tacos for drivers who come in, and I feel like I been to all the places they have. Like I can smell Florida on their breath, or wherever they get the stuff. I hand them their change. My fingers touch the hard places on their palms.

Someday I'll get a good job.

At work I talk with Brandi. She's younger, and she also makes tacos. She's the quickest there because she don't have no nails to drag her down. Her hair is cut short to her head, but she's cute anyway. She calls me Paige 13, then laughs at her own joke. She says she likes to read novels and history, and on her breaks she sits at the pink tables and does her homework.

A couple years ago I saw my IQ test scores when my mom and the counselor went out to talk. It was around 95. I don't know how good that is. I've failed two grades. I think I'm dumber for getting into trouble than doing bad. My dad says I need to get wise.

I don't know why but I've never been into sports. My teacher says I should be, but I can't imagine it. It seems too much to do without no payback.

I talk to Brandi about school when we make burritos and soft shell tacos. Her parents pay for her to go to private school in Baltimore County. She says she likes the teachers, even the uniforms. She says the kids are too snotty for her though, and they think they're better. She says she likes working tacos to even it out.

"What do you like to do?" I ask.

"I don't watch much television," she says.

At the end of the night she gives me her phone number. She has her own line, she says.

I'm in trouble because I sold pot on school grounds. I wasn't trying to be no dealer. I just did it a few times. I get into fights at school because the older kids think I'm a weakness. I'm not big, but I'm serious with a serious face. People think I got attitude. My mom is serious too. She borrowed money to keep the apartment for a year, so if Dad's swilling we can leave. Sometimes I sleep there anyway, when Mom and Dad are together. My mom says everything is up in the air.

My father's a car salesman. Last year he was fired at the Acura place because he says sales were slow after the magazine articles against Acura. He's trying to get a job so he drives off every morning at nine to look. Sometimes I bet he goes to the library and sits, or goes out for breakfast. My father don't want my teacher to think he's a bum. My mother teaches kindergarten in Prince George's.

When I first went to Hammond High I was beat up real bad. This group of boys called me a faggot and pushed me around in the locker room until the teacher broke us up. After school they followed my bus in their truck and held me down while they hit me in the back and head with beer bottles and kicked me. They videotaped the whole thing until I blacked out. I called 911 myself when I came to. I told my parents I don't know who did it. I thought about joining a gang, but if I did it'd be my parents who'd get me.

I got to go to court in my own defense. But I like the judge. He's a short white man who seems to sympathize. I like people who listen to what I got to say. He says I have 500 hours of community service, and he doesn't want to ever see me again. My mother smiles at me during the walk back to the car. I want to tell her I think she has a pretty smile. Her eyes remind me of my grandmother's. Mom says she's proud that my grades are getting better.

"I like him," I say.

"Who?"

"Mr. Wilson."

"Is it helping? Don't you think you can go back to school? I want you to finish what you’ve started."

"I don't know," I say.

"Do you feel angry as much?"

"Mom. I said--"

"It feels good to have control doesn't it?" I think about the girl. I think about what my mother is asking me. It seems to be an important question.

"Yeah," I say. She settles herself in the seat. Mom's always trying to sit comfortably. It reminds me of when you're inside and it's windy outside and you feel protected.

"I think we're already past this," she says, nodding her head back to the court.

Saturday night my Dad and me go to the video store and get Coke and popcorn, and we watch a funny movie together and play cards during it. I like sitting on the rug. My mother says she feels sick and says she doesn't want to play.

"What are you thinking these days?" he says.

"Man, I'm too busy to think," I say.

He looks scared when I say that, then he smirks and says his son is growing up. I ask him if he's found a job yet.

"Ain't happened yet," he says.

"What are you going to do?" He shakes his head.

"You could come make tacos," I say. We both get a kick out of that. I tell him he'd be a great taco-maker. He says he's sure he'll find something soon. He can feel it.

"I could be the king of taco makers," he says.

After the movies I give Brandi a call. She's still up.

"What are you doing?"

"Reading," she says. "I was going to go out, but my father doesn't feel like driving me to Towson. That's where most of the students live."

"You met some friends?"

"I met some, but until I can drive, you know."

"Yeah. I see my friends but they like forget about me cause they don't see me every day," I say.

"I know, don't you hate how people make school into a social thing?"

"It can't be a social whatever for me, since I only see one person."

"What's your teacher like?" Brandi asks me.

"He does his thing. He doesn't get involved. He's no preacher, know what I'm saying."

"I think that's what teachers should do," she says. "I'd rather just learn things."

"I don't know. It's easier because there's less kids around. It's not hard."

When my teacher comes and asks me if I had a good weekend I tell him nothing happened. We go over decimals and fractions, which are the toughest for me, then he gives me a vocab quiz. He says he likes the way it smells in my house. My mother just cooked bacon. He told me once he's a vegetarian, but that he eats fish. When we finish up and I go back to school, my mother will get him a going-away gift. She asks me what he'd like. I say leather gloves.

The one day Mr. Wilson made a point, he talked about survival. Started out with evolution, then said he met a man who was in jail and learnt card tricks to pass the time. Said the man was the best card-tricker around, could fool anybody. It doesn't always have to be a useful thing was his point. I tell him I like my job.

"Do you feel useful?"

"I don't feel it," I say. "I met this girl I like though. That keeps me coming back."

"Is she pretty to you?"

"Kinda. Not really."

"What does she look like, Paige?"

"I don't know. She's a girl."

He sighed and picked at his fingers. He stared at the window like he was looking for cracks.

"You don't seem too rebellious," he says. "When I was sixteen, I was harder to handle." I shrug. I want to ask him if he knows about any jobs for my dad. I start thinking about Brandi as a kind of tool for me, but I decide to stop thinking about her that way.

I have one thinking place at the little park off Gerwig Lane. There's a little pond with a round roofed-in thing next to it. You can see the carp circle in the muddy water. I look for the dorsal fin. Usually I can only stay there by myself for a couple minutes before somebody come on down with their girlfriend. Then I walk back into the path, and sit on a log or something and listen to things. Even the sound of cars and people around is good. Things combine together. I like that about parks.

My family ain't been on a vacation since I was in elementary school. We went to Virginia Beach for a couple days, stayed in a motel off the boardwalk. Could hear the drunk people shout in the night, and further off the waves, and even further off the ships chugging to Norfolk where my cousin lives. I could see the lights of them boats from the motel, and the ones down the coast. Inside I told myself I'd like to be out in the open someday. These days I make my own vacations. Sometimes it's a trip to the store. I don't have to go anywhere special to have an okay time.

The next Saturday after work I ask Brandi if she want to come over to my house, and maybe her parents could come pick her up from Towson later on.

"Only my mom lives in Towson," she says. "My dad lives right here. That's why I work just on the weekends here."

"So could your dad pick you up later?"

"I could just walk home. He only lives off Holly Court," she says. Two streets down from mine.

"Why didn't you say something then?" I say. Girls always being so careful about everything.

"I had to see if you were worth it." She's teasing, I think. Then she asks me if I want to go to her Dad's place. She says she don't like to walk home at night alone. I say no problem. I can walk home from there. I call my mom and ask her, and she says fine. She wants me to find a girl too. She left me a box of condoms tacked to my wall once. A smiley face in red magic marker was on the box. I made sure to put the tack back on her desk. It was the push-pin kind with a pink cap.

My mom picks us up in her jeep. Some jazz music is loud, and the drummer's into his solo. Drums are stupid. Drums are gay.

"How are you two?" We get in back. "Are you Paige's colleague?"

"I guess," Brandi says. "My name is Brandi."

"We're both colleagues," I say.

"You sure are." Mom frowns at us in the back mirror, the kind that means a smile. "Nice to meet you then, Ms. Brandi. Do you live around here somewhere?" Brandi tells her where. My mom sounds so formal the way her voice raises. She used to work as a secretary for the Howard County District Court, filing checks and answering the phone. "Well, I'll just drop the two of you off. Paige can come home whenever he wants," she says to Brandi. "You two should have fun." We pull out of the light and onto Oakland Mills to home.

"My father will probably want to play Trivial Pursuit with us. He's obsessed with trivia games." Brandi circles her fingers on the leather seat. "He's a loon."

"He's a loon?" my mother says.

"He was born in 1937. My father is almost sixty. He spends most of his time on his sailboat. It's 48 feet long."

"That's long. That's a big boat," my mother says.

"He's an idiot," Brandi says. "He brings his rocks along. He thinks he's a rock expert, just because he went to college and studied them." When we get to Brandi's, I watch my mom's brake lights turn red at the stop sign and blink out as she rolls down the road.

One of my brothers is older, lives with his girlfriend. Just moved in together last summer. He don't call me no more, and he don't even like her that much. When I do see him he's bitching she's too much a girl, wants her to be more like him. I try to tell him, man you don't want her to be like you. You want to marry yourself?

I know they'll break up, and he'll come back. It's something about us boys. Soon as we find someone we can have, we don't want them no more. My dad begged my mother back. She told me he really got down on his knees in the driveway and begged her to come back to his life. Now he's lazy again. I decide I'm going to see if Brandi's rich Dad knows anything.

My favorite meal is lasagna with spinach and lots of cheese. Tater-tots. Tall glass of milk with ice. Chocolate pie with whipped cream.

We go into the house and think we must smell like tacos and ground beef compared to the smell of paint and carpet everywhere. Flowers, everything smells like flowers. It's one of the big new houses I see passing by to our ranch house. Inside there's framed art and mirrors all over, and a wine holder in the hall. There's an office off to the side, and Brandi says he's asleep, because the light's off there.

"Let's go into the basement," she whispers. We do.

It's cool down there. She turns on the overhead. Goes over to the refrigerator by the outside door and gets out two brown bottles, beer. She hands me one and asks me to open hers. They're twist-offs. She's got to go change into sweat pants, she says. She asks if I want any chips or popcorn.

"No, I don't think so," I say.

"You can turn on the television." I do. It's on a business channel, and the stocks are streaming by on the bottom of the screen. Her footsteps are light on the basement stairs, and once she is out the door I can't even hear her.

"I'll bring popcorn anyway," she says. I switch the channel.

"What's your Dad like?" I ask when she's back. I've finished the beer, and she has opened me another one. She flips the television to ESPN.

"He's a Dad."

"What kind of Dad? Is he good to you?"

"I don't know. What do I have him to compare to?"

"Yeah, that's true." I take a sip of my beer. It tastes horrible. "My father's going to be famous one day."

"Really?" She hands me a glob of popcorn, and I eat the whole glob in one mouthful. I say I'm the cookie monster.

"He's a racer."

"A runner?"

"No, a car racer. Stock car racing. That's where it's at. Not too many black racers out there, so he'll get some attention, you know." He's never raced a day in his life.

"I hope he does do well. I'd like to meet him someday."

"I'll have to check it with his manager." I elbow her to show I'm kidding. "No, he's not famous yet."

"But he will be?"

"That's what I think. But you know..." I say. "You have any extra jobs if anyone's looking?"

"Me?"

"I mean your father."

"Oh, no. He isn't the boss anyway. Why?"

"No reason. My brother--"

Anyway I tell her I don't want to be famous, and that famous people are cop-outs. She says she'd like to be famous someday, but that maybe she'll end up as a teacher. I think of me and Dad.

"Everybody wants to be famous," I say. "What does your dad do anyway?"

"He's a computer analyst. That stuff is boring to me."

"Yeah."

"No, I want to be successful or happy or something. That's different. Not just famous."

"What are you going to do?" She's quiet, and stops chewing on her popcorn. We can hear some muscley guy on television talking about the next season’s shows. We haven't paid attention to the television at all. The man's wearing a bandanna around his head.

"I have no idea." She elbows me back on that, and we laugh. Later we get tired and turn off the lights. I hold her sleeve. She leans against where my shoulder meets the couch and we drift off.

*          *          *


about the story:

"I wrote 'Paige' about one of the students I home-taught through the public school system in Howard County, Maryland. The student was serving a long-term suspension and I would go to his house three times a week and provide his sole education. I witnessed a scorching vulnerability within this particular student. I let my imagination take over from there. In this story I just wanted to capture this student's character as accurately as possible."

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