Chapter 7

In the morning, Sophia entered the boys’ dormitory, took the needle off of the record player, which was still turning, and shut it off. She sat at the foot of Jesus’ bed and gentle shook him awake. In the past two weeks since the accident, he had become accustomed to sleeping in far past sunrise, only to wash off and eat before morning classes. His recovery was rapid, but Sophia continued to insist on extra rest.

He slowly came to, blinking himself out of a fuzzy dream world and eventually propping himself up on his elbows to face Sophia. Her face was not the usual cheerful and soft expression, but instead stern and disappointed. Jesus felt something was wrong. A pit of anxiety opened up in his stomach.

Sophia allowed him sufficient time to wake up before addressing him.

“Jesus, you should know that staying here at the orphanage is a privilege, not a right,” She began.

His suspicions confirmed, Jesus’ heart sank.

“Osito and I have made great personal sacrifices to make this,” She motioned at the dorm and the rest of the building with a sweeping gesture of her hand “Possible for you and the rest of the children.”

Now Jesus was fully awake and focused. He looked at Sophia’s body language, trying to guess what he had done wrong to deserve this reprimand, but she betrayed herself no clues.

“There are plenty of other young people who would love to take your spot. You are very fortunate to be here and be fed when others are going hungry. The world is a very unforgiving place. I don’t expect you to know that, but you recently had your own brush with the unforgivingness of nature,”

She was talking about his leg, Jesus knew, but what had prompted this sermon?

“We don’t ask for a lot from you or the other students. We ask that you do your part in maintaining the orphanage, go to classes, and follow the rules,” This was true. Jesus could not remember a time he had been starving or homeless,” And one of the rules is to not uses drugs or alcohol while you live here,” She produced the half of the joint that he had left in his pants pocket. He had completely forgotten about it! It must have been found when his clothes were being washed. Jesus wondered who had found it. Washing clothes was normally his own responsibility every day. It must have been someone that would go to Sophia before he or she went to Jesus himself. That ruled out Christian, Enrique, and Andrea right off the bat. Carmen must have found it, then. Jesus silently filed that information away for later.

“I’m sorry Señora Sophia, it was stupid, and it was just one time-” She cut him off by raising her hand.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses. I want two things,” She said, “First, I never want to find something like this again,” Her tone was tough. It was one of the only times that Jesus had seen Sophia become angry, “If I do, you will be removed from the school and your spot will be given to one of the others. And trust me,” She leaned in, “There are others.”

There weren’t, but she knew the value of instilling a healthy fear of authority in adolescents. In reality, she had no intention of throwing Jesus out of the school unless something completely unforeseen happened. Sophia had a special soft spot for Jesus. She secretly regarded him as a favorite, although she was careful to never show preference over the other children. If anything, she was hardest on him because she felt it would make him stronger. All of that aside, she had made a promise to Winston.

“Second, I want to know where you got it from,” Jesus froze up, not sure what to tell her. No way was he going to rat out Andrea, especially after the strange kindness she had showed him. His mind jumped back to the sensual moment they had shared behind the treeline two nights ago. She was using him, but he didn’t mind being used.

“Rodrigo gave it to me,” It was a partial truth. He had probably sold, or more likely given, it to Andrea, who in the turn had passed it along to Jesus.

Sophia, however, didn’t buy it. She eyed him with suspicion. “Really? The same guy who almost knocked your teeth out?” Her eyes seemed to silently say.

Jesus continued, sensing her doubt, “He gave it to me a month ago, before our fight. I only smoked it because my leg was hurting. It helps with the pain.”

Sophia seemed satisfied with his answer. She sat back and straightened up, returning the half burnt joint to her pocket. “I’m going to destroy this, and if you get the urge to smoke again, come to Osito or me, and we will give you something for the pain. I will not have this conversation a second time.

The next time we talk, the consequences will be serious.”

“Yes, Señora,” He said, and with that, she left.

In the weeks that followed, Jesus thought little of his talk with Sophia or the preceding incident with Andrea. Smoking had left a generally positive impression on him, and it did in fact help with the pain he was experiencing. but those benefits were not great enough to outweigh the risk associated with displeasing Sophia.

Classes continued steadily, as did his daily tutoring sessions with Juan. Now, they were learning the history of Mexico and its many indigenous peoples, a subject that Juan showed surprising interest in.

As the trip to Baja drew closer, the inhabitants of the orphanage practically hummed with excitement.

This was many of their only chance to travel their relatively impoverished lives. Enrique joked often about bikini-clad mamacitas on the beach. All of the boys looked forward to the chance to encounter young, beautiful women whom they just might get lucky with.

Jesus grew increasingly mobile as his recovery progressed. In time, he was as comfortable on crutches as he had been on his feet. The constant pain disappeared, and now his leg only ached in the mornings or if he happened to strike it against a table leg or knock it into one of his own wooden crutches.

It was now a full months since the events that had transpired at the water hole, and Sophia told him it was time to be evaluated by the doctor, and if he agreed, have the cast removed. Jesus couldn’t wait to have it taken off. It was bulky, cumbersome, and endlessly itchy. Worst of all, that itch couldn’t be scratched.

The cast also made it difficult for Jesus to wash and dress himself. It was a welcome day when Señora accompanied him to the doctor’s building.

They waited for him in the small, windowless room in which Jesus had awakened a month prior.

The older, balding man entered after a short delay and asked Jesus a series of questions pertaining to his recovery. “How often do you walk on it? How strong is the pain? Do you feel any discomfort in your back?” He interrogated, and Jesus responded accordingly. When he was done with his series of questions, he held Jesus’ leg and tested the mobility of the extension of his knee joint When Jesus reported no sudden jolts of pain, the doctor nodded and finally gave the go-ahead to have the protective cast removed. A few minutes later, a nurse entered and cut through the tough material surrounding the now whole limb. She took care to not scratch and cut his leg too badly, but it wasn’t a very comfortable process. When it was finally off, she removed the stitches that had held his flesh closed underneath. He could see clearly the considerable amount of scar tissue that outlined the site of his injury. It would be a permanent reminder of his mortality.

Jesus stood tall and walked with purpose on his way back to the orphanage. He had left the crutches behind, and though his leg felt strange and alien trotting over the ground underneath his hips, it did not fail him or give him any signs of giving out. Upon return, he was received warmly and congratulated on his successful recovery. Unfortunately, it was barely too late to compete in the football league with his school team, but at least now he could attend the games and cheer his classmates on without hobbling around like a cripple. They also promised to include him in the practice sessions, which he would participate in to the best of his ability. A full recovery, he knew, would take some considerable time, but he was well on his way.

That night, he dreamed of a tall, glittering empire of magnificent metal architecture. Steel structures shot further into the sky than the birds could fly, each one a Tower of Babylon unto itself. Street cars and mobs of people crowded the busy streets, ebbing and flowing like the constant tides of water. They rushed to and fro in a huge, rehearsed dance. He floated outside of himself, observing impassively the bustling life that brimmed from this strange concrete and steel jungle. The streets seemed to go on forever in a labyrinthian maze that led him under speeding trains and over bridges and streets.

There’s something here.

He was searching for something. It called onto him, like a beacon from some past or future life.

He saw a silhouette of a man dancing to a Latin beat with a young golden haired lady. He saw young people rallying together in a great park, singing together in unison. He saw the flash of a muzzle, and felt its vibrations ricochet through his future. He saw hubris, isolation, idolation, love, and betrayal fly before his eyes in a moment. He felt the hips of a woman, curving and sensual, prison shackles, cold and unforgiving, the warm heat of the sunlight, and the familiar feeling of a typewriter under his fingertips. He had never seen a typewriter. He tasted metal and phosphorous, and he was suffocating, suffocating under the weight of his future past, sinking deep into waters, alone.

When Jesus awoke, he felt refreshed, almost like a new person. In a way, he was a different individual than the primarily bedridden cripple’s body whom he had inhabited for the past month. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, he stretched his legs like a cat and tested their range of motion.

Even though it felt sturdy, he implicitly distrusted the tissue and nerve endings that would punish him intermittently without warning, conditioning him to step gingerly when he moved off his bed and resumed his daily responsibilities.

There was a certain satisfaction in the familiarity of the mundane routine. Returning to it gave him a sense of accomplishment, as if he had defeated Mother Nature’s trials. He found solace in the repetitive motions as he scrubbed a thick woolen shirt against the washboard. The sun shone brightly in the sky, as if God himself approved of his able-bodied work.

After finishing the morning laundry, he returned to the dorm and fashioned himself an early lunch sandwich had begun reading the next chapter of the novel Sophia had given him. At the beginning, the writing was far too thick and indecipherable to understand, but after multiple mentoring sessions with the Señora, a dozen pages of notes and translations, and a stack of carefully edited essays, Jesus, like Charlie, the protagonist of the novel, grew in intellect and understanding as he progressed through the story.

Señora noticed a marked improvement in his fluency and comprehension. It started slowly, but after a few weeks, Jesus found himself understanding Key’s words readily. He had trained his mind during his time spent resting. Physical strength had been traded for mental sharpness, at least in the written English word. He looked forward to reading now. It was no longer an assignment; it was for pleasure. He enjoyed puzzling the foreign sentences and piecing together their meanings.

After classes, he joined Christian and Enrique in their daily pilgrimage to the soccer field, where they played a pickup game with some of the other local players. Thankfully, Rodrigo and his meathead brothers were nowhere to be found. They had been pleasantly absent from the field in the prior weeks, probably off committing minor crimes and intimidating anyone smaller, and younger, than them.

Jesus took care not to push his body, but even at a leisurely pace, he quickly became exhausted and sore. All of the quickness had left him, and he spent the majority of the time jogging behind the other players, trying to keep up as they vied for control of the ball. It was both humiliating and rewarding when he finally resigned himself to a seat at the edge of the field, content to watch the other players continue on without him as he tried desperately to catch his breath and work out the forming cramp behind his shin.

With a triumphant cheer, Christian shot the winning goal of the game, and the players began to disperse. Jesus watched as Enrique and Christian came over to him, celebrating their victory.

“You see that man? That’s how you end a game,” Christian boasted. The trio talked boisterously and joked their way down towards the orphanage before Christian diverted their course, saying, “Jesus is the real champion here. Let’s head over to Oscar’s and get some victory food.”

Jesus was caught completely off guard by the surprise that awaited him inside. When he opened the door of the restaurant, he was greeted by a party of the entire orphanage and school. They had even found a congratulatory banner and suspended it from the ceiling.

“We had to shut down the bakery to have everybody here,” Carmen told him. She was right, even the students from his class and friends from outside the school were there in the back. He spotted the familiar black on blonde fedora and shoulder length hair sporting American, sporting a big, welcoming smile.

Plentiful food was served, complimented by baked goods and drinks a plenty. Carne asada, tacos, sopas, tortas, quesadillas, salsa, beans, rice, horchata, and beer were passed around freely. The food was rich and filling, and conversation quieted down significantly as the partygoers’ mouths and bellies filled.

When night fell, they began to play music and dance. Cumbia, salsa, and bachata music flowed from Oscar’s speakers, and the party roared on with life and excitement. Jesus danced with each of the girls, even Señora Sophia, but his mind fixated on his chance to dance with Miriam. When a smooth bachata tune played, he knew his time had come, and he asked her to dance. She nodded, and he led the girl to the center of the room and began to recite the movements he had learned awkwardly swaying their hips and stepping in unison. They began at arm’s distance from one another, but Jesus pulled her close and matched her step. They danced, moving their conjoined bodies together rhythmically. When the song ended, they separated, but Jesus continued to think and reminisce of that moment throughout the rest of the night, as they returned to the orphanage, and as he finally laid his exhausted body down. They dance on and on in his mind, deep into dreamland.

In her quarters, Sophia smoked the remainder of the joint, blowing the smoke out the window. It reminded her of her last year at the convent.