Marcelo in the Real World (3 page)

“How long will these visits go for?”

“They last about an hour.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, how much longer are these experiments or observations going to go on?” Before I can answer, he says, “I have a proposition that I want to discuss with you.”

I feel my chest begin to tighten. “I am not going to Oak Ridge High.” I can hear my voice tremble as I say this.

Arturo’s face turns serious. I brace myself. I know how Arturo can switch from father to lawyer in an instant. The face of Arturo the father does not come out as often for me as it does for my sister, Yolanda. I get more of Arturo the lawyer: his eyes unblinking and fixed on my face, the volume of his voice modulated with complete control. He becomes a person who will lose his composure only if he wishes to.

“Here’s what I would like to propose.” I expect him to pause because he is speaking faster than he usually does. But he goes on speaking as fast as he speaks to Yolanda. “I want you to work at the law firm this summer.”

This is a total surprise. It takes me a while to find words, any words. When I do, I say: “I have a summer job at Paterson.”

“You’ll help in the mailroom.” He doesn’t hear or chooses not to hear what I say.

“I have a job already,” I repeat.

“Sit down, please.” He points to the chair. I sit.

He moves forward on his chair so that our knees are almost touching. He lowers his voice. He is a father now. “Son, I want you to have a job where you interact with people, where you have to figure out new things by yourself. What do you do at Paterson that teaches you what you don’t already know?”

“I will be learning to train the ponies.”

“But this is the stage of your life when you need to be working with people.”

“Why?”

“It is an experience you haven’t had, really. At Paterson you are in a protected environment. The kids who go there are not…normal. Most of them will be the way they are all their lives. You, on the other hand, have the ability to grow and adapt. Even your Dr. Malone thinks this is the case. He’s said so since the very first time we saw him. All these years, it wasn’t really necessary for you to go to Paterson. You don’t really belong there. I know you realize this yourself. There’s nothing wrong with you. You just move at a different speed than other kids your age. But in order for you to grow and not get stuck, you need to be in a normal environment. It is time. Here is what I propose: If you work at the law firm this summer, then at the end of the summer,
you
decide whether you want to spend your senior year at Paterson or at Oak Ridge High.”

Now he pauses. He knows I will need time to sort this out. One summer at the law firm versus a whole year at Paterson. I miss out on Fritzy’s early months, but I still get to train him next year. Arturo interrupts my thoughts. “There’s just one thing.” I see him pick up the glass of wine and raise it to his lips. This time his words come out very slow. “You can do what you want in the fall…” He waits for my eyes to meet his eyes and then he continues. “But this summer you must follow all the rules of the…real world.”

“The real world,” I say out loud. It is one of Arturo’s favorite phrases.

“Yes, that’s right. The real world.”

As vague and broad as this term is, I have a sense of what it means and of the difficulties that it entails. Following the rules of the real world means, for example, engaging in small talk with
other people. It means refraining from talking about my special interest. It means looking people in the eye and shaking hands. It means doing things “on the hoof,” as we say at Paterson, which means doing things that have not been scheduled in advance. It may mean walking or going to places I am not familiar with, city streets full of noise and confusion. Even though I am trying to look calm, a wave of terror comes over me as I imagine walking the streets of Boston by myself.

Arturo smiles as if he knows what is going through my mind. “Don’t worry,” he says soothingly, “we’ll go slow at first. The real world is not going to hurt you.”

There is a question floating inside of me but I can’t find the words for it just yet. I open and clench my fists as I wait for the question to formulate itself. Finally, it arrives. I say to Arturo, “At the end of the summer, will Marcelo, will I decide where I want to spend my senior year…regardless?”

“Regardless? I don’t follow you.”

“You said that if I follow the rules of the real world this summer, I will get to decide where I go next year. Who will decide whether I followed the rules? I am not aware of all the rules of the real world. They are innumerable, as far as I have been able to determine.”

“Ahh.” It is Arturo the father who is speaking now. “Well, look. The corporate world has its rules. The law firm has its rules. The mailroom has its rules. The legal system has its rules. The real world as a whole has its rules. The rules deal with behaviors and the way to do things in order to be successful. To be successful is to accomplish the task that has been assigned to us or which we have assigned to ourselves. You will need to adapt to the
environment governed by these rules as best you can. At Paterson, the environment adapts to you. If you need more time to finish a test, you get it. In the mailroom, a package will need to go out by a certain time, or else. As to who will determine what, it seems to me that for this exercise to have any meaning, there must be something at stake. If you go through the motions and just show up every day and not try, then no, you will not have the ability to decide where you spend next year because you will not have followed the rules of the real world. It seems to me that at the end of the summer, we will both know with absolute certainty whether you succeeded or not. But, if for some reason we disagree, it seems to me that the ultimate decision should be mine. I am the father and you are the son. I will be your boss and you will be the employee. Does that make sense?”

I nod that it does. I never lie. But I do now. There is something about what Arturo just said that does not make sense.

Arturo is waiting to see if there are further questions. He knows it takes me a while to process information. I do have one final question. “How will Marcelo be successful in the mailroom?” I would like to have a diagram or picture of what this means so that I can prepare for it.

“Each assignment given to you will have its built-in definition of success. You have a right to ask for instructions from anyone in the law firm who gives you an assignment. Success will be based on your ability to follow those instructions. I know this is very vague and you would like more clarity. You have to trust me. You are not going to be asked to perform tasks that are beyond your abilities. Do you trust me? I have always been fair, haven’t I?”

This time I don’t know how the word “trust” is being used. But “fair” I understand. “Yes,” I say. It is true. Arturo has always been fair.

“Good,” he says. “I will be honest with you. I am hoping that after this summer, you will choose to go to Oak Ridge High. There is a life out there that is healthy and normal that you need to be a part of. So, is it a deal?”

“There are some things I cannot do even if I wanted to,” I say.

“Like what?”

“There are so many things I still have difficulties with. I cannot walk by myself in a strange place without a map. I get flustered when I am asked to do more than one thing at once. People say words I do not understand or their facial expressions are incomprehensible. They expect responses from me I cannot give.”

“Maybe the reason you can’t do those things is not because you are not able to, but because you have not been in an environment that challenges you to do them. Jasmine, the girl who runs the mailroom, will show you the ropes. I’ve talked to her about you. She’ll go easy on you at first. But going slow doesn’t mean you won’t need to expand beyond your comfort zone.”

I am thinking that next fall, I will be able to work full-time at Paterson training Fritzy and the other ponies. I can visit the ponies on the weekends this summer. Arturo is basically asking me to pretend that I am normal, according to his definition, for three months. This is an impossible task, as far as I can tell, especially since it is very difficult for me to feel that I am
not
normal. Why can’t others think and see the world the way I see it? But after three months, it will be over, and I can be who I am.

“Think about it. Let me know first thing in the morning.”

“All right,” I say. “I will think about it.” I start to walk toward my tree house. Namu, who has been lying at my feet all the time, walks by my side.

“You are getting too old to live in a tree house,” I hear Arturo say behind me.

I pretend his words do not reach me.

T
he tree house was Yolanda’s idea. When I was ten, we were in the basement watching a movie called
Swiss Family Robinson,
and that’s when it came to her that I should have a tree house. She thought it would be good for me to have a place of my own where I could confront my fear of sleeping in a place other than my room. A tree house would allow me to be more self-sufficient, according to Yolanda.

Yolanda went to work immediately. She found a Web site dedicated to tree houses and downloaded plans for one of them. The next morning she took the plans to school and convinced her high school shop teacher to make the construction of the tree house a class project.

The construction was easy. Yolanda’s class even built a dog house for Namu under the tree house. The hard part was convincing Arturo to let us build it. He thought that the tree house would make me even more isolated. It took a lot of convincing but Aurora and Yolanda finally got him to agree. I still don’t know
how. Arturo’s only condition was that electrical and cable wires be installed by a licensed electrician.

The entrance to the tree house is through a trapdoor on the floor. To enter, you have to climb a ten-foot rope ladder, lift open the door, and then swing yourself up by the force of your arms. I climb up now and lie down on the cot. My fists open and close the way they do when I am angry. I don’t know what to do. I’m too restless to lie in the cot. I get up and sit on the desk chair. On the desk I have a CD player, headphones, and my laptop. I stand up and open the two windows. I sit down again and am about to grab the headphones when I hear Aurora’s voice.

“Open up, I’m going to fall.”

I open the trapdoor and see her barely holding on. One of her hands holds a plastic bag with a sandwich and the other hand is holding on to the rope. I take the plastic bag from her and help her up.

“Whew,” she sighs when she’s in. “You don’t make it very easy for people to visit you, do you?”

It occurs to me that she has only been in the tree house one other time. The afternoon that Abba died, she came up to let me know.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“No.”

“Your father told me that he talked to you about working at the law firm this summer.”

“You already knew he was going to talk to me about that. That is the reason why you asked Harry if you could talk to him for a few minutes. You wanted to tell him Marcelo was not going to be working there this summer.”

She lowers her eyes and then raises them again. “It was important that your father be the first to tell you. He has looked forward to this for a long time now. I told Harry we would call him tomorrow and let him know. It is still your decision. Your dad said he gave you a choice.”

“Working at Paterson is what I want.”

“Do you see his point of view, though?”

“I see his point of view. But he is wrong.”

“Tell me why you think he wants you to work at the law firm.”

“It is the real world.”

She laughs. “You’re getting pretty good at making funny faces.”

“It was not my intention to be funny.”

“Your father wants you to try this type of work.”

“Mailing letters in the mailroom.”

“But it’s not just that. He wants to you to experience going to work and walking from the train station to the law firm by yourself and interacting with people who are…regular people. I’ve met Jasmine, the girl you’d be working with in the mailroom. She’s only a couple years older than you. You’ll like her.”

“The children who ride the ponies at Paterson are regular people. Harry is extremely regular people.”

She lifts herself from the floor where she is sitting and walks over to the desk chair. When she is sitting down again, she says, “Remember when I first took you to the hospital with me? You were about nine, ten?”

“Marcelo was eight years old the first time.”

“That little? I went to see Carmen. Remember Carmen? I went on a Saturday, even though I had the day off, because I knew
she was in bad shape. I took you with me and left you in the playroom. When I came out, there you were, building a Lego castle with two other little boys. You weren’t talking to them or even playing with them really. Each of you was quietly building the castle, side by side. You know? Then after that you did all you could to go with me to work. You felt comfortable with those little children.”

“Carmen, Joseph, they all died.”

“Yes. I thought it was good for you to be around the children. And it was good for them. They liked you even though you hardly talked to them. You calmed them down just by being with them.”

“Marcelo listened to them.” For some reason, I slip into the third person with Aurora.

“But then you were always asking me to take you. I thought it was great for you and for the children. But now I have doubts.”

“Doubts.”

“About whether it was all right to let you be around so much suffering, so much death.”

“Suffering and death do not affect me the way they seem to affect others.”

“No?”

“They are part of God’s universal order.”

“It’s just that kids your age don’t generally think thoughts like that. They’re interested in other things, in being with their friends, in having fun. Your father would like you to experience a little of the world most people live in.”