You don’t go to school because you
don’t learn anything, even when the teacher does show up, and because your
mother doesn’t notice whether you go or not.
She doesn’t notice because apart
from buying herself a coke or some beans every few hours, she stays in “your”
cardboard hut, spending your father’s drug sale money, whatever’s left after
his nightly boozing, of course, on cable television. She watches telenovelas
(soap operas) that you don’t understand.
Your older brothers are trying to
keep themselves alive by robbing buses all day, so they can’t give you
something to do.
Luckily for you, in your barrio,
next to the Comedor (eatery) that gives you a free meal every morning, there is
a humble library. It has lots of books with pretty pictures that numb your mind
for a few minutes. There are words on the pages, but you never learned to read,
and even if you can sound out a few letters, they switch places on you and your
eyes blur them together, such that reading hurts too much.
 |
| Esteven and Alejandro outside the library |
The life I just described belonged
to a frequent library “client” named Alejandro. He lived across the alley from
the library, so like it or not, I saw him every day. He played all day in the
dirt, with various cheap games.
One favorite was top-spinning. Alejandro
and his cronies—Laura Fabiana, Esteven, Cambell, and so many I can’t name—would
place chipped sidewalk pieces in a circle they drew in the dirt, wind their
adobe-colored tops tightly in dishwater strings, and hurl the tops at the
ground, aiming to hit the chipped concrete. I remember how their biceps flexed
and eyes grew firey and focused before releasing the tops. Such strength,
determination, anger, potential. To be NFL quarterbacks. Or world-class
archers. Or farmers. Or mechanics. Or pistol-wielding gang members.
But being too poor for dreams and
too young for gangs, they play with tops.
Or marbles.
Marbles were the weekly treat.
Perhaps mom decided it was high-time Alejandro bought her a coke, so she gave
him six córdobas, and risking the spanking if she found out, he bought himself
three marbles. Or perhaps he found them in the dump, remnants of a richer kid’s
boredom. Or perhaps it was Friday, the day the library loaned out marbles.
However Alejandro found those
marbles, it happened weekly. Then he’s lose them or they’d get stolen. Which is
why the humble library would hesitate to loan them out.
The sight of those marbles in
Alejandro’s hand is one I will not forget. I’d place them there and look into
his eyes, hoping to convey the importance of returning a loan so precious to so
many children. For a few seconds he’d just look at them in his grungy palm. His
eyes contracted and relaxed and glistened. Three smooth crystals in a cracking
calloused shell. As round as his protruding, foodless belly. Three gemstone
tickets to hope in a grey-brown world.
I came to understand that kids most
liked the games and activities that gave them control of something resembling
money or food. Monopoly, Candyland, marbles. Temptations of a life they’d never
lead.
This past Friday I went to see
Jack, a spiritual director. To get to his house in Portland, I drove a car, shinier than any
marble Alejandro would ever see. Before Jack said a word, I spent a long time
crying, thoughts and heart flying too fast to comprehend, and then zoning out
by staring at the startling blue and green of the Oregon outdoors. Blues and greens that
reminded me of the crystals in Alejandro’s hands. I told Jack that I don’t how
how to find the space to grieve in this place.
Years ago, Jack spent time in rural
Guatemala,
and described the first time he left the campo to go to the city to buy some
medicine. He entered a supermarket and found himself staring at an aisle
stocked with weight-loss products. On sale.
Weight loss. Money spent to lose
weight. What would Alejandro think of that?
Then Jack placed before me two
netted bags of something small, round, beautiful. One bag blue, the other bag
green. “I just bought these, and you’ll be the first recipient,” he said. “These
marbles represent your tears. Every day, you need to hold them in your hand,
and give them as much space as they ask of you. God needs you to cry God’s
tears.”
I took three blue, three green, and
held them in my hand. My world crashed into itself. “You don’t know…” I tried
to begin, but tears congealed the memory. He told me to take my time.
A few minutes later, I was able to
tell Alejandro’s story. “In Nicaragua,
children would save up to buy marbles. Their favorite game. What all the poor
children played, in order to distract themselves from food they didn’t have and
things they couldn’t do. Marbles were so coveted, so cherished.”
As the salty tears from my eyes
mixed with the gemstone tears in my hand, Jack whistled. “Oh. That hit a heart-chord
for you, didn’t it. Perhaps they’re going to be too much for right now.”
Not too much. Too perfect.
And so, because I cannot give them
to Alejandro, I hold these treasures in my hand, and cry God’s tears.
