“Jackpot!” Cameron suddenly shouts from the back corner. “Found them!”
I scoop the photographs into a pile. From behind a rusty spade and a faded red snow shovel, she pulls out two fishing poles. Rods.
Papa’s fishing gear. The gear that got him third place in the dock fishing tournament.
“Entrance fee and rods.” She holds them out like two dusty swords. “Mission accomplished.”
I scramble to my feet, dropping photographs back into the shoebox. But one catches my eye, and I plop down again.
In this picture my brother is no more than four or five years old. Next to him is Papa with that mustache. Between Papa and my brother is the biggest fish I have ever seen. The creature, nose to tail, is at least as tall as the boy in the picture. The fish’s eyes look to be about as big as golf balls. The fins are shiny, rainbowlike. The fish doesn’t look happy, but both the people in the photograph wear identical, ridiculous smiles on their faces, like they’re superheroes or something.
“Now that is a fish,” Cameron says, leaning over my shoulder with the rods held like crutches.
I flip the picture over, and on the back, written in faint pencil, are the names Eduardo + Eduardo. I run my finger over the letters.
“That’s my brother, Eddie. And my dad.”
“Wait.” Cameron shifts both fishing rods to one arm and takes the picture out of my hands. “Eddie? You’re both Eddie?”
“My dad was too.” I hold out my hand, and she lays the photograph on my palm.
Cameron whistles. “Wild. How do they tell you apart?”
“Promise not to laugh?”
She tilts her head, and I decide that means she’s promising.
“Well,” I say, sliding the picture into my back pocket, “my brother is Big Eddie and I’m Little Eddie.”
She shakes her head and laughs even though she sort of promised not to. “No.”
“It’s true.”
She squints her eyes like she’s studying me. “Little Eddie, you need your own name.”
“What I need,” I say, grabbing the rods—my dad’s fishing rods—from her, “is to win that tournament.”
5
THE NEXT DAY, after Kamp Kids, I want to go back to the fishing dock, but Mama won’t let me go alone unless I promise to wear a life vest. Unfortunately for me, it just so happens that we found one in the garage along with an old green metal box that Cameron said was a tackle box.
“I’ll look like a dork,” I complain to Mama. I regret ever telling her about the life jacket. I didn’t tell her about the photo of Papa and Big Eddie and the fish. I just tucked it into the pages of the X-Y-Z volume of my encyclopedia.
“If you want to go by yourself…” She trails off because she knows that I know what she means. She’s not budging. We both watch a chickadee flit to the bird feeder we hung outside the kitchen window the first morning we were here. I held the step stool and Mama screwed in the bracket.
“But—” I try. Two more chickadees join the first one. They chirp in carefree voices like they have no worries.
“Life vest, or no more dock visits without supervision, Little Eddie.” She folds her arms in front of her chest to let me know she’s not changing her mind.
I groan silently. Only four more days until Big Eddie gets here.
As long as I have to wear the life vest, I decide to bring a fishing rod. I don’t exactly know what to do with the assortment of hooks, lines, and eyeless wooden fish I found in the tackle box, so I leave it behind. I wear the vest unzipped and rest the rod on my shoulder.
On the way to the lake, I have to be careful not to poke anyone. There are moms with strollers and dads out jogging. Evening commuters on bikes weave around the slower traffic. Minneapolis is famous for its parks. Almost everyone in this city lives within a ten-minute walk of a park. And the walk to Lake Madeline is only seven minutes from our new duplex. People call it Lake Mad for short. Mad Lake. “Mad” can mean “angry” but it can also mean “crazy,” and today, like most summer days, the sidewalk around Lake Mad is filled with goofy-looking Rollerbladers, teenagers with nose piercings, and groups of women who appear to be doing yoga while walking.
Even though the path is busy, the only person on the dock is a black-haired man with his black-haired kid. The kid looks too little to understand what they’re doing—much younger than Big Eddie was in that photo with the fish. When Big Eddie gets here, I have a lot to ask him. About the photo. About fishing. Everything I need to know to win the tournament. And get a medal just like Papa’s.
The man packs up his gear while his toddler runs around on stubby legs. After they leave, I lean on the railing where I first met Cameron. This time, instead of taking the medal out of my pocket, I hold the fishing rod over the water. Now, I know I can’t catch fish without a hook. But I want to see what it feels like to stand on the dock with my own rod.
I rest it in a little notch on the railing and imagine the tournament day: sunny skies, crowds of people, an announcer booming out the entries over a loudspeaker. And the winner, with the biggest fish, is… The announcer’s voice will be deep and low, and the other fishermen will start cheering and clapping before he even says my name. Edward Aguado!
“Nice life jacket,” a voice says, and my daydream vanishes.
I turn and see two teenage boys, their hair dirty blond and curly. They’re on bikes, feet on the boards of the dock, forearms resting on the handlebars. Alyssa’s brothers. The Schmidt boys. Behind them, Alyssa straddles a sparkly turquoise bike and plays with her earrings.
“Scared of falling in?” The older one, Mason Schmidt, makes cooing, baby noises.
“Isn’t that your boyfriend, Alyssa?” the younger one, Ivan, asks.
“Shut up,” she says, and doesn’t look at me.
“What’s your name, dork?” Mason sneers.
I just keep my head down.
“Alyssa,” he says. “What’s your boyfriend’s name?”
“Eddie. People call him Little Eddie.”
Mason snorts. “I remember you. And your brother. Where’s your brother now?”
One time, not the last time my brother was here but before that, Big Eddie took me to the park on the south end of Lake Madeline. When we got to the playground, the three Schmidt kids were already on the equipment. Alyssa was on the swings, and her brothers, who were about eight and ten at the time, were jumping off the monkey bars. The park has a big slide and ramp structure that looks like a pirate ship. Big Eddie stood at the bottom of the slide and watched me climb up. When I got to the top, I looked down. I was only six, maybe seven, so I thought it was super high. I stopped, and when I did, one of the Schmidt boys shoved me into the railing of the slide’s landing.
“Where are you and your dumb brother from anyhow?” Ivan asks me now. He has pimples on his forehead, and his shirt is so threadbare, I can practically see his belly button.
“Me? Here,” I say. “Minneapolis.”
“No, where are you from?” He says “from” slowly like I don’t speak English.
I squint at him. Every time I meet new kids, a new family, new teachers, they always ask, Where are you from? The from they’re asking about, the answer they want, is a place, a country, a continent. Maybe it’s my last name, maybe it’s my dark hair, but people always think I’m from somewhere else. Anywhere but Minnesota.
So sometimes I say South America. Sometimes I say Timbuktu. Sometimes I say Mars.
“Mars,” I say to Alyssa’s brothers. Not that it’s a good idea. I should be keeping my mouth shut.
Alyssa laughs, but not like it’s funny.
“Well, you look like a spic to me,” Mason says.
“Yeah, those spics love catching polluted fish on the lake.” Ivan scoots his bike closer to me. I can’t back up because I’m all the way in the corner of the T of the dock.
“He’s from Mexico,” Alyssa volunteers. “Or maybe Colombia?” I regret the country report I did last year for Hispanic He
ritage Month.
Our teacher, Ms. Hanover, had explained that “Hispanic” meant “people from Latin American or South American backgrounds.” There was the astronaut Ellen Ochoa. There was some teacher from long ago named Jaime Escalante. Roberto Clemente was a baseball player that a couple of baseball fans in the class had heard of. But the assignment didn’t have anything to do with people. The assignment was to choose a Latin American country to research. Liam and I were partners, and we chose Colombia. Alyssa and Emma Matthews did Costa Rica.
“Shut up, Alyssa,” says Ivan, who is off his bike now.
“You got some cocaine for us?” says Mason. He leans his bicycle against his brother’s, and both bikes topple over. The movement on the dock makes little waves on the water, sending ripples across… to where? What if the ripples could be felt by the toddlers swimming at the beach at the other end of the lake?
“You must love drinkin’ coffee,” Mason says in some weird sort of accent that I can only assume is supposed to be Spanish but sounds nothing like the way Big Eddie does when he speaks. Mason steps over the fallen bikes and gets near enough to poke me in the stomach, where the life jacket puffs out. “Eh, Juan Valdez?”
“Leave me alone,” I say, trying to back up again but getting stopped by the railing. The two Schmidt kids inch closer. If Big Eddie were here, he’d stop them like he did when I was little.
After Mason Schmidt shoved me that day on the slide, Big Eddie shouted, “What do you think you’re doing, shrimp?”
Mason turned at the sound of my brother’s voice. “What are you gonna do about it, spic?” Mason said, his voice pointed and mean.
“You better leave him alone, cabrón.” Just as Big Eddie said what I was pretty sure was a bad word, Mason pushed me again, this time so hard that I tumbled down the slide. Big Eddie ran to catch me, but he was too late. My nose went deep into the wood shavings, and I could taste blood. I started to cry. When Mason came down the slide laughing, Big Eddie was already there. He was fourteen and big enough to scoop me up in one arm and grab hold of Mason’s T-shirt with the other, right at the neck. “Don’t you touch him again, little boy.”
Now, as the Schmidt brothers inch closer to me, it’s clear that Big Eddie didn’t fix anything.
“Look,” Ivan says, grabbing the rod, “we found a fishing pole. I’ve always wanted a fishing pole.”
And then, as if I have no control over what comes out of my mouth, I say, “It’s called a fishing rod, idiots.”
Alyssa’s two brothers lunge at me and grab both my arms and shove me, hard. I stumble back against the railing. One of them yanks my arm behind my back, and the other one snatches Papa’s fishing rod.
“Give it,” I say, twisting out of Ivan’s hold.
“Are you going to cry?” Mason throws the rod like a javelin. What if it sinks? What if I lose Papa’s rod? How will I fish? How will I win the tournament and get a medal just like his and get the money to help Mama? It feels like my whole life depends on that fishing rod, which is now flying through the air.
I dive for the rod but notice a split second too late that my shoelace is untied. And like a cartoon character, I sprawl across the dock. But I’m not hurt, thanks to the cushioning effect of the life jacket. And luckily for me, Mason is no athlete. The end of the rod skids into the water, its reel caught on the dock.
A shadow falls over us. “What’s the trouble here?” A tall man with dreadlocks is on the dock, his dirty bucket in one hand and rod in the other. “No bikes allowed on the dock.”
Alyssa has already ridden to shore by the time her brothers are back on their bikes.
“Spic,” they spit at me with venom that I can almost taste. I kneel on the dock and reach for my rod. Other than being wet, it’s not in any worse shape than it was before.
“Thanks,” I say to the fisherman, but he has already turned back to his bucket.
I breathe. My chest feels like I ran a mile. I’m going to show them, show everyone. I look into the water. I’m going to catch the biggest fish ever. I’m going to win that tournament.
6
WHEN I GET HOME from the dock, Mama’s on the phone. She pulls it away from her ear as I walk in. “Do you want to talk to Liam?”
I nod. Maybe I’ll tell him about the Schmidt kids. Jerks.
“Sarah,” Mama says into the phone, “here’s Little Eddie.”
I shake my head at Mama for calling me Little Eddie. It’s so embarrassing when she does it in front of other people. “Hey,” I say, taking the phone.
“Hi, Eddie!” I can hear the exclamation mark in Liam’s voice. I open my mouth to speak, but Liam is off. Without taking a breath, he tells me about his new neighborhood and the community center and the stepbrothers. “We’re all coming back to Minnesota maybe for Christmas!” More exclamation marks. “It’s hecka cool!”
“Cool,” I say. I want to ask him about the word “spic.” I want to tell him about escaping those bullies. But Liam just goes on about how there’s no day camp in Brooklyn, just the community center, and Enrique to take him places. Then I hear a crash and Clara’s familiar little giggle alongside the laughter of people I can’t identify. Liam, who used to sleep over at the old apartment and hang out after school and catch frogs in the parking lot, is doing all those things—or different things, I guess—far away. Now it’s just me. I don’t feel like I belong anywhere anymore.
Between giggles, Liam says, “I gotta go.” There’s another crash in the background. “Bye!”
Even though I can hear Mama making dinner in the kitchen, the duplex echoes, reminding me how lonely it is here. It’s not fair. Thinking of Liam so far away and having his own, new life makes me so angry that I decide I’m not going to say good-bye back. But it doesn’t matter because Liam hangs up so fast, I don’t get a chance.
I drop Mama’s phone onto the coffee table and go into my room, slamming the door behind me. In the S-T volume of my encyclopedia, I look for the word “spic,” but it’s not in there. I pick up another volume and scan the entry for fishing. It’s fifteen pages long and has lots of pictures. It says: Although fishing is now considered a sport, it was originally a means of getting food to eat. Evidence dating back to 2000 BC shows that ancient humans caught fish with nets and rods.
I bet ancient humans didn’t wear life jackets. I go into the garage and stuff the life vest between two cardboard boxes on one of the shelves. I never want to see it again. I lean the rod against the back corner with the other one and check the side door that opens into the alley. It’s an old wooden door with a glass window that rattles when you slam the door shut. And you have to really slam it because it sticks. I make sure the door is latched and locked—not that anyone would want to steal any of the junk in here.
* * *
While she’s cooking dinner, Mama goes on about Big Eddie’s arrival on Monday, like when we’ll pick him up at the airport and what else we need to do to get ready. With one hand she stirs the vegetarian goop she calls ragout, and with the other she writes a list.
“I bought him a bus pass. Did I get sheets?”
“Last week,” I remind her.
“Right. Can you help me move the desk into his room?”
I don’t remind her that it’s more of a table than a desk. It’s hard to imagine Big Eddie doing homework at it. He usually just visits for a couple of weeks, and I’m so glad he’s actually going to be here all summer. Even if he does have to take classes at the university.
“Don’t let me forget to hang the blinds. And get a new pillow.” She writes on her list and then sets it aside. “Hopefully that’s it.” She ladles ragout and rice onto two plates and sits down.
“Can you buy me bait?” I ask.
She scrunches her nose. “You mean worms?” She shakes her head. “That’s what a big brother is for, Little Eddie.” I guess both of us can’t wait for Big Eddie to get here.
We take turns sprinkling salt onto our food. Sometimes Mama is a good cook, and sometimes she
’s not.
“Did you know you can use salt to get leeches off?” I ask. I read that in my encyclopedia. “It kills them.”
“Yuck.” Mama shakes her head.
I watch her take a sip of water, and then I ask her what “spic” means.
Her lips press together. “Did you hear that at camp?” I shake my head. “Then where?” She sets down the forkful of zucchini that was headed for her mouth. I personally hate zucchini. It’s always trying to trick you into thinking it’s cucumber. I hate when one thing is like another only not. Like sugar-free gum or soccer in gym class or animated movies that teach about the human body.
“Nowhere,” I lie. If I tell her about what happened with Alyssa’s brothers, she’ll never let me go to the dock again—even with a life vest. And I’ll never learn to fish, and I’ll never catch the big one, and I’ll never win the tournament. And I’ll never get to be like Papa.
“Eat your vegetables,” Mama says. She chews. A chickadee calls outside the kitchen window and the refrigerator hums. “ ‘Spic’ is a term that doesn’t really mean anything. Do you know what the N-word is?”
I nod slowly. I know exactly which word she’s talking about. Worse than all the other curse words. Worse than the S-word, worse than the F-word. There might be some others, but I’m not sure. Mama doesn’t like cursing.
“They’re words meant to hurt you. Name-calling. Do you remember when you called Liam a poophead?”
“I was only six!” I protest. “And he called me a butthead.”
“Well,” she says, “then you know that everyone gets called names sometimes.”
“Did Papa get called names?”
What If a Fish Page 3