Diego the Tornado

by Joachim Masannek

  We didn’t even talk to each other at school. I sat between Danny and Kevin and never said a word. Behind us, Julian and Roger were silent as well. We were so quiet even the teacher noticed. Fabio looked worried. But we didn’t say anything to our teacher, and we totally ignored Fabio. He was no longer a part of us.

  After school we went home. We didn’t want to be with each other. Kevin didn’t even want to see Kyle, and Julian didn’t want to see Josh.

  On 44 Dearborn Street, Danny tossed his Legos against the wall and helped his mother iron clothes. He grabbed the folded laundry, put it in a basket, and then put it all away. This was a first for him. His mother was in shock. She just stood there and stared at her son, mesmerized, while she ironed, never noticing when the dress she was ironing caught fire on the ironing board.

  “Mom!” Danny yelled, as he pulled the iron off the dress and poured a glass of water on the flames. “What’s up with you?”

  “What’s up with you?” She shot back. “Why aren’t you on the soccer field?” Danny jumped from one leg to the next, tried to smile his irresistible smile, but she remained stoic, so for the second time in his life, it didn’t work. Nothing was working, so he quickly and angrily turned on his heel and went to his room.

  “You don’t get it!” he yelled and banged the door shut behind him.

  In the house across the street, Julian and Josh’s mother came home from work. She put her key in the lock. She didn’t notice the small puddles of water slowly seeping out from under the door. But when she opened the door, she was hit by a wall of water that rushed past her, almost knocking her down. The water in the kitchen was at least five inches high, and standing smack dab in the middle of the flood was her son Julian, holding a brush.

  “Back already?” he asked, nonchalantly. “We were going to surprise you.”

  His mother looked from her son to her feet, which were covered in water up to her ankles. Then she saw the source of the flood: the bathroom. With all the resolve she could muster she walked towards the bathroom and banged at the locked door until Julian handed her the key.

  “We were fighting,” he grinned.

  “So you locked your brother in the bathroom?” “Right, when he wasn’t looking,” Julian nodded matter-of-factly. “But we are fine now. Josh is cleaning up.”

  Julian’s mother opened the door. The entire bathroom was full of soap bubbles, floor to ceiling.

  “Josh!” she shouted as a second flood smashed against her on its way to the kitchen. The flood was so strong this time she lost her balance and landed on her rear.

  As the wall of soap bubbles crashed through, her younger son was revealed behind it. He stood on the toilet, cleaning the window above it on his tiptoes.

  “Hi Mom!” he greeted her. “We’re cleaning up. Great, huh?”

  Josh grinned like the Abominable Snowman, covered in soap bubbles.

  His mother just stared, incredulous. Finally, she spoke: “Cleaning up?” she asked, struggling to her feet, slipping and landing on her rear again.

  “Cleaning up! Right,” she sighed as Julian came over, worried.

  “Are you okay, mom?” he asked softly, trying to help her up. But she would have none of it.

  “Am I okay? Are you kidding me?” she yelled at him. “Why are you here anyway? Go to the soccer field, please!”

  Julian and Josh turned to stone.

  “Go on, get out!” she repeated, but Julian and Josh just shook their heads.

  “Excuse me? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “We can’t go to the field!” Josh whispered, and Julian cast his eyes downward in disappointment. “You know, we were positive you’d ground us for at least two weeks for what we did to the bathroom.”

  “Get out!” she shouted.

  “Maybe two weeks is too long. How about three days?” Julian pleaded, and Josh chimed in. “Yes, three days. Please Mom, that’s not too much to ask, is it?”

  At 58 Wilson Street, Kevin voluntarily took Sox for a walk just to kill time. Then he beat his drums so hard even the soundproof walls of the practice room in the basement couldn’t soften his fury. He didn’t stop until the last eardrum was burst.

  Tyler, his brother who was one year older than him, sat in their room, ear plugs in place, reading the books he borrowed from the library: Dream Professions; 50 Surefire Ways to Success; The 100 Top Professions of Our Time. He leafed through these books without any excitement, searching for a new vocation in life. His dream to become soccer pro had burst. He had to find a new purpose in life. But the job of a top manager or a stock broker or an online advertising consultant just wouldn’t cut it. These jobs would never replace what Tyler felt in his heart when winning a one-on-one fight, cutting a dream pass, or scoring an impossible goal. That’s why Tyler took out his ear plugs every night, grabbed his saxophone, and went into the woods to play the blues underneath the weeping willows.

  Sometimes strains of the blues reached the soccer field where Larry sat in his rocking chair beneath the umbrella that was fastened to the armrest. He was lonely and without a job since he had declared the end of practice. He didn’t even have to open the stand because there were no customers. But no matter how depressed and sad Tyler’s melodies were, Larry remained tough as nails and wouldn’t budge. What was he waiting for? What was his plan? What did he want the Wild Soccer Bunch to do?

  We had no clue. At his house on One Woodlawn Avenue, our pal Alex played Barbie dolls with his younger sister for three long days. Then he got up, sorted his soccer collection, made a list of his valuable items, and posted it on Craig’s List. Who needs soccer balls? They were nothing but a painful reminder of the past.

  Roger had been hit hardest. Roger, the hero, really had been our hero for a few weeks. But now he picked up the phone, called his mother’s girlfriends, and asked their daughters to come by and visit. Ten minutes later they stood at his door, monsters with lace and ribbons in their hair. But Roger didn’t care. He sat in a chair in the hallway and waited to be the guinea pig for make-up kits and curling irons.

  That’s how bad things got, three days into the eternal rain; three days after our visit to Heaven’s Gate Number 9; three days after Giacomo Ribaldo’s biting ridicule, Fabio’s snubbing our friendship and Larry’s refusal to coach us. On that third day it was clear: The Wild Soccer Bunch was history.

  What I had announced early in the story as the beginning of the end had overwhelmed us, flattened us, and scattered us to the seven winds. We had rested on our laurels for too long. We had been lying in the sun, dreaming, for too long. But I tell you, dreaming does not make a dream come true. You have to fight for a dream, and honestly, we were just too scared. Of course we wanted to play soccer, and of course we wanted to be real soccer pros when we grew up. But we were afraid that Ribaldo was right.

  Actually, it was even worse than that.

  We knew Giacomo Ribaldo was right. Yes, he was right on the money. We were nothing. We were just a bunch of kids kicking around a soccer ball. We weren’t good enough and never would be; we’d never get anywhere in the world of soccer. It was over.

  The Applesauce Duel

  On day four I came home from school as usual, stepped into our house, walked past my mother, tossed my backpack in the corner, sat down at the table and silently stared out the window. I didn’t care that my mother had made a pile of pancakes, my favorite meal. And when she encouraged me to eat, all I did was roll my eyes and push the pancakes away as if they had transformed into a pot full of slimy grits. “What’s the matter, Diego?” she asked, worried. “Want to talk about it?”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes again. Not again. She was just my mother. When would she get that?

  I needed my father, but he wasn’t here and he hadn’t even called me once since they split up.

  “Diego, I’m talking to you!” my mother said, reminding me she was still there.

  “But I’m not talking to you!” I spat. “Leave me alone. I don’t ne
ed your pity.”

  I wiped a tear off my face and stared out the window again.

  “Hm. Okay. I get it. You disrespect your mother and you want no pity.” My mother nodded and began eating her pancakes calmly. “And I won’t feel sorry for you that you lost all your friends and you’re never going to play soccer again. Is that about the size of it?”

  “Yes!” I spat again. “You don’t know anything!”

  I was fuming, but my mother held my gaze. She looked at me, and saw my tears. But she didn’t budge. She remained cold and merciless. She squinted. Then she put both hands on the table and took a deep breath.

  “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” she said with a deep voice as if she was a gunslinger in a cowboy movie, about to draw her gun. “Was that an insult, boy?”

  She grabbed the spoon and held it tight, like a six-shooter.

  “Fine. You better choose your weapon, then,” she grumbled in a raspy voice. “Because pardner, where I come from, them’s fightin’ words. Nobody insults the Wild Soccer Bunch.”

  I looked at her as if she was nuts. But to tell you the truth, she was actually starting to look like a gunslinger.

  “Cut it out, mom!” I said, embarrassed, but she brushed me off. She wasn’t my mother any more. She was a gunslinger and she was merciless.

  “Leave me alone,” she said, imitating me in her dark gunslinger voice. “What are you—a wimp?” That hurt. Tears shot into my eyes.

  “Stop it!” I begged her.

  “Too late, pardner,” she rasped. “You can run, but you cannot hide.”

  “I’m not hiding!” I protested.

  “Hahaha! Don’t make me laugh,” she mocked me again. “You’re so scared you’re about to jump out of your skin.”

  “All right, that’s enough!” I threatened the gunslinger. “Stop it …”

  ‘You stop it!” she cut me short, sniffing the air. “I can smell it. It smells like… self-pity. Yuck, it’s gross.”

  “Stop it!” I yelled. “Stop it right now!”

  I stared down the gunslinger, and for a brief moment, I believe I made the monster stop.

  “Dang,” the gunslinger swore, because she couldn’t think of anything else. But then she spat and this move showed the scale of her contempt.

  “You know what you are? You’re a… chicken.”

  I couldn’t breathe. You don’t want to hear that coming from your own mother, even if she is a gunslinger.

  “No, I’m not,” I said quietly. “You’re right, you’re worse. You’re a wimp,” she responded.

  “No!” I shouted.

  “Then prove it, tinhorn. Draw … or face my wrath!”

  It got real quiet. The gunslinger’s eyes locked on my chest. I could barely move. But I fought back. I wiped the tears from my face and took a deep breath. Then I grabbed a spoon from the table.

  “You asked for it!” I said roughly, and the gunslinger nodded. Then she drew. With lightning speed, the spoon shot forward towards the applesauce. But she wasn’t fast enough. I had already spooned out some applesauce and put it in my mouth.

  Oh, let me tell you dear reader, it was good.

  The gunslinger was surprised. “Not bad!” she murmured. This time she really was impressed. “But you know, my boy, it’s much better with pancakes. Here. Catch!”

  With that, the gunslinger pulled a pancake from the pile and threw it towards me like a Frisbee. I plucked it out of the air and stuffed it in my mouth.

  “True!” I grinned with my mouth full. The gunslinger grinned back.

  “Fine! Stuff your face, you hear, and while you do that, I’ll tell you a story. Man to man.”

  I swallowed until my mouth was finally empty, and then I nodded: “Okay. Deal!”

  The gunslinger smiled and with this smile he morphed back into my mother. I ate seven pancakes with syrup and then seven with sugar and cinnamon. But I didn’t notice. I just listened to my mom weave her tale. It was the most exciting and suspenseful story I’d ever heard. It was the story of the Wild Soccer Bunch against the Furies, the story of the upset of the century.

  My friends, let me tell you, I couldn’t wait for the ending. As soon as the story was over, I jumped up, raced to the phone and called the Wild Soccer Bunch, one by one.

  “Let’s all meet at Camelot. Right now!” I said. “My mom’s got a plan.”

  Meeting at Camelot

  “A plan?” Kevin spat. “Your mother is clueless.”

  “No, she’s not! She’s a real gunslinger,” I protested. Bad move.

  “A what?” Kevin burst out. My friends didn’t get the gunslinger thing. You had to be there. Now they thought I was positively mental.

  We were at Camelot. It’s actually Julian’s tree house but we call it Camelot. He built it himself in his backyard, three-floors tall. It was our meeting place. We’d gather here when the chips were down, and it was here we’d always figure out a way through things. But this time, things seemed downright impossible.

  The Wild Soccer Bunch was history. And my mother explained why: we had given up. Simple as that. But my friends didn’t get it. No, they just stared at me like zombies, as if I was demented. No one listened to me.

  I sat in a corner in the downstairs room, our conference hall, watching my friends.

  Kevin was pacing nervously. “Did you hear that? Diego’s mom is really a gunslinger!” He shouted and hit the wall so hard his fist began to bleed. “Oww! That’s why you called us here? You’ve got to be kidding!”

  No one dared say a word.

  Danny tapped his feet and Tyler drummed his fingers on the table. Julian hugged his knees as if he was freezing, Josh chewed his fingernails, and Alex bit his lips. Joey pinched his arm, Kyle played with a golf ball, and Roger put curlers in his hair.

  They looked like a bunch of total losers.

  But at least they were here. I could see they were desperate. I had to do something, even if they laughed me out of town. I just had to, even though it was my mother’s plan and they’d never get the gunslinger thing.

  I took a deep breath and cleared my throat. “Ahem! Here goes. The plan is really quite simple. We play the Furies.”

  I paused to let it sink in. My friends rolled their eyes. And Kevin said it like it was.

  “That’s it?” he mocked. “Dude, we know that plan.”

  “Yes, we do,” Danny agreed. “And it’s absurd. The Furies will destroy us, then make us the laughing stock of every other team in town. And you know why? I’ll tell you why. To them, we are nothing but pathetic little ants, trying to climb Mount Everest. They’re on top, and they can’t see us way down at the bottom because we’re ants. In other words, we are nothing to them. Less than nothing. As far as they’re concerned, we don’t exist.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll just have to change that.” I said it calmly because I was calm.

  “Yeah, right, and how exactly do you plan to do that?” Danny’s eyes glistened with rage. “Tie a trunk to our noses and call us elephants?”

  I pointed at Danny. “Good idea. You’re close,” I praised him.

  They didn’t buy it.

  “Really,” Danny spat. “All right. Let’s hear this genius plan.”

  “Yeah, spit it out, Diego,” Kevin added. “We can’t wait to hear what you’ve got up your sleeve.”

  “Okay,” I said accepting the challenge. “First of all, knock off the whining.”

  Everything went pin-drop quiet. All you could hear was the air whispering my friends’ fury. Kevin and Danny clenched their fists and I was sure one false move would set them off.

  “Excuse me?” Kevin hissed, insulted, but I just shook my head.

  “I’m talking about all of us, including me,” I said. “Actually, I was the worst whiner of us all. First I was petrified Joey and Kyle would kick me off the team. Then I was scared of Fabio. And then, until last night, I was hiding from the world, because I was so scared of the Furies. I was afraid I wasn’t good enough. I was hoping we’d neve
r play soccer again. My mom says be careful what you wish for because that’s what you’ll get, and guess what – we sure got it.”

  I looked around at my team. The hatred was gone. Even Kevin and Danny hung their heads low.

  “I feel just like you,” I continued. “I felt like I just got run over by a truck. We can’t let this happen. Nobody gets to treat us like dirt. Got that? And that’s why we’re here.”

  The others looked at me. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Their eyes were blank. Now I was furious.

  “I can’t believe you guys! What’s wrong with you? We’re friends. And the Wild Soccer Bunch is the best soccer team in the world. Who cares if Ribaldo laughs at us? He bites!”

  “Yeah, we’ll show him!” Kevin and Danny shouted finally, and the others chimed in.

  I was relieved. They finally woke up. They finally understood what was at stake. But I wasn’t quite done yet.

  “Hold it! One more thing. There’s a catch.”

  I didn’t continue until the excitement ebbed. “The Furies are one of the best youth soccer teams in the country. The very best kids play for them, and we can’t expect them to take us seriously. Danny is right. As far as the Furies are concerned we’re just a bunch of ants. We’re the ants and they’re the elephants, but guess what elephants hate the most? When ants crawl up their trunks. And that is exactly what we are going to do.

  “Crawl up their trunks?” Danny asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “So to speak. Which is why we need a plan.”

  “Duh! Haven’t we already been through this?” Kevin asked and Danny smirked. “Spit it out already.”

  “Just so you know, it’s my mother’s plan,” I warned them.

  “And she’s a gunslinger!” Josh threw in. The sparkle in his eyes was contagious.

  I smiled proudly. Then I told them everything my mother had told me: we had to become like the Furies to become a real team. A real team needed a name and a club and a Charter; every player needed a contract; and on top of that, we needed jerseys with our own logo on it. And to get jerseys and soccer gear we needed someone who’d pay for them. We needed a sponsor.