Tonight I’ll finish the laundry. Tomorrow, I’ll clean up the house real early and write out all Mano’s instructions for Monday. That will give me time when Josie takes her nap to study some of those schoolbooks. I’ll get a good night’s sleep and wake up early Monday morning ready for the test. That’s enough to try and get through for anybody.
C’mon Josie, let’s eat. Almost time for bed. If you wake up all cranky tomorrow I won’t get any studying done.
FLACO MATOS
June 17, the test
TEST 1: WRITING SKILLS, PART I
Tests of General Educational Development
DIRECTIONS
The Writing Skills Test is intended to measure your ability to use clear and effective English. It is a test of English as it should be written, not as it might be spoken.
My mother speaks only clear and effective Spanish. Poppy communicated, which was neither English as it should be written nor Spanish as it might be spoken. And me, by the time I got to school I was functionally illiterate in two languages. I know that this test is intended to measure’s Flaco’s accent, Flaco’s attitude, Flaco’s crown. Which can’t be so, can it? Because I am just another grid of fully darkened little circles from a #2 pencil.
The multiple-choice section consists of paragraphs with numbered sentences. Some of the sentences contain errors in sentence structure, usage, or mechanics (spelling, punctuation, and capitalization). After reading the numbered sentences, answer the multiple-choice questions that follow.
Teach said, “You don’t need any knowledge of spelling, punctuation, and capitalization, or any damn thing else,” standing in the classroom early one morning, glowing as if he won the lottery. And me, not there to be with Teach, but to wait and watch as the others came straggling in tardy and unprepared.
That infuriating sound of chalk against the board as Teach scratched his formulas, using his clean shirt as an eraser so he wouldn’t pause and lose his train of thought. Teach said, “Multiple-choice is a test of ignorance. Limit what you assume is your knowledge and you will make fewer errors.” Then it was on the board.
If:
the probability of correctly answering a question is 1/5 and the pass ratio of the test is ⅓
Then:
let X be the number of correctly answered questions needed to pass the test, let Y be the total number of questions
So:
Theoretically, out of the twenty-seven questions in this section, they only need to answer five correctly to pass because they will get 25 percent of the rest of the questions correct just by guessing. Which was Teach’s way of convincing the others that stupidity could be useful. And me, whose pass rate for a scholarship to St. Francis University is 2/3 not 1/3, my oversight was assuming that the accumulation of knowledge would be more valuable than remaining stupid and having a greater probability of correctly guessing the questions. Which isn’t the point at all, because merely educating us would have been too logical, too straightforward and uninteresting for Teach, so he had to figure put a scam. Teach prefers to cheat.
To record your answers, mark one numbered space on the answer sheet beside the number that corresponds to the question in the test booklet.
FOR EXAMPLE:
Sentence 1: We were all honored to meet governor Philips.
What correction should be made to this sentence?
(1) insert a comma after honored
(2) change the spelling of honored to honered
(3) change governor to Governor
(4) replace were with was
(5) no correction is necessary
In this example, the word “governor” should be capitalized; therefore, answer space 3 would be marked on the answer sheet.
Do not rest the point of your pencil on the answer sheet while you are considering your answer. Make no stray or unnecessary marks. If you change an answer, erase your first mark completely. Mark only one answer space for each question; multiple answers will be scored as incorrect. Do not fold or crease your answer sheet.
My mother’s mouth was a crease, and when she stood from the folding chair they were damned if they didn’t make sure she looked just as honored to meet the governor as everyone else. That morning, without considering that she could see it from our house for the past year, city workers scrubbed the pavement to erase Poppy’s mark. The governor felt that a correction should be made, to set an example, to insert a memorial plaque and replace Poppy’s bloodstain. That’s politics, change governor to Governor in Westtown.
All test materials must be returned to the test administrator.
Once a cocolo always a cocolo. Give him a uniform and a security badge, call him a test administrator, but he’s still just another stupid cocolo. Eyeballing me during the most important day of my life. This cocolo doesn’t care that today means a scholarship to St. Francis University for me. I have a job to do. Everybody has a job to do. So do it well and don’t care what the others think.
Teach said, “You must concentrate Flaco, focus,” when concentration is like rubbing my tightly shut eyes, with colors swirling in a thousand points of light, and I try to pluck the positive and avoid the negative, which is like reaching into a black hole to come up with the capital of Paraguay but instead of Asunción I get Poppy.
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Knowing that a cocolo can snatch my test from me at any time if he suspects I’m trying to cheat. As if I’d cheat off anyone in this room, where it’s hot and the air is like stale sweat and the light behind me so the test page is in my shadow and one chair leg shorter than the rest with the El rumbling by every ten minutes so close to the window I could reach out and leave a penny on the track and at any time this cocolo who probably doesn’t even have a GED can tear up my test which is really a scholarship buried in my head next to all the things that keep me from concentrating. Teach would say to me right now, “Shut up and get to work.”
Directions: Choose the one best answer to each item.
Items 1 to 7 refer to the following paragraph.
(1)One of the lifelong memories many of us share are the moment we obtained a driver’s license. (2)If we were teenagers at the time these licenses signified our passage to adulthood. (3)We clearly remember practising to handle a car well in heavy traffic and learning to parallel park. (4)We also prepared for the test by studying the driver’s booklet, memorising rules, and to learn road signs. (5)Because we dreaded possible disaster, the road test seemed worse than the written test. (6)While conducting these difficult tests, the state driving inspectors often seemed stern and unyielding. (7)Therefore, when all the tests were finally over, we felt a real sense of achievement. (8)Whether or not we have chosen to use our licenses since then. (9)They remain of enormous value to us. (10)They symbolise our passport both to independence and to the open road.
Therefore, the parallel rays of streetlights I clearly remeraber as coming together in a V at Westtown, didn’t, couldn’t. The open road separated the apex of light to create an optical illusion on my horizon. But it wasn’t the open road, it was Division Street.
Screaming yellow cabs laughed as I waved $20 bills at them. I tore the hood from my sweatshirt and stuffed my gold into my shoe. Standing at a bus stop, freezing at two o’clock in the morning, one of the lifelong memories many of us share is praying that no Folks see Flaco on the bus back to Westtown.
And me, I could’ve jogged it in fifteen minutes. Flaco Matos, Flaco the King, Flaco be People, could’ve got jumped, or worse. Flaco’s passport is two fingers and a thumb, which remain of enormous value in Westtown, but Westtown is only where the light appears to meet on your horizon, which is not even a place with a name on a map of Chicago.
The eyes of the personnel manager at the Four Seasons Hotel seemed worse than any written test, so he took Tino and not me, and I searched for independence behind every marble pillar and beyond each polished brass door handle by the lake.
Johnny sat on the front steps of his club with his graying ponytail
and mobile phone, memorizing my green eyes, studying a teenager like all the other inspectors. Johnny took me to the men’s room and pointed out the crown scratched into the enamel. Johnny said, “Can I trust you Flaco?”
I say, “Call me Freddy.” Out loud, too loud, and the cocolo raises a finger to his thick lips.
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Johnny dressed me in a tux, the stiff shirt collar like two razor-sharp flower petals beneath my chin. Johnny gave me a headset and mouthpiece just like all the other bouncers at his club.
The two-way mirror in Johnny’s club signified my passage to adulthood, through it I saw Efraín Ruiz so I spoke into the mouthpiece, “Him, he’s wearing Vuarnets. Call him Bugsy, the shades make him look like a bug. Call him Bugsy, he doesn’t like to be called Bugsy.”
When they curled Bugsy’s arm behind his back and shoved him out the door I felt a real sense of achievement, knowing Bugsy felt me, which was not Flaco the King anymore, Flaco his bro’ anymore, but somebody curling his arm behind his back on the other side of the mirror while I, Freddy Matos, watched it. That moment, I stopped waiting for a time when all the tests were finally over.
But whether or not we have the five twenties Johnny paid me for one night’s work, I still couldn’t get a screaming yellow cab to take me home.
Directions: Choose the one best answer to each item.
Teach said, “Ahhh, mobility!” Like he does, like I’d finally worked out an algebra problem for myself. Then he started again, “One of the stations of the cross of modern urban poverty,” the words raining like a summer cloudburst, and me, wanting to run through the drops to cool off, not stand there and get soaked.
I ground Teach’s German gears, dreading possible disaster between first and second while we practiced driving in the park, where the last time I drove was at a Latin King demolition derby which ended by pushing the stolen cars into the lagoon to hiss and suffocate.
I walked to Teach with my driver’s license, thinking, Teach, your stations of the cross, there is education, there is mobility, and the third, tell me the third, my next achievement to learn and be obtained. A line of people waited for the driving test but there were no Flacos in it, no People, so I didn’t have to ask him.
Items 8 to 14 refer to the following paragraphs.
Teach said, “Read all the passages to familiarize yourself with the text before you answer any questions.” So they don’t. Too smart to even cheat properly. Look at that, Awilda’s answered the first ten questions already, more worried about getting a square before the next section. If you can’t commit yourself to using Teach’s method and cheating correctly, there’s no point in even taking the test.
(1)Many people who spend their summers in a city dream of owning a cottage at the shore or in the mountains by a lake. (2)Visualizing days filled with swimming, boating, or sunbathing, they imagine breathtaking sunsets and cool breezes in the evening. (3)Their sure the only sounds they will hear at night will be the wash of ocean waves or the croaks of bullfrogs. (4)Some just look forward to the perspect of watching birds and animals, such as rabbits or deer, in their natural habitats. (5)Before investing in such a cottage, however, a person should know that living at the shore or by a lake includes other kinds of experiences.
(6)Indeed, these experiences sometimes cause nightmares rather than fulfil dreams. (7)Unless you are luckier than most, hundreds of other people will also have discovered your natural paradise. (8)As a result, although the swimming or boating may be great, you will have to get up at daybreak to beat the crowds. (9)In addition to the sounds of nature, you’ll hear music blasting tired children crying and laughter roaring twenty-four hours a day. (10)Finally, friends whom you haven’t seen in years, long-lost relatives, and even mere acquaintances will begin calling in february to plan a lengthy visit with you in the summer.
Swimming and boating, a father indeed. Call him Daddy and those summertime vacations emerge from somebody’s memory that knows what the word cottage means without resorting to context clues. Call him Poppy, and these experiences sometimes cause nightmares rather than fulfill dreams.
Dead blood gathers in a rich clay color, but I’m only taught that oxygenated is red and deoxygenated is blue. I know when it’s dead, it’s clay, a muddy sludge standing pool next to Poppy’s head, his open eyes staring skyward, bubbly bloody drool oozing from his mouth. And the word death doesn’t mean funerals, the word kill doesn’t mean a hunter dropping his prey in a natural habitat, no, it means father which isn’t swimming or boating or cottages, but pissing and shitting himself in death convulsions on a hot street during a summer in the city.
Poppy’s people, People, fled across the park through a fiesta of music blasting tired children crying and laughter roaring until he was surrounded with his last set of acquaintances, the cops who were too early and paramedics who were too late. My mother and Mano and me standing around him, silent, like long-lost relatives who never knew him any better than to secretly expect him to be shot down in the street, and we didn’t even cry for the stupid fuck because we knew he wasn’t going to heaven or any other paradise.
Poppy’s wake was the cops surging forward to beat the crowds with billy clubs until they had chased them back to our lake which is a lagoon where swimming and boating are not allowed. The park was surrounded, and as darkness came people knew the only sounds they will hear that night are the tromp of police and voices through bullhorns. People who that morning were visualizing days filled with a long weekend of La Fiesta de Patronales in the park that Poppy said, “Is our park.”
So Poppy’s People lit Westtown on fire to smoke out the cops, which is a method that draws on the Matos essence of dramatic self-destruction. My mother was dressed in black and the detective came to take away our armed guards but before he left the detective said to her, “You’re luckier than most out there.”
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The test knows Flaco. Flaco’s never been to a cottage, seen a rabbit in a meadow, been water-skiing. Flaco never had a father to take him to a mountain by a lake. So Teach protected us from ourselves by telling us not to think too much because Teach knew that there wouldn’t be any paragraphs about Westtown or Puerto Ricans on the test.
And me, not Flaco anymore, can pass a test that doesn’t want to know if I can make subject and verb agree, but if I can still concentrate on subjects and verbs while wondering why my Poppy never showed me breathtaking sunsets where I could feel the cool breezes in the evening air.
Items 15 to 20 refer to the following paragraph.
(1)The cost of new homes is high today. (2)Many people are purchasing older homes in need of renovation. (3)Knowing little about carpentry, plumbing, or wiring, homeowners still feel confident about how to make repairs or remodel on their own. (4)They find out quickly, however, that it’s not as easy as they had imagined. (5)The first challenge to the confidence of these amateur renovators come with buying tools or equipment. (6) Just choosing among handsaws circular saws jigsaws and saber saws can be bewildering. (7)Even the most self-assured may lose their nerve when they discover that two-by-four inch lumber does not measure two by four inches. (8)The patience of renovators is also tried. (9)Frequently their renovations need to be completely redone. (10)What else can they do when repaired walls separate from beams or restoring sockets carry no electricity? (11) Still, do-it-yourself renovations is usually a source of pride for new homeowners, no matter how hard or how frustrating.
In love, however, even the most self-assured may lose their nerve. The cost of Tino is high today because Tino is high today. Still, the amateur renovators keep choosing Tino for the thousand jumbled jigsaw pieces of his eyes, keep purchasing Tino for those haughty Mestizo cheekbones, which are his source of pride. What else can they do?
Rising in the elevator with Tino to discover a thirty-fifth-floor apartment where every gaze carried electricity, every question was a challenge, because we were separate, free. Tino knew a guy who introduced us around but he wore make-up
and a black leather miniskirt, and me, thinking I may be in need of renovation, but do I need to be completely redone?
Alone with my patience, I watched from the kitchen as Tino drifted from man to man, his needful glance like a saber cutting through the talk and smoke. But there are no repairs in love, when once Tino and I were circular, two constant parts restoring each other to a whole. For Tino the clothes, cars, clubs, and drugs were like buying tools or equipment, and I thought, if not with me, then do-it-yourself Tino, no matter how hard or how frustrating it may be.
The guy in the skirt said, “It’s not as easy as they had imagined,” and he pointed to those that remodel on their own. Dressed in Westtown rather than downtown, the amateurs, their faces lumbered with desperation because they must find someplace to spend the night, because they must wait until dawn and sneak from cabs to their doorsteps so their families, their hood, the Latin Kings don’t attempt some renovations of their own.
Tino found Paul, who is a homeowner on the twenty-third floor, who is a doctor. Tino left Flaco standing in the kitchen to find his own way back to Westtown. Love can be, however bewildering. Flaco can’t keep sneaking in at dawn. And me, who will I love without a scholarship to St. Francis University?
Items 21 to 27 refer to the following paragraphs.
(1)Doctors in the field of preventive medicine concentrate on preventing disease and to encourage good health practices. (2)In the past, the United States Public Health Service and state and local health departments dominate the field. (3)More recently, however, doctors have taken a greater interest in the field. (4)Along with the general public, too. (5)For their part, medical researchers in the field try to discover the causes of disease. (6)They study heredity and the environment, and whether those factors affect the incidence of a certain disease in the population.
(7)Because of such research, practicing physicians are able to administer vaccines for polio, measles small pox, and other communicable diseases. (8)Physicians and health workers in the field also teach the public about health and hygiene. (9)They emphasized the importance of good maternal and child health care, including the administering of vaccines. (10)Together, private physicians and researchers are working for a healthyer population. (11)With time and public support, they should be successful.
A Nation of Amor Page 17