He looks at me with this stern look on his face. “You wanna milk this cow?”
“Nope. But things would go easier if you could learn to move your lips and your hands at the same time. Think all the talking we could get done while you do your chores.”
He shakes his head and tries again. He stops. “It isn’t the talking and milking I can’t do. It’s the thinking and milking.”
“What’s there to think about?”
He’s still not looking at me. After a while he says, “For one thing, I’m thinking about what you tell my mother.”
“I didn’t tell her about your dream, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
I hear him sigh. He gets a couple of puny squirts out of one teat. “Hey,” I say. “I’ll leave you alone and promise I won’t bother you while you’re milking if you come to Whataburger with us.”
“Us?”
“Yeah, Breaker-Breaker and me want to take you out for your birthday.”
“You told Breaker-Breaker that it’s my birthday?”
“Yup. And Mrs. W too. The whole world knows. I might put in a call to Rolando this afternoon too. Maybe they’ll let me talk to him.”
I see the very beginning of a smile.
“Okay, it’s set. We leave at five. Mrs. W has okayed the use of the truck.”
I’m about to leave when I hear him say, “Wait.”
“Yes?”
“How long will you not bother me if I go?”
“What?”
“You promised not to bother me while I was milking if I went. For how long will you not bother me?”
“A week?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Forever.”
“Forever?” I gulp. “That’s a long time.”
He shrugs. It’s a “take it or leave it” kind of shrug.
“All right,” I say. “I won’t talk to you while you’re milking ... ever. But that only applies to while you’re milking. And that’s only because you can’t milk and talk at the same time. You’re fair game any other time.”
He shrugs again. But this time the shrug is accompanied by a full smile.
When we get back from Whataburger, we find Mrs. W putting the finishing touches on a chocolate cake. I’m practically floored because I’ve never seen Mrs. W bake.
“It’s from a box,” she says by way of explanation. “And the frosting I got right out of a can. They make it real easy for you these days.”
“Mrs. W, is that for moi? I didn’t even know you cared,” Breaker-Breaker says.
“It’s for Pablo,” Mrs. W says, looking at Pablo. Pablo is standing in the middle of the kitchen, not knowing where to put his hands. He finally sticks them in his pockets. “Y’all get yourselves some milk and let’s have us some cake.”
“Now you’re talking my language.” Breaker-Breaker is already opening the refrigerator, getting out the plastic pitcher of milk. “Wish we had something a little more joyful than milk.”
“Don’t you start now.” Mrs. W glares at Breaker-Breaker.
“Just kidding,” he says.
I get four glasses from the cupboard. Pablo looks embarrassed. He was that way at the Whataburger, like it’s painful for him to be the center of attention. “Sit,” I tell him. He pulls out a kitchen chair and sits on the edge.
Mrs. W is rummaging through a kitchen drawer. “I put them in here someplace.”
“What?” I ask.
“Them birthday candles,” she says, exasperated.
“I never got no cake or birthday candles,” Breaker-Breaker says, pretending he’s offended.
“Oh, shush!” Mrs. W says. “If you did your chores the way Pablo does, you mighta gotten one too. Where did I put those candles?”
“We don’t need candles,” Pablo says. He speaks so softly, Mrs. W doesn’t hear him.
“Of course we do,” I say to him.
“Where could they be?” Mrs. W asks, bewildered.
“I got some matches in my room. We can use those.”
“Why do you have matches in your room?” I ask, as if I didn’t know. Alcohol is not the only self-medication that Breaker-Breaker administers to himself.
“I’ll go get the matches.” Breaker-Breaker shoots out of the kitchen and is leaping up the stairs to his room.
“Where’s he going?” Mrs. W asks no one in particular.
“To get matches.”
“I have matches. What I need is them candles.”
“Let’s just have the cake,” Pablo says.
“You be quiet. You don’t have a say in this,” I tell him. I’m already aggravated by the fact that he had to pay for all of us at the Whataburger. Breaker-Breaker, who had promised to pay, conveniently forgot his wallet. Then Breaker-Breaker proceeds to tell us that it’s an old Mexican custom for the person having the birthday to treat family and friends to a banquet. As if he would know about Mexican customs. He’s whiter than I am.
Breaker-Breaker sticks fifteen wooden matches in the chocolate cake. Mrs. W is still searching in her mind for the candles. “I’m sure I bought some. Didn’t I?”
“Forget about the candles, Mrs. W. These will work.” I take her by the shoulders and sit her down. Breaker-Breaker is about to light the matches when I stop him. “Wait. Before you light them, Pablo has to think of a wish.”
“A wish?” Pablo has no idea what I’m talking about.
“You didn’t know that?”
“No,” Pablo says.
“Let’s go. Let’s go.” Breaker-Breaker lights a match. I reach out, grab his hand, and blow it out.
“Hold your horses,” I tell him. “We gotta get this right. Pablo only gets one wish. He has to make it count.” I look into Pablo’s eyes and it hits me that he knows nothing about birthday candles and wishes. This could very well be the first time anyone has celebrated his birthday, but I don’t want to ask for fear of embarrassing him. “Okay,” I say, “here are the rules for making wishes on your birthday. He’s going to light the matches. Now, those matches are going to burn down real quick, so it’d be good for you to have your wish ready beforehand. Then, when the candles or matches are lit, you make the wish, close your eyes, and blow all the matches out with one breath. If all the matches go out, your wish is granted. Got that?”
Pablo nods. But he still looks like he has questions.
“What? Tell me.” He shakes his head. “All right, close your eyes and make a wish.” Pablo shuts his eyes tight. “Light them up,” I tell Breaker-Breaker.
When all the matches are lit, Pablo finally opens his eyes and takes a deep breath. I see his lips move for a few seconds, and then in one breath he blows out the matches.
“Yay!” we all yell. All of us except Pablo. I can’t tell whether the look on his face is sad or just serious.
After we finish eating cake, Breaker-Breaker and Mrs. W go to the living room to watch True Crime, their favorite reality show. I’m washing the dishes we used and Pablo is drying.
“What if you wish for something that’s impossible?” he asks out of the blue.
I finish rinsing the dish and then put it in the rack before I answer. “When it comes to wishes, there’s no such thing as impossible.” I try to sound convincing.
“Do you wanna know what I wished for?” he says after a while.
I think about it. This is a hard question. Pablo never talks about himself and I’m afraid if I say no, I will miss a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Still, rules are rules. “I’d like to,” I say softly, “but if you tell me, then your wish may not come true. That’s one of the rules.”
“Oh,” he says.
And then it happens. I don’t know how it happens but it does. I suddenly know what he wished for. I hear his voice inside of me, the way he called out to her in his dream.
We finish the dishes in silence. All during this time I’m wondering whether it’s against the wishing rules if I tell Pablo that I know. Technically, he wouldn’t have told me. I decid
e to take a little chance. Bend the rules a bit.
“Want to go outside?” I ask.
“I gotta go check on the cows anyway,” he says.
Outside, the sky is brilliant with stars. That’s one of the things about the farm that I like the most. At night you see more stars than you ever knew existed. We walk slowly and quietly toward the barn. His hand touches mine for a brief moment and I lose my breath thinking that he is going to hold it, but it was just an accident.
“That thing you wished for. Maybe it’s not as impossible as you think.”
He doesn’t act surprised at what I say. He stops and looks at me. “You know then?”
“Yes,” I tell him. “I know.”
“Is it against the rules for you to know?” he asks, smiling.
“I don’t think so, as long as we don’t say the wish out loud.”
He nods. There’s an old wooden bench outside the barn. We sit there.
“I miss her,” he says.
We are quiet for a long time.
I see a shooting star and make the same wish.
NATE POWELL
CONJURERS
Sixteen-year-old refugee Farihalh wants to become “Minister of Darfur.”
Photo Credit: UNHCR / H. Caux
Endings are a time for reflection. This collection closes with a story to make you think, not only about its own meaning, but also about how the theme of wishes expressed in each story and poem relates to the refugees this book will help. Even though this story was not written with refugees in mind, it explores things that all of us, even the most vulnerable, might wish for.
What does she wish for?
Photo Credit: UNHCR / H. Caux
JOYCE CAROL OATES
THE SKY BLUE BALL
In a long-ago time when I didn’t know Yes I was happy, I was myself and I was happy. In a long-ago time when I wasn’t a child any longer yet wasn’t entirely not-a-child. In a long-ago time when I seemed often to be alone, and imagined myself lonely. Yet this is your truest self: alone, lonely.
One day I found myself walking beside a high brick wall the color of dried blood, the aged bricks loose and moldering, and over the wall came flying a spherical object so brightly blue I thought it was a bird!—until it dropped a few yards in front of me, bouncing at a crooked angle off the broken sidewalk, and I saw that it was a rubber ball. A child had thrown a rubber ball over the wall, and I was expected to throw it back.
Hurriedly I let my things fall into the weeds, ran to snatch up the ball, which looked new, smelled new, spongy and resilient in my hand like a rubber ball I’d played with years before as a little girl; a ball I’d loved and had long ago misplaced; a ball I’d loved and had forgotten. “Here it comes!” I called, and tossed the ball back over the wall; I would have walked on except, a few seconds later, there came the ball again, flying back.
A game, I thought. You can’t quit a game.
So I ran after the ball as it rolled in the road, in the gravelly dirt, and again snatched it up, squeezing it with pleasure, how spongy, how resilient a rubber ball, and again I tossed it over the wall; feeling happiness in swinging my arm as I hadn’t done for years since I’d lost interest in such childish games. And this time I waited expectantly, and again it came!—the most beautiful sky blue rubber ball rising high, high into the air above my head and pausing for a heartbeat before it began to fall, to sink, like an object possessed of its own willful volition; so there was plenty of time for me to position myself beneath it and catch it firmly with both hands.
“Got it!”
I was fourteen years old and did not live in this neighborhood, nor anywhere in the town of Strykersville, New York (population 5,600). I lived on a small farm eleven miles to the north and I was brought to Strykersville by school bus, and consequently I was often alone; for this year, ninth grade, was my first at the school and I hadn’t made many friends. And though I had relatives in Strykersville, these were not relatives close to my family; they were not relatives eager to acknowledge me; for we who still lived in the country, hadn’t yet made the inevitable move into town, were perceived inferior to those who lived in town. And, in fact, my family was poorer than our relatives who lived in Strykersville.
At our school, teachers referred to the nine farm children bussed there as “North Country children.” We were allowed to understand that “North Country children” differed significantly from Strykersville children.
I was not thinking of such things now, I was smiling thinking it must be a particularly playful child on the other side of the wall, a little girl like me; like the little girl I’d been; though the wall was ugly and forbidding, with rusted signs EMPIRE MACHINE PARTS and PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING. On the other side of the Chautauqua & Buffalo railroad yard was a street of small wood-frame houses; it must have been in one of these that the little girl, my invisible playmate, lived. She must be much younger than I was; for fourteen-year-old girls didn’t play such heedless games with strangers, we grew up swiftly if our families were not well-to-do.
I threw the ball back over the wall, calling, “Hi! Hi, there!” But there was no reply. I waited; I was standing in broken concrete, amid a scrubby patch of weeds. Insects buzzed and droned around me as if in curiosity, yellow butterflies no larger than my smallest fingernail fluttered and caught in my hair, tickling me. The sun was bright as a nova in a pebbled-white soiled sky that was like a thin chamois cloth about to be lifted away and I thought, This is the surprise I’ve been waiting for. For somehow I had acquired the belief that a surprise, a nice surprise, was waiting for me. I had only to merit it, and it would happen. (And if I did not merit it, it would not happen.) Such a surprise could not come from God but only from strangers, by chance.
Another time the sky blue ball sailed over the wall, after a longer interval of perhaps thirty seconds; and at an unexpected angle, as if it had been thrown away from me, from my voice, purposefully. Yet there it came, as if it could not not come: my invisible playmate was obliged to continue the game. I had no hope of catching it but ran blindly into the road (which was partly asphalt and partly gravel and not much traveled except by trucks) and there came a dump truck headed at me, I heard the ugly shriek of brakes and a deafening angry horn and I’d fallen onto my knees, I’d cut my knees that were bare, probably I’d torn my skirt, scrambling quickly to my feet, my cheeks smarting with shame, for wasn’t I too grown a girl for such behavior? “Get the hell out of the road!” a man’s voice was furious in rectitude, the voice of so many adult men of my acquaintance, you did not question such voices, you did not doubt them, you ran quickly to get out of their way, already I’d snatched up the ball, panting like a dog, trying to hide the ball in my skirt as I turned, shrinking and ducking so the truck driver couldn’t see my face, for what if he was someone who knew my father, what if he recognized me, knew my name. But already the truck was thundering past, already I’d been forgotten.
Back then I ran to the wall, though both my knees throbbed with pain, and I was shaking as if shivering, the air had grown cold, a shaft of cloud had pierced the sun. I threw the ball back over the wall again, underhand, so that it rose high, high—so that my invisible playmate would have plenty of time to run and catch it. And it disappeared behind the wall and I waited, I was breathing hard and did not investigate my bleeding knees, my torn skirt. More clouds pierced the sun and shadows moved swift and certain across the earth like predator fish. After a while I called out hesitantly, “Hi? Hello?” It was like a ringing telephone you answer but no one is there. You wait, you inquire again, shyly, “Hello?” A vein throbbed in my forehead, a tinge of pain glimmered behind my eyes, that warning of pain, of punishment, following excitement. The child had drifted away, I supposed; she’d lost interest in our game, if it was a game. And suddenly it seemed silly and contemptible to me, and sad: there I stood, fourteen years old, a long-limbed weed of a girl, no longer a child yet panting and bleeding from the knees, the palms of my hands, too, chafed and
scraped and dirty; there I stood alone in front of a moldering brick wall waiting for—what?
It was my school notebook, my several textbooks I’d let fall into the grass and I would afterward discover that my math textbook was muddy, many pages damp and torn; my spiral notebook in which I kept careful notes of the intransigent rules of English grammar and sample sentences diagrammed was soaked in a virulent-smelling chemical and my teacher’s laudatory comments in red and my grades of A (for all my grades at Strykersville Junior High were A, of that I was obsessively proud) had become illegible as if they were grades of C, D, F. I should have taken up my books and walked hurriedly away and put the sky blue ball out of my mind entirely but I was not so free, through my life I’ve been made to realize that I am not free, as others appear to be free, at all. For the “nice” surprise carries with it the “bad” surprise and the two are intricately entwined and they cannot be separated, nor even defined as separate. So though my head pounded I felt obliged to look for a way over the wall. Though my knees were scraped and bleeding I located a filthy oil drum and shoved it against the wall and climbed shakily up on it, dirtying my hands and arms, my legs, my clothes, even more. And I hauled myself over the wall, and jumped down, a drop of about ten feet, the breath knocked out of me as I landed, the shock of the impact reverberating through me, along my spine, as if I’d been struck by a sledgehammer blow to the soles of my feet. At once I saw that there could be no little girl here, the factory yard was surely deserted, about the size of a baseball diamond totally walled in and overgrown with weeds pushing through cracked asphalt, thistles, stunted trees, and clouds of tiny yellow butterflies clustered here in such profusion I was made to see that they were not beautiful creatures but mere insects, horrible. And rushing at me as if my very breath sucked them at me, sticking against my sweaty face, and in my snarled hair.
Yet stubbornly I searched for the ball. I would not leave without the ball. I seemed to know that the ball must be there, somewhere on the other side of the wall, though the wall would have been insurmountable for a little girl. And at last, after long minutes of searching, in a heat of indignation I discovered the ball in a patch of chicory. It was no longer sky blue but faded and cracked; its dun-colored rubber showed through the venous-cracked surface, like my own ball, years ago. Yet I snatched it up in triumph, and squeezed it, and smelled it—it smelled of nothing: of the earth: of the sweating palm of my own hand.
What You Wish For Page 18