The Importance of a Piece of Paper

by Jimmy Santiago Baca

  “We had to sneak out of the kitchen to see how you are,” Osca said.

  The three resumed the song, singing with eyelids shut tight, thinking of on-the-spot lyrics, and wailing out their versions of R & B and hip-hop rhymes, which echoed in the cavernous chapel. Kimo slapped his thighs and stomach, and Osca and Tesco blended in their tunes, while Runaway, using a finger as a baton, kept their spontaneous jam session together. They settled down, huddling on their haunches in a corner hidden by the pews. They sipped and passed the bottle around.

  Runaway hummed the song back. “That’s bad... awesome shit,” he said.

  Osca gave the bottle to Runaway. “Glad to have you back, homeboy.”

  Kimo asked, “They paddle you bad?”

  Tesco said, “No such thing as a good paddle.”

  Runaway stood, lifted his shirt, and pulled down his pants. “I’m black all over.” He smiled, and they laughed when he told them about his old belief that he’d turned black. “I really believed I was changing.” He paused. “Didn’t you ever want to change? I mean, don’t you get tired of being you?”

  “Damn you stupid!” Osca exclaimed.

  “Wouldn’t it be cool though if you could change into five things—say a black person today, a white person tomorrow, a bird, a woman—” Runaway said.

  “I’d be back on my island, a volcano man, erupting and roaring all this lava out,” Kimo said.

  “I’d be a big joint in a pretty woman’s mouth,” said Tesco.

  “I’d be something else in a pretty woman’s mouth,” Osca said.

  “You guys shouldn’t be talking that way in a chapel,” Runaway said.

  “Just the buzz,” Kimo said, smiling.

  A dull noise came from the confessional. Kimo capped the wine, stuffed the bottle into his waistband, and left with the rest. Runaway went back to buffing. No more than a minute later, Father O’Neil came out of the confessional, red-faced. He gave Runaway a frown, and went through the doorway to his quarters. After waiting a sufficient time, Runaway turned off the buffer and went to the confessional. He slowly opened the door and saw an Indian boy, about twelve years old, cringing in terror in the corner on the floor. Runaway reached out to him but the kid recoiled.

  “Yeah, you okay, I’m not going to hurt you. Let’s go to the nurse—she’s cool. Come on, let’s go. We don’t want him coming back.”

  The boy didn’t move.

  Clutching his arm, Runaway pulled him out of the confessional, and led him out of the chapel and down the stairwell and along the hallway to the infirmary. There he walked right up to Sister Theo, the infirmary nurse, dressed in her white linen smock. A giant sweet-faced German nun, Sister Theo liked Runaway and he was fond of her because she was nice and reminded him of his grandma. She sat the Indian boy on one of the three tube-iron cots and questioned him at length, but he didn’t respond. The other two cots had boys in them with broken arms. They all stared as Sister Theo shined a pen flashlight into the Indian boy’s eyes.

  “He’s not responding,” she said, turning off the light. “Where did you find him?”

  Runaway knew that if he told the truth he’d incur the wrath of Father O’Neil.

  “He was on the steps. I think he’s a new boy. Maybe Father O’Neil tried to confess him. You know what he says, all us kids are possessed, maybe a devil’s in him too, that’s what he says about me.”

  “Don’t ever believe that. You have God’s good love in you and so does this boy. I think Father O’Neil watches too much TV.”

  “Wish I could watch TV, I miss the Simpsons,” Runaway said. “I’m still being punished.”

  He followed her up the two tiny steps into the pharmacy dispensary, no larger than a long narrow closet, with glass cabinets stocked with medicine bottles along the wall.

  “He won’t even let me touch him,” Sister Theo said, concerned. “He flinches, and that’s not a good sign. We should call Sister Anna Louise.”

  “I’ll take him to the playground, he’ll be okay. Remember what you say, play is the best medicine for a boy.”

  She wasn’t sure though. She studied the Indian boy again and said, “If I keep him here, Sister Anna Louise will inevitably show up and accuse me of coddling him.” She looked briefly lost in thought, and then said, “Well, at the slightest trouble, you bring him back to me.”

  Sister Theo grabbed some candy from a jar and returned to the boy. She handed a piece to him but he didn’t even acknowledge her presence. “Do you want to talk?” she asked. The boy gave no response.

  Runaway broke in, “You know what, I have a scratched knee, Sister Theo. My elbow and ankle hurt...” Sister Theo reached into her apron pocket and stuffed a handful of yellow lemon drops into his jeans.

  “You ran again. You know you shouldn’t,” she said and patted his back. She motioned to the Indian boy to stay put for a minute and led Runaway out back, past the screen door, into her small garden bursting with every fragrance in the world.

  The garden was enclosed by a transparent plastic tarp tent that she rolled up during spring and summer. She pointed out various plants. “That one cures earaches and this one toothaches. For a stomachache boil this leaf. And you know what this one does? It’s a rose and it’s been known to cure a broken heart.”

  “Wish there was one for blindness.”

  Sister Theo snipped a rosebud with her fingernails and placed it in Runaway’s shirt pocket. “Put this on the side altar at Saint Anthony’s feet—he’ll send your love to your grandma.”

  “Do you have anything for arthritis?”

  “Not a cure but something to alleviate the pain.” She looked at her own hands. “When it gets real bad, I pray. Put these petals at the side altar with Saint Francis and pray that he lessen the pain of your grandma’s arthritis.” They sat on the bench in the garden and quietly looked around at all the different flowers.

  “How about plants for luck?”

  “The four-leaf clover, you find them in the grass.”

  She looked through the screen door to check on her patient. “Oh my,” she gasped, “he’s gone.”

  “Don’t worry, Sister, I’ll find him. He probably went to the playground. And he’ll get over his fright, I’ve seen lots of boys like that when they first come here.”

  * * *

  A week later in class, Runaway accompanied Sister Rita as she sang a Latin hymn. He stood beside her in front of the blackboard and sang as melodiously as he could. Runaway was infatuated with Sister Rita—a tall, olive-skinned Arab nun with long sensuous hands and full lips. She was in her dark habit, a white collar framing her cinnamon face, a dark mole on her left cheek and long eyelashes. He stared at the flecks of spittle at the corner of her mouth, at her thick red tongue as her lips opened to sing the Gregorian Latin mass lyrics. When she finished, she placed her hand on Runaway’s shoulder, and he immediately clutched it.

  “Very good,” Sister Rita said, beaming down on Runaway, her teeth white and straight as new shiny pearls. Runaway was ingratiating, even shy, as he averted his eyes and stared at the veins on her brown hand. Kimo raised his hand.

  “Yes, Kimo,” Sister Rita said.

  “We’d like to rap, I mean we made up a tune for you,” he said.

  “No, Sister,” Runaway said, afraid they were up to something, “there’s no time to rap, we have to practice for the choir.”

  Kimo looked at Runaway and with a teasing tone in his voice said, “Just a little song we wrote for Sister Rita.”

  Tesco grinned. “It’ll help us get ready for the choir.”

  “Exemplary Christians...” Kimo said.

  They all looked over at Kimo with his big words as if he were a total dumb-ass.

  Osca said, “That don’t even sound English, mon...”

  Osca led off with rhyming innuendos about Runaway’s love for Sister Rita. She didn’t understand his Jamaican slang, but it was explicit enough to leave Runaway red-faced. Ever resilient, Runaway slapped Sister Rita’s desktop
with a nice drumbeat, and Kimo fell in behind him with body-slap beats, as Runaway whipped his head and hips back and forth, conducting the crew on a hot-lick kick.

  Just as they had finished, Sister Anna Louise entered. She whispered something to Sister Rita and pointed to Runaway. Sister Rita nodded to him and Sister Anna Louise escorted him out of the room.

  They walked out of the main building, toward the communal washroom. “We’ve spanked you so many times you’ve worn the paddles thin,” Sister Anna Louise said. “You’ve buffed the chapel floors to mirrors. We’re going to try something else, a new project—to wash all the windows on the building, but first, there’s something else you have to do.” She swung open the door to the washroom.

  Runaway grimaced at the biting odor of antiseptic detergents. The cement floor, lockers, cylindrical shower bays, and huge concrete tubs for washing hands and feet were cleaned spotless. Straight ahead of them, on a bench, was the Indian boy he’d helped a week earlier. Except this time he was caked in grime and it made Runaway freeze in his tracks. He’d never seen a boy so dirty.

  “You’re to clean and change him. Here’s his change of clothes and a towel, washcloth, and soap. He doesn’t speak. He was here for a week and ran away, the police found him roaming the prairie. Get to it now...” She pinched her nose and winced at the stink, then shook her head and left.

  In the silence Runaway listened to the showers drip, trying not to gag at the wild stench filling the room. The boy’s waist-length, tangled black hair was matted with dirt, twigs, and bits of stickers. His neck and arms had scratches and blood smears; he had scabs on his knuckles. He wore a torn plaid shirt and ripped jeans and old shoes that were rotten and cracked. The boy’s face was hollow and vacant, and he stared down unblinking, as if Runaway wasn’t even there.

  Runaway walked around the shower bays, listening to the dripping sound and the scraping of his shoe soles. He didn’t know what to do; he had never been asked to make a boy wash himself. Every time he came out from behind a shower, he shot a glance at the boy to see if he was looking, but the boy hung his head in brooding stillness. Runaway stopped by the concrete foot tubs. The outer rim was wide enough to sit on, and he jumped up onto it, sat with his legs dangling, and looked at the kid.

  He swung around, pressed the stainless steel lever at the tub’s base, and from the dozen or so nozzles sticking out of the concrete tub stem, an umbrella of water sprayed out. He looked behind him to see if the boy saw it, but the boy’s head was still downturned. He thought maybe he should show the boy again that the water wasn’t going to harm him. Runaway took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs, and with his bare foot pressed down the lever again. He rinsed his feet, cupped his hands under the water, and splashed his face.

  “Yeah, you scared?” Runaway asked, sitting on the bench next to the kid, drying off with the towel and putting his socks and shoes back on. “You stink!” he said. He paced the area between the bench and tubs. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said. He checked his pockets. “Here.” He placed three shiny new pennies on the bench. “If Sister Anna Louise comes back and finds you’re not cleaned, guess who’s getting an ass whipping? Not you...”

  They sat on the bench in silence and stared at the floor. Runaway had never met a boy with so little emotion, so lost in his own world. He wondered what had happened to him and how he could get him to talk about it. Maybe if he bribed him with marbles or chocolates he would wash up.

  “I’ll tell you about being afraid. See, the cops were chasing my friend and me. It was close to dark but you could still see. We were running back to my grandma’s, and we came to this ditch filled with water. My friend jumped in and swam against the current and made it to the other side. He kept yelling for me to jump, but I was afraid. Finally, with the cops close behind, I was still afraid but I had no choice but to jump. I got to the other side and as I got up, a hand grabbed me from under the water, trying to pull me down and drown me. My friend tightened both his hands around my right hand and pulled as hard as he could, but the hand under the water was pulling me down. It was stronger. Every time my friend pulled me up, it pulled me down harder. I started clawing at the dirt banks to get out, yelling for help. Water was filling my mouth, I couldn’t breathe. When my friend screamed out it was La Llorona, I really got scared—she’s the witch that roams the ditches at night looking for bad kids to drown. And I knew it was her, I could feel her sharp nails in my skin, look—” He pulled up his pant leg and stuck his shin under the kid’s face to show him the white scars just above his ankle bones. He continued, “She was scratching and tugging hard to drown me. My friend knew it too, he pulled even harder, almost tearing my arm out, and I was kicking at her until we finally broke her grip. He pulled me up, and I took off running faster than I ever had. My pant legs were torn, my ankles bleeding, I even lost my shoe. I wanted to get it back so I returned to the ditch the next day. I took some friends and we all had rocks in our pockets and a bunch in our hands. We were going to kill La Llorona, so she couldn’t drown any more kids. We got to the ditch and closed the gate off until the water drained down to the bottom in that part. Guess what? Right where La Llorona had me there was a mattress spring. A piece of my pants was still stuck in the wire coil and my shoe was hooked to a sharp wire that was sticking up. Every time I get scared now, I think about that mattress spring. That’s what fear is, a mattress spring.”

  The boy gave no indication that he’d even heard the story. Same gloomy expression, same haunting shadows in his face, same enveloping solitude.

  Runaway got up, walked around the curtained bays with six shower stations apiece, completed the loop, approached the boy, looked at him for a long time, turned around, and went out of the washroom. He stood outside the door, bright sunshine blinding him momentarily, as kids’ excited voices called him from the playground to join them. He breathed in, then out, and went back in.

  Inside, water dripped loud and hard from showerheads onto the tin stall floors. The door behind him threw a slice of light slowly from left to right, illuminating the kid, who still sat with head down, body immobile.

  Runaway wrapped the towel around his face like a veil, and carefully, with two fingers, he unbuttoned the boy’s shirt. There were fresh welts on the boy’s back, and Runaway felt a surge of anger toward the person responsible for them. He took off the boy’s shoes and pants and saw his legs had sores on them. Runaway clenched his teeth, forcing himself to get it over with, do what he had to do. He closed his eyes as the boy’s underpants dropped and he stood naked. Then he opened them and gently pushed the boy toward a shower stall.

  He turned the water on, adjusted the handle to lukewarm, and moved the kid into the stall, under the nozzle. He had so much dirt on him that water ran brown off his skinny body. Runaway took the soap and washcloth and placed it in the boy’s hand but they slipped right out, without the boy making even the slightest effort to clutch them.

  Runaway, at the end of his patience, pissed off and self-conscious, grabbed the soap and washcloth and pushed the boy a little to show him he didn’t like doing this, and soaped him up roughly. As he rinsed the suds off the boy’s arms and back, he noticed red liquid mixing with the brown water in the drain. He followed the red liquid up the boy’s legs to the buttocks and realized where the blood was coming from. He was incapable of moving for some minutes, watching the rivulets of blood pulse down the kid’s legs, swirling into the water.

  Now, with an entirely different attitude, not caring about the water wetting his own arms and face and spattering his shirt and pants, he washed the boy’s body gently, almost caressing his arms with the cloth, raking his fingers through the boy’s black hair, combing it down with his fingers, patting the cloth and soap over the welts, aiming the nozzle at the boy’s arms, legs, and stomach, rinsing the soap off his body from his head to his toes, his hands soothing and reassuring the boy that it was all right.

  He led him out and dried him off, careful not to ru
b the welts too hard; he swiped the towel behind his ears, under his chin, under his arms and stomach, and down his legs to his feet. He combed out the boy’s hair with his fingers and braided it into a simple ponytail. He dressed him and didn’t feel embarrassed like he thought he would. Then he washed the boy’s shoes in the tub, wiped them as dry as he could, and slipped them on him. All finished, he stepped back and appraised his work, beaming with satisfaction.

  Runaway opened the door and they walked into the afternoon’s bright sunlight. “I don’t know what your name is, so until you tell me, I’ll just call you ‘Yeah.’ You call me Runaway. You hang with me, no one’s going to hurt you.”

  * * *

  He went to meet his crew at the coal pile behind the incinerator. He sat the Indian boy against the wall of the toilet building outside and then he walked over to his friends.

  They were arguing about something.

  “No—no—,” Tesco was saying, “we got to get serious, quit fooling around, we’re back-stepping—remember our lyrics.”

  Osca said, “I’m back-stepping? I’ll be on your ass, brother, like grease on a ham bone. Anything we chop is better than what’s on MTV.”

  Runaway turned around to check on Yeah, who was still on the concrete slab, and raised his hands to interrupt them. “I want to bring him in,” Runaway said.

  Everybody got quiet and Kimo said, “You mean put him under our wing or let him join the crew.”

  Osca asked, “Don’t he have any friends?”

  “He’s new,” Runaway said, “and he’s crazy—don’t talk— don’t do anything.”

  “Crazy qualifies him to be with us,” Kimo said.

  The Indian boy wasn’t paying attention to their conversation. He sat against the bathroom brick wall, shaking something in one hand and tapping a rock against the concrete with his other.

  Kimo said, “We can put him in to keep beat.”