Tangerine (5 page)

Joey Costello said something like, "Hey, how's it going?" and kicked one at me. Then the other three kids fanned out in a semicircle in front of the goal. I caught Joey's kick and rolled the ball out to the next guy so he could take a shot. I caught his kick, rolled it to the next guy, and so on. They weren't very good. Not one of them seemed to know how to kick. They didn't drive the ball with their insteps, they just stubbed it with their toes. I had no trouble stopping everything they kicked at me.

I never did hear the names of the other guys. But when they got tired of playing, we walked back together toward the football field parking lot. Joey said, "Are you coming out for the Lake Windsor team?"

"Oh yeah. I'll be there."

"You gonna play goalie?"

"Yeah. How about you?"

"Fullback, I guess. I played some goalie last year, but I never got into a game."

"When are tryouts?"

"I don't know." Joey turned to the other guys. "When are tryouts? Anybody heard?"

Everybody shook their heads or said, "No." Joey said, "Listen to the morning announcements. They'll tell you when."

"All right," I said. "I'll catch you guys later." The four of them continued toward the other side of the field, still stubbing the ball along the ground ahead of them. I saw that Mom and Dad were waiting at the car, so I hustled over there.

I said, "Where's Erik?"

"He's getting a ride home with Arthur Bauer," Dad answered.

"How did your soccer playing go?" Mom asked.

"No sweat," I said. As we rode back, I thought about how easy it was, and how easy it was going to be. If Joey was the best they could do for a goaltender, then I already had the job. I wondered if he had changed his mind about playing goal again after watching me today. I wouldn't doubt it. I wondered if he saw that a major leaguer was here to play a season or two in the minors.

Today was the first day of school. I left the house at seven-thirty to walk to the front of the development and catch the bus. The smoke was thick and strong smelling. I walked past dark green Dumpsters filled with plasterboard and scrap metal, past blue portable toilets parked along the construction lots. It occurred to me that I've never lived in a development that was finished. I have always lived with overflowing construction Dumpsters and portable toilets sitting on boards.

I turned right at the end of Kensington Gardens Drive and walked parallel to the high gray wall. Something started to bother me almost immediately. The gray of the wall drifted along in the left side of my vision—distracting me, troubling me. What was it? Something about the wall? Something about a bus stop? Something that I needed to remember? My steps slowed down, and I came to a dead stop, frozen there like a windup toy that had run out of torque.

Then a scene came back to me. Just like the other morning in Houston. Entirely on its own, a scene came back to me:

I remembered another bus stop.
And a shiny yellow school bus.

I was standing at the back of a line of kids, waiting to board the bus for one of my first days at kindergarten.

Mom had driven me to school on the actual first day. This was the first day when I would be accompanied by no one except Erik, my fifth-grade brother. But Erik did not accompany me for long. He was standing at the front of the school-bus line with his fifth-grade friends when one of them turned, made a gesture, and called to me, "Hey, Eclipse Boy, how many fingers am I holding up?"

I didn't realize at first that the boy was talking to me, and I had no idea what he meant. Erik and his friends laughed about the joke, then the bus doors opened and we all filed in. I can't put all of the details in order now, but it became clear to me later that, for some reason, the big kids on the school bus were calling me Eclipse Boy.

The fact is we did have an eclipse that summer, around three weeks before school started. Based on that, Erik was telling his friends this story: The reason for the Coke-bottle glasses on my eyes was that I had stared at the sun, unprotected, during that eclipse.

The story puzzled me then, and it puzzles me now. I do not remember doing any such thing. And yet when I search through our family photos, I can see that I never wore glasses of any kind before that summer. But right after the eclipse, I was wearing these thick lenses that I now call my regular glasses.

Puzzled or not, I went right along with the story. I even told it myself. It gave me a special kindergarten identity. It made me somebody. I was the boy who had not listened and who was now paying the price.
Look at me if you dare!
Teachers and other adults seemed to value me as an example. I was the living proof that you shouldn't look at an eclipse or you'll go blind; that you shouldn't play in an abandoned refrigerator or you'll suffocate; that you shouldn't go swimming right after you eat or you'll get stomach cramps and drown.

So there I sat on that yellow school bus—Erik Fisher's younger brother, Eclipse Boy, visually impaired and totally incapable of following in his brother's footsteps.

The scene faded. I stood still for another minute, trying to remember more, but nothing would come. Then I made myself turn away from the wall, and I made my legs move again, one step in front of the other, to the end of the street.

As I turned the corner, I was surprised to see other kids standing next to the guardhouse. In my two weeks here, I had never seen any other kid in Lake Windsor Downs, even though I had ridden my bike up and down all of the streets at all times of the day. Now here they were, spread out in a lazy line, about ten kids of various sizes.

I quietly took my place at the end of the line, next to a guy who was slouching so badly that I thought he might actually fall over. He wasn't alone, either. Everyone seemed to be depressed, to be sorry to be there. I wondered if that was just an act, or if they really didn't feel any excitement about the first day of school.

"What's up, goalie?"

I turned, startled to find that someone was standing right behind me. I hadn't seen him coming. It was Joey Costello. I held out my hand and said, "It's Paul. Paul Fisher. You're Joey, right?"

"Right," he answered, shaking my hand.

"I met your brother over at my house. I met your father, too."

"Yeah, they said something about that. They said your brother can kick fifty-yard field goals."

"Right. Yeah, he can."

"Mike says Coach Warner has him holding the ball for him. His name's Erik, right?"

"Yeah. I had a feeling Mike might be holding the ball for Erik when he told us he was the backup quarterback."

Joey thought for a moment, then said, "Mike's getting a bad break, you know. Mike's a good player, but he's a lineman, not a quarterback. And now he's playing behind Antoine Thomas, the best quarterback in the state. He'll never get to play unless something bad happens to Antoine. And then everybody'll be mad because Mike ain't no Antoine."

"Yeah. He can't win."

The bus turned into the entranceway and stopped in front of us. When we climbed on, Joey sat with one of the soccer players from the other day. I found an empty seat near the back and pulled out my class schedule. The school had sent us a computerized schedule that showed my six periods, teachers' names, and classroom numbers.

With the schedule had come a map of the high school-middle school campus, which I appreciated, and a handwritten note to Mom from Mrs. Gates, which I did not. It said, "Vision-impaired students should report to the office for assistance." That made me mad. What did she plan to do? Assign me a dog and a cane?

The bus turned into the campus and drove around to a circular driveway that said
BUSES ONLY.
I looked again at my schedule, feeling jittery. It said, "Homeroom 8:15–8:25, Portable 9." I moved along with a big crowd of kids, circling the main building and funneling into the wooden walkways that led to the portables.

I found the one that said p-9 with no problem whatsoever. There was a green sign on the door that said, M
S.
A
LVAREZ
. I climbed the three wooden stairs and opened the door. Ms. Alvarez gave me a cheery "Good morning" and told me to find an empty desk.

The class seems to be made up of the same type of droopy kids that had stood with me in the bus line. In contrast, Ms. Alvarez has a lot of enthusiasm. She told us she was "truly excited to be here on the first day of a new year." She went on to tell us that we're her first homeroom ever, and that she's looking forward to starting each day with us. We sat there and stared at her without much reaction, but she smiled bravely through it, and we passed the first ten minutes of the school year together. She asked us to all take out our schedules and check them. Mine said, "Science 8:30–9:25, Portable 12."

Ms. Alvarez read some announcements from a computer printout, but there was nothing about the soccer team. The speaker in the room crackled to life with the sound of a gong being struck. This was our signal to funnel out again onto the wooden walkways. We had four minutes to get to our next class, but it took me less than one.

I climbed up a set of stairs marked p-12, where the green sign said, M
RS.
H
OFFMAN
. Mrs. Hoffman was standing right inside the door, scowling and holding a seating chart. She's clearly at the other end of the teacher food chain from Ms. Alvarez. As she would soon tell us, she has been teaching science for twenty years. She asked my name and then directed me to the last seat in the first row. The kids in this room seem a little more lively.

Just five minutes into Mrs. Hoffman's class there was a knock on the door. A girl came in holding a block of wood with the word
PASS
painted on it. She whispered to Mrs. Hoffman, who checked her chart, looked toward me, and said, "Paul Fisher, go with this young lady, please."

What could I do? I got up. I followed the girl out the door and onto the walkway. I said, "Where are we going?"

"Mr. Murrow's office."

"Who's Mr. Murrow?"

"He's the head of guidance."

We went to a small office inside the main office. A man with a brown suit and thick glasses like mine was sitting at a desk. He had a pile of those IEP forms spread out in front of him. He said, "And what is your name?"

"Paul Fisher, sir."

He found my IEP form. "All right, Paul, this is Kerri Gardner, one of our school volunteers. Kerri will act as your eyes, so to speak, until you've learned your way around our campus."

"I can see fine."

He seemed genuinely surprised. "You can?"

"Yes, sir. I've been to two classes already."

Mr. Murrow looked back at my IEP form and then at me. He said, "Well, perhaps since you're new to our school, Kerri could just take you around for the first day. What harm could that do?"

I didn't know what else to say. I didn't know how to describe the harm that that would do to me. Nothing more came out of my mouth, so he said, "Why don't you two go on back to Mrs. Hoffman's class."

I followed Kerri Gardner back to P-12—actually, to the wooden steps outside of it. That was where I finally found my voice. I stopped still and said as calmly as I could, "Look. I'm sorry. I don't mean to mess up your job, but there's no reason for anybody to show me around. OK?"

She looked at me, puzzled, so I explained, "There's nothing wrong with me. This is a mistake. I can see just fine."

Kerri answered matter-of-factly, "So then what's with the glasses?"

I reached up and fingered the thick plastic frames. I finally answered, "I had an accident. I had some kind of damage to my eyes when I was five years old."

Kerri clearly did not mind being released from her duties. She thought for a moment, lowered her voice, and said, "Look. I'll hold on to the pass until the end of the day and then turn it in. Nobody'll know."

"OK, thanks."

Kerri started off but turned back to ask, "What was the accident? What damaged your eyes?"

"I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure," I replied.

She took off again, leaving me thinking.
Why didn't I answer that question? I used to have an answer ready to that question. I used to tell people that I once stared too long at a solar eclipse.

But if that's the truth, if that really happened, why can't I remember it?

I'm in my room now, at the computer, listening to the sound of Erik kicking a football into a net in the backyard. It's a short, violent sound, like some big guys holding up some little guy and punching him over and over in the stomach.
Poomph. Poomph. Poomph.

The Erik Fisher Football Dream seems to be materializing. Arthur Bauer is holding the ball for him today, crouching low and spinning the laces away, just like Dad, just like Mike Costello. Arthur is a senior, like Erik. Unlike Erik, he seems to have no special talent for football. And yet here he is, a third-string benchwarmer kind of guy, holding the ball for the great Erik Fisher.

Arthur has a sister named Paige, who is a sophomore and a cheerleader. Paige is down there, too. She is clearly going to be Erik's girlfriend. Arthur's girlfriend is named Tina Turreton. She's sitting next to Paige. Tina is a junior and, of course, a cheerleader.