Living Up the Street by Gary Soto Page B

much.” We worked on the collages that day but on the next I brought a bag of pinto beans, which I spilled carefully likediamonds onto the table. I handed out chewing gum and jaw breakers as I explained that we were going to write out our names using beans. They sucked, chewed, rolled their gum and jaw breakers; they considered the beans, then my moving mouth, then the beans again.
    “What for?” Alfonso asked.
    I was caught off guard by this question. Almost laughing, I said, “Just to see if we can do it.” I searched their faces, again almost laughing. “It could be fun—don’t you think?”
    They worked diligently as they glued the beans in the shape of their last names on cardboard. When they finished I asked them to dab each bean a different color of poster paint, delicately so the beans wouldn’t fall off. Marsha and Esteban worked in silence although Alfonso whined that it was boring. But after awhile even he had grown absorbed and quiet as the other two. When Calvin, who had been hitting fly balls to Roberto and Danny, returned to the table, Alfonso was the first to point out his creation. Calvin smiled wide, like a light turned on, and said “That’s beautiful, man.” He ruffled Alfonso’s hair and called him Picasso.
    The next day I brought spray paint, some cans, and a box of macaroni shaped like wagon wheels. I poured the macaroni onto the table and explained, with animated enthusiasm, that we were going to make pencil holders from the cans; that we would spray-paint the cans, glue on the macaroni, and paint each macaroni with water colors.
    The following day I brought coloring books which my stepfather, a warehouseman for a book distributor, had given me. But there were no crayons in the game room, so we looked at the pictures—Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Felix the Cat—and chewed our gum. The next day I sneaked my little brother’s crayons from the house and brought sheets of my sister’s typing paper to make airplanes. We folded, drew snarling tiger mouths at the nose,and let the planes fly from our hands, all the while making the sound of jets.
    In my third week at Emerson, Calvin was transferred to another playground, and William, a young white man in a bright yellow shirt and Bermuda shorts, stood in front of us saying that he was the new coach. He smiled at us for the longest time, hands on his hips, and then screwed up his face at the baseball field, the bungalows, and the school building. I was going to introduce myself as the recreational assistant, but knowing that he would say, “a what?” I said nothing and joined the kids at the table, where they were pounding their fists and singing, “We want dominoes, we want dominoes!” Trying to be friendly the new coach smiled, unlocked the game room, and clunked around. He returned with the coffee can and a football.
    “How ’bout some catch?” he asked me, and I told him that it was too hot to play. Roberto and I played the first game, then Alfonso took my place. I took out jaw breakers from my pocket and offered them around, including to the coach who declined with a shake of his hand. We played dominoes while William hovered over us, one foot on the bench and arms crossed, and kept asking our names—Roberto, Alfonso, Danny, Marsha, Esteban, Gary.
    Tired of winning, Roberto asked William if we could put out the “Slip & Slide.”
    “Slip & Slide?” he asked, as if surprised.
    Roberto showed it to him in the game room, and together they tugged the “Slip & Slide” and the garden hose across the field to the strip of lawn between the bungalows. William stretched and smoothed it flat while Roberto connected the hose and sprayed in our direction to keep us at bay because he wanted to go first.
    We jumped back, laughing. “We’re going to get you,” I yelled and he mocked me with my own words. Williamstepped aside, still smiling as if someone were ready to snap his picture, and Roberto sprayed the “Slip & Slide” while looking