life. I began talking to people with my hand to my mouth because I figured if I was offending a brash boy like Tomaso, I was bothering everyone and they were just too polite to tell me. Joe and I got into one of the worst arguments we ever had when I refused to make the garlicky aïoli for a dinner party.
Not until much later did I get wise. Dan Marshall had come into the room one day and was strolling among the kids. He leaned over Tomaso to see what he was doing.
“Hoo-ee, you got halitosis,” Tomaso said.
Dan straightened up abruptly, his face turning red.
“You know what that is, mister? That’s bad breath.”
From then on I was suspicious. Tomaso, however, did not give up easily. Once he’d figured out that I no longer fell for the bad-breath trick, he had to become more creative.
We were all together at the worktable making Thanksgiving decorations one afternoon. Tomaso was sitting next to me. He sat back and put his scissors down. Slowly he took several deep, evaluative snorts of air. Then he turned to me. “You know what you need, Torey?”
“What’s that?”
“Feminine hygiene spray.”
Never a dull moment with Tomaso. If it was a gross or outrageous act, he had thought it up along with twelve variations. A favorite involved sticking his finger down his throat. Although he never actually made himself vomit, it always produced this horrific retching sound. By instinct I would jump. Every damn time. And then there was the nose-picking. Tomaso never had much to pick from his own nose. Boo, however, turned out to be a gold mine for this activity. I would turn around and there he would be, bent over with one hand on top of Boo’s head, the other drilling up Boo’s nose. “Boy, Torey, look at this!” he would holler and stretch a long booger out. “Sure is a good thing I’m cleaning Boo’s nose out for him, huh?” And when I would come screaming, Tomaso always would look at me innocently. “Sure lucky you got me, huh?”
Yeah. Sure lucky all right.
The funny thing was that as November wore on, I did begin to think I was lucky. I grew to love the kid. Love him with that potent, irrational sort of love that some kids brought out in me, a love with no clear reason, yet so strong. I loved Tomaso’s scandalous approach to life, his outrageous ability to hang on in a world that had been anything but kind to him, and indeed even to extract a few laughs from it. I would sit in class and watch him some days, watch his scrawny body hunched up under the vinyl jacket he refused to remove, his dark, dancing eyes so full of fear. In the beginning I had thought only anger lived there, but I had grown to know fear was really the master and anger only the slave. Perhaps because of that most of all, I loved him. He was such a scrappy little fellow. Even fear could not dominate him completely. For all his problems, Tomaso was not a quitter.
Chapter Nine
D ecember came. A rowdy month full of snowstorms and Christmas carols and all our undisguised dreams. Lori, I think, still believed in Santa Claus. Or at least she wanted to. Tomaso, in an uncharacteristic show of sensitivity, did not fall into hysterics at the thought. And Boo, of course, gave us no clue at all as to his thought. Or as to whether he even had any.
“I went to see Santa Claus last night,” Lori told us as we sat around the table making paper chains to decorate the room. “My dad took me and Libby up to the shopping center and I seen Santa Claus there and my dad let me go talk to him.”
I saw Tomaso look over at her without raising his head from his work. Then his eyes came to me. There was a silent question shared between us.
“Did Libby go talk to him too?” I asked.
“No.” Lori was not watching me. She was struggling mightily to get her chains to stick together with our dried-out library paste. She paused a moment and sat back, surveying the mess on the worktable. “I asked him to bring me this here doll I seen on TV once. You
Not until much later did I get wise. Dan Marshall had come into the room one day and was strolling among the kids. He leaned over Tomaso to see what he was doing.
“Hoo-ee, you got halitosis,” Tomaso said.
Dan straightened up abruptly, his face turning red.
“You know what that is, mister? That’s bad breath.”
From then on I was suspicious. Tomaso, however, did not give up easily. Once he’d figured out that I no longer fell for the bad-breath trick, he had to become more creative.
We were all together at the worktable making Thanksgiving decorations one afternoon. Tomaso was sitting next to me. He sat back and put his scissors down. Slowly he took several deep, evaluative snorts of air. Then he turned to me. “You know what you need, Torey?”
“What’s that?”
“Feminine hygiene spray.”
Never a dull moment with Tomaso. If it was a gross or outrageous act, he had thought it up along with twelve variations. A favorite involved sticking his finger down his throat. Although he never actually made himself vomit, it always produced this horrific retching sound. By instinct I would jump. Every damn time. And then there was the nose-picking. Tomaso never had much to pick from his own nose. Boo, however, turned out to be a gold mine for this activity. I would turn around and there he would be, bent over with one hand on top of Boo’s head, the other drilling up Boo’s nose. “Boy, Torey, look at this!” he would holler and stretch a long booger out. “Sure is a good thing I’m cleaning Boo’s nose out for him, huh?” And when I would come screaming, Tomaso always would look at me innocently. “Sure lucky you got me, huh?”
Yeah. Sure lucky all right.
The funny thing was that as November wore on, I did begin to think I was lucky. I grew to love the kid. Love him with that potent, irrational sort of love that some kids brought out in me, a love with no clear reason, yet so strong. I loved Tomaso’s scandalous approach to life, his outrageous ability to hang on in a world that had been anything but kind to him, and indeed even to extract a few laughs from it. I would sit in class and watch him some days, watch his scrawny body hunched up under the vinyl jacket he refused to remove, his dark, dancing eyes so full of fear. In the beginning I had thought only anger lived there, but I had grown to know fear was really the master and anger only the slave. Perhaps because of that most of all, I loved him. He was such a scrappy little fellow. Even fear could not dominate him completely. For all his problems, Tomaso was not a quitter.
Chapter Nine
D ecember came. A rowdy month full of snowstorms and Christmas carols and all our undisguised dreams. Lori, I think, still believed in Santa Claus. Or at least she wanted to. Tomaso, in an uncharacteristic show of sensitivity, did not fall into hysterics at the thought. And Boo, of course, gave us no clue at all as to his thought. Or as to whether he even had any.
“I went to see Santa Claus last night,” Lori told us as we sat around the table making paper chains to decorate the room. “My dad took me and Libby up to the shopping center and I seen Santa Claus there and my dad let me go talk to him.”
I saw Tomaso look over at her without raising his head from his work. Then his eyes came to me. There was a silent question shared between us.
“Did Libby go talk to him too?” I asked.
“No.” Lori was not watching me. She was struggling mightily to get her chains to stick together with our dried-out library paste. She paused a moment and sat back, surveying the mess on the worktable. “I asked him to bring me this here doll I seen on TV once. You
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