The city stirred early, before the hours of the sun, when a dim pink hue colored the sky. Buses new and old traversed the city and its slopes, spewing smog across the streets. Men and women filled them, half asleep still, heading to their jobs downtown. Us kids opened our eyes and breathed in the cool morning air. A sense of peace filled it. A dog or two barked in the distance and the smell of breakfast creeped into our bedrooms, moms cooking here and there. Memories of our dreams began to fade. Weather forecasters spoke in another room enthusiastically about how today, too, would be hot, followed soon after by the sports news and the scores of Rayados and Tigres and how they played well or terrible in previous days. We ate quickly, fighting always against time, attempting yet again to get to school early. At the end of year, if we were consistent, we’d get an award for it.
“Have a good day!” Moms said, and left us at the entrance of a new day, their farewells echoing a gentle ignorance of the world we were thrust upon.
Some days, when curiosity got the better of us, we stopped by the cracked perimeter wall of the school. On the other side, in the middle of an abandoned overgrown lot, lay the remnants of an old fire truck. Rust and cracked red paint covered it. The structure for an extending ladder was still recognizable in the back. If you peered past the grass and squinted, in the broken driver’s window, you’d find the white skull of the man who died in the fire… its mouth open in a painful scream. We were sure of it some days. Other days it seemed an illusion, a trick of light and shadow. Bigger kids jumped the wall after hours, or so they said, and got up close to investigate, but their findings were secret and who were we to inquire? Teachers and parents seemed to have agreed never to say anything, denying with their silence its existence, but it was there, plainly visible to all who would swivel their heads around the cracks of the wall.
“There was a fire,” kids would say. “A firefighter burned alive. They never dared to move it. Why didn’t they dare to move it? I don’t know.”
An odd dichotomy existed for us who walked to and fro. A piece of toast with a melted slice of Kraft cheese. Arguments in the car before the sun rose above the mountains – Why didn’t you brush your teeth? You took too long in the shower. Stop bothering your sister. Stop yelling at me. Worries of homeworks and social stresses. Is your backpack on your back? Is your homework done? Did you bring that signed note from your mother telling the teachers you can’t join in on P.E? In the main yard, radio-quality music blared through oversized speakers indicating it was time to get in. From behind us blew a cool wind, and giant rays of sunlight peeked over the crest of Cerro de la Silla. Day in, day out, the harsh sun would bathe the city and the school, and we’d be sweating in no time, looking at the measly ceiling fans struggling in the huge classrooms while the rowdy bunch laughed in the back – the occasional backpack flying above the heads of unsuspecting students. There we were, between the tall blue gates of the distant entrance and the vast sea of kids ahead, chatting along the dusty football field with whoever we met on the way, thinking of the many things we were to do and the many things we had to talk about. Juan likes this girl and Javier cheated on the math exam and Miguel was grounded because he got into a fistfight at Mari’s store.
Strange, now, to think of those days. Classrooms were guided cells of chaos, teachers fighting students, blackboards filled with text and figures and blurred out images from previous writings. Boys clashed, uneven, in their search for adulthood. Pedro spied into the female teachers’ underwear with a small mirror on the floor. Ernesto looked away, his face red with shame and guilt. A few others looked from beneath the cover of their hands, attempting to disguise the hormones raging through their insides. Chalk and the rare blackboard eraser flew towards the loudest kids, exasperated acts by the teachers who had lost the will to hope. By the window, Lalo and Salvador exchanged collectibles from the chips they had bought the previous day, and Rene showed off the Ninja Turtle he had snuck in – metallic silver and glowing red eyes. Around him, a small crowd wowed his material possession.
Friday was Mass day. We’d walk down the stairs of our building, and up the stairs of another to a chapel. A priest spoke to us. Our eyes locked mostly on the ground or the benches or our hands and feet, avoiding the gaze of the man from whose eyes God looked at us. Shame filled us, for we had sinned. The stolen couple of marbles, the quick look into the mirror on the floor, the fight, the words we’d said the previous day or week to our parents and friends and the boys we hardly knew. It was all wrong. Behind us, the invisible disappointed judgment of the myriad guardian angels meandering around the school. The perfect entities from that other dimension, saddened and hurt. Mario turned to Reinaldo and smiled. Reinaldo smiled back. Mario had smiled because it was the only way he knew how to relieve his guilt. Reinaldo had smiled back because he was looking for an escape. Soon they’d be back in the schoolyard running through the dust kicking at the football, cursing at each other for not doing it right.
The bell rang as the sun struck down on Monterrey, and sweat flowed freely through all of our pores and the hot wind and the glare in the sky half-blinded us. Parents waited outside the school, listening to the voices of the celebrating kids. Exits were flooded, and children ran as if escaping from prison towards the cars and buses that would take them back home.
For some of us, there was a walk back home. We didn’t understand the ones who were driven back, and they didn’t understand us. Step by step, minute by minute, small groups of walkers dissipated as they chose forking paths until only one remained. Neighborhood myths and legends suddenly came to life. When at times they seemed but fun topics to gossip about, alone in the wilderness of the walk back, our bellies crawled, entertaining the idea that it may all be real. A boy kidnaped two blocks that way. The dog behind the black gate – it had escaped once and had sent an old woman to the hospital. Best to cross the street for this house, they say the man died, and the wife went crazy, sometimes chasing children and traumatizing them. The park where the girl fell from the colorful tower and died, haunted in daylight. The house where your ex best-friend lived and the house with the screaming boy. It was best, always, to hurry along.
Evenings were spent wandering through telephone lines, calling this friend or the other, searching for the intrepid one who would answer the call to adventure, or the next best thing anyway, hanging around our houses hoping for something to happen or sitting around the nearby mall for the off chance of catching a glimpse of the girls we dreamed about. The worst that could happen was to end up watching cartoons or sitting atop the concrete housing of some electrical equipment in the park, above which we were kings of the land and visaged from our vantage point the goings on of the lives of the park dwellers. On the best days, we crossed over, if only for a bit, into the world of adults. An older sibling burdened with our care, driving us to band rehearsals, where other older guys drank beer and smoked and cursed freely as they spoke. Stories of midnight drives and naked swimming and the friend of a friend who had been working on the roof of some house, only to slip and fall two stories to the ground. They said he cracked his skull open and turned into some kind of vegetable.
Before falling into a deep sleep, alone in a room with a sibling, fresh from a shower and a belly full of dinner, we’d think of the future. Would we be brave enough to sneak in our RoboCop action figure? What if they caught us? But the thought of the crowd gathered around us, while we alone had the right to play with it… Thoughts of convincing parents for an extra 20 pesos for lunch, or a new backpack or trapper keeper. Exams and team projects. School uniforms and the national anthem. The drone of fans swiveling their heads and the cool gusts they created around rooms across the city. Moms and dads talking downstairs about the boring things of the world.
Soon we’d be back crossing the blue gates to school. Behind Cerro de la Silla, the sun would rise again, its rays shining over the big gap in the middle. The pleasant morning wind coming and going, and the sea of kids gathering near the flagpole deck. Friends met as they walked along the dusty football field and talked about their adventures of the previous day, or the next best thing, anyway. Teachers smiled at students, their vocation renewed by a good night’s sleep and the smell of a new morning. In the distance, radio-quality music blared from giant speakers.
Some days, we walked clean across the field and into the classrooms. Some days, we wore a bigger smile. Some days, we were all friends, and old rivalries faded. Some days, we didn’t want to look through the cracks in the perimeter wall. Some days we wanted to remain kids and forget about the future and growing up. The future would wait for us. The fire truck would be there the following day, when curiosity got the better of us, cracked red paint and the ghost of the man who had died a painful death.