Predict

Arturo discovers something important about his culture. What will he do next?

One night I’m struggling with geography homework. Trying to map out where Marco Polo went. Hijos, did that guy get around! His route looks like some bad knitter’s tangled yarn. Like my sister Rosa’s when she’s trying to learn.

Through the blinds, my room’s banded with moon. Everything’s quiet. Even the crickets are sleeping. Then I hear something. Mumbling. Coming from Abuelita’s room. Our rooms are back to back. Like when you check your size against somebody else.

My room’s painted white. But Abue’s, it’s totally Mexican pink, the color she believes the Mexican flag should be. Her walls dance with calacas, skeletons, of all sizes and materials—clay, wood, wire, papier-mâché. Abue thumbs her nose at Death.

Abuelita’s talking to Grandfather, muttering to the ghost of his photograph, I bet.

“Arturo,” she says, holding that word in her mouth gently, like a highly breakable egg. She speaks Spanish only.

“He’s a good boy, our Turo. Just a little bit mixed up. One day, Dios mediante, he will recognize how good is your name. One day he will know what it means—Arturo. He is me. He is you. And all before. And all to come.”

I hear a long, moist sigh then. Like the breath of a tired teakettle. I hear tears glaze her voice. I feel a blaze of embarrassment to be listening in on this private conversation.

My heart feels squeezed out. Abuelita has known all along what I should have known. It’s okay to be Arturo. What a menso-head I am. Un idiota de primera. To give up my name. It’s to give up my family. To let myself—all of us—be erased to chalkboard dust.

In this moment my history holds me. Like a warm sarape. I feel tears come. In this moment I want to hug Abuelita.

I look out my window. At the half-moon. Like a perfectly broken button.

It’s late. But I call my friends anyhow.

“Por please,” I joke, “come over.”