THE BOY WHO LIVES UPSTAIRS by Jane McCafferty
He’s eight. Can’t read. Two years older than everyone in his first grade class, but small enough that he blends in. Secretly loves a girl whose name I can’t repeat. A pinky promise I recently made.
He’s fierce, kinetic, always has a stomach ache. Tries to climb the walls in the house. Bright black soulful eyes. Hangs on banisters, paces, loves to shake his body as if he’s being tasered. He’s far too fascinated by tasers. He has marched in the streets shouting No Justice No Peace No Racist Police. A chant that bothers me as I shout it – shouldn’t it be Yes Justice Yes Peace, No Racist Police?
Do I think maybe he could get a taser?
No. They’re terrible.
But really he wants a money gun.
What’s a money gun?
A gun that shoots money!
What were they thinking? A gun that shoots money?
Yeah, I want me a gun that shoots Benjamins!
Benjamins?
He’s on the bills, Jane! Don’t you know who’s on the bills? And also can you get me a Lamborghini?
I wouldn’t know one if it ran me over.
Jane you have to know Lamborghinis!
No I do not, my friend.
But why wouldn’t an eight-year-old who lost his father to ICE – they hauled him out of his own bed early one morning, tossed him into jail and then back to Mexico – why wouldn’t a boy who watched his family implode, who lost home after home, why wouldn’t this boy failing first grade want to be the man in the commercial, the man behind the wheel of a sleek-looking car that looks a bit other-planetary and kind of evil (I googled it) and costs roughly six times more than the average family makes in a year?
Why wouldn’t he dream of driving around like he owns the place, like he didn’t spend far too much time alone in a room with TV and video games on hand-held screens where someone is usually being chased, tortured, or blown to pieces.
His latest favorite is The Evil Nun. She’s entered his dreams. He’s a struggling night owl in his family of struggling night owls. They get alerts when ICE is lurking here in the East End.
He drinks a can of Coke in the morning so he can get out of bed for school.
I don’t think that’s very nutritious. I wish you’d drink some milk.
Jane it gets me up!
And after school, he wants another. But when I can, I give him milk, macaroni and cheese.
I just want money, Jane, I want money so people will think I’m cool.
You don’t need money to be cool, besides you’re already so cool.
Why am I so cool?
Your spirit.
Jane I just want my Lamborghini and some money guns, ok?
Please stop talking about what you want. Let’s talk about something like – I don’t know – trees. Remember you wanted to help the trees last year? You were sad when I told you some of them were dying. You really seemed to care about those trees. Now all you want to talk about is money and guns and I’m tired of that. Not good for you. Let’s practice some reading.
No, no, no, no, no!
Ok, then I’m going out.
Why would you leave me Jane? Just because I don’t read? You like some other kid better than me! You’re gonna go find some other kid who you like better!
You’re my favorite kid right now. Nobody else who’s a kid even comes close.
Can you take me for a Happy Meal? It’s been a long time, Jane.
No, actually, it’s only been a week, friend.
A whole week! That’s a long time! You work too hard. It’s boring Jane you really shouldn’t work so hard. What are you doing?
Grading papers. Everyone needs a job to pay the bills, just give me ten more minutes here.
Can I ask you a question Jane? Can Jesus fly?
Sure.
Can I ask you a question, Jane? How much do our bones love water?
That question is too beautiful to answer.
Jane, can I ask you a question, what if you had to teach a whole class of turtles?
I really wouldn’t mind.
I think if I flew into the middle of the sun I would find Jesus’s body and I would try to help him.
That’s so great!
Later, we head out into the rain, and drive to McDonalds, where we sit in a booth by the window. Before his Happy Meal is ready, he eats his soft ice cream cone.
It’s cold, Jane, just like my ex‑wife.
His favorite joke this year, sponged off of YouTube. It turns out so many things are just like his ex‑wife – including the tornado I showed him in a book about weather, and the beans I said were too spicy.
Jane, I dreamed I had fifty hearts and they were flying near the woods. I saw the mami heart. It was a rainbow heart and I touched it and then I was a rainbow too.
That’s so beautiful. I hope you always have magical dreams.
He’s trying hard to balance a Happy Meal mouse on a small rubber ball in the booth by the window where January rain pounds the glass. It’s all gravity’s fault, he explains, do you know about the gravity Jane?
Well, it keeps us from floating up off the earth, right?
Maybe we can get rid of it!
Probably not.
I watch him as he tries to balance the little Happy Meal mouse on the red rubber ball, again and again and again.
Jane McCafferty’s essays have appeared in The Chautauqua Review, Pittsburgh Magazine, Pittsburgh City Paper, Arts and Found, and Witness, as well as the Pushcart Prize anthology.