Passage
by Monique Hayes

His hands were as hard as dragon hide. This is what he believed about dragons just from hearing about them. They flew about in semi-circles, darting from destination to destination, their large eyes gazing at the long-stem grasses of other lands. Enrique is not sure how far dragons travel. Dragons were also quiet, scaly, and didn't need to take driving tests.

Enrique is unaccompanied as the long line inches forward. The tear in his sweat-soaked shirt is visible, pants pressed as nicely as possible. His dark hair never needed much attention because a flick would do the trick. His mother made him comb it everyday, anyway. She swore the neighbors would talk.

He would say that his mother had groomed his sister Anita to be the family's accomplishment. She sailed through second grade. After skipping two more, she was shorter than her classmates and resolved not to go any further. Now, she's firmly set in ninth, her five-year old bookbag nearly falling apart. When Anita was barely above his knees, she was writing her name in the dirt of their backyard. She dotted the "i" with authority.

Then, the book fairs would come. The boxes parked on the living room floor made it known. His sister would show him her retrievals later. This space, in between her return from school and his return from work, was reserved for her and her books. The authors definitely made a great first impression. She swore her allegiances. No one was more cunning than Mark Twain, more adventurous than Kipling, more bewitching than Brontë. These were only names on book spines to him, surnames slanted to fit its curves.

Enrique moves slightly to the side so that a father can push a double stroller past him. The infant twins are crying in alarm because of the foreignness of this place. He remembers feeling foreign when his father took him to the field. It was so long ago. He taught Enrique to interact with the smallest and shyest of creatures. They peered at ladybugs chewing in the shadows of the stalks. Field mice greeted them with long, suspicious gazes before letting their brown feet guide them to less crowded territory. His father was gentle with them as they plucked produce, letting them scamper, crawl, fly away.

When Enrique saw them, he wondered about Anita's animal encounters. Her fair fingers found the most magical creatures on pages: an inspiring pig made newsworthy by a hardworking spider called Charlotte; an anxious rabbit that led Alice to tucked-away places; centaurs and talking beavers when you stepped into a wardrobe. It was made from magical wood. Some days, he touches the branches of sun-lit plants, lets his hands rest there as dawn creeps up on his bent shoulders. Once, his left palm held onto droplets of dew a bit longer. An earthworm curled in his dark hand.

The line is narrowing. There are four people ahead of him, two men in business suits, and a mother telling her son when he’d have to renew his license after he obtained it. The son says he knows, with pride. Enrique’s knowledge was gathered while he gathered the rewards of carefully-tended fields. He could tell when a rind was ripe by its waxy sheen, or by scratching the skin with his thumbnail. A watermelon was ready if he tapped and heard the hollow thump from within. He memorized the mating call of birds vacationing in the trees during the harvest. His father let him figure it out on his own. He called them the quiet, natural lessons of life. Enrique thought about how long these lessons would last, if they would be longer than Anita’s. He’s not sure so he whispers them to himself to remember them when he works alone.

On their first day out in Duncan's Field, the wheat shifted and the black crows were calm. They looked like golden feathers dancing, the way the wind weaved them back and forth. As they moved from row to row, Enrique could see the blend of colors more easily. The wheat started off as a deep, rich yellow, then bled to a decided topaz, then a comely tan. His father said that even though they'd be working primarily with fruit, Enrique's first experience should be in a ground of gold. While his father mowed with the crop shredder, sounding like thousands of tiny, moving scissors cutting near his ears, Enrique laid at the edge of the scene. He saw the gold fall on the grass, tickling his calves and hovering over his nose. His eyes strayed to the road next to Duncan’s. The meandering asphalt stretched farther and farther. He always anticipated a car coming because the asphalt would seem to growl like a churning river. The only thing left for him to do was to guess what was going to come. Was it a clunker, retrieved from the scrap yard, that rattled when it went by? Was it a reliable school bus that carried his childhood neighbors? Was it a van, packed for a purpose? Sometimes it was the last guess, and he closed his brown eyes to the sun.

The van was hot. Enrique had to be lured by a lollipop from his mother so he’d stop crying. Anita sat in their father’s lap, clutching his collar. Her sunflower barrettes resembled weeds in the darkness. Enrique held out his hand in the warm air to the six passengers across from them. His mother automatically slapped it away. The oldest man smiled, two of his front teeth missing. All their faces were papery. They looked at peace, expressions with many lines on their skin, squiggles of serenity. Right then, Enrique suspected they had a story to tell. They would tell their children about the crossing. They would tell them through talking and their children, younger than Enrique, would wonder about the cramped space, the hopeful and serious silence, the fading guilt. Children would weigh their lives against it. Maybe, like Enrique, they would turn to the road to recollect, or maybe they would remember the passage from Mexico as a moment that has disappeared in the twinkling of a tear and turn away. Enrique chose to hold the story, because he didn’t possess many others.

The mother in front of him sighs deeply. “Remember, driving is…”

“A responsibility,” finishes her son. “I’m a different driver than Dad, Mom. I’m careful.”

Enrique stares at the mother, biting her lip in trepidation, and then the son who whistles as they walk to the woman at the main desk.

“Hello,” says the mother. “We’re here for the driving test.”

“Road or written test? Or both?” says the woman.

“Road,” replies the mother. “He’s already passed the written test.”

The woman at the desk shifts some papers, and Enrique fixes his gaze on a rolling pencil that the boy catches before it finds the floor. He twirls it as the woman locates the forms. Enrique only twirled his when he was nervous. The CRT brought on continual twirling. He was a good copier so drawing letters or tracing shapes kept his pencil still through kindergarten, first and second grade. Then, the CRT, a litmus test of learning, a standardized exam that crammed every word possible into the test packet, came along to make him twirl. Minutes went by and he squirmed in his seat. His eyes teared up at the elegantly-presented paragraphs and multiple choice questions. A word seemed like one thing, but was completely something else. His brain stuttered the words he should’ve been able to comprehend. He was perfectly aware this wouldn’t be the last of these tests. Setting his head down, he dreamed imaginary words that he’d know and no one else would.

His counselor summoned Enrique and his parents to discuss the empty test. Why are there no marks, the counselor asked. Not a single one. Did he have a pencil? Is he lazy? Enrique catalogued the excuses in his mind, next to the imaginary words. When asked, Enrique simply said, the words I liked weren’t on there. His mother offered an apology for his obstinacy, while his father stroked his beard. The counselor suggested a tutor and another meeting. The three of them went home to discuss the problem further. Enrique wrapped his arms around his blue, wool winter coat as they sat on the couch. He wanted to shield himself from any looks of shame. The defense was unnecessary. His father stared at him longingly, lovingly. He set a cool hand on Enrique’s small arm and asked if he could read.

“I don’t know,” answered Enrique, staring at his coat.

“Have you tried?”

“Yes.”

His mother choked back a sob.

“If the tests are too hard, he will follow me,” said his father. “He can always learn to read later like we did.”

Any other choices weren’t available to them at the time. The fields needed more hands, especially fresh ones. The lack of money could not pay a tutor for her patience. His mother understood. She took a literacy class in her late twenties, following Anita’s birth. She just thought her children might learn earlier than she did. Still, Enrique was eight and eager, and would hopefully become a fine man like his father.

“Just fine,” guaranteed his father, as Enrique lead his head to the width of his father’s lap.

Bright flashes glow to Enrique’s right. He sees a young woman with skull earrings seated in a stool, grinning for her first license photo. Her small breasts poke through a mesh top and the legs of her jeans touch the floor. The earrings jangle like tossed seeds splattering on leaves. Whenever the clunkers come down the road, he pounds his pocket and hears the jangle of coins through the field. His ritual of doing a private inventory of attainable items is getting tiring. He can already afford this, he reassures himself. He can already afford that. Presently, he’d like a Miata because they’re attractive and his cousin drove one. His father said that as long as he was practical about it, he could buy a car with a little help from him.

Enrique assumed this promise had to do with the fact that he’d only had so many joys in his low-key life. There were no girls under the scorching heat of the day, and if they came, they would see their boyfriends at school tomorrow. Every field trip Enrique had been on was to the field. His friends were friends on weekends, and oftentimes he’d sleep away those hours and miss them and the energy that buzzed in his small town. A car would wake him up. That’s because a car meant something. It meant there were regions beyond the road for him to view, people beyond the state line who could be waiting to meet him.

“Go to room 5B,” instructs the woman, handing the test to the son.

The mother and son exchange an awkward hug before he disappears into a room near a water cooler.

“They grow up fast, don’t they?” says the mother to the woman.

“That they do,” says the woman.

Anita’s first book report was about four women who were growing up. They braved the Massachusetts cold in restrictive corsets, while their father was away at war. Anita explained the plot of the plucky sisters in their living room. She wanted to practice on a kind audience. The sisters found work, wrote, and fell in love. Enrique listened intently until he finally had to ask why the boys weren’t featured as much. Anita called him silly and told him the book was called Little Women and that was all there was to it.

Enrique stayed quiet until “the end” was announced. While her parents heaped praise on her efforts, he went to the kitchen. He lay against the refrigerator and heard the hum of the appliance. Enrique hit it as his lips trembled. Ice toppled inside and he pictured the Himalayas, white and steep. The fridge gurgled and the floor shook for a few seconds, and it made him think of a magic carpet ride. There were no maps to get to the snow-capped mountains. The image was intimidating enough for him to find it. There were no instructions to make the carpet fly. It flew in the fury of his silent disappointment.

“Do you speak English?” says a voice.

The woman at the front desk is the speaker of the question, an ugly brooch holding together her poorly-constructed shawl.

Enrique nods and clutches his wallet. The wallet is worn at the edges, but still keeps his money as best it can.

“I would like to sign up for driver’s education,” says Enrique.

“Then you’ll need a list of area driving schools,” says the woman, doing another search for this document.

Opening his wallet, he folds back the bills to get to a tiny scrap of paper that has what he needs. Anita had cut out and circled the best driving school in their town for him.

“I have the one I want,” says Enrique.

The woman stares at him skeptically, reads the name.

“That school is only operating during the summer from now on,” says the woman. “Here. Read this list and pick another one.”

Enrique puts his hand against it, steadying the paper as if it would make it easier. His mouth starts to part. This had become a regular occurrence when signs suddenly sprang up at the discount stores, new products would appear on the job, or cars he didn’t recognize would be listed in the classifieds. He’d sound it out until he got pretty close. Enrique turns the list to the left and then to the right. The words blur with each movement. He picks up a pencil to pass some time. The words still remain black, concrete, hooded from a hope that rests in his heart.

He knew cars very well, a language he was immersed in due to years of overhearing the farmers and the mechanics at work. It isn’t a labored vocabulary since he loves the topic. He convinced himself that most of the terms would be on the written test, which his cousin passed with flying colors. Things would be different in this situation, have to be. Reading won’t stop this rite of passage.

“Is there a problem, sweetie?” says the woman, her brooch seeming to thicken as she takes a heavy breath.

He lets his lips meet once more. No, he doesn’t want the illusion to drop. There were ways to make things seem similar. Enrique could be the same as other kids. Anita came to the fields when they were smaller, in colorful dresses the shades of spring flowers. She didn’t know how to plant bulbs so he showed her. Their hands wrapped around the bulb together as they lowered it into the dirt.

Afterwards, they blew bubbles and walked sideways through the rows of tomatoes. Anita blew the biggest bubble Enrique had ever seen, and then he blew a bigger one. Anita wasn’t impressed, trying to outdo him with her exhausted cheeks. When the bubble came, it was larger than his nose. Enrique had no more air to give. Anita said she saw a bubble just like it in a painting in one of her books. That’s when Enrique yelled “so what,” punched the bubble and made her cry. She cried until they got home. Enrique stared at her reddening face until their father put her to sleep. He went into her room an hour later and flipped through each book until he saw that book, which he discovered had no words. Enrique kissed her smooth forehead as she rolled in bed. In his bedroom, his own tears hit the page on the stunning picture, and he stared at it all night, waiting for the lost words to come back if they were ever really there.

“I’ll take it home and decide,” says Enrique.

“Alright, but those classes fill up fast,” says the woman. “I can give you a driver’s handbook too for seven dollars.”

“No, that’s okay,” says Enrique.

He stares at the crisp, square pages of the handbook. The cover looks deceptively simple, like other things.

“Thank you,” says Enrique, walking away.

He stalls at the entrance. The same girl who had her picture taken is celebrating with a friend. Their shrieks are piercing and young. The camera is at ease. It would capture another kid, another day. Enrique removes his cell phone and calls her.

“Hello?” says his mother.

“Mom,” says Enrique. “I’d like to go to a literacy class like you went to, if that’s alright.”

Her reply is rich and doesn’t have too many words. Enrique smiles for the lack of them.

“More than alright.”

Monique Hayes lives in Fort Washington, Maryland, where she currently works at the Folger Shakespeare Library. She received an MFA from the University of Maryland College Park, where she was a Creative Writing Fellow, and taught introductory fiction and rhetoric courses. She has work forthcoming in True Rhymes: A Street Anthology, and is working on her first novel.

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