35. Meeting Pablo

After much phone harassment from Becky and Mom all week, I finally planned with Thad to go over and meet Becky’s new foster kid Friday. Becky had been a ‘New Mommy’ since Monday, and had called me three times weeping and once screaming. Pablo had been crying since the social worker lady left. Becky could not console him as she knew nothing about children, which was twice as much as I knew. My only advice was “Can’t you just give him back and ask for a quieter one?” which made her weep more, to my astonishment. And the sympathy I got for Thad moving out and the trauma over my physical only lasted a few days before she flat demanded an audience with us.

Driving over to Thad’s, I rubbed my face, tired. My day had not begun well. I had startled awake two hours early after a dream where Thad told me “Jesus made AIDS so it can’t be bad because Jesus doesn’t make bad things.” That perfectly summed up how the OCD was handling having to wait for the results of my blood work. I simply tried to not think about it, which, of course, made me think about it even more. 

I pulled up in front of Queen Acres, stopped the car, and was about to go up, when Thad came flying out the door, still buttoning his shirt. His expression was not a good one. Bettina’s car was there and gay disco was blaring from the backyard.

“Hey,” he said getting in the truck.

“What’s wrong?” I sensed danger.

“Nothing. Just drive,” he said in his most twitchingly frantic voice.  

“Are you sure?” I asked, pushing it. “What’d she do?”   

“Michael, if you want me to go to this thing, just drive.” He looked away.

I started the truck and pulled out, heading to Becky’s apartment across town.

We were both silent for the ride, his tension palpable.   

Once of Thad’s traits I found most intriguing as well as most infuriating was his secretiveness. As blatheringly open as my lips were, his were diametrically opposed and always sealed tight. It made him an enigma, a secret I wanted to crack. But I had learned the limits to my prying, as when he closed down, he closed down. Then all I had in my arsenal of truth seeking was spying and snooping. Luckily I enjoyed both of those hobbies.  

At the next light I began rambling about work and he finally looked over at me and I almost ran the car off the road. 

“What is that?” I said pointing to his head.

“What?” he said innocently, running his hands through his brunette curls.

“That!” I again pointed to his head. “Are you bleeding?”

“No!” he snapped, pulling down the visor mirror, “It’s a raspberry streak. I had Bettina do it last night for spring.” He fretted in the mirror for a second before looking to me, “I thought it would look new and fresh. Does it look okay?”

I knew what I had to say and I did not say it. Rather I said, “If you’re going for that new and fresh head wound look, yeah, you got it.”

“Shut-up!” he snapped grappling back at the visor mirror. “Oh, it does look bad, doesn’t it? Stupid, stupid Bettina.”

As he moaned and tried to blend it away, I snickered to myself, happy to see his angel falling.  

Becky’s apartment personified the myriad spectrum of the color beige. In the stellar opposite of my ‘elegant hording’ montage of knickknackery, Becky’s OCD had driven her to stark Norwegian minimalism. Everything was sleek and modern and clean and spotless except for the tiny messy four-year old Mexican boy covered in grape jelly standing splat in the middle of the room howling at the top of his lungs, jelly spotting the floor around him.

We had only been there ten minutes and it was already horrifying uncomfortable. According to Becky, Pablo had been crying for the better part of the afternoon, and our visit had only encouraged more waterworks. She had tried to console him with a sandwich in the kitchen, which had initially abated his tears. But when he wondered into the living room with the sandwich, Becky snapped at him to get back in there to eat it, and he burst back into tears and dropped the sandwich to the silk sepia carpet, which sent Becky scrambling to the kitchen for a towel and some cleanser. 

I looked over to Thad as Pablo howled before us.

“Fun visit,” Thad said making an ugly face.  

I giggled and said, “It looks like someone took an ax to your head.”

“Shut-up! Just shut up!” he huffed, throwing up his arms.

Pablo must have taken this as a violent advance as his howling tone hit an even slightly higher octave; somewhere outside dogs were paralyzed mid-stride.    

“Tranquilidad  por favor!” Thad snapped at him rashly and Pablo hushed immediately, eyes wide.

“Well good God,” I said, astounded, “What did you just say?

Thad rose to go to the wall mirror to fuss with his hair, “I just told him to be quiet.”

“I didn’t know you were bilingual!” I said in amazement, watching Pablo now watching Thad’s every move.

“I’m not,” Thad said off hand. “I just learned some from Ma’am staff over the years. She has always fancied small Mexican men; Esteban is just the most recent.”  

Pablo looked up at Thad imploringly with his big brown eyes.

“Well, say something else,” I urged. “It seems to have calmed him down.”

“No,” Thad said in perfect Spanish accident. “Not until you apologize for telling me my hair looks like a hatchet wound.”

“That is just silly,” I said, but as Pablo began to well up again, I sputtered, “Oh, for god’s sake. Okay, I’m sorry. Your hair looks lovely.”

Thad looked back to the mirror, “You’re just jealous.”

“That I don’t have hair that makes me look like a struck hemophiliac, sure.” 

Thad turned with hands on hips to frown at me and Pablo let out a long howl.

“Please, Thad,” I said over the ruckus.

“Hola. Me nobre es Thad. Ques es Bebe Grande,” He said pointing to me.

I smiled and bowed and Thad smirked with squinty eyes.  

Thad continued, “Como estas?”

“Yo quiero ir a casa,” Pablo said in a small voice.

“Que?” Thad said, lips pursed.

“Yo quiero ir a casa,” Pablo repeated.  

“Oh,” Thad said taken a back. “lo siento.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, afraid.

“He wants to go home,” Thad whispered.

We looked at each other with wide eyes.

Becky burst in with a towel and 409, sweaty and maniacal. “Got it!” Pablo ran to hide behind Thad. 

“No, no,” Thad said moving away from the child, “No jelly hands on my pretty new pants.”

“Let him be,” I said, rising with some difficulty.

“What’s going on?” Becky asking, falling to the floor to spray and scrub the rug. “How did you get him to quit crying?”

Fingers in his mouth, but quiet, Pablo continued to follow Thad around the room.

“Apparently Thad is bilingual and just talked to him.”

“Thad’s bilingual?” Becky asked in utter, utter amazement.

“Why is that so hard to believe?” Thad snapped, and as then Pablo came at him with arms open, Thad scolded, “No! Parada!”

Pablo stopped and began to well up.

Becky looked on in amazement, “I don’t think he speaks a word of English, even though the social worker lady said he does. He hasn’t said a word I’ve understood since she left! Well, what did you say to him? What did he say?”

Thad looked at me and then back to Becky with a sigh, “He wants to go home.”

“Well, this is his home.” She said standing with some difficulty, jelly covered rag in hand. “Tell him that.”

Thad looked down to the sniffling child and in a consolatory tone said, “Esta es nuevo tu casa. Esta es tu nuevo Mamma. Comprenda?”

“No. Yo quiero ir a casa,” Pablo said before he teared-up again and ran into the kitchen.  

“What did you say to him?” Becky said accusatorily.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” Thad snapped back. “I just told him this was his new house and you were his new Mommy.”

“Oh, sorry,” She said folding the rag up into a tight ball. “Well, thank you. I guess I’ll have to learn Spanish. Glad I took those three years of French.” She laughed, “How useful is that now?”

“C’est la vie,” I smiled. “We should probably go.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said as something crashed in the kitchen. “Oh Lord!” And then to Thad, “Now how do you say it?”

“Nuevo Casa. New House.  Nuevo Mamma. New Momma”

“Nuevo Casa,” She repeated, “Nuevo Momma. Okay, got it. Thanks Thad. I might call later for more, so just keep you r cell phone on.”  

“No problem,” He smiled, apparently thrilled to be of use to her.  

“Oh, what happened?” She stopped him with a hand on his arm, looking up to his head with a frown of concern, “I think your head is bleeding.”

“Oh for God’s sake!” Thad shouted and I burst out laughing.

On the way home I had to apologize again but appeased him by ccomplimenting  his Spanish. My amazing bilingual boyfriend: a raspberry haired sphinx with a secret.