Furia(2)

Pobre Mamá.

I wished I could share my secret with her. But in spite of what my parents believed, I had learned my lessons. When I was twelve, my dad found me playing fútbol in the neighborhood potrero with a bunch of boys. I’d been having the time of my life . . . until he started bellowing at me in front of the whole barrio that he wasn’t raising a marimacho, that fútbol was for men. I took it all in silence, ready to cry at my mom’s feet, but she sided with him. I hadn’t talked to her about fútbol since.

“Chau, Ma.” I pecked her cheek and dashed for the door and freedom. “I’ll tell Mrs. Fong you said hi.”

“Answer your phone when I call you!”

My cheap phone was inside my backpack, safely out of credit. But she didn’t know that. “Chau, te quiero!” I threw her a kiss and ran out before she could stop me.

I paused for half a second by the closed metal door of our apartment, but she didn’t say te quiero back.

The neighbor’s music, “Mi Gente,” set a reggaeton rhythm for my pounding feet. I took every shortcut between the cinder block buildings and shacks in 7 de Septiembre, our barrio. By the time I made it to the bus stop, I couldn’t hear the music anymore, but the pam-pam beat still resonated inside me.

The 142 bus turned the corner just after I checked my watch. Two forty.

“You’re on time!” I gave the driver a grateful smile as I scanned my student card on the reader, and when it beeped, I thanked la Virgencita. I couldn’t really afford to spend money on the fare, but the game field in Parque Yrigoyen was too far away to walk.

“Well, you’re lucky,” the driver said. “This is the emergency services bus for Central’s opener. Most Scoundrels are already at El Gigante, but I’m supporting from here.” He smiled, showing me the blue-and-yellow jersey peeking out from under his worn blue button-up. “You heading there?”

I didn’t want to give him an excuse to get too friendly, so I shrugged and found a seat. The shiny black leather was cracked with yellowish stuffing peeking out, but it was far enough from both the middle-aged couple making out in the back and the man leering at me on the right.

The bus gathered speed and left el barrio. The drone of the engine and the warmth of the heater lulled me as I gazed out the window at the still-naked August trees and the flocks of birds who hadn’t made the flight north for warmer weather.

After a brief stop on Circunvalación, I felt something touch my leg—a card with a picture of La Difunta Correa, the patron saint of impossible things. The paper was yellowing, and a corner was bent. I looked up to see the flash of a young boy’s crooked smile as he walked the length of the bus giving out estampitas, saint cards, hoping for small donations.

In spite of attending a Catholic school since third grade, I’d never been particularly religious, but I recognized La Difunta. The image of a dead mother still breastfeeding her baby in a beam of divine sunshine had always mesmerized me. Sometime during the chaotic postcolonial years in the mid-1800s, the army had taken La Difunta’s husband to fatten up its ranks. Heartbroken, she’d carried their infant son and followed her husband through the sierras and the desert until she died of thirst. When two drovers found her body, her child was still alive, suckling from her breast. Ever since, miracles have been attributed to her. She isn’t officially a saint, but shrines to La Difunta dot Argentina’s roads, encircled by bottles of water, the offering and payment for her favors.

My conscience reminded me of all my lies, of the miracle my team would need to win the championship today. The sadness in the boy’s hunched shoulders pricked my heart. I rummaged in my pocket for some money. There wasn’t much he could get with fifty pesos, but it was all I had.

“Gracias,” he said, “May La Difunta bless you.”

I held up the estampita and asked, “Will this really work?”

He shrugged, but when he smiled, a dimple pocked his cheek. “What can you lose, eh?” He couldn’t have been more than ten, but he was already old.

No one else took an estampita or gave him money, and he sent me another smile before he stepped off the bus.

The engine’s roar couldn’t drown out the frantic muttering in my head: today might be the last day I played with my team. No legs would be fast enough to give us victory. We needed a miracle.

I glanced down at the estampita and sent La Difunta a silent prayer for a future in which I could play fútbol and be free. What could I lose, eh?





2





The bus arrived in Barrio General José de San Martín just as my watch pointed at three fifteen. I was late. I ran the rest of the way to Parque Yrigoyen field. Central Córdoba’s stadium loomed right behind it, but our girls’ league had no access there.

When I arrived, a referee in antiquated black—a guy—was checking my team’s shin guards.

Roxana, our goalie and my best friend, sent me a killer glare as I peeled out of my sweatpants and sweater to reveal the blue and silver of my uniform. I took the last place in line and knocked on my shins to prove I was protected.

The rest of the girls dispersed, and I laced my boots, Pablo’s hand-me-downs, which were falling apart and smelled like an animal had died and decomposed in them.

“You’re late, Hassan,” Coach said. A lifetime of squinting and playing tough in a man’s world had left a map of lines on her face, which said I’d better apologize or I wouldn’t like my destination.