4

The Park

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On Saturday, Consuelo takes Felipe and me to the park in front of the National Palace. I ride my green bike and my brother his red bike. Consuelo sits on a bench and talks to an Indian lady. They could be sisters, they look so much alike, except Consuelo wears a white blouse, a black skirt and black shoes. The Indian lady has a huipil and a corte, and she is barefoot.

All the time she is talking, Consuelo doesn’t take her eye off us zipping around the fountain. There are pigeons flying everywhere. When Felipe and I get tired, we sit on a bench on the other side of the fountain, but where Consuelo can still see us.

The National Palace is made of green stone. It looks like a big avocado. The front is lined with dozens of soldiers sitting on the steps. Rifles hang across their chests. They are talking to one another.

I look up at the many palace windows. I wonder which is the president’s window. Does he hear the sirens wailing at night?

I am afraid to ask Felipe questions because he always seems so angry now.

“Is this where the president lives?”

“Lives or works. What’s the difference? An airplane could drop a bomb from the sky, and then poof! He’d be a goner!”

I should be scared, but I am not. Everything seems so unreal. It’s as if the green palace and the soldiers are in a movie. Even the clouds look fake.

A shoeshine boy comes up to us.

“Shoeshine?” he asks in English. “Cheap.”

“No queremos, gracias,” Felipe answers in Spanish, shaking his head.

The boy is barefoot. His clothes are dirty. His hair is matted down and he has streaks of black shoe polish on his brown face. He might be twice my age. He is so thin and bony. I wonder where he lives. Probably on the streets.

“Ten cents,” he says.

“No, gracias.”

“Cinco centavos,” he finally says. He’s desperate.

When it is clear that we don’t want a shoeshine, he points to the palace. “The gringos are coming.”

“What are gringos?” I ask.

“People from the United States of America!” Felipe snaps. And then he turns to the shoeshine boy. “How do you know?”

The shoeshine boy lifts his left arm. It is splotched with brown and black polish. His left hand is missing the little finger! I want to ask him how he lost it.

“Don’t you see all the tanks?”

Felipe and I stand up on the bench. Sure enough, in the distance, there are three dark green tanks. They look like gigantic turtles. Each one has a long green gun that looks like a telescope. Soldiers dressed in brown uniforms are sitting on top of them.

“The gringos are coming, the gringos are coming!” the shoeshine boy chants, standing up, pointing. “That’s what everyone says!”

Two men in suits are walking briskly across the park, scaring up the pigeons. Hundreds of birds are flying overhead. The sun has darted behind a big fat cloud. It suddenly turns cold.

“The gringos are coming, the gringos are coming!” the shoeshine boy shouts, pointing to the two men who go up the National Palace steps.

I don’t think this boy goes to school. Where does he find these things out? He seems to know things even my parents don’t know.

“Shut up, ishto!” I blurt out, saying a Mayan word I shouldn’t say. It isn’t such a horrible word, like calling him a brat. I say it to make the boy feel bad and for me to feel better.

He puts down his shoeshine case. “Take it back, or I’ll smack you —”

Felipe and I look at each other. We are both scared. We quickly get on our bikes and ride back to Consuelo. Out of breath, we beg her to take us home immediately.

Consuelo stands up in a huff, not happy to go back home.

“You two look like you have seen the devil.”

“Just take us home. Please.”

“It wasn’t smart to call that shoeshine boy an ishto. He could have beat us up,” Felipe says on our way back. “Still, it was brave of you.”

I feel a bit better on the ride home. Maybe I’m not such a scaredy cat!

Then I remember the soldiers and the tanks. My body shivers.

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