Free The Accidental Native by J.L. Torres Page B

for my Basic English class. When I had gathered everything I needed, I jogged to the classroom at the end of the second floor hallway in the Anonymous Building. Entering the classroom late, my heart pounded, my stomach tightened. I threw down the syllabi and other stuff on the desk, louder than intended.
    We stared at each other, my students and I. They were prepas, some with flour streaked hair, runny egg yolk on their faces, green or blue dishwasher detergent staining the new clothes they’d bought for today, their first day of college classes. Their faces, at first a blur from momentary anxiety, became distinct, each one, as I dared to focus. The history of Puerto Rico in those faces. Light and dark complexions and everything in between: cocoa, tamarind, copper, butterscotch. Broad lips and noses; pointy, European beaks. Flaxen hair, lustrous Taíno hair, curvy and kinky waves.
    â€œPrepa, too,” I said, pointing to myself. Smiles, a smattering of laughter, but most of them had that lost I-don’t-want-to-be-here stare. A few were at the point of tears.
    Thirty-five students squeezed into a tight room with no air conditioning. The weather gets cooler, everyone kept telling me, but now it was August, balmy even after the downpour. As I called names, I tried to strike up a conversation with students. I told jokes to break the ice. Most of them didn’t have a clue what I was saying. The typical response was “¿Qué?” What? Or to a neighbor: “¿Qué dijo?” What did he say? And then they giggled.
    I tore a bunch of index cards from its plastic packaging, spread them out like I was doing a magic trick, one hand pointing to them. I scribbled a big rectangular box on the board to represent an index card and wrote what I wanted them to write on it. Micco had given me the idea with the cards, a way to get to learn student names. In his cards, he had written things like “la flaca”—the skinny one—or “tuerto” cross-eyed, “tetona,” big breasted, etc., to distinguish students. I never went that far, but it did the job. Thecards also helped keeping attendance, a mandatory chore requiring filling out one of many sporadic reports.
    With completed cards in hand, I went around the room, calling names, asking questions in an English spoken for mentally challenged people or the deaf. Nitza, wh—a—t i—s Co-me-rí-o l—i—ke? I was surprised to get a couple of responses resembling English. I felt accomplished, even when they struggled, like I was getting something done. And I kept looking at their young, pimply, expectant faces, smiling unguarded, like they didn’t have anything to worry about, not knowing the shit’s coming down hard, not knowing they’re clueless, not knowing anything. I had been like that only a few years ago. A student pointed to his watch, and I looked at mine—time over.
    â€œGo,” I said, waving a hand toward the door, and they ran to their next class, or to lunch, or to wherever English was not spoken here.
    When my parents dropped me off at college, they had been crying. I could tell from their red eyes, although both claimed allergies. My mother had planned what seemed like months for that day. Made sure I got a mini-refrigerator and any other allowable electronic convenience, the top-of-the-line laptop, many socks and underwear, in the weirdest colors so as not to get them mixed up with another person’s laundry. My dad gave me a beat up Oxford Dictionary that he had used in college. They both were proud but sad. I was their only child, and they must have sensed a twinge of old age approaching, of mortality. Without any sibling left behind, theirs was an empty nest come too quickly.
    We went to lunch at a Denny’s after moving me into my dorm. And they shared college stories. Mami had come from the South Bronx to Wellesley, a scholarship girl. She laughed when she told how she had