KIKO’S DREAM

 By Amparo Jaramillo-Restrepo

Playing soccer was Kiko’s dream, and while growing up in the shanty town, among barefoot children, he spent hours kicking a rag ball. Then, at night, he’d dream of being a big soccer star and making a lot of money to buy a better house for his parents.

 But those memories were in the past now. Virginia was sitting on a corner of the old sofa where her son had been lying for two weeks, unable to walk, his legs rigid as heavy logs, his eyes fixed in the bookcase where his aunt Clara had put his first trophy.

 The family had tried everything from ice pads to hot baths, creams and herbs, the entire stock from the “botánica” in the barrio, while friends and relatives brought religious icons, and the room was lit with candles of different colors; but nothing helped. The boy sat motionless like and Indian statue, the soccer ball by his pillow, his eyes closed most of the time, immersed in this dark, deep hole where life had thrown him out.

A doctor was out of question for the new illegal immigrants, living in constant fear to go out on the open, packed like sardines in the back room of a dilapidated apartment, sharing everything from clothes to food, hopes and dismay.

One evening when Kiko’s father, found his wife crying, in a silent explosion of tears repressed by countless hours of pain and frustration, he exclaimed:

“It’s a spell. It has to be the malignant work of that witch who told you we’ll have a big tragedy at the end of the trip, and wanted me to buy a magical charm to protect us; I’m afraid we’ll never see the end of the tunnel”

Virginia didn’t believe in witches or black magic, but kept praying for a miracle,

telling her son that everything was in his head, the result of the stress and horror of the last part of their trip; an episode they had promised to erase from their son’s mind, so he wouldn’t have to carry on the stigma of that ominous night, when they lay down in a hidden box in the back of a truck, under rolls of heavy fabric, no talking or even whispering, in order to cross the border; while the helicopters combed every inch of land  looking for illegal immigrants. But how can you exorcise bad memories? 

Time kept shedding off calendar leaves until one Saturday morning, when Cousin Clara decided she couldn’t take it any more, and remain idle while Kiko lay in a cramped room, deprived even from sunlight. Then, she remembered a lady she’d met at the beauty parlor; her name was Rita, and wanted to practice her Spanish; so while Clara colored her hair, Rita talked about her trips to some Latin American countries, and a children’s cook book titled “The corn Book” she was writing; Rita also told Clara that in the mean time, she was staying at the nearby Franciscan mission.

Clara had the impression that Rita was a wonderful human being and that’s why she’d made a lot of friends in the barrio; but even while Clara drove on the winding road to the mission, she couldn’t explain her impulse to get Rita’s help for her nephew, as a last resort, despite the fact that Saturdays were the best days at the beauty parlor.

Clara arrived to the Mission very early in the morning prepared to wait all day long if necessary to talk to Rita, and when she saw the old Toyota at the parking lot, she felt a sense of relief. It took some time for the old nun Anunzia to emerge from her prayer book’s cloud and return to reality by opening a small window to check out visitors or intruders.

            When Rita came to the door dressed in her black dress and a huge bag over her shoulders Clara was dismayed; but she was determined to help Kiko, and nobody, not even fear of looking inconsiderate to others, was going to stop her. She told Rita her nephew’s story in an elaborate Spanglish, like a torrent flowing wildly downhill, without any regard for the time or circumstances of her listener.

            “I’m coming with you” Rita said when the other woman paced for breathing, putting one of her arms around Clara to console her; then she headed to the car.

           “I’ll take you to meet Kiko”, said Clara.

Clara didn’t know Rita’s last name; she didn’t know either that this lady, who’d traveled all around the world writing children’s stories and sharing her life with all kinds of people, never took “no” for an answer.

When they arrived at the house Rita already had a plan. She’d learned enough by listening to Clara’s desperate cascade of words, but was unprepared for the scene of this twelve year old boy, lying in the midst of icons and candles, his eyes blurred by thoughts of sadness and despondency, his hand placed on the anchor of his soccer ball.

“Any pain?” Rita asked. The mother nodded, but stated in desperation: “His legs are paralyzed”. That’s all Rita wanted to know.

“We need an ambulance, and I know where to get it. Have him ready for the doctor” she said and drove directly to the border’s zone.

            She’d met the police patrol chief the same day she came to San Miguel. His name was Tony García and he offered to take her to the Mission that day; she encountered him again at some local restaurants and at the post office, and by some trivial chats she got the impression that behind his physical toughness he had a tender heart. “But she might be wrong” she thought; however, there wasn’t time now for a further reflection. She had to save Kiko’s life..

            The Chief was on the phone sipping coffee. After the formal greetings he offered her a chair, but instead, without any hesitation, Rita begged:

            “I need an ambulance to move a sick child to the hospital.”

As soon as she saw the police ambulance Virginia’s terrors began to creep into her body because her son didn’t have any legal papers to stay in the United States. “What’s going to happen to him?”

 Rita tried to calm her down and promised she’ll be back with Kiko, as good as new, in a few days. Clara came with them to the hospital, only one hour from San Miguel, but a world apart from the new immigrants’ life.

Hospitals were not Rita’s favorite places, but this one, run by a few Mother Teresa’s nuns had a humane face. The paramedics put Kiko on a wheel chair, asked them to wait on line and gave Clara the registration form where she wrote Kiko’s name and the little information she could provide about the boy.

Doctor Ramírez, a young man doing his residence in Orthopedics was fluent in Spanish and very good with children. When he learned the boy didn’t have any accidents and he wasn’t in pain, he dismissed the urgency of taking X-rays. His intuition told him Kiko might be suffering from an emotional trauma, a common incident among children who arrived from a foreign country leaving family, friends and language behind.

There was an instant rapport between Rita and Doctor Ramírez, but the young patient didn’t smile at him, and gave only yes or no answers to his questions, while he sat with his lifeless legs on the wheel chair like a wilted sunflower on a desert.

Doctor Ramírez told the women Kiko had to stay at the hospital for a few days to find out the cause of his paralysis; and even if the boy felt afraid, he didn’t show it, nor he did dare to cry at the thought of being away from his family in a new environment. After all, he’d learned from his father that “men never cry.”

Rita returned with Kiko’s family the next day and brought him a few of her books. He was moving his legs thanks to the physical therapy, but he still couldn’t stand up, nor did he want to participate in any activitie meant to cheer up young patients.

“It’s like breaking into a marble block” Dr. Ramírez told Rita after the first week. “We have to give him time to open his soul to us,” he added, trying to comfort the family. Kiko seemed to like Rita’s books, translated into Spanish by one of the nurses, but refused to write a paragraph when the psychologist in charge of the case brought him paper and pencil. He’d  scribble lines, dots, and balls for a few minutes, and then he’d return to his passivity, isolated in his stout shell of silence, until his parents in San Miguel became resigned to the idea that they had a handicapped son and they would have to make do with the results of a black magic spell, or God’s will. The last hurricane had destroyed their house and their animal, killed relatives and friends in his remote country. “It’s God’s will” they thought, with that simplistic and humble philosophy of their ancestors, but at least they were alive! So they started to plan the last leg of their trip to Los Angeles. After all, they had nothing to lose now.

 Rita visited with them one night and was mad as hell at everybody: the family, the system, the whole crazy world with all its lies and contradictions. She was a fighter; thus she had to ignore Kiko’s parent’s attitude and keep looking for help; for abandoning the boy in his condition to his sordid fate, was unthinkable for her.

“We had tried everything,” sister Magnolia apologized as Rita entered the waiting room, crowded with parents and children, next Sunday, when she came to see the boy; Kiko was almost in the same position she’d left him a week before, as mute as a deaf bell, as quiet as a dead leaf; and when Rita tried to capture his attention, she could almost touch his broken dreams while searching for a ray of light in his eyes, amidst the abyss of his interior turmoil.

Suddenly, a flash sparkled deep down in Rita’s heart.

“Had you tried soccer?” she asked the nun, stunned to hear her own voice and see Sister Magnolia’s reaction. But before the nun could answer Rita was already sailing through the parking lot, pushing Kiko’s chair.

            “I’m going to take him for a ride” she explained, and asked one of the nurses to help her place the boy on the passenger’s seat.

            “Don’t you need the chair?”

  Rita didn’t hear the question, or bothered to look back or to explain something to Kiko; she put the seat belt on, and sped off to the main road.

            It was a glorious Sunday day with people pouring out of their houses to chat with neighbors, Mexican music bursting through the windows and a constant stream of tourists heading to the market to buy ponchos and hats. She put on some classical music to calm down her nerves and appease Kiko’s, and took a short cut to San Miguel.

            And there it was! The barren soccer field she’d seen in her way to the hospital, packed with a group of local youths concentrated in their favorite sport.

            Some of the boys helped her with Kiko and sat him down on a cushion, the soccer ball in his hands, close enough to the field to oversee the game. Nobody uttered a word.                “That’s all. Let’s see what’s going to happen now” she thought. At least she didn’t have any witnesses to confront her if she failed.     

            Rita, in the mean time, legs crossed on the dirty field, took a book and tried to concentrate in its pages; but her heart beats were those of a horse racing to the end, and as  time passed her anxiety grew, and she had to make a conscious effort to stay still.

            “A bell is not a bell until you ring it,   “A song is not a song until you sing it”

“And love in your heart is not there to stay…”,  she was reading over and over again from a post card, like a broken record, as if repeating one of the old lullabies her mother used to sing for her at night. And that’s what  she was doing when she was suddenly awaken by a long, screeching GOAL scream bursting into space; and she saw Kiko jumping in the air, chanting with his newly found voice to join the happy echo of the other players. Now she was the one who couldn’t move or jump into the air, because she was speechless, in shock, and her aching legs took time to untangle, until she saw Kiko flying toward her with his open arms and his sunny, beautiful face, glowing with an overflowing stream of joy.

Kiko continued to collect Rita’s books even after he was a big soccer star; and if somebody asked him who the author was, he answered with an enigmatic look:

            “She is an angel who opens impossible doors”.

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