My favorite moments

My favorite moments

That sunset, Miguelin ran through the oak door in a very intense race. "Dad,Dad.. I have a question for you."

He could hardly stop a few inches from the wooden rocking chair.
Demetrio opened his arms and tried to push back the rocking chair. "What is it ?"
MIguelin breathed until his abdomen hardly moved the white t-shirt. "It's about baseball."
Demetrio broadened his eyes. Miguelin generally liked other sports. He said that he only liked baseball to practice it.
"The physical education teacher told us the one who answered that question he would prize him with a guanabana (tropical fruit) yogurt."
Demetrio opened his hands and shrugged his shoulders.
Miguelin looked to the ceiling. "In the Venezuelan baseball league had two ballplayers played in the same season and later they won the rookie of the year award the same year?"
Demetrio tapped his forehead. "Lawdy, lawdy! That teacher of yours is really tough. Well, if you do your complete homework by 8 o'clock tonight, we can talk about those ballplayers."
Miguelin wrinkled his mouth and looked down. Then he jumped after 30 seconds. "All right. But you have to tell me the whole story."
"Dad, I already did the homework, why donât you tell me about the two rookies?"
Demetrio went from Miguelin's tricky face to Roberta's serious cheeks. He suspected that barely had begun to do the homework. The right hand on Roberta's waist showed that had again left the towel in the bed blankets and his sandals occupied opposite corners. Demetrio intended to plan another strategy to talk with trying to avoid a fight for power. He knew that authoritarian behavior would get away from him.
The night before he spent much more time inventing voice tones that raised Miguelin's mood. "Do you like baseball?"
Miguelin spun his chin from one shoulder to the other.
"Then, why are you so interested in that question? You can get the yogurt if you order your toys."
Miguelin squeezed his hands and stretched them under the table. "I want to know who those rookies were. The teacher thinks that nobody will answer that question. I want to surprise him Dad. Are you sure you know what they are?"
Demetrio pressed his lips. "You should say, are you sure you know who they are?"
Miguelin started to read the question about cardinal and ordinal numbers. He followed the first lines of the paragraph which identified the main idea, he pressed his lips, released the pencil. He asked if Demetrio had played as a child, if he had run to meet his friends.
Demetrio smiled. "Your grandfather was very strict. When I finished the homework he made me paint the facadeâs walls or asked me a lot of questions about the homework. If some of my answers were wrong he took minutes from my playing time and if I complained, he diminished the time even more. I looked at him the same way you look at me right now, with acid in my eyes. Only many years later I understood that roughness, that gaze of fire. When I wanted to say thanks to him, he always changed the conversation."
Miguelin rebounded the ball against the wall. "But Grandpa always plays with me. Even if I have a homework to do."
"Grandparents, Grandparents! If only you had seen them when they were parents."

The race brought scents of notebooks and teacher`s voices. Miguelin stopped by a gardenâs side. "What's a second baseman? Whatâs a centerfielder?
Demetrio stopped using the drill. The hole in the wall required more depth.
"The teacher told us that one of the rookies was a second baseman and the other a centerfielder."
Demetrio blew the holeâs dust and slid the ramplug. "Oh son, that teacher is getting exquisite!"
"What do you mean by exquisite?"
Demetrio slammed two hammer punches on the ramplug. "He's getting within the intimate baseball jargon."
"Dad, talk to me clearly please." pulled a chair and put the backpack at the back of it He noticed the same facial expression of that sunset of ignited oranges among the cobalt clouds at an atmospheric edge. The veins bubbled in his hands. The guy's face competed with the horizon's oranges. The guy had ordered a painting with streets flooded in garbage and Demetrio left a corner completely clean. That broke all the sense the guy wished in the painting. That sight would show that the town began to change and that wasnât true. That morning he had clashed with a big man that took his dog for a ride and in such a normal way he left three excrement fragments in the middle of the sidewalk.
Miguelin looked through the door's line. Thick threads of sweat burned at Demetrioâs eyes. He could feel a torrent of bubbles in Demetrio's throat. He hardly showed a pale smile at his chin.
Miguelin would have liked to come in the office to stood up before that bull. He wanted to squeeze the guyâs gaze and tell him to respect Demetrio. When recalled the fire gaze plus the explosive arguments at Demetrio's studio with light boxes and large tables, he got his shoes welded to the granite floor. Not even at his profession as an architect, Demetrio articulated the tiniest word before the hardest complaints. When Roberta told him that he had to defend himself, Demetrio immersed with the best of his aqualung in the sea of blue traces from his planes.
"Why is Dad so hard with me and remains as a scarecrow before those guys that are his clients?"
"Hey . What`s the matter? Give me that painting."
Something in the painting impressed and he almost dropped it.
"Look out! I've spent many hours at my free time and many unpleasant meetings, I donât want that painting to finish turned into specks."
"Do you want to know what a second baseman is?"
Miguelin had his eyes glued to the canvas, it showed the same street from the other painting, this time it looked immaculate but there were two banana covers at a corner. âWhatâs that Dad? That's the opposite of what ordered the guy who was mad at you.â
Demetrio put the pallet at the table to add a little more of red to the mix for the bananaâs cover. He raised the short sleeve of his green tangerine shirt and breathed until his belly disappeared. "Sometimes you have to change the perspective to understand the misteries of the ground youâre stepping on. Although itâs hard for you to believe it, to watch the situation from the opposite sidewalk can give you that sight, that ability of handling gears that help you to get agreements."
"Don't look at me like that. It doesn't mean to give up, or get on your knees. There's a human condition; yes, I know it's very few times practiced, it leaves open places to share points of view no matter how opposite they could be. How do you think John Kennedy and Nikita Krushev could avoid the nuclear disaster at the Cuba missils episode? Or how do you think Nelson Mandela accomplished to live alongside his enemies after 27 years in jail?"
" I know those topics are a little abstract for you. To be more graphic, thereâs something called latin jazz. For sure, each time anyone asked Tito Puente if it was easy to mix the two streams, he opened his eyes and smiled."
Miguelin looked how the tube with red paint squeezed out. "Dad, do you remember that you have to explain me what a second baseman is?"
Demetrio gave two pats on his forehead and raised the palette. "Excuse me son, itâs just that painting and architecture sometimes suffocate me."
"Have you seen how a waiter acts in a restaurant? Most of all when he carries a tray filled with glasses and dishes. If anyone calls him from a table he turns around, listen petitions and gets back to his way with everything untouched in the tray. Right?"
Miguelin opened his eyes.
Demetrio marked the yellow contrasts over the bananas covers with his index finger finger tip.
"What does that have to do with a second baseman?" .
Demetrio raised his index finger from the canvas. "Imagine there is a runner at first base and the batter hits a grounder to shortstop, right?"
Miguelin got two steps away from the lectern.
"The shortstop grabs the ball and passes it to the second baseman, he gets it, steps on the base and gets out (many years before he pivoted on the air as an astronaut), turns to first base and throws at the time."
"Is it similar for you about what a waiter does in a restaurant?"
"Dad, but the shortstop also can do that when the grounder goes to the second baseman."
"Sure son, but the shortstop have the play in front of him, he doesn't have to turn towards first base."
Miguelin looked at Demetrio willing to ask him from where he did pick so many explanations. How had he learned so many ordinary, simple things.
Miguelin enjoyed a lot when he surprised Demetrio in the basil ritual. It was the only way of getting anything about it, because he didn`t like to talk about that. It seemed like a sealed secret.
"If you want to know why I wait for the most unsuspected moment to cut the basilâs leaves, youâll to have to read and you don`t like to do that."
Miguelin put his right hand inside the pocket of the beige patches spread on the blue jeans. He whistled silently. He knew how his tongue noticed the lack of basil in the tomato sauce. It represented a tiny but turning touch. He could eat the macaroni or spaghetti, maybe he could satisfy his hunger. But that inflection point in the middle of his tongue could dissolve any rough moment experienced in his day.
"You'll have to look in a dictionary and also in a botanical encyclopaedia. Find the specimen and its classification, the type of soil required and the environmental conditions. Afterwards, you'll have to look for an Andres Eloy Blanco poem. "Coloquio bajo el olivo."
Miguelin inserted two Lego blocks to complete the airplane. âWhat poetry got to do with the basil plant? Dad you havenât even told me what a centerfielder is."
"And I won't until you explain me what cardinal and ordinal numbers are." The voice's tone matched the brutality on the reggaeton vibrating over the neighborhoodâs zinc roofs.
Miguelin raised his shoulders and moved his feet in half circles. Roberta closed the windows and tried to talk. Miguelín put his index fingers at his ears.
"That noise kills thousands of neurons per minute," said Roberta.
Miguelin tilted his face on the table. A mysterious music floated in the room. "What's that thing, Dad?"
Demetrio left the compact disc box on the speaker. "It's Franz Lizst, a hungarian composer, a great pianist and profesor. One of the most prominent of the 19th century."
The next two minutes filled the air with peace. Miguelin breathed, touched Demetrio's shoulder. "Dad, that music made me remember a ball game at school. I was in the same team with the boy who always laughed at me. At the first chance, I put my foot on his way, If the teacher wouldn't have been aware, he had hit very hard in his face. The teacher sat down besides me and stayed like five minutes explaining me that violence is like a vortex that kills everything. I couldn't see the tip of my hands because of the hate. My gaze pointed to the boy's forehead."
"Later in the game, the teacher brought the boy as a reliever pitcher from right field. The first deliveries rebounded on home plate and hit me in the neck. The teacher came out so mad. 'What`s the matter with you Demostenes? This is a team sharing an objective for the best harmony.'"
"His name made me laugh. Then you explained me that Demostenes was a great greek speaker in the age before Christ. The batter got on base on a walk. The next batter hit a line drive to deep right field. The runner on first base scored. When I saw the other runner reaching second base and keep running I suspected it could be an inside the park homer. I advanced two steps to third base. When I saw the right fielder throwing the ball to the second baseman, I shouted, âDemostenes, run home!"
"When I saw the relay throw went over the third baseman I ran and slid on the grass. I got the ball in the mittâs webbing. I passed the ball to Demostenes. The runner clashed against him and rolled in the dust. The umpire checked the glove and fisted his right hand. I called Demostenes twice. I hit him twice in his face. When the teacher put the alcamphor tablet under his nose and he opened his eyes, my sadness tears turned into happiness. I talked to Demostenes, I helped him to get up. We had made the out to save the team. I felt a peace like the one from that music you played Dad."
Demetrio scrambled Miguelin's hair. That was the music where he sheltered while seeing his son burying his chin into the grass when went behind third base to stop the second baseman throw. That blue light in the hospital room told him that had born, the son who would take his baton in the life`s marathon.
He had to be aware for avoiding his parents mistakes and for learning that he also could become an ogre.
Several times he had lost patience while asking about letters and numbers. "Youâre going to be good for nothing". He put his hand in his mouth and bit it. There it was his parentsâ authoritarian image that had scared him so much. The night when his father held him in his shoulder while burning in fever, those vehement steps on the hospital sidewalk resounded in his chest.