Chapter 1
When I think back about all that went wrong, it seems like our troubles started back in September. That’s when our mom, Max, went off to Iraq. Or maybe it was when Max first joined the National Guard, or maybe even before that, when my dad left my mom. But I think September was the start of the really bad times.
It’s the first day of school for Eddie, and the last day before our mom ships out to Iraq with her National Guard Unit. Eddie’s only nine, so little stuff keeps him happy – like being all Wal-Marted out in new clothes. There’s a band of white across the back of his neck where his new haircut shows skin that the sun’s never seen, and he’s even already brushed his teeth without being nagged about it.
Hamilton High classes don’t start until tomorrow, so I’m still in my boxers and tee shirt, helping pack crates of kitchen stuff to take to storage later today.
Max is smoothing Eddie’s collar for about the hundredth time. She pauses, wiping her eyes.
“Ay Mijo, I can’t believe you’re already in fourth grade,” she says. “And you, Mario . . . you’re taller than I am! And all buff,” she says, grabbing my bicep. She’s smiling and getting teary at the same time. “My little niños . . .”
“Hey! Max!” I say, giving her a light swat with a dish towel. “Don’t go getting all emotional on us.”
She laughs.
“I’m not getting all emotional. I’m just getting partly emotional.”
“You’re such a stickler for words,” I say, taking another swat.
“Best form of communication ever invented,” she says.
“Communicate this,” I tell her, letting go with my specialty Pumbaa rumble fart.
She flings open the door and fans at the air while Eddie collapses on the sofa in laughter.
“Don’t laugh,” she tells Eddie. “It only encourages him!”
Eddie laughs harder. Which gets Max laughing, too. It’s hard not to laugh when Eddie laughs because he’s got this sort of cross between a giggle and a roar way of laughing that’s like nothing else I’ve ever heard.
Max flops down beside Eddie and pats the place beside her, motioning for me to sit down.
I stuff the last plate into a storage box and sit next to her on the sofa – the sofa that’s going to be picked up by the Salvation Army in about an hour.
Max puts her arms around both of us and pulls us close. Eddie’s small for his age, and it’s still easy for him to snuggle in under her arm. Me, though, I’m bigger than she is, so the closest I can get to a snuggle is to scrunch down and lay my head against her shoulder.
“Listen,” she says. “You two clowns are going to have to get serious when I’m gone. That’s first thing tomorrow morning. You know? First thing tomorrow morning, at 5:30 a.m., you’ve got to get serious.”
“I don’t want you to go!” Eddie yells, his voice going all crackly the way it does just before he starts crying.
I don’t want her to go, either, but I’m too old to yell that out, or to let my voice go crackly.
“Why do you have to be in the stupid old National Guard anyway?” Eddie says.
Max tells Eddie, again, why she joined the guard. She had a hard time supporting us after our dad left. We had to move out of our house to a small apartment in a not very good part of town. Even after the move, Max’s Macy’s paycheck would barely cover our rent and food. She had to figure out a way to make more money. One thing she did was go to school to become a dental assistant. The other thing she did was join the National Guard.
“Can’t you unjoin?”
Max pulls him closer.
“We all have to make the best of this, Mijo. You’ve got to be maximum now, too.”
Eddie nods, wiping at his eyes.
Back when Max was still going to school plus working and doing her monthly duty thing with the Guard, Eddie and I both used to complain that she wasn’t home as much as other kids’ moms. Once, after a long bout of complaining, she told us it was time to get over it.
“I’m glad I got you guys out of the deal, but I’m sorry I chose such a minimum dad for you. The thing is, with such a minimum dad, I’ve got to work my butt off to be a maximum mom.”
Which is why I nicknamed her “Max.” Her real name is Maria. Maria Barajas, Eduardo Barajas, and Mario Barajas. That’s us. My dad is Jacob Barajas but he’s gone so long I hardly remember what he looks like. It’s not like there are a lot of his pictures sitting around, either. I mean, a guy who runs out on his pregnant wife and seven-year-old kid doesn’t exactly deserve a framed photo all over the place.
Max gets up from the sofa and starts searching around in a shopping bag that’s sitting on the kitchen counter. She pulls out a battery-operated red racecar toothbrush.
“Maybe this will help you remember to brush your teeth,” she says to Eddie.
Eddie takes the toothbrush from Max and examines the details.
“Cool,” he says.
Eddie’s notorious for not bothering to brush his teeth. Maybe the racecar toothbrush will help, but I doubt it.
“Twice a day, Eddie,” Max says. “I don’t want to come home and find you with a mouthful of rotten teeth.”
Eddie’s already got the toothbrush out of the plastic package and is vroom-vrooming around the room with it. It’s loud enough to be a race car.
“Aunt Carmen won’t be reminding you to brush your teeth, or take your vitamins, or eat your vegetables, or do your homework, or any of the things I always remind you about,” Max says, shouting over the noise of the toothbrush. She turns to me.
“I’ve put a six-month supply of vitamins on your dresser, Mario, and I want you boys to take them every single day. No skipping!”
“I never skip my vitamins,” I yell over the roar of the racecar toothbrush.
“No, but you’ve . . . Eddie, shut that thing off!”
He gives it one more vroom, then flops down on the couch next to me. I stick my finger out for him to pull. He pulls. I fart. We both crack up. Really, I owe my talent for farting at will to Eddie.
Eddie was born without any real fingers on his right hand. He’s got a little stub thing where a thumb should be, and two sort of half-fingers that were attached to each other where his index and middle fingers should be.
When he was four he had an operation to separate his finger stubs. He was in a lot of pain for weeks after the surgery and the only thing that could take his mind off the pain and get him laughing was farts. He was only four. It’s not like he had a highly developed sense of humor. We’d play that warthog section in “The Lion King” over and over for him. And I’d also do my part to entertain him. Once when he woke up in the middle of the night, screaming with pain, Max called me into his room and asked me to fart for him. Now she says she wishes she’d doubled up on the pain meds instead of encouraging my farting skills, but I know she was grateful at the time.
