by Joshua Vigil
As Maxwell stood beside the whiteboard, he thought of all the bad words he’d learned since he began teaching English as a Second Language. Cabrón. Pendejo. Cerote. So strange, these words, at once angular and round. He moved his tongue inside his mouth and imagined saying them out loud. Cabrón. Pendejo. Cerote. He did this often.
He had a favorite student. He knew he wasn’t supposed to, but he was charmed by Eslendy. She’d been in the country no more than two months. Like a sponge, she’d soaked so much of the language up already, it left Maxwell reeling. For once, he felt like a good teacher. She understood nearly everything he said. Unlike his other students, who’d been in Maxwell’s class for a year, some even more, and who still refused to speak the language. He secretly found these students lazy; they lacked the ambition to learn English, despite the urgency he thought they should have felt. How else could they make a home in this country? He knew most didn’t do the homework at night, which included practice drills, and he knew they didn’t speak English over the weekends either, not when they didn’t really have to, not when neighborhoods could be so segregated, not when everyone in their household spoke the same language. But Eslendy understood. She had urgency.
She was staring at her alphabet list, quietly repeating the sounds to herself. Her silky black hair reached past her knees, and because she never wore hair ties, her hair was constantly billowing about. When she sat on her chair, she sat on her hair, hundreds of strands fanning out beneath her. Her finger continued to slide down the alphabet. Row after row of sounds softly accomplished.
Maxwell was doing something similar in his mouth as his attention drifted across all of the other students, the ones he liked less. Cabrón. Pendejo. Cerote. It went on like this for a while. And when Maxwell wasn’t swirling swear words in his mouth, he was daydreaming of his next day off. Tomorrow. He was meticulous in how he scheduled these days. Every third Friday, on the dot. He needed them to calibrate himself. He needed them for his fun.
***
After the dishwasher sang, and the dishes were done, his eyes flitted to the oven’s clock. Two hours since he’d texted Yan. He dropped to his knees and scrubbed the floor, reaching for the edges where the hardwood met the kitchen cabinets. He was still on his hands and knees when the doorbell rang. Finally.
Maxwell swung open the door to his elderly neighbor, Marta. You’re here, she said. She said this without an ounce of surprise, as though she expected Maxwell to be home on this Friday. I took the day off, Maxwell said.
You love taking days off, Marta said. She was a squat woman with the kind of breath Maxwell associated with people her age and impending death. Her hair stopped abruptly above her shoulders, the ends turned up into little curls that reminded him of umbrella handles. Her face was powdered white, several shades lighter than her actual skin—Maxwell wondered if this was a result of her eyesight, and did none of her friends say anything because their eyesight was just as bad?
I have fifteen of them, Maxwell said, why wouldn’t I take advantage of a day here and there?
The kids, she said, what do they do without you?
Maxwell rolled his eyes. It was always the same song and dance. Marta found every opportunity to pry into her neighbors’ lives. Have you heard of substitute teachers? he asked.
What a waste of money!
Maxwell leaned his body against the door he’d kept only halfway open. While Marta’s foot had passed the threshold, the rest of her remained tilted back. Even then, Maxwell still caught the acid sharpness of her breath. Was there something I could do for you, Marta? Maxwell asked.
Oh! Some of our mail got mixed up. Marta’s face buckled in mock-surprise as she handed over an envelope. Maxwell had the sneaking suspicion she snooped through everyone’s mail. Holding onto whatever caught her attention. Opening the envelopes with steam before sealing the flaps back with glue.
He surveyed the front—a letter from his graduate school. Thanks, he said. Anything interesting inside?
What do you mean? Marta eyed him curiously, a hint of amusement or mischief shadowing her face.
Never mind, he said.
You’re waiting for someone, aren’t you? Marta kept her gaze latched to Maxwell.
Is it so bad to have guests?
She narrowed her eyes. Whenever you take your day off, she said, it’s always the same guest. He seems like a suspicious type to me. Only staying for a few minutes at a time.
Maxwell emptied out his lungs. Okay, Marta. I have to unload the dishwasher now. See you, he said, gently shutting the door in her face.
Another hour passed before Yan arrived. Maxwell let him in, popping his head out to see if Marta was doing the same. Most likely she was stood behind her door, eye glued to the peephole.
Sorry for the delay, Yan said, sinking into the sofa.
Yan had a clear, open face. He didn’t seem like a suspicious type to Maxwell, not at all. That he was a dealer should have come as a surprise. The only noteworthy aspect to Yan’s appearance was that his facial hair was in a constant state of transition; sometimes he had a mustache, sometimes a goatee, while other times he had a full beard, or he was like a school boy, shaved clean. A lot could be accomplished with a beard in three weeks. Traffic, you know? he said.
I know, Maxwell said.
Yan stretched his arms out, curling his hands around the sofa’s spine. A moment passed between the two men, as though Yan had forgotten his purpose for being there, at Maxwell’s apartment, and Maxwell struggled to remind him. Maxwell bit his lip. Maxwell kept nibbling until Yan’s eyebrows pitched up and he clapped his hands. So, the usual?
Just one gram.
For sure.
After Yan pocketed the cash, Maxwell poured out a small serving of powder over a glass mirror he kept in a shoebox below the coffee table. Though Yan had witnessed this ritual countless times, he still found it amusing, the stack of graded student work that hovered to the side of the mirror only adding to the absurdity. Double life much? he said, flipping through the pages of coursework.
I know plenty of teachers who go on benders, Maxwell said, and he continued to cut up the powder into finer crumbs with a razor blade.
Yan tossed the papers to the side of the table. Your benders, though, they’re so regimented, he said.
Bender is the wrong word, Maxwell said, shaping skinny lines over the glass. Besides, how do you know I don’t go out to clubs, or whatnot?
Do you? Go to clubs and whatnot.
Maxwell flicked the razor away and scooped up his straw. At least it’s not crack, he said, his attention glued to the powder. Or heroin, he said. At least I haven’t bulldozed my career.
No, I admire it, actually. You’re so responsible.
I’m pragmatic, Maxwell said.
Yan gave him an appraising look. He really did admire Maxwell’s control. And he watched Maxwell lick his lips before diving nose-first.
***
Despite his special days off, Maxwell was a man of mild habits. He didn’t harm anyone when his mind got lifted with cocaine. He felt heroic and his thoughts crystalline. Not like other drugs, which left him feeling twisted, as though every decision was being made by someone else, someone darker, someone he didn’t like. But cocaine only left him feeling more, and better. Though he’d never try explaining this to someone; he knew what he sounded like. An addict. But could an addict live such a controlled, regimented life? He only did cocaine every three weeks. Rinsed his nostrils with a saline solution after every line, and most lines weren’t fat ones to begin with. He rarely went through the entire gram, and was judicious in destroying the remainder. Yes, he thought like an addict, but he had yet to ruin his life like one.
And when Maxwell wasn’t having one of his special days off, he went to his neighborhood bar. Strangers gravitated towards him there, as though Maxwell offered something others couldn’t. His calm voice and clean exterior. His somewhat sleepy stare, a stare caught between bored and amused, becoming something entirely else in the process: open and impartial, an impossible middle—and alcoholics are always dreaming of the impossible.
At Poor Judgment, the woman—she said her name was Nomi, without an ‘a’—had a laughing fit. She’d made some joke Maxwell hadn’t been able to hear, not with the drunken lilt to her voice. The signature thickness. She was laughing at her own joke.
Nomi’s laughing fit turned into a coughing fit that only stopped once she saw what had popped out of her throat and landed at the center of the counter. Is that a tonsil stone? Reg the bartender asked. Nomi’s face turned red before she said yes, and laughter took over once more.
There was the hassid getting drunk in a corner, alone. Maxwell, a bit of darkness poking through his comedown, thought of tugging at the man’s curls until he saw the man do it himself, with force.
There was the woman who’d slept with a famous actor. She told Maxwell that the famous actor could only get hard when she played dead. Every single time they had sex, she played dead.
There was the gypsy who liked to carry around a frozen chicken. Maxwell knew better than to ask questions. Simply marvelled at how long the frost lasted in her cold, tight grip.
Then, finally, there was the man who told Maxwell how he planned to kill himself. He was older, retired, and spent his time volunteering at an organization that guided the terminally ill on ending their lives, helping them acquire tanks to fill with nitrogen, along with all the necessary accessories. A quiet passing, painless, a suffocation. This was how the man planned to go. He had his tank ready.
Maxwell didn’t know what to do with this information.
He was thinking of his cocaine. He was thinking of his next special day off.
***
Once a week, Maxwell phoned his mother. Their relationship was an uneventful one: they never got into arguments, but didn’t seem to have much to say to each other either. There was love there, Maxwell thought. It wasn’t like other relationships he knew about, which were strained. His relationship with his mother wasn’t that. It wasn’t strained.
She complained about her shoulder pain. She’d had it for years now, one unsuccessful surgery after another. Creeping arthritis only making it worse. Maxwell felt sorry for her during her days of extreme discomfort. He wished he could do something about it. Disappear it. That she’d had to go part-time at her job at the after-school program, a job she’d had for decades, and which she’d loved, made his heart sink.
What about you? Any weekend plans?
The usual, Maxwell said.
His mother sighed. Of course, she said. The usual.
Maxwell didn’t mean to be intentionally vague. He just didn’t know how to explain his life to his mother: besides his nights at his neighborhood bar, there wasn’t much else to his life, and he knew in mapping this out the loneliness would come shooting through. He could never tell her about his cure to all that. The special days off. The one time he told her he’d taken a day off, she asked him why. He said for no reason. His mother didn’t seem to understand this: What are you going to do all day? she asked, an accusation.
Nothing, Maxwell said.
Then why did you take the day off?
To rest.
Now, he told her he was seeing friends. And whatnot, he said. The usual.
***
Eslendy raised her hand, and when Maxwell called out for her, she squirmed in her seat. With her palm, she gestured at him to come to her desk. Maxwell did as instructed. What’s wrong? he asked, dropping to her side until Eslendy’s hair licked his knees.
I can’t see.
What do you mean? He stared at her, then asked if she needed to sit closer to the board. She hadn’t ever asked before.
Eslendy shook her head. Her gaze was strange and unfocused; she wasn’t looking directly at Maxwell. She said, I can’t see anything. Everything has gone white and blurry.
What do you mean? Maxwell asked. He waved in front of her face and she blinked. When Maxwell asked if Eslendy saw that, she said all she saw was a shadow.
You really can’t see?
Eslendy shook her head.
Maxwell asked the student sitting beside her if he’d take her to the nurse. And when Eslendy stood up, she raised her arms, feeling for the desk, then the wall, then at the door, the student held her hand. Her face relaxed, for a moment, and she let herself be led away.
***
At home, Maxwell’s mind spun with worry over Eslendy. Would she be okay? He stretched out in bed, all done with his grading. Bored, he reached for his phone. Tapped around until there was nothing left to do.
Maxwell didn’t sleep around. He wasn’t on the apps. He didn’t date. He worried his secret was too much to keep from someone else, and that anyone he did try dating wouldn’t understand. So he didn’t do it. Avoided it. He prioritized his special days off more than the prospect of sex or romance; he preferred cocaine to men. Was that so crazy? One provided more pleasure than the other, the other being more a hassle than anything else.
This was where his mind drifted to: his special days. Before ping-ponging back to Eslendy. Would she be okay?
In a moment of anxious spontaneity—panic, really—Maxwell called his mother. Is everything okay? she asked with a tone of alarm.
Why wouldn’t things be okay?
We just spoke, is all, she said. I wasn’t expecting a call so soon.
Oh.
His mother looked into her phone’s camera, nearly straight at Maxwell, then her face was filling the screen until Maxwell saw nothing but the edge of her mouth. Are you sure everything is okay? Though her voice had softened, she was still worried.
How’s your shoulder?
The usual pain.
Have you used the heating pad I sent you?
It leaves me sweating.
Don’t leave it on for that long.
I don’t like sweating.
No one likes sweating.
Maxwell thumbed his mother’s face away and pulled up the calendar application. As the days slipped past his finger, Maxwell remembered a short story he read once in which a couple sent their kids away in order to do crack together. Like him, they did this as some sort of ritual, and with a care and consideration he found relatable. In his memory, it wasn’t impulsive. Like him, they were meticulous.
His fingernail slid across the screen until it landed on a Friday a few weeks away. Immediately, he felt better. Hopeful.
Sometimes Maxwell wondered if it would always be this way, or if, one day, he would lose control. A part of him wondered if he wouldn’t welcome that a little.
***
Eslendy was gone the remainder of the week. Maxwell asked the woman at the main office if she’d heard anything, but all she did was shake her head.
At Poor Judgment, the same cast of characters swirled past. Nomi clutched a cloth handkerchief to the edges of her mouth, her face red with laughter. The gipsy had a new frozen chicken cradled in her arms. And, at the end of the counter, the older man whose days were numbered. Relief washed over Maxwell; the older man hadn’t ended his life yet. Was Maxwell meant to stop him?
After a single beer, Maxwell took the train north. He did this sometimes, just to kill time. When he could no longer stomach the emptiness of his home. When he felt dangerously close to phoning Yan on a day that hadn’t been diligently planned. In the car, a man settled a snake on the hand railing beside Maxwell. It curled around the titanium and hissed.
Maxwell hopped off a few stops later, and when he crossed the street, he saw a hassid on an electric scooter. He looked at the curls, they were flying, and wondered if it was the same hassid from the bar. The sky clapped. Rain plinked down on Maxwell, knifing his cheeks.
***
Marta loitered in the courtyard with several of the building’s other elderly tenants. When she spotted Maxwell on a bench, she left the others behind and sank into a spot beside him. You seem different lately, she said. You seem anxious. Preoccupied. Is this about your days off?
Maxwell shook his head. It’s about a student, he said.
Marta narrowed her eyes. Is that really it?
I think so, Maxwell said.
It’s the weekend. You’re not at school, you shouldn’t have to think about those kids. They’re not paying you to sit here and think about them.
Wouldn’t you want your kids’ teachers to be doing that?
My kids are grown adults who have forgotten all about the woman who wiped their shit.
Marta did something that surprised them both. She reached for Maxwell’s hand and gave it a soft rub. Maxwell felt better.
Marta smiled. And when she emptied out her lungs with pleasure, Maxwell’s nose wriggled at the expelled stench.
Her face fell. She pulled her hand back and stared at the group she’d parted from. From somewhere in the building, a cat yowled.
***
The next time Maxwell saw Yan, he told him about Eslendy. He said, This poor young girl did nothing to deserve that. Maxwell rubbed his eyes. Eslendy hadn’t returned; the school didn’t offer the services she now needed.
I don’t understand why you’re so bothered by this, Yan said. He had the bag in his hands, waiting for Maxwell to notice.
I should be sick. I should be going blind. Not her.
These aren’t things you can control.
Finally, Maxwell’s attention drifted to the bag in Yan’s hands. Cocaine can fuck up your eyes, he said. Did you know that?
Yan shook his head.
Holes in the roof of your mouth. Collapsed noses. Not to mention everything else it does to your, like, insides.
Then why do you do it?
Maxwell licked his lips, his gaze still trapped by the dangling bag. I think you know better than to ask your clients that question, he said. It’s not like you’re doing anything to stop us. You’re just as responsible. Even worse.
Maxwell opened his palm and waited for the bag to drop.
***
In class, students continued to titter about what had happened to Eslendy. She couldn’t see! She went blind! Even in the teacher’s lounge he heard whispers about Eslendy, the young girl who had suffered from sudden blindness syndrome. Maxwell felt rage bubble up as the students went on and on about what had happened. He slammed his palm onto the podium and the students jumped. After school, he headed back underground. A bag of live crabs had ripped open inside the train car, spilling creatures across the floor. They skittered. Some faster than others. The car stank of fishy death. Living in the city was a life of extremes. Maxwell thought it suited him. This was why he was the way he was. Not the other way around. It was the city that fueled his dangerous behavior. Not something he carried inside him, from birth. He wasn’t at fault. The city was. He stared at the other passengers. All miserable-like, like him. He felt his tongue move in his mouth. Cabrón. Pendejo. Cerote. A bull of a man seated across from him looked up. What did you call me?
***
Marta had an envelope for Maxwell. At his door, she handed it over soundlessly. Maxwell felt a strange uncertainty as he received the envelope, and he ripped through the top with his fingers. Inside were his lab results.
He’d forgotten that he’d gone for his yearly physical, taken a bunch of other exams as a precaution. He was pragmatic like that.
Maxwell scanned the page. He was perfectly healthy. You worried me there for a second, he said to Marta.
I lived a pretty sober lifestyle, she said, pushing herself past Maxwell and into his home. Ascetic, more or less, she said. I’ll probably live another ten years, who knows? Do you think it’s fair you have a clean bill of health?
No, Maxwell said. I don’t think it’s fair at all.
But you’re careful.
Sure.
I’ve never seen you with men, Marta said as she clomped deeper into the apartment. Her shoes clacked against the hardwood.
I know that, Maxwell said, speaking to her back. She turned her head left and right, taking in the few things sprinkled across Maxwell’s anemically adorned apartment. A frame of his mother. Some art he’d bought cheaply when he first moved into the city. A stack of books he’d read only once then forgotten all about.
You’ve never once brought someone over, Marta said. She dragged her finger along a counter then raised it to the light. No dust. No lover, she said, not that I have seen. Just your dealer.
I never told you he was a dealer, Maxwell said.
I’ve been so responsible, all my life.
I’ve tried my best to be responsible.
The way God picks and chooses.
He gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. Isn’t that right?
Marta had sunk into his couch now, the same spot as Yan. She kept her bag—square and sturdy, crushed green velvet—upright and on her thighs. She crossed her tiny feet, covered in bulky square-toe heels, so close to the shoebox in which Maxwell stored his supplies. Marta said, I must be weak then. So weak. I haven’t had to battle a thing. What about you?
Maxwell found a spot in the love seat beside Marta. He tucked his feet beneath his thighs, the way his students often did, and said: I feel I’m constantly at war with myself.
Marta’s eyes darted at Maxwell. That’s the worst cliche.
Still feels true, he said, placing his palm on his chest as if he’d just revealed something secret and profound. In some ways, he had.
Maybe you're stronger than you think then. Marta said this and a look of sadness took over. There was no balance in life. There were winners and there were losers.
Despite what she’d said, in his apartment, Maxwell only counted losers.
***
Maxwell was on one of his aimless walks—though he had school the following day, he’d drafted a text to Yan—when he saw Eslendy.
She was playing on the grass with several other young girls. Running around in circles. Playing tag. Her hair took over a patch of sky. It had its own life, almost. Like a swarm of bees, Maxwell thought.
Eslendy hid behind a tree, grinning, giggling. She seemed so happy that something in Maxwell broke open. He turned away from Eslendy, his eyes hot. Even if she couldn’t see him, Maxwell didn’t want a public display of emotions, not like this, and then the tears came, and he was running.
He was still running when his phone buzzed with a FaceTime from his mother. He’d reached the south tip of the park and had remained panting after he picked up. Have you taken up jogging? his mother asked. That’s a first.
He swiped away the sweat that had gathered on his forehead. Yes, he said. Something like that.
Everything’s good then? his mother asked.
You worry about me, he said.
His mother squinted into her phone. Of course I worry about you. I’m your mother.
Maxwell dropped into a bench beneath a tree flush with leaves. It was spring. Clouds speckled the sky while a cool gust of wind blew past. Maxwell sank into the feeling. The relief.
Then he asked about her shoulder pain.
Then he told her about his favorite student.
And all the new words he’d learned.
He felt good. Better than he had in weeks.
And then his mind settled on his next special day off. And he felt even better.
______
Joshua Vigil is a writer and educator living in New York. His writing has appeared in the Cleveland Review of Books, Joyland, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. His story collection, Bastardland, is out now.
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