libertad miami part two

        Tomas discovered Lorca and he grew fond of the revered Spanish poet. He visited Burdines after school one day and bought a New Directions paperback with selected poems. He read them all a dozen times, each time with greater love and appreciation. It occurred to him to find the poems of his grandfather, gathering dust at the old library in Santiago. Oscar Reyes began as a storyteller with a flair for poetry. He sang cautionary homage to the sea. A local schoolteacher transcribed the best of them in verse form and published a very limited edition. Tomas vowed to retrieve the book. And he would introduce his fellow Americans to the  Cantos de Oscar Reyes.
       

                                                                                           *


        One Monday Uncle Gaspar told his sister that her son was a daydreamer.
        "But don't worry. I'll keep an eye on him. He's quite bright. And the customers, especially the ladies, are crazy for him."
        "How does he run the register?"
        "Some mistakes. But never mind that. Santa Maria! That smile of his! It melts the hearts of all the pretty girls his age. And they drag their mothers into the shop when neither are particularly hungry."
        Demurely Teresa covered her mouth and laughed. She squeezed her big brother's hand.
        "Gracias."


                                                                                         *


        Tomas' math skills remained abysmally poor, barring him from taking trig and calculus, subjects necessary for a future engineer. Teresa was furious. She stormed Jesu seeking the heads of all the goddamned fools.
         She knew the routine.
        While he was a teacher her husband had dealt with academic laziness and it was now clear to her that someone had told Tomas he had a mental block. That he would never understand mathematics. With that in mind Tomas evidently decided that math was hopeless and had quit trying to learn it.
        "These are your most important years," she scolded him time and again. "Study hard and make good grades. In everything! Not just in subjects you find entertaining!"
        During one tirade she caught sight of his beloved Classics Illustrated comic books. He had cached them in a sort of little shrine. She snatched them up, shrieking, "It's time you got your nose out of such frivolous things!"
        Although he had outgrown them, they were truly sacred. Revered upon an invisible altar to his Papi.
        She burned them in the backyard on the barbecue.
        As smoke billowed into the hibiscus hedge he felt she was burning Hector Reyes in effigy.