A Brief History of Anachronism

Candela

She has a harelip. The irony is she is always smiling, so the lip is always almost imperceptible. She is missing her front teeth, maybe it’s a clef palate, what the hell do I know, I’m not a dentist. I want to tell her she’s beautiful, but maybe that’s not true. I can’t seem to get rid of her as I run around the schoolyard.

I’m well aware that I’m not beautiful. Years of social psychology has taught me that I’m fatter, shorter, fatter, paler, fatter, and more all around wrong than anything anyone could ever consider touching. Clearly, the men I’ve dated have all been some disturbing brand of fetishist, or hipsters who date ugly chicks ironically. This isn’t a cry for help or a dig for pity/sympathy/false compliments. It’s not a source of despair or self-loathing. It’s simply a statement of fact.

Candela seems unaware of social norms, of how sad-looking her orange gums are against her brown skin. She doesn’t notice that her socks are mismatched and rolled awkwardly at her ankles. Where her Northern counterparts would place makeup, she has strategically applied sidewalk chalk.

She was first enamored with the bubbles, enjoying my high-pitched directions to “speeen” (my voice goes up by octaves and decibels when I don’t know how to translate a word.) The other kids all giggled and went about their soap-based experimentations, but Candela kept grabbing my right hand and yelling “speen!”.

Seeing the bubble situation was firmly under control, I made my way to los Frisbees to keep little boys from decapitating each other. She chases along, trying to understand as I confuse “Tira!” for “Lanza!” and vice versa. Somehow, I make it through just enough “Spanish for the Developmentally Disabled” to explain “Monkey in the Middle” to them. The game is quickly learned and then discarded for the more entertaining “Try to Hit My Friend/ The Gringa Counselor/ A Tree with a Large Circular Spinning Object.” I can’t blame them, nor can I really fight it when the game becomes “Deliberately Throw the Frisbee at the Schoolhouse for an Excuse to Make the Four-Foot Leap off the Ledge Between the Playground and the Floor.” I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t thrilled to join in.

There are giant cement blocks strategically placed to deter such actions, though. Someone (Alda?) almost lands on one and my mommy senses kick back in. Or, at least, what I assume are mommy senses, having never given live or any other kind of birth.  Using the American innovative spirit, I pick Candela up and begin a riveting game of “Scream and Run Away”, which needs no explanation. After screaming and running across the asphalt some 30 times, both myself and my monster alter ego are exhausted. I place Candela on the ground and collapse on the floor, explaining to the children that I was muerto. The boys all laugh and try to resurrect me by poking me with various objects. Candela knelt beside me, attempting a thorough medical examination.

When I finally come back from the dead, she hops on my shoulder for another 10 rounds of “Tickle Everyone in Sight”.  There is sidewalk chalk and checkers and general mass hysteria, most of which I’ve caused.

The basura was really where we run into trouble. We had taught the kids a song in English with vague Spanish subtitles about a shark attack and reincarnation. After, someone in our group got the bright idea to blow up water balloons with his mouth and pass them around. Not only was it painful, it was also super attractive to the choking-prone age group. Kids started snatching the uninflated balloons out of the unnamed culprit’s hands, which we had to then retrieve and, as a sign of appeasement, blow up, saliva-covered and grimy, and return to the screaming child.

That might be the end of the story for Westernized, less resourceful younglings. However, these kids then decided they could pick up broken bits of latex off the floor and out of the garbage to make a patchwork balloon. There exists no discomfort like trying to explain to an underprivileged child why they cannot have the pretty balloon while fishing microscopic bits of rubber out of his or her mouth. Two of the larger chaperones eventually had to play bouncer at the garbage can to prevent further incidents. Despite the requisite strangeness of the day, though, I’ve not worked at a camp on Long Island where kids took joy in what they’re doing at every instant. I can’t remember enjoying myself, either, though the joy and stress of the day were in direct correlation.

So maybe Candela, bedecked in sidewalk chalk and scuffed school shoes, gums ablazing, is beautiful all the same. And if it works for her, who knows…