It was a long drive back home. John kept quiet after an awkward lunch. He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or worried of the news he got. As of now, he was annoyed by one thing.
“You need to learn how to read,” John said as he pulled up to the driveway. The cold tone showed Fluttershy he was being serious. “You embarrassed me a bit when you couldn’t read the menu.”
“Oh, well, I can read.” She replied, “Well… just not in your language.”
“That’s going to be a problem.” John shut off the engine and sat back in his seat. He paused while staring at the garage door. One thing puzzled him. “How can you not read? You speak English well enough.”
“I speak Equestrian Prime.” Fluttershy said softly.
John laid his head back on the head rest and sighed. “Equestrian Prime, huh?” John mumbled to himself. His mind rumbled through the possibilities and always came out blank. “You can understand English right?” He turned to her and asked.
“I thought we were speaking Equestrian. I don’t know what English is.” Fluttershy was puzzled.
John felt the same way. He stopped to think of how to explain this. “Do you know what nation we’re in?”
“I… I don’t know, to be honest.” She twiddled with her fingers.
“We’re in the U. S.”
“Yu-es?”
“America. The United States. North of Mexico, south of Canada.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know any of those places.”
“Well, in America some people get mad if you don’t know the language, English.” John tried to keep calm but to no avail. “You need to learn the language you want to survive here.”
Fluttershy grew scared of his questioning. She had turned her cheek towards John and began to whimper. John took a look at her and started regret the force in his voice. He knew he was intruding on something personal, but he wanted her to be independent on him.
He sat in his seat thinking of what he could do. The girl was new here and didn’t know how things worked. He was reminded of his mother’s immigration to the states but, unlike her, she didn’t know how to read.
John suddenly got an idea. He opened the door to his car and lead Fluttershy inside. He went to his kitchen and pulled a grocery notepad and a pen out of a drawer. Walking into the living room, he placed them on the coffee table and grabbed the remote.Flipping through the channels he stopped on a children’s learning channel.
Fluttershy walked to the television, curious of the cartoons he had just put on. “What are you doing?” she curiously asked.
John showed her the notepad, folding back the spent papers. “Come here,” was the only thing he said. When Fluttershy looked over his shoulder, he sat down and wrote down some letters. “Here is the English alphabet,” he explained. “I put on some educational cartoons so you can get a better grip on the language.”
John looked at the woman and noticed some confusion. He thought of his previous conversation and looked back at how aggressive he was on the subject.
“Why do I have to do this?” she asked.
John pursed his lips as he thought of how to explain it. One story came to mind.
“Do you know how hard life is here for a non-English speaker?” He started off. “My mother was not born here. She lived in mexico for most of her life, and when she met my father he was traveling from California to visit family. They fell in love and my brother and I were born and it took three years for us to be cleared to move here. By the time my mother came here, she was so proud of her heritage that she refused to learn the language. My father begged her to learn English but she was persistent. I could say she paid for it. She couldn’t get a better job than just a cleaning lady. She had studied to be an accountant back home, but without knowledge of the language all she saw was a glass wall she had built herself. Soon, she was confused for an illegal immigrant and sent back home.” John was silent for a second as his expression saddened. “My… my father…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
Fluttershy noticed the look. She knelt down to his eye level and hesitantly patted him on the back. “I think I understand.” She took the notepad and looked at the letters. Flopping down on the couch, she noticed the letters were placed in a vertical column. “Um, John? What am I supposed to do?”
John slowly stood up and wiped the depression from his face. “The idea is to get used to the letters while watching these cartoons.” He pointed to the TV. “You will get to know what letters are equal to your language’s letters and be able to read English by association.”
Fluttershy was intrigued by the idea, although wary. “Okay, I’ll try.” She finally agreed.
As she sat there taking notes on the children’s cartoons John thought of something that needed to get done. With a heavy sigh, he headed into the garage.
He pulled out a large bucket a cloth and a vial of polish remover. “Lousy kids,” he mumbled to himself as he prepared to clean the offending words from car.
As he washed the words from his windshield he noticed an odor coming from the windshield wiper. He looked down and saw a buildup of dark brown sludge-like material covering his wiper blade. “I hate chocolate pudding.” He said to himself in disgust. “Just more crap to clean up.”
He headed in to get his hose but heard the screeching of some poorly managed braking coming from behind his car. He turned and saw a black van stopping in front of his house. John knew nothing good was coming his way.
The door opened and shut on the street side as a hispanic man wearing a suit stepped out. John’s heart was racing with every step the man took around the back end of the car.
Soon, the man’s face became visible and a smile had slapped on his face as John came into view.
“How are you doing, Juan?” The man said in surprise and joy. “It’s been a long time.”
John carried on and got to work on his car, ignoring the very presence of the man.
The man stepped forward trying to get John’s attention. “I know it’s been years since we last saw each other but I was in the neighborhood and thought that maybe-”
“How did you find me?” John harshly interrupted.
“What?” The man was confused.
“I gave no forwarding addresses to anyone, I changed my phone number twice and I deleted my Facebook and other social networking sites. How did you find me?” John turned to him with a look of death in his eyes.
“I… I followed your lottery billing address.” He said with the feeling he did something wrong.
“Great.” John started cleaning his windshield with the hose. “Have you told anyone? I know you weren’t good at keeping secrets when we were little.”
“I only told Julia and Emily. Emily wanted to know where her uncle in the picture was.”
“What about dad? Have you told him?”
The man came to a stop. He looked to the floor and spoke, “he died before I could tell him.”
John paused for a moment. “Was it the drinking? Or the smoking?” He wrung the soaked rag as he stood slowly. “Or perhaps the woman chasing finally got to him.”
“He drove his car under a semi.” The man was heartbroken. “He was partying with his friends and his brakes snapped.”
John took a short break and let the words sink in. “I hope he went out happy.” He coldly replied.
“It was three years ago. Most of us have moved on.”
“If you knew where I lived, Andy, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I hadn’t the heart to look for you then. I thought you had died as well.”
“Then why not leave me dead?”
“Juan, I… I had another reason to come here.”
John stopped cleaning his car out of curiosity.
“The agency moved me here for the time being on official business. I wanted to know if you could let me stay with you,” the man pleaded. “I want to catch up with you after all this time we were apart.”
John turned to him and looked him in the eyes with a cold stare. “Where were you four years ago?” John coldly asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“The day of the accident. September fifth, four years ago. Where were you?”
“I was in Texas on call.”
“And the following two weeks?”
“I was still there.”
“So you were nowhere near me when I needed you, is that right?”
“The call was a surprise to me as well, Juan. I couldn’t make any changes.”
“But couldn’t you have forwarded your calls to your cell, Andy?” John’s voice grew rougher. “You could have called one of your friends in the force to let me out while they investigated. Let me get a fair shot at defending myself. Get me a fair, unrigged trial.”
“But I-” Andrew tried to get in but was rudely interrupted.
“Two weeks I spent in that cell not knowing how bad things have gotten, how those fuckers were planting evidence to poison the jury! And knowing that I was going to be imprisoned for a murder I didn’t commit!” John’s voice grew louder with each passing point. “Where the hell were you?!”
“J-Juan…” Andy, the man standing in front of the now enraged John was speechless. He couldn’t understand how his own brother could hold such a deep grudge.
“I’ll tell you where you were! You were cozy working for that government agency being a lap dog while I saw how the good guys get treated.” He stepped even closer waving his finger in Andy’s face. “And now you come here talking as if nothing had happened, as if all was well.”
“I know how hard it was for you! I lost people too! But I think it’s time for you to shut the fuck up and move on!” Andy was furious with all the accusations, but after he erupted he felt he was too harsh.
John stood angrily, his faces just inches away from Andy’s snorting heavily. John gripped at his belt, He relaized he left his gun in his bedroom. As he gripped tighter at his belt he thought of how it would not be worth it. One person that would suffer the most kept telling him to let it go.
‘Not worth it.’ He thought to himself. ‘I can’t hurt her. She’s the reason I’m even standing here right now.’
John turned around and went back to cleaning his car. “I don’t care where you stay. But you can’t stay here.” He said as he made his hands busy with the rag. “I already have a guest.” He turned to the window checking to see if she was spooked by any of this. He noticed a slight tug on the curtains.
“Really?” Andy looked to the window and caught a glimpse of a face peeking through the curtains. As the face suddenly vanished behind the cloth, he smiled. “Well, I’ll best be getting out of your hair, Juan. I’ll find another place. I’ll visit you some other time.” He turned and walked started to walk away. “Maybe I’ll meet this roomie of yours.”
John didn’t flinch. He merely focused on the graffiti on his car.
The van sped off and John let out a sigh of relief. He focused on his car and how close he came to committing a felony. He kept thinking, ‘She was the reason I didn’t carry my pistol today. She saved me again.’ He paused as he finished up the cleaning, his mind heavy with one last thought. ‘Was she given to me for a reason?’