Cake

There was a kid, Javier, in my English class. Quiet, with the shaved head, numerous facial piercings, and sullen expression in vogue for young people, he exuded a message of "leave me alone." I bumped into him once late at night, at the midway at the State Fair, an uncharacteristic place for me to be, but, you know, my kids dragged me there for one more ride on the bumper boats. In his leather apparel, including leather pants, with the pierced face, and within a group of other young sulking men, Javier did not cut a welcoming image, and I would have avoided him, if he had not called out, "Hi Teacher!" with a boyish wave.

He did not offer much information about his life, and I didn't ask. When the class completed this inane exercise in the textbook on a topic of cooking lessons, he did respond aloud to the question: "What was the first meal you ever cooked?" He said when he was a boy in a little Mexican village, he had roasted a chicken. He caught the chicken in his yard and killed it himself, he said, by swinging it by the neck. File that under odd questions, odd answers.

A custom for these classes, I found out, is to have a potluck on the last day of class. Not wanting a big production, I passed out a sign up sheet and advised the students to write down their names and what they wanted to bring, if they did want to bring food or drink, but not to feel obligated to bring something. Javier put his name down and wrote "Cake."

Last day of class, I wonder if Javier is going to show up at all. He does, tardy, but treat in hand, and he does not just have a Pepperidge Farms frozen edible with him, nor is it a predictable concoction from a mix. He carries in this big three layer pink cake, with a tri-colored marshmallow design on top, bursting with fresh, pastel shaded, whipped cream, the kind of thing you would expect at your wedding.

The class sighs at the cake. This is a surprise. "Javier, did you make that?" I asked.

"Yes, Teacher."

"You must be a really good cook."

"Yes, Teacher."

I guess the killing and roasting of the chicken was a formative experience for this young chef, which is why he had told the story. File this under hot water bottles: cold on the outside and warm on the inside. The teddy bear inside the pitbull costume.

I think there are more people, more young males, like Javier out there than we realize: Sweet.