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always, by himself. He was hopping up and down when Michael entered the playground today, erratic and without objective, lost in his own world, shaking his hand in front of his face.
    The village idiot.
    Michael doesn’t know the name of the father he overheard say it one day, thinking he was being funny. He knows that it was all he could do not to hit the man.
    â€œI don’t mean you,” says Mrs. McKenzie. “I mean the school. When you keep him on task, he does well, but when you don’t…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t need to.
    â€œWhat about the extra teacher?” asks Michael. “A part-time aide was supposed to be part of his IEP.”
    â€œThe money’s not there.”
    â€œIt’s supposed to be.”
    â€œThat’s something you’ll have to take up with the school board,” says Mrs. McKenzie. Both of them knowing that the district is broke. They’re laying off teachers. Transferring others. Cramming forty kids into a single classroom. The special-ed classes are even worse. Most of them nothing more than babysitting for troubled, hyperactive kids, half of them Spanish-speaking with little or no English. The mentally impaired children sit alone at separate tables, playing with Legos.
    â€œI’m not sure you know this, but they’ve started a study program at UCSD for children with developmental disorders,” Mrs. McKenzie says.
    Study programs. From what Michael has seen, people put more money into studying disabled kids than they do into helping them. “What, are they looking for guinea pigs?”
    Karen McKenzie ignores the bitterness in his voice. She likes Michael. She likes that he faces facts, doesn’t pretend or insist there isn’t a problem as a lot of parents do.
    â€œIt’s just a phase. He’ll grow out of it.”
    No, she all too often wants to say. He won’t. Your child needs help.
    â€œAs a matter of fact, there’s a waiting list. But I know some of the people conducting the study and I think I can arrange it.” Michael nods, already coming around to the idea as she knew he would.
    â€œYeah … okay, that’d be great.”
    â€œWe’re all doing the best we can, Michael.”
    â€œI know you are,” says Michael.
    Both of them again thinking the same thing. What do you do when the best doesn’t seem to be nearly enough?

 
    14
    Rats, rats, lousy, stinkin’ rats!
    Come quitting time, workers flee a building site like rodents from a sinking ship, thinks Leo, annoyed that today he’s somehow been left to load his own tools onto his pickup truck, doubly annoyed because he usually manages his time better than this, making sure the job falls to someone else. Seniority and a bad back have their perks. But small annoyances are quickly forgotten as the Toyota Prius pulls to the curb in front of him and the driver gets out and smiles. It’s that smile that turns your bones to jelly, the smile that he remembers so well.
    â€œWell, look what the cat’s drug by,” says Leo.
    â€œYou still imbibe?” Anita asks, holding up a large thermos.
    â€œDoes the pope shit in the woods?” says Leo. “Ding-a-ling-a-ling! The drinking lamp is lit.”
    Five minutes later, they’re sitting, legs dangling off what will be a rich man’s back deck, Leo realizing that the slice of view might not show the ocean but that there is a breathtaking horizon. Anita has made her special tequila gimlets, Silver Patrón with Rose’s lime juice, shaken with ice and strained into an honest-to-God real martini glass. No paper or plastic cup ever made good enough for Anita. Filling one to the brim, she hands it to him.
    â€œSalud.”
    â€œWhat about you?”
    â€œNot drinking these days.”
    â€œOh. ’Cause I don’t need to.”
    â€œLeo. Enjoy.”
    Leo sips and moans softly with pleasure. The drink is