The 15th HAVE

“Be certain I told you: Maybe 

by having said I should have had 

to have had you have to have had to have 

me have to have had someone have…”

Anonymous 

I

<<Foreigner-American Institute of Language>> he read at the front of the modern high-rise building. Someone had told him the entrance had a big hall where to ask for information about the wide range of services he could find there. As he stepped a foot inside, a blinding atmosphere traversed the threshold and the doorway itself. He must have felt astonished according to the face he had.
“So, you wanna espeak English, young man?” suddenly said the old gentleman, suddenly also, sitting next to him, smiling, with a strong Latin accent and amazingly white teeth. Julio felt a bit ashamed he could not answer, although he had understood the man, who must be a dentist, “The only way you have that white on your smile is by being a freaking dentist yourself”, he thought.
“Sí… es decir… yes!” he answered after a while. “Good. Good boy you are.” The man commented with satisfaction. Probably about to add something, the old man changed his mind and waving to a graceful brunette girl in a green uniform, he put on his feet and almost theatrically said “Well, my new friend, I will see you around. I have to go to my class… by the way my name is Kevin Calles, to serve you.” Immediately, the curious old man stood up and walked away, apparently in the same direction the nice girl with the short curly hair (and an appealing short skirt) had gone just before.
It was the O’clock right at noon, and there was nothing but a lot of hustle and bustle at that time, he could see. Fortunately, for him, since he had started to feel a bit lonely, a guy with a friendly attitude just asked his name and started telling him something lke he could not have chosen a better moment to decide to learn a second language…
Speaking a little to his so-called friend, the eccentric Kevin, the people in the hall, like Phillip, the janitor, or Jank, the receptionist, Julio had started to feel comfortable using the new tool the second language was. He always wondered alternative ways to use the words and phrases beyond the usual examples seen in class, thus leaving more than one of his teachers with a strange sensation of rarity, after witnessing the boy’s command, curiosity and familiarity with what was supposed to be new for him. He was, in opinion of many “a quick learner”.
Time was in time to start seeing rough themes, the ones everybody used to trip over with. Julio was not an exception. However, the mistakes he made had definitely been unseen for his instructors. The errors he happened to have came up when he was trying to apply new ways for saying something, in other words, he had trouble because he had not been taught about that yet. —Nor he was going to be so, would be good to point out. — In many occasions a teacher would go to ask the other teachers if what Julio wrote was something possible for the language; sometimes they would find an explanation, or agree and state any kind of criteria to define what the way to ‘correct’ it was, even though ‘perfecting’ would probably be fairer to describe such adjustments. Anyway, as it can be inferred, there were some times when it was beyond possibility for teachers to judge what the boy had written. Then, more for status than appreciation for language or knowledge, they would suggest alternative ways to say what they thought was the idea, which —Need it is to say— was not always entirely understood by them, the prestigious Foreigner-American Institute of Languages teachers.

II

“Sometimes I can’t just cope with this feeling” said teacher George, the one from Atlanta. “He’s a total weirdo, and knows that by asking for those corrections we come here and talk about it. I dunno… he must like us speaking about his bunch of stupidities or somethin’… All disturbing, if you ask me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say he is that much weird, but I do think he enjoys having us busy because of something he did. Like a kind of misunderstood genius.” Added teacher Graham who was from Kansas. “However, he feels just disappointed when we have no clear or real answer to his inquiries, have you guys noticed?” asked teacher Marissa, the redheaded beauty from Australia. “I remember when I first came and every single thing seemed to be scary, puzzling and that sort of thing, but with time and patience you get used to the way people speak… I mean, you learn to keep it normal.”
“Have you seen his HAVE challenge?” said teacher Ricardo, the tall puertorican guy, who always seemed to know something more than the others. “Have challenge?” repeated teacher Sonia, teacher Zazhad and even teacher Gnai at one single voice, as in an improvised glee.
“The boy just started a challenge. According to it, he’s gonna write the longest HAVE expression ever.” was Ricardo’s answer to all the what-faces everyone else was holding.
“You mean, using the verb ‘have’ like… lots of times?”
“Exactly”
“How does he plan to do that? I mean, how many times can you use can together? Two? Three, maybe?”
“The thing is one of his partners told me in private Julio has already written a five ‘Have’ sentence, you know?”
“Five?”
“For real?”
“Is that possible?”
“What about the different meanings of have, the cases as an auxiliary, or an action?”
“No idea. I was told only, not shown.”

III

“Mr. Calles! Hello!”
“Hi, my estimated Julito, how are you today? Ready for another interesting learning?”
“I bet I am. Thanks! I hope you are, too. Now… do you think you could do me a favor and, well, take a look at something I wrote today?”
“I told you before, my deer friend, I will always help you with what I can, so bring me that…” said the old man with his regular grin, adjusting his glasses to read Julio’s handwriting.
“Qué!?... I mean… A ver… ‘I would have… no, no, not… I would… uh huh… whadda…” Suddenly, the man just made a confused face and stood up, leaving the notebook on his side, without saying a single word to Julio, right there.

IV

“Yes, teacher, it was something like… “
“Uh huh? Okay… thanks, Mr. Calles. I see.” Responded teacher Javier, the tanned Californian one. And after analyzing the pair of lines the old man, who any teacher was afraid of since he was very slow and stubborn and annoyingly polite, he discarded them. It was not coherent at all. Maybe it was for Kevin Calles’s intervention, though, he thought with a giggle.

V

“Nothing clear” he announced the others. “We have nothing concrete, but these lines copied… badly copied, I think, by Mr. Callees.”
“The fuck!” said Martha, the blonde from Canada. “We really need to find out whether or not he can achieve such a big challenge. I mean just to let it go and forget about it and that kind of thing… By the way, sorry, I’m not usually like that, but actually I think I was a bit…”
“Shut up, you b…”
“Okay, you guys… GUYS! We are making a storm on a teapot” said Solomon, the Israeli teacher. “We all know he’s going to have his last exam next week. Why don’t we just ask him then. He won. He beat us. That’s it.”
“Yeah, we simply should ask him directly. I mean, look at us, , tearing ourselves apart, and.. designing strategies to get it throughout a slow student and an old man… Jesus! What have we done, guys?” Said teacher Pamela, from Chicago.

VI

The previous day to Julio’s exam he let another classmate know about a nine ‘Have’ long sentence. Teachers started to try to guess the infamous order of words, but could not go farther than the fifth have, and that was a lot to say.
Finally the day came. Julio’s parents went to the institute to ask if their son could take the exam that afternoon but online. Apparently, he had been sent on a school trip to another city for a competition, but he had a chance to take his exam at three p.m. The principal said go, and a go it was. Teacher Giorgio, from Florence, was the one in charge of the task. By the end of the exam he would ask the fifteen-have-long sentence promised by the teenager.
At the time of the teleconference, Julio succeeded by far the required score and his last course formally finished; what was left was the paper work for the institute. Teacher Giorgio, from Florence, asked him, a bit embarrassedly, about the sentence. Julio answered it was not a problem, and that… he had not accomplished exactly what he promised, he explained. The boy was then, smilingly, going to read it when the image suddenly froze. Gone. It went off. A blackout affected the computer lab for a while, the connection lost and the teleconference finished in such an unexpected way.

VII

Julio’s parents were later seen claiming his papers, but no teacher from the FAIL ever saw him again. An anonymously-signed note appeared one day at the very main door of the place. It said…