As a senior at Willow Glen High School, he has inspired a community with his will to live. The firefighters at San Jose Fire Station 6 frequently stop by his Willow Glen home to check up and crack jokes with him. St. Christopher Parish on Booksin Avenue prays for him every Sunday. Willow Glen High School teachers and administrators keep a watchful eye on Marcus as he mingles with the school's diverse student body.

"Everyone knows Marcus," Willow Glen High School assistant principal Alfonso Gallegos says. "Arms are open wherever he goes."

Gallegos first met Marcus and his older brother, Chris, more than a decade ago at the Central YMCA, where Gallegos was then working. Gallegos connected with the boys and was pleased to meet them again when they entered high school.

Part of Gallegos' daily routine is to find Marcus on campus. If they pass in the halls, they share handshakes. If Gallegos spots him from a distance, he will signal Marcus with a thumbs up.

"In education, you hear a lot about teachers being students' inspiration. In my case, he's my inspiration," Gallegos says. "He wants to be at school. Even when he's hurting, he makes the effort."

Although Marcus has missed school due to surgeries and his ailing heart, on other days he lives like any other teenager, playing video games and flexing his artistic skills.

"My friends call me 'Painter' because I love to draw," Marcus says.

Skinny and small-framed with brown hair and glasses, Marcus lights up when he talks about his art. He keeps a portfolio of his drawings--ranging from imaginary monsters to portraits of rapper Eminem, drawn from memory. He is also working on a drawing of Gallegos and his oldest daughter.

Each weekend, Marcus and his mother, Susan, take complimentary classes at Mother Earth Clay Art Center in Sunnyvale, where Marcus has free reign to create objects out of clay. His favorite piece is a hand-sized replica of a ghoul in the movie Resident Evil--its mouth wide open with jagged teeth melded individually by Marcus' hands. Marcus also created a long, menacing tongue and orange mosquito eyes on the creature.

At school, he hangs out with a variety of groups--including the athletes, the drama students and the skateboarders. Last year, he dressed up in black slacks, a silk shirt and tie for his junior prom, where he taught his date, Nicolette Padres, to dance. At the beginning of his senior year, Marcus attended school nearly every day. But now his heart is weakening, leaving his body exhausted.

"I'm always tired," Marcus says. "I have headaches."

Espinoza says her son's exhaustion keeps him at home up to three days a week and he sleeps as late as noon or 1 p.m. Despite his absences, Marcus dreams of the future--in particular, graduating with the Willow Glen High School class of 2006.

"We just keep on going. When the time comes, it could be tomorrow, it could be 10 years from now," Espinoza says. "We've heard it before."

Espinoza became pregnant with Marcus only months after her first son, Chris, was born. The pregnancy was normal, she says, and her cravings tempted her to smother horseradish on everything she ate.

On June 11, 1987, Marcus' birth was just as effortless. Marcus weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces. Although he did not scream and shout, Espinoza was confident her son was healthy.

The next day Espinoza woke at 6 a.m. to find several doctors in her room, including a neonatalist and cardiologist Rhonda Lappen. "Call your husband," they told her.

The doctors told the Espinozas that Marcus had a heart condition. Throughout the night, he was hooked up to a respirator and his weight dropped to 6 pounds 11 ounces, shedding liquid accrued from his abnormal heart.

Espinoza said Marcus was diagnosed with idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis, a condition where the lining on the inside of his heart got thicker and thicker--practically blocking up the organ. As a baby, Marcus began taking Verapamil to keep his heart from thickening into a state Espinoza explains as "goopy." He also had a hole in his heart.

Doctors kept him in intensive care for a month.

"He looked terrible," Espinoza says. Instead of the pinkish hue of baby skin, he looked "gray all the time." He couldn't hold his head up.

Growing up determined

At 6 months, Marcus was diagnosed with Noonan syndrome, a genetic disorder that makes him physically small and developmentally delayed. The syndrome also contributed to his congenital heart disease.

At a year, Marcus had the first of many open heart surgeries to close the hole in his heart and to "roto-rooter" his pulmonary valve. In 1993, Marcus had surgery again to replace the aortic valve that had been torn apart by his heart.

In October 2001, doctors implanted a pacemaker to regulate Marcus' heartbeat, and a defibrillator to restore a normal heart rhythm by automatically delivering an electrical shock to the heart. Marcus returned from the hospital on Halloween and his mother pushed him around the neighborhood in a wheelchair so he could trick-or-treat.

In 2002, Marcus had two more open heart surgeries. That December, Marcus and his mother spent Christmas in the hospital. The following month his defibrillator began acting up, inadvertently shocking him.

"It's like being kicked in the chest by a horse," says Lappen, the Willow Glen-based cardiologist. "It was very painful and he was a trooper."

The defibrillator was turned off, but in 2004 Marcus had other problems. His abnormally fast heartbeat was not being maintained by his medication.

"I was calling 911 all the time," Espinoza says. Often, San Jose Fire Department's Station 6 responded to Espinoza's calls. Even as a young boy, Marcus frequently visited the station on the corner of Minnesota and Cherry avenues. Marcus says he liked the fire trucks and thought the firefighters were funny.

"They were really good [to us], and because Marcus knew them it was easier," Espinoza says.

To regulate the fast heartbeat, Marcus began taking new medication, Sotalol, in May 2004. However, the new medicine would have been fatal if Marcus took it with the medicine he was taking to control the thickening in his heart. Marcus had to stop taking the Verapamil, leaving the thickening unchecked.

"His heart is not improving," Lappen says.

Espinoza has outlined Marcus' medical history in a three-ring, inch-thick binder she calls "the Marcus book." She brings it with her each time she goes to the doctor. After years of being at the mercy of his heart, Marcus has taken some control--refusing a heart transplant, which may or may not have helped him.

Yet throughout his years of medical treatments, there has been a positive side effect. Those who paid special attention to his heart found a special boy.

One of his most high profile friends is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom he met in 1999 though the Make a Wish foundation. Marcus says he wanted to meet a movie star, and the Espinozas were invited to watch Schwarzenegger film End of Days in Southern California. Marcus has seen Schwarzenegger several times since then. Since Schwarzenegger became governor, Espinoza says Schwarzenegger's personal secretary periodically calls to check in on Marcus.

Locally, Lappen says her lifelong history with Marcus has made her feel more attached to the young man and that even her children know Marcus.

"I've really enjoyed working with him because he's such a sweetheart," Lappen says.

The firefighters at San Jose Fire Department Station No. 6 have also formed a strong attachment to him. Sometimes he stops in with his mother, who brings dessert to the firefighters. Other times, if they are in the neighborhood, they will stop the truck in from of the Espinoza home to say hello and bring Marcus ice cream.

"We've built up a special friendship and bond with the family," San Jose Fire Capt. Wade Katsuyoshi says.

Fire engineer Julie La Blanc says nearly every firefighter at station No. 6 knows Marcus and looks after him. In the station's kitchen, several photos of Marcus are tacked on the wall, including one of Marcus and his junior prom date.

Willow Glen High School teachers and administrators can also take credit for helping Marcus succeed, says Monsignor James Walsh of St. Christopher Parish.

"He's delightful," Willow Glen High School teacher Beth Keiley says. Marcus has been in Keiley's special day classroom throughout his high school years. Marcus performs at a first-to second-grade academically; however, he interacts with his friends like any other teenager.

Keiley and her students miss Marcus on the days he's too tired to attend school and relish the days he can.

"He does what he can do," Keiley says. "It's really inspiring to the other kids."

Keiley, like Gallegos, hopes to see Marcus graduate from high school. Technically, Marcus will not be able to graduate because he cannot pass the California High School Exit Exam, given his academic level.

That will not stop administrators from recognizing him on the big day.

"I plan on calling his name no matter what happens; I'll probably get all choked up," Gallegos says. "If the kids had half the heart he has, they'd be amazing students. They'd all have straight A's."