 
### Trouble is...

By Anne Knowles

Copyright 2012 Anne Knowles

For Jacklyn

who made it through

Smashwords Edition

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Cover Design by Laura Shinn

### Chapter 1

The door was locked. I was only five minutes late, but Mr. Stamos wouldn't let me in biology without a tardy pass. Trouble is this was my sixth tardy in only the third week of school. Harrison High School took tardy sweeps seriously. Six tardies and they suspended you. Your parents had to come for a conference before you could get back in school. Trouble is I didn't have parents. I had an older brother, Frank. He'd kill me if he had to miss work to come to school because of me.

Things were hard enough at home with my brother's wife, Imelda, not liking me no matter what I did. And her having a new baby made it worse. The last thing I needed was someone from school calling home about me. I had to figure a way to get out of this mess without Frank finding out.

I backed away from the door and looked up and down the long hallway. Beige metal lockers lined the walls. At the far end of the hall, a kid shoved his books in a locker, clanged it shut, and took off down the back steps. Ditching. I did some quick thinking. Ditching was better than being tardy. Most kids wrote their own excuse notes anyway. The attendance office either didn't notice or didn't care. Tomorrow I'd give them a note that said, "Please excuse Ricardo Chavez for his absence first period Wednesday. He was not feeling well." I'd sign Frank's name to it. Mr. Stamos would have to let me back in class, and he'd have to let me make up the test I was missing. And no one would call my brother.

The tardy sweep hadn't reached third floor C-Wing yet, so I still had a chance. I headed for the back stairs. If I could make it to the football field, I could hide under the bleachers until the bell rang for second period.

I took the stairs two at a time, hit the landing, turned the corner, and ran smack into Mr. Wilkerson. He was six foot two and strong as a defensive lineman, but I wasn't afraid of him. In fact, I kind of liked him. He always remembered my name, and it seemed like he didn't mind talking to me now and then. "Where's your hall pass, Ricky?" he asked as he put a big hand on my shoulder to stop me from dashing back up the stairs.

"I don't have one." No use lying. Wilkerson was too smart for that. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my blue jeans and looked down at my white Nikes. I'd really wanted black, but that's what the gangbangers at Harrison wore and I didn't bang. I didn't want anyone to think I did, either.

"How come you're walking this way?" asked Wilkerson. "Tardies go to 104 for a pass. You should know that. The semester's just started and you already own the tardy room." He smiled, but he had me firmly by the arm.

"I was going to ditch," I said. "I didn't want you calling my brother."

"If it's been six times, we'll call him." He turned to me. "Why? Does he get too angry?"

I looked at him so long I'm sure he thought I'd lost my hard-earned ability to speak English. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to tell him, "Yeah, he gets too angry, and then he beats me up good." But what if they called Children's Services? What if they took me out of there and put me in a home? Or worse, what if they just gave Frank a warning and then left me there to deal with him. He'd send me back to El Salvador to my Uncle Jose. I'd lived with him for a few months after my grandparents died in a bus crash. All my uncle did was drink and hit me. And there was never any food in the house. Uncle Jose made Frank seem like a saint.

Wilkerson repeated his question. "Why don't you want me to call him? Does he hit you?"

I liked Wilkerson and wanted to trust him, but I was more scared of what I didn't know than I was of my brother. "Nah," I lied. "He won't beat me up. We get along good. He and his wife have a new baby, that's all. I didn't want you bothering them."

Wilkerson started me down the stairs to the first floor, his hand on my shoulder. "He's your legal guardian. He'll have to be bothered," he said. At the bottom of the stairs he told me to go to 104. If I had six tardies in the computer, the supervisor would send me to Wilkerson's office where I was to wait for him. I didn't say anything, but I knew it was six already.

After he went upstairs, I looked out the back door to the quad. The sky was blue. The sun was hot and bright. The grass was still green because school hadn't been in session long enough for it to be trampled to death. I remembered how green the grass was in El Salvador the day my neighbor told me about my grandparents. It was over two miles to town on a dusty, dirt road, but I ran all the way. Pieces of the bus, black and charred, were scattered on the grass. I couldn't look away from the grass. Yellow green. Hard, hot yellow. Like the sun. More painful than the sun. It made my eyes hurt. It made tears run down my cheeks.

I looked away from the window and took a deep breath. Dammit! Why couldn't I get up early enough to catch the bus that would get me to school on time? I did it the year before. Made mostly A's, too.

I came up six tardies in the computer in 104 and ended up in the discipline office on one of the uncomfortable, straight-backed chairs lined against the wall. I hunched over, my arms on my knees, my head down, staring at my shoes. They were the first thing I'd been able to get with the money I earned at McDonalds. Frank made me start working in July after I turned sixteen, but I didn't mind. I wanted to work. Trouble is I got home so late, it was hard to get up for school.

Frank took most of the money I earned for rent and food, but I saved what he let me keep, didn't spend it on sodas or anything. And last Saturday, I'd bought my shoes. Man, if I was eighteen and had my own place and worked and didn't have to answer to anybody, I'd be happy. I'd make something of myself, too. Maybe be an engineer, work on stuff that goes in space. That's what I really wanted.

My stomach hurt from thinking about how mad Frank was going to be. I realized I was holding my breath. I slowly let it out, trying to relax. I hated all this. I hated being only sixteen. I hated my father who took off before I was born. I hated my mother for coming to the United States when I was three and then getting a boyfriend who didn't want me around. I hated the drunken son-of-a-bitch who swerved into the bus that killed my grandparents. I hated my uncle and my brother and his wife. I hated every bit of my life, except maybe my Nikes.

I slouched back in the chair and stretched my long legs in front of me. Why couldn't schools ever buy comfortable chairs? I don't think even the teachers got comfortable chairs. I looked over at the coffeepot on a table in the corner. There were a couple inches of thick, black coffee in the glass pot. It smelled like it had been heating there since the school was built. The minute hand on the clock ka-chunked each time it moved forward a minute. My back ached.

Two cholos from a Salvadoran gang called Locos 18 were escorted into the office by campus police. They were told to sit on the chairs against the wall and wait for the Mr. Wilkerson. I knew the guys, Angel Olivares and Leonardo Blanco. I'd had English as a Second Language with both of them. It looked like Angel had been in a fight. His shirt was ripped and his face was smeared with sweat and dirt. Mostly I could tell he'd been fighting because he was so high on adrenaline he couldn't sit still.

I heard a commotion in the hallway outside the Discipline Office. Angel and Leonardo jumped up and started for the door, but Wilkerson came out of his office and told them both to "sit down and be quiet and if you move again I'll call the police." There was a picture, I thought, Wilkerson standing in the door of his office, a cup of coffee in his hand, pointing with his other hand at these two punk cholos, ordering them to sit down. He never spilled a drop. Wilkerson's skin was so black it was almost blue against his white shirt. His top button was tight against his neck and his tie was straight and neat. He looked calm. Like he did this kind of stuff every day. That was the picture. This older guy in a white shirt and tie, facing down two punk gangbangers in pants so baggy they were nearly around their knees. Calm, not even putting his coffee down, knowing he wouldn't spill it. You could see it in his face. He might have gotten excited the first time he faced down gangbangers, but no more.

Angel and Leonardo sat down. Angel squirmed on his chair and I could hear him cussing out someone named Eddy under his breath. Security brought a kid with a bloody nose to the door of the office.

"Don't bring him in here," Wilkerson said. "These youngsters think if they come from different countries they have to kill each other."

I recognized the kid. We'd had P.E. together. His name was Eddy Gonzalez, and he was part of a Mexican gang called Westside Raza. "Take him to the nurse, call his parents, and we'll deal with him after I take care of these two," said Wilkerson. He went back in his office.

Leonardo and Angel huddled, but I could hear them talking. I guess Angel and his girlfriend Sandra had a big fight the night before and she wanted to make him mad. so she flirted with Eddy before school. Borrowed money from him for a soda or something stupid like that. Who knew? I thought all that gangbanging stuff was crazy. My best friend, Marco Quintanilla, was from Mexico. We'd make sorry cholos, the two of us, supposed to be fighting each other, and instead sneaking a beer in the alley behind my apartment on a hot summer night.

I jumped when Wilkerson called my name. He still had the cup of coffee in his hand. Why did everyone who worked in a school drink coffee all the time? I sat in one of the two chairs in front of his desk. He picked up the phone and, as he punched in the number, I reached over and turned the mug so I could read the words written on it. It said, "I've used up all my sick days so next time I'm calling in dead." The mug was cold.

Wilkerson glanced at me messing with his mug. "Do me a favor, Ricky. Dump that out in the water fountain and get me some fresh." He turned his attention to the phone, and I guessed that someone had answered at the other end.

"Francisco Chavez, please," Wilkerson said into the phone. "This is Harrison High School calling about his brother, Ricardo."

I took the mug out and dumped it in the water fountain in the hall. There was a rotten brown apple core in the fountain and a couple of chewed up pieces of pink gum. The cold, black coffee swirled around the apple core and the gum. My stomach got queasy. I pictured Frank being paged in the back room where he handled produce for Cambden's Supermarket. He'd never gotten a call about me at work.

I filled Wilkerson's mug at the coffeepot in the front office where Leonardo and Angel still waited on the straight-backed chairs. They smiled, but I could see them whispering "barbero" to each other. Teacher's pet. I smiled back and lifted the mug to them in a toast, managing to hold the mug so that I was throwing the finger at them. They saw it and laughed. I walked in Wilkerson's office, handed him the coffee, and sat down. He didn't take a sip, just held the telephone to his ear, waited on hold, and held the cup. Security I guess, or a bad habit.

He put the cup down. "Mr. Chavez?" The school was always so polite to my brother. It made me sick. Just because a guy was your legal guardian didn't mean he was like a real adult. "Ricky's been tardy six times since school started. He's being suspended until you can come to school for a conference about him. You'll have to come in by Monday so we can get him back to class." He listened for a minute. My heart pounded in my ears. "OK, bring him to school Monday morning and I'll meet with you before first period." He hung up. That was it. No way out now.

Wilkerson picked up his coffee mug and finally took a sip. He made a face. I could tell by the way the coffeepot had smelled that the coffee probably tasted like a mixture of vomit and tar. He set the cup on the desk and slid it away from him. "How come you can't get to school on time this year?" he asked. "What's up?"

I shrugged. "The RTD bus gets here too late."

"No," he replied. "It's not the fault of the bus. You have to catch an earlier bus." My school records were already on display on the computer monitor on his desk. Mr. Wilkerson scrolled to the attendance page. "You were never tardy last year," he said. "What's going on this year?"

"I can't get up that early. I work till 11:00 at night."

"School starts at 8:00. If you don't get here by 8:00, you're tardy. Six tardies and you're suspended. You know that."

"I know," I mumbled.

"A's and B's last year. That's not going to happen this year if you can't get here on time."

"I know."

"Get yourself straight home, Ricky. We'll talk about the bus situation and about what time you're getting to bed when your brother comes for the conference." Like that was any of his business. "How many hours a week do you work?" he asked.

"Thirty."

"Maybe you need to quit your job. Maybe it's too much for you."

I'd like to see Wilkerson try to tell Frank I should quit my job. That would make for some interesting fireworks. "Can I go?" I asked.

"Yes, you can go. Stay out of trouble, Ricky. You're a good kid and a lot of us want to see you make it."

Yeah, sure, I thought bitterly as I walked out of the office. I knew I was supposed to leave the school campus, but I wanted to get my books from my locker so I could study at home. I'd be missing an algebra test, a vocabulary test, and an American history quiz, plus the biology test I'd already missed that morning. If my teachers let me make up the tests, I was going to be ready.

When I was off campus, I texted Marco that I'd been suspended and asked him to get all my assignments. He and I had most of our classes together and I didn't want to get too far behind.

That evening, I thought Frank would never get home from work. Part of me prayed he wouldn't walk in the door ever again. The other part of me just wanted to get it over with. I tried to study, but I couldn't concentrate. I gave up and went into the living room to watch TV.

I sat down on the sofa, put my feet up on the coffee table and snapped on _I Love Lucy_ just as Imelda came in from the market with two bags of groceries in her arms.

"Is Jennifer still asleep?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Get your feet off my coffee table," she said. "I don't clean it so you can get it dirty with your dirty shoes." I looked down at the bottom of my shoes as she disappeared into the kitchen with the groceries. Like my new Nikes were dirty.

I'd been trying hard to get along with Imelda, so I didn't say anything. I knew she didn't like having me around, especially now that she and Frank had their own kid. She wanted my room for Jennifer. I heard her and Frank arguing about it late one night. Imelda got on me even more than Frank did. Do the dishes. Take out the garbage. Go do the laundry. She was always telling me that Francisco paid the rent and I had to do what she said because she was his wife.

Jennifer woke up and started to cry, so I turned up the TV. "Go pick her up!" Imelda yelled from the kitchen. "I'm putting away the groceries, and I gotta put dinner on."

I went into Frank and Imelda's bedroom and lifted Jennifer out of her crib. I tried to snuggle her against my shoulder, but she arched her back and screamed even louder. Why would anyone ever want to have a kid. I don't know if Frank and Imelda wanted her or not. They got married because they had to, and now they had this little three-month old baby.

I got her pacifer out of the crib and tried to get her to take it, but that made her even more furious. I carried her into the kitchen to give her to Imelda, but she was still putting away the groceries. "I'll feed her in a minute," she said. Hell, I didn't know what to do with her. I went to the living room and sat on the sofa. I bounced her across my knee. Tried rocking her in my arms. Nothing worked.

On _I Love Lucy_ Ricky Ricardo was playing his congo drum with the band. Right beside him was Little Ricky with a little congo drum. I really wanted to see this, but Jennifer kept crying, so I tried walking back and forth behind the sofa. Then above the noise of Jennifer's crying and the two Ricky's congo drums, I heard Frank's footsteps, heavy on the wooden stairs that led up to our apartment. Time was up. I froze.

The door opened and Frank stepped in the room. He was taller than me and about thirty pounds heavier. His eyes were black and angry. He tossed his baseball cap and his lunch pail on the couch and took Jennifer from my arms. Didn't say anything, not a word, just took Jennifer to Imelda. I backed toward my room, but he came for me fast. He grabbed me by the arm and back-handed me hard across the mouth. I staggered, but he held on to my arm and smacked me two or three more times before he let go. I crashed against the bookcase, knocking all of Imelda's glass angels to the floor. There we lay, broken wings and cut lips and all. From a distance I heard Imelda's voice whine, "Francisco, my angels." I hurt bad, but I knew it wasn't over yet.

Frank grabbed me by the arm and hauled me up. I guessed he was done being a father to me, slapping me across the mouth, because now his fists were clenched. I took two in the stomach, doubled over and fell to the floor like I'd been shot. I couldn't breathe. Frank had done some boxing in El Salvador and he could hit like a prize-fighter.

He hauled me up again, dragged me to the door of my room, and shoved me in. I hoped it was over, but Frank followed me in, slamming the door behind him. He pulled his belt through the loops on his jeans, shoved me face down on my bed, and laid into me. I buried my face in my pillow and grabbed hold of the metal bars of the bed's headboard. I squeezed tighter and tighter each time he hit me with the belt, trying to keep from crying out.

I didn't feel it stop. I just heard the door open and slam shut. It was quiet. Then I heard myself crying. My back was on fire. My whole body was shaking.

A long time later, I became aware of an ache in my arms. My hands still gripped the bars of the headboard. My fingers were so stiff I had to open and shut my hands to get feeling back in them. I rolled to my side and sat on the edge of the bed, my head in my hands. All I could see in the dark were my new white Nikes. I kicked the shoes off, tossed them in the corner, and lay down on my stomach again. I guessed I had a few tears left because my eyes went blurry again. Damn, I thought. Being five minutes late to biology could sure ruin your whole day.

### Chapter 2

The bus exploded. Fire raced at me, pushed me down, and ate my back. I screamed, but no one helped me. I screamed again and woke up, drenched in sweat. I listened for my brother, expecting him to pound on my door and tell me to shut up. Nothing. Maybe I screamed in my dream.

My mouth was dry. I was thirsty and I had to go to the bathroom. I rolled to my side, gingerly pulled myself up, and sat on the edge of the bed until my head cleared. I walked quietly to the door and opened it a crack. The apartment was dark. Everyone was asleep. I crept across the hallway to the bathroom, carefully pulling the door closed behind me. I was afraid to turn the light on, afraid Frank would wake up.

Red and blue neon lights from the bar across the alley blinked on and off through the window. _Liquor_ flashed in red. _Girls_ flashed in blue. I saw myself dimly in the mirror over the sink. My eyes were red and swollen. I was sixteen years old, dammit, too old to cry.

My head started to spin so I bent over and leaned my forehead on the cold porcelain sink to keep from passing out. I turned on a trickle of cold water and splashed it on my face and in my mouth until the spinning stopped. Dry blood flaked off into the sink. I ran my tongue over my swollen lip. The cut was salty and tender. I splashed more cold water in my mouth, rinsed it around, and spit into the sink. When I straightened up and looked at myself in the dim mirror, the red and blue light reflecting through the window made my whole face look bruised. That's me, I thought. Bruised.

Back in my room, I stretched out on my stomach. I must have finally fallen asleep because I woke up with a jolt when Frank pounded on my door and hollered for me to get up. My T-shirt was wet with sweat. I'd been dreaming of my mother. I couldn't see her face but I could feel her touching me on the back, fingertip by painful fingertip. I looked out my window. Rain. It never rained in September. Hell, it hardly ever rained in Los Angeles. So why did it have to rain today?

In the bathroom, I slipped off my T-shirt and tried to see my back in the mirror. All I could see was my shoulder and it looked raw. Man, this shower was going to hurt. I looked at my face, wondering if I should shave or not. Not that I shaved that often, maybe two or three times a week was all. But I hadn't shaved since the weekend and I was starting to look it. Too bad, even for McDonalds. They'd have to take me as I was. I wasn't going to go scraping around my beat-up face with a razor. I turned on the shower and gritted my teeth as I turned my back to the flow of hot water.

I found a pair of not-so-dirty jeans under my bed and pulled them on. I discovered a clean black T-shirt at the bottom of my underwear drawer. Last one. I'd have to get to the laundry one of these days. I pulled the T-shirt carefully over my head and down my back. Who'd have thought a little thing like a T-shirt could hurt so bad. Must be the shower got the welts and bruises on my back all heated up. I didn't have any clean socks so I put on a dirty pair and pulled on my Nikes. Well, I thought, taking a deep breath, time to meet the family for breakfast.

Frank was bent over his food. He didn't say a word to me when I walked in the kitchen, just reached for another piece of pan dulce. Imelda was in the bedroom getting Jennifer up. I got some sausage patties from the stove and poured a cup of coffee. I was hungry because I hadn't eaten since breakfast the day before, but I tried to eat quietly, not call attention to myself.

Imelda came into the room and put Jennifer in my lap. She set a baby bottle on the table in front of me. I don't know why Imelda didn't like having me around the way she was always handing me the baby. I was a built-in babysitter. Jennifer started to cry so I put the bottle in her mouth. I cradled her head in my left arm and was able to hold the bottle with the same hand. That freed my right hand to eat. Jennifer looked up at me with her big brown eyes, stopped sucking for a second, and smiled at me around the nipple of the baby bottle.

"Ricardo better pay me for those angels he broke," Imelda said. She tossed some more sausage patties in the frying pan. They sizzled in the grease.

"He'll pay you," said Frank.

"When?" asked Imelda. "They were expensive. I got them at Rosa's crystal party. And one of them was from Avon."

Frank took a bit of sausage. "He'll pay you," he repeated deliberately, his mouth full of food.

"He'd better," Imelda whined as she flipped over the sausages. I guess it didn't occur to them that I was in the room and that they were talking about me like I wasn't even there.

Imelda carried a plate of sausages to the table, sat down, and dug in. I could feel myself heat up. I guess with the baby in my arms and my back on fire and with Frank and Imelda stuffing sausages in their faces and talking about me like I was piece of furniture, it just got to me. I hoped Frank would leave before my temper took over.

He finally stood up, took his dishes over to the sink, and wiped his mouth on the dishtowel. He tossed it on the counter. "Imelda's not feeling so good today and she's got the baby, so you can clean the place up."

And here I was feeding the baby, trying to eat breakfast, and having to go to work in the afternoon with my body hurting like an infected tooth. I could feel myself start to lose it. "I've got to study," I said angrily. "I have tests to make up."

Frank took a step toward me. I set the baby bottle on the table. He pointed at me. "You didn't understand me yesterday?" His voice was quiet, but I could hear the anger in it.

It seemed like hours, but it must have been only a second or two. Jennifer cried out for her bottle. The spell was broken. I looked down and gave Jennifer her bottle.

I heard Frank turn away. "This isn't a vacation you're on," he muttered as he left the kitchen. Imelda followed him into the living room with his lunch pail. I looked after them both, wishing I could cuss them out, tell them what I really thought. Frank pulled his Lakers cap on and looked my way. He caught my eye. "You're going to work today. I called in sick for you yesterday, but not today." I didn't even nod. He knew I'd do what he said.

Imelda scooped more sausages from the frying pan onto her plate, grabbed two pieces of pan dulce, took Jennifer from me, and went into the living room. I heard her click on the TV. "You better pay me back for those angels," she called from the other room. "Francisco says you have to pay me out of your next paycheck."

"I'll pay you back," I mumbled as I started on the breakfast dishes.

When my phone rang at 10:00, nutrition time at school, I knew it was Marco. "I called you last night, but Frank said you were sick. He beat you up?"

"Yeah," I said. I was talking as soft as I could so Imelda wouldn't hear.

"Bad?"

"I'm OK,"

"No, you ain't," said Marco. "I can hear it in your voice." _Ain't_ had become Marco's favorite English word ever since he had learned it from a couple kids in PE. "What'd he do? Hit you with his fists or a belt or what?"

"Never mind," I said.

I heard a voice over Marco's phone. "Put it away or I'll take it away. You know the rule about cell phones."

"Gotta go," said Marco. "I just called to say hi, see how you were, find out what that dumb ass brother of yours did to you, find out if you're OK."

"I'm OK," I repeated.

The voice became louder, "Hang up now or your phone goes to the discipline office."

"Just saying good-bye," Marco said to the voice. "Ricky, you sure you're OK."

"You already asked me." Marco was a good friend, but his mother and father didn't hit him and jump all over him like Frank did me. When Frank got me bad, like he did last night, it was kind of embarrassing for me to talk about, even to Marco. He'd be nice to me and all that, but how could he know. It didn't just hurt. It was humiliating. It was something that made you want to maybe kill yourself because you felt so weak.

I heard the voice yell at Marco again to get off his phone, put it in his pocket, and don't pull it out till he was off campus.

"Marco," I said. "You better hang up." He hung up so quickly he didn't even say goodbye.

It felt good to get out of the house, walk the mile to McDonalds, smell the air, clean after the morning rain. I touched my lip. It was tender and swollen. If anyone asked, I'd say a ball smacked me on the lip in PE.

I had the register next to Maria de Leon. We usually worked the same shift, 5:00-11:00. I'd known her since ESL 2 at Harrison High and I'd always kind of liked her, but she hung with Locos 18 and I didn't.

It started bad right at 5:00 and got worse. I kept making stupid mistakes. I gave one lady two Big Macs instead of two bacon double cheeseburgers. Then I went and gave this other guy a chocolate shake instead of vanilla and he got mad. "Why don't you people learn to speak English," he said angrily. "I ordered vanilla. My wife can't have chocolate. It's got caffeine in it. The doctor says she can't have caffeine." Like I was supposed to care. Like I needed a lecture on his wife's health problems. Like I hadn't studied my butt off for two years trying to learn English.

"Look mister," I said, full of fire, but Maria interrupted me.

"You'll have to forgive him, sir," she said, directing her comments to my angry customer. "His parents died in a car accident only four days ago. Now he's the only one left to care for his younger brothers and sisters. He had to come back to work today because he couldn't afford not to, but he's still a little shook up. His mind's not on his work, as you can well imagine."

She was beaming at the man, full of sincerity and genuine customer relations, or whatever they call it. I didn't want to give her, or me, away, so I tried to keep down a smile that wanted to appear on my beaten up old lips.

The man took a step back and his eyes grew wide. He stammered, "Oh! Oh, I see. I am sorry." Then he leaned close to me, like he wanted to make some kind of a compassion connection. "Chocolate will be fine. One chocolate shake won't hurt her. Or I can drink it. She can have my decaf coffee."

"Please, let me get you a vanilla," said Maria. Her eyes sparkled.

I couldn't keep my smile down any longer so I turned around, my back to the register. The man probably thought I was feeling blue at the mention of my parents. "Is he OK?" he asked Maria.

"He'll be OK. We're watching out for him. He's a very strong young man, but McDonalds thanks you for your concern."

I was cracking up so bad the cut on my lip hurt like hell. I was afraid I'd split it open, but I couldn't keep from laughing. I guess the man thought I was crying because after Maria gave him the vanilla shake he gave her a five-dollar tip and told her to give it to me.

"He's gone," she finally whispered.

Taking a deep breath, I turned to Maria and noticed, for the first time, how beautiful her eyes were. I felt my heart rise to my throat. "Thanks," I said.

"No big deal," she replied. Then she got a customer and I got a customer, so we had to concentrate on our work.

About an hour later, when the dinner crowd thinned out, Maria looked over at me. "What happened?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

She pointed to her lip. I'd been so busy with customers, I'd forgotten about how I looked.

"I got hit by a ball in PE."

"No, you didn't." I didn't say anything, just stood there looking into her eyes. "Father?" she asked.

I unconsciously licked my lip and tasted the dried blood. "Brother," I muttered.

"Quarter pounder with cheese and two large fries," said a customer at Maria's register. She quickly reached over and touched my arm before turning her attention to the customer. I caught my breath. Her black hair was pulled back in a French braid, and her eyes and smile made me melt. I still felt her hand on my arm. I still felt her warmth. Man! I don't know what happened, but somehow, between the beginning of my 5:00 shift and that moment, I'd fallen in love.

I could have spent the rest of my life at my register next to Maria de Leon's register. I didn't want to say good night. I didn't even know if she felt the way I did. She was probably just being nice to me because I looked beat up.

Some guy from a bowling league gave her a huge order at 10:55, so I finished before she did. I took my time clocking out and then hung around, feeling stupid and awkward. I had horrible visions of her saying something liked goodbye and she hoped I felt better and she was sorry but she already had a boyfriend.

I think I might have been praying when she walked toward me after she clocked out. She slipped on her black Raiders jacket, looked me right in the eye, reached under her collar, flipped her braid out, and said, "Let's go."

The night air was cool. I'd forgotten to wear a jacket, but I didn't care. I was warm all over. "Do you catch the bus or what?" I asked.

"Yeah. I live that way about two miles," she said.

"You want to walk?"

She zipped up her jacket, shook her head yes, and smiled at me like she'd been waiting for me to walk her home for a long time. "Let's go," she said again. I never thought two little words could make me feel so stirred up. I shoved my hands in my jeans pockets and we took off down the street. I'd forgotten my bus pass at home and my place was a mile in a whole other direction, so I didn't know when I'd get home that night, but who cared.

An ambulance came screaming around the corner, followed by a big red fire truck. The sirens were so loud we couldn't talk, but that was all right because I couldn't think of anything to say. Squeezing conversation into the middle of a busy work schedule was one thing, but trying to come up with something to say with two miles of just us, was another thing altogether.

I head some loud laughter from across the street and saw a bunch of kids hanging around the 7/11. Part of the parking lot was still damp from the rain and the big 7/11 sign reflected all around the cars. I was ready to talk about anything, even the 7/11 sign, when Maria said, "How come your brother hit you?"

"I was suspended. Tardies. He has to go have a conference with Wilkerson."

"Does he hit you a lot?"

"No. It's no big deal. He just got mad, that's all. He'll have to miss some work. Money's tight." I was lying. It was a big deal, but I didn't want Maria knowing about my back, feeling sorry for me. And I didn't want to talk about Frank.

On the bus-stop bench a homeless woman was curled up under a ragged, dirty gray coat. She had it pulled up over her head and her legs stuck out. She had tennis shoes on, but no socks. In the yellow glare of the streetlight, her ankles were black with dirt.

"Do you ever think that could happen to you?" asked Maria, as we passed the woman. She looked up at me as we walked along, but I just shrugged. "I do," she continued. "I think about it a lot. I mean if you ask a bunch of kids if they're going to be homeless, they'll all say no, but ten, twenty years from now, you watch. There's still going to be homeless people. And they have to come from somewhere and where they'll come from is people who are kids now, like you and me."

"It's not going to happen to me," I said. "I'm going to college."

Maria laughed. "School's forever. It never ends. Anything can happen in that time. What if your brother makes you drop out and work?"

"He makes me work now," I muttered. I didn't want to think about this stuff. Working and going to high school was hard enough without making it harder thinking about it.

"Hey, let's rap cars!" Maria jumped in front of me and grabbled my hands.

"Huh?" I asked. I didn't know what she was talking about, but she didn't explain. She took off down the street, hitting the windows of every car parked along the curb. Five or six of them had car alarms and off they went, beeping into the night. I took off after Maria, but she was already running down the next block, setting off more car alarms. She waited for me, out of breath, at the end of two blocks.

"You could keep the whole city awake if you had the energy to keep running up and down the street," she said panting. She pointed back from where we'd come. "Look!" Sleepy men and women came out the front doors of their apartments, pointed their beepers at their cars and beep-beeped the noise away. One guy, with no shirt on, leaned out his third story window and tried to turn his car off by stretching his arm out with the remote fob. It didn't work. He must have thought something was fishy, us standing there at the corner, laughing our heads off. "You!" he yelled at us. "You kids!"

Maria grabbed by hand and we took off down the next block. At the next corner she shoved me across the street. "Double up!" she yelled. I ran down one side of the street and she ran down the other. There must have been twenty cars between us and we managed to set off eight or nine alarms.

Maria hurried across the street to meet me and she pounded me on the back, laughing.

The pain hit me like a knife and, without wanting to, I cried out.

"What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong?" She took hold of my hand.

I pulled away from her. "Nothing," I gasped, trying to catch my breath.

"I don't believe you. What's wrong?"

I wasn't crying, but the sudden pain had made my eyes water. "I got something in my eye." I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.

"Don't lie to me, Ricky." I turned away from her, embarrassed, and she quickly, but gently, lifted the tail of my shirt. She saw the bruises and welts on my back before I could twist away from her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.

What could I say to her, dammit. I stuck my hands in my pockets and started walking away from her, down the street. She hurried after me, but I didn't stop walking. I was so full of feeling I thought I'd explode. She jumped around in front of me and walked backwards, keeping up with me step by step.

"You think if you told me you'd be embarrassed, isn't that it?" she said. "You think I don't know what it's like to be hit. I know what it's like and all the time my stepfather's hitting on me, I'm thinking that I got my friends I can go to. That's all I think. I keep it going through my mind and I'm OK. If you have friends, they make it OK."

I stopped walking. She took my hands. "You gotta find your family in the streets. Me, my friends, we talk about this kind of stuff all the time. If we didn't, we'd kill ourselves."

My eyes got blurry. I wasn't sobbing or anything like that, like the night before. I think I was crying because of what she said, because she was there, telling me it was OK.

"Did you put anything on your back?" she asked. I shook my head no. "Come on, we'll find a drug store. I know something that will take the sting out."

"I don't have any money," I said.

"Yes, you do," she said digging in her pocket. "You got a five dollar tip today, remember? And we should have enough change to get donuts." She held my hand as we started down the street. I knew the friends she was talking about. Locos 18. But I didn't care about that. I just wanted to be with her, no matter who her friends were.

### Chapter 3

Frank must have felt bad about beating me up because he talked all through breakfast the next morning. Did I remember when he won the 16-year old division in El Salvador? The black silk jacket he won with the gold boxing gloves on the back? The night, two weeks later, when he left our grandparents and me for the United States to find work to help support us? The way the jacket was so big when he put it on me before he left? How I cried like a baby. Yeah, I told him, I remembered. But it was like I was in two worlds. My ears heard Frank and my mouth talked to him, but my head was thinking about Maria.

Frank gulped down the last of his coffee, put the mug in the sink, and wiped his mouth on the dishtowel.

"Don't forget to do the dishes," he said.

"Yeah, I'll do the dishes."

"And study for the tests you're missing."

"Yeah, I'll study."

"Stay home till you go to work. I don't want you getting in trouble."

I looked at him. What was I? Some kind of prisoner?

"Did you hear me?" he asked.

"Yeah, I heard you," I mumbled.

Imelda came into the kitchen with Jennifer under one arm and a diaper bag hanging over the other. Frank was dropping her at her mother's for the day. "Don't eat the pupusas," she said to me. "They're for dinner."

"I won't eat the pupusas," I replied. Two worlds, and I wanted them to leave so I could concentrate on Maria's world.

After I did the dishes, I tried to study. I opened my algebra book, but my eyes wouldn't focus. All I could see was Maria's face. I snapped the book closed and dropped it on the floor. It was only Friday anyway, and it wasn't like I didn't have three whole days before I had to take make-up tests. I looked at my watch. First period was just about over. I wondered what Maria had first period. Math? Or may P.E.? Blue P.E. shorts, long legs running around the track. That got me in the stomach, thinking about her like that. I got my ipod off the end table and put the ear buds in my ears. I closed my eyes to everything but Maria.

I didn't daydream all day. I opened my American history book. Twice. I looked at my vocabulary list. Once. Then I gave up.

I ate some cold leftover cheese enchiladas while I looked out the kitchen window to the alley below. I scooped the enchiladas into my mouth as I watched a grizzled old homeless guy dig through the garbage. He found a big plastic bag, shook it out, folded it neatly, and stuck it in his pocket. I swallowed the last of the enchiladas, stuck the casserole in the sink to soak, and wandered into the living room.

I clicked on the TV. Soaps. I hated soaps. I looked at my watch again. Maria was in fourth period. I pulled one of Frank's beers out of the fridge, started to pop the top, then decided against it. He'd give me a beer sometimes, like after we'd shot baskets in a hundred degree heat for three hours. But I didn't think he'd want me getting into his beers on a day I was sitting out a suspension.

About two o'clock, I started to worry about looking good for Maria. I looked in the mirror over the bathroom sink. My lip was still a little swollen and the dark red scab where Frank had split it hadn't dropped off yet. It was rough and salty when I ran my tongue over it.

Maybe I looked OK. Frank said my eyes looked like Mom's. I didn't remember her face very much, but he did. He said she had big, dark eyes and long thick eyelashes. I turned a little to the side and looked at my lashes out of the corner of my eyes. Maybe my eyes looked OK.

My hair was flat and matted where I laid on the bed most of the day listening to music. I couldn't fix the scab, but I could fix my hair. I stripped off my jeans and T-shirt, got in the shower and washed my hair. I used Imelda's hair dryer to blow it dry. There wasn't much I could do about the rest of me. Except maybe shave. Of course then I had to go and nick the scab and start my lip bleeding again. The blood smeared red into the white shaving cream on my chin. I rinsed off my face and splashed cold water on my lip to try to get it to stop bleeding. The water thinned the blood as it splashed into the sink. It swirled down the drain, pink and wet. I looked in the mirror. The cut still bled down my chin. Half the scab was off. Part of it kind of stuck out where I'd nicked it. That looked great, for crying out loud! I wanted to yank it off so bad I finally had to make myself turn away from the mirror.

I knew Frank had some cologne because I'd given it to him for Christmas. I snuck into his room, found the cologne on his dresser, unscrewed the cap, and dumped some in my hand. I rubbed it into my other hand and patted it on my neck. I jumped. It stung like bees where I'd shaved. I looked in the mirror over the dresser to check on my lip. Still bleeding, but not as bad.

Stuck on the corner of the mirror, I saw the photograph Grandpa took of Frank and me at the bus station in San Salvador, a few minutes before Frank's bus left. Grandpa had taken the picture to send to Frank when he got to the U.S. I looked closely at it. Frank had a little smile on his face, but I could tell it wasn't a smile. He was trying not to cry.

In the picture, Frank had his arm around my shoulder. I had on the black silk boxing jacket. It came to my knees. After my grandparents were killed, all I wanted to do was get to the U.S. and live with Frank again. Then, when I got here, he already had Imelda and it seemed like all I did was get in his way.

I found the jacket stuck in the back of my closet. The black silk felt smooth against my skin. The gold gloves were as brilliant as the day Frank had decked his opponent in the third round and won the jacket as first prize. I pulled it on. I'd grown since I'd last worn it, but it was still big on me. Still warm and soft. And then, I don't know why, my eyes got watery. I wasn't thinking about anything special, just feeling how warm the jacket was, remembering when I wore it all the time, thinking of Frank in the United States, missing him. I tugged the jacket off. I looked bad enough without getting my eyes all swollen and red. I hung the jacket back in my closet. I licked the sticky scab on my lip, tasted the salty new blood. Frank gave that to me, too, I reminded myself. I didn't need his damn jacket.

I headed out the door to work at 4:30. I think I probably looked like I usually looked, but I never worked so hard at it. Being a Friday night, we'd be busy at McDonalds. I'd be lucky if I even got a chance to say hi to Maria. But Friday was payday. I was going to walk her home after work and ask her on our first official date.

You'd think you could go to the beach or do something romantic on your first official date. Something with candles and music. I took Maria to the Fluff and Fold Washette across the street from our apartment building. With a baby. And three bags of laundry. Not that I had that many clothes. Francisco gave me a bunch of quarters and dimes and told me to do his and Imelda's, too. I got the baby because Imelda was going to be away all day, cleaning a lady's house for $40.00. Frank always worked on Saturdays, so I had Jennifer for the whole day. You'd think you could have a first official date without lugging a baby along.

Even though I had to pay Imelda for her broken angels, Frank didn't make me pay back the whole amount. I had a little left for myself so after I picked up Maria, I bought us donuts at Winchells before we got on the bus back to the Washette. Maybe I could count that as the first official date, sitting at a little booth in the donut shop with a cup of coffee, a bag of donuts, and Maria. And a baby.

We filled up seven washing machines. I dumped a cup of Tide in each one, put in the quarters, and started them up. By this time Jennifer was hungry, so I lifted her out of her stroller, took her in my arms, and gave her the bottle Imelda had tucked in the diaper bag.

"I take care of my little sister a lot," said Maria. "Carla. She's three. Really she's my half-sister, but I call her my sister." Maria was sitting sideways in the orange plastic chair, facing me, with one foot up on the chair and her arm over her knee. I was turned toward her and we made our own little world there in the Laundromat. If it hadn't been for the baby in my arms, it would have been perfect.

"They give me Jennifer all the time," I said. "Once when Frank had to go to the dentist for a toothache, I had to stay home from school to watch the baby so Imelda could work to earn extra money. She has these ladies she cleans house for, not regular anymore, but when they have a party or something like that."

"My mother worked at the University in San Salvador. In payroll."

"How come she came up here?"

"She heard it was better. All the people that came back said you could make all kinds of money here. She came up first, left me with my aunt, and then sent for me four years later. It was like she expected me to be a little girl still, but I was different. I wanted to go out with my friends, but she didn't want me to do anything. And she had a new boyfriend and Carla. I was just an extra person. And not like she remembered me. Sometimes she cleans houses, but she really doesn't like it. She's not very happy here. And now my stepfather beats on me when he drinks. Calls me a chola. My mother tries to stop him, but he'll hit her too so I tell her to stay out of it. I tell her to leave him, but she says he pays most of the bills."

"Frank was different, too. Not like I remembered. He started bossing me around all the time. I don't know. It wasn't what I thought it would be."

"That's what everyone says. You come up here expecting one thing and it's not what you get." She reached out and took Jennifer from my arms. "Come here little Jennifer," she cooed. Jennifer went right to her, didn't put up a fuss or anything.

I heard the first of our washers grind to a halt. All seven of them had been spinning at once. We loaded the dryers, talked, and finally got Jennifer asleep in her stroller.

Later, I told her I'd fold all the clothes, clothes being a kind of personal thing, but she insisted on helping. It was weird having her fold my underwear. I'd never even kissed her and there she stood, folding my underwear. Not that I hadn't thought about kissing her. I thought about it all the time. I was a little scared and then there was the damn scab on my lip. I tried to be nonchalant about her getting her hands all over my shirts and jeans and stuff. But it was getting me turned on.

I wasn't thinking about sex. OK, I was thinking about sex, but we were in the middle of the Fluff and Fold Washette and I had a scab on my lip and even if I didn't, sex was a kind of weird thing with having to worry about STDs and all. The whole thing would have been easier if there was a way not to think about it so damn much. Someone should invent a condom for the brain.

Laundry was just part of the day. When it was finished, Maria helped me haul it back up to our apartment. I made her a fried egg sandwich, which I'm good at. I put on a little mayonnaise, a little relish, a little mustard, one fried egg and three strips of bacon between two pieces of toast. She ate one and I ate two. Then we put Jennifer in her stroller and took off.

It was one of those days where the breeze blows just right and the sun shines just right and everything smells good because the air is clean and it's Saturday. We spent all afternoon in the park. Even Jennifer was OK. She hardly cried at all and when she did she was mostly just hungry. Or wet. Only thing about the day I didn't like was that it went fast, and Maria had to be home by 5:30 to go to some birthday part of her stepfather's family. I'd see her at work on Sunday, but it's not the same as a Saturday all to ourselves.

That same night, my friend Marco and I had a big fight. We were kicking back at the liquor store around the corner from where Marco lived, drinking cokes and playing video games. I was high. Not on beer or anything because all I was having was a coke and a bag of Doritos. But everything felt like a big party. The cars going by outside, a police siren, a helicopter circling overhead, it was all like music to me. I couldn't lose at the game either. I cheered so loud every time I did something good that finally Marco looked over at me and said, "What's up? You fall in love or something?"

"Yeah," I said, keeping my eyes on the screen.

"What?"

I kept playing, but I had a stupid grin on my face.

"You been on suspension," he said. "You ain't even been around girls. When'd you find time to fall in love?"

"Work," I said.

"Who in the hell...?" He stopped. "Maria de Leon?"

"Yeah," I said.

That's when it started going bad. Marco walked out of the liquor store. He didn't say a word to me. Not "goodbye" or nothing.

I hurried out after him. "Marco! Wait up." He was already halfway down the block, but I caught up with him at the corner. "What's up? How come you took off?"

He stepped off the curb, right into traffic, and crossed the street. A big blue Volvo laid on the horn, but Marco didn't even look at the guy, just kept his head down. I dodged a taxi and kept after him. I was jogging to keep up with him. "Where are you going? What's up?" He cut across the street again and headed back towards the liquor store. Finally, I reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. He twisted out of my grip, roughly pushed my hand away. But he stopped. Right in front of Denning's Pet Store where he and I sometimes watched the puppies in the window.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"You ain't gonna want me to tell you what's wrong."

"Why? What are you talking about?"

Marco started to walk away from me, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him back around. He blurted out, "She's Locos 18."

"What?"

"Maria de Leon. She's Locos 18,"

My stomach tightened into a knot. I dropped my hand from his arm. "So?" I said.

"She's a gangbanger, Ricky."

"So what? They're friends, that's all. What the hell do you know about it? You got a family."

"So do you."

"I got nothing."

"You got Frank."

"I got nothing," I said deliberately, emphatically, right in his face. How dare he tell me who my family was or wasn't, him with his father and mother and brothers all going to the park, playing soccer, laughing, always being together.

"What'd Frank do?" Marco asked softly. "Beat you so bad you turned stupid?"

"Shut up about it."

"He knocks the crap out of you, so all of a sudden he's not family anymore? All of a sudden you gotta start gangbanging?"

"I'm not gangbanging." My fists were clenched.

We stared at each other for a long, silent moment, then Marco backed off. "Ah, just forget it, man," he said. He walked to the window of the pet store, looked between the black metal bars of the security gate, and gave a little whistle to the pile of puppies asleep inside. They didn't hear him so he reached his finger through the bars and scratched at the window. One black and white spotted puppy lifted its head, yawned, and snuggled back into the pile.

I waited for him to say something else, but he kept his back to me, looking at the puppies. "The hell with it," I said. I bent down, picked up an empty Pepsi can, set it on end, and stomped it flat. I picked up the flattened can and sailed it, like a Frisbee, down the sidewalk. It skipped twice before it skittered into the gutter.

"You're being stupid, Ricky," Marco said. He turned back to face me. He had his back to the puppies and he was looking me straight in the eyes. "You and I are going to be engineers, remember. Make space rovers and cars. You're going to wreck your whole life for a goddamn chola."

That's when I lost it. I shoved him. Shoved him hard up against the metal bars. They clacked and the sound echoed down the street. In the window, three of the puppies opened their eyes and stood up. I had Marco wedged against the grate, the front of his shirt gripped in my hands and my weight up against him.

"You know how they get into Locos?" he asked, not backing down from me an inch. They battle their way in."

"Shut up about it," I said.

"A girl that wants in," Marco continued, "the girls in the gang beat her up for one minute. Then three of the cholos take over and have sex with her, screw her into the gang."

I pulled Marco forward with one hand and slugged him in the mouth with the other. He crashed into the metal grate again. The black and white spotted puppy wandered to the window to investigate, decided maybe it was time to play, and stood up against the window on his hind legs. Marco put the back of his hand across his mouth and straightened up. When he pulled his hand away from his mouth, I could see the red blood where I'd split his lip.

He didn't clench his fists, didn't do anything but step closer to me. "Once you're in," he said through his swollen lips, "you don't get out. You have to help the gang. If they steal, you have to steal. If they kill, you have to kill. If they decide to hate Mexicans, you have to hate Mexicans."

"I'm not in," I said through clenched teeth.

"Maria's in and she ain't getting out. She screwed the gang to get in."

I pulled back to slug him again, but he ducked under my punch, grabbed me, and shoved me face forward against the grate. The spotted puppy pawed at the window, sniffing the air.

Marco leaned his weight against me. He spoke angrily into my ear. "She screwed three cholos to get in. That's how bad she wanted in." He gave me another shove, then let go. By the time I turned around, he was down the street, turning the corner to his apartment.

I started after him. If he wanted a fight, I'd give him a fight. But he was gone through the front door of his apartment building before I got to him. I exploded. I kicked at a big, black plastic bag of garbage on the curb, split it open, then angrily picked up a metal garbage can and crashed it against the wall of the building. The night air exploded with the sound. It felt good. I picked up the can again and slung it into three others that were lined along the street. All three of them crashed into the street, spreading their garbage into the gutter and under the wheels of passing cars.

I heard windows slam open in the apartment building. A woman shouted, "Hey, you! Kid!" A big man came out on the front steps of the building, hollering something about the cops, so I took off. I ducked down an alley across the street, ran a couple blocks, then slowed to a walk. I passed my apartment building and kept going. I must have walked for miles because when I finally did sneak into the front door of our apartment, the place was pitch-black. The green numbers of the clock on top of the TV said 3:34.

I lay down on my bed. I was tired, but I felt jumpy, like all my nerves were skittering into a gutter. I couldn't sleep at all. I tossed and turned until I saw light starting to come through the window. I heard Jennifer cry, then I heard the TV. I closed my eyes. I wanted to see Maria, talk to her, but she had told me there was no way her mother would let her go out, not with church and having to fix dinner, and work.

I sat up on the edge of the bed, my head in my hands. I felt like all the air had been stomped out of me. I knew I should try to study before I went to work, but I just didn't give a damn about that anymore. I lay back down on the bed, rolled over on my stomach, and buried my head in the pillow. I finally fell asleep and didn't wake up until Frank pounded on the door for me to get ready for work. I felt rotten, but I'd be seeing Maria. That's all I cared about.

On Monday, Frank drove me to work in his blue Toyota. He'd bought it used soon after I got to the states, but someone ripped off the radio and trashed the dashboard. Frank didn't have insurance, so we just drove around with it looking like that. He never said anything, but I know it bothered him. I'd gone with him to pick the car up when he bought it, and I remember the pride in his eyes when he drove it off the lot.

I set my backpack between my feet on the floor. I hadn't studied very much, but I didn't care. I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes. My back didn't hurt anymore. It had been five days since Frank had laid into me, and I was starting to feel normal again. At least on the outside. On the inside, I had a war going on. I couldn't wait to see Maria, but I dreaded seeing Marco. I didn't have any classes with Maria. I had four with Marco.

When Wilkerson and Frank started talking about me like I wasn't even there, the war inside me heated up. I wanted to stay cool, so I straightened out all the pencils and pens on Wilkerson's desk. Then I picked up his coffee mug and studied the black letters on it, rubbed my finger over them, felt the coldness of it. Wilkerson wanted to know what time I was going to bed, what time I got up, did I get breakfast for myself, when did I leave home for the bus, did I have an alarm clock, did I get myself up or what.

Then he asked Frank about me cutting back my hours at work to fifteen or twenty a week. Frank didn't get mad or nothing, but I could see the muscle in his jaw get tight. He told Wilkerson that since Imelda had the baby she couldn't work full-time cleaning houses anymore. So I had to work. There's no way his own income from the supermarket would pay rent, utilities, phone, food and all the other stuff. I guess it was true, too. I don't know. Frank never talked to me about money, just took what he wanted from my paycheck.

"Does he have a quiet place to study and sleep?" Wilkerson asked.

"He's got his own room."

Finally I guessed they realized I was there because Wilkerson asked me if I thought I could get to school on time.

"I guess I have to," I answered.

"I guess you do," said my brother. I wanted to slug the sun of a bitch.

"If there's no way to cut back his hours at work, could you or your wife help him by making sure he's out the door on time in the morning?"

"I'll pound on the door, yeah," said Frank. "But I have myself to get ready and Imelda's got the baby. He can move his own butt."

"Or get it kicked," I said sarcastically.

"You got that right," Frank replied.

At the front gate of the school, Frank put a finger on my chest. "You get suspended again, I'm sending you back to El Salvador. You understand me?"

I'd never hated anybody as much as I hated Frank at that moment. He had his home. Like Marco. Like all the other kids at school who had mothers and fathers who wanted them, who didn't beat them up and threaten to send them away.

"You understand me?" Frank repeated.

I was ready to tell the whole world to go to hell, but I just nodded, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and headed to first period. At nutrition I'd find Maria. I knew where to find her. She hung out behind the ROTC building with the rest of Locos 18.

First thing she told me at nutrition was they were all planning to ditch to the beach the next day and did I want to go. Yeah, I wanted to go. I knew I'd already missed three days. And I knew I had to make up tests. But that didn't matter anymore. I didn't care about tests or grades or school or Marco or anything. I'd given all of that up. Like I'd give up anything to be with Maria.

### Chapter 4

Freedom. Freedom and to hell with the world. That's how I felt on the way to the beach the next day. To hell with Marco and Frank. Frank was in a white apron messing around with lettuce and carrots at Cambden's supermarket. I was in the backseat of a Chevy on my way to the beach with the radio turned up loud, the wind blowing in my hair, and Maria on my lap. What did Frank or Marco or Wilkerson or any of them know about anything? Nothing. I never knew ditching could feel so good.

Maria's head was on my shoulder, her breath warm on my neck. That felt good, too. She had on a black tank top and a pink mini-skirt. I didn't know where to put my hands. I knew where I wanted to put them, but I didn't know where I could put them. I wrapped my arms around her waist so that I was holding her, but not really touching her where she might not want to be touched. She had one arm across my shoulders. With her other hand, she played with a little black cross around her neck. She told me everyone in Locos wore them. It was their sign.

There were eight of us crammed in the car, all Locos 18 but me. I guess I was starting to look like Locos because Maria had taken her black Raiders baseball cap off her head and put it on mine after we'd dumped our backpacks into the trunk of Angel's car in the school parking lot.

Leonardo Blanco and his girlfriend were also in the backseat. They started making out as soon as we pulled away from the school. And older Locos, a guy I didn't know, sat in the middle between Leonardo and his girl and me and Maria. Angel Olivares, his girlfriend Sandra, and her seventh-grade brother were in the front. Sandra's brother kept flipping radio stations, cussing if he didn't like the song, and turning it up real loud if he did.

Angel and Sandra had made up, and she leaned against him like they'd never had a big fight and she'd never looked at Eddy. She was almost sitting in Angel's lap. I didn't care so long as he could keep one hand on the wheel and the car on the road. They smoked one cigarette between them, handing it back and forth. Marlboro without a filter. Someone told me once you could really get cancer with Marlboros. The smoke blew back in our faces because all the windows were open. I didn't care. I wanted to breathe in that smoke. I was tired of being careful.

Finally, about halfway to the beach, I got up my courage to lay my hand on Maria's knee. She snuggled in closer to me and kissed my neck. I guess it was good we were with six other kids because all I could think about was IT. I'd never done IT, but right at that moment that's all I wanted to do. I closed my eyes and thought about Maria and about IT and about how wished I'd found out about ditching a long time ago.

When we got to the beach we sat on the sand for a while. Then Sandra's brother took off his shoes and T-shirt and went in the water. Angel and Sandra went in next. Sandra had her bathing suit on under her shorts and shirt. Maria stood up and took off her pink skirt. The black tank top was really the top of her suit. I couldn't believe how good she looked. I didn't have a suit, so I took off my shoes, rolled them in my T-shirt and went in the ocean in my jeans. It was cold, but not after you got used to it. Mostly I splashed Maria and she splashed me. And we held hands and looked at the water crash in around our ankles. Angel and Leonardo went out to bodysurf, but I didn't want to. I wanted to stay with Maria.

After we got out of the water, we all lay on the sand to dry off. Maria and I spread our two small towels side-by-side and lay down on our stomachs. My legs stretched off the towel onto the sand. I dug my toes in and crossed my arms under my head. My jeans clung to me like cold, clammy skin. Sand scratched on the inside of the legs. The sun shone down on our backs, but it was still early enough in the day to be chilly. I shivered. Goosebumps popped out all up and down my arms and back. Maria laughed and started rubbing my back. We lay on our stomachs like that for a long time, Maria with her hand on my back, rubbing away the cold.

I must have fallen asleep because I was somewhere else, with Marco, and I'd fallen in a river or lake or something. Marco was eating ice cream, laughing. Then I felt the sand under my feet, the warmth of the sun on my back. I opened my eyes, thinking of Marco. I'd have to talk him into ditching with us next time. Then I remembered that I hated Marco. I didn't want him ditching with me. It had been hard enough on Monday having to sit through four classes with him, him not saying anything and me not saying anything, trying to avoid each other, not walk in and out of class at the same time. Then when the 3:00 bell rang in sixth period American history, Marco had turned around to me and said my name, like he wanted to apologize, but I just took my books and left.

I didn't want to think about Marco, so I turned on my side, facing Maria, and propped my head on my elbow. My jeans were scratchy with sand, but they were almost dry and they didn't feel like they were plastered to my legs anymore. The sun had warmed my back and dried my hair against my neck. Everyone else had taken off for pizza but us, and, looking at Maria, I felt good all over.

I reached over and ran a finger up and down her arm. She opened her eyes, turned on her side, and propped herself on her elbow. Man, I couldn't believe how good her breasts looked in that black swimsuit. I gotta admit, I was thinking about IT again when, out of the blue, she said, "Sometimes I wake up in the morning and think I'm not going to make it. I look out the window and all I see is black and gray."

I didn't know what to say. I was about to tell her how beautiful she was and that I thought I loved her. But that didn't seem like the right thing to say anymore. It would be stupid, like I was only trying to make her feel good. She started rubbing her hand slowly up and down my arm, and I thought maybe she was feeling better, but then she lay back down on her stomach. "I just want to be happy." She turned her head away from me.

Now I really didn't know what to do. I reached over and rested my hand on her back. Her skin was warm from the sun, but her long, thick French braid was still damp. I sat up beside her, gently took the rubber band from her hair, slowly undid the braid, and spread her hair across her back so it could dry. She turned on her side and laughed. "So what am I going to do when it dries? I know you don't know how to French braid."

I lay back down beside her, reached over and tucked her hair behind her shoulder. "I want to make you happy," I said. I was serious, but she was still laughing.

"How are you going to make me happy?" I could see she was teasing me, so I was mixed up. I started to shrug, but she leaned toward me, whispered "Like this?" and kissed me. So then I thought maybe it would be OK to tell her how beautiful she was and that I thought I loved her. I did and she smiled. "I've liked you for a long time. I always thought you were cute. Let's not ever break up, OK?" she said. I leaned over, parted her lips with my tongue, and kissed her again for a long, warm time.

We lay there all morning. I finally got the courage to run my finger down her neck, and over her shoulders, and down between her breasts. She reached for my shirt on the sand and pulled it over her shoulders and arms so I could hold her with nobody seeing. I wanted to make love to her so bad, but it's not like there's no people at the beach, even on a day like Tuesday when people should be at work. Being sixteen and in love means you can't ever find a place to be alone. Unless you have a car and can go park some place quiet. I didn't have a car and neither did Maria.

Around noon, Maria said she wanted pizza. I didn't have any money, but she did, so we rolled up our towels and took off for the pier. My shoes were tied together, slung over my shoulder. I held Maria's shoes in one hand and her hand in the other. The sky was blue. The sun was yellow and hot. The sand was warm under my bare feet. I wondered if we'd ever have started going out if Frank hadn't laid into me. Probably not. I never saw who she really was before. It occurred to me that Frank had finally beaten some sense into me. Maybe not what he wanted, but who cared what he wanted. I laughed quietly to myself.

"What?" asked Maria.

"Oh, nothing," I replied. I threw my arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. Her hair fell down her back and smelled like the ocean and the sun.

A big crowed was gather under the pier. It was hard to see who was there because everyone was in the shadows, but as we got closer, I recognized some of the kids from Locos. For a minute I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then I saw Eddy. And behind him a group of Westside Raza gangbangers. Maria must have seen them at the same time because she grabbed my hand and started running toward the pier. "Come on," she yelled.

I was scared. I'd been in fights before, but never a gang fight. As we ran, one shoe thumped against my chest and the other thumped against my back. Just as we got under the pier, the shoe in front flew up and kicked my chin so hard I bit my tongue. I could taste blood in my mouth. When I stopped to spit the blood out, Maria pounded me on the back, thinking I was choking. "I'm OK," I sputtered. We heard Sandra screaming obscenities, and we looked toward the center of the two gangs. Angel and Eddy circled each other in the sand. Sandra stood to one side, cussing them both out.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion. I heard cursing, but I could also hear the waves crashing in again and again. I took a slow, deep breath. Salt. And dead fish.

Locos was faced off against Westside Raza, but no one moved to fight except Angel and Eddy. Then a Raza guy I didn't know cussed me out. He looked too old for high school and he looked big.

I grabbed Maria's arm and pulled her away, but she didn't want to leave. She screamed at Sandra to be careful, to get away. I felt something sharp against the edge of my bare foot. I looked down. A jagged piece of glass from a broken Heinz relish jar stuck up through the sand like a knife. "Be careful," I hollered at Maria above the sound of the waves and the cussing. "There's glass." Either she didn't hear me or she didn't care because she grabbed my hand and pulled me back toward the circle.

Sandra was screaming hysterically. Angel yelled at her to shut up, then reached out a foot, and tripped Eddy. As soon as Eddy was down, Angel pulled a knife. Sandra ran to Eddy and threw herself on top of him, but he shoved her off. She crawled toward Angel, grabbed him around the legs, screamed at him to put the knife away, he'd go to jail. Angel hauled her up by the arm and slapped her away from him. She fell in the sand at Maria's feet.

"Let's get out of here," I yelled. Eddy threw a handful of sand in in Angel's face and jumped up to face him.

Then sirens. Lots of sirens. Everyone froze. I heard a wave hit the pylons. I smelled the dead fish again, the damp sand. I looked down the beach. A yellow lifeguard truck and two cops on ATC's raced toward us, red lights flashing. For a moment no one moved. Then we scattered for the parking lot, for the pier, for the restrooms. Anywhere we could disappear. I grabbed Maria's hand and ran with her to the parking lot. Wee found Angel's car, and I took her in my arms, like we'd been making out the whole time. Kissing was almost impossible. I was so scared, I couldn't catch my breath. Maria was laughing.

No one in our car got picked up by the cops, but Sandra didn't go home with us. She was so mad at Angel, she got a ride with someone else. Her brother rode with us, though, and kept talking about how stupid she was. The guy who'd sat in the middle of the backseat on the way to the beach had moved to the front, but Maria still sat on my lap even thought there was more room. She told Angel he shouldn't have hit Sandra, that she was just trying to keep him from getting into bad trouble. Angel didn't say a word the whole way home. Didn't speed. Didn't take his eyes of the road. Let cars in front of him. It was scary.

Angel dropped us off at school ten minutes before the 3:00 bell rang. After we got our backpacks out of the trunk, he drove off. Maria's bus left before mine, so I hung around with her until she had to get on. My RTD bus pulled up just as I got to the bus stop about a block from school. I crawled on, found a seat in the back, put my backpack on the floor between my legs, leaned back in the seat, and closed my eyes. Frank wouldn't be home from work yet, but Imelda might guess I'd been to the beach instead of school. And she'd tell Frank. I wanted to get a shower before she noticed.

I quietly opened the door of the apartment, peeked in, saw Imelda in the kitchen, and hurried to my room. Across the hall, Jennifer sat in a pink baby swing, suspended by a big, bouncy spring from the doorjamb of the bathroom. She was sound asleep, propped up all around by rolled-up baby blankets. What a stupid place to hang a baby! The bathroom smelled like Comet and toilet bowl cleaner. Imelda had probably hung the swing from the door while she was cleaning the bathroom, then left it there after Jennifer had fallen asleep. Like nobody who lived there would ever have to go to the bathroom.

I glanced toward the kitchen. Imelda dropped bacon into a sizzling hot frying pan, then picked up a mug and took a sip of coffee. She glanced my way. I backed up toward my room, trying to keep her from seeing me. "Don't wake the baby," she called in a loud whisper. "She's been crying all day and I don't want her to wake up." She turned back to the stove and flipped the bacon strips with a spatula. She turned the heat down under the frying pan, and used a fork to move the bacon around in the pan while she drank her coffee.

I looked at Jennifer. Her head was bent to the side, resting on her right shoulder. I had to admit she looked kind of cute all scrunched up in those baby blankets. Maybe I could get away without taking a shower. I looked down at myself. There was already sand in the hall from my shoes. I pulled them off and tossed them into my room, immediately wishing I hadn't because they thumped so loud on the floor that Jennifer jumped, opened her eyes for a second, then snuggled back asleep. There was sand all over my socks, too, so I pulled them off and threw them in my room. There was sand between my toes and I could feel it scratching my legs under my jeans. I was going to have to take a shower.

If I was careful, I could move the swing without waking Jennifer up. I reached to the top of the doorjamb, pried apart the clasp that closed on each side of the door, and carried the swing to Frank and Imelda's room, holding the clamp above my head to keep Jennifer's butt from bouncing on the floor. I spread the clamp open, but when I started to hook it over the door, one side slipped and I had to grab it to keep Jennifer from falling. She swung into the side of the door, not hard enough to hurt herself, but hard enough to wake up with a howl.

Dammit, I thought. "It's OK. It's OK," I whispered. "Go back to sleep." I clamped the swing over the doorjamb and bounced it, trying to get her back to sleep. No luck.

I heard Imelda toss the fork on the counter. She cussed at me when she came into the hallway and saw that I'd moved the swing. "I didn't want her waking up," she said. "How come you moved her?"

"I had to go to the bathroom," I mumbled, but Imelda didn't seem to hear me. She reached into the swing and lifted Jennifer out.

"Sorry," I said.

Imelda didn't say another word to me. Didn't look at me either, just went back in the kitchen with Jennifer. I was stupid to think she would notice I'd been to the beach. She never noticed anything about me. Her and the baby. And her damn angels. That's all she cared about.

There was still Frank to worry about, so I stripped off my sandy jeans and tossed them under the bed. I brushed as much sand as I could off my legs, then swept the sand under the bed with the towel I'd had at the beach. It was full of sand, too, so I finally had to use my T-shirt to finished the job.

I peeked out the door. Imelda was still in the kitchen with Jennifer, so I stepped quietly across the hall into the bathroom, closed the door, stripped off my underwear, and got in the shower. I didn't usually take a shower after school, but if Imelda asked, which she probably wouldn't, I'd say I got knocked in the dirt in P.E. and needed to clean up for work.

I had so much sand in my hair, I had to wash it twice. When I turned off the water, I noticed sand in the bottom of the tub. Imelda might not notice me, but she would notice if I made a mess. I turned the water on again, took a washcloth, and tried to swish the sand toward the drain. I was so intent on getting every grain of sand that when there was a loud knock on the door, I jumped about a foot and knocked my head on the sink.

"Ow," I said, dropping the wet washcloth on the floor. I rubbed my head.

"I gotta use the bathroom. What's taking so long?"

"I'll be right out," I yelled, over the sound of the tub water "Just making sure I leave the tub clean." That sounded lame. I finally washed the last grain of sand down the drain and wiped up the floor with my towel. The bathroom looked about the same as when I came in. I didn't have a clean towel to wrap around me, so I peeked out the door, saw Imelda had gone back to the kitchen, and hurried across the hall to my room.

I hadn't gone to school that day, but I did learn something. Next time I ditched to the beach, I was going to shower off under one of those outside showers. And maybe I could save my money and get a bathing suit. Anything to make ditching easier.

Marco came into McDonalds that night and got in my line. He ordered a large coke, gave me the money, and asked, "Where were you today?" I shrugged, looked over his shoulder, and asked the next guy in line if I could help him. Marco took his coke and left, which was fine with me.

On Wednesday morning I wrote my own excuse note. It said I'd been sick on Tuesday. I signed Frank's name to it and met Maria outside the attendance office at school. She had her hair down, pulled back with a purple ribbon. She had on tight black jeans, a yellow tank top, and a white shirt, unbuttoned and tied around her waist. I wanted my arms around her a lot more than I wanted to go to biology, so after we'd gotten our absentee slips, I asked if she wanted to ditch first period with me under the football bleachers. She did.

We were halfway across the football field when I heard the 7:50 bell ring. I didn't see any assistant principals around or campus cops. The green field had just been mowed and I could smell the cut grass. The sky was blue and the sun was warm. By the time the first period tardy bell rang at 8:00, Maria was in my arms and my hands were under her tank top.

It was a great place to make out, just behind the locker room where the visiting football team changed. A small gray cinder block concession stand stood on the backside of the locker room, with about a five-foot-space between the two. A campus cop had to be right on top of you to catch you ditching. Whoever designed the football field for Harrison High School didn't know teenagers at all. You didn't leave spaces where kids could ditch and make out because what they'd do is ditch and make out. At least that's what Maria and I did first period. All week. Except for Friday. Friday we ditched to the beach again. Sandra went with us. She and Angel had made up, again. No gang fights at the beach. No cops. Nothing wrong at all except that I couldn't figure out how to get Maria and me alone.

Saturday morning I didn't have to work and Maria did, so when Frank asked me if I wanted to shoot hoops over at the park I said yes. As we walked past Marco's place on our way to the park, Marco and his two younger brothers, Carlos and Miguel, piled out the front door, carrying a football. Frank right away invited them to play basketball with us. I didn't say a word to Marco all the way to the park, not even hi, but Frank teamed us together against the two younger boys and him.

The concrete of the basketball court was hot and it wasn't long before we'd all taken our T-shirts off and thrown them in a heap at the foot of the big chainlink fence that surrounded the court. Next to the basketball court were two tennis courts that were already in use when we got there. Occasionally a tennis ball popped into our court. One of the tennis players would shout "Ball!" and we'd have to stop our game and toss the ball back.

Frank was so much bigger and stronger than either Marco or me that most of the time we didn't have a chance. When he drove to the basket he made a basket. The only time we could steal the ball was when one of Marco's brothers tried to dribble past us. Frank played hard and he didn't give an inch. A couple of times he knocked me down and I scraped the palms of my hands on the hot concrete. When Marco and I finally stopped one of his drives and stole the ball away from him, we were so happy that we forgot about being mad at each other. We high-fived and threw our arms around each other.

The next time I had the ball, Frank slapped it out of my hands, crashing it into the middle of the chainlink fence. I protested, but he grabbed me in a playful headlock. He ruffled my hair and patted me on the cheek. "Throw me the ball," he yelled at little Carlos who had been dribbling the ball while Frank horsed around with me. Frank took it on the run and drove to the basket while Marco and I just stood there. "Two Points," he shouted, pointing at us with both hands.

"Not fair," Marco and I hollered in unison. But the basket counted.

Two hours later, walking home with Big Gulps Frank bought us at the 7/11, I felt great all over, despite my skinned hands, the sweat running down the back, and my aching legs. Maybe Frank would be OK again, like in the old days when it was just the two of us with our grandparents. He looked out for me then. Things seemed to be OK between Marco and me, too. Maybe it would be like before, but better because now there was Maria. And then, on Monday, I got my report card.

### Chapter 5

Three C's, two D's, and an F. I folded the computer-printed six-week report card and stuck it in my jeans pocket. I had seven absences in most of my classes because we'd ditched to the beach a couple times a week. And there were the days I was suspended. That seemed like a million years ago. I'd written my own excuse notes and signed Frank's name to them, so he had no idea about the absences. I still had only six tardies in first period, but it wasn't because I was finally getting to biology on time. I wasn't going at all. I spent first period under the football bleachers with Maria. The F was in biology.

Maria wasn't at school that day because she'd gone with her stepfather to take her mother and little sister to the airport. They were going to El Salvador because of some family emergency. Maria had called the night before and said that her grandmother might have to go to the hospital. Anyway, I'd planned to meet Marco for nutrition. His second period room was close to the cafeteria, so he said he'd hold a place in line for me.

When the bell rang for nutrition, I shoved my books in my backpack and hurried out the classroom door. My second period room was on the third floor and by the time I'd gotten down to the first floor, Mr. Wilkerson was already on door supervision for first floor C-wing.

"How come you always have to come out my door?" he joked, grabbing me by the back of the neck and punching me in the arm. "Go out someone else's door once in a while. I don't need the grief."

"Yeah, you do," I joked back. I made like I was going to box with him. He threw a fake punch at my stomach. He sure could mess around for someone who always wore a necktie and a white shirt buttoned up to his neck and down to his wrists.

"How'd you do on your report card?" he asked, holding out his hand. He was like that. He always wanted to look at kids' report cards and talk to them about grades and how they were doing. Some teachers and administrators didn't stick their noses into your business like that, but he did. My American history teacher was like that, too, and I was already planning to ditch out of sixth period so I wouldn't have to deal with her questions. What they didn't understand was that nothing was wrong. I could pull my grades up if I wanted to. I would, too. Later, when I felt like it.

I didn't want to show the report card to him, so I tried to move past him and out the door. "I gotta get to nutrition," I said. "Marco's waiting for me."

He grabbed my shoulder playfully. "Go out my door and you have to pay up," he said. "Let me see your report card."

I tried to twist away, but he tightened his grip. "OK! OK!" I dug into my pocket, pulled out the report card, and gave it to him.

Wilkerson unfolded it and whistled softly as he looked it over. I glanced out the door to the cafeteria food line. It already stretched into the quad. Marco would hold a place for me if I could sneak in without a supervisor seeing me, but the line went fast and Marco might already be through.

"What's up?" Wilkerson asked, handing the report card back to me.

"Nothing," I muttered. A tall kid in a black Raiders jacket tried to squeeze past us into the hallway. Wilkerson turned his attention away from me, but clamped his hand on my shoulder to keep me from leaving.

"Hold it, young man," he said to the kid. "Where's your hall pass." Wilkerson blocked the door. It never occurred to any of these teachers or administrators that some of these kids could kill them with one punch.

"I don't have a pass. I..."

"Halls are closed at nutrition."

"But my teacher said..."

"You need a pass to come into the halls at nutrition," Wilkerson repeated in the same, calm voice. The kid shoved his hands in his pockets and rolled his eyes to the sky, like he was trying to figure out how anybody as stupid as Wilkerson could ever have been born, let alone gotten a job at a school. The kid didn't cuss out loud, but I saw his lips form the words. So did Wilkerson, but he didn't react. I thought maybe this would be a good chance to get away, so I started through the door, but Wilkerson hauled me back.

I could see this kid's mind working at full speed, trying to come up with an excuse. He came up with a feeble one. "My teacher says I gotta make up a test," he said.

"Tell your teacher you need a pass to come into the halls at nutrition," Wilkerson replied. The kid finally gave up and turned away. He went down the steps to the quad, cussing under his breath.

Wilkerson turned his attention back to me. "What happened to your grades?" he asked. I shrugged. "You used to get A's and B's." I shrugged again. He handed me my report card, and I tucked it in my pocket. It wasn't like he was my father or something. I didn't have to tell him anything.

I heard loud laughter up the stairs, around the corner from the first landing. "Stay here," Wilkerson said. He walked to the stairs. "Come on down from there," he called up to the second floor. "You need to be outside." He waited a second, heard nothing, then took the stairs two at a time to the second floor. I heard his voice. "Get on down the stairs and outside. It's nutrition. No one's supposed to be in the halls."

Five kids came piling down the stairs in front of him. Wilkerson pointed them out the door. "Hallways are closed. You know that."

"We're not in the halls," one of the girls said as she walked out the door. She looked back at Wilkerson. "We're outside." He smiled.

Turning his attention back to me, Wilkerson asked, "What's your brother going to say?"

"I don't care," I mumbled.

Two girls, both of them in Chicago Bulls jackets, entered the opposite end of the hall and tried to disappear up the front stairs. "Young ladies," Wilkerson yelled down the hall. He pulled out his walkie-talkie, punched a button and spoke into it. "I've got two heading up the front stairs second floor C-wing."

"I gotta go," I said. I edged toward the door. "Marco is waiting for me. I'm gonna miss nutrition."

"Show that progress report to your brother. Talk to him. You don't make it to college with D's and F's," he said.

"I know," I mumbled as I ducked out the door and down the stairs.

Marco was almost at the front of the line, just before it disappeared inside the door to the cafeteria. I cut in without getting caught. The supervisor had her attention on a shoving match at the back of the line. We got our breakfast, which was an apple, a cheese muffin, and a carton of red juice, and sat on a concrete wall in the quad to eat. Marco and I hadn't hung out for a while. It was getting better, but it still wasn't like the old days.

On the steps of the outdoor concrete stage, a bunch of kids danced to loud rap music in a circle. A lot of kids stood around them, clapping and dancing in place. A bunch of ESL kids sat in the sun on the green grass that stretched out from the stage to the front wing of the school.

I heard the rumble of a police helicopter and looked up to see it circling in the blue sky above the school, then head off, probably for the next high school. Like saying to us, "Don't do it. Don't fight. We're here."

Funny thing is, I always felt safe at school. Everyone must have. I mean there were these little five-foot tall lady teachers who must be in their fifties and sixties walking around with all these big gangbangers who shave and wear baggy pants around their hips even through it was against dress code. I saw one little old white lady teacher walking past a six-foot tall gangbanger just as his size-56 pants fell down around his ankles. His homeboys howled. When he bent down to pull his pants up, she walked right on by, not staring, but not averting her eye, either. Like it didn't bother her at all. She had gray hair, too. That's how old she was.

"How'd you do on your report card?" Marco asked.

We hadn't talked since we sat down to eat and his question took me by surprise. "Huh?"

"Your report card. How'd you do?" he repeated. I took a bite of apple, dug into my pocket, and handed the report card to him. "Frank's gonna be pissed," he said, as he handed it back.

"He's not going to find out," I said, as I ripped it up into tiny pieces and stuffed them into my empty juice carton. I was getting tired of having to talk about it anyway. "How'd you do?" I asked. Marco said he'd gotten all A's except for a B in American history. The bell rang for third period so we tossed our trash and took off together for algebra.

I ended up going to American history sixth period because Maria was gone, so there was nothing to do if I ditched. And the teacher, Miss Boudreaux, was kind of cool. If she asked me about my report card, I'd just tell her I lost it and that I did OK.

Miss Boudreax didn't have her own room. She traveled from room to room during the day because the school was so crowded. Our class was on the first floor and she had to come down from the third floor, so we always had to wait in the hallway until she arrived from her fifth period class, carrying a briefcase slung over her shoulder and a gray plastic tub, filled with desk stuff. She called it her cubby.

We were used to the routine. "Take my cubby," she'd say as she pulled a plastic, stretchy ring off her wrist with a key on it. One of us would take the cubby from her and she'd unlock the door. We'd get inside the room about the time the tardy bell rang.

Across from the hallway door, on the opposite side of the room, was a door that led outside to the ROTC area. One of us opened the door because the thermostat in the room was broken and it never got below ninety degrees except in the winter. Sometimes a small breeze came through the back of the room, but not often. Trouble is, the ROTC marching area was just outside, so we'd have to put up with "Hup, two, three, four" throughout most of sixth period. The times when the whole ROTC squad was marking cadence in unison, Miss Boudreaux couldn't make herself heard. She'd smile, though.

I was waiting for her to ask us about our report cards, but she got so involved explaining our Revolutionary War projects and dividing us into groups that she forgot all about them. It wasn't a great room for groups because all the desks were bolted down, facing the front, but she did groups a lot and we got used to sitting on the writing part of the desk, putting on feet on the seat and facing each other.

I ended up in a group with Marco, Eddy, and two girls. One of the girls was the A student. Marco was the B student. The other girl and I were the C students and Eddy was the D student. We didn't even have to look at reports to know what we all had for grades. That's how teachers set these things up. And then we were all supposed to help each other pass.

I didn't like being with Eddy. He looked like all the other Westside Raza gangbangers with his hair slicked back, his black pants baggy around his hips, and his big white T-shirt. He didn't do anything, just sat there and looked at me. I tried to ignore him, but I knew he was trying to bait me because I'd been hanging around with Locos 18. His notebook was covered with gang writing and while we sat there I watched him write Locos 18, then cross it out. I don't know why it made me angry, but it did.

I looked away and tried to concentrate on what Marco and the girls were saying about meeting at the library after school and at Marco's place on Friday night to practice for the final oral report. Marco was from Mexico. One of the girls was from Syria and the other was from Korea. It was only me that was going to have trouble with Eddy.

When the 3:00 bell rang, Marco waited to walk out with me, but I told him I had to talk to Miss Boudreaux.

"What's up?" he asked.

"It's Eddy," I said. Marco shoved his books in his backpack. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then he closed it again. "What?" I asked.

"Nothing," he replied.

"What were you going to say?"

"Forget it man," he said. "I gotta go. See you tomorrow."

"Marco," I said, exasperated, but he slung his backpack over his shoulder and left. Well, the hell with him. He didn't understand what it was like. I wasn't banging with the Locos, but Eddy wanted to act like I was, so it wasn't my fault. I told Miss Boudreaux what was going on and she put me in a different group.

I'd really missed Maria at school, so I couldn't wait to see her at McDonalds. She told me her stepfather was being OK to her. I was worried about what he might do with Maria's mother gone, but she said he'd never bothered her, only hit her sometimes when he got drunk.

After work, I put my arm around her and we walked to her place as slow as we could so we could have more time together. She said not to worry about my grades. She'd flunked biology the year before and finally they put her in physical science and she got a D in that. She said it didn't matter anyway because that was the kind of stuff you didn't have to know.

A couple of buildings away from the stairs that went up to her apartment, we'd found a place in the recessed doorway of a pawnshop where we could make out. Most nights after work, that's where we'd be until Maria said she had to go, her mother would be looking for her. That night I didn't want to let her go. When she put her arms around me, I backed against the iron grate that locked across the front door of the pawn show. The hard metal bars pressed into my back. I was warm all over. Every time she started to pull away, saying she had to get upstairs, I'd pull her back into my arms. We must have stayed there an hour so so. I don't know. It seemed like forever and it seemed like only a second.

It was dark, with only a little light from the street reflecting into the doorway. My hands were under Maria's shirt, under her bra. I finally got the courage to drop one hand to the hem of her mini-skirt. I was just starting to lift it when something blocked out what little light there was. I smelled alcohol. I opened my eyes, looked up, and let out an involuntary sound. A man was there. A big man. My fear scared Maria and she spun around, letting out a scream. She tugged her shirt down.

"Get the hell upstairs," the man said gruffly. His voice was coarse, like gravel.

She leaned back against me, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her into the street. "I said get the hell upstairs," he repeated, shoving her. I took a step toward him to protect her, but she caught my eye and shook her head no. "It's OK," she said. "It's my stepfather." He took a step toward her. She disappeared down the street toward the stairs to her apartment. I wanted to throw up.

Her stepfather had on a sleeveless white T-shirt. He might have been old, but his muscles looked huge. On one arm, right over the muscle, there was a tattoo of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns. Blood dripped from Jesus' forehead down his face. When Maria's stepfather took a step toward me, clenching his fists and flexing his muscles, the tattooed drops of blood looked like they were moving, like they were real.

He said something, but his words were slurred. My heart was beating so loud in my ears, I couldn't have heard him anyway. I shook my head to clear it. He spoke again. "Keep your hands off her," he said. His face was inches from mine. The smell of liquor made me dizzy. He put his arms on either side of my head, gripping the metal bars of the grate. He didn't touch me, but his huge arms imprisoned me.

He leaned his face closer to mine, "I ever catch you with your hands up her shirt again, I'll kill you." I was so scared I couldn't talk, just looked from his eyes to the hard line of his mouth. Yelling would have been easier. Even hitting. I desperately wanted to say something, but my mouth was dry and my tongue was paralyzed.

He grabbed me by the arms, digging his fingernails into my muscles. I tensed, ready to fight, but he didn't hit me. "Understand?" he said quietly.

I finally got my head to nod yes. He let go of me, turned around, and left. I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest. I put my hands on my knees for a second, dropped my head down, and tried to calm down. I breathed slow and deep until my knees stopped shaking. I finally stepped out on the street. He stood at the foot of the stairs looking at me. I wanted to go upstairs to Maria, keep her safe, but I knew I couldn't get past him. "Don't you do anything to her." I said. I wanted to be strong, but my voice was shaking. "We didn't do anything, just kissed."

He didn't say a word, but didn't look away either. "We didn't do anything," I repeated. He took a step toward me, so I quickly turned the other way, not running, but ready to run if I heard him behind me. At the corner I glanced back. He'd stopped, but he was still looking at me. I turned the corner to get out of his line of sight. A block later I had to stop. I leaned against the wall of a dry cleaner and closed my eyes. I'd been holding my breath. I let it out and tried to breathe in again. Maria was upstairs in her apartment and I had to go home to mine. She had to face her stepfather and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. I'd never felt so helpless in my life.

Frank was usually asleep when I got home at night, but that night he was waiting up for me. "Where the hell you been?" he asked. He didn't yell, probably because Jennifer was asleep, but I could tell he was angry. He didn't wait for an answer either, just grabbed me by the arm and hauled me into the living room.

I made my mind work fast. "Someone didn't show up for their shift and they needed help, that's all. I stayed late at work."

Frank pushed me down into a chair. Either he believed me or else he didn't care why I was home late because then he got to what was really bothering him. "Wilkerson called from school today. Said you'd been absent a lot of times. That you had a note from home each time. I haven't written a note since last year when you had the flu."

By now my mind was working full speed, thinking up excuses. "I'm just tired from going to school and working and sometimes I fall asleep out on the bleachers where no one can see me, that's all. I write notes that I've been sick and sign your name because I want the absence to be excused so I can make up the work."

"Make up the work? Wilkerson said you had an F. Let me see your report card," he said holding out his hand.

"I don't have it," I mumbled. Frank didn't move. "I threw it away," I added, hoping the truth would calm him down a bit.

He dropped his hand and walked away from me a couple of steps, shaking his head. I put my elbows on my knees and stared down at my shoes. The rotating seashell lamp on the TV changed colors in the dim room, reflecting off my shoes. Yellow, then orange. Yellow. Orange. It was so quiet, I could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen.

Frank broke the silence. "I'm not working so hard so you can screw around. Screw up again and you can forget everything. College. Everything. I'll send you back to El Salvador."

Maria's stepfather and now this. I lost it. "I already work thirty hours a week, you son of a bitch."

Frank smacked me across the mouth. I pushed my way out of the chair, ready to fight, but he shoved me back down and jabbed his finger into my chest, punctuating each word. "I'm tired of you causing me trouble. I got too much to do. I don't need you causing me trouble." He stepped back.

I jumped up and bolted for the door, opened it, but froze when I heard Frank's voice. "You go out that door, you don't come back. You understand me?" I stood looking out in the hallway. I hated what was behind me, but I was scared of what was out the door. It seemed like I stood there for hours. By the time I turned around, Frank had disappeared into his bedroom. I pulled one of Frank's beers out of the refrigerator, popped the top, and sat on the couch, staring at the changing colors of the yellow and orange seashell lamp until morning.

### Chapter 6

The next morning, Maria met me under the football bleachers and asked if I wanted to ditch to her house. Her mother and little sister were in El Salvador. Her stepfather was at work. The apartment was empty. I knew what she meant and I was ready. I was tired of waiting. I felt like I'd spent most of my life waiting. Waiting for Frank to send for me in El Salvador. Waiting for time to pass so I could go to college, get a good job, get my own place. Waiting for time alone with Maria. Did I want to ditch to her place? Yeah, I wanted to ditch.

The outfield fence of the baseball field had a place where it dipped down and you could get a good handhold along the side fence where it connected with the football field. I tossed our backpacks over the fence, helped Maria over, then climbed up myself and jumped down onto the sidewalk. We'd have to catch an RTD bus to her place, but we didn't want to wait at the bus stop close to the school. Someone from the school might see us.

I grabbed Maria's hand and we ran to the bus stop six blocks away. We sat next to the window in the back of the bus. I pulled her close to me. Her hair smelled like flowers. When she rested her hand on my leg, I wanted to kiss her, but I was afraid the driver would throw us off the bus if we started making out.

Walking up the stairs to her apartment, I half expected her stepfather to jump out at us. Like maybe he'd been fired or come home sick. He'd kill me or at least half-kill me. But the apartment was quiet. I smelled fried eggs and salsa, burnt coffee and toast, left-over smells from breakfast.

"What's that?" Maria asked.

"What?" I looked around nervously.

I followed her into the kitchen. The coffee-maker was still on from breakfast and the half-inch of black coffee in the bottom of the glass pot was thick ands stinky, like Mr. Wilkerson's coffee. Maria turned the coffee pot off. "I'll clean it up after school," she said. "You want a soda or something?" I nodded and she took two Pepsis out of the refrigerator. We popped the tops and stood awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen.

I took a long, cool sip. I wasn't sure what to do or say. I mean, was I supposed to just come out and say, "Well, let's go to the bedroom," or what? And it wasn't like there was a couch in the kitchen where I could casually sit down and pull Maria down beside me. Back at the bus stop and on the bus, I couldn't wait to get to her place. Now that we were finally alone, I felt like a kindergartner, like I needed some old, gray-haired teacher to say, "Now, boys and girls, this is what we do next." I'd never done IT before, but I didn't want to look like I was brand new at it. I looked around, trying to appear casual. There was a small window over the sink, and over the window a large pink and blue crucifix.

"Are you Catholic?" I asked.

"My mom is," Maria said. "My stepdad's Pentecostal." I thought about the tattoo of Jesus on his arm. "He's trying to get my mom to turn Pentecostal, but I don't care. My best friend in El Salvador gave it to me before I left. I'm not taking it down even if we do turn Pentecostal. Come on," she said, taking my hand. "I'll show you my room. I got myself a new TV."

She led me into to her bedroom. I don't know why I'd gotten so worried. I didn't have to say anything and there we were. I was stirred up and scared all at the same time. Scared of doing something wrong, scared of her stepfather coming home. But I could stand being scared. I would have been willing to put up with anything for what was going to happen.

The TV was on a white table against the wall at the foot of Maria's bed. She snapped it on and turned the channel till she found _The Price is Right_. "I was saving money for college, you know, because I've been thinking about being a doctor, but when I saw the TV I wanted it so bad. I love it."

I took another sip of Pepsi. I glanced at Maria's bed. The purple bedspread was covered with little pink and yellow flowers. And there were stuffed animals all over the bed. Dogs. Cats. Bears. There was a fuzzy red heart that said "I love you" and a pink bunny with big floppy ears.

Maria sat on the end of the single bed and I sat beside her. There wasn't a lot of room, but that was OK because when I put my arm around her shoulders, she leaned in close to me, her one arm resting across my legs. I took a deep breath. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to push the stuffed animals off on the floor, or take them off carefully, one by one and set them someplace, like on her dresser. But the dresser was covered with makeup and stuff like that. And maybe taking the animals off one by one seemed like I wasn't being cool, like I wasn't letting things happen the way they were supposed to happen. I didn't know what to do.

So even though I didn't really want to watch TV, we sat there drinking our sodas and watching _The Price is Right_. It seemed like we were concentrating on the show, cheering on the people, telling them to bid higher or lower, but I wasn't really thinking about that and I don't think Maria was either. By the time the contestants got to "Showcase Showdown" Maria and I were kissing. Still sitting on the end of the bed, but kissing.

Then my brain quit working and I quit worrying. It didn't matter to me what I was supposed to do about the stuffed animals. Something else took over, and I didn't think about what to do or how to do it or condoms or anything. I just shoved the damned stuffed animals on the floor, pulled Maria down on the bed beside me, and my hands were all over her. I don't know how we got our clothes off, but we did, and IT happened. Without a condom. Without any protection at all.

It was kind of fast the first time. But then we did it again, and it took longer, and I wondered why people who were married or lived together didn't have sex all the time because it felt better that anything I'd ever felt before in my life. If I was married to Maria, I wouldn't go to the movies or the grocery store or anything. Just spend all day in bed doing it.

After we got dressed, Maria got us another soda out of the refrigerator. "I guess we should get condoms or something," I said, as she handed me the Pepsi.

She shrugged. "Well, I'm not going to get pregnant because it's the wrong time of the month."

We went back into her room because she wanted to watch a soap opera that was on at that time. We crawled into bed again, and even though I hated soaps, I didn't care. It felt good to lie back against the pillows together, drink our sodas, and watch TV. I'd never been happier in my whole life. I glanced at the clock beside her bed. It was the beginning of third period. If I hadn't met Maria, I would have been in school, sitting in an uncomfortable desk, listing to my English teacher talk about similes or metaphors or some stupid thing like that. I set my Pepsi down on the end table, turned to Maria, and brushed my hand through her hair.

"What?" she said, as she pushed my hand away. "Come on. I want to watch my show."

I didn't stop, though, because I really hated soaps and I really loved her. We ended up doing it again and that was the best time of all.

We got back to school by fifth period. About ten minutes into class, the phone rang. The teacher answered it, looked my way, and nodded his head yes. Five minutes after that I received a summons from Mrs. Martinez in the ESL office. She was the ESL counselor and everyone liked her, but everyone was scared of her, too. She wouldn't let you get away with anything. She'd call home faster than anyone at the school. She was short, and she always wore high heels. She could walk louder in high heels than anyone I ever knew.

When I walked in her office, she started in on me right away. "Where were you all morning?"

"School," I muttered.

"Huh uh," she said, shaking her head no. "I sent a summons for you periods one through four, and every teacher said you were absent. Mr. Wilkerson told me he thought you'd been ditching and to check on you." I slouched down in the chair and crossed my arms over my chest. Why couldn't these people leave me alone? "What's going on?" she asked. As she talked she pulled up my records on her computer.

I looked at the floor. Thought of Maria. Wished I was back at her place.

"What's this? You've gone from A's and B's to C's, D's and an F. How come you have an F? You should have an A in biology. What's going on?" I didn't say a word. I didn't even look up at her. "Huh uh, young man," she said, slapping her hand down on the desk so loud it made me jump. "You're not getting away with this. Mr. Wilkerson told me he had to call your brother about your tardies. I'll call him again if you miss any more classes. Miss just one class and I'll call your brother."

"What if I'm sick?"

"No, Sir! Don't give me any excuses at all. I don't want to hear one single excuse out of your mouth," she said. "You're on attendance check." She reached into her desk and handed me a piece of paper with places on it for every teacher to sign to prove I'd showed up. She wrote the date at the top and crossed out the first four periods with a black marker. "Write your name on the top," she said. "You're on attendance check starting today, this minute. Turn this in before you go home."

I took the paper, set it on the desk, and felt in my pockets for a pencil or pen. Empty. " Could I borrow a pen?" She handed me one and I wrote my name on the top.

"Don't show up for class without a pen or pencil, you understand me? And paper and your textbook. I'm not going to put up with this."

"They're in my backpack in fifth period. You didn't tell me on the summons to bring a pen. You want me to bring a pen, tell me to bring a pen." I'd never talked to Mrs. Martinez like that before, but she was getting on my nerves.

"Ricardo, if you want to keep up that attitude, I'll call your brother at work right now." She picked up her phone. She held it to her ear and punched in the numbers on the computer screen. She held the phone out to me so I could hear it ring.

We had a stare-down for four rings until I heard, "Cambden's Supermarket. May I help you?"

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"I must have dialed incorrectly," she said into the phone. "Sorry to inconvenience you." She hung up the phone and looked at me. "You're to pick up an attendance check every morning in the the attendance office. Early. You may not be tardy to first period because you're in the attendance office picking up an attendance check. Do you understand that? You get up earlier, if you have to. Catch an earlier bus. Do whatever you have to do, but you get here by 7:30 and pick up the attendance check. After school bring it to my office. I'm on bus supervision, but you can give it to the secretary. Every day. You miss one day, one period, and I'll call your brother to come in for a conference. Do you understand me? I know your brother and I know he doesn't want to be bothered with coming to school for a conference about you during work hours, but I'm not going to mess around with you on this, Ricardo. You've got too good a record to go messing it up now."

I thought she was going to yell at me for the rest of fifth period and on through sixth period until the 3:00 bell rang. She wrote out a hall pass for me to get back into fifth period. "What's going on? What's up?" she asked when she handed it to me.

"Nothing," I said. I didn't look at her, just looked down at the attendance check in my hands, folded it and unfolded it.

"You started working last summer. Is that too much for you? Do you want me to talk to your brother about that?"

I shook my head no.

"Are you still hanging around with Marco? He's a good student. Maybe he can help you get your grades up."

"Maybe," I muttered.

"I don't know what's going on, but it doesn't help that you don't want to talk about it."

I was ready to get out of there, so I stood up. "Can I go?"

She shook her head yes. "I want your teacher to sign for fifth even through class is about over. I want to know you went back to class." I opened the door of her office. "Be quiet in the halls," she said.

Yeah, I thought. Like your high heels. They're so loud in the halls nobody can think and if there's a test, everybody gets an F. I was mad. I was mad at her and mad at Wilkerson for talking to her.

I got my fifth period teacher to sign the attendance check, but I didn't pay any attention to what he said the rest of class. Maria's mother was in El Salvador for a couple of weeks. Her stepfather would be at work every day. We had two weeks we could ditch in the morning to her apartment. And I was on a damn attendance check. Every day. Every period.

At 3:00 I met Maria in front of the school. She told me first thing that Angel and Sandra had a big screaming fight at lunch. "They told me he flirted with some girl at nutrition," she said. "He probably did. He can be so stupid. Anyway she's really pissed at him. Everyone broke it up before they got in trouble, but he's so stupid."

We set our backpacks on the ground by the school bus. Kids were getting on the bus, but it wouldn't leave for a few minutes so we stood outside. Maria took my hand. "You want to ditch again tomorrow?" She looked so good, I ached all over.

"Mrs. Martinez put me on an attendance check," I said.

"That doesn't mean anything," she said. "They can't really do anything to you. What are they gonna do? Send you to jail because you ditch? They haven't sent me to jail yet."

"They'll call my brother."

"Yeah, but what can he do? What can any of them do? I mean they might hit you and stuff, but so what. They can't control you. If you want to ditch, you can ditch. Let them hit you."

The bus driver climbed on the bus. Maria kissed me quickly. "Angel can be so stupid," she said again.

"Yeah," I said. "Bye. See you at work." She waved out the window, kissed her finger, and pressed it against the glass.

Mr. Wilkerson was on bus supervision, so I wandered over and told him I needed to talk to him. I was mad at him for calling Frank about my report card and for getting Mrs. Martinez on my back about ditching, but I knew I could get condoms from him. I could get them from Mrs. Martinez, too, or the school nurse, but they were girls and it would be too embarrassing.

I hung around outside until the last of the school buses pulled away. Then Mr. Wilkerson motioned to me and I followed him inside to his office. If I missed my RTD bus, I could catch a later one.

I wanted to get condoms from him, but I didn't know how to start.

"What's up?" he asked.

I felt my mouth go dry and my cheeks get hot. I waited too long because he ended up speaking first.

"Did your brother tell you I'd called about your report card?"

"Yeah," I said. "He jumped all over me. How come you called?"

Wilkerson picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, made a face, and slid the mug across the desk. "Get me some fresh, would you?" he asked. These people think we're like waiters or something. I dumped the coffee in the water fountain in the hall and filled it up in the front office. It still smelled like tar.

I took the cup back to Mr. Wilkerson. He took a sip, made another face, put the mug down, and pushed it away. And they say kids don't ever learn. He rocked back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. "You've been ditching school and your grades show it."

"So what," I said, angrily. "You don't know what it's like." Dammit, I thought. I was trying to get condoms and here we were again, talking about my grades.

Wilkerson looked at me, real calm, like he'd heard it all before. "I don't have to understand. I just have to stay on your tail until you decide to make it or not."

"Yeah, sure," I said. "How come you told Mrs. Martinez? How come you didn't just talk to me?"

"Because she's your counselor."

"But she's got me on a damn attendance check."

"Good."

I stood up. Still mad. Still not a word about condoms. I took a deep breath, desperately trying to get up my courage to ask him for condoms.

"Is that all?" he asked. I let out my breath.

"Yeah," I said. "That's all.

### Chapter 7

I took a long, hot shower the next morning. After I'd washed my hair, I stood under the nozzle and let the hot water run down my neck and shoulders. I felt different, like a brand new person. And I couldn't stop thinking about Maria. I was angry, too. Why did I have to be on an attendance check when Maria's mother was out of town. "Hurry up!" hollered Frank, pounding on the door. "Water costs money." Like I didn't know that water costs money. He pounded on the door again. "Turn it off!"

I turned off the faucet. "It's off," I hollered back. Man, I was never going to get so old I'd worry about stupid stuff like how much water costs. Back in my room I pulled on my jeans and T-shirt and went to get breakfast.

Imelda was at the kitchen table giving a bottle to Jennifer. Frank had gone in the bathroom to shave. I scooped some fried potatoes onto a plate and poured myself a cup of coffee. "Get me a cup, too," said Imelda. I poured another one and put it on the table in front of her.

The potatoes were spicy, full of onions, peppers, and jalapenos. I ate a plateful, reached for a slice of pan dulce, took a bite, and stirred sugar and milk into my coffee.

I glanced at Imelda. She had on one of Frank's old red T-shirts and a pair of black slacks with the hem out of one leg. She didn't look as old as some of the teachers at school, but she still didn't look young anymore. Maria would never look like that, even after we got married, even if we had a baby. I knew Frank and Imelda slept together and had sex, but I couldn't imagine them ever feeling what Maria and I felt. Nobody could.

I caught an early bus that morning so I could get to the attendance office by 7:30, and then try to get from condoms from Wilkerson. After I picked up my attendance check, I went to his office.

"Hi, Ricky," he said, like I'd never gotten mad at him, like he was glad to see me. He must have owned a million white shirts because he wore one every day. His walkie-talkie crackled about some trouble out in the auto shop.

"I gotta ask something," I said quickly.

"Talk," he said as he stood up. "I have to get out to the auto shop."

"I heard they give out condoms at the school if you need them." There. I said it.

Wilkerson stuck his walkie-talkie into the holder on his belt. "You need them?" I shook my head yes. "Come see me after school. And he walked out of the office.

I'd been hoping to get them that morning so we could ditch. But I was still happy. I could go to school that day, get the attendance check signed, act like it mattered, get on the good side of everyone, pick up the condoms after school, and ditch with Maria the next day.

At nutrition behind the ROTC building, everyone was talking about the trouble in the auto shop that morning. It was Eddy and Sandra in the back seat of an old Ford. Man, I thought, Sandra's nuts. She's caught screwing a Westside Raza at school, and she's Locos 18. And she keeps going back and forth between Angel and Eddy. It was like she got off on getting guys jealous, on making things dangerous.

Angel paced the ROTC yard like a caged animal. I had wanted to spend nutrition making out with Maria under the football bleachers, but she was too interested in what was going on with Sandra. "How could she do it with one of them?" she asked.

I finished my juice and tossed the carton across the ROTC courtyard to the trashcan. I missed, but I didn't care.

"She's just trying to get Angel jealous," Maria said. "They really love each other. They were going to run away and move in together, but her mother told her she'd call the cops and they'd send her to Juvenile Hall. I've never been there, but Sandra was there a couple years ago for about a month and she says everyone tries to have sex with you. These parents think if you just look at a boy they can send you to Juvenile Hall. They don't care what happens to you there. And anyway Angel and Sandra didn't have any money so they couldn't get their own place. But I know they really love each other.

"Then how come she was doing it with Eddy?" I asked, although I really didn't care about Sandra or Eddy or Angel.

"She just wanted Angel to get jealous, like I said. So he'd know how much she loved him."

The bell rang and we went to third period. I already had lines one and two signed on my attendance check. I'd made it to biology for the first time in three weeks. On time. Frank would be happy. Mr. Wilkerson would be happy. Mrs. Martinez would be happy. I knew what would make me happy, and it sure wasn't getting to biology on time.

After school, I turned in my attendance check to the ESL office and waited for Wilkerson in the discipline office. He finally came in from bus supervision and had to deal with some kids that got caught writing on the walls in the shop building. When he was finished with them, he called me into his office. I thought he'd just give me the condoms, but he told me to sit down. He pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk, took out a little pamphlet, and handed it to me. He told me to read it. Then we'd talk. I didn't know what about because I sure wasn't going to tell him about Maria.

The front of the pamphlet said "How to Use a Condom" in black ink. I opened it up. It had pictures of how to put it on and take it off, pictures that someone had drawn, not photographs or anything like that. I felt the back of my neck get hot, but I tried to be cool, like I knew what I was doing.

Mr. Wilkerson took his coffee mug out in the hall, dumped it in the water fountain, and filled it again in the front office. I heard him say to the secretary, "We've got to do something about this coffee." I turned my attention back to the pamphlet.

Step 1 was how to put a condom on, and step 2 was how to take it off. It talked about sexually transmitted diseases and about how not doing it was the only way to be 100% sure. When Wilkerson sat down at his desk, I handed it back to him. I tried to appear calm, like I knew he was required to give me the pamphlet by the law or the school or the parents or whoever, but that I already knew the stuff. Anyway, it was over. Now I'd get the condoms and get out of there.

He told me to keep the pamphlet and reached back into the bottom of the drawer of his desk. He pulled out three condoms. "Now, explain it to me in your own words."

Like I was some kind of nurse or something! "It's OK," I said. "I understand it." Wilkerson tossed the condoms back in the drawer. "You don't get them until you can tell me how to use them. Don't worry. I've heard it all before from every kid that comes in here asking for them."

Man, they make it complicated. They should just give out condoms on buses or something. For free. I was about to protest that I knew it all already, but I was getting to know Mr. Wilkerson pretty good. I knew I wasn't going to get those condoms unless I talked. I picked up a picture that sat on the side of his desk, probably his wife and kids. Two kids. I stared at it, instead of him. I didn't look at Mr. Wilkerson once, but I told him what I'd learned. When I was finished, he handed me the condoms.

Then he asked, "Have you already had unprotected sex?" I lied and shook my head no. "You're talking about your life. If you have had unprotected sex, you want to think about having an AIDS test."

I blurted out, "But we're really in love."

"If you think love can protect you from AIDS, google people with AIDS and find out how many people have given it to people they love. AIDS doesn't give a damn about love." I looked down at the three condoms, nervously shuffling them in my hands. "I know you're going out with Maria de Leon. I've seen you with her and I know she's in Locos 18," he said. "Do you know how girls get into that gang?"

My cheeks flushed. I was ready to tell him it wasn't any of his business, but he said, "If anyone in Locos has AIDS, probably every one in the gang has been exposed to it. Think about that, Ricky. When you have sex with Maria, you're coming into contact with everyone she's ever had sex with."

I stood up so fast I bumped against his desk and knocked over the picture of his wife and kids. "They don't all have sex with everyone in the gang," I said angrily.

"If you want condoms, it's because you're having sex, and if you're having sex, you have to be willing to think about it. With your brain. Then said, real softly, "Sit down."

I stuck the condoms in my pocket, in case he decided he wanted them back. He reached over and set the picture of his family upright. "Are you in Locos?" he asked. I shook my head no. "Do you want to be?" I shrugged. I didn't care. It wasn't about being in a gang. It was about being with Maria. "Is that why you're ditching and getting bad grades?"

What the hell did he want from me? Just because a guy is giving you condoms doesn't mean he has a right to pry into all your business. "You don't answer when you don't like the question, do you? You never used to ditch. How come you're letting her influence you to ditch, instead of you influencing her to come to school.

I stood up and pulled the condoms out of my pocket. Nothing was worth all this. I tossed them on his desk. "I have to go," I said. "I can't be staying here answering all these questions."

"No," he said, picking up the condoms. He walked around his desk. "You keep them. I'll give you more when you need them." He handed them to me. "Think about what I said. Come talk to me if you need to."

Yeah, sure, I thought as I left his office. Just because these guys work for a school, they think they're so smart. Like Mr. Stamos. That morning when I'd handed him my attendance check in biology, he'd made some joke about it being the second day in a row I'd come to class and what was up? Had I decided to get a PhD in biology? I wanted to slug the son of a bitch.

### Chapter 8

My grandmother set a plate of enchiladas in front of me, in a thick red sauce with yellow cheese melted on top. And a cool green salad. She was smiling at me. Music was playing. I woke up. Darkness. The music started again. My cell phone.

I picked up my phone and saw it was Maria. "Maria..." I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up. I sat on the edge of the bed. I could hear her crying. I remembered that she was alone with her stepfather. "Maria?"

"Can you come get me?" She was crying so hard she had to pause for a breath after every word.

"What's the matter? What happened?"

"My stepfather." She tried to say more, but couldn't.

"Where are you? At home?"

I heard her take a big breath. "No. He's drunk."

"Where are you?" I felt desperate, like something terrible was going to happen to her and I couldn't help her..

"Outside the 7/11. Please come get me. I'm scared."

"Across from McDonalds?"

"Yes," she said. "I'm scared."

"It'll be OK. I'll get there as fast as I can."

I heard her blow her nose, then come back on the phone. "I have a cousin in Thousand Oaks. I can go there. Maybe I can take the bus or something. Do you know how to take the bus to Thousand Oaks?"

"Let me talk to my brother. Just hang on a second."

"Hurry." Her voice was so small and vulnerable that I felt my throat squeeze painfully.

The door to Frank and Imelda's room was open a crack. I pushed it open another inch or two. "Frank?" I whispered. Nothing. "Frank?" I said a little louder. I heard the bed creak.

"What's going on?" Imelda asked.

"I need to talk to Frank."

"I'm here," he said gruffly. I heard the bed creak again and his bare feet on the floor as he walked to the door. He stepped into the hallway and quietly pulled the door closed behind him. "It's 2:30," he said.

"Maria needs help. She's a friend from school. Her stepfather's drunk and he's beating on her. She's at the 7/11 and I gotta go get her." Frank leaned against the wall, rubbed his hand through his hair, and crossed his arms over his chest. I took a chance. "Can she stay here for the night? Till he sobers up? Sleep on the couch or something?"

"I'm not getting involved in this, Ricky. Not with Imelda and the baby here. Her stepfather wants to give us trouble, he will." He rubbed his eyes. "What'd she do to get him mad at her anyway?'

"Nothing. I don't know. She said he hits her when he's drunk."

"He probably caught her screwing around with some boy."

"Dammit, Frank, she didn't do anything. He's beating her up. What can she do? She's a girl."

"Has she got any relatives? Aunt or something? Another friend?"

"She's got a cousin. In Thousand Oaks. She said she could go there."

"Thousand Oaks?"

"I gotta hurry. She's crying."

"What do you want? You want me to drive her to Thousand Oaks? It's more than forty miles. I gotta go to work in the morning. Tell her to call a girlfriend or something."

He opened the door to go back in his room. "Frank?" Imelda called from inside the bedroom. She sounded worried. "What's going on?" Jennifer started to cry.

I put my phone to my ear. "Maria?"

"Tell her to call a girlfriend," Frank repeated, his hand still on the doorknob.

"Frank?" Imelda called again. Jennifer was starting to howl.

"It's OK." Frank shouted into the room. "It's just some friend of Ricardo's." I could tell he was upset.

"Maria?" I repeated into the phone.

"I'm scared," she said.

"I'll come down there and stay with you," I told her. "We can walk around or something."

"I'm not letting you go down there," Frank said. "You know how the cops are." He went into his room.

"I don't know what to do," I said to Maria. She started sobbing again, barely able to catch her breath. I talked to her quietly, trying to get her to calm down. I couldn't leave her alone. I'd go down there whether my brother wanted me to or not. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. Frank had pulled on his pants and as he zipped them up, he said, "I'll drive her. Where the hell is she?"

"7/11 across from McDonalds."

"Tell her to go inside and wait there. Tell her we'll be there in a couple minutes. I don't need to be worrying about you both getting shot." Then he told me to hurry up and get dressed. I pulled on my jeans and T-shirt in the dark, reached in my closet, and pulled out a jacket. It was the black silk jacket with the gold boxing gloves, but I didn't notice that until we were in the car on our way to pick up Maria.

Maria was shivering, even inside the 7/11, so I took off my jacket and pulled it over her shoulders. She put her arms through the sleeves and pulled it around her. I opened the car door and followed her into the backseat.

Frank didn't say much, just asked Maria what the address was and if she knew where to go when we got to Thousand Oaks. I put my arm around her, and she nestled her head on my shoulder. The jacket was so big on her that she seemed like a little girl. We didn't talk for a long time because she was still crying. She kept tugging at the little black cross around her neck. I was afraid her stepfather tried to have sex with her or maybe even did. I knew that kind of stuff happened.

Finally she began to calm down. I asked her what happened. She told me he came in late and woke her up because she hadn't cleaned up the dinner dishes. He yelled at her to get in the kitchen and do the dishes. She got up and got dressed. When she walked into the kitchen, he started slapping her around. She said he was so drunk he could hardly keep his eyes open. She told him to go on to bed, she'd get the dishes done, but he blew up, and came for her again with his fists clenched. She ducked away from him and ran out of the apartment. She didn't stop running until she reached the 7/11.

I pulled her closer. Frank glanced over his shoulder, then back at the road. "Does your cousin know you're coming," he asked. "Did you call?" She told him they were expecting her. They didn't like her stepfather anyway.

Maria was so quiet the rest of the way, I thought she'd fallen asleep, but her eyes were open. I stroked her cheek. I tried to let her know it was OK, that I'd take care of her. Frank rubbed his hand through his hair, occasionally, or rolled his head from side to side, like he was trying to keep himself awake. Because the radio had been ripped out, there was nothing to listen to, only the hum of the motor and Maria's breathing.

We didn't get to Maria's cousin's house until 3:45. The porch light was on and, as Frank pulled on the brake, Maria's cousin opened the front door and came out on the porch. I got out of the car with Maria and pulled her into a big hug. I kissed her forehead. She took my hand and slipped something into it. Then she hurried up the walk and disappeared into the house. I opened my palm. She'd given me her little black cross.

Frank leaned over, opened the door to the front seat, and told me to come on, get in, we had to get home because he had to get to work. I stuffed the cross in my pocket and crawled in the front seat.

We stopped for gas about halfway home. I pumped it while Frank went into the mini-mart to pay. It was chilly and all I had on was my T-shirt because I'd given Maria my jacket. I had goose bumps up and down my arms. Finally the nozzle clicked. I put it back on the pump, screwed on the cap, and climbed in the car, rubbing my hands up and down my arms to warm up. The car heater didn't work and Frank never wanted to spend the money to get it fixed. He was always worrying about money.

He came out with two cups of coffee and a package of chocolate cupcakes. He handed the coffee and cupcakes through my window, then went around to his side and got in. I set everything on the floor, balancing my cup of coffee between my feet so I could rip back a corner of the lid on Frank's cup. Then I opened the cupcakes, took a bite out of one and set the other on the dash for him. My coffee tasted as bad as Mr. Wilkerson's coffee smelled, but it was warm, and I was still shivering chilly night air.

"Want my jacket?" Frank asked.

"I'm OK," I replied.

He started the car and pulled out of the station. I concentrated on my chocolate cupcake. I licked out the filling and stuffed the rest of it in my mouth.

"You gonna eat that one?" I asked, pointing to the cupcake I'd set on the dash.

"You can have it." He took a sip of coffee and pulled onto the freeway. "Girlfriend?" he asked when he'd pulled over to the center lane. I nodded, but he didn't see me so when he glanced over at me I told him yes. "Where'd you meet her?" He was driving with one hand, holding his coffee in the other.

I bit through the second cupcake to the filling and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "School. McDonalds. She works there, too."

"How long have you been going out?"

"I don't know. A while. She's nice."

I licked the filling out of the cupcake and looked out the window at the lights. In Los Angeles lights were on everywhere all the time.

"What gang's she in?" Frank asked. He glanced at me.

I shrugged. Here we go, I thought. I stuck the last bite of donut in my mouth and took a swallow of coffee to wash it down.

"Locos?" he added.

"Yeah," I said. Why lie? Let him say what he wanted to say. At least Maria was safe at her cousin's. "How'd you know?" I asked.

"Little black cross around her neck." He didn't say anything the rest of the way home. It was about five o'clock when we parked in front of the apartment building. Still dark. Frank pulled on the brake and looked at me. "You can get yourself in a lot of trouble," he said. "Be careful."

"OK," I mumbled. I opened the door, but he grabbed my forearm and stopped me from getting out.

"I don't want to find out you're gangbanging," he said.

"I'm not gangbanging. She's just a nice girl, that's all." I was tired and my voice sounded like it.

"Pick up the trash," he said as he opened his door and got out. I gathered up the cardboard coffee cups and the cupcake wrapper off the floor, got out of the car, and followed him upstairs.

I went to school on Friday because there was nothing else to do. I had three condoms in my pocket, and Maria was in Thousand Oaks. I didn't know when I'd see her again. So I went to school. No tardies. Got the attendance check signed six times. Paid a little bit of attention. Not much. I hung out with Marco during nutrition and lunch. After school he wanted to shoot baskets, so we checked out a ball from the equipment room and played until I had to go home to get ready for work.

When I walked in the door, Frank was sitting on the couch, feeding Jennifer a bottle. The TV was on to Spanish news. He had his feet propped up on the coffee table. I wondered how come Imelda didn't say anything to him about getting his dirty shoes off the coffee table like she did me.

"Where you been?" he asked, looking over his shoulder.

"I dropped my backpack by the door. "School," I said. "Playing basketball with Marco." My phone rang in my pocket and I went in my room to answer it. It was Maria.

She didn't even say hi, just started right in talking, all excited. "Sandra called me and said Eddy and her are really in love. Like Romeo and Juliet. She says he's really cute. She said she called Angel about it last night. Said they might get married or something and she didn't want any hard feelings between her and Angel. I can't believe it. I mean, he's Westside Raza. Did you hear anything at school?"

"No," I said. "I just hung around with Marco."

"You didn't see Angel or anyone?"

"No."

"I was wondering what Angel was thinking or if it was OK with him or what?"

"I don't know," I said. When Maria wasn't at school, I didn't go out to the ROTC area during nutrition and lunch. Just hung with Marco. I wasn't scared to hang with Locos, but it was kind of boring if Maria wasn't around.

"Anyway, my stepfather called me a little while ago. He was sorry about last night and said for me to come home. He wouldn't drink anymore. That's what he always says, but he won't drink for a while because he always feels guilty after he acts like that. And he won't want my mom getting mad at him, either. Anyway I miss you and I want to come home. My cousin said I should stay one more day and she'd get her husband to drive me back Sunday morning. I really miss you."

"Me, too," I said.

"I called in sick today and tomorrow, and I'm not working Sunday."

"Me either. Is your stepfather going to be home? Does he ever work on Sunday?"

"He usually plays soccer in the park in the afternoon?"

"What time?"

"Why?"

"I knew she was teasing me. "You know." I heard someone kicking the front door.

"Ricky, get the door. It's Imelda. I got the baby." Frank called from the front room.

"Maria, I gotta go."

"He usually goes after church. Around noon. Till about 5:00 or so."

I still had the condoms in my pocket and just hearing her voice had got me all turned on. "Call me when I can come over." I heard the kicking at the door again.

"Ricky!" yelled Frank. "Get the damn door!" He scared Jennifer and she started crying.

"Love you," I said to Maria. "Call me tomorrow." I put my phone in my pocket, went to the front room and opened the door.

Imelda was just barely balancing three bags of groceries and she looked mad. I took all three bags from her and carried them to the kitchen. "I'm tired from all the shopping," Imelda yelled after me. "Put them away."

"Sure," I muttered.

"Francisco," I heard her say. "I just dusted the coffee table this morning. I don't clean it so you can get it dirty." That made me feel kind of good. I walked to the kitchen door and looked over at Frank to see what he'd do. He hauled his feet off the table, clumped them on the floor, and grabbed Imelda's arm. He pulled her down beside him on the couch. She leaned her head against his shoulder, took the baby, and put her feet up on the table.

I was getting ready for work when Maria called me again. She said she'd probably get home around noon. She'd call me when it was safe to come up.

I took the three condoms out of my pocket and tucked them into my underwear drawer under my socks. I'd read the pamphlet, so I knew how to use them, but I wondered what guys did when they had to use one in front of a girl for the first time. Did they say something like, "Excuse me for a minute. I have to put this on," or did they just stop and put it on and not say anything, or what?

That night, after work, I pulled the little black cross out of my pocket before I got undressed. I put it around my neck and crawled into bed. I had to work Saturday, but I didn't mind. Maria's was coming home Sunday.

I woke up happy. I pulled on my blue jeans and started looking around for a halfway clean T-shirt. I found one on the floor of the closet and I'd put my arms through the armholes when Frank knocked on the door. He peeked in. "You want to shoot some hoops?" he asked. Then he looked at me real funny. His jaw got tight. He stepped in the room, closing the door behind him. He walked over to me. "You told me you weren't gangbanging."

"What?" I asked, starting to pull the T-shirt over my head. He grabbed it out of my hands, off my arms, and flung it against the wall. "What's wrong?"

"You told me you weren't gangbanging."

"I'm not."

"Don't lie to me."

"What?"

He grabbed the cross around my neck, jerked it hard, and broke the chain that held it. The cross. Dammit. I'd forgotten I'd put it on the night before. I rubbed my neck where the chain had dug into me before it snapped off in Frank's hands. My heart pounded. "I'm not gangbanging. I promise. Maria..." but before I could finish, he pushed me hard, up against the wall. So hard it knocked the breath out of me.

I shook my head no. I heard a quiet knock on the door. "Francisco, have you see my purse?"

Frank didn't move, just held me up against the wall.

"Frank?" Imelda knocked on the door again. "It's the brown and black one.".

Frank hollered over his shoulder. "I haven't seen your purse."

"I need something from my wallet, a phone number the clerk at the market gave me for someone who sews baby clothes and she doesn't charge very much." The door opened a crack and she stepped into the room. "I really need that number because the clerk said she was going to tell the lady I'd call this morning." She saw Frank's face and my face and took a step backward. "Oh," she said.

"I haven't see your purse," Frank said deliberately. Imelda left the room, closing the door so quietly that all I heard was a small click. Frank let go of me and backed up a couple steps. He turned and headed for the door. "You're going back to El Salvador." He said it under his breath, but I heard. I could see the chain on the cross dangling form his hand as he walked out of the room. "I'm not having this in my house."

I wasn't in Locos, and it wasn't fair of Frank to send me back for something I didn't do. I took a deep breath and hurried out of the room after him. Frank was already on his phone, probably calling someone he knew who was headed back to El Salvador, somebody he could pay to haul me along. I didn't want to go back to my Uncle Jose.

"I'm not gangbanging," I said. Frank didn't look up, didn't listen, didn't want to give me a chance. "Frank, listen to me," I protested. "I'm not gangbanging. I promise."

"Shut up."

I pulled the phone away from him, and jumped back quickly so he couldn't hit me. I knew I had to talk fast. "Maria gave it to me when we dropped her off in Thousand Oaks. That's all. I'm not gangbanging." My voice sounded scared. "She gave it to me because I wasn't going to see her for awhile, that's all. I promise."

Frank held out his hand. The black cross lay in the middle of it, the chain dangling between his fingers. "You don't wear anything like this again, you understand me? You stay away from them. All of them. I don't need the trouble." He slapped the cross in my hand. "Give it back to her."

I guessed he was done with me, so I went in my room, closed the door, took a deep breath, and got ready for work.

### Chapter 9

Maria and I shared the last Pepsi and ate some leftover pepperoni pizza she had heated in the microwave. She beat me to the last piece, took a huge bite, and dripped cheese down her chin. Her black eyes sparkled. A strand of hair fell over her face onto the pizza in her hand. I wiped it off with a napkin and tucked it back behind her ear. I was thinking how much I loved her. Being there, alone with her at the kitchen table, it was almost like we were married.

I was wearing only my jeans. My T-shirt was tossed somewhere in Maria's room, along with my underwear, socks, and shoes. Maria had tied her silky, purple robe loosely around her waist. When she reached across the table for the Pepsi can, her robe separated above the tie. I got turned on all over again. We'd already used up the three condoms, but I knew I had time to run to the drugstore to buy another one.

Over the stove, a red, yellow, and black Mickey Mouse clock clicked its tail back and forth. We'd come into the kitchen at 3:15 for something to eat. Now, Mickey said it was 3:30. Time was moving too fast. When Maria had called me at noon, she said her stepfather went to play soccer and wouldn't be home till 5:00 or 5:30. It seemed like we had forever. A long, long Saturday afternoon. And we didn't even have to ditch. Now we only had about an hour left. I could probably get to the drugstore and back and we could do it again and I could still get out of there by 4:30. Maybe I could chance it and leave at 4:45. I was reaching for the Pepsi when we heard a soft knock on the front door. Both of us jumped up. I pushed back from the table. "Who's that?"

"I don't know." Maria looked at the clock. "It can't be him. He wouldn't knock." She looked around. "Go in my bedroom." She shoved me toward her room. "Hide in the closet or something. I'll see who it is."

I hurried into her bedroom, into the closet, and pulled the door closed, leaving an inch or two so I could hear what was going on. If it was her stepfather, I'd have to spend the night in the closet because I sure as hell wasn't going to let him see me. I leaned back against Maria's clothes. A red sweater fell from the shelf over my head, covered my eyes, and brushed against my bare shoulders. I pushed it out of the way. I could hear myself breathe in the dark.

I tossed the sweater aside and peeked out the door. Maria's bed was all messed up. The purple bedspread had fallen off the foot of the bed and was crumpled on the floor. My T-shirt was in a heap next to Maria's jeans and yellow blouse. One of my Nikes was under the table that held the TV. The other was sticking out from under the bed. Even if her stepfather, or whoever it was, didn't find me, they'd find my clothes. I wondered if I had time to dash out of the closet and gather them up. I heard somebody crying. I wondered if it was Maria. Maybe I'd left something in the front room, something that gave us away.

The door to the bedroom swung open and I fell back into the closet, catching my breath. "It's OK," Maria called. She walked into the room. "Where are you?"

I let out my breath. I swung open the closet door and held out my arms to her. Maria was holding her robe closed around her neck. As she walked toward me, she dropped her hands and her robe fell open at the neck again.. She casually untied it and grabbed her ties to close it again. I went to her and reached my arms around her inside the robe. I traced my hands up and down her back. She leaned into me, reaching her arms around my neck.

She pecked me on the cheek. "We can't. It's Sandra..." she said, but I covered her mouth with mine and moved my hands down below her waistline. I didn't care about Sandra. I was ready to go again, condom or not. We'd made love without a condom before and nothing bad happened.

I lifted my head. "Is she gone?"

Maria pulled away from me, all business. She tightened the ties of her robe around her waist. "Eddy beat her up bad." I didn't want to listen. I reached to untie her robe, but she grabbed my hands.

I felt my heart squeeze, my stomach sink. I just wanted to make love again. "Come on," I whispered. "Please." We still had an hour before her stepfather came back.

Maria pushed me back. "What's the matter with you? She's beat up." She turned her back on me and walked out of the room. Sandra was someone I was really starting to hate. I followed Maria into the living room.

Sandra sat on the blue and pink flowered sofa, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. She was still crying. She had on a red sweater with a big scoop neck that hung off her shoulder. Angry red and purple bruises covered her arm and shoulder.

Maria sat beside her. She put her arm around her shoulders. "Did you go home, yet? Does your mother know?"

Sandra shook her head no. "I came right over here. Angel will kill him." She lifted her face. Both of here eyes were swollen and turning purple. Her lip was split and her right cheek puffed out so much her right eye was a slit.

"You should tell your mother," Maria said. "You want me to call her?"

Sandra shook her head no. "She'll just get mad at me. She'll say it's my own fault."

I felt awkward. I felt like I should say something, but I didn't know what. I sat down on a big, green, leather-like chair. It was cold against my bare back, so I leaned forward. There was a rough spot on the arm where somebody had tried to glue together a rip and I played with the edge, rubbing my finger back and forth over it. I heard Mickey's tail in the kitchen, clicking away my time with Maria.

Sandra said that it hurt to breath, that Eddy had socked her in the stomach over and over again. Crying like that and all beat up, she didn't look tough like she usually did.

"Get her something to drink," Maria said to me.

I went into the kitchen, but all I could find was the rest of the Pepsi Maria and I had shared. I poured it into a glass I found in the cupboard, put some ice in it, and took a sip. It was flat, but it would have to do. Sandra didn't notice me come back into the living room, so I handed the glass to Maria. She held it while Sandra talked.

"I told Eddy I had to tell Angel it was over so he drove me over there. I went in his house and I was talking with Angel. He says, "OK, baby, whatever you want." He's so sweet. So then he took me in his arms, you know, for a last kiss because Eddy and me were thinking we might move in together. And my mom won't care. And so Angel's giving me this really good kiss, and Eddy just comes in the door like it's his house. But Angel doesn't see him and he's starting to get all turned on, you know, and he's unbuttoning my blouse, just like for a last time. So Eddy grabs my arm and doesn't say anything, just pulls me out the door. He's lucky he didn't get killed going in there. All the way back to his house he's yelling at me for coming on to Angel and I keep saying that I wasn't. It was just a last kiss, and he's yelling at me about Angel's hands on my tits and he drags me inside and his parents were at the park with his little sisters and I thought we were going to make out or something, but as soon as we got inside, he started beating on me."

Man, I don't know how anyone could ever hit a girl, but Sandra sure did play Eddy and Angel against each other.

"Did you tell Angel, yet?" Maria asked.

"I don't want him to know because he'll kill Eddy and then the cops will put him in jail and I won't have anyone." She started to cry again.

Maria handed her the glass. "Here, take a drink of this."

Sandra took a sip of Pepsi, then stared down at it, holding it with both hands between her knees. Maria went into the kitchen to get a wet cloth. I felt stupid. I leaned back on the chair, but it was still cold so I leaned forward again. I rested my arms on my knees and looked down at my bare feet. My toenails needed cutting. When I glanced up, Sandra was looking at me. "Maybe you should see a doctor," I said, but she just shook her head no and looked down at the Pepsi again.

Maria washed Sandra's face and put on some Neosporin where her cheek was scraped. It was getting close to 4:30 and Maria told me I'd better get dressed and get out of there. I went into her room and picked up my T-shirt from beside the bed. I pulled it over my head and grabbed my shoes. I found one sock under the bed, but couldn't find the other. I hollered from the bedroom for help.

"I don't want to go," I said when Maria came into the room to help me look for the sock.

"My stepdad."

I looked at the clock beside her bed. 4:35. "I got twenty-five minutes," I said, playing with the ties on her robe. "Can't she wait out there? She'll be OK."

"What if he comes home early?" she said, but I kissed her, trying to untie her robe. "Come on, Ricky," she said pushing away from me. "If he comes home he'll kill me. Besides...Sandra's hurt."

Maria ruffled through the blankets and sheets on her bed and found the sock twisted up in the top sheet. She gave it to me and went back to the living room. I finished putting on my shoes and socks, ran my fingers through my hair a few times, then went out to the living room.

I mumbled goodbye to Sandra, said I hoped she'd feel better, and gave Maria a quick kiss at the front door. As I pulled the door closed behind me, they were calling Sandra's mother to find out if she could spend the night with Maria.

On the bus, I leaned my head against the cold window. My emotions were all mixed up. I was sorry for Sandra and mad at her at the same time for busting in on us. I was pissed at Eddy for beating up a girl like that. I was in love with Maria, and I was going to ditch every day until her mother came back from El Salvador. And I was scared of Frank beating me up again when he found out.

I knew I was dreaming, but I couldn't wake myself up. I knew if I could wake up, my head would stop hurting. I'd be OK. My eyes were stuck together. I could only see inside myself. Everything was red. Like a fire, only thicker. Like lava. Or blood.

I woke up. I had to go to the bathroom. My clock said 2:15. My head felt like it was going to split open. I staggered across the hall, quietly shut the door behind me, went to the bathroom, and stood over the sink, splashing cold water on my face. I found aspirin in the medicine cabinet. I popped two of them in my mouth, bent over, and scooped water into my mouth with my hand.

Back in bed, I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't. I twisted and turned until the sheets got wrapped all around my legs. I ached all over. First I was freezing cold. Then I was so hot I couldn't stand to have the blankets touch my skin.

Finally, I gave up and rolled out of bed. It was 4:30. I pulled on my jeans, snuck into the kitchen, and made a pot of coffee. The aspirin hadn't helped my headache at all. I wondered if it was OK to take more or if I should wait. Maybe I could take one more. The bottle said two, but if my headache didn't quit, I was going to take a third one whether it killed me or not. I put three spoons of sugar in my coffee and some milk, and sat hunched over the kitchen table. Later I got cold, so I pulled a blanket from my bed, wrapped it around me, and went back to the kitchen to pour another cup of coffee.

I heard Frank moving around about 5:30. He came into the kitchen in his boxers, scratching his hands in his hair, like he was trying to wake up. He needed a shave.

"How come you're up so early?" he asked.

"I got a bad headache so I made some coffee."

"You don't look so good," he said. "What's the matter?"

"I'm OK."

"Then make a fresh pot of coffee," he said, as he turned and went into the bathroom. I heard the shower running.

I made another pot of coffee, and when Frank was finished, I took a shower and let the hot water run on my neck. When I got out, I knew Imelda must be up cooking breakfast because I smelled fried eggs and onions. The smell made me sick to my stomach. I pulled on the jeans and shirt I'd worn the day before, and felt in my pocket for the little black cross. Maria. More than anything, I wanted to ditch to her place. The shower had helped my headache a little, but I dumped some aspirin in the pocket of my jeans and took off for the bus stop.

Trouble is, Maria wasn't at school. She usually met me on the front steps, but she never showed up. The 7:50 bell rang. I waited five more minutes, and finally decided to go to biology.

So far it had been a rotten day. My head hurt. Sitting in biology and listening to Mr. Stamos lecture about photosynthesis was boring. I wanted to lay my head down on my desk and go to sleep, but I knew he'd send me out.

At nutrition I hung out with Marco. I still wasn't hungry, so I gave him my food and drank the juice. We sat on the concrete wall by the shop building. A police helicopter circled, but didn't move on to the next high school like they usually did. Whenever I saw them circle like that, I wondered what was going on close by. Armed robbery? Murder? Someone with a gun who might climb the chain-link fence beside the baseball field and hide out at the high school. I shivered. I wished I'd worn a jacket. "It's cold," I said.

Marco tossed an apple core across the walk to a trashcan. "Three points," he said. He opened his carton of juice, drank it, squashed the carton, and held it up in one hand, like a basketball. "Three seconds left in the game. Quintanilla has the ball at half-court. He fires." Marco tossed the carton to the trashcan. He hit it dead center. He held out his palm and I slapped it.

"Where's Maria?" he asked. We didn't usually talk much about her after the fight we'd had when Maria and I had first stared going together, but it was unusual for one of us to be at school and the other one absent.

"I don't know. I think she stayed home cause Sandra got beat up and came over to her place yesterday for help. Sandra didn't even want to tell her Mom."

"Who did it?" Marco took my empty juice carton, crumpled it up, and hooked it toward the trashcan. It landed three feet on the other side.

"You missed," I said. He jumped down from the wall, picked up the carton, and held it in both hands for a free shot. "Eddy," I said. "The guy in sixth period."

Marco whistled. He shook his head, shot the carton toward the trashcan, and sank it. "Jerk. He's supposed to come to my house tonight. We're working on our group report for tomorrow."

"You think he'll come?"

"I guess so. He called me last night and said he would. Said he had to because his probation officer's been on his butt about his grades, so he wants to do the group stuff. Anyway, my mom's making dinner for everyone."

The bell rang and we hopped off the wall. "Is she OK?" he asked. I shrugged. He added, "Eddy's stupid."

"So is she, but he really hurt her," I said.

"He's a thug." We dumped the rest of our trash and took off for third period.

Maria was waiting for me in the hallway at the end of third period. Maybe the day wasn't going to be so rotten after all. She said that when her stepfather had seen Sandra that morning, he'd insisted she call her mother. Her mother picked her up and was taking her to a clinic. We ditched fourth period under the football bleachers until the bell for lunch. I didn't want to leave, but Maria was anxious to get out to the ROTC area to find out what was happening with Angel and the rest of Locos. I still wasn't hungry, so on my way through the lunch area, I bought a coke from the machine. I popped the top, took a couple aspirins out of my pocket, and swallowed them down.

By the time we got behind the ROTC building, most of the Locos were there. Angel was saying he was going to make Eddy pay. He didn't care if he got suspended or expelled or went to jail. He was going to make Eddy sorry. He wanted to know if anyone had seen Eddy at school yet, but nobody had. Then Angel stepped away to try to call Sandra to see what they said at the clinic. Things calmed down a little bit. When Angel stuck his phone back in his pocket, it got real quiet. They wanted to know how she was, but Angel said she hadn't answered. Leonardo's girlfriend said, "Eddy's bragging about it, too. That's what I heard. He's telling everybody about how she cheated on him and he caught her at it."

"Marco didn't know anything about it," I said. "Eddy talked to him last night about going over to his house tonight for a group thing for sixth period."

"Marco Quintanilla? He don't know nothing about Eddy," said Leonardo.

"He's not a homey," Maria explained to me. "Eddy's gonna be bragging to his homies." When the bell rang for fifth period, I asked Maria if she wanted to ditch again, but she and Angel had the same fifth period and she wanted to talk to him. She told me she'd meet me after school on the front steps.

At 3:00 I took Maria's backpack and walked her to her bus. "Sandra texted Angel in fifth," she said. "Told him Eddy broke some bones in her face. We've got a Locos meeting and I have to go, but I'll see you at work."

I nodded. I was tired of hearing about Sandra and Eddy. "You want to ditch tomorrow?" I asked. "Is your stepfather working?"

She smiled and nodded yes. When her bus left, I searched out Mr. Wilkerson. After the last of the school buses left, he motioned me to follow him inside. I told him I needed some more condoms and he gave them to me.

"Going to all your classes?" he asked.

I nodded. I'd just ditched fourth period, but Mrs. Martinez hadn't had a chance to see my attendance check yet and blow up about it or do whatever she was going to do.

"Good," he said. "Keep it up."

I said thanks for the condoms, took a couple more aspirins at the water fountain, and hurried to my bus stop. My headache had started throbbing.

Maria didn't have to be at work until 7:00 that night, so I'd already been handing out Big Macs and bacon double cheeseburgers for two hours before she got there. The smell of the food got to my stomach, especially the French fries and the fish. I concentrated on my work because the last thing I wanted to do was vomit behind the counter at McDonalds. I was scooping up French fries when Maria came in. She walked straight over to me. "Angel and some others are going to get Eddy tonight."

I'd been so intent on scooping fries, I hadn't really heard what she'd said. "What?"

"Angel and some others are going to get Eddy tonight. He said maybe he and Sandra are getting back together. Maybe even getting married. Sandra called me and said she thinks she'll go back with Angel because she hates Eddy now."

"What's Angel gonna do?"

"The gang has a gun. He's going to wait for him."

I set down the French fries and the metal scoop. "What?"

"Not kill him, but maybe wound him. Sandra says Angel knows where he is tonight, that he's going to wait outside for him."

Eddy was at Marco's house to work on the group report. I'd told Locos that myself at lunch. "I gotta go," I said.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I just gotta go," I repeated. I looked around for the shift manager.

Maria grabbed my arm. "They're not going to kill anybody. Just scare him. That's all."

I saw the shift manager taking drinks to the drive-up window. "I'll call you later," I said to Maria. I walked over to the manager and told him I was sick and asked if I could leave. I was going to leave even if he said no, but I didn't want to get fired if I didn't have to. I must have looked pretty bad because he said yes, that I didn't look so go good, and he thought I should go home. He was headed to my register when I left.

I ran down the block to the bus stop. I was scared. Maybe nothing would happen, but maybe...I had to get to Marco's house, just in case.

It seemed like the bus crawled down the street. And it seemed like at every stop, some old lady with a cane took forever to climb up the steps and get seated. I got off at the stop three blocks from Marco's and ran the rest of the way. At his building, I took the stairs two at a time to the second floor, ran down the hall to his apartment, and pounded on the door.

### Chapter 10

Marco's brother Carlos opened the door. I looked past him into the apartment, but couldn't see Marco. Carlos had a green, plastic dump truck. "Wanna play trucks?"

"Is Marco here?" I asked.

Carlos tried to hand the truck to me, but I ignored him. I could see Mrs. Quintanilla walking from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dishtowel.

"Who is it, Carlos?" she asked. "Oh, Ricardo, hello. Marco and Eddy went to buy sodas and Doritos. They took Miguel with them. The girls are here working on their poster. Do you want to come in?"

"Where did they go?"

"The liquor store on the corner. They should be right back. Come on in."

I told her I had to go, hurried to the stairs, and raced down two at a time. I looked around as I ran to the corner. Except for traffic, it was quiet. A normal evening. My chest hurt and I couldn't catch my breath. I stopped, bent over with my hands on my knees, breathing in and out as slow as I could. I had to calm down. Marco would think I was nuts.

That's when I heard gunshots. Tires screeched. A blue car raced past the intersection. I froze. Everything went silent, like I had cotton in my ears. I felt dizzy. A high, painful hum started inside my head. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. I staggered the last few steps to the corner, stepped around to the window of the liquor store. It had been blown out. I made myself look inside.

The Hostess Cupcake display with the pink Snoballs on top was covered with glass and blood. I saw Mr. Yuen at the counter. His eyes were wide open and he was staring at the floor. One hand covered his mouth. The other clutched the almost-empty, plastic jar of beef jerky on the counter. When he reached for the phone behind the counter, he knocked the jar of jerky to the floor. It bounced silently. Up and down. I couldn't see Marco. Where was Marco?

The hum in my ears increased until I thought my head would explode. Abruptly it faded. I heard the scratch of the plastic jerky jar on the floor as it rolled against the counter. The hum stopped. I heard screaming. A child screaming. I looked around. Marco's little brother, Miguel, stood in the middle of the store, one fist clenched around a smashed, half-eaten Twinkie. Cream oozed out and plopped on the floor. I heard Miguel choke. He bent over, violently coughed up the half-chewed Twinkie, and vomited. He fell to his knees.

On the floor lay a six-pack of Coke, two cans shattered. Soda spread on the floor like a murky, brown lake. Beside the cans lay a bag of Doritos. No rips. Nothing. Just lying on the floor, as if someone had accidentally knocked the bag off the shelf. I saw a hand reach toward the Doritos and grasp it desperately. Miguel screamed again. The hand weakened and slipped off the bag. My eyes moved from the hand, up the arm, and finally to Marco's face. White-gray and terrified. His eyes looked straight into mine.

"Marco," I whispered. I ran in the door, turned toward the counter and saw Mr. Yuen on the phone. "Call 911," I shouted. He shook his head yes, pointed to the phone, shook his head yes again. As I knelt beside Marco, I saw another body against the wall, beneath the refrigerated cabinet. Eddy. He wasn't moving.

Marco reached for my hand. "Miguel?" he croaked, "...OK?" Miguel was still on his knees on the floor. I crawled over to him. He screamed again when I touched him. I couldn't see any blood on him.

I crawled back to Marco. "I think he's OK."

Marco gripped by hand again. "Tell Mom it's not my fault." His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.

I tried to say "I will," but nothing came out. Marco closed his eyes.

Blood oozed around my knees. It was warm. Was I feeling Marco's warmth come out of him? I wanted to help him, but I didn't know how. I didn't know where to press, how to keep the blood from coming out. A bright light filled my vision. I was afraid I'd pass out.

From far away I heard Mr. Yuen tell Miguel to run get his parents. I looked as he pushed Miguel out the door and I heard him yell, "Run.

I cried out, "He's bleeding. Help him."

Mr. Yuen looked toward Eddy's body. "I don't know his name," he said. "I don't know his parents."

"Help me! He's bleeding!"

I heard glass crunch as Mr. Yuen hurried over to Marco and me. He took off his sport coat, folded it, and pressed it against Marco's stomach. Marco moaned. Silence. He moaned again.

"Is it stopping?" I asked. "Did you stop it?"

Everything went in slow-motion. I felt I'd been holding Marco's hand for years. Then I heard Mrs. Quintanilla scream and I looked up. She had both hands over her mouth. Mr. Quintanilla stood behind her, carrying Carlos, and holding Miguel's hand. He set Carlos down. Mrs. Quintanilla ran across the broken glass to Marco and knelt at his head. She stroked his hair and whispered, "My baby." Marco moaned again. Mr. Quintanilla took me by the shoulders, stood me up, and moved me away so he could kneel by his son. I backed toward the counter and leaned against it. Miguel and Carlos huddled by the door, staring at their big brother. Outside, through the shattered window, I saw the two girls in Marco's American history group hugging each other in tears.

Sirens screeched louder and louder. The cops came in first, guns drawn. Mr. Yuen said something to them and they holstered their guns. One went to Marco, the other to Eddy. I knew he was dead. He lay on his back in a pool of broken glass and blood. The cop kneeled beside him, and when he stood up I saw Eddy's face. Part of it had been blown away. His cheek, his nose, an eye. The other eye looked at me. It didn't move. It didn't blink.

Paramedics came in and the hum came back, pressing against the inside of my ears. I was burning hot. Red and blue lights flashed into the store. I wanted Frank. He would know what to do. I moved toward the outside air. Somebody said, "Son?" I felt the cool air on my face. I took another step. My vision turned gray at the edges and moved to black.

I reached out, grabbed for something to hold on to. My figures grasped at I the metal bars of the grate pulled down over the front of the pet store window next door. I gagged and threw up. I couldn't stop. I threw up until I thought I'd never breathe again.

I felt a hand on my back. Somebody said, "Joe! Get one of the paramedics out here. This kid's got blood all over him."

I started to go down on my knees. Strong hands gripped my shoulders and helped me lie down. Then they were checking me all over, asking me if I'd been shot, and did I hurt anywhere. I told them no. It was Marco's blood.

"Is he OK?" I asked.

"They're taking care of him," said the paramedic.

"Is he gonna die?" I tried to sit up, but he held me down.

"They're taking care of him," he repeated. "Just lie still for a minute."

Then they shined a light in my eyes, took my pulse, listened to my heart. "It feels like he's got a fever," one of them said. "Have you been sick?" he asked me.

"A headache. Is he OK?"

"They know what they're doing," he said. "They're taking care of him. You want to sit up?" He helped me lean back against the pet store wall.

A cop came outside the liquor store and walked over to us. He talked to the paramedic for a minute and I heard him say, "These kids are wiping each other out."

Then the paramedics pushed Marco outside on the gurney. I stood up. I was dizzy, but I started to walk toward Marco. One of the cops caught me by the arm and told me to stay where I was. "I need to ask you some questions," he said. I didn't answer. I was watching Marco.

They lifted him into the back of the ambulance. Mrs. Quintanilla got into the front. The ambulance left, sirens screaming. Mr. Quintanilla picked up Carlos and took Miguel's hand. He said something to the girls and they followed him around the corner. Getting his car, I thought. Calling the girl's parents to come get them. Something. I didn't know.

"I need to ask you some questions," the cop repeated. He pulled a notebook and pen out of his pocket. "What's your parents phone number?"

"I only have my brother." I leaned against the wall. "Is Marco going to die?"

"They're taking good care of him. What's your brother's phone number?"

I couldn't think. I couldn't remember Frank's number. "Do you remember his phone number, son?" I patted the pockets of my jeans, then pulled out my wallet and opened it. My hands were shaking. On top I had a picture of Maria. She was at the beach, standing at the edge of the water, waving. A whole different life, a million years ago, like a different time or a different planet. I looked at my school ID card. I looked at it. I couldn't think.

"Do you have cell?" asked the cop. "Is his number on your cell?" I pulled my phone out of my pocket and handed it to him. "Last name?" I told him and he scrolled through till he found Frank's number and called him. The coroner's van pulled up. They got out and went inside.

Then the cop asked me what I saw. I told him I didn't see anything, that I was around the corner, heard the shots, saw the blue car go by the intersection. He asked me how many shots I heard. I said I didn't know. Lots. I didn't count. It seemed like lots. He asked me how I knew Marco and Eddy and I told him from school and that I didn't know Eddy very well but Marco was my best friend. He asked me if there was anything else I could tell him and I told him no, but then I told him about Angel saying he was going to get Eddy for beating up Sandra and that he had a gun.

"Locos 18?" the cop asked.

I shook my head yes. "But not Marco. He was just here buying cokes and Doritos for an American history group."

Frank pulled up. He talked to a cop outside the liquor store who pointed to me in front of the pet store. He walked over, and when he looked at me, I started crying.

The cops told Frank they'd want to talk to me some more, that they'd call. The paramedics told him it looked like I was coming down with something like the flu, but otherwise I was OK. Just shook up. Frank put his arm around my shoulder and walked me to his car. He opened the door, helped me get in the car, and closed it after me. I leaned over and sobbed.

At home, I stripped off my bloody clothes and put on the first pair of jeans and T-shirt I found on the floor. I didn't care what they looked like. My shoes were red, bloody. I walked into the living room, my clothes and shoes in my hands, not knowing what to do with them. Imelda took them from me and said she'd see if she could clean them up for me.

Frank hung up the phone. "Marco's in Emergency," he said. "The trauma team is still working on him."

"Will you take me?" I asked.

He nodded. "Find some shoes."

I found an old pair of worn-out black boots under my bed. They were kind of small, but they'd work.

Driving to the hospital, Frank was quiet until we pulled into the hospital parking lot. "You start hanging around gangs, this is what happens."

"Marco wasn't hanging around gangs and he got shot." I was angry.

"That happens, too," he said. He pulled into a parking space. I didn't want his lectures about gangbanging. Not tonight. Not with Eddy's face half blown away. Not with Marco maybe dying. I opened my door, got out, slammed the door, and headed for the entrance. Frank didn't stop me, but I could hear his footsteps following me.

The lobby was so big I didn't know where to go. Frank was already at a counter that said, "Patient Information." He motioned toward a hallway at the far end of the lobby, then led the way to the emergency waiting room.

Marco's parents were sitting against the far wall. Carlos was on his father's lap. Miguel sat beside his mother, her arms hugging him tightly. Mr. and Mrs. Quintanilla looked up expectantly when we walked in, maybe thinking we were doctors, maybe thinking someone was going to tell them Marco would be OK.

Frank shook Mr. Quintanilla's hand. He bent down and kissed Mrs. Quintanilla on the cheek. Frank held her hand in both of his and spoke quietly to her. I didn't know what to do or say. I was afraid that they'd know it was my fault, that I had made it happen because I was there at lunch, because I'd talked about where Eddy would be. Frank motioned me to a couch opposite the Quintanillas. We sat down. I didn't feel good. My head hurt and I was cold.

"Is he OK?" I asked. My voice sounded strange. Scared, like it was coming out of somewhere deep and cold.

Marco's mother looked at me. Tears welled in her eyes. She wiped them with a tissue. Mr. Quintanilla said, "We don't know."

I put my elbows on my knees and rested my head in my hands. Frank rested his arm on the couch behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.

Later a doctor walked up to the Quintanillas. He said Marco had a kidney/spleen wound and had lost a lot of blood. They'd given him blood and stabilized him. He said they were taking him up to surgery now and they could come see him for a second.

Frank said he'd watch the kids. Marco's parents followed the doctor through the double doors into the treatment area. I stood up and followed as far as the doors. I looked through one of the windows, down the long hall. I could see doctors and nurses pushing a gurney from the far end trauma center toward the elevators in the middle. When Mr. and Mrs. Quintanilla approached, some of the people moved away so they could see Marco. His mother bent down and kissed him. His father reached out and took Marco's hand in both of his.

I looked back at Frank. He was paying attention to Carlos and Miguel, so I quietly pushed open the doors and stepped inside the hallway. I walked to the elevators, then stood with my back pressed against the wall as the gurney approached. Mr. and Mrs. Quintanilla followed.

I stepped out just as the gurney got to the elevators. "Can I see him?" I asked. They looked at me. One of them pushed the elevator button. "He's my brother."

A nurse moved aside and I stepped up to Marco. He had tubes and IV lines everywhere. He had an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. He didn't look as white as he had on the liquor store floor. I looked in his eyes. I wanted to tell him how I felt about him, but nothing came out. He reached up a hand and I held it for a second. Then someone said, "We have to go." The elevator doors opened and Marco was gone.

Mrs. and Mrs. Quintanilla stared at the closed doors. I walked up to them. "I'm sorry," I said, my voice breaking. Marco's mother reached out and pulled me into her arms.

Frank wouldn't let me wait while Marco was in surgery because the doctors had said it would take hours. I argued to stay, but he said I needed to get to bed, that I was sick. He got some coffee for Marco's parents, some soda for the kids, and they headed for the elevators to go to the surgery waiting room. Frank took me out to the car and drove me home. It was dark when I woke up. Everything was black. My pillow and sheets were damp with sweat, but I was cold. Shivering. I pulled the blankets up to my chin, stared at the ceiling. I remembered what I'd been dreaming about. I dreamed I'd pulled the trigger.

### Chapter 11

I stayed in bed for three days with the shades down, the lights off, and the covers over my head. I wanted it dark. Frank called Harrison High and told them I'd be out for the week, that I had the flu. I couldn't go in to see Marco. Frank called the hospital every evening after work. By Thursday Marco had been moved out of the ICU into a regular room.

The cops stopped the blue car the same night Marco was shot and Eddy was killed. Angel, Leonardo, and a couple other Locos I didn't know were arrested. The gun was found under the front passenger's seat. I might have to testify about what I knew, but maybe not. I didn't know what was going to happen. I was scared.

I hated to wake up. Every time I did, I thought about Eddy's face, about Marco, his blood soaking into my jeans. About me. My headache and fever went away after a couple of days, but every time I woke up in the dark, it felt like death was squeezing in on me. I couldn't breathe. I was the one who said where Eddy would be that night. It was only lunch conversation, but it was me that got Eddy killed. It was me that got Marco shot. It was me that made Miguel scream and scream and scream. I hated what had happened. I hated myself.

Friday morning Frank knocked on my door. "Get up Ricky." He opened the door. "Your not sick anymore. You're gonna come out and eat breakfast with us this morning." I buried my head under the pillow. He pulled the pillow off my head, took my arm, and hauled me out of bed. "Come on. Get up. Get cleaned up." He walked me to the bathroom and closed the door behind me.

I turned the shower on to heat up. I looked in the mirror over the sink. It was still me but different. I wanted to be the old Ricky.

The mirror fogged up. I rubbed away a small circle of steam and looked at myself. My mother's eyes. How come she didn't want me? How come I only had an older brother? I pulled a towel off the rack and wiped the whole mirror clean. I was still there. I knew none of it was going to change—what happened to Marco and Eddy, my never-knew-me father, my mother, Frank, Imelda and her broken angels. I got in the shower and let the water rinse me clean.

As soon as I sat down at the kitchen table, Imelda put Jennifer in my arms and handed me her bottle. I wondered what she'd be like when she was sixteen, if it would be hard for her, too. I put the bottle in her mouth and she smiled. She still knew it was me. I don't know why, but that gave me something to hang on to.

Imelda put sausage, eggs, and toast in front of me. I didn't think I was hungry, but I was. I ate with one hand and fed Jennifer with the other. By the time she'd finished her bottle, I'd eaten everything on the plate.

Before he went to work, Frank told me to stay out of bed and quit moping around. My fever was gone, and Marco was going to be OK. He pointed to the pile of textbooks he'd set on the coffee table and told me to get going on the work I'd missed.

He kissed Imelda and Jennifer and opened the door to leave for work, but turned back to me. "I'll take you to see Marco tomorrow." I nodded. He looked down at the floor, his hand still on the doorknob. "Ricky..." His voice broke. He took a deep breath and looked up into my eyes. "It'll be OK. You'll be OK."

My throat tightened. My eyes filled with tears. I wanted to hug him. He'd never left me except to find a better life for me in America. Tears spilled down my cheeks, and I wiped them away with the back of my hand. I looked at him again, wanted to say I loved him, but couldn't talk. I just nodded. He gave me a half smile and left for work.

I watched a couple of game shows with Imelda, but mostly I worked on makeup work. For some reason it seemed important. I don't know why, but it seemed important for Marco and Eddy, and maybe even for me.

The next day, Frank took me to see Marco at the hospital. Mrs. Quintanilla looked up from her knitting when we walked in the room. I could tell by her eyes that she hadn't slept much. Frank asked her if she'd like to go to the cafeteria for breakfast and some coffee. And they left me alone with Marco.

He looked OK. Most of the tubes were gone. He was asleep. I wanted him to wake up so I could tell him I was sorry, but part of me wanted him to stay asleep. I didn't know if I was brave enough to tell him the truth. I sat down and waited. The TV that hung from the ceiling was tuned to some show about cooking. A nurse came in to check Marco's IV. He opened his eyes.

"You have a visitor," she said.

Marco looked my way and smiled. "Hi."

"Hi." My mouth went dry. I'd wait till the nurse left, then I'd tell him. Marco picked up the remote box and turned the channel. Sports. Skiing. The nurse asked if Marco needed anything. He shook his head no, and she finally left.

"How's school?" Marco asked, looking over at me.

"I've been stuck at home. Sick. That's why I couldn't come see you."

"I was out of it, anyway."

"Are you OK?"

He nodded. "It hurts sometimes."

He looked back at the TV. When a commercial came on he changed the channel. Golf. "Saturday's boring," he said.

"I gotta tell you something," I said. Marco changed the channel again. Bowling. He looked my way.

I took a breath. "It's all my fault about you and Eddy." Marco looked puzzled. "At lunch that day I was out there with Maria. I told them what you'd told me at nutrition, that Eddy said he'd be at your house that night. It didn't mean anything. It was nothing. I mean, they were saying he was bragging about beating up Sandra, but I told them about him calling you and he didn't say anything to you about it. I don't know why I said it. I was just talking, like lunchtime talk. I didn't know Angel was going after Eddy or anything like that. I didn't know they had a gun. But we were talking and..." I looked down at my hands. I didn't know what else to say.

Marco started coughing. I looked up. He was pressing his hands against a folded blanket on his stomach like he was afraid he was going to hurt himself where he got shot. He pointed to the pitcher of water on the end table. I filled the plastic cup with ice water from the pitcher and held it up to his mouth, but he took it from me. "I didn't get shot in the hand, stupid," he said. He took a drink and handed the cup back to me. He turned the TV back to skiing. When a commercial came on, he finally turned to me. "They'd have got Eddy anyway, somewhere else."

"But you and..." Tears filled my eyes. "You and Miguel..." My voice cracked. Another night and Eddy wouldn't have been at Marco's house. Marco knew it. So did I. I wasn't gangbanging, but I was hanging with the gang because of Maria. Miguel was lucky and Marco would be OK. But Eddy was dead. And it could have been all of them.

Marco looked at me. I stared down at my shoes. I hated them. I hated the way the blood had changed them.

"It's OK," Marco said. "You didn't know."

Mrs. Quintanilla and Frank came back from the cafeteria. Frank asked Marco how he was doing, made some jokes, and tapped me on the shoulder. "Let's go."

"Do you want anything," I asked. "A coke or anything?"

Marco shook his head.

"If you want anything, I can bring it to you."

"I'm OK."

"Yeah." I was trying desperately to get back to something I knew had changed forever. "It looks like you're gonna make it." He started coughing again and I gave him the cup of water.

Frank tapped me on the shoulder again. "Come on."

I didn't move. "You want to play basketball or something when you get out? I'll give you a bunch of points on me till you're better." Marco just looked at me.

I turned to go. "Hey, Ricky," Marco called when I'd reached the door. I turned back. "Don't need a bunch of points. I could beat you from here if they'd unhook me." He smiled, looked back at the TV, and switched to bowling.

"Don't bore yourself to death," I said. He waved his hand in my direction, but I could see he was grinning. Frank and I said good-bye to Mrs. Quintanilla and left.

I went back to school on Monday. I'd worked hard on my make-up work. It felt good, like it did the year before when I aced most of my tests, when I was thinking about being an engineer, making things that could move around on the space station or on another planet. Trouble is, I was afraid. I knew what it meant to go back to that person, to that me,

Gray clouds covered the sky. Not the kind of clouds that rain, but the kind that keep the sun from shining. I had called Maria the night before, and she was going to meet me on the steps in front of the school.

When I stepped off the bus, I felt like I couldn't get my bearings. It seemed like a different place. It was the same school, but all the edges seemed sharper, more in-focus, brighter. I squeezed my eyes closed and opened them again. I felt dizzy. I put my head down, my hands on my knees, and took a couple of deep breaths. I felt disoriented, almost lost, but when I looked up again, it was like I'd been there forever. I knew where to walk, what steps to take.

Maria was already sitting on the top step in front of the school. I ran up the steps two-at-a-time. I wanted to kiss her so bad I ached. She looked up at me. "How come you wouldn't talk to me when I called?"

I sat down beside her and put my arm around her shoulder. "I was just..." I stopped. I didn't know how to tell her about how I felt.

"Sandra's mother says all Sandra does is cry. Eddy's stupid. I mean, I'm sorry and all, but he should have known better than to mess around with a Locos girl."

"They killed him."

Maria looked up at me. "I know, but..."

"Never mind. It doesn't..." I didn't know what to say.

"Ricky...what?"

I shrugged. "Nothing. I don't want to..."

She put her hand on my thigh. "Let's not talk about it. Come on. Let's go to the bleachers."

The first bell rang. "Look, I gotta get my attendance check. And go to class. Frank will kill me if I don't." But deep inside, I knew that wasn't the reason I wanted to go to class..

I kissed her on the cheek, and hurried to the attendance office. I made it to first and second period, turned in my make-up work, and found myself listening in class for the first time since I'd fallen in love with Maria.

At nutrition Maria wanted to go to the ROTC area to find out what was going on. I told her I had to take a make-up quiz, and I'd see her at lunch.

I ran into Mr. Wilkerson on hall duty at lunch. He put his hand on my shoulder. "You OK?" he asked. I shrugged. "I hear Marco's improving."

"He'll make it," I said. I felt my throat tighten. Maybe it was the way he always knew my name, always asked how stuff was in my life. I could hardly speak. "I don't know what to do."

"You will. You can't change what happened. You just have to get through today the best you can. And then you get to have tomorrow to try again." Two girls tried to push past us into the hall. Wilkerson held out his hand for them to stop. "Lunch passes please, young ladies."

My algebra teacher told me I could take a makeup test at lunch, so I texted Maria that I'd see her after school at her bus. She didn't have to work that night. I did. We decided to get to school early the next day and meet under the bleachers.

At dinner that night, Frank started talking about the old days, about our grandparents, about how we used to dream of coming to America. "Remember sitting up in that old tree, you and me, and talking about what it would be like up here?"

"Yeah," I mumbled.

"Like the streets were made of gold and you just had to look for a job and you got it?"

I nodded and reached for the bread and butter. "We were stupid."

"Maybe," he said. "I guess I could have stayed down there and been a boxer." He grinned at Imelda. "How'd you like me with my nose all broken and crooked?' She laughed and punched him on the shoulder.

Man, I'd loved him back then. He was like everything I wanted to be. Even when he got on the bus to come to America, I knew he would send for me one day.

Frank stood up, wiped his mouth on the dishtowel, and tossed it on the counter. "I don't buy napkins so you can wipe your mouth on my clean dishtowels," Imelda complained. For some reason it made me laugh. Imelda handed Jennifer to me like she always did, gave me her bottle, and followed Frank into the living room. He clicked on the TV, pulled her down on the couch beside him, and put his arm around her shoulder as he flipped channels.

Maria was already under the bleachers when I got there. I pulled her into my arms. "My Mom's gone to the doctor," she whispered in my ear. "And then she's going shopping with my little sister for shoes, and meeting my aunt at her place for lunch. We can ditch to my house."

I wanted her so bad it hurt, but I couldn't make myself say yes. Everything was different, more complicated, all flipped upside-down.

Maria leaned back from me. "What's wrong? What's the matter?"

I dropped my arms from around her. "I don't know...It's hard to explain."

"Ricky, come on. I mean we haven't been together since before..." She stopped. She grabbed my hand and tugged it. "Come on, let's go."

I wanted not to care so I it wouldn't hurt so much. I wanted to be tough. Leonardo was tough. Angel, too. All of them. Even Maria. I didn't see how a girl could be so soft and so tough all at the same time.

Maria took my other hand. "It was nothing. Eddy was stupid, that's all. It's not like it's us or something. I mean Marco's OK." Maria looked worried, desperate. "Come on. I want you. I want to ditch."

How could I go on? Have breakfast with Frank and Imelda every day. Go to school, all my classes. Carry the memory of Eddy, play basketball with Marco like nothing mattered, hear Miguel screaming in the liquor store for the rest of my life. How could I do that and still try to make something of myself?

If I wanted to try, I'd have to decide soon because the 7:50 bell was going to ring. I had to get all the way up to 3rd floor C wing before Mr. Stamos locked the door. I looked over my shoulder at the school. When I looked back at Maria, she had tears in her eyes. She knew what I was thinking. I couldn't stand it, looking at her fear.

"You're breaking up with me, aren't you?" She pulled her hands away from mine, and sadness shot through me like a bullet.

I knew I had to talk, to say something. "I don't know...I just want to..."

"Why?" she said. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

"I just can't do that anymore," I finally managed to say. "Locos. I just can't..."

"You don't have to join. And anyway Eddy's the one who caused the trouble. Not Locos."

"Maria, it's just that...when you're with them..."

"I can't leave the gang, Ricky. They won't let me. I don't want to. They're my friends." Maria reached her arms around my neck and looked up in my eyes. "I love you, Ricky. I'll show you. Just today. Ditch with me today."

"I love you, too, but..."

"Just this morning. Nobody's there. I'll show you, Ricky. Please, I promise. Just today."

"I can't..."

Maria stepped away from me and shoved me hard in the chest. She was crying. She shoved me again. I stepped back, not knowing what to do.

"I'm sorry, Maria. I'm really am. I can't do this anymore." I reached in my pocket and pulled out the little black cross. I handed it to her. She grabbed it from me and turned away.

I touched her shoulder, but she slapped my arm way. She turned around angrily. "Fine," she said. Her teeth were clenched. She ripped off the black, silk jacket I'd given her and threw it at me. She got up in my face. "You son of a bitch." She shoved me again, then took off toward the baseball field. I knew she'd climb the fence and take off for home. Tears filled my eyes, and everything blurred. I thought my heart would break open all over the school.

The 7:50 bell rang. I looked toward the school, and wiped my eyes. All I had to do was try. That's all, just try. I looked toward the baseball field. Maria looked small in the distance. She reached the fence, tossed her backpack over, and started to climb. I looked back at the school and started walking. I knew if I hurried, I could make it to biology on time.

### About the Author

Anne Knowles writes books and poetry for children and young adults. A former VISTA Volunteer, zookeeper, and high school teacher, she currently spends her time writing, walking with her dog, and enjoying her grandson. She lives with her family in California.
