Trouble Is...

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 the
ir 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.