by Paul Langan
“Ma, I was standing up for my friend,” I tried to explain. I needed her to understand that I wanted to do the right thing. That I didn’t mean for this to happen. That no matter what happened, I wasn’t a bad person. “I just lost it when—”
“Yeah, you lost it all right. You threw away everything. Everything!”
“Ma, you don’t understand—”
“No, you don’t understand. You’re killing me! I can’t take it no more. Everyday I go to work, I’m scared of what you’re doing. Whenever the phone rings, I’m afraid to pick it up. One day you’re in the hospital. The next you’re in a police station. Then I get a call from your principal saying you got expelled. What are you trying to do to me?” she demanded, her words hitting me harder than any punches, breaking me up inside.
“But Ma, I told you it was an accident. I didn’t mean to hit him. These dudes were hurting this kid and—”
“I don’t want to hear it! I’m tired of you making everything so difficult all the time. And I’m tired of your excuses. No matter what happened, you could’ve handled it differently. Told a teacher. Talked to the principal. You had a choice. But what did you do? You went and started hitting. ”
I knew part of what she said was right, but she didn’t understand what seeing Eric did to me. How it scraped open the wound of Huero’s death. I was drenched in gasoline, and it was the match that set me on fire.
“I can’t keep doing this, mijo. I’m getting too old,” she said, heading down the hallway to her bedroom. Her voice became weaker somehow, like something deep inside her had broken. Had finally started to give up. “I moved us here to get you out of the barrio, to get you a decent education, and to give you a chance your brother will never have. If all you’re gonna do is throw it away, shame on you,” she said, taking a deep breath and wiping her eyes. “I need to go to bed. It’s been a long day. ”
She walked past me into her bedroom and closed the door, leaving me standing at the edge of the dark hallway alone.
The candles beneath Huero’s picture cast the only light in the hall. I looked at his portrait and fought back the tears.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. To my mother. To Huero. To everyone I’d wronged.
But my mom’s words echoed in my head, slicing me like switchblades inside, cutting me to the bone.
You’re killing me . . .
Shame on you.
The words hurt so much I almost didn’t care that Frankie was closing in like a pit bull ready to bite my throat.
Mijo,
I’m working late tonight for inventory. There are leftovers in the fridge. Nelson will bring me home. Call me if you need anything.
I reread the short note my mother stuck on our refrigerator. Her words were cold and distant. I crumpled the paper and tossed it in the trashcan when I heard a knock at the door.
For a second, I imagined Frankie had come already. But when I looked through the tiny peephole, I saw Vicky staring back at me. She looked nervous. Suddenly I was too.
I thought about not answering the door. It was almost noon, and I hadn’t even showered. I knew I looked bad, but I couldn’t just leave her standing there. And part of me was grateful to see her.
“Wassup, Vicky,” I said, opening the door. She was wearing a snug pink T-shirt and jeans, and she looked better than ever. Seeing her, I didn’t know what to say. My tongue was all in knots. All I could do was be honest. “It’s good to see you, girl. I can’t believe you came here, though. ”
“You think you’re going to keep me away with a note like this?” she replied with a smile. She was holding the note I wrote her in class yesterday. “When I read it, I was like ‘Why hasn’t he just been honest with me?’”
She was staring at me, her eyes friendly and sincere. In her gaze, I felt exposed somehow. It was like she could see right into me. Like she was looking at the guilt in my heart, the stupid mistakes I made, the trouble hanging over me like a curse.
“Look, I’m sorry, Vicky. I’ve just had a rough time lately. A lot of stuff has been going on, and I didn’t handle it well,” I admitted. I needed her to understand I never meant to hurt her. “I shouldn’t have treated you that way. ”
“You’re right, and if you do it again, you’ll be sorry,” she teased.
“I am sorry, Vicky. Seriously,” I said.
“I know you are, Martin. That’s why I’m here,” she replied. “You think I’d come over here if I thought you were a jerk?”
“Girl, you’re crazy. Just because I’m sorry doesn’t mean what I said to you isn’t true. You should stay as far away from me as possible. ” I meant the words, forced them out even though they hurt to say.
“Oh my God, I am sooo sick of hearing that. Look at me, Martin. I’m standing here because I like you. If you honestly don’t want me around, just tell me, and I’ll leave. But if I hear another person—especially you—tell me I’m doing the wrong thing, I’m gonna freak. ”
“How can you be so sure about me, Vicky?” I said, unable to hide the sadness bubbling inside me. I stepped away from the door so I could hide my eyes, but she followed me.
“’Cause if you were really a jerk, you wouldn’t try so hard to protect me, Martin,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “If you were really a jerk, you wouldn’t have stood up for Eric in the locker room. And if you were really a jerk, you wouldn’t apologize to me neither. Believe me, I know what I see in you, and I’m sure I’m right. ”
I felt like someone who had been lost in the desert. Her words were like water. I wanted to drink them in, to believe them, but I knew better.
“But there’s so much you don’t know, Vicky. ” I was staring at the floor, shaking my head. Snapshots of all the things I’d screwed up flashed through my head. Huero lying on the ground. Frankie kicking César. Me hiding the truth from everyone.
“So tell me! That’s what friends do, right?”
We were standing in my living room. The sun was shining outside, and there before me was this beautiful darkhaired girl who challenged me like no one else. I looked at her and just shook my head. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, and she was asking me to climb down to the bottom with her. My heart was racing. “I don’t even know how, Vicky. ”
She glanced over my shoulder to the hallway. I knew she could see the candles and Huero’s picture in the distance.
“Is that your little brother?” she asked, slowly stepping past me toward the hall.
“Yeah, that’s Huero. The picture was taken about a year before . . . you know. ” I moved next to her, our shoulders touching.
“Oh my God, Martin. You two have the same eyes. ”
“You think so?”
“Definitely,” she said, examining the picture. “He’s cuter than you, though. ”
I almost smiled at her then. “He was the coolest kid, Vicky. You woulda loved him. ” It was the first time I’d ever really talked about Huero to someone that didn’t know him.
“I believe it,” Vicky said. “I feel like I know him a little bit through you, and I like him already. ” She smiled and placed her hand on my shoulder.
I felt like I was melting inside. Like my anger and sadness was a tight fist that she was gently opening.
“I miss him so much,” I confessed.
She rubbed my back then, and I couldn’t hold back. It was like cracks were opening inside me and pain was ready to pour out.
“Why couldn’t I have protected him? Why did he have to die, Vicky?” My voice was shaking, breaking up, but the words kept coming. “Why wasn’t it me that got shot?” I asked, trying to pull away from her. But she held me.
“I’m so sorry, Martin,” she said, pressing herself into me. There were tears in her eyes.
“It should have been me,” I said, my face burning with shame. I had never said the words, but they haunted me every day. Clouded everything I did since Huero died. Made me hate my own reflection and wish I’d never been born.
“No, Martin,” she said, touching my face. “It shouldn’t have happened to anyone. Not you. Not Huero. But you can’t do that to yourself. You have to go on. That’s all we can do. ”
“It should have been me,” I repeated, tears rolling down my face, my chest beginning to heave. I didn’t want to cry. I had fought it for so long, kept everything buried down deep. But Vicky’s words, her touch, and her tears thawed me. “I wish it was me. . . . ”
I wept then like a small child, felt the hurt like lead weights on my back begin to lighten slightly. Vicky hugged me the whole time. I listened to her breathing and felt her heart beat against my chest. Twice she wiped her own eyes, the tears she shed for Huero. For me.
I don’t know how long we stood there holding each other in front of Huero’s picture. When we finally pulled away, my T-shirt was splotchy and wet from our crying. With anyone else, I would have been embarrassed, but not with her. We stared at each other for several long seconds without a word. Then she did something that surprised me.
She leaned forward and kissed me.
Her lips were soft and smooth. I closed my eyes and touched her soft face, ran a hand through the long spiral curls that stretched down her back, smelled the strawberry shampoo she had used to wash her hair.
We kissed just once, but we spent the rest of the day together. I didn’t tell her about César or that Frankie was coming later that night. I was afraid she might do something crazy and get herself hurt for me. I couldn’t risk that.
“You have to fight your expulsion, Martin. You have to go to that hearing and tell the superintendent everything,” she said later that day when we were eating pizza at Niko’s.
“There’s no way he’s gonna listen to me. Everyone who saw me thinks I’m a thug. I heard the secretaries talking about me in the office. ”
“Who cares what they think? They don’t get it. You gotta make them understand and show them who you really are,” she urged. There was this tiny crease in her forehead. I’d seen it in class whenever she said something she really believed in. Now it was there because she believed in me. I didn’t agree with a word she said, but I wanted to kiss her again right there. She was as much a fighter as anyone I knew, and she was on my side.
“But it’s not that simple, Vicky,” I explained. She started shaking her head at me. I know she didn’t understand what it was like to have everyone think you were a criminal, how you were guilty before you even opened your mouth. “Besides, I pushed Mr. Dooling. ”
“Well, if you don’t fight this, shame on you ’cause I expected more from you,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. I couldn’t believe her words. The same ones my mother had said.
“Girl, this isn’t even about you. Why are you getting in the middle of it?”
“I am already in the middle of it. Steve’s my exboyfriend, remember? And then there’s you. ” She smiled, and for a half second she blushed. She knew what I was going to ask her next. I could see it on her face.
“And what am I?”
“That depends. What do you want to be?” she asked with a sly smile. My heart jumped. I grabbed her hand.
For the first time at Bluford, I had a true friend. And for the first time in my life, I had found a girl who moved my soul. It figures both came on the day I had to face Frankie. The day after I was kicked out of Bluford.
“I’ll tell you later,” I said, holding her hand, making a silent promise to answer the question if I ever got the chance to be with her again. If I survived my clash with Frankie.
She squeezed my hand back and smiled. She knew I wasn’t telling her everything, but right then it didn’t matter. I wished I could have bottled the moment. Saved it forever somehow. Because at that table in the back of Niko’s, with Vicky’s soft hand in mine, I felt something new. Something I’d lost months ago, maybe something I never really had.
I felt glad to be alive.
And yet, even then, I could feel Frankie coming to strip it all away. Snuff it out like a candle.
If there was going to be any hope for me in this world, I had to stop him.
Tonight.
Chapter 10
Alone in the apartment, I paced for several hours hoping what Chago said was wrong. That Frankie was not coming for me, and I wouldn’t have to see him again.
At 10:00, after checking and rechecking each noise and every car on the street, I turned out all the lights. Maybe Frankie would leave if he thought no one was home. Or maybe the crew would convince him to grab some beers and chill somewhere.
But deep down, I knew I was kidding myself.
“I ain’t never seen him so angry. ” Chago’s words echoed in my mind.
I had to face Frankie one last time. It was the only way I’d be able to look at myself in the mirror, silence the angry voices in my head, and honor my fallen brother.
By 11:30, the apartment was still quiet. I stretched out on my bed listening to the sound of each car engine outside.
Each siren racing off in the distance.
Each rustle of the restless mice in the walls.
Only the red numbers on my alarm clock and the flickering candles under Huero’s picture kept the place from being as dark and quiet as a grave.
As my eyes grew heavier, I started thinking Chago had managed to talk some sense into Frankie. Told him to leave me alone, to let it all go. I was almost nodding off when I heard the step outside our apartment door creak strangely.
If it were my mother, I’d hear keys jingling, the locks opening with a solid click. Not this time.
First someone tried to open the front door of our apartment. Of course, I had locked it, but Frankie knew how to break a lock just as fast as he could break a nose. There was a heavy thud, then a pop followed by a quick metallic snap. A second later, I heard the familiar groan of the door opening.
My heart started pounding like a bass drum. My palms grew slick with sweat. I grabbed Huero’s old bat and crept out of bed to the edge of the doorway, careful not to make a sound. The door was half open, so I hid myself behind it and peered through the tiny gap along the door frame.
I could hear footsteps getting closer. From the sounds, I guessed at least three people had entered the apartment. Maybe more.
My worst fears were coming true. Frankie had brought the crew with him. My boys from back in the day—Jesus, Junie, and Chago—were now my enemies, breaking into my house in the middle of the night like thieves. Allowing Frankie to push them too far.
They paused for a second in our living room and whispered. In the silence, I could make out Chago whispering.
“I don’t like this. That’s Huero’s picture on the wall. This ain’t right. ”
“You scared, homes?” Frankie challenged. I knew his voice anywhere. “You back out now, and the scariest thing you’ll see is me. ”
“I don’t think anyone’s here, Frankie. ” I recognized that voice too. It was Junie, a dude who usually spent Saturday nights smoking weed, not hunting friends.
“Check the bedrooms. ” Frankie ordered. He was always getting people to do his dirty work. A year ago, he would have sent me to check the rooms, and I would have listened. No more.
My hands were tingling. I needed to stop him somehow. Stop him before he stopped me. I prayed my plan would work.
Our apartment was small. Only about twelve feet separated the front door from my room, and I could hear someone coming forward.
I gripped the bat tight, feeling the sticky tape Huero had put on it last spring.
The floor outside my room groaned slightly as someone approached. Then I heard footsteps move into my mother’s room. Through the tiny crack in the door, I could see the back of a figure standing in the hallway looking at Huero’s picture.
I raised my bat. The person stood still for several seconds, took a deep breath, and pushed open my bedroom door.
It was Chago. In the candlelight, I could see his eyes glistening and wide open with fear. He was staring right at me like he’d seen a
ghost. If it was anyone else, I would have swung the bat, but instead I raised my finger across my lips so he knew to keep his mouth shut.
“No one’s in here,” whispered Jesus from my mother’s room.
“No one’s in here either,” answered Chago, looking right at me. I thought his whisper was too quick. Too forced. He turned and headed back to the living room, leaving the door slightly open.
I knew Frankie would break him if he found out about the lie. Chago knew it too. His forehead was covered in a thin layer of sweat that reflected dimly in the dark.
“You sure the place is empty?” Frankie asked, frustration in his voice. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I could picture him scowling at Jesus and Junie, making sure he could trust them.
“There ain’t no one here. Let’s get outta here before his mom comes back. ” Chago said. Someone struck a match then. Chago was smoking. I was sure of it.
“Why you in such a hurry, homes?” Frankie asked. I could hear the distrust in his voice. I knew what it meant.
The apartment got dead quiet. Frankie was whispering, but he kept his voice low this time. I couldn’t understand a word he said.
“I told you he’s not in there,” Chago yelled suddenly from the living room. I bet he was trying to warn me.
Then I heard footsteps rushing down the hallway.
I knew I was in trouble. My arms were trembling with nervous energy. I said a silent prayer and peered through the crack in the door.
In the flickering candlelight, I could make out half of Huero’s picture, but there was something unusual about it. A reflection of dim figures in the area under Huero’s face.
The one in front was definitely Frankie. I could see his torso and head suspended in the air. As the reflections grew bigger, I saw something shimmer just for a second. Something metal.
It was like Huero was trying to protect me somehow.
I stepped back and raised the bat, knowing where I had to aim. Frankie’s right arm. He was just outside my door. Only a few feet separated us.
