Mexican WhiteBoy

by Matt De La Peña

  Ray pulls Danny by his face up to the driver’s side of the Impala. Scans mugs. “You,” he says, pointing over Chico to Uno, “get out the car.”

  Uno looks at his boys, confused. He turns back to Ray, “Wha’chu mean, ‘Get out’?”

  “Callate el hocico! What I just tell you?”

  “Yo, I ain’t gotta do nothin’—”

  “What I tell you?” Ray shouts. “Get out the car!”

  Uno gets out of the car.

  Chico makes a move to get out of the car, too, but Uncle Ray points a finger in his face. Shakes his head.

  Chico freezes.

  Ray pulls Danny around the Impala to Uno’s side. He stares at Uno for a few seconds, then turns to Danny. “How this happen to you, D? I’m not talkin’ ’bout what Sofe and you told Tommy, neither. This pinche pendejo raise a hand on you?”

  Danny sneaks a sideways glance at Sofia.

  Sofia looks down.

  He goes back to his uncle.

  “Say the word, D. That’s all I need. I’ll handle it from there.”

  Sofia clears her throat. “Uncle Ray, you know D ain’t gonna say nothin’—”

  “This don’t concern you, Sofe,” Ray says without taking his eyes off Uno. “This between me, D, and this punk-ass pendejo.” He spits on the ground, stares at Uno, fire burning in the whites of his eyes.

  Uno lowers his gaze.

  Danny stares at his uncle. The bulging veins in his forehead are the same veins he used to see in his dad’s forehead. The same crazed eyes.

  “Go on, D. Say the word.”

  Danny doesn’t say anything. He watches Uno look through the windshield at Chico. Watches Chico shrug.

  “Fuck it,” Ray says. “Nod to me, D.”

  Danny takes another sideways glance at Uno. Goes back to his uncle.

  “Nod to me, D. People need to know what happens when they step to family.”

  Danny stares at his uncle.

  “Nod, D.”

  Danny watches Uno go to get back in the car and Uncle Ray slams his fist on the roof of the Impala, shouting: “Don’t you fucking move!”

  Uno freezes.

  “This my big brother’s kid right here. He ain’t ’round right now, but I am. And I swear to God, they gonna have to take my ass to jail. Nobody raises a hand on my big brother’s kid.” Ray turns his crazy eyes back on Danny. “They gonna have to take my ass to jail, D. Just nod to me.”

  “It happened in the game,” Danny blurts out.

  Everybody turns to look at him.

  Sofia drops her bag. Uno tilts his head to the side, furrows his brow. Raul and Lolo look at each other. Chico lets his hand drop from the steering wheel.

  “I was runnin’ for the garage,” Danny says in a loud voice.

  “Like Sofe told me I had to do. Those are the rules. And we ran into each other.”

  Sofia picks up her bag, touches Danny on the elbow.

  Ray wipes his brow, looks at Uno. Goes back to Danny.

  “It was my fault,” Danny says.

  The girls in the back of the Impala let out a collective deep breath, lean back in their seats. Rene follows their lead. Lolo and Raul continue craning their necks from the Festiva.

  Uncle Ray lets go of Danny’s chin and nods. He looks at Uno and nods some more. Then he pulls Danny away from everybody, toward his Bronco. Slaps a hand on his shoulder and smiles. “You did right, D-man. Couple stitches ain’t so bad if you got everybody’s respect now.”

  Danny nods.

  “Nobody gonna step to you no more. Watch.”

  Danny nods.

  Ray squeezes Danny’s shoulder, then turns to his Bronco. Everybody watches him climb in, release the brake, flip a quick bitch and speed back up the hill, out of sight.

  A buzz quickly starts up in both cars. Sofia smiles at Danny. She walks up, takes him by the hand and leads him toward the Festiva. “Um, what was that all about?”

  “What?” Danny says quietly.

  “What? You talked. That’s the first time you’ve said more than two words since you got here. What happened?”

  Danny shrugs.

  She shakes her head, continues smiling at him. “Who cares, right? Point is, you’re gonna be okay now. For real. I don’t know how it is up in Leucadia, but down here it’s better when you deal with stuff on your own.”

  Danny nods.

  When they reach the Festiva, Raul jumps out of the front seat and folds it back. Danny and Sofia slip past into the back. As Danny climbs in, Raul pats him on the shoulder. Carmen touches his right hand. Lolo gives him a little head nod.

  Sofia climbs in behind Danny. She puts her arm around his shoulder as Raul flips the seat back up, sits down and slams the tinny door closed.

  Carmen starts the car. As she pulls back onto the street, follows Chico’s Impala, Raul spins around, says: “I ain’t gonna lie, Sofe. Your uncle ’bout the baddest dude in the ’hood.”

  “Had Uno shittin’ bricks,” Carmen says, tuning her radio to a hip-hop station, turning up the volume.

  “Turned ese negro totalmente blanco,” Raul says over the music.

  Lolo pops open another forty and pulls a swig. He hands the bottle up to Raul, who takes a swig of his own. Raul hands it to Carmen, who sneaks a quick sip and hands it back to Lolo. Lolo offers the bottle to Sofia, but she waves him off, pulls a big sipper out of her bag, shouting over the music: “I mixed up some juice!”

  Lolo nods. He goes to put the bottle back up to his own lips, but at the last second he pauses.

  He turns to Danny. Holds out the bottle.

  Danny takes it, looks at the label, looks back at Lolo. Lolo nods. Danny tips the fresh bottle back, swallows some of the sour-tasting malt liquor—his first-ever sip of alcohol. He cringes at the aftertaste, feels the cool liquid move through his middle.

  He hands the bottle back to Lolo and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Shit!” Carmen shouts as she runs a red to keep pace with Chico’s Impala. She shakes her head, says, “Pinche Chico,” and pulls a cigarette from her pack.

  Raul takes a lighter from his pocket, flicks it on and lights Carmen up. He shouts: “You see the look in Uno’s eyes, though?” Everybody laughs and he says: “I thought my boy was gonna piss himself.”

  Danny listens to everybody replay the Uno–Uncle Ray face-off again. Listens to Carmen talk with her lungs half full of smoke. Listens to Sofia giggling between sips of spiked juice. Listens to Lolo’s broken English and Raul’s booming voice. And at the same time he stares out the window. At National City. He watches the faces of broken-down apartment complexes flash by. Houses with bars on every window. Graffiti on garage doors. A few of them boarded up, weeds as high as mailboxes, like nobody lives there anymore.

  Their Festiva clunks down a dark side street and pulls up to a four-way stop. To the right, the last few rays of sun are falling red over an ugly water tower. At the foot of it, a group of Mexican men are sitting around in wife-beaters, smoking and drinking. One of them looks up as the Festiva passes.

  Danny scans his face, and for a second he thinks it might be his dad. But the longer he stares the more he realizes how stupid that sounds. His dad’s in Mexico. Still, he and the guy stay looking at each other all the way until Carmen pulls through the intersection and merges onto the freeway on-ramp.

  2

  Danny learns the home run derby girl’s name while squeezed between Flaca and Sofia on the giant Ferris wheel.

  Their car is circling back down to earth one final time when Flaca points toward a small food court crowd, leans over Danny and says: “See ol’ girl over there, Sofe? Brown corduroy skirt and white top? Long black hair?”

  “Who?”

  “New girl.”

  “Liberty?” Sofia says. She takes a sip of juice and passes the bottle to Flaca.

  Liberty, Danny thinks.

  Flaca adjusts the straw, shrugs. “I guess. I don’t know her name.” She sips, hands to Danny.

>   Danny takes a long sip and then holds the bottle in his lap, listening.

  “What about her?” Sofia says.

  “Well, I ain’t tryin’ to talk about nobody. But I heard she be slingin’ booty in the Gaslamp.”

  “What?”

  “Most weekends, I heard. She’s a trick, Sofe. Una puta.”

  “Oh, please. Who told you that?” Sofia swipes the bottle out of Danny’s lap, gives him a funny look. “Guess you cool with drinkin’ now, eh, cuz?”

  Danny smiles, shrugs.

  Flaca clears her throat. “I got my sources, Sofe. But can you imagine? Sixteen and already droppin’ her drawers for billetes.”

  “And here you is seventeen,” Sofia shoots back, “and you droppin’ yours for free.”

  The girls bend over laughing on either side of Danny as the conductor unhooks their seat belts and holds their car still so they can climb out.

  Danny waits for the girls to go first, then jumps out after them. But even on solid ground, he still sort of feels like he’s floating on the Ferris wheel. Feet dangling over the rest of the fair. And there’s a low buzzing moving through his head.

  Sofia turns to look at Danny.

  He gives her a bigger smile this time. Then he turns his attention to the food court. Looks for the girl in the brown corduroy skirt again. The white top. Liberty.

  3

  Outside the modernist art exhibition, Danny learns the little boy Liberty was watching the day of the Derby was either (a) her son or (b) her cousin.

  The guys are posted on or around the benches outside the makeshift gallery, sipping juice and trying to count on their fingers how many girls in their year have a kid or are currently pregnant.

  “It’s hers, Chee,” Uno hollers from an adjacent bench.

  “Why you think she always with little big head?”

  “Oh, what,” Chico fires back, “you never had to babysit somebody?” He shakes his head, pulls another hit of jungle juice through a straw, hands off to Raul. “Trust me, Uno, that’s her aunt’s kid.”

  “Her adopted aunt, you mean? You know they ain’t even blood, right?”

  “What that means, Uno? Adopted family can’t have each other’s back?”

  Uno scoffs. “How you know anything about new girl, Chee? She ain’t been here but a few months. Never seen y’all two talkin’.”

  “Liberty’s aunt goes to the same church as my auntie Rosa. And she says back in Mexico—”

  “Hold up!” Uno interrupts. “Your Auntie Rosa? Now I know you lyin’. That old broad too fat to go to church.”

  Some of the guys break up a little.

  “Oh, I see,” Chico says, nodding, “you wanna talk about people’s weight now.”

  “She obese, Chee. I ain’t makin’ shit up.”

  Chico throws his hands in the air. Raul gives the juice to Lolo, who takes a long swig and moves it over to Rene. Rene holds the cup in front of his face for a few seconds without putting the straw to his lips.

  “I don’t talk about tu padre,” Chico says. “The fact he all stooped over when he walks. Viejo con el bastón. That don’t got nothin’ to do with if Liberty got a kid or not.”

  “You got principles,” Raul says.

  “I ain’t even gonna bring it up,” Chico says, turning to Raul. “Ain’t that right, Rah-rah?”

  “You the bigger man,” Raul says.

  Chico turns to Uno. “That’s right. I’m the bigger man, dawg.”

  Uno sips a little juice, says: “That’s cool ’cause we already cleared up who the bigger woman.”

  Everybody laughs and points at Chico. Rene finally sips the juice and passes it back to Raul.

  Uno looks over at Danny, catches him laughing. Gives him a little nod. “Guess the shit run in the family, Chee.” Uno taps sippers with Raul.

  “You cold, man,” Raul says.

  Danny listens to the fellas as they slowly circle back to the matter at hand: Liberty. But before they have a chance to revisit the kid controversy, the girls reemerge from the gallery raving about a particular painter’s work. They all go on and on about how women are so much more cultured than men. And the guys just sit there, rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. Drinking their juice.

  After a while Sofia walks up to Danny holding out a full sipper. “Looking for this?” she says.

  Danny takes the handoff and pulls through the straw.

  Sofia empties the second half of a Pepsi can into a plant and takes the sipper back from Danny. She unscrews the cap, pours some juice into the Pepsi can and hands the can to Danny. “Take it slow, cuz.”

  “I will,” Danny says under his breath.

  As they tap drinks and take another sip each, Danny starts thinking about Liberty again. He decides it isn’t really her kid. She must have been babysitting.

  4

  Danny overhears Guita and Raquel’s conversation as they’re all feeding carrots and celery sticks to a pack of baby goats and sheep. Learns Liberty has just arrived here from Rosarito, Mexico.

  “The girl can’t barely even speak English,” Guita says, holding out a carrot, then dropping it to the ground when one of the goats gets too close with its teeth.

  “Is she legal?” Raquel says.

  “Her real dad’s American. White. I guess he’s a lawyer or something. She wrote him mad letters from Mexico and he made the arrangements.”

  Danny pets a nappy-headed sheep nearby and thinks about the letters he sends his dad. It’s weird that he and Liberty have been doing the same thing from opposite countries. And it’s weird that she doesn’t speak English and he doesn’t speak Spanish. How would they ever communicate? It’s almost like she’s his exact opposite.

  “But she doesn’t live with her dad.” Raquel holds a carrot out for a baby goat.

  “No, I know. He has another family in L.A. He got Lib in the country, set her up with a place to live and sends her money every month. But that’s it.”

  Guita takes a stick of celery from her feed bag, tentatively pushes it out toward one of the goats.

  Raquel grabs Guita’s hand, makes her keep still while the goat nibbles at the celery, lips all over both their fingers. They let out little squeals and crack up.

  A few people turn to look at them.

  Danny sips from his Pepsi can, watching them. If only he can find his dad in Ensenada once he lands there. Everything will be okay if he can just find him.

  “She’s too pretty,” Raquel says. “That’s the only real reason I got a problem with her.”

  “Nah, but she’s nice, girl.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, we talk sometimes. In Spanish, like I said.”

  Guita and Raquel hand a goat and a sheep a few more carrots and celery sticks and then drop their empty feed bag in the trash and head out of the petting zoo together.

  Danny stays put for a while. He feels the warmth of alcohol coating his insides. Watches a little girl, dressed in a blue polka-dot dress, cautiously approach a small sheep. Watches her reach out, touch its soft, bushy back and then spin around to look at her mom and dad. Her smiling dad fumbles through a backpack and pulls out a digital camera.

  The girl giggles and turns to pet the sheep again.

  Her dad aims the camera and takes her picture.

  Danny reaches up to touch the stitches in the back of his head.

  Dear Dad:

  Everything is working out so perfectly down here. I almost can’t believe it. I’ve made friends with all the guys. Sofe’s friends. We hang out at the movies and at the baseball field, sometimes we cruise to the mall. Tonight they dragged me to the Del Mar Fair. And at one point, in the middle of the petting zoo, I thought of you. I was feeding celery to one of the animals, and I thought: Man, I bet my dad used to do this all the time, considering he worked at the Wild Animal Park.

  Anyway, I wanted to tell you about my new girlfriend, Liberty. She’s tall and beautiful and has this amazingly straight hair that hangs to the middle of her b
ack. And it’s so shiny, Dad. She must brush it all the time. She has lighter skin than you and I, but her eyes are big and brown and darker than anything you’ve ever seen. It makes her look mysterious. Everybody says she could be a model. If she wanted to. But she doesn’t. She’s too modest.

  Thing is, Dad, she’s more than just a pretty face. She’s really smart, too. Even though she barely speaks English, she’s way smarter than any of the white girls at my private school. And she really likes me. Just last night, while we were walking back from the park, she turned to me and said: “I don’t want to scare you, Danny, but I maybe love you. Is that okay?” I said, “Yeah, Lib, it’s cool.” And then we kept walking. I didn’t say it back ’cause I remember you telling me one time it’s best to take it slow with girls. Or else you’ll wake up when you’re seventeen and find yourself married with a kid. Like what happened to you and Uncle Tommy.

  She wasn’t mad or anything. Maybe when I’m closer to making it to the big leagues I’ll say it. And I bet we’ll still be together. I’ve been with tons of girls over the past few years, but with Lib it feels different.

  Anyway, what I wanted to tell you is that Lib’s from Mexico, too. Like you. And she’s half white like me—it’s her dad that’s white. I was thinking, maybe when I come visit you I could bring Lib. And you could meet her. See how pretty she is for yourself.

  5

  The most significant thing Danny learns at the fair has nothing to do with Liberty. Not directly, anyway.

  He learns that jungle juice makes him feel light as a feather. That it makes him feel ten feet tall. But still slick on his feet. Makes him feel like smiling and talking to anybody and everybody, at any time—though he hasn’t.

  Danny opens his eyes, finds himself sitting against a chain-link fence behind a cotton candy stand. He looks out over the booths in front of him, sees Uno and Chico and Raul and Rene and Lolo all shooting water balloons with BB guns to make their horses move forward. He sees Sofia and Carmen and Flaca laughing with some security guard. But there’s no sign of Liberty.

  During his three or four hours at the fair, Danny’s drunk so much juice his stomach feels bloated and his head feels numb. He looks down, finds the Pepsi can still in hand. He goes to take another sip, but it’s empty.