Mexican WhiteBoy

by Matt De La Peña

  Danny opens his eyes, lets go. He looks at his hands.

  Uno glances up at the tracks, shakes his arms out and stretches his neck. “Trains got crazy power,” he says. “Sometimes I think about that shit when someone steps to me in a fight. I think how I stood under this bridge and held on to this pole and took all that train power into my body. And then it ain’t really me that’s fightin’ no more. It’s the power of the train coming outta my body. And ain’t nobody gonna mess with that kind of power, right?”

  Danny stares back at Uno, nodding.

  “I could never be as strong as a train,” Uno says. “So why pretend, right? Sometimes when I’m down here and there’s a train, I wonder if that’s the kind of power that God gots. And I pretend it ain’t just train power I’m takin’ in, but maybe it’s some bigger shit. Somethin’ spiritual, maybe.”

  Danny puts his hands back on the pillar, looks up at the tracks above.

  “My pops is into God, man. Jesus up in heaven and all that. And maybe he’s right. But sometimes I think maybe God’s down here. In regular everyday stuff. Like the power of a train.”

  They’re both quiet for a sec, and then Uno laughs hard, says: “Check me out, D. Gettin’ all deep down here at three in the mornin’.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Danny says under his breath, looking at his hands.

  “You think so?” Uno says.

  Danny shrugs.

  Uno shakes his head, laughs a little more and starts to climb back up to the bridge. When he’s almost at the top he looks back, finds Danny right behind him.

  Danny’s Return to the Mound

  1

  A week later Danny finds himself following Uno again, this time onto a ghetto-looking field somewhere in Logan Heights. They set their stuff near the dugout, take a seat on the brown grass in foul territory and look over the setting. Danny notes the holes in the dugout chain-link, the nonexistent center-field wall, the brown home plate. He tries to imagine the faces of the Leucadia Prep guys if they had to set foot on the fields Danny’s been on this summer.

  Uno loosens the laces of his Timberlands one at a time, slips them off.

  Danny turns around when a couple big black dudes walk through the gate behind them, laughing. Three Mexican girls follow close behind. “What up, Uno?” the first guy says, giving Uno a quick pound.

  “What up, C?” Uno says.

  The guy turns to Danny. “This the cat you was talkin’ ’bout? Come on, dawg, he out here in Vans.”

  “Nah, he could pitch, though,” Uno says. “You don’t think I’d throw paper down if I was backin’ a cripple-ass horse, right?”

  “I see, it’s part of y’all skeeze.” The guy laughs, turns to his buddy. “This my boy Uno. We was up in juvi together when we was fifteen. Uno, this Marzel.”

  The two give daps and Uno says, “Cory, D. D, Cory.” More daps. Then Cory and Marzel continue to the other side of the field. Danny glances at the girls, who are still hovering by the gate. They’re all staring at him.

  “Cory’s good peoples,” Uno says as he pulls a pair of old Nikes out of his bag, slips them on. “He was in juvi for sellin’ to an undercover. Spent a year in a group home in Lemon Grove after that. Told me his boy can hit like a mother, but he’s a little shaky when it comes to character.”

  Danny nods.

  As the girls walk by, the prettiest one pats Danny on the head and smiles. Uno holds his hands up at her, says: “What up, baby girl? Daddy can’t get no love? I ain’t handsome, too?”

  The girls laugh and continue toward the far dugout, next to Cory and Marzel, and duck inside.

  Uno unzips his bag, reaches a hand inside. “Got a surprise for you, D. You know how I been busin’ tables, right? Check it, dawg. I made an investment. Now you could throw it as hard as you want.” Uno pulls out a brand-new catcher’s mitt, slips his left hand in and flexes the leather. Punches the pocket a couple times.

  “Thought you were saving for Oxnard,” Danny says.

  “I been gettin’ tips, though. My choice, D. And since next year I might wanna try out for the squad, I gotta buy one eventually, right?”

  Danny nods.

  “Anyway, we win this thirty-dollar pot, the mitt basically pays for itself. And don’t worry ’bout no double or nothin’. These fools ain’t got a penny more than thirty. Trust me. Now, you ready to go show some fools what a Mexican could do in a pair of Vans?”

  Danny tosses a baseball into Uno’s new mitt and they both stand up.

  2

  As Marzel steps into the batter’s box, Danny digs into the loose dirt in front of the beat-up pitching rubber. He glances at Cory, who’s checking his cell. The girls, who are all talking to each other and laughing. He checks Uno’s hat behind home plate, filled with sixty bucks. He knows he can’t let Uno down this time. It’s not even an option. He has to win back the money he lost last time.

  Danny eyes Uno’s brand-new mitt, nods at fastball and goes into his windup. He fires the first pitch at the outside part of the plate, but the ball gets away from him, ends up a good two feet outside. Uno lunges for the ball but misses, has to chase the errant pitch all the way to the backstop. He gathers the ball, tosses back.

  Danny snags it out of the air and walks around the mound rubbing it down. He feels uncertainty climbing into his throat again. That old familiar feeling. This can’t be happening again. The whole reason Uno wanted to hit up some guys off the street is so Danny wouldn’t get nervous. And here he is again, first pitch way out of the strike zone. Danny steps back on the mound and eyes the target, nods at another fastball and goes into his windup. He fires his second pitch, but the ball gets away again. This one is headed right for Marzel’s left shoulder, but luckily he dives out of the way in time.

  Uno lunges to his left, barely snags the pitch on the fly.

  Marzel gets up slowly, eyeing Danny. He looks back at Cory, then takes a few steps toward the mound, points a finger. “You throw inside like that again, I’m gonna break this bat on your face.”

  Uno hustles in front of the guy, slows his forward progress. “Chill, baby. He ain’t throwed it like that on purpose. Pitch got away from him, that’s all.”

  Marzel stops, dusts off his shirt and says: “Better check your boy, G.”

  “I got ’im, I got ’im.” Uno turns the guy back toward the plate and heads out to the mound himself. He pulls his mitt off and smiles. “Yo, D. I just figured somethin’ out. You tryin’ too hard, man. Like I do at the derby sometimes. ’Member what I said down at the tracks? ’Bout the power of a train? It’s in here now, D.” He lightly punches Danny in the chest a couple times. “It ain’t about you no more.”

  Danny nods, pulls in a deep breath. Over Uno’s shoulder he sees Marzel talking to Cory, pointing his finger.

  “It ain’t about you,” Uno says again. “It’s bigger than your dumb ass. It’s about your right arm, man. Your talent.”

  Danny nods.

  Uno puts his mitt back on, punches the new leather. “Look at this thing, D. Brand-new. You gonna help me break this shit in or what?” He laughs and heads back to the plate.

  After Uno sets up and Marzel steps back into the box, Danny looks in at Uno’s sign. Another fastball. He nods. Takes a deep breath and pictures the train over his head and then pictures nothing at all. He goes blank during his windup, like he does when it’s just him and Uno at Las Palmas. Or at the train tracks. He lets go. And this time when he fires his fastball it rips right past a late-swinging Marzel and straight into Uno’s new mitt.

  “Strike one!” Uno calls out, tossing the ball back.

  Marzel turns to look at Cory, who shrugs.

  Danny snags the ball out of the air. He looks in at Uno’s fastball sign with a blank mind and nods again. Winds up and fires. The ball rips right past a late-swinging Marzel again. Marzel slams his bat into the ground.

  “Strike two!” Uno calls out, tossing it back.

  “Come on, Zel,” Cory shouts from the side. �
�Put some wood on it.”

  Uno pumps his fist at Danny, crouches behind the plate and puts down another fastball sign.

  Danny’s completely blank when he nods this time. There’s nothing in his head but quiet space. He winds up, fires, watches a third straight fastball speed right past the incredibly slow swing of the bat. Uno doesn’t even have to move his mitt.

  “Strike three!” Uno calls out, and hustles to the mound to push Danny, smack him in the back of the head. “It ain’t about you, D. It’s your talent. Just gotta get out the way, boy.”

  Danny smiles, nods. It feels good to get out of the way. To watch a hitter swing late and slam his bat in frustration.

  They step off the mound together. Danny heads to Uno’s bag, while Uno heads for his hat and the money.

  Danny’s not over there for two minutes before the three girls walk over and start talking to him in Spanish. When he shrugs they giggle. “He doesn’t even speak Spanish,” one of them says. “Told you he was a halfie. You could tell ’cause how he dresses.”

  “Why don’t you speak no Spanish?” another says.

  Danny shrugs.

  “Tu Mexicano, though, right?” the first one says.

  Danny nods.

  Marzel storms the scene looking pissed and says, “Gia, wha’chu doin’, girl?”

  “We was just askin’ him a question, Zel,” she says. “Chill. God.”

  Marzel turns to Danny, shoves him, says: “First you throw at my head, then you gonna talk to my girl like that?” He pushes Danny again.

  Danny slips his left hand out of his mitt, takes a couple steps back.

  Gia yells at Marzel to back off, but he continues forward, shoves Danny again. “You ain’t disrepectin’ me like that, dawg. You don’t know where I come from.” He rears back to throw a punch, but out of nowhere Uno steps in and blasts the guy from the side. Puts him flat on his back and then stands over him, glaring down.

  “Now what’s up?” Uno shouts.

  Marzel looks up at Uno, touches his bloody lip and holds his fingers in front of his eyes. He stands up slow, swings wildly at Uno, but Uno ducks it, lands two quick and powerful body blows, doubles Marzel over.

  Uno glares. “Ain’t nobody touch my boy Danny like that!”

  Danny looks at Uno standing there with his fists clenched.

  Cory hustles onto the scene, steps in front of Marzel. He looks back at Uno, says: “You guys get outta here! Go! Go!”

  Uno mad-dogs Marzel a few more seconds, then grabs Danny by the arm and they both hustle for their stuff and leave the field.

  A ways down the street Uno turns to Danny, says: “Know that punch I just threw, D? That wasn’t me, man. Was the train. Same thing as when you pitch.”

  Danny looks back as they run for a bus that’s pulling up to the stop, opening its doors. He can’t see the field anymore, but he imagines Cory still holding Marzel back. The girls huddled off to the side.

  Dear Dad:

  Look who your son’s become. He’s the ace of the best traveling team in the state. The kid the coach hands the ball to when it matters most. Whenever your son steps onto a mound, Dad, the rest of his team stops and watches. They wanna see what he does next. Scouts hang on his every movement.

  Ever since you first taught me how to throw a baseball, Dad, in the alley behind the boarded-up Laundromat off Twenty-third St, this is who I was destined to become. A superstar pitcher. I couldn’t have chosen another path if I’d tried. When I’m in the classroom at school I’m just a regular kid. I got a certain score on a certain test just like all twenty-five of the other scholarship kids. We blend together like sheep. When I step on this mound, though, Dad, I’m special. I stand above the rest of the kids in the school. The rest of the players in the state. I pitch down to them. Something I’ve learned—when you’re a great pitcher, a mound is your throne. A baseball cap is your crown. You give orders. Make laws. Rule people.

  When you think about it, Dad, it’s amazing I ever step down from that hill of dirt.

  Senior Reads Danny’s Mind

  1

  Several hustles go the exact same way. Danny blows away whoever he’s facing with almost exclusively fastballs. And every pitch hits Uno’s glove wherever he sets it. His control problem has basically gone out the window. The trick, Danny’s found, is clearing his mind. Just like Uno said. Getting out of the way. Letting his talent do the work.

  At Sweetwater High he struck out a Mexican dude named Rafael. At Chula Vista he whiffed a tall white guy named Gary Sutterfield. At San Diego High he overpowered a muscle-head black kid named Ernest. Uno lays down his signs, and then Danny shuts off his mind and deals. Nobody has even touched him in four hustles. And the money is starting to add up. On the trips back home Uno talks about Oxnard and Danny thinks about Ensenada, Mexico. He’s even started researching plane tickets.

  But after today’s hustle he’s ended up at Tony’s Barbecue with Uno and Uno’s dad.

  Uno’s dad takes a small break from his lecture to pour house barbecue sauce all over his ribs and corn bread. Uno takes the bottle after him and does the same. Danny studies the similarities in their faces. The thick nose, the droopy eyes, the strong cheekbones and powerful chin. The only real difference is that Uno’s face is younger, a little lighter because his mom’s Mexican. When Uno recaps the bottle, Danny reaches for it, aims over his own plate of ribs and corn bread.

  “All right, an example then,” Senior continues, turning to his son. “Take last Sunday. I caught some Mexican kid breakin’ in my place. Caught ’im red-handed. Me and my wife and my baby was walkin’ back home from church, and there he was, ’bout eighteen, nineteen years old, climbing in through my damn bathroom window.”

  Uno drops his fork. “You playin’, Pop. Really?”

  “That’s my word, Uno. Right after church, middle of the day. But I’m sayin’, it’s an example of how man is capable of change. The old me would of put this skinny kid in an emergency room. Asked questions later. But I ain’t react like that no more. Today I got control, got a perspective.”

  “That’s different, though,” Uno says, his mouth full of baked beans. “He was comin’ into your place. Tryin’ to take your stuff.”

  “Is it different?” Senior says. He turns his glare at Danny.

  “Think about it. Does it really make a difference?”

  Senior continues staring, and Danny feels like something’s expected of him. He shakes his head and looks down at his plate. When he looks up again, Senior’s back to his own food. Uno’s sipping Coke through a straw. Danny picks up a rib and tears off some meat. As he chews he tries to imagine what it’d be like to find somebody climbing into his mom’s apartment in Leucadia. What would he do? How would he feel about the robber?

  2

  Earlier in the day, Danny and Uno completed their latest successful hustle and cleared another thirty bucks. This one wasn’t even on a real baseball diamond, it was on a patch of open lawn in Balboa Park, where they challenged some rich Mormon kid. Uno’d heard through the grapevine that there was a traveling team from Utah practicing in front of the Aerospace Museum.

  And amazingly, the Padres scout was there for a bit, too. He showed up in his same getup: jeans, a plain collar shirt and his Padres hat. This time Uno yelled out to him: “Hey, man. You really work for the Pads?” The guy nodded and slipped his hands in his pockets. He watched a few more pitches and then took off like he always did.

  On the bus ride home Uno went on and on about how easily Danny had handled the Mormon. Three straight hard fastballs, right down the pipe. Guy didn’t have a prayer. The only problem, Uno explained, was that Danny was making things look too easy. So easy that the Mormon, like the last two guys, had refused to go double or nothing, even when Uno said all he had to do was foul-tip a pitch to win his money back.

  They went silent for a few seconds on the bus, and then Uno asked Danny if he wanted to have lunch with him and his dad at their favorite barbecue joint. Danny quickly
accepted.

  3

  Senior slaps his palm on the table, says: “People is people! Don’t matter if it’s a convict or a preacher man.” He takes a big bite of corn bread and chews through, swallows. “Five, maybe six years ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. I’d have beat that kid within an inch of his life. But that’s the point, see. I wasn’t thinkin’ back then. I was just doin’. And where was I learnin’ what to do? On the street. From the thugs comin’ up in front of me in southeast San Diego. Now I slow down, make decisions based on well-thought-out justifications.”

  “What’d you do then?” Uno says, lifting a couple sweet potato fries to his mouth.

  “First thing I did was tackle him to the ground and put his ass in a headlock. No matter how your heart is for people, you still gotta apprehend somebody tryin’ to climb in your damn bathroom window.” Senior laughs a deep laugh, wipes his face. “I tackled him and yelled: ‘You gonna come ’round my property, scare my family? Boy, you caught me on this a few years back I’d have snapped your neck already!’ Then I looked at my wife, my baby. And I smiled at ’em and said: ‘It’s okay, now. This boy here’s one of God’s children, too. Just like us. And I’m gonna show you.’ Then I pulled the boy to his feet and we all went in the house together.”

  “You took him in the house?” Uno says.

  “That’s right. Made him sit right next to me on the couch. Kid was shook, too. Wouldn’t look nobody in the eyes, not even my new li’l puppy. Tried to make a run for it at one point. But I just grabbed him by the hood of his sweatshirt, pulled him right back to the couch and kept talkin’ to him. I told him about my past, bangin’ and sellin’ and snatchin’ people’s shit. Told him how I served time, lost my marriage, lost my son. Lost my damn sense of who I was.”

  Danny watches Senior and Uno stare into each other’s eyes for a few seconds. Senior shakes his head, says: “I told that kid I didn’t want nothin’ more, Uno, than to make it right with my firstborn. With my boy. And that’s what made me fly straight. So I moved from San Diego up to Oxnard, got a job with the city, met my second wife and turned my life around. Told him it took me a long-ass time to learn the honorable path. But I did. And he could, too. And then you know what happened? He opened up to me, man. Said he’d knocked up one of his little girlfriends, one he didn’t hardly even know. And he was scared. Didn’t neither of them have no job or money, and she was dead set on havin’ the baby. So for the past week he’d been stealin’. Much as he could. Outta houses and off people in the street. He said he didn’t even think he wasn’t stealin’ for the money no more; he was stealin’ to get caught. So somebody’d put him away and he wouldn’t have to think about what to do about no baby. I turned to my wife and my baby and told ’em, ‘You see that? Behind every act, good or bad, there’s a reason. People don’t just go out and do things by unfounded chance. They do things based on some aspect of they personal psychology. They unconscious.’”