Mexican WhiteBoy

by Matt De La Peña

  Carmelo is so far out in front of the pitch he steps and swings awkwardly before the ball is halfway to the plate. He misses badly, spins himself and goes down on one knee.

  “Strike three,” Uno calls out, flipping off his mask and turning to the money hat. But JJ’s already there, pulling the money out and shoving it in his pocket. The other guys have stood up and are walking toward JJ with their bags. Uno sprints over to JJ, shouting: “Let go the money, bitch!”

  JJ tosses aside Uno’s empty hat and turns to take off, but Uno’s already on him. He shoves JJ to the ground and reaches for his pocket. But one of the other guys slugs him in the back of the head. Uno spins around, narrowly avoids a wild right from another kid and punches the kid who hit him in the jaw. The guy goes down hard but quickly gets back to his feet. Two other guys wrap Uno up.

  “Get off!” Uno hears Danny shout from behind him. But Carmelo’s there, too. Uno turns to watch Carmelo shove Danny to the ground and kick him in the ribs.

  Uno breaks free and pounces on Carmelo. He gets him in a tight headlock, tries to choke the life out of him. But the other guys pull Uno off, hold his arms while Carmelo punches him twice in the stomach, doubles him over. JJ and the other kid start working over Danny on the ground.

  Uno tries to wrestle free, but he can’t get away. He shouts at Danny to run, watches Carmelo rear back and throw a punch right at his face, but he ducks it and the punch grazes the face of Carmelo’s own guy. Uno wrestles free and pounces on one of the guys on Danny. He swings a vicious right and hits him on the side of the face, sends him sprawling onto the ground. Blood starts coming from the guy’s nose.

  But there are too many of them and soon Uno and Danny are both being held and pummeled. They take a few blows each and then, out of nowhere, the big Mexican scout rushes through the gate and dives at the Morse High kids. He takes three of them to the ground at one time. Grabs two of their heads and slams them together. They both spin around, one of them falling to the grass.

  Uno pulls Danny up. He goes for JJ, pins him to the ground and rips the money from his pocket. He gets up and narrowly avoids a wild left from Carmelo.

  The Mexican scout pins two kids against each other with one hand, barks at Uno and Danny: “Leave now! Go!”

  5

  Uno snatches up his bag and they both tear off through the gate, toward the bus. When they make it over the little hill, the field temporarily out of sight, Uno spots their bus pulling up to the stop. “Let’s go,” he yells at Danny, and they sprint to the opposite sidewalk, bob and weave through the thick traffic on the main road, and pound on the bus door as it’s shutting.

  The driver reopens, and they climb the stairs onto the bus.

  They shuffle toward the back and sit in two different rows, both breathing hard, putting their fingers to their wounds, checking for blood. Uno turns to Danny, shouts: “What the fuck you doin’, D? What I tell you to do after the third strike?”

  “I know, but—”

  “What the fuck I tell you?” he shouts, smacking Danny in the back of the head.

  Danny looks back at him, confused. “To go for the bus.”

  “Then why didn’t you do it?” Uno slams his catcher’s mitt against his seat and shakes his head.

  An older Mexican lady interrupts her knitting long enough to turn around and give Uno a dirty look.

  Uno stares out the window. He could slap Danny in the face for not listening. He told him three times: take off for the bus after the last pitch. He runs a hand down his face and takes another deep breath, turns to Danny. “Look, man, you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Uno stays staring at Danny. “It’s just…I can’t let you get hurt, D. I can’t.”

  “But I’m okay.”

  “It wasn’t for that Mexican dude who’s scouting you we’d have got it bad. Both of us, man. There was too many of ’em.” Uno slips his mitt in his bag, zips up. “You gotta understand somethin’, D. You goin’ places. You gonna be somebody.”

  Danny pulls off his mitt, lays it in his lap. “So are you, Uno.”

  Uno shakes his head. “Nah, it’s different. This is what I got and I know it. Even when I move up to Oxnard, D. I’m still gonna be right here on these streets. It’s too deep. But it’s cool. You, though, D. Man, you’re on some different shit.”

  Danny doesn’t say anything.

  The bus driver sounds his horn as he moves the bus through traffic. Uno pulls in a couple more deep breaths. Rubs the sore spot on the back of his head and checks his fingers for blood. Nothing. He pulls the cash from his pocket and counts in his head. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, sixty, eighty, a hundred, hundred twenty, hundred forty, hundred sixty. A hundred sixty bucks. “Take this for a sec,” he says, extending the money to Danny.

  Danny takes the money in his hands.

  “You ever held that much before?”

  Danny shakes his head.

  Uno takes back half the money, slips it in his pocket. With the tips he’s made from the restaurant he has just under five hundred now. Almost enough to give his old man a deposit for Oxnard. He watches Danny slip his own share of the money in his pocket. Watches him touch a red spot on his face. And a strange feeling comes over him. This is probably one of the best days of his life. It’s true. He’s sitting on the bus with his boy D, riding back home to National City, but he knows there’s something else out there. Oxnard. With his old man. And they just hustled some real punks. And it’s such a beautiful day out. Not a cloud in the sky. For some reason it all hits him really hard and he shouts, “You gonna make it, D! I swear to God you is! Watch! You gonna be somethin’ special.” He reaches a fist out to his boy.

  Danny’s face lights up as he gives Uno daps.

  The old lady turns back around, gives Uno another nasty look. When she goes back to her mittens this time, Danny and Uno look at each other and laugh. Quietly, though, so she can’t hear them.

  Outside his window, Uno watches another poverty-riddled pocket of San Diego flash by. Graffiti decorates the street-side windows of every taqueria, every Mexican bodega and barbershop. Short Indian-looking women scurry into the intersection whenever a streetlight turns red to hawk giant sunflowers, bunches of roses, bags of hand-picked oranges, gum. At the street corner nearest the bus, an old scruffy-looking Mexican man wearing a cowboy hat is being pushed in a rusted wheelbarrow by a shirtless boy. The man has no legs, and when he smiles in the direction of the bus Uno sees he has only a single crooked tooth.

  For the first time in his life, Uno feels removed from all of this. He feels a million miles away, in fact. Like he and Danny are up in the clouds somewhere. Floating above the thick traffic and the women selling oranges and the old guy in the wheelbarrow. All the trash and graffiti. He touches his sore right cheek, checks for blood that isn’t there. Maybe he has a future, too. Not like Danny’s. But something. He’s going up to Oxnard. And he’s gonna try to change, like his old man did. He never thought he could do it before. But something about today has changed his mind. Something about sitting here with his boy D. On this bus. During his last summer in National City. For the first time in his life he thinks maybe he understands what his dad’s been trying to tell him all this time. About how people can change. He gets it now. He understands.

  The Green Lollipop

  1

  Danny watches Uno pop open two cans of Tecate. He takes one on the handoff and then they both push off Carmen’s mom’s kitchen counter.

  “To your pitching,” Uno says, holding up his can. “And my dope-ass target.” The two touch aluminum and drink.

  Danny cringes as the cold beer washes past his tastebuds, down his throat. It’s only his third time drinking beer—all this summer—and he doubts he’ll ever like the taste. He wipes his mouth, watches Uno chug his entire Tecate and crack himself a new one.

  It’s been almost two weeks since the fight with Carmelo and his teammates, and he and Uno haven’t done a hustle since. They’ve just been working out at
Las Palmas and hitting Saturday derbies. Laying low. A couple days ago Uno went with him to a travel agency so he could look into plane tickets to Ensenada. He found out he has more than enough to get there now. He just has to figure out his dates and go back to pay. That’s all he’s really thought about lately. His trip. What it’ll be like to see his dad again. To talk to him. See if he still looks the same. But for some reason he hasn’t bought his ticket. He keeps putting it off and doesn’t know why. He almost went again tonight, but when Carmen’s mom took off for the weekend with her new boyfriend, Sofia and Uno dragged him to this party.

  When Uno moves off to the living room, to rejoin the truth-or-dare game Chico and Raquel started, Danny follows closely behind. They sit on two of the lawn chairs Carmen has set out next to the couch, watch Lolo pour a shot of tequila into Raquel’s belly button, slurp it out and bite into a wedge of lime. He comes up with his hands above his head and everybody cheers. Raquel lowers her shirt, laughing.

  “Nice work, Lo,” Uno says, holding his fresh can in the air.

  “You know how many germs is in a belly button?” Carmen says, looking to Sofia.

  “You saying I’m dirty?” Raquel shoots back with a smile.

  “It’s not just you,” Carmen says. “Everybody.”

  Lolo slaps five with Raul, picks up the tequila bottle and turns to Raquel. “I do again?”

  “Nah, it’s one and done,” Chico says. “Go ’head, Raquel, your turn.”

  “Uno,” she says. “Truth or dare?”

  “Truth,” Uno says.

  “Weak-ass,” Raul says, tossing a throw pillow into Uno’s lap. “You goin’ soft, Uno? What up?”

  Uno drops his beer from his lips, shoots Raul a crazy look. “Slow your roll, Biscuit. We just warmin’ up here.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “All right,” Raquel says. “I always wondered this. Tu her-mano, Manny. Don’t get mad, but do you ever get sad he like he is?”

  Everybody goes quiet and stares at Uno. Danny watches him turn his beer can so he can read it, then take another sip. “I ain’t mad,” he says, staring at the can again. “Yeah, when I was younger I wondered why I had a messed-up little bro, you know? Couldn’t teach ’im no baseball or nothin’. Couldn’t barely talk to him. But now it’s different. Now I don’t even care.” He coughs into his fist, looks up at Raquel. “Take the other day, right? Me and Manny was ridin’ the bus back to where he stays. It was mad hot and shit, and none of the windows were open. I looked around and everybody looked all pissed off. Frownin’ and shit. Even me. And then I looked at my little bro, and he had this big-ass smile on his face. I said, ‘Manny, man, why you smilin’ for?’ But he just shrugged at me and kept smilin’. Here it’s the hottest day of the year, right? And we all sweatin’ and Manny headin’ back to the halfway house my moms stuck him in, and the dude can’t stop smilin’. That’s why I look out for his stupid ass all the time. I gotta make sure he stays bein’ happy like that.”

  Uno takes another big swig of beer.

  “Yeah, Manny’s a cool cat,” Chico says.

  Everybody agrees.

  “I love that boy,” Raquel says.

  “He’s such a sweetheart,” Flaca says.

  “Anyway,” Uno says, “it’s the hostess’s turn. Truth or dare, girl?”

  “Dare.”

  “Word. Take it in the bedroom with your boy Chico and don’t come out for sixty seconds. What y’all do in there is your biz.”

  Chico leaps up from the couch and starts toward the bedroom. When he gets halfway to the door, he looks back, realizes Carmen hasn’t moved. As everybody laughs and urges Carmen on, Danny turns to Sofia, catches her still staring at Uno. After a few seconds she realizes Danny’s watching her and quickly joins in on her best friend. “Go in there, Carm. Don’t be no chicken.”

  “No way,” Carmen says, wagging her finger in the air. “I ain’t goin’ into no bedroom with nobody. Come here, Chee.”

  Chico walks over, and Carmen stands up. She kisses him on the mouth for a few seconds and then pushes him away, sits back down. “There. That’s all he was gonna get in the bedroom. Might as well do it right here in front of everybody. I ain’t no puta like Flaca.”

  Flaca swings a pillow at Carmen, smacks her in the shoulder. They both crack up.

  Chico clears his throat and leans down, says: “Carm, we still got a few seconds. Lemme get one more.”

  Carmen turns her head, waves Chico off.

  Danny laughs with everybody else as Chico closes his eyes, puckers his lips, and Carmen hides behind her hands.

  And it’s from this position, a little outside the circle, leaning back in his well-worn lawn chair, half-full beer in hand, that Danny watches the rest of the game unfold in front of him. He watches Raul, on a dare from Lolo, struggle through twenty-five sit-ups while Lolo holds down his Timberlands. His white T-shirt occasionally riding up, exposing the chubby brown rolls of his stomach. He watches Flaca, on a dare from Raul, saunter over to Raquel, take her face in her hands and kiss her while all the guys cheer and the girls laugh. He watches Sofia, on a dare from Raul, pull up Uno’s black Dickies shirt and leave a dark brown hickey on his already dark stomach. He listens to Flaca, on a truth from Sofia, talk about the scar on her stomach, the result of some big operation she had as a kid, the one that made it so she’ll probably never be able to have babies. She laughs and tells everybody it’s like having built-in birth control. Doesn’t need no stupid pill or condoms. And then, when the game moves on, her laughter slowly dies and her face grows serious and she stares at the rug. He listens to Sofia, on a truth from Carmen, talk about how she doesn’t miss her real mom because she hardly even knew the woman. She took off for good when she was three and then supposedly overdosed six years later. Cecilia might as well be her real mom, she says. That’s how close they are.

  And then, as if they’ve had it planned like this all along, they all move in on Danny at once.

  2

  Raquel’s the one who starts it. “Danny, truth or dare?” She turns to Sofia. “I’m sorry, honey, but I gotta go at your boy. He lookin’ way too comfortable over there.”

  “Get him,” Sofia says.

  “Turth or dare?” Raquel repeats.

  Danny looks to Sofia, then back to Raquel. “Truth,” he says with a shrug.

  “So, what’s the story? You in love with Liberty or not?”

  Danny stares back at her, eyes bugged. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

  “What do you think?” Sofia says. “My cuz is head over heels for that girl.”

  “Then when you gonna talk to her already?” Carmen says. “Pretty girl like her gonna get snatched up you wait too long. Trust me.”

  Danny turns to Carmen.

  “My man’s takin’ his time,” Raul says. “Right, D?”

  Danny turns to Raul.

  “Yo, I been hearin’ stories about them hustles,” Chico says. “You strikin’ fools out all over the city, right?”

  “Yeah, but you guys pullin’ any billetes?” Raul says.

  Uno sits up in his lawn chair. “We straight,” he says. “You know I’m a businessman, Rah-rah.”

  “Oh, I see,” Raul says, and then he turns to Danny. “You got a sick arm on you, D. You ever think about maybe you could be an all-star when you get to the bigs?”

  “Pinche puerco,” Lolo says. “He goin’ in the Hall of Fame.”

  “’Course he’s gonna be an all-star,” Uno says.

  “D got a sick future ahead of him, man,” Chico says.

  “Better not forget about us, ése.”

  “He gonna play for the Pads,” Carmen says.

  “He gonna play for whoever steps up with the most money, girl,” Uno says. “Ain’t no hometown discounts. It’s about finances.”

  Raquel reaches into the chip bowl, says: “My dad took me to a Padres game last year.”

  “I been to a game, too,” Carmen says. “When I was little. They
won like three to two in overtime.”

  “Extra innings,” Uno corrects her.

  “Whatever,” Carmen says. She turns to Danny, says:

  “What I wanna know is what it’s like at your private school. Got mad smart kids there, right?”

  Danny turns to Carmen.

  “Gotta wear uniforms?” Lolo says.

  “All private schools got uniforms,” Uno says. “Don’t be ignorant, Lo.”

  “How come you don’t speak no Spanish?” Flaca says. “I mean, you Mexican just like us, but Sofe said you don’t speak a word.”

  “Yeah,” Raquel says. “I been wonderin’ about that, too. They don’t let you speak Spanish at your private school?”

  Everybody in the room stares at Danny. And this time nobody answers for him. Because nobody, not even Uno, knows the answer. They’re all stumped. He looks up at Flaca, and just as he’s about to open his mouth to say something about his white mom, the doorbell rings and Raquel and Carmen spring up off the couch and race to the door. Carmen gets there first and opens up. She sings, “Hey, guys,” and steps aside.

  In walk Guita and Liberty.

  3

  Everybody stands up to welcome Guita and Liberty. Uno gets them beers from the fridge and Carmen shoos Raul off the couch so they have a place to sit together. Sofia pushes the big bowl of chips to their side of the coffee table. Guita and Liberty thank the girls and everybody clinks cups and beer cans and settles back in, and then Raul says: “All right, Sofe, your turn. Truth or dare, girl?”

  Sofia spits an ice cube back into her coffee mug of jungle juice. “Dare.”

  “Uh-oh,” Chico says. “We got a ballplayer in the house.”

  Danny glances at Liberty again. She’s wearing a little more makeup tonight. But not too much. Her long black hair is down and she’s wearing a light green sundress and black flip-flops. There’s a thin silver ring around the middle toe of her right foot. She turns and smiles at him. He smiles back. And then they both turn to Raul.

  Raul taps a finger to his right temple a couple times and looks to the ceiling, plays like he’s deep in thought. “Okay,” he says, going back to Sofia. “I dare you to go in the bedroom with my boy Uno. Sixty seconds.”