Mexican WhiteBoy

by Matt De La Peña

Kyle takes another ferocious swing and…misses. The follow-through of his fruitless rip corkscrews him into the ground and he barely catches himself with his right hand before falling on his butt.

  “Strike two!” Uno calls out.

  Kyle backs out of the batter’s box, checks his bat again. He looks out at the mound, at Danny, smiles a little, then goes back to his bat.

  Uno hops out of his crouch, points at Danny and pumps his fist. “One more, D! One more!” He reaches into his mitt for the ball, tosses back.

  Danny snatches the toss out of the air and circles the mound. Toes the dirt. Digs in with his Vans. Grips the baseball. One more. Fingers the seams.

  “One more!” Uno calls out again as he moves back behind the plate.

  One more.

  All the guys on the fence fall silent for Danny as Kyle steps back into the batter’s box. As Coach Sullivan gets up and moves halfway down the bleachers, his assistants following closely behind. As the sun slips behind a thin patch of clouds, thin shadows creeping across the infield like ghosts, passing over home plate and then disappearing over a cluster of portable classrooms.

  Danny tunes everything else out. Even his dad. It’s not about him anymore. It’s about something bigger. His talent. The power of a train rumbling over a bridge. He concentrates on Uno’s sign. Nods. Breathes in deep. He goes into his windup, delivers his best fastball of the summer right down the pipe. Right through the jugular. A knife piercing a Thanksgiving day turkey at his grandma’s house. And as his perfectly delivered baseball screams toward Uno’s waiting mitt, Danny sees it all as a slow-motion blur of red and white. Big blob of a hitter at home plate. Shadow of a catcher and nobody in the stands. As the pitch rips through the warm air Danny is alive. Awake. Capable. He feels. He’s let go a pitch that’s a sure third strike against anybody else. But this isn’t anybody else. It’s Kyle Sorenson. Best hitter he’s ever seen in person. Batted .567 during his senior season. Thirty-two home runs. Seventy-eight RBI. National high school player of the year according to almost every newspaper and magazine that cares. Third overall pick in the MLB draft.

  And even though Kyle’s clearly behind the pitch, so far behind his swing isn’t so much a swing as a little chop, he still manages to get a tiny piece of it. He fouls it off and stays alive.

  Uno chases the foul ball to the backstop, scoops it and lobs it back to Danny. He holds up an index again, shouts: “One more, D!”

  Danny digs into the dirt, considers where he’s at: Leucadia Prep’s perfect mound, facing Leucadia Prep’s best hitter, in front of Leucadia Prep’s head coach. The guy who cut him. And he needs one more strike. Just threw his best pitch and Kyle still touched it. He looks at Kyle, sees the smile on his face. And Danny smiles, too. If only on the inside. Because this is so much fun. Pitching to Kyle. Pitching to Uno. Pitching when almost everything else in life is so hard to figure out. But not this. This is just a game. Two guys with smiles trying to get the better of each other. This is simple. This makes sense. This is what he loves.

  Danny pulls out of his bag everything he has. He winds up, delivers a fastball that burrows through the strike zone like a groundhog, a curve that starts at Kyle’s face and ends near his ankles, a slider that zips in on fingers, a change that fizzles like flat soda, a knuckle that dances across stage like a pantomime, a cutter that cuts in on Kyle’s knees and another fastball and then a curve and then a slider and another fastball and a slick change and finally a split-finger that drops out of the strike zone at the last second like a picked-off duck.

  But even though every one of these pitches is better than the last, is more polished than Coach Sullivan could’ve ever imagined, is as close to perfection as Uno’s ever witnessed; even though every one of these pitches upsets Kyle’s balance, wobbles Kyle’s knees, tricks Kyle’s mind and challenges his faith; even though with each passing pitch the guys against the dugout cheer louder while at the same time wear expressions that betray a growing doubt, a dwindling belief; in spite of Danny’s very best stuff, Kyle somehow manages to stay alive, somehow manages to hang in there, to protect the plate, and he does so by getting a little piece of every pitch. The terrifying home run hitter produces a series of weak foul tips. But he stays alive.

  After the thirteenth straight foul ball Uno jogs out to the mound to hand-deliver the next baseball. Kyle steps out of the box, glances at Sullivan in the stands. They both nod.

  Uno spins the seams of the baseball around in his fingers, flips up his mask. “Yo, you know way more about baseball than my dumb ass. But I want you to listen for a sec.”

  Danny nods.

  “You foolin’ ’im on every one of them pitches. He barely hangin’ with you.”

  Danny nods.

  Uno holds out the baseball for Danny, drops it in his mitt. “You realize what that says about you already, D? He the best, right? If you think about it, man, you already won. This last strike just be gravy.”

  Danny pulls the ball from his mitt. Tucks his glove under his arm and rubs the ball in the palms of his hands.

  “Now go on and gimme some of that gravy, D.”

  Danny nods.

  “You know ’bout black folk and they gravy, right?”

  Danny nods.

  “Gimme a side of that shit, D. I’m gonna sop it all up with a biscuit. Run my tongue all up and down the plate.”

  Danny smiles.

  Uno winks, flips down his mask, hustles back toward the plate and goes into his crouch. Kyle steps in, taps the end of his bat on the plate a couple times and looks up.

  4

  Danny knows this is what it all comes down to. His summer in National City. The workouts with Uno. The fair. The house parties. The hustles. Uno’s money for Oxnard. There’s forty bucks on the line. Eighty bucks stuffed inside Uno’s brand-new Padres cap, pushed against the backstop behind home plate.

  Danny peers into the sky. Like he would when he used to stand behind the fence, watching Leucadia practice. He searches the pale blue sky for a hawk, but there aren’t any hawks. The sky’s perfectly empty. Just the blue and a bright orange sun. Even the thin patch of clouds has passed. He’s on his own now. Not just for today, for this next pitch, but forever.

  Danny looks in at Uno’s sign. Nods. Goes into his windup. Lets go of the hardest fastball he’s capable of throwing. A pitch that explodes from his fingers and barrels toward Uno’s waiting mitt.

  But Kyle jumps on it. He keeps his head down, his eyes locked in, his powerful swing compact. He drives the bat through the middle of the strike zone and makes solid contact, sprays a little liner to the opposite field, right where a second baseman would be standing. The ball touches down on the infield dirt, skips into right field and dies a few feet in front of the warning track.

  Danny’s stomach drops. He’s lost.

  He lowers his head and turns toward home plate, where everybody quickly gathers around Kyle. They shout his name and give him high fives and slap him on the back.

  Suddenly Uno steps out from the middle of them and shouts: “Double or nothin’.”

  Everybody goes quiet, stares at Uno.

  “You serious?” Joe says.

  “Come on, man,” Marcus says.

  Uno reaches into his pocket for his money wad, pulls it out. He counts out eighty more dollars and drops the bills right on home plate.

  Danny watches Coach Sullivan stand up in the bleachers, start toward the playing field, but Kyle puts his hand up and he stops.

  “You really wanna put more money down?” Kyle says.

  “Wha’chu think I just did?” Uno says back.

  Kyle looks at Marcus, then back at Uno. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  Marcus scoops up Uno’s money and dumps it in his hat by the backstop. The rest of the Leucadia guys head back to stand along the dugout hooting and hollering. Kyle pulls his batting gloves tight, looks up at Coach Sullivan again.

  Uno points at Danny. He holds his finger there for a few long seconds and then walks back behin
d the plate, goes into his crouch.

  Kyle steps into the batter’s box, touches the plate with the end of his bat and takes a couple little practice swings.

  Danny looks in at Uno’s sign, nods. He goes into his windup and delivers a looping curve. Kyle waits on it, though. Takes a vicious swing that crushes the ball, produces a tremendous sound. The crack of bat against ball, the thunder of aluminum penetrating all the way to the baseball’s rubber core. A gunshot blast. And in a flash Danny’s curve is redirected high into the blue North County sky.

  Danny spins around to watch its towering flight. To watch it soar above the outfield grass, over the center-field fence. To watch it touch down near the back of the empty faculty parking lot, bounce over the locked gate and skip across the street, into somebody’s yard.

  A home run. But not just a home run. Not just a lost bet or a failed hustle. An answer.

  All the guys along the dugout erupt. They storm Kyle at home plate and slap hands and hoot and holler and laugh at how far the ball traveled.

  And Barker marches right over to Uno’s Padres cap and picks it up. He scoops out the stack of cash, hands it to Kyle, then flings the empty cap into the dirt near Uno’s feet and says: “Now get your black ass outta here.”

  Uno throws off his mask and charges Barker with clenched fists, but he’s quickly cut off by four or five Leucadia guys. He points over their shoulders at Barker, shouts: “Yo, you better check yourself, punk. You ’bout to get a beat-down.”

  Barker’s backpedaling and shouting back: “Bring it, dude! I ain’t afraid of no blacky!”

  Danny steps off the mound as they continue to yell at each other. He walks toward the commotion without thinking. Watches Barker spit in the direction of Uno and shout a couple more slurs. He starts jogging toward the scene, toward Barker.

  Everybody’s shouting over each other, to the point that nobody can hear anybody else. And Marcus is reaching down for Uno’s cap. He’s brushing it off with his fingers and holding it out for Uno, but Uno’s too busy shouting at Barker to notice.

  And right after Barker spits again, Danny reaches him. He punches Barker in the face. Spins the kid around.

  Barker touches a couple fingers to his lips and looks at the blood. He takes a step toward Danny and throws a wild right, but Danny ducks it, hits the kid again. Harder this time, in the eye.

  Barker goes down. He tries to stand up but quickly falls back down. A couple Leucadia guys rush toward Danny, grab him by the arms. Coach Sullivan flies down from the bleachers, his coaches in tow. He yells for everybody to calm down.

  Danny turns around when he feels somebody shoving the Leucadia guys off him. He expects to find Uno, but it’s Kyle. “Go on,” he says. “Coach’ll call you.”

  Danny looks at him without saying anything.

  Kyle turns and releases Uno. He looks at Danny again, says: “You got great stuff, man. I’m serious. Coach’ll call you.” He waves them off, and Danny and Uno grab their things and hustle from the field as some of the Leucadia guys shout after them.

  Danny and Uno keep jogging, though. Out the gate and back down the long parking ramp toward the Coaster. And as they’re jogging Danny thinks about what’s just happened. The pitches he threw. The swing of Kyle’s bat. The money in Barker’s hand. The punches he landed. When he stepped off the mound a second ago something died inside of him, because he lost, but now he feels something brand-new taking its place.

  Stripping Tile and Slinging Tar

  1

  Uno looks up from his plate, laughing, says with his mouth half full: “Then he straight-up socked white boy in the mouth. Pow!”

  “No way,” Sofia says, turning to Danny. “Really?”

  Danny smiles, nods.

  “You shoulda seen ’im,” Uno says. “Racist cat tried to get up all quick but he was loopy. He spun around like a cartoon character, fell right back on his ass.”

  Everybody laughs, including Liberty—even though Uno’s pretty sure she hasn’t understood anything he’s said.

  “D gots my back,” Uno says. “That’s what’s up.”

  It’s a few hours after their failed hustle, and Uno and Danny are sitting at Uncle Tommy’s kitchen table with Sofia and Liberty, finishing up a pan of chicken enchiladas with refried beans and rice. They’re sipping coffee mugs of white wine from the box Cecilia opened before she and Tommy went out for dinner and a movie.

  Sofia explained how it would all play out to Uno just this morning. Her dad promised he and Cecilia would be out of the house so they could have the place to themselves. No parents. “What could be better for Danny’s last night,” she asked Uno during the early-morning phone conversation, “than a nice dinner with his three favorite people?”

  Uno laughed at her on the phone, but sitting here at the dinner table tonight, eating and drinking with everybody, he has to admit: Sofe was right. It is perfect. They’ve got some mellow hip-hop playing on the living room stereo. All the lights are off except the dim single lightbulb in the hall, a couple candles burning in the middle of the table. Uno can’t imagine a better way for Danny to go out.

  Sofia turns to Danny, wiping her hands on her napkin. “So, now you’re a fighter, cuz? Mr. Tough Guy like Uncle Ray?” She turns to Liberty, starts explaining the whole thing over again in Spanish, but Danny interrupts her.

  “I’m not like Uncle Ray,” he says.

  Sofia laughs a little, says: “Nah, cuz, I just meant that—”

  “I’m like me,” Danny interrupts again. “I’m just myself. That’s it.”

  Sofia nods. She reaches across the table and touches his hand. “Okay,” she says. “You’re just you, cuz.” She turns back to Liberty, translates their last exchange in Spanish.

  Uno watches his boy. He wonders what’s going through his head. If he’s really talking about not being like his old man.

  They talk a little more about Danny and Uno’s summer hustles. All the schools they bused it to, all the players they faced, the stuff that happened. And then the topic turns to the future. Liberty says through Sofia that she’s scared about next year. They’re putting her in regular classes for the first time. What if she doesn’t understand a word the teachers say? How’s she gonna pass? Uno tells everybody about the phone call he just had with his old man, right before coming over. “‘You ain’t got all the money, boy?’” Uno says, mimicking his dad’s way of talking. “‘That’s all right, boy. I got a roof needs new tile. Bring some boots, boy. Gonna have you up there strippin’ tile and slingin’ tar. Sunup to sundown. Twenty-four seven. You ready for some hard work, boy?’”

  Everybody laughs.

  “Well, this ain’t really goodbye for me and Danny,” Sofia says.

  Everybody looks at her confused, even Liberty.

  “I talked to Aunt Wendy, Danny’s mom, and she lettin’ me stay with them for a semester. They got this transfer program she read about.”

  “That’s cool,” Danny says.

  “They ain’t gonna let me into that fancy private school you go to, but it’s all right. Me and Julia can hang out at her public school. Aunt Wendy says we gonna talk about junior colleges.”

  Everybody nods. Uno holds up his mug, says: “To your future, Sofe. For real.” Everybody taps their mugs together and drinks.

  They hang out for another hour or so, telling stories and laughing, eating, drinking. At one point Sofia leads Liberty onto the living room rug, where they dance to a string of Jay-Z songs. Uno finds an old-school Polaroid camera in a cupboard by the plates and starts taking everybody’s picture. He has Danny and Liberty move super close together for the final shot. After he snaps the photo, he waves it around and shows everybody.

  Eventually, though, Uno says he and Danny have to take off. They’ve got one more spot to make tonight.

  “Wha’chu gotta do at eleven at night?” Sofia says.

  “Don’t worry ’bout it, girl,” Uno says. “It’s a man thang.”

  “You mean a boy thing,” Sofia
says, rolling her eyes.

  Uno hugs Liberty goodbye. He hugs and kisses Sofia. Danny stands up, hugs Sofia. He walks over to Liberty with a shy smile. He nods at her, says: “Maybe I can visit you.”

  Sofia starts to translate, but Liberty cuts her off. “Yes. I like this.”

  “Oh, I can promise you that’s gonna happen,” Sofia says.

  “I’ll bring him down myself.”

  “No doubt,” Uno says, waving again to Liberty and Sofia.

  Danny waves, too. He turns and follows Uno to the front door.

  Uno lets Danny out first, steps out himself and goes to pull the door shut behind him. But just before the door latches, he hears Liberty shout: “Espera!”

  He opens the door back up and Liberty hurries past him. She grabs Danny’s face in her hands and kisses him on the lips real quick. When they separate she stands there giggling. Then Danny takes her face in his hands and kisses her.

  Uno looks at Sofia, both their mouths hanging open in shock. Then he and Danny walk down the stairs together, across the apartment complex parking lot and onto the street that leads to the train tracks.

  A New Light on the Recycling Plant

  1

  Danny and Uno are back down at the train tracks, tossing rocks to tell the future. They’ve already gone through four or five rounds. Danny hit five on seeing Liberty again. Uno hit three on playing organized baseball next year. Danny hit five on checking out Oxnard someday. Uno only hit two on Manny moving out of the halfway house. Danny hit five on Sofia going to college. Uno hit four on him getting along with his old man.

  As they’ve played, the night’s moved along quickly. Every once in a while Danny looks over his shoulder at the recycling plant. He remembers the night he and Liberty sat together right across the street from it. He thinks about their kiss earlier tonight. His first ever, though he would never tell Uno that.

  Uno picks up his last rock and looks back at Danny. “Know what this one’s on?” he says.

  “What?”

  “This is on me and you takin’ a little trip tomorrow morning, before your moms comes down to get you.”