I Will Save You

by Matt De La Peña

  He scooped up the pile of clothes he’d picked out and stayed staring right in her eyes, smiling.

  She scowled back and took the jeans and the rest of the clothes in his arms and counted them and said in an irritated voice: “I’m sorry, sir, but you can only try on five items at a time. You have eight.”

  Devon picked five from the pile and looked up smiling and said: “How about just these then, ma’am? Are these okay?”

  The woman rolled her eyes and led Devon to the dressing room and opened the door and held it for him and said there was a five-minute limit in the room and to please leave his duffel bag outside.

  Devon bowed and set down the duffel and then as he went into the little room he looked at me and winked. I turned around fast and stared at the street so the saleswoman wouldn’t think I was with Devon.

  After a minute or so I turned back around. The lady stood there for a while, checking her watch every ten seconds.

  Another customer walked in, a woman in a fancy tracksuit who had two little boys with her, and the saleslady looked at Devon’s door again, and at her watch, and then she went up front to where one of the boys was looking at stickers through a glass case. She told him to please not put his face against the glass, and the boy’s mom pulled her son’s arm away from the case and told him not to touch anything. Then she tried on a pair of sunglasses and looked at herself in the circular mirror and pulled them off and held them to the side while she looked for another pair.

  I kept staring at the dressing room door, waiting for Devon to come out, but it stayed closed for the longest time.

  I was just about to go back to the lagoon by myself, to wait, when I heard somebody say: “Psssst.”

  I spun around.

  Devon.

  He was outside, squatting under the store window and laughing without sound. The five clothing items stacked in his lap.

  I looked in the store again and the saleslady was knocking on his dressing room door, my duffel bag still sitting there.

  I turned back to Devon, whispered: “How’d you get out?”

  “I got my ways, Special.”

  He motioned with his head for me to follow him and I did, and as we were fast-walking away the store woman came rushing out of the back door and shouted: “Hey! Come back here! You didn’t pay for that!”

  Me and Devon took off sprinting across the parking lot, weaving through cars and ducking behind a restaurant called Kai’s. We looked at each other, both of us breathing hard, and he held up a finger and ducked his head around the restaurant to look at the store and he said: “She’s gone.”

  “Probably to call the police,” I said.

  “Probably,” Devon said, and a big smile went on his face.

  “What are we gonna do?”

  He looked around the restaurant again and then told me to follow him and we sprinted back through the parking lot and down into the lagoon. When we got to our bush we were still breathing hard and Devon was laughing.

  “Dude, Special,” he said between breaths. “That’s my favorite. When some lady acts like she’s gonna chase me down in flip-flops.”

  “What if we got caught, though?” I said.

  “We didn’t.”

  “I know. But we could’ve.”

  “But we didn’t.”

  I took a deep breath and said: “Why don’t you care?”

  He shrugged. “Dude, we just won’t go back to that store. It’s no big deal. Considering there are about ten on this block just like it.”

  “I know, but …”

  I tried to think what I could say that would make him realize it wasn’t just that, it was everything, but my mind was working too slow.

  “Besides,” Devon said, sliding his stack of clothes out and adding the ones he’d just taken. “Look at all this gear. You can’t tell me we didn’t need new clothes.”

  I looked at Devon, surprised he said “we” and not just him.

  He smiled and said: “You’re my boy again, aren’t you?”

  I told him yeah.

  He looked back at the clothes. “Here, we have”—he counted through the stack—“fifteen things. We’ll just take turns picking. You go first.”

  “Me?”

  “You need new stuff more than I do, Special. That crap you’re wearing is straight welfare.”

  I looked at my clothes and then looked back at Devon.

  “What’d you think, I was just stealing for myself?”

  I shrugged, said: “I didn’t think anything.”

  “Well, go on, dude. Pick something.”

  I looked at the stack, remembering what Mr. Red said about giving my jeans a rest. I took a new pair.

  “There you go, Special,” he said. “That’s the spirit.”

  We took turns picking through the rest of the clothes and then Devon walked me back to my tent, talking about the rush of taking things and not paying a dime, especially when you had money in your pocket like he did.

  He pulled his wallet and opened it and showed me all the twenties and put it back.

  “Where’d you get that?” I said.

  “Come on, dude. I’m a businessman.”

  “You don’t even have a job.”

  “Jobs are for punks.”

  Then he went on and on about how the rich kids in Cardiff all got stuff from their parents and since we didn’t have parents we had to take stuff for ourselves.

  “I’m not gonna sit here waiting for somebody to come along and make things fair,” he told me, shaking his head. “Hell no. I’m gonna make fair happen for myself. Know what I mean?”

  He talked about the rich and the poor for the rest of our walk back to the campsites. I didn’t say anything else, just nodded occasionally and let him talk. And when we got up to my tent he said he had to go handle something and we slapped five.

  “Find you in a few days, all right?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Maybe we can go to the beach and check out the chicks.” He lifted my chin and said: “Hey, Special.”

  “Yeah?”

  He grinned, let go of my chin.

  I fake-smiled back.

  Devon pointed at the stack of new clothes in my arms, said: “Don’t be wearing those with a bad conscious either. They’re yours now.”

  “I know.”

  “Enjoy ’em.”

  I nodded.

  “We didn’t steal today, Special. We just made life a little more fair.”

  “Okay.”

  He turned and walked away.

  Philosophy 3:

  About How a Bad Thing

  Can Turn Good

  Dear Kidd:

  You have to find out about a book by this guy who had a stroke and was paralyzed and wrote the whole thing by blinking with his only eye that worked. Olivia talked about it just now, during the first time you ever had a conversation with her, so it has extra meaning. Also, you have to figure out if something good can come from something bad ’cause she asked about that, and you couldn’t think of how to answer ’cause you didn’t want to say anything wrong.

  Actually, being in this tent now, and writing … it could have something to do with Mom and that time in the hospital, after Dad hurt her in the living room. Remember?

  Mom finally told the doctors she’d see you, and the nurse came and got you and you followed her into Mom’s room and got so scared looking at her in that hospital bed, hooked up to all those tubes and hanging bags of liquid medicine. Her face black-and-blue and swollen, almost like she wasn’t really your mom, but a car-wreck costume somebody made her wear. Your stomach felt instantly sick. Her head was all bandaged on one side and a cast on her left arm, and when her eyes turned to you she tried to make a smile but it didn’t even look right. It was crooked. And she said: “Oh, no. Honey, don’t cry. Mommy’s okay.”

  You wiped your eyes and looked at the floor and she said: “Mommy’s still here, isn’t she?”

  You nodded and stared through blurry eyes at the li
nes between the black-and-white tiles.

  “Honey, I want you to look at me.” You looked at her. “Sometimes things happen that we don’t necessarily want to have happen. Obviously I didn’t choose to end up in this hospital bed, right?”

  You shook your head, wiping your face on your shirt.

  “But I’m here. And now I have to make a choice. I can either lock myself in a room when I get home and sulk and say ‘poor me,’ or I can look myself in the mirror and accept what’s happened and come up with some sort of plan that will prevent it from ever happening again.”

  She touched her head bandage and cringed a little and then looked at you and made herself smile again. “I’ve done a lot of thinking about this. And a few things have become very clear. I have to be a stronger person. And I have to do a better job of protecting you. I thought I understood this two days ago, but I didn’t. And we paid for it. Both of us. But I’m going to tell you something very important, honey.”

  She lifted your chin and said: “I will never. Ever. Let this happen again. Do you hear me, baby? Never.”

  You told her okay and looked at her bandages again, and right then the doctor walked in the room holding a clipboard and closed the door behind him. He smiled on his way to Mom’s charts and told you: “Hey there, little buddy. You must be—”

  “It’s not my name anymore,” you interrupted, so he couldn’t say the name your dad gave you. ’Cause you were so mad.

  He looked at Mom and then looked at you again, nodding, and said: “No problem, son. It’s nice to finally meet you.…”

  I was stacking and restacking all my new clothes when Mr. Red came by and stood at my open tent door and said: “Knock, knock.”

  I quickly hid my stolen pile from view and told him: “Hey, Mr. Red.”

  He nodded his head for me to come out so I got up and stepped through the door and stood there looking at him. It was the first time I’d ever seen Mr. Red wearing long pants and shoes that weren’t flip-flops, and he wasn’t wearing his beat-up sombrero.

  He’d even combed his hair.

  This time he was with a beautiful tall blond woman wearing a short black dress and high heels and a thin silver necklace with a cross at the end. Her smiling face was like a fashion magazine.

  I felt bad about Maria.

  “Claudia, I’d like to introduce my partner in campsite crime, Kidd Ellison. Kidd takes his steak rare and his potatoes mashed and his caramel lattes with extra whip. Kidd, Claudia.”

  “Hi there,” Claudia said.

  “Hi,” I told her back.

  Mr. Red looked past me, into my tent. “Good work, big guy. Finally got yourself some new duds.”

  “I bought ’em at this clothes place,” I said. “I went yesterday and paid with my own money. What I made here.”

  “That’s usually how it works, partner.”

  “I got new jeans like you said.”

  “These campsite girls won’t have a prayer.”

  “I think he’s cute in the clothes he has on,” Claudia said. “You didn’t tell me he was so handsome, Red.”

  I turned to her, embarrassed, and said: “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She winked at me and smiled and then she looked at Mr. Red, who was shaking his head. “Well, isn’t this a touching little Hallmark moment,” he said. “Look, Kidd, Claudia and I are about to do some serious fine dining. You ever heard of the Chart House?”

  I shook my head.

  “Four-star rating in Zagat’s, and Cardiff doesn’t have any fives.”

  Claudia rubbed his arm and said to me: “Isn’t Red sweet? He’s taking me to a real restaurant this time, like a grown-up. He’s so proud of himself.”

  They both smiled and Mr. Red told me: “Anyway, I came by to tell you about this bonfire a group of guests are having on the beach tonight. Everybody’s invited—”

  He cut himself off and tilted my head to the side. “Hold up, Kidd. What the … ?” He pointed at my neck. “Is that a hickey?”

  “What?” I said, moving my head out of his hand.

  “Don’t embarrass him,” Claudia said.

  “Big guy, you been doing work out here when I’m not looking?”

  “No,” I said.

  Mr. Red stepped back and looked at Claudia and they both laughed a little, Claudia quickly covering her mouth. “It’s none of your business, Red,” she told him.

  “It’s not a hickey,” I said.

  Mr. Red looked at me for a while, smiling. “I know, I know,” he said. “Curling iron got you, right?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  I was about to say something back, but he waved me off. “Look, Claud’s right. It’s none of my business. I just wanted to encourage you to check out that bonfire. Go represent Campsite Maintenance.”

  I looked toward the ocean, thinking about my neck and picturing thousands of people talking to each other around a fire.

  Mr. Red clapped his hands together softly and said: “I’ve also received confirmation that a certain someone will be in attendance.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Who do you think?”

  “Olivia?”

  “In the flesh, big guy.”

  “Ooh, is that your girlfriend?” Claudia said.

  “No, ma’am, I barely just met her.”

  “Look, Claud, Kidd likes to go at his own pace, okay? Quit putting so much romantic pressure on everybody.”

  Claudia smacked him on the shoulder with her handbag.

  “Where on the beach?” I said.

  “Follow the large orange flame,” Mr. Red said, holding Claudia’s wrists so she couldn’t hit him a second time. They were both laughing. “Go check it out, buddy.”

  “Why aren’t we going?” Claudia said, pulling her hands out of Mr. Red’s grip.

  “Because I’m hooking you up with the surf ’n’ turf.”

  “It’s not because you’re embarrassed of me?”

  “Claud, look at you. Look at this dress. You’re the most beautiful woman in North County.”

  “Ah, that’s sweet, Red.” She turned to me. “Your boss can actually be sweet sometimes.”

  Mr. Red took Claudia’s hand and said: “Check out the bonfire, Kidd. Could be nice.”

  I told him I would.

  They waved and started walking toward Mr. Red’s old Bronco. Claudia leaned her head on his shoulder. He opened her door and let her in and closed it behind her and then turned to me and said: “Hey, Kidd.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Talk to her, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Just tell her hello. Introduce yourself.”

  “Okay.”

  He walked around to his side and opened his door, but before he got in he looked over the faded black hood and said: “And throw on some of those new duds.”

  “I will.”

  “I bet you’ll look super GQ.” He stood there a sec, looking at me, then he laughed a little and tapped his hood and said: “Check out the two of us, big guy. Getting dressed up to impress women.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “They’re really something, aren’t they?”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Women.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. And I felt bad about Maria again.

  He nodded his head awhile and then got in his Bronco and closed the door and drove off.

  After Mr. Red and Claudia left I went back into my tent and changed into new clothes like Mr. Red told me, and looked at my neck in my mirror. There was a dark, circular rash-looking thing, and I didn’t know where it came from or how long it had been there. It didn’t hurt when I pressed it. I stared at the rash for a while, confused, wondering what made me have one. Maybe a certain bush rubbed against me. Maybe it happened when I was sleepwalking.

  Then I just sat on my sleeping bag for the next two hours, watching the sun disappear outside my tent door and trying to talk myself into going to the beach.

  Finally
I made myself a deal. If I got up and went down the stairs I could just look at it for a while, and see Olivia, and then come right back up to my tent and go to bed and hopefully not sleepwalk into another poisonous bush.

  The Bonfire

  A big crackling flame coming out of a homemade pit and two older guys sitting on stools playing acoustic guitars and singing and everybody else in little groups eating off paper plates and drinking from red cups and talking and laughing, their chairs all facing toward the bonfire or each other or the ocean.

  I sat leaning against the cliff, by the stairs, watching them, sometimes looking down at my clothes, my brand-new jeans and new collared shirt. It didn’t even feel like me anymore. I watched the bonfire again, thinking how it’d be if you could actually turn into the person your clothes made you seem like. Then you could go over to whatever party was happening like you totally belonged and have as much fun as everyone else.

  I remembered how when I was little my mom would sometimes do a barbecue in the alley behind our apartment complex and some of the neighbors would come down with plates of their own marinated meat and coolers of beer and lawn chairs. My mom would cook all their food on the grill, wearing her favorite checkered apron, and everybody’d be talking and laughing with each other, just like this, and I’d be right with them.

  I was staring at the bonfire, thinking of those alley barbecues, and my mom, and what it felt like to be inside a party, when I noticed two girls walking toward me.

  I looked over my shoulder.

  There was nobody.

  I watched them and whispered in my head: “Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.” Over and over. ’Cause I knew it was the two girls that were on the stairs taking pictures with Olivia, but I didn’t know what they were gonna say. And when it came to girls I wasn’t like Devon. It always felt awkward.

  One of them was wearing a flowing brown dress and as she walked she sipped from her plastic cup. The other one was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and she had a red cup in each hand and she was saying something to the dress girl.

  Then they were in front of me.

  “See, told you it was him,” the sweatshirt girl said.