He goes to the refrigerator and stands with the door open looking in: milk, butter and lard and a few half-full jars and some cans covered with foil. He finds a roll of chocolate chip cookie dough and puts it on the counter, and then searches the lower cabinets for a cookie sheet. By the time he finds one, his grandmother is standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to make cookies,” he says without turning to look at her.
“Grease the pan,” she says and walks through to her bedroom.
Before he begins, he goes into his room and gets his iPod and headphones.
He slices the dough, places the slices on the sheet he has greased with lard, and sits at the table while they bake. The angry voices and the music are loud in his ears, so loud that his grandmother, who sits on the edge of the bed in her room, can hear it. To her it sounds like people shouting above the sound of a washing machine filling with water at the lavanderia. She has warned him that the noise will damage his ears, but he pays no attention.
After the first sheet of cookies has cooled, he sits at the table with a large glass of milk and eats them all, eating and listening to his headphones and trying to quell the rumbling in his stomach and to silence the angry thoughts that race in maddening circles in his mind. His face is hardened, his eyes without movement, staring into the future.
He sits looking out the door to the backyard, but he does not register the light leaving the sky and the deepening nightfall, the heat of the kitchen, the sounds of his grandmother leaving her room to go to the bathroom and return to her room for the night.
In the space of less than a day, the life he has known is gone. She is going to sell this house and move. He will have to move to a place he has never even visited, to live with a man he hates, who is a deserter, a betrayer. And his grandmother. She is a deserter as well, willing to abandon him so that she can go live with her sister. And Claudia. Everybody will know by tomorrow afternoon what happened with the security guard at the wedding. Will she even mention Rickie?
He rises abruptly from the table, puts the glass in the sink and the second sheet of cookies on a plate. He has some small notion that finding the cookies there in the morning will appease his grandmother, and perhaps she will reconsider her plans.
He goes into the living room and turns on the TV. He slumps on the couch, the hand with the remote outstretched. He clicks through the channels, looking for anything to capture his interest.
What will he do if his grandmother does sell? Alex. Maybe he can move in with Alex and his mom. No, she doesn’t like Rickie. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t have to. He knows by the cool greeting he receives from her whenever he goes over to their house, the added emphasis she gives to her little speech telling Alex to stay out of trouble any time he and Rickie go off together, and the meaningful parting look she always gives Rickie. She definitely thinks Rickie is trouble. She will never let him stay.
Maybe if he promises, if he pleads the baseball team, finishing high school, the fact that he doesn’t really know or like his father—will she listen? Or will she stand at the doorway and tell him she’s sorry but no, he’s a bad influence, she doesn’t trust him?
Night falls as he sits there. The objects in the room recede into shadow. Every now and again, he remembers that this is the time he should get up and set his clothes out for school the next day, take a shower, find some money for lunch, but he doesn’t move. He’s reached a decision; he isn’t going to go to school tomorrow. He has something more important to do, an angry statement to make. He digs his cellphone out of his pocket.
“Alex,” he says into the phone.
“Who is this?” Alex says.
“Who do you think, fool.”
“Hey. What’s up?”
“I’m coming over.”
“It’s after ten o’clock, dude. Tomorrow’s school. I’m about to go to sleep.”
“I got a plan.”
“What kind of plan? You sound weird. Are you all right?”
“Just meet me at the end of your block. Don’t let your mom see you go out,” Rickie says and hangs up quickly before Alex can respond.
He walks quietly through the house, out the kitchen door, which he closes tightly behind him, and back into the garage bedroom. He knows a flashlight is in a bracket on the wall by the door because he watched his grandfather install it. He finds it, pulls it off the wall, and turns it on. The light is dim but it works. On the other side of the door in the corner is his grandfather’s toolbox. He made it himself, a large wooden box with a hasp in the middle and rope handles on the ends. It is worn on the top, smoothed by Osvaldo using it as a seat while he took a break or ate his lunch. Rickie runs his hand over the smooth wood, and for a moment the thought of his grandfather makes him hesitate and consider going back inside the house and calling Alex to say he isn’t coming over. But then he spots the crowbar and feels that it is a sign, an indication of the inevitability of what he is about to do. He picks it up, along with a hammer and a pair of hardened work gloves beneath the hammer. He has what he needs.
Alex is waiting for him at the street corner.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Rickie says, walking by Alex at a brisk pace.
“Hey, wait a minute. What’s going on?” Alex doesn’t move.
“We’re going back to that place where that racist was,” Rickie says. He has stopped and looks back, but has not turned all the way. Alex can’t see his face.
“Who’re you talking about?”
“That guy who hates Mexicans where we got thrown out of today.”
“You mean that stereo store?”
“Yeah. Him. C’mon.” Rickie is impatient to get going.
“What are we going to do there?” Alex looks suspiciously at Rickie, moving to his left so that he can better see Rickie’s eyes. Rickie turns so that he can’t.
“I’m just gonna fuck it up a little bit. Get in, smash some shit, and get out. I’m not going to take anything,” he says, thinking that will allay Alex’s doubts. “I’m tired of people walking over us, thinking we don’t do anything.”
“Who’re you talking about?”
“It don’t matter. Are you coming or not?”
“What do you need me for?” Alex begins to move slowly toward Rickie.
“I don’t. Just to come along and watch. On second thought, you don’t have to come. Go on home.”
“No, I’ll go,” he says reluctantly.
“Good. C’mon. It’ll be cool. Just in and out. I’m going to show that bastard that he can’t fuck with us.”
The boys walk up the street and then over on to Landerman Boulevard.
At 10:30 on a Sunday night, all of the stores and shops are closed. Even Johnnie’s where they ate earlier is dark. Few cars pass on the wide boulevard. A handful of people walk the sidewalks, quickly now, eager to get home.
“We’ve got to get off this street,” Alex says. “If a cop sees us, sees you carrying that stuff, he’ll stop us.”
“We can cross here,” Rickie says and begins to run diagonally across the boulevard. “It’s up there,” he calls, gesturing with his chin toward a place on the other side of the street, in the middle of the next block. “Not in front,” he says. They gain the sidewalk and Alex heads for the store. “In back.”
They run down the street, around the corner, and into the alley. It is dark, completely unlit. Dumpsters line the walls.
“Shit,” Rickie says quietly. “I didn’t bring the flashlight. I don’t have my cellphone, either. I must’ve put them down somewhere.”
“How’re we going to tell which door it is?” Alex asks. “This is a stupid idea, Rickie.”
“Quiet for a minute. Let me think. Was it the third or the fourth store?”
“I don’t know,” Alex says. “I don’t like it, Rickie. We can’t see nothing.”
“I know. Do you have your cell?”
“No, I left it on the bed.”
They don’t speak for a moment. Rickie is waiting for his eyes to grow more accustomed to the poor light. In the silence they hear a scrabbling noise coming from the dumpster nearest them.
“What the hell is that?” Alex asks in a loud whisper.
“Quiet, dude! You’ll get us caught. It’s probably a cat or a ratón looking for food.”
Alex steps away from the dumpster and eyes it suspiciously.
“I got to take a leak,” he says.
“Go ahead, piss on the dumpster. I’m going to find out which door is his.”
Rickie heads for the nearest door as Alex relieves himself, the sound of the urine splattering on the ground amplified by the near walls and metal dumpsters. Rickie checks a further door.
“This is it,” he calls in a loud whisper. “Come here.”
Alex picks his way as quickly as he can in the darkness. When he gets to the door, they peer in past the wrought iron bars that cover the glass on the inside. They can see the counter, the stacks of boxes silhouetted against the blue light of the boulevard coming in at the front window display and door, latticed by a metal gate drawn across the width of the store.
“This pendejo should put in better security back here,” Rickie says. “Here, hold these.” He hands Alex the hammer and crowbar and puts on the gloves. He grabs the crowbar. Alex takes a step back.
From the moment Rickie sticks the tongue of the bar between the door and the frame and gives it a sharp pull, the alarm begins to sound.
Alex is ready to run. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” He can’t keep the fear out of his voice.
“Not yet,” Rickie yells, liberated by the racket of the alarm. “I’m gonna do some damage.”
The door, however, is made of metal, as is the frame. The most he does is crush the edge of the door where the crowbar has been angled. The metal creases, the paint chips, but the locks hold.
“Shit,” he yells after one last yank on the crowbar. He holds it in both hands like a baseball bat and slams it against the door repeatedly.
Alex slaps him on the shoulder. “C’mon, we got to get out of here. The cops’ll be coming,” he yells.
Rickie turns on him. “Leave me the fuck alone,” he shouts. Alex recognizes the look in his eyes. He lets his hand fall, holds both arms out as though in surrender, and begins to back off.
“I’m going, fool. I’m not sticking around,” he yells. Alex turns and begins trotting out the way they came in. He throws the hammer he still holds into one of the dumpsters. The alarm reverberates insistently in the narrow alley. Dogs bark. Lights go on in buildings on the other side of the wall. Someone comes into the alley at the far end and stands looking down toward them.
Rickie becomes aware of the futility of continuing to strike the door, and he follows Alex out of the alley. He catches up with him halfway down the block on Landerman. Alex begins to run faster.
“We’ve got to get off this street. They’ll see us for sure,” Alex calls back as he runs.
“Go down to Sycamore Way,” Rickie shouts back. Sycamore Way is a wide east-west street that goes all the way across the Valley floor. When they reach the intersection, they stop.
“Come here,” Alex says. “Get out of the light.” He stands in the shadow of a doorway. Rickie stands at the curb, bent over and trying to get a deep breath and looking up and down the street. He looks back at Alex but doesn’t move.
On the south side of the street are low industrial buildings behind high chain link fences topped with coiled razor wire. No chance there. On their side of the street and on the next couple of blocks west of them, there are apartment complexes behind low fences mixed in with a tool store, a lavendaria, and an adult video rental shop.
“Which way?” Rickie says, still bent over and looking back at Alex. “Do you know anyone in those apartments?” he asks Alex when he finally gets his breath. “Think.”
“I can’t think, dude. You think.” Alex is angry and scared. “Get away from the street. Don’t you hear the freakin’ sirens?” Finally, Rickie moves into the shadow of the doorway.
They stand without speaking. Rickie races through his memory in an attempt to recall who lives in one of the apartments along Sycamore Way. No one comes to mind. He has actually never been inside an apartment there. It strikes him in a moment of fleeting self-pity and wonder how few friends he has. A lot of people nod or say hi to him in the hallways at school, but almost all of them keep a safe distance from him. Rickie moves closer to the doorway.
“We can’t stay here,” Alex says. “They’ll be shining every doorway. We’ve got to get into the neighborhood and back home.”
“That house. The abandoned house. We can stay there until it calms down.” The house is about five blocks north of where they are. They both look up the long stretch of Landerman they will have to cover.
“We’ll never make it. It’s too far. Let’s cross here and try to get home,” Alex says. They run across the boulevard and into the sleeping neighborhood.
CHAPTER 18
When the call comes in, one car is dispatched to check it out—Officer Adrian Sanchez, who has just begun his thirteenth year on the force, and his partner, Officer Chris Padilla, who has six months on the job. They have been at the park about a half a mile away rousting a haggard young white woman and her eight-year-old son in a battered Ford station wagon. She is dressed in a dirty UCLA hooded sweatshirt and a long thin skirt and beat-up boots. Her blond hair is stringy and matted, and her face gaunt.
“Where? My parents are dead, I got no family, my old man beats me up and hits the kid if he tries to protect me. Every time I find a place he hunts me down like it’s the only thing he’s got to do in his miserable life. Where? Where am I going to go? Do you know how long we’ve been living like this?” She leans against her car, holding up her hand to shield her eyes from the spotlight shining from the police car. She positions herself to block the light from hitting the boy sitting sleepily in the back seat wrapped in a large towel he uses as a blanket. The towel is dirty and tattered.
“There’s a shelter up on…” Officer Sanchez begins.
“I been there. That’s where he found us last time.”
“Haven’t you got any friends?” the young cop ventures naively.
The woman snorts. “Yeah. The other homeless I meet panhandling at 7-Eleven. Not friends exactly. They don’t want to see me. I might get something they don’t get. We talk anyways. Misery loves company,” she says disdainfully. “Can you shut that light off or move it out of my face and off the kid? The kid has got to get some sleep. I send him to school, you know.”
Sanchez motions with a quick nod of his head to Padilla. “Turn it off.” He turns on a flashlight, which he points at their feet.
“Well, ma’am, you can’t stay here in the park. City ordinance. We’ll be back in a while. I don’t want to find you here,” Sanchez says and begins to walk back to the car. “Try to find a space on the street.”
“Where am I supposed to find that? Every space is taken,” she says, knowing that these two don’t have an answer.
Padilla shuts off the spotlight and comes back and surveys the scene, now lit only by the flashlight and the nearby street lights.
“Good luck,” he says.
“C’mon, Padilla, we have to answer that call,” Sanchez says as he stands at the open car door.
Padilla turns to join his partner.
They drive north on Landerman, pull a U-turn in front of the store and shine the spotlight on the door and display window.
“Nothing here,” Padilla says.
They drive around in back.
Officer Padilla gets out and shines his flashlight on the alley door. “Yeah, they tried to get in here,” he calls. “Lot of damage to the door, but they didn’t get in.”
“Probably kids. Stupid. Can’t even do it right. C’mon. Let’s see if they’re still around.” Padilla gets in and they drive slowly up the alley shining the spotlight and the flashlight into
the darkened doorways and by the dumpsters. At the end of the alley, they turn left into the neighborhood.
“What time is it?” Sanchez asks. His vest is digging into him. He ate too much dinner and doesn’t feel well. He wants to lie down, and then wake up with the energy and enthusiasm he once felt. He envies Padilla.
Padilla lights the face of his watch. “Almost midnight.”
Sanchez curses. “I could’ve swore it was later. It’s going to be a long night,” he sighs. “I didn’t sleep good this morning. Kids making too goddam much noise. I hate trying to sleep weekends.” He yawns noisily as though to make his point.
In this particular area, it’s as though the mapmaker was left with only ends of streets or short pieces, and finding empty spots, had placed them down haphazardly. Or as if he had laid out the grid with pencil and had erased it in a number of places and had then been called away, never to return and make sense of the work. Only Sycamore Way runs east to west all the way through to the next major street; Landerman is the only north-south line. In the crazy quilt of the neighborhood west and north of these boulevards, streets run a block or two and end. Without warning, one street becomes a narrow path skirting an overgrown field. People grow frustrated when they drive the short streets and realize the piece they are seeking picks up on the other side of a barrier or a block beyond a cul-de-sac.
At night this neighborhood is cast in darkness. No streetlights illuminate the way. On a moonless night like this, with a haze of leftover smog smothering the starlight and the ambient city light, the darkness is almost palpable.
Sanchez and Padilla cruise the neighborhood on the west side of Landerman, shining the spotlight into yards and on doorways and gates, causing dogs to bark and cats to scurry across the street and the few people still awake to look out living room windows. The officers find no one.
“If we don’t find anyone, we’ll go on the other side,” Sanchez says. “This is like looking in one of them puzzles.”
“Like a maze?”
“Yeah. And we’re the rats,” Sanchez says and glances over at his young partner to see if he appreciates his attempt at humor. Padilla smiles. What a shame, the older cop thinks. Seen from this side, his partner is a handsome guy. Women would look again; that’s what Sanchez’s wife had said. But on the other side is that ugly raised scar that runs from the corner of his mouth to his eye. When they see it without expecting it, people pull back in shock. Poor Padilla—his own father going after him with a broken bottle as the boy tried to protect his mother.
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