The Closest I've Come

by Fred Aceves

  I feel like telling her my thoughts. Why does weed do that to me? Smoking with Obie that one time I got to talking about God. I told my boy that I wanted to believe but it was hard, that praying didn’t work or maybe I wasn’t doing it right. I even described my technique. Obie said he was no expert but how you kneel or sit or what you do with your hands don’t matter. You just gotta believe, he said.

  And maybe that don’t sound like a big deal, us discussing God, but we’d never done that before. It’s like weed made that conversation happen.

  And now I’m wondering, What if weed don’t make you high at all? Maybe it makes the surface bullshit fall away and you become the kid underneath, the one you’re meant to be, and that feeling of freedom is what lifts you.

  Or maybe I’m higher than an astronaut.

  “So are you kicked out of the class now?” Amy extends the pipe, still lit, a circle of fire orange under gray ash. I notice the chipped green polish on her nails.

  I turn down that third toke. “I hope I ain’t kicked out.” Right away I hear it. I shoulda said “I don’t know” and left it at that. Now it sounds as if I like the class, want to be there. Liking and wanting some things ain’t cool.

  Amy says, “I’m still wondering which teacher chose me for it.”

  “Same here.”

  She hits the pipe again, holds it in, and then blows smoke into the glittering sunshine. “What do boys think about anyway, besides sex and video games?”

  “Don’t know. I’m just me, I guess. I ain’t in a club or nothing.”

  “Yeah. I guess I don’t have much in common with other girls.”

  She puts the pipe and lighter into the coin purse, which she then stuffs in the side pocket of her raggedy green cargo shorts. A rip on the bottom’s sewn up with a darker green thread. Not a bad job though I can do it better. I’ve noticed Amy’s clothes these last weeks and she don’t got many more than me. Amy’s poor.

  I’m thinking about that whole judging-book-covers thing and how me and Amy could have more in common than me and a Maesta girl. Maybe I really do got a shot.

  Focus, Marcos. What seemed impossible before, Amy next to you, is happening right now and you ain’t all the way here.

  I say, “Maybe there ain’t no such thing as the typical boy or the typical girl ’cause we all different on the inside but trying to be the same on the outside so we don’t feel alone.”

  Amy’s looking at me. In my head I go over the words I’ve said. Was it crazy space-cadet stuff? “Or maybe I think about things too much.”

  “No.”

  “People tell me that all the time.”

  “People are stupid,” she says. “What you said was smart.”

  I’m high on Amy’s weed and her closeness, and now her words lift me even higher. Me and her in this quiet shade, less than an arm’s reach away . . . it’d be the most romantic thing in the world if kids wasn’t passing by.

  “Ow!” an emo kid shouts, and holds the back of his head, where he just got slapped by his friend.

  The three sophomores passing by, hauling backpacks, jeans tight on their skinny legs, see us and look surprised. They don’t know me but might know Amy. I wonder if we gotta worry about tomorrow. If Amy’s gotta worry, I mean. While rumors of us alone in the dugout could destroy her rep, it could only skyrocket mine.

  She starts talking about their emo music, how some of it ain’t bad. Tells me original punk, her favorite, is the best, that the new stuff’s cute and from the suburbs.

  “With me it’s hip-hop and the Smiths,” I say, “but I’d like to listen to your music sometime.”

  “I love the Smiths! You know, Morrissey started out doing punk.”

  “Nice,” I say. “Didn’t know that.”

  Amy tells me she listens to some rap, old stuff like N.W.A and Public Enemy. “I can get into anything, even some of the old country music my grandma plays.”

  Country? If we not into the same stuff, the least I could do is be open to it, like with the punk music. But country? I can’t help laughing. “For real?”

  “Why’s that funny? I gotta be wearing a cowboy hat to like country music?”

  “That’s right! You gotta be wearing a cowboy hat and boots while taming a wild horse to like country music. Ain’t no other way.”

  But she busted me. I was thinking of her dressed up like she lived on a Texas ranch. What if when I mentioned hip-hop she thought of drive-by shootings and booty clapping?

  “Seriously,” Amy says. “Some people think that only one thing defines us. Look how school cliques get organized that way. It’s bullshit.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “It’s dumb.”

  Worst of all, it’s why the idea of me and Amy together sometimes don’t make sense. Even though we make a bunch of sense.

  So me and her are anti-cliques. We should start a campaign! Post a video on YouTube! Write the president a letter! No more categories for kids. No more sections in cafeterias. I wanna tell her my genius ideas—all around the world teenagers hanging with whoever they want.

  Man, I’m blazed.

  I say, “Categories are stupid.”

  “Yep. I thought so in junior high but in high school it’s worse.”

  “A little more than two years left.”

  And I’m trying to finish those years like everybody else. I remember the row of Fs on that sheet of paper.

  Amy lies on the bench, her Chucks two inches from me. All over them she’s Sharpied designs, names of bands, even an I ♥ M. Does M stand for Misfits? It’s a band shirt she wears a lot, the one with the skull logo.

  She’s staring at the planks of wood above us. “You know what’s messed up?”

  That we here together? Please don’t think it’s messed up. “What?”

  She says, “In high school we’re supposed to be one way, so we fit in, and at home we gotta be another way, for our parents. We can never be ourselves.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” I tell her. Now I’m wondering, who’d I be if I could be myself? “I don’t know who I am half the time,” I say. “If nobody was looking, if I was the last person on earth, who would I be? Maybe my real life should be different. Maybe the opposite.”

  Amy takes that all in as I wonder if all those words were too many.

  She giggles. “Bizarro Marcos.”

  It’s like she’s waiting for me to laugh too.

  “I don’t get it,” I tell her.

  “You know, like Bizarro Superman?”

  “I don’t read comics.”

  Amy explains Bizarro Superman, the evil twin, first in the comic book and how he later showed up in the cartoon. “The point is, he totally looks like Superman and has the same powers, but is opposite in every other way.”

  If I could choose, maybe I’d give up this handed-to-me life and become totally different. What if I’d been born knowing my dad? What if I’d been born in a place where basketball and hip-hop ain’t popular? Who would I be?

  How dope it’d be to escape the things that made me, but where could I go?

  Amy folds a leg under her to face me better. “What would be the opposite of your life?”

  A good question. I give it some thought. “A kid living in a mansion, whose fun-loving pop helps him practice golf putts in the backyard.”

  “Snooze.”

  I agree. Say what you want about my life but it ain’t boring.

  “I guess the opposite of me would be one of the Tinas,” Amy says. “Whichever one tans the most.”

  “So we’d be hanging out in a Bizarro world. A Tina would kick it with a golf-playing Timothy.”

  We laugh at that.

  “For you,” Amy says, “what would be the opposite of right now?”

  “This is a pretty great moment,” I say, and try to think up something terrible. “Okay, check it out. The opposite of right now would be getting kicked in the nuts while listening to country music.”

  She’s laughing hard so I bust up too. She’s t
rying to hold it in for some reason, eyes closed, shoulders moving up and down—a cartoon laugh. It ain’t the joke so much as the weed, which makes it funnier. When we finally catch our breath, the dugout’s silent again.

  I don’t say nothing and it’s like I ain’t gotta, the silence enough for now, somehow pulling me closer to her than I already am. So close that if neither of us moved, maybe I could feel what she’s feeling.

  11

  THE NEXT day, I walk into Future Success like last week never happened. What middle finger? The plan was to come in all natural and instead here I am strolling in, Sunday-in-the-park style, setting my weekly study report on Breckner’s desk as I pass.

  I’ve never strolled in my life. Never even used that word.

  I go sit next to Zach. The other Future Success kids smile at me before turning to the teacher, who’s still writing. Is Breckner gonna kick me out when he sees me?

  Zach wonders the same thing, chin pointing at our teacher who still ain’t looked up from his writing.

  I answer with a shrug.

  “The play’s tomorrow night.”

  “I’m there,” I say, and think about inviting Amy.

  Like a mind reader he says, “Invite whoever you want.”

  “Yeah, I might invite Amy.”

  When Amy walks through the door I wave her over. She sets her study report on Breckner’s desk before taking a seat on my other side, just across the aisle.

  Check me out, hanging out with a theater boy and a punk girl.

  “What’s he doing with those study reports anyway?” Amy asks.

  I’ve wondered the same thing. When Zach mentions he might verify them with our teachers, a worry sets in. Everything I write in them—the notes I take, the homework I do, the reading—is a lie. I’m just trying to do what I gotta in this class, so I can be with Amy.

  I know the future’s coming, like Breckner says. It’s how I imagine it too, me staying put and the future heading my way like a beat-up van, full of who knows what. And sure it’s a smart idea to be prepared for when that van stops and the door slides open, but I just can’t get into school.

  The starting bell rings and my heart pumps faster.

  Worried for nothing, it turns out, ’cause he gets up, sees me, and starts class by explaining the three learning styles—visual, auditory, and tactile. We spend about fifteen minutes on a style indicator exam that classifies me as a visual learner. The advice is to review and rewrite class notes, make outlines and diagrams, all so my brain can hold on to things for tests.

  “If we want to achieve success,” Breckner tells us, “this is the most important tool. Keep in mind how you learn best in order to study more effectively.”

  But how I study ain’t my problem, and I bet it’s the same for the others. We don’t take class notes, don’t do homework, don’t care. Poor study habits? We don’t study at all. Breckner and whoever sent him don’t get that.

  Future Success, my nuts. What a waste of time.

  At the end of class Breckner says, “We have been invited by the Tampa Bay Rays to watch a home game when baseball season begins!”

  At least half the class gets excited. Kids look around for other baseball fans or just people who want to see a baseball stadium. I get amped ’cause it’s more time with Amy.

  “Future Success kids from all over the district will be there,” Breckner says.

  That corny name for this class is bad enough and now he wants to call us that?

  “There will be a bus ride from the school to Tropicana Field where we’ll listen to a talk, have a meal, and watch the game.”

  A kid in the front row asks, “For free?”

  “For free. It’s six weeks away, but your parents need the information today. So they can mark that date and make the necessary arrangements to be there. You must bring a parent.”

  The kid by the window mumbles something about his parents being in rehab, and our confused teacher pauses like it might be a joke.

  “Or a guardian,” Breckner finally adds.

  Who am I supposed to take? My mom would laugh at the idea of going anywhere with me, and taking one of my friend’s moms would be straight weird.

  Why don’t I know any grown men? Why’s Maesta just moms and kids? Chris and them who are forever drinking beer beside the bumping blue Mazda might jump at the chance to watch a ball game for free. But we ain’t tight.

  There’s César, the old man who wanders shirtless around Maesta all “Hey, boss” to everybody, a bummed cigarette behind an ear. Or else he’s at the corner Hess station in a shirt, offering to pump your gas or wash your windows, sometimes holding the door for you. Anything for a buck. If he’ll wear a shirt to scrounge, he might wear one for a free ball game.

  “Okay, people,” Breckner says. “Have a great weekend.”

  I get up with everybody else and roll my folder into my fist.

  “Marcos,” Breckner says. “I’d like a word with you, please.”

  Here we go. One whole week to come up with a punishment and now he’s gonna give it to me. Will it be a few days of detention? A week? Will he kick me out for good? Maybe it’s worse than that. Maybe he’s gonna give me a speech.

  I’ll dodge it with an apology. As soon as the classroom empties, I walk over to him on wiggly legs.

  “Sorry for flipping you off.”

  He unzips his backpack. “I hope that’s true, Marcos.”

  It’s my typical interaction-with-adults routine, saying what they wanna hear, but to my surprise it’s also real talk. I am sorry.

  He says, “I’m here to give help and it’s impossible to do that when students don’t want it.”

  As he puts his folder into the backpack I spot an empty lunch container and a book, a number on the spine. The food came from home and the book from some library.

  It’s got me remembering a couple summers back. While testing a new shortcut, me and Obie saw our fifth-grade teacher lifting Publix bags outta the trunk. On the front porch two little boys was jumping up and down like they’d explode if the door didn’t open soon. Seeing her there shocked us even though it’s normal for a lady to live in a house, normal for her to have kids, normal to buy food from a supermarket.

  The lesson I learned? Teachers are people. Sometimes, though, you can forget that.

  Breckner could be a regular guy, someone named Thomas or William. I’m just about to ask him . . .

  “If you don’t care about this program, you shouldn’t be here.” There’s no anger in his voice.

  “I wanna be here. I care.”

  Only the first part of what I said is true.

  “Do you really, Marcos? This semester you haven’t turned in a single homework assignment for algebra or history. I only had time to speak with two of your teachers today.”

  Breckner don’t got much time ’cause he only comes on Fridays, but the other teachers would have told him the same.

  “Are you applying anything you’re learning in my class?”

  Breckner thumbs through the weekly study reports on his desk until he finds mine. He hands it to me. The list of assignments on the left is real, but the details on the right, how I did them, the study principles I applied, are total bullshit.

  “Do better, Marcos,” he tells me.

  “Okay, Mr. Breckner.”

  That’s easy to say. It’s not necessarily a yes. It could mean that I heard him and understand what he said.

  His face has softened and he offers me his hand. No joke, we shaking on it.

  “In that case I accept your apology. Let’s not mention the matter again.”

  Gripping his big hand makes me feel like . . . what? More than a kid. More like a real person, I guess. How dope it’d be to shake all my teachers’ hands.

  Amy and Zach, talking up a storm, stop when they see me coming down the hall.

  “We shook hands,” I tell them. “We’re good now.”

  Amy’s impressed. “You’re not in trouble?”

  �
�Nah.”

  “Sweet,” Zach says. “I’m gonna flip him off next week.”

  Amy says, “Now you can go to the baseball game.”

  She tells us that her mom is a superfan. “It will probably be cheesy as hell, with a bunch of motivational speeches. Please say you’ll be there.”

  “I’m there.” It’s a promise now. I gotta find a guardian.

  “Cool. I couldn’t survive the game without you.”

  If only I coulda recorded that. I’d edit out “the game” part and listen to her voice all day. Crazy how some words can lift you higher than weed.

  You’d think the three of us was best friends, about to head out for a movie or wherever, but it ain’t like that at all. Zach and Amy just met, might soon be friends, and me and Amy . . . I wanna be more than friends.

  Come to think of it, I ain’t never had a friend who’s a girl.

  Handing me a flash drive she says, “I put some punk songs here for you to check out. You already listen to antiestablishment music, so I think you’ll like this.”

  “Cool. Thanks.” I turn the flash over in my hands, this thing that’s warm from her pocket, full of songs she chose especially for me.

  She says, “I’m out.”

  Always having to run and me always wanting to see her. Our few minutes together after Future Success ain’t enough.

  “Let’s hang out tonight,” I say, looking only at her.

  “Okay.”

  She tells me to text her, gives me her number, but I still don’t got credit on my phone.

  I think fast. “My phone’s dead and I can’t find my charger.”

  On the inside of my wrist she writes 412 in blue ink, holding my hand in hers, her thin fingers so soft and warm I almost close my eyes to feel them better.

  “That’s the apartment building. I live on the same street as the school, three blocks away.”

  “What apartment number?”

  “Just throw pebbles like we’re in an eighties movie,” she says. “You’ll know which window.”

  As she opens her arms for a hug, I tell myself not to hang on too long.

  I put my arms around her lower back, and she puts hers around my shoulders. It’s like a warm one-second bath. We let go at the same time. Then she hugs Zach.