The Importance of a Piece of Paper

by Jimmy Santiago Baca

  “Good idea. And I asked Sister Rita,” Runaway said, “if we could perform at the Christmas party next week. There’s supposed to be some sorority club coming from the university. We have to practice, but first let’s go over and talk to him.”

  Yeah didn’t look up at them; instead, staring into his palm and slowly opening it, he revealed two large-caliber bullets. The crew stopped, wondering nervously what he was up to. He placed one bullet on the concrete and pointed it toward the chapel building. He took the rock and slammed it down on the back end of the bullet, and a loud roar sent the crew diving for cover behind the coal pile.

  Still huddled there, they all peeked out at Yeah, and slowly Runaway came around and said, “Drive-by, Indian style.”

  Tesco said, “Definitely qualifies as crazy.”

  One by one they rose and approached the Indian boy, who was placing the other bullet down.

  “Whoa, that’s another attention grabber...” Kimo said. “Yo Bullet Boy, don’t point that cap this way.”

  Yeah smacked it but it was a dud.

  “You tap a mean rock. You’s good,” Osca said. “But Yeah ain’t no name, we’re gonna call you ‘Bullet.’”

  “I like that,” Runaway said, and looked at the Indian boy. “What do you think—Bullet sound okay?”

  The Indian boy smiled faintly.

  “He’s been through a lot—treat him straight up,” Runaway said. The crew grouped around Bullet and they headed for the playground.

  It was a week before Christmas and the crew was in the auditorium getting ready to practice their rap songs for the play. Bunches of decorations hung over the stage, red and green shiny bunting swooped everywhere, a Christmas tree was fully decorated, and all the radiators around the auditorium had glitter flakes on them. It was a festive time; the crew was sitting on the stage waiting.

  “I want to try this new song out about Cesar Chavez,” Runaway said.

  “Write one next about Marley,” Tesco said.

  “Got it,” Runaway said.

  “Can’t start without Osca. Sister Rita, where’s he at?”

  “Sister Anna Louise took him to Sister Superior’s office,” Sister Rita said.

  Runaway grabbed a branch of mistletoe and lofted it above his head. “Sister Rita, where do I put this?”

  Kimo said, “You better stop that.”

  Sister Rita came over and gave Runaway a peck on the cheek. “It’s Christmas,” she said, “and you can hang it over the exit door.”

  Osca finally walked through the entrance at the far end of the auditorium. They yelled and waved him on but Osca’s steps were tentative and he looked troubled. He approached the stage, and his brother Tesco sat on the edge. Runaway, Kimo, and Bullet crouched down behind Tesco.

  “They want to split us up, Tes, send me to Boys’ Town,” Osca said.

  Tesco said, “That ain’t going to happen, little brother. Only place we going back to is the island—together.”

  That night, Runaway lay on his bunk in the dormitory, looking at the ceiling while Bullet, in the next bunk, polished his brogans. The rest of the crew was directly across the aisle harmonizing in low tones so Sister Dolores wouldn’t come out of her sleeping quarters at the head of the dorm.

  Runaway asked Bullet, “You got anybody coming to see you on Christmas?”

  Bullet shook his head no.

  “How about you guys—Tesco, Kimo, Osca, you got anybody?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “I hate holidays, especially Christmas,” Runaway said.

  Boys were coming from the bathroom, putting away their toothbrushes, getting under the sheets, kneeling by their bunks and praying. At the head of the dorm Sister Dolores appeared. “Lights off in five minutes,” she said, and went back into her room.

  About thirty minutes after the lights were off, when most of the boys were snoring or on the verge of falling asleep, Runaway said to the darkness, “I’m out of here, tonight.”

  From the darkness came Tesco’s voice, “I’m with you.”

  “You ain’t leaving me behind,” Kimo said.

  They grabbed Osca and went to find Bullet. “You coming, Bullet?” they asked.

  He nodded yes.

  They all snuck out of the dorm, and once outside under the stars and moon, Kimo asked, “Where we going?”

  “I got to see my grandma,” Runaway said. “Sister Superior told me yesterday that my grandma couldn’t come see me for Christmas. I’m going to see her, I know she’s not doing well.”

  Tesco said, “You got something good to eat there, I’m hungry.”

  “We’ll cook up a big Christmas meal,” Runaway said.

  They took off jogging and within an hour were miles from the home. They cut down an alley. Went over a lady’s backyard wall. To keep their morale up, they sang low, rearranging, adding, or subtracting lyrics, and sometimes making them so funny they laughed.

  They were afraid, but no one wanted to admit it. Thanks to their music, the excitement of the adventure was greater than their fear. They were alone, boys without parents, in a world suddenly lit up with Christmas lights and families enjoying the feeling of loved ones around the dinner table. It was disheartening to feel they were apart from the world in this way, but it was also invigorating to know they had each other.

  Along the way they ducked into a yard and Kimo stole a hen. Osca and Tesco found eggs and nestled them into Osca’s T-shirt. Bullet pulled off his sweatshirt, tied it into a makeshift sack, and filled it with apples and apricots he found under some trees. Runaway and Tesco ventured into Nolan’s Meat Market and came out with a plastic quart of green roasted chilis, a pound of tamales, and a bag of cookies.

  All around them as they traveled through the dark fields and along dirt roads, ditches, and paved roads, happy sounds of Christmas mixed in with police sirens. On occasion, strangers arriving home yelled for them to get home to their families. Church bells rang. Nativity scenes glowed in windows. Trash cans beside houses brimmed with torn wrapping paper and shredded strands of colored ribbons, ripped-open department store boxes, old bicycles, and computer keyboards and monitors. Runaway salvaged a nice warm coat from a Dumpster for his grandma, and Kimo, not to be outdone by anyone, lifted a huge potted plant from the porch of a rich house and carried it on his shoulders. A woman at a red light saw them dash across the street carrying these things and, without taking her eyes off them, called someone on her cell phone.

  One by one, the boys stole bicycles left unchained in yards until they all had one. Riding with one hand on the bars and the other clutching stolen goods, they yelped and hollered at each other joyfully.

  After midnight, the streets and sidewalks were crowded with people going home from Mass, and as they sped through dark alleys, sirens and police helicopters became more numerous and got closer to them. They cut through a park and raced away from a pit bull snapping at their heels. Partying teenagers in cars screeched down blocks and around corners as house lights came on and residents stood in doorways drinking and laughing and stray dogs scuffled in alleys for trash-can scraps.

  At dawn on Christmas morning, chilled to the bone, weary and famished, the five boys finally rode into Grandma’s yard. Runaway called out to her and opened the front door. He found her in the back on her bed. She looked frail and had lost a lot of weight, her gray hair had thinned, her eyes had purple rings under them, and she smelled sickly—Runaway saw that the flesh around her ankles and wrists was badly swollen and had turned a faint yellow color.

  “Grandma, we came to see you, spend Christmas with you. Merry Christmas,” he said. The good cheer in his voice was now replaced with barely concealed worry on his face.

  “Merry Christmas, my sweet dove,” his grandma said. Her voice ached with fatigue. She leaned heavily on him as Runaway helped her from the bed.

  “Grandma, I brought you a coat for Christmas. I brought my best friends to see you too. We’ll make you a good Christmas breakfast.”

&nb
sp; As Grandma wearily sat on the couch, trying her best to pretend she was feeling good, everyone pitched in to cook breakfast. They emptied whatever she had in her refrigerator and cupboards, and Runaway defrosted the green chilis, then peeled them and roasted them in the oven. Kimo plucked the hen, cut it up, and fried it in the pan, burning Osca in the process. Tesco was singing and dancing as he made a fruit platter and a pot of fresh coffee, and Bullet warmed and buttered a stack of tortillas.

  After everyone ate, Runaway put the new coat on Grandma and they all went out behind the trailer, where Grandma sat in a big old wooden chair and the rest found stumps and bricks and bald tires to sit on. Kimo placed the big potted plant next to her.

  She told them it was the best Christmas she had ever had, and they had made her happy. When she asked them where they were all from, Tesco and Osca shared how they wished they were back with their relatives in Jamaica. They told Grandma that when the civil war broke out in Jamaica, their parents were killed, and they were sent to live with their aunty in Oklahoma. When their aunty was arrested for using drugs, the authorities put them in an orphanage there that burned down, and then they were sent here, to the home in Albuquerque.

  Kimo said he never met his dad, he lived with his mom in Utah, and growing up, because he was different, he got into a lot of fights with the white kids who made fun of him. One day, after the police took him to juvenile hall for the tenth time for fighting, they called his mother to pick him up but she never showed. He hadn’t seen her since.

  “Those are sad stories,” Grandma said.

  After a while, Runaway asked, “What’s yours, Bullet?”

  Bullet was hesitant at first. And then he started, “I lived with my grandma and grandpa, herding sheep in the prairie, and one evening these men came to our place and killed them both. They were drunk, on drugs, and crazy. They did things to me too, afterwards. I didn’t remember a lot of what happened, until they brought me to the home.”

  They were silent, watching snow that had started to fall. Grandma said, “Help me up, please.” Runaway led her to the trailer door and followed her inside. She had Runaway pull an old suitcase out from under her bed and bring it to her. Sitting on the old couch, she set the suitcase on her lap and opened it.

  “This is your Christmas gift, sweet dove.”

  Runaway saw the old photo album, some religious medals and crosses, and a big black Bible.

  “I want you to take these things.”

  “But Grandma, these are your photographs...”

  “I’m getting old, sweet dove, and my mind is fading. I forget things. I don’t want to lose these things, so I want you to have them. And this,” she said, taking out the Bible and opening it. The inside was hollowed out and stacks of money were perfectly bound and wrapped with red and blue rubber bands. “There’s twenty years of my social security money. I’d say about sixty thousand dollars. I want you to have it.”

  “Grandma!” Runaway cried, “I’m sixteen, what am I going to do with that money? And why are you doing this? Grandma, why...”

  Runaway started crying. She took his head and placed it against her chest and patted him.

  “Shh, shhh, sweet dove, it’s okay,” she said. “I’ve listened to your dreams many years. With this money, make your dreams come true. You’ll need this when you go. They’re not taking you back to the home. Go live your dream, and with every penny, think of me, each penny is a love kiss from me to you.”

  “Where you going, Grandma? What’s happening, Grandma?” Runaway hugged her and said, crying, “What’s happening, Grandma, don’t go away!”

  “When you get to where your heart takes you, come back and see me, maybe I’ll go with you and we’ll live together,” Grandma said, as if she had just thought of it. She followed up excitedly, “Yes, my sweet dove, send for me and we’ll live together. That sounds like fun. I’d love that. Come on, let’s go outside.”

  The boys had built a fire and grouped around it warmly. They stopped laughing and rapping when they saw how red Runaway’s eyes were. Grandma had her kerchief out and she was wiping her nose and eyes.

  “Oh, it’s so wonderful when it snows on Christmas, isn’t it boys,” she said.

  “What’s in the suitcase,” Bullet asked, suspicious that Runaway might be leaving him.

  “Stuff...”

  “Clothes and things?” Tesco asked.

  “Other stuff.” Runaway looked at Grandma, leaped up and hugged her, and broke down crying again. “Why you doing this, Grandma...” He cringed, and his face wrinkled up in the darkest sorrow the boys had ever seen. They’d never seen him that helpless, that vulnerable, and that hurt.

  Without a word, Bullet rose and hugged his friend. He kept hugging him.

  Grandma said, “You’re going to be okay, sweet dove, you’ll be fine. But you better go before they come. Ahh, this coat is nice and warm.”

  “Go where,” Osca asked, alarmed.

  Runaway turned from Bullet and looked at his grandma, wiping his eyes and face with his forearms but still sniffling. “Sure Grandma, okay, and I’ll never waste a penny, I promise, I’ll use it to make my life better.”

  “That would make me so happy, sweet dove, so happy, to know you’ve used the money for your dream, to make your life better.”

  The fire crackled and sparked and it started to snow harder.

  Runaway hugged her one last time, mounted his bike, and told the rest, “I’m going to the bus station to get a ticket to California. Whoever wants to come, let’s go.”

  They rode off into the snowy distance until they were completely obscure. The old woman started coughing, a terrible fit of choking and gasping, and when she spit, her saliva was red. She shivered and rose slowly from her chair, gradually toddled to the door, and went in.

  A few hours later, when the cops came to pick up the boys, they knocked and knocked but no one answered.