by Matt Mendez
“Where you parked?” Juan asked JD, pulling him back from the door, stopping him before he strutted from the locker room, the post-game shower failing to wash away his ten-point swag like it failed to cleanse the loss from Juan. The team was already asking if Juan was going to make the “half-court heave” part of his regular game.
“Teacher’s lot. I don’t want my ride getting dented up by the kinds of assholes who come to high school basketball games. Except for your mom—she’s not an asshole. . . . Why is she here, anyway?”
“I need you to pick me up at Cakes.”
“For what?”
“I don’t want my má and her pendejo boyfriend to see me leave. He wants to take me to dinner. No way.”
“Ask if you can take a friend.” JD threw his hands in the air, exasperated, his eyes wide. “I’m hungry.”
“Let’s just eat at Danny’s.”
“Is that why she came to the game? So he could take you to dinner? That sounds all right to me.”
“I don’t know why. And I don’t care.”
JD was shaking his head now, his hands on his hips like a disappointed teacher, before he suddenly stopped, a thought seeming to zap into his head.
“Maybe he wants to be your new daddy? He can get you the neon-green bike with TVs you’ve always wanted. You can be in his goofy commercials, be like the Prince of Payments or some shit like that. You two could work it out over some flan. C’mon, let’s go get some free food.”
“Why am I friends with you?”
“Because on the first day of kindergarten you wouldn’t stop crying and I was the only kid who would sit next to you. You remember.”
“Yes, I’m a giant crybaby.” He elbowed JD in the gut. “Now, go tell my má I left already. No seas cabrón.”
“Bueno, pero I’m gonna need a hug first. For you being all mean to me.”
“I’m not hugging you.”
“Yes, you are. So I can get over your assholery. You only children got no social skills.” JD stood waiting with outstretched arms. With no siblings and some cousins he was sure weren’t really cousins, Juan counted JD as one of the few people on the planet he could say he loved. He hugged his brother from another mother, each slapping the other on the back before JD surprised Juan by gripping him tightly. “I’m proud of your emotional honesty, cabrón.”
Juan felt a surge of relif as he watched Fabi and Ruben finally hop into the Hummer and peel away after a quick conversation with JD, tires squealing and the smell of burnt rubber lingering as Ruben cut through the emptying parking lot. Juan’s phone buzzed. Fabi. He didn’t answer. Once he was sure Fabi and Ruben had driven far enough away, he made his way behind McKee Stadium and the rest of the high school. Raking a discarded broom handle across the chain-link fence surrounding the perimeter, he imagined the fight Fabi and Ruben were having. Her apologizing for her asshole son and him making a bigger deal of Juan’s ditching them than it actually was, trying his best to have an advantage over her.
Trash blew against the fence, trapping plastic grocery bags along the bottom, adding to the snarl of small tumbleweeds and candy wrappers. Before seeing Fabi at the game, Juan had planned to skip the party at Danny’s. Come up with some excuse and head home, watch some old Jordan highlights on YouTube. He wasn’t in the mood to party, but those plans were now out the window. Fabi would be looking for him, and the party at Danny’s new house, way over on the East Side, would be a good place to escape to.
Cakes by Sonny—the small bakery on Stevens Street where they sold cheese fries, tortas, conchas, and loosies—was closed. Damn. Juan kept his hands shoved in his pockets as he waited for JD. He now wished he hadn’t left his AHS sweatshirt balled up in his locker. That he owned a jacket. Someone, who probably owned both a sweater and jacket, was grilling. The greasy smell of carne asada made Juan’s thoroughly emptied stomach ache.
Flashing his lights, JD sped across the bakery’s three-space parking lot and slammed his brakes in front of Juan, the engine of his ’88 Escort pinging as it idled, fan belt squeaking. The body of the hatchback had originally been blue but had bleached to an almost white—well, everything except for the red driver’s-side door and front fender, junkyard parts JD’s old man used to fix a wreck JD had been in while learning to drive. The back passenger window had also been replaced, by duct tape and cardboard, after a break-in where the cassette deck—who was still listening to cassette tapes?—had been ripped from the dash. JD wrote on the cardboard in fat marker: Some dick stole all my shit. Perhaps he hoped no one else would feel the need to poke around the inside of his car and steal his loose change or the pinwheel he’d glued to the dash.
“Gimme a cigarette,” JD said as Juan jumped inside.
“I don’t have any, and you can see Cakes is closed.”
“Always with excuses. Have some fucking pride.”
“Let’s go to Danny’s already. He’ll have frajos. And beer.”
“And weed?” JD said.
“Probably,” Juan said. “It’s a party.”
“I bet he doesn’t. He’s at Cathedral now. The rich kids got him. I bet they’re playing spin the calculator and doing homework.”
“You kidding? Those dudes are way more fucked up than either of us. I bet Danny smokes bath salts now.”
“You really think so?” JD said, putting the car into gear. “Do you think it’s hard to keep that uniform clean being addicted to hobo meat?”
“I’m sure the struggle is real,” Juan said. “And being in the student illuminati is no joke, either.”
“Catholics are assholes.”
“Isn’t your whole family like hardcore Catholic?”
“Just my mom and my sister and my old man and my brother, both nanas and my one tata who is still alive, all my tías. But that’s it. Don’t get it twisted.”
“And you? You’re not Catholic anymore?”
“I lost my faith when Father Maldonado dumped me for a younger altar boy.”
“You’re messed up.”
“True,” JD said, pulling away, a blast of white smoke clouding from the tailpipe. “For real, though, promise you won’t be all salty. I can’t deal with that tonight.”
“That’s you, homie,” Juan said, adjusting the passenger seat. “You’ll be the one hating on Danny’s new peeps all night.”
“Just the shitty ones.”
The nerves Juan had felt since tip-off faded as JD drove, and he began to warm to the idea of a party, of heading toward something fun and with no drama, even if only for a night. It felt like a win.
THE PARTY
(CHAPTER TWO)
The East Side of El Paso sprawled beyond what Juan had once considered the boonies, Joe Battle Boulevard and Americas and into Horizon City. Developments with names like Montana Vista and Las Tierras were a new oasis in once-barren patches of cactus, rock, and weeds. Builders had speedily cleared the landscape before anyone seemed to notice, much less complain about, the vanishing desert. Single-family homes had been slapped up and no one had wanted one more than Danny’s father, a retired army master sergeant. According to Danny, his old man couldn’t get out of Central fast enough, wanting away from the crappy part of El Paso and to get a piece of the good life his new plum job as a field service rep—whatever that was—with Lockheed Martin now offered him.
Danny lived in Cascade Point, a housing development that looked just like the others they’d driven by, rows of shoebox buildings with big garage mouths, all painted either light brown or tan or khaki, some a creamy coffee shade with darker trim and well-matched peat gravel landscaping the front yards. The same desert plants that had been uprooted to make room were now neatly planted along the concrete driveways and walkways. Creosote bushes and mesquite trees, thorny cacti looking pretty as long as they were planted alongside rosebushes and colorful flowers Juan didn’t know the names of.
“I can’t believe Danny’s even throwing a party,” JD said. “They’ve only been in the house, like, what, a few mont
hs? I know his parents travel a bunch, but they’re gonna notice if the place is trashed when they get back.”
“Danny’s crazy,” Juan agreed. “But it ain’t my chante.” And he didn’t think he was exaggerating when he called Danny crazy, either, at least not much. Danny had been expelled from Austin in November, right before Thanksgiving, after blasting the main hallway with pepper spray. Mr. Pokluda, the assistant principal, was trampled as students rushed to get outside. Danny was lucky the cops hadn’t been called, that the Sarge, as his father liked to be referred to, had once donated uniforms to the entire football team and was padrino to Pokluda’s oldest daughter.
Cascade Point was still under development; Danny Villanueva’s house was completed and ready for a party. Silhouettes moved behind the lit windows of the house, muffled music sounding like a band performing underwater. To the left and right of the house were empty lots, construction markers poking from the flattened dirt like industrial weeds. Down the block the skeleton of a two-story home had been framed. Juan studied the bones; without the meat and skin of drywall and stucco the home seemed weak, destined to one day vanish as quickly as it was built. The apartment building Juan and his mother shared was made of brick. And even though the plumbing and electrical were bad, both uncovered in spots, the roof coming apart shingle by shingle, he never imagined the walls of the building completely vanishing. For better or worse the neighborhood, his neighborhood, was a permanent reality.
“You think we’ll know anyone here?” JD asked, slowly approaching the house.
“I hope not,” Juan said, wanting to be as far away from his current life as possible.
Juan could tell by the cars lining the sidewalk and clogging the driveway that no one from Austin was at the party. JD’s Escort was glaringly out of place, like a cheap plastic button mistakenly dropped inside a jewelry box full of family heirlooms. Juan circled the cul-de-sac and parked at the other end of the block. Juan knew JD was embarrassed about being poor, always quick to turn his shame into jokes or politics, pretending the mismatched quarter panels and door of his ride were part of his personality. Being poor sucked, and Juan didn’t see the point of pretending it didn’t. For what?
“Sure you parked far enough away?” Juan asked.
“I don’t want to get it scratched,” JD said.
“Or stolen,” Juan said, playfully slapping JD on the shoulder as he cut the engine. “This thing is a classic.”
“True. They probably made a million of these, but still . . . a classic.” They looked at the almost full block they needed to walk to reach Danny’s, laughed, and got out of the car.
“We can move it another block down. I bet your Escort is the last one running.”
“You’re probably right about that.” Slamming the doors shut, JD and Juan headed toward the party.
“Promise you’ll drink the free beer and have a good time?” Juan had his doubts.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m good.” And JD seemed good, not even twitching at the sound of the poppy indie-light music coming from Danny’s as they got closer, some acoustic or banjo band with too many singers and spastic clapping.
Danny stood in the open doorway, a bottle of beer in his hand. He’d been waiting for them. “Heard you puked all over the court. ¿Qué pasó, güey?”
“¿Quién dijo eso?” Juan wanted to forget about the game, about losing, about puking. About Fabi and Ruben and whatever them coming to the game could’ve meant.
“Is that shit on YouTube already?” JD said.
“No way,” Juan said. “No one watches those games, never mind records them.”
“Lucky for you,” JD said.
“Maybe not so lucky,” Danny said. “My dad, the Sarge, said Coach Paul should be recording all those games for film study and sending tapes to recruiters. He said Paul can’t coach or manage a goddamn thing. That’s why he got fired from his last gig, and why nobody’s recruiting you.”
“I always thought it was because you’re Mexican,” JD said.
“I don’t care,” Juan said, a total lie, thinking Danny was probably more right than JD, but only by a little.
“At least that Eddie Duran dude will get his chance next year. The Sarge said he was gonna record his games for him.”
“Why?”
“The Sarge goes to church with his dad.”
“You don’t go?”
“Nope.”
“Desgraciado,” JD interrupted, laughing, the word rolling off his tongue like the villain of a telenovela.
Thinking of the Sarge recording Eddie’s future games was too crappy to deal with, so Juan turned his attention to Danny’s new place. The living room walls were bright white and unblemished, no blackened fingerprints on light switches or doorframes, no holes busted in them. The carpet was freshly vacuumed, neat lines running down the entire length. An odor from the carpet overpowered the room, a chemical smell revealing its newness. Juan loved it. The party was in the backyard and kitchen; the silhouettes they’d seen in the windows were kids Danny had been giving the tour of his new chante to. Danny ran to the fridge and grabbed a couple of forties and a box of cold pizza for Juan and JD. Juan cracked open the twist top of his and took a long pull before jamming a cold slice into his mouth.
The two-story house was massive, over three thousand square feet, Danny explained as they moved upstairs. Juan didn’t care about exact measurements, instead understanding the size by the number of rooms: three bedrooms and three bathrooms, a loft, a living room, and a family room—not to mention the kitchen, with a nook and stainless steel appliances, and even a dining room. Danny’s family had a three-car garage and a backyard bigger than the parking lot at Juan’s apartment building. Danny’s bedroom was still full of boxes, his parents’ master bedroom locked. The third bedroom was the smallest but still bigger than Juan’s, maybe bigger than Fabi’s, too. Suitcases were on the bed, along with a neat pile of clothes laid on top. Some skirts and blouses, bras and panties.
“My prima’s moving in with us,” Danny said, shaking his head and not bothering to close the door or hide his cousin’s chonies, pink-and-black numbers.
“Is she hot?” JD asked.
“Her parents are activists, took off to protest all the anti-immigration bullshit for a few months,” Danny said. “My crazy dad said they’re crazy, but what could we do? They’re familia, so she can stay.”
“Where are your parents?” Juan said.
“The Sarge is at some conference, and my mom dipped with my tió and tía to some protest in Arizona for the weekend. She only resists part-time.”
“Is she here?” JD said. “Your prima?”
“No, man, and aren’t you still in love with Melinda Camacho? ‘Ay, mi linda Melinda. I still love you even though we only kissed once in seventh grade.’ ”
“I don’t know why you guys keep bringing that shit up. And it was eighth grade.”
“Because it’s funny,” Danny said. “And true, too. Ain’t that right, Juanito?”
“Your house is sick,” Juan said.
“Thanks?” Danny said, confused. “You fucked up already?”
“Uh-huh,” Juan said, taking another drink from his forty. He imagined the room was his own, his family all living under one roof. Grampá in Danny’s room and Fabi in the master bedroom. Being inside Danny’s house had changed Juan’s feelings about Cascade Point; the homes no longer seemed temporary and cheap. Juan knew how dumb it was to fantasize about a thing that would never happen; as a kid he daydreamed about his father one day appearing, taking him and Fabi away from their apartment to a new life. As Juan grew older the daydream changed into his search for his father, Juan having to decide what to do once he found him. Would he fight him? Forgive him? And then what?
Fabi called again; Juan already had two unheard voicemails and knew the next morning was probably ruined, him having to hear about how rude he’d been to her novio before being shipped off to Grampá’s for day labor. He deleted the messages without li
stening to them.
Walking inside the cousin’s room, JD said, “I’m taking a look.”
“No, you’re not,” Danny said, quickly walking him back out. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Cálmate, güey,” JD said. “Besides, why’d you bring us here in the first place?”
“Shit, just to show off how big the house is and brag. That’s it. I didn’t know you’d get all creepy.”
“Creepy? All I did was walk inside her room and look at her underwear and ask if she was hot. . . . Okay, that’s totally creepy. My bad.”
“I’m gonna get drunk now,” Juan said, wrapping his arms around JD and Danny’s shoulders, huddling them close, suddenly wanting to be done with the tour. His phone buzzing in his pocket again. “This is a party, right?”
“Claro que sí,” Danny said. “Let’s get back downstairs.”
“Pos vamos,” JD said.
• • •
The party was the same as every Austin High party Juan had been to, except everyone had nicer clothes and the music was terrible, the playlist a disaster of electronica and indie bands Juan was sure people only pretended to like. Couples made out in the darkened living room, sitting on the sofa and on the Sarge’s leather recliner. Danny led Juan and JD through the kitchen, where dudes in letterman jackets kicked it around the counter taking shots of cheap tequila. He introduced them to some of his other friends. A couple of guys from the baseball team, Joaquín and Manolo, and two girls, Adelita and Carmen, who ran cross-country and went to the Loreto Academy, a private school for girls. Danny’s new friends seemed okay, but Juan didn’t do more than say “What’s up” before taking a chug from his forty, not sure what else to do. Danny explained how Joaquín and Manolo were from Juárez. That Cathedral High School drew students all the way from New Mexico. That they were cool. That Cathedral was pretty cool.
“How much does it cost to go there?” Juan said, looking at Joaquín, thinking maybe, just for a second, that he could transfer schools.
