by Matt Mendez
JD took another drag and held it in before coughing up the smoke. “First, fuck you, Danny. And second, Juanito, maybe take some responsibility for yourself. You didn’t have to run. Besides, you only spent a day in county. It couldn’t have been that bad.”
Not that bad. Right. The cops had only wrestled him to the unfinished ground of the living room as he’d tried to give himself up, hands in the air. They only dog-piled on top of him, only stepped on his face and kneed him in the back as they twisted his arms into a pair of handcuffs closed tight around his wrists, only punched the back of his head. He’d smelled the bags of thin-set for the new flooring stacked around the room, breathed in the dust through his nose and mouth. Now he could feel the fear from that moment roaring back, bubbling inside his chest. Juan slapped the joint out of JD’s hand and stomped it out.
“What the fuck!” Danny said.
Juan glared at JD, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t say shit about things you don’t know nothing about.”
He hadn’t been able to sleep in county. Some of the men in his cell were as old as Grampá, so frail and gray that he wondered what they could’ve possibly done. They never said a word. The majority were loud drunks, slurring their words and complaining how it was bullshit that they were pulled over in the first place. But the reason Juan didn’t sleep was the Monster, a dude who looked like he’d been arrested in a nightmare, who came in just after Juan with a bloodied face, T-shirt, and knuckles. He had monster tattooed across his neck. The Monster spent most of the night trying to make eye contact with Juan and then laughing when Juan looked away, everyone else in the room pretending it wasn’t happening.
“Now who’s being a bitch?” JD snapped. “Come at me again and see what happens.”
“What’s gonna happen?” Juan hovered over JD. “We both know you run when you’re scared.”
“Is that right?” JD said, popping up from the milk crate, camera still in his hands. “This ain’t the basketball court, motherfucker. And you’re not a gang of cops.”
“You’re disrespecting my house,” Juan said, now standing face-to-face with JD. “You need to go.” The pitch of his own voice surprised him, how pleading it sounded.
JD smirked. “You don’t own this place. You don’t own shit.”
That’s when Juan swung hard, a quick right, crunching JD’s cheek. The camera dropped as Juan put JD to the ground with another shot, this one a left, landing on the side of his head. Then Juan pounced, connecting quick punches to JD’s ear and the back of his neck. His blood felt like razors tearing through his veins, his muscles soaked in hot anger, but JD squirmed away and scrambled to his feet. He stomped on Juan’s ankle, striking just above it, at the shin. White pain seared through him. JD threw wild punches as Juan tried to stagger to his feet, landing two blows to the head that took Juan back to the ground. Juan’s ankle was wrecked, he couldn’t get up, and with JD on top of him, raining down blows, Juan knew he was in trouble. JD was stronger than Juan expected, angrier. He could feel his nose runny with blood, the taste of metal coating his tongue, and he was forced to curl into a ball, trying to protect his ankle. So he didn’t see Danny digging through his backpack. Didn’t see Danny retrieving the gun. Neither did JD, whose punches landed wildly against Juan’s back and arms. But they both froze the instant they heard the gunshot. BLAM! The sound paralyzed them.
Danny dropped the gun after firing straight into the air. JD quickly sprang away, his face red, his eyes searching. Juan uncurled slowly. On the ground beside him was the weapon, the barrel still smoking. He could smell the burning residue of gunpowder, the chemicals and lubricants Danny’s old man used to clean the weapon. Blood from his nose dripped down the back of his throat as he swallowed.
“What the fuck, Danny?” he yelled as JD picked his stupid video camera back up.
“What the fuck you,” Danny yelled back.
“Where the fuck did you get a gun?” Juan already knew the answer. At Danny’s old house in Central his father had had a small arsenal; Danny once showed him the three shotguns and the collection of handguns his dad had stashed in a gym bag inside his closet. Juan closed his eyes and tried to breathe normally, but his heart was pounding, his skin buzzing like tiny lines of electricity were zipping across it.
“Why do you have a gun?” JD asked, lowering his voice.
“It’s my dad’s,” Danny confirmed. “I’ve been carrying it for a while now.”
“Why the fuck are you shooting it? Are you crazy?” Juan asked.
“I don’t know.” Danny’s body was pure panic, face and neck turning red, his breath coming hard. “It seemed like something that would happen in a movie. Some dramatic shit to get you two to stop fighting.”
From behind Danny, Jabba was storming toward them, a phone in one hand, shouting. Juan imagined the cops already following behind her like an angry army, the fat, old hag leading them like a bloodthirsty general happy to finally be in the shit.
“Cut!” JD was yelling. “Cut, cut, cut. Mrs. Ramirez blew the shot. She’s in my frame.” JD held his camera on the scene for a moment before dropping it to his side. “How many blanks do we have left? Tell me we have some left.”
“¿Qué babosadas están pasando aquí?” Jabba demanded, eyeballing the boys. Her bare arms and face were slicked with sweat, her sweatpants cut off into shorts. Mrs. Ramirez had been living alone in the first apartment in Juan’s hallway for as long as he could remember—a widow, his má had told him. Juan never believed the story about how her husband was kidnapped and killed in Juárez, leaving her the apartment building to run alone. The dude probably wanted to disappear and booked on her. Jabba was a slumlord who read tenants’ mail and raised rents without notice. No way did anyone ever love her.
“Estamos haciendo un vídeo. It’s for school,” JD said, holding the camera up for Jabba to see. “Se llama ‘Mexican Fight Club.’ La pistola es una réplica.”
Juan clued in immediately and picked up the gun. He waved it around as if it were a toy, though it felt like anything but—more like a hammer or a brick. “It’s not real. It shoots blanks,” he added, hoping he sounded as casual as JD. Beginning to wonder if maybe JD wasn’t onto something with at least looking like he never gave a fuck.
“¿Y tus drogas? Are those for a movie too?” The baggie of weed was on the ground, but all Juan could really concentrate on was the smell of the gun. Danny slowly walked over and put the baggie in his backpack.
“Por supuesto,” JD said. “¡Somos artistas! Don’t worry, we’re professionals.”
“Lárguense, cabrones,” Jabba said before turning to Juan. “Hablaré con tu mamá, don’t you worry. I’m a professional too.”
• • •
Fabi wasn’t home, so Juan guessed Jabba would have to wait before telling her about the gun and weed, though she must have bought the movie story, otherwise the cops would be taking him back to county right about now. Damn, that was close. Jabba had threatened to kick them out before, but Fabi had convinced her not to—as her longest tenant, she seemed to have some kind of pull, even if Jabba hated Juan. Now his má would have to do it again.
The sun was fading, the thin curtains blocking the remaining light as Juan sat in the living room and thrust his ankle into a bucket of ice. Shit, that burned. He dug into his pocket for his phone, but of course the battery was dead. He didn’t want to interrupt his treatment to charge his phone, but that also meant not cruising the Wi-Fi Jabba never password-protected while his foot froze. Juan moved a stack of mail piled on the table beside him, looking for the television remote, and when he didn’t find it, began sifting absentmindedly through the envelopes. Bills stacked on bills. Poor Má. Then he came to a letter with a name he didn’t recognize, not to mention the return address. A prison address?
Prison. Shit, that’s probably where he’d have ended up if Jabba had called the cops. That pinche gun—what the fuck, Danny? He didn’t want to think about algebra and how he didn’t remember to ask Danny for help,
didn’t want to think about his ankle or the fight with JD. About Eddie Duran and his deal with Coach. Court. Jail. He held the opened letter in his hand and wondered if he should read it, betting Má hadn’t meant to leave the letter out. He read the name on the envelope again: Armando Aranda, 999178. Juan had been ruining his life with so much ease, it scared the shit out of him. How bad do you have to fuck up before your name gets a number attached to it? Juan decided to read the letter, wondering if the answer could be inside.
THE CUTLASS
(CHAPTER SIX)
Tomásito jumped on JD’s bed, collapsing the center and rattling the box spring under his feet. Making a ton of noise. He laughed and jumped harder, reaching his arms toward the low popcorn ceiling. His part of the room was a straight mess, toys dumped on the floor and discarded underneath his bed, his dresser a disaster of dirty clothes piled on top and restuffed into drawers alongside the clean ones. Crayon scribbles covered the wall beside his bed along with drawings he’d pinned up. They weren’t the typical nine-year-old bullshit—houses and depictions of family smiling and waving. These were monsters: a giant octopus with knives instead of tentacles, swallowing a cow; a shark with mouths at both ends and a fin on each side so it never had to sleep and could always attack and eat everyone all the time; a lion, with horns and legs like a horse, that breathed fire and attacked anyone who was mean to Tomásito. Of course JD often appeared in the work, either being burned or eaten or speared right in the belly and bleeding out. JD’s share of the room was squared away, his movies back in order—now by release date and genre—and his bed neatly made.
“You’re gonna fall, you dumb shit,” JD said, packing his game uniform into his gym bag.
“You said ‘shit,’ ” Tomásito said. “I’m gonna tell. I’m gonna tell. I’m gonna tell.”
“You said it too.”
“That doesn’t count,” Tomásito said as he stopped jumping. “I was just saying what you said.”
“Do you think God cares why you said it? You said a bad word. That’s all he cares about. Sin is pointless like that. At least I can go confess, but you haven’t made your first Holy Communion yet. If you died right now, the devil would drag you to hell and you’d burn forever and ever. Those are the rules. Ask Amá. You better hope I don’t kill you right now.”
Tomásito cocked his head the same way Amá always did, a raised eyebrow and sideways glance, trying to determine if JD was lying or not. Of course JD didn’t care if Tomásito told about the cussing. Since she booted his old man out, Amá had barely left her room—except to go to work. Alma was the only one to talk to her—she’d been home a lot more, which was a relief. She had graduated from Austin a few years earlier, worked at the mall, and was saving money, talking about going to college or maybe joining the army. Before Pops was booted she’d moved in with her boyfriend and spent most of her time with him, but now her old bed had piles of folded laundry on it along with her makeup bag and brush and hair dryer and all sorts of other girl crap. Seeing his sister’s things made JD realize how much he’d missed her—even if her being back and sharing their room meant it woud be crowded as fuck again. Tomásito squatted down and leapt straight into the air, swiping his hand toward the ceiling.
“You’re not gonna kill me,” Tomásito said as he took flight from JD’s bed yet again and ran his hand across the popcorned texture of the ceiling, scraping off the hardened plaster with the palm of his hand before crashing to the floor, his head thudding against stained carpet.
The tears were immediate and so was the blood from his nose. Rushing over, JD sat his brother up and squeezed his nose. Tomásito screamed. Once, in eighth grade, JD had had a basketball thrown at his face when he wasn’t looking by Roman Alvarado; his coach had squeezed his nose in just the same way immediately after. He remembered how it hurt, how he wanted the coach to let go, but in the end the bleeding stopped. With his free hand, JD reached for his camera, now fully charged. This was a moment. The past few days—the truck ride with Pops, the fight with Juan—had been filled with moments like this, which he’d failed to fully capture on video, but where his life felt like it was changing. He wondered how many instants like these he’d ignored in the past, not thinking of them as important or as part of some kind of larger story. His heart was racing, just as he was sure Tomásito’s was. Still squeezing his brother’s nose, he flipped his camera on and pointed it at him.
“I know it hurts,” JD said, trying to sound soothing. “I’ve done this before. Try to calm down.”
“I want Amá!” Tomásito said, squirming like crazy. “Let go; you’re hurting me!”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“Stop it!”
“Fine.” JD let go but kept the camera on his brother, now a mess of snot, tears, and blood. Tomásito gulped for air like he was drowning. JD was so fixated on the scene in front of him that he hadn’t noticed that Alma was at the doorway. She swept into the room and took Tomásito in her arms, glaring at JD.
“¿Qué está pasando aquí, Juan Diego?”
“Nada . . . Tu sabes como eres.” It was true; Alma had to know how much fakery Tomás always conjured up. JD turned the camera on her.
“¿Y como es su hermano? He’s only nine! And I know how you can be. Why the hell are you recording all this instead of helping? It’s like you’re always hiding from all of us. Always out, disappearing from your family. Now behind a camera. Why is that?”
“I’m making a movie.”
“A movie? Settle down, Spielberg.” She was rubbing Tomásito’s back, calming him. She held the bottom of his shirt to his nose and instructed JD to put the stupid camera down and help her. He did as she asked, killed the camera. Spielberg? That motherfucker hadn’t made a decent movie since The Sugarland Express.
Now, washing his brother’s face and hand in the bathroom, JD explained how Tomásito jumped off the bed, how it wasn’t really his fault. Alma shook her head, meaning of course it was. Being the oldest in the room meant JD was responsible, and now he was making excuses and not taking responsibility for his family. Like someone else she knew.
“You are a lot like Apá. I come in the room to find Tomásito bloody and crying and you filming him instead of helping him, being a brother. That’s your job.”
“He jumped off the bed,” JD said, now thinking back to his conversation with Pops. Him wishing he could’ve stayed in the army, been an E-9, but instead getting out for Amá. Because she wanted him to, for family. “How is that my fault?”
“He’s nine You make him quit jumping.”
“Whatever.”
Once cleaned up, Tomásito bolted, like a caught animal released from a cage, leaving JD with his sister.
“And what is going on with you?” Alma said, taking a good look at him. “I mean, shit. Have you seen your own face lately? You’re a mess.”
“I don’t know.” JD shrugged. “I got into a fight with Juan. It’s almost healed.” JD’s face and body ached from the fight, but at least the chichón on his forehead was almost gone.
“What, Juan? Why?” She reached out as if to touch his bruised cheek and then pulled her hand back, like she’d been reaching out to touch a ghost and thought better of it. “Did you at least get some punches in?”
“More than some. I think I might have won that fight.”
“Yeah, right. If you landed some punches it’s because Juanito let you. Same reason he lets you score when you play ball—so you keep playing.”
“I think I beat his ass,” JD insisted as Alma laughed and suddenly wrapped him in a big sisterly hug, apparently no longer afraid of ghosts.
“No, you didn’t, but that’s okay. Are you guys, like, enemies now?”
“Nah. I messaged him. Everything’s fine. I used your phone, by the way. Mine’s busted.” He’d been fucking things up, he knew it. He apologized for running from the cops, for always talking shit, for going hard at his ankle during the fight. Juan replied with an It’s all good, and JD wondered if
things actually were.
“Quit using my phone without asking,” Alma said, annoyed. “Look, Amá wants to talk to you. You have a game today?” When JD nodded, she said, “Come home after the game. Spend some time with her. Can you do that?”
“I guess,” JD said, knowing Alma wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I’ll cancel all the fights I had scheduled for tonight.”
• • •
Since he was sitting out injured, Juan had agreed to record the night’s game for JD. His ankle was still messed up even though he’d said it was getting better. And while Juan said he no longer blamed him for the injury, JD knew he did, could understand why, even though not everything that had happened that night was his fault. Partying on the wrong side of town. With people they didn’t know. In neighborhoods they hadn’t figured out. Things were bound to be fucked up if something like cops happened.
“Make sure you get a mix of shots,” JD explained as he handed Juan the camera. The Panthers and the Irvin Rockets were warming up behind them, both teams in shootarounds before falling into layup lines. “You want some close-ups. Get facial expressions. Shots going in. Stuff like that. You also want some medium shots. Like us running the half-court offense. Some ISO. Action. And you want some wide shots. Try to get as much of the gym as you can. The crowd. The game. That way I can edit everything together—”
“Dude,” Juan interrupted, nodding toward the gym floor. “Coach looks pissed. You better get down there.” Coach Paul was eyeballing JD, arms crossed as the horn buzzed and both teams returned to their benches. Shit.
“Get some B-roll, too!” JD yelled over his shoulder as he rushed down to the gym floor, not sure if Juan knew what B-roll was. “Coach said I was starting tonight. So get some footage of me at the jump, porfas.” After two and a half days of filming, JD had downloaded his footage to his laptop—the one Danny sold him for a hundred bucks after his old man scored him a new one. He was surprised how little footage it actually had—only an hour—but he felt good, really good, to be doing it. To be getting out there with the camera.
