by Matt Mendez
The PAC was only partially filled; the season was already a bust, and no one really cared what happened in the last six games. The PA system crackled Run the Jewels’s “Oh My Darling (Don’t Cry),” JD’s favorite song. So cool. He’d been playing well of late—somehow his má finding out about his old man’s affair and what that meant for his family made basketball feel unimportant and easy to play—but he’d never started before. Never had the eyes of everyone in the gym on him all at once. He walked onto the court with the other starters feeling like a fake, like a cardboard cutout of a basketball player about to be propped up on the court and posed.
Shake it off, Sanchez! He held his head up, moving to an empty spot before turning to face center. An Irvin Rocket stood alone at center court, and Coach Paul began losing his mind. “For God’s sake, Sanchez. You’re jumping for ball!” JD rushed to the empty spot on the painted orange basketball with the brown A. The sound of laughter bubbled around him. He glanced out at the stands and found Juan holding the camera steady on him. “C’mon, Sanchez!” Coach Paul shouted. “Get your head in the game!”
The Rockets’ big man was easily six foot five and probably outweighed JD by thirty pounds. A beast. The ref tossed the ball into the air, and as JD jumped, the Rocket leapt over him and gently tapped the ball to his point guard. Plucking it from the air, the point guard made two swift dribbles downcourt before lobbing the ball toward the rim, where the Beast snatched it from the sky and flushed it down, with JD still planted at the A, watching. The Rockets were off to the races after that. It only took two more plays—JD turning the ball over on the Panthers’ first offensive possession, the ref calling him for a travel and then another blown defensive assignment; then JD got caught in a pick and roll leading to another easy Beast stuff—for JD to find himself back on the bench, where he stayed for the remainder of the game. He tried to signal Juan to quit recording, but the jackass ignored him, instead hobbling around the PAC, shooting what looked like a variety of wide shots, mediums, and close-ups. As if he were motherfucking Spielberg. Maybe he and Juan weren’t “all good” after all.
The blowout was worse than the El Paso High loss. Without Juan, the Panthers were unthinkably bad; the Rockets played their second and even third stringers before halftime. It hadn’t occurred to JD before how hard it was being Juan, how brilliantly he played each and every minute of the game just to make every defeat less brutal, to leave a pocket of space for moral victories—like for his own double-doubles—and keep everyone believing that maybe the next game the outcome could be different.
JD wanted only a piece of that for himself. To be good at something and not always have to be the clown. He heard some of the other players talking shit about him, joking about the jump ball and getting dunked on. Juan, Eddie, and Coach Paul were standing by the coach’s office when he got out of the shower.
“Boy, am I glad I started you,” Coach Paul fumed. “You made me look clueless.”
“Well, that’s not hard to do,” JD said. He should’ve gone back to his locker. He was fucking up. “You do most of the work on your own” came out of his mouth next. JD felt like a bomb errantly dropped from the sky, armed and free-falling. Unable to change course.
“Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?” Falling.
“You were talking shit first.” Falling faster still, the speed blinding.
“Do you wanna stay on this team, Sanchez?” Out of time. Solid ground. Impact.
“Does everyone have to do your job for you?” BOOM.
“You know what? You’re off the team. I’m gonna give a chance to someone who gives a shit from the freshman squad, just like I did with Juan. You’re no good on a basketball court, and I’m pretty goddamn sure you’re no good anywhere else. Pack your bag and leave. Report to PE for the rest of the semester.”
“Whatever.” JD couldn’t look at Coach Paul, afraid he might cry. He tried to make eye contact with Juan or even Eddie, but they were staring hard at the ground. No one acknowledged him at his locker; the few Panthers still changing pretended nothing had happened. Even though he knew they were probably not going to win any more games—and that Coach Paul was a racist dick—JD still wanted to be on the team. To not disappear from school life like he was from his home life. To not vanish.
• • •
Ten minutes later JD sat in his car, engine off, in the semidark of the PAC parking lot. He’d packed his things, leaving behind his dirty game uniform and warm-ups tied in knots and dumped on Coach Paul’s desk. Everyone else was gone; he’d even watched as Coach Paul jumped into his lame-ass Jeep Wrangler, with its open cabin and sun-beaten interior, faded surfing stickers and balding tires. JD knew he needed to get home but didn’t want to.
“Hey, dummy! Answer your texts,” Juan yelled as he slapped the hood of the Escort. JD jumped in his seat.
“Jesus . . . I told you my phone is busted,” he said, rolling down his window.
“I thought you were lying.” Juan smirked. “You’re always lying.”
“Except when I’m not.” JD got out of his car and dug into his pocket, retrieving the broken phone.
“Why are you still carrying it around?” Eddie asked. JD hadn’t seen Eddie standing behind Juan. He was dressed in his warm-up gear, AUSTIN PANTHERS printed across his chest, looking ready to play another game. Eddie was a willing backup on the court; he could probably be one in life, too.
“Worthless people like worthless things,” JD said.
“Stop being dramatic. I bet Danny has an old one he can give you. He never throws shit away. I’m sure he can swap some SIM cards out and get your phone working, no problem. He’s like a Russian hacker.”
“Maybe,” JD said. “I do already have his laptop. As long as I keep landscaping during the summers and he stays a good consumer, I’ll always have this kick-ass secondhand life.”
“Who’s Danny?” Eddie asked, leaning against the car. They were the only ones in the parking lot. The LED lights from the lampposts above cast bright rings across the empty spaces, harsh shadows layered around them.
“Our rich private-school friend,” Juan said. “He’s also the crazy one of the group.” The neighborhood was quiet except for the sound of them talking. No music coming from the houses. No old people watching TV with their front doors open, the volume up way too loud.
“I don’t know about that anymore,” JD said slowly.
“Coach Paul is wrong for kicking you off the—” Eddie was saying when a primer-gray Cutlass with murdered-out windows and rolling 22s crept by the parking lot. The carload of dudes were each taking the time to stare them down. It was those fools from Los Fatherless who creeped Central El Paso. Eddie froze. JD returned their bullshit mugging all the way until the Cutlass turned the corner.
“Don’t do that!” Juan said, slapping JD’s arm.
“They ain’t gonna do shit,” JD said. “Coach Paul’s harder than them.”
“Yeah, sure,” Juan said, but added, “Let’s grab some forties and head to Scenic. Get the fuck out of here before those fools come back.”
“I gotta head home. My amá wants to talk to me.” JD hadn’t seen Juan act this twitchy before, but getting drunk was exactly what JD felt like doing.
“Why?” Juan looked confused. “To talk about the condoms?”
“Yes. About the condoms.”
“Fuck, man. Just tell her you don’t even use them.”
“No, man—”
“Wait, you’re right. Don’t say that. She’ll think you’re smashing all these randoms without any protection. Say you only have them in case you need to use them, but you won’t need them because no one will get with you because you keep getting beat up and kicked off basketball teams and you’re ugly and no one likes you and your breath stinks and girls have cooties anyway, so forget it. You don’t even know why you have condoms.”
JD looked at Juan, his face as blank as he could make it. Then he said, “Those condoms . . . were my old man’s. I to
ok them from his truck and stashed them in my room. My mom’s tubes are tied, so I knew he was cheating on her.” He took a couple of deep breaths through his nose. “And I thought—oh, never mind. But then my amá found them when I didn’t come home the night you went to jail. My pops basically confessed when he saw her holding them, thinking she found them in his truck, and now he’s out of the house.” JD shrugged his shoulders in defeat. “I think they’re getting divorced. I’m pretty sure that’s why she wants to talk to me.”
“Shit,” Juan said. “I didn’t know, man.” He turned to JD. “You never said anything.”
JD thought about that. He probably should’ve earlier—he did feel better telling Juan.
“Nah, you’re good,” he told Juan, “unless you’re the one my old man is hooking up with.”
“It’s cool. You don’t gotta joke.”
“I can joke about it now. My family is only ruined.” The fact was JD couldn’t stop himself from clowning. Having Juan and Eddie laughing was better than them feeling sorry for him. “You got my camera?” He should have been recording what had just happened, them shaking their heads and trying not to laugh. He wished he had recorded what had gone down with Coach Paul, too. These things were part of a story he kept forgetting to do, kept failing to capture but needed to. He looked out into the neighborhood of small block houses, most with lights on but some completely black, like a chaotic chessboard. He realized each space was like his, where a story was moving forward. He used to think that nothing ever happened in El Paso, that life never changed, but maybe there was too much happening, and the nothing he once felt was actually a defense against the constant flood of life-changing moments. Boredom the only way to keep from panicking.
Juan handed the camera to JD. “I got some good footage, by the way.”
“Yeah, I saw,” JD said. “You didn’t have to record the entire game.”
“I know, but I wanted to get some game film for Eddie. Show him some spots to improve. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Nah,” JD said, relieved. At least his humiliation wasn’t the reason Juan kept recording. Man, the night’s shame never seemed to end. “You didn’t happen to get any of Coach Paul losing his mind on me?”
“Sorry, man. The battery was dead by then.”
Eddie proudly held up his phone. “He didn’t, but I did. Juan told me you were making a movie. It sounds cool. It’s just audio and the inside of my pocket, but maybe you can use it anyway.”
“I love this guy,” JD said, shoving Eddie on the shoulder. Eddie laughed, and, huh, he didn’t seem like too bad a guy after all. “Let’s go grab those forties.”
“What about your mom?” Juan asked.
JD shrugged. “She’s fine.” But he knew she wasn’t. Knew that the lights at his house were probably off.
“Yeah, she is,” Juan said.
“Fuck off.”
They burst out laughing and then stopped short when the Cutlass returned, this time rolling slower than before. The driver leaned out the window like maybe he was about to say something but then didn’t. Tattoos crawled up his neck and the side of his face. Then JD, Juan, and Eddie all saw it at once: the double barrel of a shotgun peeking out from the back passenger window. The inside of the cabin was too dark to see who was holding it, so the gun seemed to be aimed at them all on its own. The Cutlass came to a stop. JD couldn’t move, couldn’t pull his eyes from the barrels. They looked like flared nostrils of some starving animal about to attack, JD ready to feel its teeth tearing into him. Eddie didn’t hesitate and sprinted into the darkness away from the parking lot as Juan dove to the ground. JD stood still, a statue. A target. The carload of cholos sped away.
GLORY ROAD
(CHAPTER SEVEN)
Cruising seemed the thing to do. Neither JD nor Juan wanted to be in any one spot after that shotgun shit. They sipped the forties they bought at Jasmine’s. Juan talked about his ankle, how it was feeling better. Talked about how he found a rehab routine on YouTube and swore he’d be ready for Senior Day. About how Coach Paul promised that his friend from Arizona would be there to watch him as long as he helped Eddie—who’d just sprinted all the way home like a maniac. JD didn’t believe any of that shit for a second but didn’t say anything. Who knows, maybe something good would happen. Nothing good ever happened to him, but it had to for someone.
“Hit up Glory Road,” Juan said as they approached Scenic Drive. “Let’s check out what the college kids are up to.” The view of the city from Scenic, a long winding road cutting through the mountains, where the lights of cars streaked along the curves of the highway below and neighborhood houses glowed like light bulbs twisted into the ground, was JD’s favorite.
“Why? They’re just binge drinking at bro bars,” JD said. He felt drained after the run-in with the cholos.
“Just go, pues. What the hell else are we doing?” Juan said, then drained his forty.
“I guess you were right about those dudes. I should’ve looked away.” He should’ve gone home, too, JD was realizing.
“Those dudes were just fucking with us. They weren’t really gonna shoot. It’s some kind of game to them . . . I bet.” Juan rolled down his passenger window and birdied the empty, the bottle circling high in the air before crashing to pieces in the middle of the road. “And you better start catching up, lightweight.” JD wasn’t so sure. He couldn’t stop imagining what would’ve happened if Danny had been there instead of Eddie. He remembered the sound of Danny’s gun that day behind Juan’s apartment. The clear, quick pop. Danny would have had his old man’s gun out after the Cutlass’s first cruise around the block. What kind of game would they have been playing then?
“All right,” he said at last. “But just a real quick cruise.”
• • •
Glory Road wasn’t what JD expected, the short street crawling with nerdy dudes wearing skinny jeans, a sea of beards and glasses. He thought of Melinda. No doubt she was going to college—UTEP, only if she really wanted to. Still, JD could imagine her on this street or one just like it. Holding hands with one of these non–hood rats. They passed a sign declaring OPEN MIC NIGHT, ORGANIC CHAI TEA. He imagined her inside, studying or listening to some baboso in a wool knit hat strumming his guitar, shit that wasn’t JD’s deal. Waiting at a four-way stop, JD took a long pull from his forty. It had gone warm.
“Put that shit down,” Juan hissed. “Are you insane? There are cops everywhere.”
“Now I should slow down?”
With the forty back between his legs, JD made another pass down Glory. The whole scene looked like a movie set. The girls, the women, some dressed in the same style skinny jeans as the dudes but looking way better, and others in short skirts, high heels clacking as they crossed the busy street in packs, going from bar to bar. Everyone boozy and happy, confident. JD wanted this; as the malt liquor worked on him he knew he not only wanted to go to these places but also wanted to hang with these people, that he both hated and loved them, a thought that embarrassed him. He snuck another chug before looping around to the same four-way stop, this time watching a small group, two guys flanked by three girls, walking by.
“Holy shit! Look at that car!” the one wearing the suit jacket and button-down shirt said. “It’s, like, literally patched together. It’s like a quilt car.” He stopped a few feet from their hood, pointing. “Are you guys seeing this?” The rest of his group continued crossing as he stumbled after them. “Those Mexicans are driving a quilt car!”
It took all the control JD had not to jump from his seat and fight. He could just tell the motherfucker had never been punched in his life, had never been called useless or had a gun in his face. Probably the reason he talked shit to people he knew nothing about.
Instead, Juan smacked at his arm. “Hey, isn’t that your old man’s truck?” he asked, pointing just beyond the intersection at the continuing row of neon-lit bars farther down the road.
JD turned, and sure enough Pops, with a woman JD had never s
een before in the passenger seat, was pulling out from a parking lot. With no other cars in the way, JD gunned it, swerving to miss the drunk “quilt car” guy—the pendejo still unhit. Still unafraid.
“So I guess we’re following your old man,” Juan remarked as they rode up directly behind the truck. “I mean, getting right on his ass in your totally recognizable Mexican-blanket car is probably what I would do. That’s how they tail people in the movies.”
“I wanted to kill that fucking gringo,” JD fumed, scrunching down in his seat and lowering his speed, blending into traffic as they pulled away from Glory Road and turned onto Mesa Street. JD hoped Pops hadn’t noticed him. “First of all, he called it a quilt car, which is stupid. If anything, it’s a serape car.”
“Shit! In that case you should have tried selling it to him instead of driving away. You could’ve tossed some Halloween skeletons in the back and told him it was a Día de los Muertos car. He would have paid twice what it’s worth,” Juan said, laughing before taking a chug of his second forty.
“You think he would have had the twenty dollars on him?” JD asked with a laugh himself, sneaking another sip, the booze now going down easy. He followed his old man’s truck back onto the freeway, zooming past downtown and then taking the 54 toward the Northeast. He kept close—not too close for him to notice but careful not to lose him. JD hadn’t seen his pops since that night at Danny’s—when he started his car—and didn’t even know where he’d been living. He wondered if his father had tried to call. If Pops knew his phone was broken.
Getting off at Hondo Pass, they drove into a housing development. The houses were nicer than the ones in Central, at least from the outside. No busted cars on the lawns, no dirt yards, no graffiti on the walls. The ugliest things in the neighborhood seemed to be Pops’s truck and JD’s Escort.
When his old man pulled into a driveway, JD stopped two houses down and parked. He and Juan watched as Pops went to open the door for the woman and led her to the front door of the house. It was dark, but she looked to be around his old man’s age, buried somewhere in her thirties. Did she know she was the other woman? Did she care?
