by Matt Mendez
From the back seat, Juan realized Roxanne’s ride was new and that he’d never been in a new car before. The dash was curved and elegant, futuristic with bright blue LEDs and a giant touch screen. The smell of the cabin was absolutely perfect. After she dropped Eddie off, Juan turned nervous. His guts were churning, a blender hacking away at a handful of rocks.
Roxanne glanced at him as she drove. “You really need help with algebra?”
Juan looked ahead, trying to play it cool. “I got a test coming up.”
“Right, but algebra? That’s easy stuff.”
“It’s calculus to me.” Juan stole a glance at Roxanne. Her hands were at ten and two and she sat straight—definitely not a chingona behind the wheel. She didn’t even have the radio on. “If I pass, I get to keep playing basketball. I could get a scholarship.”
“Huh.” Roxanne looked confused, glancing back and forth between Juan and the road. “That seems ironic. I never understood scholarships for playing sports.”
Basketball probably seemed silly to her, maybe stupid, but that was okay. Juan drummed lightly on the dashboard. “Lucky for me I plan to major in easy stuff.” Juan smiled at her. “With a minor in bullshit. I’ll probably need some algebra for that, and I have to learn what ‘ironic’ means.”
Roxanne laughed—a no-shit belly laugh! “You can probably get a pretty good job with bullshit.”
“I hope. What are you gonna study?”
“Public health!” Roxanne snapped her fingers and pointed at Juan. “I want to track diseases. Study different minority populations, see how things like smoking and poverty and fast food affect them. And I’m getting into politics. I’m going to be at least a senator.”
“Cool,” Juan said. Totally cool, he thought. She was totally cool. “So you’ll help me, then, Senator?”
Roxanne pulled up to his apartment building. Behind the bank of mailboxes stood Fabi, reading a letter. Her face was pinched with concentration, or maybe confusion. Juan couldn’t tell, but his nerves buzzed immediately. She glanced over at Juan and Roxanne, but he could tell she didn’t recognize anyone in the car—the window tint too dark, the car unfamiliar.
“That letter has to be important,” Roxanne said, nodding at Fabi. “Otherwise why not read your mail inside like a normal person? I bet she’s crazy.”
“That’s my mom,” Juan said without taking his eyes off Má. She had to be reading another letter from Armando. The buzzing increased.
“I’m sorry,” Roxanne said. “I sometimes say things—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Juan said. “She’s reading letters from an old boyfriend. He’s on death row.” Why did I say that? He closed his eyes, not wanting to see Roxanne look embarrassed for him.
“Oh. Your mom is at the window.”
“Fuck,” Juan whispered, opening his eyes and rolling the window down. “Hey, má.” She looked pissed, as if she’d heard him just shame the shit out of her.
“Hey, you,” Fabi said. “That doesn’t look like your little friend Danny. . . .”
“This is his cousin Roxanne,” Juan said, wishing he could vanish. “She just gave me a ride home.”
Fabi popped her head into Roxanne’s car, looking over the dash and the bucket seats, the moonroof. “Nice car for such a young girl.”
“Thank you?” Roxanne said.
“So it’s yours? This car belongs to you?”
“Yes?”
“Huh, I never understood parents buying cars for their kids.”
“Okay, Má.” Juan opened the door and nudged his mom out of the way, moving out of the car. “Thank you for the ride,” Juan said to Roxanne. “So, I’ll see you for tutoring? My test is in like two weeks.”
“I can do next Saturday,” Roxanne said, and bolted as soon as the passenger door was closed.
Juan glimpsed the envelope in his má’s hand, recognizing the handwriting on the corner and his father’s name: Armando Aranda, 999178.
Fabi,
Being on death row is like having a disease no one wants you to get cured from. Everyone on the outside wants you to die and thinks every day you’re left alive is a waste of everybody’s time and money. Sometimes I feel like that too. But mostly I want to live, even though living is pain all the time. It’s hard to explain how that makes any sense other than to say I don’t want to kill myself. Not anymore.
To answer your other question, the truth is smaller than what was in the papers, on the news. Me and Carlo and Fernie robbed that Denny’s, and I killed Clark Jones. That’s true. What’s also true was that my old man used to beat my ass so bad that he kept me locked in my room afterward, kept me hidden for weeks, until the bruises and bones healed. My body still hurts from being broke and never put back together right. But there are the smaller truths inside those bigger ones. Truths you can’t see, like the tiny cells in your body that make up your bones and blood, the meat. I’ve been reading old science books from the library for years, thinking hard on what happened to me, why I did what I did. Then my old man died, and I figured it out. He’d only written twice, once to tell me to quit writing him and then again, years later, wanting to know if I could give him a kidney from prison. He never loved me, and I realized that for my whole life nobody ever did. Love wasn’t in my blood, not in my bones or cells. Not until I met you. Your love was like a virus, an invader making my whole life crazy, still infecting me all these years later. I loved you more than I ever loved anyone, Fabi. And for a short time, you loved me. That’s the smallest truth of everything.
Mando
PS You’re on my list, in case you want to visit or come before that last day.
BOXING UP
(CHAPTER NINE)
Boxing up her room was easier than Fabi thought. She didn’t have a lot of clothes—a few skirts and tops for work; some jeans that looked good with tennis shoes, flats, and heels; way too many T-shirts; and a small collection of jewelry but nothing too nice. Fabi rarely bought anything for herself. On her bed were rolls of film and stacks of pictures of her and Juan—most of them taken when he was little. She held up a photo of her washing a naked baby Juan in the kitchen sink. His mouth and eyes were pinched shut, balled fists beside his face, as if aware of how nervous Fabi had been during his first bath. She could see the fear in her own teenage face, not looking directly at the camera or at Juan, her mouth slightly open, sucking air to keep from going light-headed. Fabi remembered planning to have the photos framed and hung from the walls of the home she would one day buy. She’d been living in this dump of an apartment for almost seventeen years, and the walls were as bare as the day she moved in. Fabi boxed her shoes.
The eviction notice had been taped to the front door, citing illicit drug use and gang activity. A gun. When Fabi had gone to Jabba and asked her what the hell she was talking about, the landlady screamed at her, ranting about how Juan was dealing drugs behind the building, that he was making movies without a permit—whatever that meant. She told Fabi she was lucky she wasn’t calling the cops, but if Fabi refused to leave the premises, she would. If she ever saw Juan near the apartment again, she would call the SWAT team.
Fabi knew Juan and his goofy friends liked to hang around the back and do guy talk. She sometimes smelled pot from her bedroom window, but hey, that’s what teenagers did. She’d done much worse in her day—not only smoking pot but occasionally snorting coke and tripping on acid and ecstasy. Her past wasn’t something she was proud of, but how could she tell Juan not to do the things she’d done herself? At least he didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant.
Fabi knew she should be pissed at Juan. The eviction notice, the arrest—he could still be in serious trouble, and a court date had to be days away. But she couldn’t dig up any real anger. The move was long overdue and needed to happen. For both of them. She did remind Juan that he needed to be on his best behavior, not doing drugs or pissing off an ignorant old woman, even if she was a complete bitch. And he did seem upset knowing they had to move becaus
e of him and his stupid friends. Even more upset that their only option had been to ask Grampá if they could live with him and by his motto: My house, my rules. A motto Fabi herself had never been able to stomach.
Fabi started on her photographs and the contents of a junk drawer—a ring of keys she had no use for, old tubes of lipstick and makeup, loose change—then sat on her bed. Her entire room, minus bedding, fit into three boxes she’d found behind the Vista Market Express. What she didn’t pack in boxes were her two letters from Mando and the curled sonogram from Project Vida. Those went inside her purse, which went everywhere with her.
Her father was packing up the living room. He’d wanted to start in Juan’s room—so he could snoop, she was sure—but Juan had already boxed everything he owned into a single Rubbermaid tub. The walls of his room had been covered with magazine cutouts of expensive cars parked under moonlight, mansions overlooking secluded beaches, and yachts gliding over perfectly still oceans. Fabi had never paid attention to the walls of her son’s room before. Juan owned even fewer clothes than Fabi—he wore the same pairs of jeans two or three times a week and had maybe six or seven shirts. He owned a good pair of basketball shoes; Fabi made sure of that. She’d taken the glossies down before Grampá arrived, suddenly humiliated by the images. Juan had always refused her birthday gifts, never wanted a party, and usually didn’t open Christmas presents until days later—often after she forced him to. Fabi had always thought of these gestures by Juan as humble or selfless, but what if they weren’t? He seemed pretty comfortable cruising in that chavala’s ride. What if he was embarrassed of where he came from? Humiliated by his own mother and feeling sorry for her?
Asking her father if she could move back home had been easier than Fabi thought, though she neglected to tell him about the eviction—why upset him? She explained to Grampá how Juan needed him, that him getting arrested had scared the shit out of her and now more than ever Juan needed a man in his life. These weren’t exactly lies, after all.
Fabi stared at the water stain above her head one last time, examining the brown bubbles in the drywall and wondering how long the ceiling would hold. She realized she was lucky it never collapsed on her. Then she thought about the pregnancy. What was she going to do? She’d been a girl when she was pregnant with Juan, about the same age as the girl he’d been riding with. Why had she been so mean to her?
Maybe if Mamá had never gotten sick, things would be different. Gladi wouldn’t have stayed home and played the good daughter, wouldn’t have bathed and fed Mamá, changed her catheter and tried in vain to make her comfortable until she died and Gladi bailed to college. Fabi wouldn’t have partied, too afraid of staying home and seeing the worst thing she would ever see. Her life now wouldn’t always have to be hard. Maybe?
Fabi sighed and dug through her purse, looking for a pen. She grabbed her notepad from the drawer by her bed, the one she used to make grocery lists, though sometimes she made other lists too. Lists of other jobs she wanted. Places she wanted to one day live. People she wanted to be. She began to write.
Mando,
I got your second letter. I’m sorry to hear about your father, what he did to you. He sounds like he was a terrible person, and it’s good that he’s dead. I did love you, a lot, and we were something pretty great back in the day.
We were together the day my mama died. I had promised Papa I would take care of her that day. I had a feeling, in my soul, that she was going to die, and still I spent that afternoon with you. I regret that so much. After she died, I blamed you for me not being there to say goodbye. I blamed you for me having fun all those months while she suffered. I blamed you for me being too afraid to watch her die. When you were arrested, I was glad.
After Juanito was born, I moved into my shitty apartment and started tending bar. I still live in that apartment and have the same job. It’s hard not to think my life turned out this way because of that day. Because of you. I like your small truth idea, but I’m not sure that’s how life works. Not sure that I can blame love for what I did. I fucked up, and I can’t get that day with Mama back. But there are other mistakes I can fix. Things I can get right the second time. I’m pregnant again.
“We gotta talk about this thing.” Fabi froze, pen in midair, as Grampá clomped into her bedroom and stood over her. He dangled a .22 pistol by her face, the handle pinched between his index finger and thumb like he was a cop who’d just discovered the key piece of evidence in some cheesy TV crime show. “Don’t freak out, but I found a gun.”
“You don’t freak out. It’s my gun.”
“You can’t have this in my house,” Grampá said, lifting his chin. He held the gun closer. The gun—she’d almost forgotten about it. She’d gotten it years ago at a pawnshop. It was silver and black, a Smith & Wesson—the only brand Fabi had ever heard of, and so she bought it, thinking it a good idea. Híjole. The things she thought were good ideas back then hurt her brain.
“It’s just for show,” Fabi said. “I don’t even have bullets for it.”
“Ammo,” Grampá corrected, wagging his finger. “And you shouldn’t have this around Juan. Does he know you have it?”
Fabi shook her head in disbelief. “No, of course not.”
“Do you even know how to use it?” Grampá was now pacing the room, no longer the cheesy TV show cop but instead the prosecutor, cross-examining an about-to-break witness.
“I took lessons. I decided later it was better for show.”
“Dime cómo.”
“Why bother.” He wouldn’t believe her even if she were to strip the weapon completely down and reassemble it, which she’d once been able to do, though it had been years since she had actually seen the pistol. It was hidden inside a never-used tamale steamer tucked away under the kitchen sink. Her father believed she was forever a liar and nothing was going to change that. “I’ll keep it in my truck until I can sell it, okay?”
“I knew you didn’t know how to use it. My house, my rules, sweetie.” Grampá sat down beside her and patted her leg as he kept talking. “You better let your little criminal son know that too. I was talking to your landlady outside and she told me this apartment was for rent, if I was looking. She was just waiting for the little drug dealer and his prostitute mother to finally leave.”
Fabi brushed his hand away. “Juan’s not a drug dealer, but she’s right about me. All my johns pay in guns.”
Grampá rolled his eyes. “Are you sure Juan’s not into something? He’s coming into my house. I’m just making sure.”
“Ay Dios, Papá. That woman is crazy. I should have left here years ago.” Fabi rubbed her eyes; they felt so heavy. Tired and hungry and not in the mood for any more questions, she stood up, wanting to leave but not sure where she’d go if she did.
“Mija,” Grampá sighed. “Look, you don’t always know when people close to you are into something. That’s all I’m saying. Remember that murderer you dated?”
“You know what? Never mind. We can find another place to live. Don’t worry about it.” Fabi surveyed the room. She could fit everything in her truck. Put stuff in storage. Get a hotel for the night.
Grampá heaved himself up. He smelled like sweat and cheap aftershave, like he’d spent another night sleeping in the backyard. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying maybe you really don’t know if he’s on the wrong track. That’s all. I want you both to come and live with me. I want to help.”
Fabi considered her father for a moment. “All right, Papá.” But she wouldn’t fully unpack when they got to his house. She’d finish her letter to Mando, and then on the next page of her notepad begin a new list: apartments for rent.
“Honestly, we should have done this a long time ago, mija,” her father was saying, leaving her room and walking into Juan’s. Fabi followed, watching him stand in the middle of the room. The space was bare, the walls cracked where the support beams had buckled, the carpet soiled with dark splotches, burn marks around the electrical outlets. “I s
hould never have let you stay here. I should have put my foot down.”
“That’s kinda why we were here in the first place,” Fabi said. She stood side by side with her father. She was taller than he was, her frame built like his, but still strong, wiry.
Her father grimaced and then rubbed his face with the handkerchief he always kept in his back pocket and occasionally wore on his head. With his cheeks saggy and his balding head sweaty, he looked old. Frail.
“This place wasn’t so bad,” Fabi added quickly, wishing it were true. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to make him feel better but found herself trying to.
“You were too hard for me to deal with all by myself, you and your sister.”
“You didn’t kick out Gladi,” Fabi shot back. The urge to be kind was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
“Gladiola wasn’t running away all the time,” he said. “Gladiola didn’t want to fight me every single day of her life.”
“And she left you anyways.” Fabi cupped her hand over her mouth, immediately regretting her words. Why say that?
“You’re right about that,” he said after a pause. His hands were shaking at his sides, slight flutters, his fingers permanently curled into partial fists. “I lost my wife and my girls one way or another.”
“You know, I still needed you back then, Papá,” Fabi said, feeling like she was shrinking.
“Who you needed was your mother,” her father said, the shaking spread to his shoulders and head. “And she died on us.” Her father looked even older, his hair thin and gray, the skin around his face creased.
Fabi put her arms around her papá. “I think this is gonna work out for the best, Papá. You’re right.”
