Darryl was all smiles. He was a slim Asian kid. He’d admitted once that people always assumed he was Chinese because his name was Chang, but actually his family was Korean. And he said it like that: his family was Korean, as if they were and he wasn’t and it was all quite a burden on him. His name wasn’t technically Darryl, either. It was really Joon-ho, which he only admitted after pointing out that Bacho had a messed-up name also. Personally, Bacho thought he shouldn’t fight it. His features were Asian, his slim physique was, and, not to stereotype, but his technical skill with the violin suggested hours of practice before the unflinching supervision of a Tiger Mom. When he spoke, though, in a pretend cop walkie-talkie voice, he could’ve been straight off the Ferguson force. “Suspicious guy of questionable ethnicity spotted lurking in the lobby.”
Darryl, guaranteed to back up anything Jax said. They were kinda jerks, but at least they both knew the roles they were supposed to play. Bacho wished he did.
“So, you ready or what?” Jax asked. He started to move away. “Let’s go.”
“Yeah, I’m ready,” Bacho began. “I’ve been—”
“Hey.” Jax paused. “What do we have here?” He meant the girl by the main entrance. Jax looked immediately predatory. His posture loosened. His jaw shifted. He looked on the verge of licking his chops. “She looks a bit skanky.”
“Dude,” Bacho said, “that’s not cool.”
Jax rapped him on the chest with a thrum of his knuckles. “I mean it in a good way. Like, she probably does the weird stuff. She’s probably got identity issues. Insecurities.”
“I’ve seen her before,” Darryl said. “She’s pretty noticeable, huh? Don’t know who she is, though.”
“How about we find out?” Jax started toward her, weaving through the crowd.
Following him, Bacho had a harder time navigating. “Excuse me,” he said to a middle-aged woman who looked mildly alarmed at almost bumping into him. “Sorry.”
Jax sauntered up to the girl like a baseball pitcher to the mound, looking a little bored, a little cocky, and completely sure that all eyes were on him. The girl, however, didn’t seem to notice him until he said, “Hey, what’s up?”
She looked up. She wasn’t exactly pretty. Her face was a little too gaunt, her nose a little too prominent, and her lips turned down at the edges. Her eyes were amazing, though. Gray, languid, lined underneath in black. She reminded Bacho of a girl version of a young John Lennon. That struck him as kinda strange, but there it was. With a bit of punk thrown in also. He couldn’t figure out how old she was. Seventeen? Eighteen? Something about her disinterested air made her seem like she might be older than she looked. She made him nervous, in a bumblebees are suddenly buzzing around in his stomach sort of way.
Her eyes scanned the boys—first Jax, then the other two, and then back to Jax. She said, “Nothing whatsoever is up.”
“I know, right?” Jax said. “Is this city lame or what? Where you from?”
The girl fluttered her eyes and said, “San Antonio.”
An awkward silence, and then Jax shrugged it off. He was good at shrugging things off. “So what’s your name?”
She exhaled an amused breath. “Are you really going to keep talking to me?”
“Sure,” Jax said. “You in one of these bands?”
The girl’s look of derision was withering. “Do I look like someone who would be in high school jazz band?”
No, Bacho admitted to himself, but he couldn’t have said what type of music she might’ve liked.
Jax tsked. “I know. It’s lame, right? Bunch of dorks.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t act like you thought it was lame earlier, when your team won the competition.”
“You saw that?”
She pointed two fingers toward her eyes. “See these things? They’re called eyes. Seeing is what they’re for.”
Bacho was starting to like her.
Undeterred, Jax went on, “So, if you were watching you saw how the Plano Originals crushed all competition. Right, Bacho? Lubbock was like … what, third place? Bronze metal territory. And Darryl … what band were you even in?” He put on—and then dropped—a perplexed expression. “But, anyway, I don’t like to brag.”
“I’m sure,” the girl said, “but if you ask me the whole competition was sketchy. Stolen instruments. Stink bombs. Rattlesnakes. Those collapsing lights … I mean, seriously, somebody could’ve gotten hurt.”
Jax shrugged. “A few squished jokers. Wouldn’t have been that big a loss.”
The girl exhaled and checked her phone, managing to make the gesture into a dismissal.
Jax didn’t take the hint. He just changed gears. “So what are you doing later? If you’re a local, maybe you could show us the real San Antonio or something.”
“Just go to the River Walk like all the other tourists.”
Which, Bacho thought, is exactly where we were supposed to be right now.
“Why don’t you show us around? Something grungy that tourists don’t see?”
“I don’t think you guys are into the same sort of scene as I am.”
Jax wheedled his way closer. “How do you know if you don’t try us?”
“I know. Trust me.” She turned away slightly and began typing on her phone. Another dismissal. This was getting ridiculous.
“Hey, Jax,” Bacho began, but paused when a group of joker kids poured out of the elevator area and started across the lobby. More than a few heads turned to watch them. Several people stepped out of their way. If the jokers noticed, they didn’t show it. The group laughed and chattered. One of them, the boy with the weird sienna skin, cut circles through the crowd, talking as he skated effortlessly on his wheeled feet. How does someone get a mutation like that? It was weird, but also pretty cool. And the kid had personality, that’s for sure. Confidence, but the kind that welcomed you on your own terms. Pretty different from Jax, who, on cue, spoke up.
“Fucking jokers,” he said. His voice changed completely. He dropped the smarmy hitting-on-a-girl vibe and went full disgust.
The girl looked up from her phone, watched the passing group for a moment, and then asked, “What about fucking jokers?”
“Hey, I’m not prejudiced or anything.” He pointed at the jokers as they exited the hotel. “But they’re sick. You know what I’m saying?”
She stared at him, finally giving him her full attention. “Yeah, I know what you’re saying.”
Jax grinned. “They’re sick and dangerous and they can spread it. I know they say they can’t, but people keep becoming jokers. So … it’s spreading somehow. And that stuff in Afghanistan? Damn. They should be kept separate from us. You know what I’m saying?”
“I think you mean Kazakhstan,” she said. “Are you for … like … a quarantine?”
“Permanently,” Jax said. “Don’t hate me for telling it like it is!”
The girl smirked. “No, I wouldn’t hate you for that. We haven’t met properly. I’m Dina. No need to introduce yourselves. You’re in the program.”
Considering her crack about not looking like someone who would be in a band, she certainly seemed to have followed the competition. Bacho wanted to ask her about that, but he’d yet to open his mouth in any significant way.
Jax got smarmy again. “You sure you don’t want to hang out tonight?”
Dina pressed the question between her lips for a moment, and then let them curve into a mischievous smile. “I might. No tourist stuff, though. If we hang it’s gonna be with locals, local style. Underground, you know? You ever heard of Drop City?”
The boys drew blanks.
“It’s a dance club.”
“Oh, yeah, that one,” Jax said. “I heard it was cool.”
Dina smiled, let her head float a little loosely on her neck, flirty like. Bacho couldn’t figure her out. He had the feeling she totally saw through Jax’s shit—which made him like her—but she also seemed kind of into him. Maybe guys like Jax just had it tha
t way. Even when they were jerks girls fell for them.
“You’re in luck, then. DJ Tod’s performing tonight.”
“What kind of music does he play?”
“Psychedelic deep house. And I mean seriously psychedelic.”
Darryl frowned and looked about as clueless as Bacho felt. Jax seemed unfazed. “Right,” he said. “Cool. Love that stuff.”
“Okay, then,” Dina said. “It’s a date. I’ll get my cousin to come, too. Meet outside at twelve. I figure you kiddies need to sneak out, so let’s meet around on that side.” She pointed. “It’s more out of sight. Just go like halfway down the block.”
“Twelve?” Bacho asked. “But what about the—”
“Done,” Jax said. “A date, just like you said.”
Dina answered by clicking her tongue off the roof of her mouth. With that, she got up and started to walk away.
“Where you going?” Jax asked. “I thought you were waiting for somebody.”
Dina swirled and walked backward. She scrunched her nose, which Bacho found to be terribly cute. “Nah, changed my mind. I gotta go. See you at twelve, if you don’t wimp out.” And then she was weaving into the crowd, heading for the elevator bays.
“Oh, you’ll see us, all right,” Jax whispered, too softly for her to hear. He looked between Bacho and Darryl, grinning like a wolf. “She’s totally into me.”
Afraid he was right, Bacho returned to the topic that had been cut off. “Yeah, but what about curfew?”
“Who cares? This whole thing is almost over. Let’s have some fun. We sneak out; that’s all. Don’t be such a trump.”
“Yeah, grow some balls, Bachacho,” Darryl said, though he glanced at Jax for approval.
Jax ignored him. Staring vaguely toward the elevator, he said, “And she has a cousin. This is gonna be epic.”
“Totally,” Darryl said.
When Mrs. Robertson stopped by the room for the curfew check-in she found Bacho snugly under his covers, eyes slitted in imitation of sleep. Dion sat up in bed reading a book, and Troy and Sam were on their sleeping bags on the floor, taking turns playing an app on a tablet. The teacher wore her sleepy-time cap and bathrobe, and looked like she was well on the way toward catching her zzz’s. “It’s been quite a day,” she whispered. “You should all follow Bacho’s example and get a good night’s sleep. I know I will. You boys promise you’ll go lights out by twelve thirty?”
Troy and Sam assured her they would, and she yawned as she wished them all good night.
As soon as the door shut behind her, Bacho yanked back his covers and sat up, fully clothed. He grabbed his sneakers and began to lace them up.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” Dion asked.
“I’m going somewhere,” Bacho said, trying to make it sound completely mundane. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Going somewhere?” Troy paused the game on the tablet and looked up. “You can’t go anywhere. It’s after curfew. You’ll just get in trouble.”
“Or get us in trouble,” Sam added.
Bacho was all too worried that they were right, but instead of answering he just tugged his laces tight and stood up.
“What if Mrs. Robertson comes back?” Dion asked. “We’re not lying for you, you know.”
“I know,” Bacho said, grabbing his light jacket and slamming his arms into it. “I didn’t ask you to lie or anything. Anyway, she’s not coming back. You know how fast she crashes.” They didn’t dispute that. They’d all seen the way she fell into a deep sleep as soon as the bus was moving on band trips. She rarely woke up again until the bus engine turned off and students were clamoring down the aisle with their instruments. “If anybody asks just say you don’t know where I went.”
“Yeah, but where are you going?”
“Better you don’t know. Plausible deniability and all that.”
“Plausible what?”
Bacho didn’t answer. He went to the door, turned the doorknob, and listened through the narrow crack. He heard a couple talking, down the hall to the left. He waited as their voices faded and then a door clicked audibly shut. He let the silence sit for a moment and then opened the door more. He peeked up and down the empty, silent hallway.
“You’re probably going to regret this,” Dion said.
“Yeah, I know,” Bacho whispered. He slipped out the door and pulled it, softly, shut behind him.
He slid down the hallway sideways, arms stretched out in front and behind him, as if he was afraid of running into something. He feared the ping of an arriving elevator, and his adrenaline ramped up each time he passed a door. When he finally reached the stairwell door, he exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He stood, taking in the humming silence of the concrete chamber, and then he tore down the flights of stairs, taking them three and four steps at a time all the way down to the ground floor.
In stealth mode again, Bacho cautiously opened the door from the stairwell into the lobby. Low music greeted him, voices, the sound of someone’s wheeled luggage being pulled across the polished stones. Crap, why was he doing this? He was sure he’d step out and promptly collide with one of the chaperones. He had decided he would pretend to have a headache and say he’d come down to see if he could find some aspirin, but he had zero confidence he’d actually get through the lie convincingly.
He might’ve hesitated indefinitely, except that a door opened somewhere above him in the stairwell. That pushed him out into the lobby. He walked quickly, hugging the wall, head down, and was out the lobby doors faster than he thought possible. Nobody collided with him. Nobody called his name. The night air greeted him with a delicate coolness. He didn’t pause to take it in, though. He shifted down the sidewalk, along the old awning, across the street to the tree-lined area he thought Dina had specified. Once there, tucked in near a clump of bushes that hid him from the front of the hotel, he scanned both sides of the street while trying to look nonchalant. A few people strolled by, chatting. He turned from the street as several cars passed. It was a normal enough night and fairly quiet. He checked his phone: 11:45. Of course, he was early. He couldn’t help it. It was a pathological disability with him.
“Hey,” a female voice said. Bacho started, turned quickly around. It was Dina, surprisingly close behind him. He hadn’t heard her approach at all. She looked awesome, dressed in a short black skirt with colorful leggings. Her gray short-sleeved shirt had a symbol at its center that Bacho couldn’t make out. And he didn’t want to look like he was staring at her breasts. “Where are your pals?”
“Dunno,” Bacho said, feeling immediately tongue-tied. “We weren’t, um … in the same room. Like, we’re … in different rooms.”
“Good to know you’re not attached at the hip.”
“Nah. Really, I don’t even know them that well. We’re all from different bands and all.”
Dina considered that. Made a sound low in her throat, a humpf. Then she said, “We’ll give them a few minutes. It’s not twelve yet.”
She looked down the street, head loose on her neck like she’d grown instantly bored. Bacho thought about texting Jax and telling him to hurry up, but that had never helped before. He needed to say something. They couldn’t stand there in silence. Reaching for anything, he asked, “So, what about your cousin?”
Dina maintained her head tilt, but her eyes swiveled back to him. She watched him a moment, during which he kicked himself for being nosy. “She’s probably not your type.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean … I was just…”
“Calm down. I’m just kidding. She’s probably not your type, but … just relax. Anyway, she’s coming.”
Back to the awkward silence. Bacho rallied again. He tried, “So what’s this place like? The club, I mean.”
Dina shrugged. “It’s a club.” It seemed like that might be all the answer she was going to offer, but then she said, “Don’t worry, it’s a cool crowd. It doesn’t really attract many jokers, if that’s what you’
re worried about. A few, but mostly it’s a nat scene, the kind of thing you guys are into.”
“Right,” Bacho said. He thought of the kid with wheels instead of feet, the way he seemed so at ease with himself, friendly and funny. It didn’t really seem right to let her think he was as anti-joker as Jax and Darryl. Normally, he wouldn’t have said anything, but with the two of them just standing there his mind jagged on it and wouldn’t let go. “You know, it’s not like I have anything against jokers.”
“Sounded like you did.”
“Not really. I mean, why should I? I haven’t even really known any.”
“How can you not know any jokers?”
“I mean, like, personally. So, if I just decide I don’t like all of them that’s kinda…” He stopped, not so much because he didn’t have the word for what it was kinda like, but because of the way Dina had turned her full interest on him.
“It’s kinda like what?” she asked.
Shit. Why was he talking? For all he knew he was on the verge of insulting her. He tried to think of a way to change the subject, but when she went, “Hmmm?” he said, “Well … I mean, kinda like … prejudiced.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and then shifted her jaw back and forth. “A deep thinker, are you?” Bacho started to respond, but she said, “You should lose the cap. You’ve almost got style without it. With it, not so much. What are you anyway?”
“What am I?”
“Like ethnically.”
“Oh.” For a moment, he considered lying, just shrugging and saying, You know. White. Mom’s from Colorado. That was the safest thing to say. The neutral thing. But for some reason he kept just wanting to say the truth to her. “I’m a mutt. Half white, half Native. Navajo.”
“Right. That’s the part I was wondering about. So I guess you know a thing or two about prejudice?”
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