by Gary Soto
I recounted the history of our tardiness and the bike ride over to Lincoln. I forged ahead with a lot of sentences, mentioning Joey, my happy-go-lucky chimp friend, as much as I could. I tried to exude nice vibes, and Joey then jumped in and informed this girl that we were wrist deep in white gloves because no one could tell where germs lurked. Germs didn't have faces, he added philosophically, but if they did they would be really ugly faces. Joey, I thought, don't demonstrate.
"Like this," Joey said. He scrunched up his face into a version of ugliness, arguing that that was what a germ might look like under a microscope. He then advanced his theory about germs. Although no scientist, he believed that they could get hold of you, bend you this way and that way, and lay you low for weeks.
"Enough, Joey," I butted in. I shifted the conversation to the adorable girl. "How come you're here?"
"I'm being honored," she replied. "For gymnastics. I took third in the state championships. I've been practicing since I was six. I'm on the team at Adams Middle School."
"Like, wow," Joey crowed.
"Like ditto wow," I responded gleefully. Not only was she pretty, but she could tumble, do splits, and vault onto the beam without banging her head. I was impressed.
"Joey used to wrestle," I said, patting my friend's rock-hard shoulders.
Joey grinned.
"He used to be really, really good."
Joey's smile lost its luster, though, when she asked, "You aren't wrestling anymore?"
"He hurt his back," I answered anxiously. I was filled with more hot air than the balloons hovering over the tables. I concocted a story about how Joey had lost a bunch of weight and then had to put that weight back on. His vegetarianism had affected his equilibrium. His opponent was none other than a state wrestling champ called Igor, who a few months before had become addicted to white powdered doughnuts. Joey had pinned this flabby state wrestler just seconds after the bell gonged.
The girl's hands came together and applauded.
"Ronnie is exaggerating," Joey said. He was touched by my fabrication.
I didn't have time to build on this story because across the gymnasium Coach Bear was weaving between the guests like a football player through defenders. He was headed toward us.
"Congratulations," I stuttered to the girl, and pulled on Joey's arm. We had to get back to plying the guests with sweets. "What's your name?"
"Jessica." She covered her mouth as she laughed. Why she was laughing was a mystery. Maybe she was just happy.
Joey and I made our exit. But Coach Bear tracked us down and warned us not to mingle with the guests. We were the refreshment crew, as well as the two knuckle heads who would sweep up afterward.
"Right," Joey said, bowing slightly.
But just as we started to again spread the gospel of cookies and punch, the master of ceremonies tapped the microphone with a finger. Lights dimmed. Latecomers hurried to their seats. The awards ceremony began with the Pledge of Allegiance. Then the crowd was dazzled by a six-year-old baton twirler, and next was moved by the testimony of a college basketball player whose life had turned around when he discovered that he wasn't starter material after all. He had learned that it was okay to sit on the bench. What mattered was that he had made the team and got to know some interesting people.
The individual awards began. The audience applauded for a long-distance runner, two swimmers, a tackle, a quarterback whose neck was propped up by a brace, a skateboarder with punched-out knees, and a forward on the regional soccer championship team. When Jessica's name was announced, Joey and I leaped to our feet, applauding wildly.
As she rose and acknowledged the applause with a big smile, the balloon at her table wiggled free from its tape and started a slow climb toward the ceiling. I followed its flight and was thinking, Oh, well, that one's lost. But was I wrong. Joey stripped his gloves from his hands and leaped up on the bleachers. Before anyone could tell what was happening, he was up on the ledge of a tall bank of windows.
"Careful, Joey," I muttered. I was touched by his chivalry, and then mad for not thinking of it first—shoot, I could have been the hero. I envisioned Joey capturing the balloon from the rafters; scaling down the side of the wall (notched with bolts for an easy descent); and on one knee, returning the prize to Jessica. But this image popped like a balloon when I heard Coach Bear's blaring voice.
"Mr. Rios!"
Coach Bear had taken over at the podium. His eyes flashed as he gripped the microphone and ordered, "Get down from there!"
Joey scurried across the rafters toward the balloon, which had nested in a joint. He snatched the string and straddled a girder. The audience gasped.
"In a minute," Joey bellowed from a tremendous height.
"Get down! You're gonna give me a heart attack." Coach Bear's anger had undone the noose of his tie.
Joey fiddled with something and patted at the balloon, which began to descend. Anchoring it was a badminton shuttlecock, lost up there for years and smartly put to use as a weight.
Spritelike, Jessica danced toward the descending balloon and caught it in her palms like a bouquet. She smiled at Joey's valiant gesture.
I would have been jealous right on the spot— God, Joey thinks of everything!—except for what Coach Bear yelled next.
"Who do you think you are? A monkey?"
Chapter 3
Words do hurt. Joey climbed meekly from the rafters to face Coach Bear, who yelled at him in front of Jessica and a whole load of people, some of whom had returned to munching cookies and gulping punch. Joey's face drooped like an old heavy sunflower and his shoulders slumped. And was that a tear that splashed between his shoes?
"But Coach, that's unfair!" I stepped in to defend Joey's gallant actions. Couldn't Coach see why Joey had risked himself? I assumed that he was married and familiar with love—wasn't that a dull wedding band embedded on his furry finger? But Coach roasted my ears with hurtful words.
I could only take so much. I peeled off my gloves and tossed them over my shoulder. A girl caught them.
"We're gone! We're out of here!" I yelled back. I was upset, but I pledged to worry about the consequences only when we got back to school on Monday. The weekend was ahead of us.
"You're going to clean up first!"
"No, we're not!" I replied heatedly.
We departed in spite of Coach's threats that we would get lifetime detention and that he would make us run laps until we were skin and bones. We rode home in silence. I didn't bark out in pain when the bike dipped into potholes—the handlebars were a cruel ending to a cruel evening. The ride ended at my front lawn with Joey claiming that maybe he belonged in a tree.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"I'm just a monkey, like Coach said."
"No you're not. If you're anything, you're a chimp. Where's your dignity?"
Joey swiveled his bike around and propelled himself away.
Before I went inside—my mother was on the couch laughing at a comedy on television—I sadly dwelled on our lowly status as teenage chimps. I sat on the front step and meditated on the stars shifting ever so slightly in the wide night sky. The moon was creeping up. A neighbors bathroom light went on and seconds later his toilet flushed. A cat prowled in the bushes that separated our yard from the neighbor's yard.
I was thirteen, a chimp by all appearances. What would the stars bring me? A good education? A day job? A chimp girl all my own? I lowered my head and tried to cry a few tears, but nothing would come out.
The next morning I called Joey. His mother informed me that Joey had climbed into the tree in front of their house, and it was fine by her. She wanted him out of the house so she could do some spring cleaning.
I jumped into my clothes, unzipped three bananas with a fingernail, devoured them while I made my bed, and rode my skateboard to Joey's house. Sure enough, Joey was nesting in the tree in front of his house, the same tree where we had built a little platform when we were eight. I shaded my eyes with my h
and and circled the trunk. I could see his legs, but nothing else.
"Joey, how come you're in the tree?" I bellowed.
I heard silence except for the sound of birds shifting on the branches and a little breeze that tickled the spring leaves. I begged, "Joey, come on down." The breeze whipped into a strong wind for a brief second.
Joey's mother appeared on the porch. She wore a crown of pink curlers that matched her pink slippers.
"See," she yelled. "He likes it better up there!" She asked me what had happened that would make him skip breakfast and go up a tree.
I shrugged. I wasn't about to spill the beans about Joey falling in love or how he had risked his life to rescue a balloon from the rafters.
After Joey's mother returned inside, I shimmied up the tree. It wasn't much work because I was used to conquering heights. In fact, Joey and I had once scurried up the fifty-foot pine tree at the courthouse park.
"Come on, Joey," I begged as I placed an arm on his shoulder.
He sniffed and wiped his nose. He grumbled that maybe stupid Coach Bear was right.
"Trees are for birds," I argued. I spied the wooden bones of a kite that probably belonged to Joey. "Plus kites."
"I'm going to live up here forever," he retorted adamantly.
"How are you going to eat? Sleep?" I hated to miss a meal and sleep was heaven! And even if I brought him grub every day, Joey risked falling off the platform. We had built it so long ago maybe the nails had begun to loosen.
Joey maintained that he wasn't hungry and would never be hungry again. He had been humiliated in front of a special girl. According to him, she was probably snickering behind her pretty little hands at that very moment.
"She would never do that!"
"How do you know?"
"I just do. She's too nice to laugh at someone's pain."
For a brief moment, my concern for my friend vanished when I noticed a line of ants on a far limb. What were they doing way up here? I had suposed that ants were trekkers of loose soil, flowers, and dropped soda bottles. What could they find useful in a tree where a sad boy was absently peeling bark?
"Coach was mean," Joey babbled. His eyes darkened with tears.
"He was, like, way mean!" I agreed and pounded my fist on my thigh. "I'm never going to inflate balloons for him again!"
As Joey got sadder, I stoked the fires of anger. That fatso coach had slandered my best friend. It hurt not only him, but me, too, because weren't we almost the same? After all, weren't we separated by only a couple of streets? Wasn't his birthday in April, just like mine, and didn't we both like this gymnast girl? Of course, I would dutifully step aside to let my pained friend pursue her.
"Don't worry," I told Joey.
"What do I have to worry about? My life is over." He tore a leaf from the tree and blew his nose into it. He let the leaf go, and it fell with the weight of tears and snot.
After I left my buddy, I resolved to play Cupid. I had to find Jessica, bathe her ears with sweet sounds, and at close range plug her with a couple of arrows. Injured by love—for I would really pull back far on the bow—she would hurry over and entice Joey from the tree with tender words. But where did she live? I had no map, no hints. She had to be somewhere in Pinkerton. I imagined her doing cartwheels on her front lawn, a locket around her neck bouncing like crazy. After all, the day was pretty nice. Folks were out enjoying the rays, doing home projects in garages, and crunching snails in flower beds.
Our area has one high school, two middle schools, and four elementary schools. We can ride our bikes to the town limits and view fields of grapes, cotton, and sugar beets. There we can pet the large heads of cows and offer straw to perpetually famished goats. On windy days, we can hear music coming from beyond the coastal range, but we never get to go there. Our small town has a water tower painted with PINKERTON and, occasionally, bad words scratched by sullen boys.
"I got to find her," I said aloud.
Adams Middle School was across town. I rode my skateboard in that direction, paying no attention when Cory, a gap-toothed boy who used to thrash me weekly until Joey came to my defense, saw me go by and called me monkey face. I had a bigger calling than to stop and debate his taunts.
I skidded to a halt in front of Adams. The school was just as sorry as ours. The grass was chewed up from students playing tackle football. A window was boarded up. The V on the vice principal's door was missing. Pushed by wind, litter crawled down the open hallway, where, in the eaves, wasps hummed and stitched frightful nests. I propelled my skateboard down the hall and stopped at the drinking fountain. As at our school, this one dribbled pitifully. I pursed my lips and did my best to quench my thirst.
I spotted three girls out near the baseball diamond. They had hula hoops spinning on their skinny hips. Their hoop earrings swung with each gyration.
"Hey," I called.
The hula hoops slowed until they dropped to the ground.
"You know this girl...," I started. I decided to throw a wide net out there.
The girls looked at one another and whispered.
"Does she have monkey ears like you do?" one asked.
I ignored her smirk. "This girl does gymnastics and she's really good. She goes to this school, I think."
"We're going to call the police if you don't leave us alone," the smirky girl warned.
"Do your arms always hang down like that?" the smallest of the three asked, meaning below my knees. She had brought the hula hoop back up around her waist and was churning away.
I propped my hands on my hips and muttered darkly, "They look cute, but they're way mean." I rolled away with my head high. As Cupid I had to be noble in trying to locate Jessica. What mattered was making my friend happy.
The school was pretty empty on a Saturday, so I ventured downtown, where my uncle Vic owned a barbershop. As a young man, Uncle Vic had erred by copping a neighbor's lawn mower. Since then, he had just menaced society by giving bad haircuts.
A bald man, smelling of lotions and talcum powder, was leaving as I arrived. I made room for this portly client, who was out of breath just from stepping off the barber chair.
"Hey, little Ronnie!" Uncle Vic greeted. He was slapping snipped hair out of a towel.
"Hey, Uncle."
"How's your mommy?" He folded the towel like a flag and set it on the arm of his barber chair.
"She's okay, I guess." Mom was meeting with a friend to peddle Glorietta Cosmetics. But both of them secretly aspired to the next level: Avon.
Uncle Vic slipped a hand deep into his pocket. "Gum?" he offered.
When I nodded, he tore a slice of Juicy Fruit in half and gave me the smaller piece. My uncle had always been cheap, but he could chew your ears with a good story. His talk was free, costing nothing more than the air from his lungs.
I took the gum, unwrapped its silvery foil, and slipped it into my mouth.
"Uncle," I started. "I'm looking for this girl."
"What a little Romeo," he said. "Is she good-looking?"
"Yes, but the girl's for Joey, not me." I refrained from recounting the rafters incident. Instead, I asked if he had any customers whose daughters were gymnasts.
Uncle Vic raised his face toward the ceiling, exposing a large hairy mole under his chin, a mole that used to scare me when I was little because I thought it was a bloated tick. He snapped his fingers. "There's this guy I used to know. His daughter was into gymnastics. He does air-conditioning now, but when I knew him he was a landscape architect." He laughed and pounded the arm of his barber chair. "Fancy name for a gardener."
I wondered if this was the person Uncle had stolen the lawn mower from, but I didn't have to wonder long.
"I got snagged taking his lawn mower," Uncle Vic volunteered, not in the least embarrassed. "But you know, I wasn't stealing, just borrowing it. I had a girlfriend at the time and I had promised to cut her lawn. You know what I mean?"
I nodded. Uncle had done a stupid thing to impress a girl—just like Jo
ey.
"So where does this air-conditioning guy live?" I asked.
He raised his hand to his mouth and began to massage it thoughtfully. His eyes got bright as he snapped his fingers at me again. "He lives off of Peach Street."
Peach Street was on the edge of town, where people kept chickens, horses, rabbits, and mules. Even pigs were okay if the neighbors didn't complain about the stink and late-night snuffling.
Before I left Uncle Vic cropped my hair for free—or sort of free. I had to sweep the front of his barbershop and scrape up the gum that dotted the sidewalk. Finished, I skateboarded to Peach and Vine, the cool air blowing around my deforested head.
The road was sort of country with the scent of cut grass in the air and the occasional stink of barn animals. Two dusty dogs lay by the road like roadkill. I was sickened. Why hadn't the owners buried them? Then, to my surprise, they flopped from one side to the other. They were just lazy hounds basking in the sun. One raised his head, displayed bloodshot eyes, rolled its loopy tongue around its jaw, and put its head back down.
"Who you lookin' for?" a voice growled.
I spun around, startled. A man on one knee, with a hammer in his hand, was doing something to a gate that was off its hinges.
"I'm looking for this girl," I answered.
The man rose slowly, hooked the hammer on the fence, and studied me.
"What girl is this, boy?" he asked.
His face was rough. A silky scar hung near his mouth, as if he were a fish that had bitten a lure. Age lines wiggled across his brow.
"She's, like, really good at gymnastics," I answered. "Her name's Jessica."
"And why do you want her?"
I plunged ahead and recounted how Joey had climbed up the rafters of the Lincoln High School gym to rescue her balloon.
"Boy, that sounds like a fishy story."
"But it's true." I crossed my heart—twice. I added details about how Coach Bear had bawled Joey out for risking not only his own life but the lives of the people he could have flattened.