Mexican WhiteBoy

by Matt De La Peña

  For some reason, this thought stops Uno’s dancing mid-step. It irritates him, though he couldn’t tell you why.

  He picks up the bat and steps to the trash can lid again. Waves through the strike zone a couple times and waits on Chico’s delivery.

  The Shot Heard Round the Cul-de-Sac

  1

  When the black kid finally makes another out, Danny and Sofia watch everybody switch around. Then Sofia shoots Danny a quick smile, marches right in front of the makeshift home plate and calls out to all the guys: “Yo, who’s winnin’ this bullshit?”

  Uno, back on the lawn now, punches the inside of his mitt and cocks his head to the side. “Who you think, Sofe? You saw that last one I put in the upper deck, right? I was sendin’ you an SOS, girl.”

  “Hmmm, missed it,” Sofia says, winking at Raul as he steps into the batter’s box with the duct-taped bat. “Funny, isn’t it, Raul? How I never actually seen all these home runs Uno supposedly hits?”

  “Makes you wonder, right?” Big Raul says, nodding. “It’s like, do a tree falling in the forest really make a sound if there ain’t nobody there to see it?”

  “Exactly!” Sofia says, turning back to Uno. “What Raul said.”

  “What’s that shit supposed to mean?” Uno says.

  “Raul’s mad deep,” Chico says. “He writes poetry.”

  “I write rhymes,” Raul says, lowering his bat. “And y’all just too simple-minded to catch my flow.”

  “Anyway,” Sofia says, “this is my cousin Danny. He’s staying with me for the summer. Oh, and by the way, he’s better than all you fools at baseball.”

  Danny watches all the guys on the field turn to check him out. He lowers his eyes, kicks at a small piece of glass lying in the street.

  “You talkin’ crazy,” Chico says, approaching Sofia from the house.

  “Sofe don’t know nothin’ ’bout no baseball,” Skinny Pedro says.

  “I know you suck!” Sofia shoots back.

  Everybody cringes and puts a fist to their mouth. “Oh, damn!” they all say, pointing at Pedro, laughing.

  A few of the guys hug Sofia and shake Danny’s hand, introduce themselves. Raul and Lolo try to run him through a neighborhood handshake and laugh when he fumbles it three straight times.

  “Your cuz, huh?” Uno says, flipping Danny a tennis ball.

  Danny snatches it out of the air, feels his right arm come to life, the pace of the blood in his veins quicken.

  Uno smiles. “You want in, homey? Gotta put down some paper.”

  “Four bones for virgins, right?” Chico says.

  “Nah, it’s a fiver this summer,” Uno says.

  “Here,” Sofia says, pulling two crumpled ones out of her pocket. “Ain’t nobody hustlin’ mi familia. It’s two!”

  Chico takes the cash, walks it to the bird feeder.

  Uno looks Danny up and down, says: “Matter of fact, GQ, you up next. Right after Heavy D here.”

  Danny shrugs.

  “Watch, he’s about to do you guys,” Sofia says to Uno.

  “Yeah, okay.” Uno holds his glove out for the tennis ball.

  Danny tosses it back, watches everybody move into position on the lawn as Raul steps up to the trash can lid and takes a practice swing. He watches Uno snap the tennis ball in and out of his glove a couple times as he follows Sofia with his eyes as she walks off the playing field.

  “Ready, Biscuit?” Uno shouts, turning back to Raul.

  Raul nods.

  2

  Uno tosses the first pitch.

  Raul doesn’t move his bat off his shoulder, lets the tennis ball cross the plate unharmed.

  “Wha’chu want?” Uno shouts. “Why you always scared to swing the bat?”

  “Nah, I just needed one to get my timing,” Raul says.

  “That’s really gonna matter, Biscuit? You never hit more than two in a Saturday. I got six right now. Do a little math, baby.”

  “You ever think maybe today’s my day?”

  Uno scoffs, looks back at Chico, who shrugs.

  Sofia shakes her head, says to Danny, “Uno talks so much shit. I can’t even handle it sometimes.” She pulls her cell out of her bag, flips it open to check a text. Closes it back up. “He’s got all these other vatos talkin’ shit, too. They all think they’re black now.”

  They watch Raul swing at the next pitch, hit a little dribbler a few feet in front of his Timberlands. Uno rushes the tennis ball, scoops it and fires it at Raul as he’s rumbling toward the garage door. The ball smacks him right in the ass. Raul trips and falls to the ground, clutching the back of his jeans.

  Everybody on the lawn falls over laughing.

  Danny and Sofia laugh, too.

  “You’re outta there!” Manuel shouts from the tailgate.

  Raul rolls over, cringing. “Damn, Uno. Why you gotta throw it so hard?”

  “I thought you was gonna make it.”

  Raul struggles to his feet, shaking his head. He makes his way back to the plate. Picks up the bat and wipes his sweaty forehead on his shirtsleeve. He reaches around and rubs the back of his jeans a little, then flips Uno off.

  Uno and Chico slap hands, laughing.

  Sofia turns back to Danny, still grinning. “Rules are like this,” she says. “Each guy gets only one time hitting. And only two outs. You make an out when somebody either catches it on the fly or pegs you—like Uno just did Raul. If you make it to the garage door before they hit you, though, it’s not an out. Whoever hits the most over the roof wins.”

  Danny nods.

  Sofia links arms with her cousin again as Raul steps back up to the trash can lid. He spits in the direction of Uno because Uno’s still bent over laughing. But all that does is make Uno laugh even harder.

  Danny peeks back over his shoulder at the Mexican girl with the little boy. She’s reading a magazine now. Her legs crossed, hair pulled back in a rubber band.

  He feels the knot again. And for the first time he wonders if maybe it’s because she’s so pretty. There was only a couple Mexican girls at Leucadia Prep, and none of them looked like this.

  He turns back to the lawn as Raul pops one in the air. The ball doesn’t get much lift, and Skinny Pedro brings it in easy.

  Uno immediately aims a finger at Danny, barks: “You up, GQ.”

  3

  Pulling a couple fresh tennis balls from the mailbox, Uno shouts over his shoulder at Danny, “Where you want these, first-timer?”

  Danny grips the bat, shrugs.

  “Come on, dawg. You want ’em low? A little inside so you could pull it? Right down the middle? Talk to me.”

  “Just throw it already,” Sofia pipes up from the sideline.

  “It don’t gotta be all technical like that.”

  “I’m tryin’ to hook your boy up, Sofe. Tryin’ to be nice for once, damn.” Uno turns back to Danny, says, “What’s it gonna be, homey?”

  Danny loosens his grip on the bat and forces a smile. He shrugs again, stares at the duct tape and wonders how he’s gonna pull this silent thing off down here. Back in Leucadia, he made a pact with himself. No more words. Or as few as he could possibly get away with. When his dad spoke at all, he mostly spoke Spanish, but Danny never learned. All he had was his mom’s English. And he didn’t want that anymore. Up in Leucadia it was easy. Nobody paid him any attention anyway because he was Mexican. He roamed the school halls with his head down like a ghost. Drifted in and out of classrooms without a peep. Nobody even saw him as a real person. But down here, where everybody’s skin is dark, everybody seems to be coming at him.

  He glances at a little red Honda parked down a ways in the cul-de-sac, sees a Mexican guy in a Padres cap leaning against the passenger door with his arms crossed. Guy looks just like one of the scouts that used to show up to watch Kyle at Leucadia Prep. Danny used to wonder about him because he seemed out of place with the other scouts. Why would he be down here, though? Danny wonders. Maybe this is where he lives.

 
Danny steps to the trash can lid and swings through a couple times, stretches his shoulders. Feels the nerves in his stomach climbing up into his chest.

  Uno turns to Sofia, laughing. “What up with your cuz, Sofe? Cat got dude’s tongue?”

  “Just pitch ’im the damn ball,” Sofia says. “You talk too much. Maybe he could teach you somethin’.”

  Uno lobs the first pitch right down the middle.

  Danny follows every inch of the yellow felt’s flight but doesn’t take the bat off his shoulder. Instead he visualizes contact. Pictures the barrel of the bat meeting the rubber ball and where. Pictures finishing with perfect follow-through.

  Raul gathers the ball on the short hop a few feet behind the plate, tosses back to Uno.

  Danny watches Uno snatch the ball with his glove and shoot Sofia a look.

  He doesn’t swing at Uno’s next pitch, either. Instead he measures the slow arc. Shifts his weight from his back foot to his front foot just before the ball crosses the trash can lid. He plays the contact out in his head but doesn’t take a swing.

  When Uno gets the toss back from Raul this time, he throws his hands in the air and spins to Sofia. “I know you ain’t brought me another punk too scared to swing. Bad enough I gotta deal with Biscuit back there. I ain’t got time for no nervous cats.”

  “Come on, cuz,” Sofia calls out. “Swing at one.”

  The guys in the field grow noticeably restless. Lolo stands up straight, throws a dirt clod at Chico, who ducks at the last minute. Rene sits down on the grass, reties a loose shoelace. Skinny Pedro isn’t even paying attention. He’s poking around the nativity scene, talking to himself in Spanish.

  Danny waves the bat through the strike zone again. Looks back at the Mexican scout look-alike.

  Uno stares in at him, says: “You plannin’ on swingin’ at all, homey?”

  Danny nods.

  “Sure ’bout that?”

  Danny nods again.

  Uno rolls his eyes, wipes forehead sweat on the shoulder of his jersey.

  Manuel hops up and down on the tailgate. He cups his hands around his mouth and yells: “Hey, batter, batter. Swing! Batter!”

  Danny looks over his shoulder at Manuel. Turns his head and sees all the neighborhood kids watching from the cul-de-sac. The girl with the kid. He takes a deep breath, another practice swing. Wonders what these people think of him. The new kid. The light-skinned kid. Wonders if any of them will be his friends this summer—though it’s pretty tough to make friends now that he doesn’t talk so much.

  Uno says something under his breath to the guys on the lawn behind him. Everybody laughs. Then he turns around and haphazardly tosses the next pitch.

  4

  Danny waits on this one. Makes out white seams in a sea of yellow felt. Spinning through the air like a softball. Like a beach ball. Like a big spinning globe, the planet Earth. He locks in. Shifts his weight quick and turns on the pitch, drives the barrel through the zone.

  Crushes it.

  A muted gunshot sound carries across the lawn as the ball explodes off Danny’s bat. Everybody looks up as the tennis ball soars above their heads, a tiny dot in the bright blue sky. A distant commuter plane. A drifting bird. One of the hawks his dad used to stop and point out whenever they walked through the canyon.

  The ball clears not only the Rodriguez roof but the roof of the house behind the Rodriguez house, too. It ends up on another street altogether, at a different address.

  Danny watches his long ball clear both roofs. Watches the expressions change on all the guys’ faces. He holds his breath for a sec. Holds on to the feeling of perfect contact swimming through his arms and shoulders. His chest. A tiny man-made earthquake inside of his body.

  When Danny was a kid, his dad told him being a great pitcher is better than being a great hitter. The guy on the mound controls the entire game, he’d said. Controls the pace. Who sees what pitch. Who has to dive out of the way to avoid taking one in the back. And then he dropped it. Never brought it up again. But Danny always remembered. That night he put the bat down and decided to become a pitcher, what he is today.

  Secretly, though, it still makes him feel alive to crush something with a bat. Almost as much as striking somebody out.

  Danny realizes that everybody in the entire cul-de-sac is perfectly still, silent. Like statues. And they’re all looking at him. Like people looked at Kyle Sorenson, the best player at Leucadia Prep.

  The guys on the field turn and look at each other.

  Uno stays staring at Danny.

  The silence is finally broken when Sofia shouts: “Ha! See! I told you! I told you! Go ’head, Uno, throw him another one! He’s about to swipe all y’all’s billetes!”

  Danny steps away from the trash can lid. He pretends to concentrate on the barrel of his bat, but secretly he’s watching the guys on the lawn. There’s nothing better than the shocked looks on their faces. Makes his breaths come quicker. Deeper. Makes his skin tingle and his heart pump harder.

  Rene starts toward the fence but stops suddenly, turns to Uno. “Should I go look for it?”

  Uno shakes his head. “Forget it.” He reaches into the mailbox and pulls out a new tennis ball.

  A buzz starts spreading through the different groups scattered around the cul-de-sac. A few people move closer to the action on the lawn.

  Manuel climbs off the tailgate and stands behind Danny’s back shoulder. He starts chanting, louder than usual: “Hey, batter, batter! Hey, batter, batter!”

  Uno steps up to the makeshift mound, tosses another pitch.

  Danny smashes this one, too, sends it flying well over both roofs again.

  Sofia jumps up and down, laughing and pointing at Danny. “Show ’em, cuz! Who’s nervous now, Uno?”

  Carmen and Flaca jump with her.

  The guys on the field back up against the house, far as they can go.

  Uno pulls another tennis ball. He winds up and throws this one harder.

  But Danny cranks it again. Sends the tennis ball even higher than the previous two. It doesn’t clear the second house this time, doesn’t go as far, but it takes forever for it to finally fall behind the Rodriguez house for another home run.

  The Mexican boys all race around the house to retrieve it.

  Uno’s face goes blank as he walks toward the fence, waits for the kids to come back with the ball. He walks around the mailbox, avoids all eye contact.

  “That’s three,” Chico says, a slight smirk on his face. “No outs, either, eh, Uno?”

  “About to catch you, Uno,” Raul says.

  “He ain’t catchin’ a damn thing,” Uno barks as one of the boys drops the ball into his open mitt. He walks back to his pitching spot, wiping his increasingly sweaty brow on his jersey sleeve. Looks at the ball.

  Sofia jogs over to Danny. She holds up his right arm and squeezes his muscle. “Ooh, you in trouble now,” she yells out to Uno. She kisses her cousin on the cheek and then hustles back to her girls, all of them giving each other girly high fives.

  Uno kicks the toe of his Nikes against the crumbling curb, ignores Sofia.

  Just as Danny steps to the trash can lid, Uno fires a tennis ball as hard as he can at Danny’s chin.

  Danny dives backward, onto the asphalt. Looks up at Uno, who’s staring him down from the curb.

  “Wha’chu doin’, kid?” Uno shouts. “Why you fallin’ like a little bitch? That wasn’t even close.”

  “Uno!” Sofia yells.

  Raul catches the ricochet off Mr. Rodriguez’s truck. He walks out toward Uno shaking his head. “Come on, man! Just throw it regular, like Chee did for you.”

  “I am throwin’ it regular.”

  “Gotta give him a chance to hit,” Raul says, tossing the tennis ball back to Uno.

  “I am.”

  Raul pats Danny on the shoulder as he marches back behind the plate.

  Danny takes a practice swing, prepares himself for the next wild pitch. He can see in Uno’s eyes, the
guy’s not gonna let it go down like this.

  5

  Uno winds up and fires another fastball inside.

  Danny tries to turn on it, but he gets jammed. Hits the tennis ball with the inside part of the bat, near his hands, and the bat goes flying.

  The ball soars high into the air. All the guys on the lawn crane their necks as they wait for it to finally start dropping back down to earth. When it does, they jockey for position. Lolo leaps into the air and snags it with a bare hand again, holds the ball high above his head. “See, I catch another one! Ha ha!”

  “That’s one!” Uno yells in the direction of Sofia.

  But Uno’s smile quickly vanishes when Chico shouts:

  “Yo, man! The bat got Manny!”

  Everybody turns to Manuel, who’s holding his bloody face in his hands, the bat lying still beside him. He pulls his hands away to look up for Uno, total shock in his eyes. Blood streaming down his face and neck, soaking his white T-shirt.

  Uno, Chico and Raul rush toward him. Marco and Lolo hustle after.

  Uno lays Manuel on his back in the grass, holds his face still to look over the damage. His nose is totally busted, blood streaming out of both nostrils. His lip is split. One of his two front teeth has snapped in half.

  Uno rips off his Raider jersey and presses it against the bridge of Manuel’s nose. “Call your brother!” he shouts at Chico. “Tell him we need his car. Go!”

  Chico races off to his bag to get his cell.

  Uno caresses the back of his brother’s head. “You’re gonna be all right, Manny. I got you.”

  Manuel looks up at Uno, eyes wild with fear. “I didn’t mean to do it, Uno.”

  “I know you didn’t,” Uno says.

  “I’m sorry,” Manuel says, tears welling in his eyes now, running down his face and mixing with the blood. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Manny,” Uno says. “Just don’t talk no more. Here, keep the shirt against your nose. I got you.” He tries to smile.

  Danny moves closer, looks at all the blood on Manny’s face and feels his stomach drop. What has he done?

  “I didn’t mean it,” Manuel says to Uno again. “I was cheering like you said I could, and I didn’t mean anything.”