I Will Save You

by Matt De La Peña

  I’m hovering by the ceiling now.

  Next to my mom.

  We’re both watching me lay here, unable to move, chest going up and down and up and down, too many times a second. We’re cringing at the welts on my arms and legs and face where they clubbed me.

  And this loud ringing noise starts in both my ears.

  Little gusts of wind pass over my skin like prison ghosts are moving all around my cell. They’re waiting for me to die so they can take me to what comes next for a person who pushed his own best friend off a cliff.

  And my mom’s sobbing and holding them away and saying for me to hurry and remember.

  Philosophy 1:

  About Being Awake

  Dear Kidd:

  You have to always remember the time you escaped Horizons with Devon and ended up at that street fair downtown and how you and him had to pee so bad you couldn’t even stand still. It doesn’t seem important just thinking about it, but it goes exactly with what Mr. Red said about not sleepwalking and knowing you’re alive.…

  You and Devon slipped past the night watch, remember? And hopped a bus all the way to the Gaslamp District and walked through the different booths where bands were playing and people were drinking and laughing and dancing. And you drank that huge Coke and had to pee. But when you looked at the line for the portable bathrooms it stretched all the way around the block. You turned to Devon and without even saying, you and him walked up the street together looking for any random place.

  There were people everywhere, though, way more than what’s in Fallbrook. You went into a liquor store with elephant tusks over the doorway, but it didn’t have a bathroom either, not one you were allowed to use, and by that time your bladder was so full it was pounding and you could barely walk. Devon held on to one of the magazine shelves and said it was the exact same for him.

  The back door was open a crack and it looked like there was a little yard and Devon nodded and you peeked at the worker who was busy with a customer and you snuck out there behind Devon and went to the opposite part of the wall from him and unzipped your zipper and started going, your eyes making tears ’cause it was the most total relief you’d ever felt, the thin yellow puddle rolling between your shoes just barely missing them and going in the grass behind you like a contaminated ocean for the ants.…

  On my first day working at the campsites Mr. Red told me how most people are asleep even when they’re awake.

  We were in the main campsite restroom, the one right by the coffee shop, mopping where a toilet overflowed all this nasty brown sewage and both of us were making disgusted faces and holding our noses and mouths as far back as possible.

  “Trust me, big guy,” Mr. Red said, wiping his frown on his shoulder and spitting in the toilet. He was as old as most people’s dads, with floppy blond hair and tan skin, and he always had a grin on his face like everything was funny. My old counselor, Maria, said people always looked twice at Mr. Red when they passed him ’cause he was so handsome and he resembled a famous actor.

  He looked at me and then looked back at the mess. “Monday through Friday. Pretty much everybody I know, Kidd. They walk around half conscious.”

  I kept mopping the floor and listening.

  “They flip it to autopilot,” he said. “You understand what I mean by ‘autopilot,’ right?”

  I nodded, picturing a plane soaring high above the clouds and the pilot just reading a magazine or eating soup, even though I knew that wasn’t what Mr. Red was saying.

  He set his mop back in the bucket and dug his leather surfer hands in the back part of the toilet, started messing with pumps and hoses. “See, when people grow up and get a job, Kidd, life gets kind of monotonous and ordinary. All the possibilities dry up.” He wiped his face on his shoulder again. “So, what do people do? Learn how to shut off their minds. Sleepwalk through the weekdays.”

  He looked up and said: “Why do you think I started drinking in the first place, big guy, for my health?”

  I smiled ’cause Mr. Red was smiling.

  He shook his head and put his right foot up on the toilet seat for leverage. “Shoot, Kidd, soon as quitting time came on Friday I’d hurry off to the bar and wake up on whiskey. Couple years like that and I couldn’t wait until weekends anymore. Wednesday seemed close enough. Then Tuesday.”

  He looked at me and shrugged with his eyes, then went back to what he was doing. “According to my sponsor, Bill the Deacon, that kind of thinking is what landed me in rehab. I tried to explain how the only time I saw colors was after I’d knocked down a couple Jamesons, but Bill the Deacon just shook his head and told me I was deceiving myself. Bill’s a big heavyset dude from Iowa, by the way. Former deacon. Used to milk cows and rake hay and drive a tractor in his downtime, the whole thing. Only deacon-farmer I’ve ever met. Now he sells pharmaceuticals out of a white van in La Jolla. Anyway, according to Bill the Deacon, drinking’s just another form of sleepwalking. And all those colors I thought I saw, they were an optical illusion. Like looking at yourself in the funny mirror at the fair.”

  I pictured my mom drinking wine from a box. How she’d nod off in her rocking chair, in front of the flickering TV, knitting needles loose in her fingers like sharpened pencils and her head leaning forward in super slo-mo and her catching it, leaning forward again in slo-mo and her catching it.

  I stood there mopping the murky brown water. Remembering my mom.

  “Point is, whenever I gotta mess with crap like this,” Mr. Red said, pointing all around the sewage. “No pun intended. You know what I tell myself, Kidd?”

  “What, sir?”

  “I say: ‘All right, Red, maybe this isn’t your number one choice. But at least you’re awake enough these days to smell it!’ ”

  He laughed hard, his shaggy blond hair falling in front of his blue eyes. He moved it away with the back of his wrist and stopped doing what he was doing and looked at me. “By the way, I don’t know if I like you calling me sir, big guy. Makes me feel like a venture capitalist.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oops, there it is again.”

  “I mean, Mr. Red.”

  He tilted his head and frowned. “Mr.?”

  We looked at each other.

  I thought how my mom always said to have respect.

  He was quiet for a minute, just frowning at me, and then he coughed into his shoulder and said: “Anyway, sometimes I still dream about it. How warm a swallow of Jameson felt going down. The sweet aftertaste. The beautiful women who sat beside me on barstools and told me their lives.”

  He spit into the toilet again. “Sometimes I wonder: is an occasional glance at a funny mirror really such a bad thing?”

  He shook his head, put the lid of the toilet back on, and wiped his hands down the sides of his work shirt and shorts. “Promise me you won’t tell Bill the Deacon what I just said.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good man.”

  A smile went on his face and he said: “Look, you get my point, right? About handling the different jobs you’ll be doing here? Some are a little less glamorous than others.”

  I nodded, thinking how I’d rather do any job than be stuck inside the faded pee-colored walls of my bedroom at Horizons, where the people constantly watch you and make you do therapy and take medicine.

  Mr. Red play-punched me in the shoulder, said: “Maybe you are a little rough around the edges like they say, Kidd, but I’ll give you this. You listen. I don’t know how it is for anybody else, but listening goes a long way in my book.”

  I put my mop in the bucket and squeezed out dirty water and said: “What book do you mean, Mr. Red?”

  He checked his waterproof watch, said: “Come again?”

  “You said your book.”

  He smiled. “Just a figure of speech, big guy. It’s the way I see the world. Everybody has a way they see the world, right?”

  I stayed looking at my mopping and didn’t say anything. I didn’t want Mr. Red to know I didn’
t have a book with the way I saw the world.

  Figuring Out a Name

  Soon as I got off work that night I went to Campsite Coffee and bought a blank notebook and a special pen from Lea and went back to my tent, where I was gonna live for the whole summer, and stared at the cover for the longest time, trying to think.

  I listened to people talk as they walked along the path outside my tent. Mostly kids. A girl voice said some girl named Blue looked too skinny. And maybe that was why she always went to the bathroom after she ate.

  Another girl voice said she brought a big bottle of aloe this year.

  A little later a man’s voice said: “She’s not depressed, Mary, she’s insecure. There’s a difference.”

  A woman’s voice answered: “She’s sixteen and she’s a girl, Ron. What do you expect?”

  “Jesus, why do you think I’m taking her to New York?”

  “I understand, but until then …”

  Their voices trailed off and I looked back at my book and right that second a name popped in my head:

  Kidd’s Philosophy of Life Book.

  I laid in my tent that night, on top of my sleeping bag, writing my first-ever philosophy about how people are asleep even when they’re awake and about seeing colors and being on autopilot. I addressed it to myself, like a letter to me, thinking I could read it later on and remember all the important things I learned from Mr. Red.

  As a regular person.

  Outside of Horizons.

  And then, I don’t even know why, but I started writing about this time me and Devon had to run for our lives out of this liquor store downtown.

  … You weren’t even close to being done peeing, though, when you heard a deep growling sound and when you turned around there was a huge pit bull crouched down and showing his teeth, saliva dripping onto the grass exactly how it’d be in a cartoon. And remember how paralyzed your body got? It was frozen. You couldn’t even breathe air in your lungs.

  Devon shouted: Come on!

  You zipped up midflow and raced back through the liquor store with the rabies dog chasing you, barking so loud you couldn’t even hear what the liquor-store guy was yelling. You and Devon flew out the store and up the street, not looking back or stopping or saying anything until you were at least fifteen blocks away.

  Then you ducked behind that big black truck and leaned over laughing and trying to catch your breath. And even though it probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal now, getting chased by a dog and having to stop your pee in the middle, to this day you’ve never run so fast in your life or laughed so hard. You just sat there on the sidewalk next to Devon, bent over laughing and laughing and laughing. People walking past gave you dirty looks probably thinking you guys were on drugs or crazy, but it’s just how close you came to getting attacked by a killer dog in the middle of peeing in his yard.

  Maybe it goes exactly with what Mr. Red said today: that you should always remember how awake you feel when you’re running or laughing with Devon or even when you’re just cleaning a campsite bathroom as part of your job. You always have to remember how lucky you are, to be away from Horizons. And to be free.

  And alive.

  And awake enough to smell everything.

  I can’t remember what happened after the grunion came. I don’t know if Devon died when he hit the sand, or if Olivia understands how I did it for her, or if anybody saw the police club me and push me in their backseat with handcuffs. I have no idea what I thought about as I stared out the window while they drove me here.

  Either I blocked it out or they gave me drugs like the ones I got at Horizons after my mom died and they said I had post-traumatic stress.

  I’ve been laying here this whole time, in the dark, trying to remember the summer and everything that happened before I pushed Devon off the cliff. Like my mom said. ’Cause then I could know if I was right.

  But so much of my mind is missing.

  And the way I feel is missing, too.

  That’s why I think they gave me pills. It’s the same as after they sat me down and said my mom was gone and gave me drugs that would supposedly make me better. Except I didn’t feel better at all. I just got hollow, like a chocolate bunny in your Easter basket. Which is how I am right now.

  You know those stories they have about cats coming up to babies’ pillows when they’re asleep and stealing their breath? That’s what it feels like with me. Only the cat that came to my pillow left my breathing alone and stole how I feel.

  What I Remember About My Mom

  All you can do in prison is think. And your mind goes to bad places if you let it think whatever it wants, so you have to picture certain things. Most of the time I try to remember the summer, before the grunion night, to decide if I was right about Devon. But today I’ve just been laying here picturing things about my mom.

  How she never looked you in the eyes when she talked to you. She’d stare at the top of your forehead. Or in your hair. Or at something past you.

  She never picked up the phone. She’d stand there watching it ring, waiting for the voice-mail light to start flashing.

  This time we did miniature golf and she hit a hole in one and all the spotlights came on and the workers announced it over the loudspeaker and gave us a bucket of free tokens. How on the bus ride home she told me she just aimed for the green wall, that was her secret, nobody else knew to aim for the green wall, and she called me her good-luck charm.

  The last letter she wrote. Me memorizing every word.

  How she’d fall asleep in front of the TV and I’d wake her up and take the empty wineglass from her hand and help her to her feet and watch her stagger to her room. Me carrying her glass to the sink, staring at the red stain at the bottom, wondering what was gonna happen to us.

  Me as a little kid waking up and finding her standing over me as I laid in her bed. Looking at me. Saying: “You can still sleep, baby. Mommy’s just watching you.”

  My dad coming over and them smoking on the fire escape. Laughing and sitting close. Him staying over. The next morning her dancing to the radio in the kitchen, making pancakes and bacon. Bringing out our plates, setting them down. Rubbing Dad’s shoulders while he took his first bite and then winking at me.

  Me standing behind her in court when she got the restraining order. And then later that night how she let him in ’cause he said he was sick. Pulling money from her secret cookbook stash and slipping it into his hand. Them hugging and crying and her telling me: “Go on back to bed, baby. Mom and Dad are talking.”

  Her on her knees by the bed in her room one morning, praying. Then when she saw me, acting like she wasn’t.

  But mostly I remember every morning before school. How she’d say “Hey, honey!” just as I was walking out the apartment door. And me stopping and turning around and saying “What?” And her saying: “I love you.” And me rolling my eyes like I just wanted to hurry up so I didn’t miss the bus. I’d start going again and she’d say “Hey, honey!” and I’d say “Mom, come on!” and she’d say “I love you,” and I’d pretend I was so annoyed ’cause she was wasting time and I had to go catch the bus. And how secretly it was my favorite part of every day.

  Philosophy 2:

  About Saying the Truth to People

  Dear Kidd:

  You should always tell the truth to people you care about, even if they won’t like what they hear. You just have to say it. Like Mr. Red does with all the women he meets. Like Mom did when she sat you down and tried to tell you about your dad and your genes.

  Except with that time, even though she was telling the truth, you already knew ’cause your last memory was when he showed up at your apartment in the middle of the night and started banging on the door and begging for money and saying: “Jesus Christ, Darla! Open the door! I’m dying out here!” And your shaky-hands mom undid the locks, slowly, and cracked open the door, slowly, and told him in a trembling voice how he had to go away and about the neighbors and the restraining order, but he pu
shed himself in and went down on his knees and begged for just a little money, as much as she could spare, he needed it so bad, she didn’t understand how his body felt, he probably wouldn’t survive even one more night.

  You snuck out of your room, remember? And watched everything from the hall. How Dad grabbed the hem of Mom’s nightgown and put it to his face and breathed it and said how nobody could understand how bad he was ’cause they’d never felt it for themselves and they’d never been inside his body. She was the only person who cared at all, the only person who was willing to sacrifice for him.

  You can never forget the serious look on Mom’s face that night. Like she knew she was wrong to let him in, and she knew something bad was about to happen, something that would change things forever.…

  Five blond girls were sitting in a circle of lawn chairs, talking and laughing and eating colored cereal out of plastic bowls with their fingers. I watched them from the railroad tie on the next campsite over, waiting for Mr. Red to come out of his tent and for us to start working.

  It was my fourth day, and I was still getting there an hour early for two reasons. First, I was so excited to have a real job I could barely sleep (which was weird ’cause during my last six months at Horizons all I did was sleep). And second, I was so thankful Mr. Red hired me in the first place and I thought the best way to show him was to always be there when he came out of his tent.

  One of the blond girls got out of her chair and stood on a skateboard with her cereal bowl, looking back in the tent and saying: “Come on, Olivia. You can’t stay in a tent the rest of the summer.” Her friends said stuff, too, and then everybody shrugged and the girl on the skateboard stepped off and sat back in the chair with her friends and they kept eating their cereal.