I Will Save You

by Matt De La Peña

  But I didn’t care anymore.

  “Special, man,” he said, smacking my tent wall. “Dude, when you gonna grow up and deal with your problems?” He paused for a few seconds. “Maybe you’re getting corrupted by all these rich people around here. Is that what’s happening? You crossing the picket line on your boy?”

  I never said anything back, though, no matter what he asked. ’Cause over the past week I’d been thinking a lot about Devon. And what happened in the ocean. What he said. Maybe he was never my real friend. Maybe my therapist had it right all along when she said the only way I could get better was to cut Devon out of my life.

  “It’s not that hard to answer a simple question, dude. I know you aren’t exactly valedictorian material, but you can talk, right?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “So now you’re a deaf-mute?”

  I thought up questions about Devon. Like, he’d found me at the campsites almost two months ago, but I still didn’t know where he was staying. Or who he was with. Or what kind of stuff he did. Or where he got his money. When I really thought about it, I barely knew anything about Devon since he was at Horizons with me. When he took all those pills.

  That’s why I decided to follow him.

  He was quiet for a few minutes, me just watching his shadow move along my tent wall. Then he cleared his throat and said: “Watch, one day I’m gonna say screw it and never come back. And you’ll be all alone, Special, with your ugly old dog. You’ll be like some woman who has thirty cats and her whole house smells like piss.”

  He kicked my tent wall and stormed off.

  I sat up and listened to his steps.

  When I could barely hear them anymore I stuck my head out of my tent door and saw him turn out of the campsites.

  I jumped through my door and Peanut came out, too. He rubbed his head on my leg, and I reached down to pet him, said: “I gotta go, big guy. You stay here.”

  He looked up to my eyes.

  “Trust me,” I said, backing up. “Stay.”

  He sat down and watched me and wagged his tail.

  I turned and jogged to the campsite exit and watched Devon crossing the street toward the train tracks. When he slid down the dirt hill, I crossed, too, spied him walking along the tracks.

  I stayed up on the cliff, by the cars, watching.

  For a while Devon just stood there, throwing rocks at a yellow crossing sign. Then when a train came he dropped his rocks and turned around and faced it.

  He stood right in the middle of the tracks and closed his eyes and held out his hands, and as the train came barreling down the tracks it blew its low whistle, over and over, so Devon would get out of the way, but he just stood there.

  Waiting for it to crush him.

  I closed my eyes and turned away, plugged my ears. I could almost feel it myself, the wind going past his face and the ground rumbling and his teeth clenching down and then the huge train exploding into his body, his death-drive soul rising above the wreckage, finally free from its misery.

  But when I opened my eyes again, the train was past.

  And Devon wasn’t crushed.

  He was laying on the rocks to the side of the tracks, watching it speed away.

  He hopped up and brushed off his shirt and jeans and laughed. And for the first time ever I saw Devon in a different way. He was truly crazy. Somebody who needed therapy more than anyone we had at Horizons.

  I imagined him turning into one of those homeless people who stands outside the store all day talking to themselves and asking if you could spare change.

  • • •

  Devon moved on to the park.

  He sat on the same swing where I first saw Olivia and watched the guys playing basketball. I was surprised. The old Devon would’ve hopped right in the game, made friends with everybody. But this Devon just sat there for over two hours, watching, not even swinging.

  When the guys finished playing and gathered their stuff and drove off, he stayed sitting on his swing, staring at the court.

  It was dark when he finally left.

  He went out of the park and walked up a steep street called Birmingham and went into the gas station at the top of the hill. I stayed outside and tried to look through the streaked glass doors. Devon was talking to the woman behind the counter. I saw her laugh and point at something. Devon came out a couple minutes later with a big bag of chips. He opened the bag and started eating them as he walked toward the freeway.

  I followed.

  He stopped at the on-ramp, stood there eating his chips and watching cars merge onto the freeway. I ducked behind the freeway sign and watched, listening to the crunching sound of him chewing.

  For a second I thought he was getting ready to jump off the bridge. And maybe the chips were his last meal. But when he was done with the bag all he did was throw it in a garbage can, jog across the on-ramp and duck under the bridge.

  Devon’s Secret Life

  I waited a couple minutes, then came out from behind the sign and darted across the on-ramp, too. And when I peeked under the bridge I was in complete shock.

  There were three mattresses and five sleeping bags and two grocery carts full of cans and bottles and layers of cardboard. Litter all over. Devon sat with a girl and a woman, and both of them looked homeless. He was leaning against the concrete wall of the bridge and the girl was trying to kiss him, but Devon kept pushing her away.

  “Come on,” she said. “Just one little one.”

  “I already told you, June. Not now.”

  “One kiss isn’t gonna kill anybody. I promise I won’t go by your neck.”

  The woman sat up, said: “He knows you won’t, honey, ’cause he isn’t letting anybody kiss him.”

  The girl turned her head and pouted. She was a light-skinned black girl with hair down to her shoulders. She had a star tattoo on the side of her neck and she was burned on one of her arms and she seemed familiar. Like I’d seen her at the beach or in a store at some point.

  The woman stared at Devon for a while, then she opened the big green trash bag by her feet and dug around, pulled out some clippers and started doing her fingernails. She was skinny and white and her face seemed leathery, like pictures you see of old farmer people sitting on their tractors.

  Without looking up she said: “What do you expect, though, Devon? The poor girl never knows when she’s gonna see you.”

  He shook his head, looked at the bridge above him.

  “What?” the woman said.

  “I don’t even know.”

  The woman cackled. “I’ve met a lot of people in my day. But you’re easily the biggest enigma.”

  Devon looked at her. “Who? Me?”

  “You,” she said, clipping another nail.

  “What’s an enigma?” the girl said.

  “Somebody who’s like a puzzle,” the woman said.

  “Now I’m a puzzle.”

  “And the pieces are scattered all around. Nobody knows where they go.”

  I sat perfectly still, hanging on every word of their conversation, watching their every move. This was such a different Devon. When he was with me he was laughing or telling me his theories about rich people or acting like he was helping me.

  The Devon under the bridge seemed like somebody I’d never met before.

  “Whatever,” Devon said. He sat there for a while and then said: “So, you know that thing I told you last week? How I have this feeling I’m gonna hurt somebody?”

  My whole body froze.

  I pictured him shoving my head underwater.

  Him looking at Olivia.

  “How could we forget?” the woman said.

  The girl sat up. “You don’t have to, though. It’s in your control.”

  “That’s what it seems like. To people on the outside.”

  “No, June’s right,” the woman said. “You have a choice.”

  Devon shook his head and looked at the ground. “Nah, it’s already been decided in my DNA. Y
ou can only pretend for so long.”

  The woman shook her head. “You really believe in that?”

  Devon shrugged.

  “I sure as hell don’t. It wasn’t decided that I’d end up under this stupid bridge. With runaways half my age. My dad was an electrician.”

  “He was?” the girl said.

  “Until the day he died. My mom took care of me and my brothers. They had nothing to do with where I am right now.”

  “It’s not the same with everybody,” Devon said.

  The black girl played with her hair and stared at Devon.

  The woman tossed her nail clipper back in her bag. “I used to promote comedians in L.A. Did you know that?”

  Devon just sat there.

  “I’d come back from lunch and there’d be thirty e-mails in my in-box. People needed to reach me.”

  Devon picked up a stick, stuck it into one of his shoelace holes.

  “It’s not all about your DNA. You can be anybody you wanna be.”

  “I believe that, too,” the girl said.

  Devon shook his head. “Well, that’s your fairy tale,” he said. “I believe it’s already determined what we’re gonna do. No matter what choices we make, it still leads back to how it’s supposed to happen.”

  “That’s depressing,” the girl said.

  The woman scoffed. “And what if somebody just jumped off a bridge? What then? That wouldn’t change a thing?”

  Devon tossed the stick and looked at the woman. He opened his mouth to talk, but nothing came out and he looked at his hands instead.

  The girl started rubbing Devon’s back, but when he looked at her she stopped: “Jesus, sorry. I don’t understand how you can hate being touched.”

  “He’ll always hate it,” the woman said. “It’s written in his DNA.”

  She laughed, but nobody else did.

  They were all quiet for a few minutes and then Devon stood up.

  “What?” the girl said.

  Devon started looking all around so I ducked behind the concrete wall.

  “What now?” I heard the woman say.

  “Somebody’s watching us,” Devon said.

  I peeked around the wall, saw the woman stand up, too. “It’s probably just Texas or Sean,” she said.

  “Probably,” Devon said.

  I slipped back out of sight and climbed out from under the bridge. When there weren’t any cars coming I ran across the on-ramp, past the gas station.

  I looked back, saw Devon come up from under the bridge, too. Then the woman and the girl. But they weren’t looking in my direction.

  I turned around and jogged past the gas station, back down Birmingham and through the park.

  I didn’t stop running until I got back to the campsites and went in my tent with Peanut. Then I just sat there, petting him, trying to catch my breath.

  I looked everywhere for the book Olivia had given me, but it was gone. I tried to think how I could lose it in one day. I looked at Peanut, wondering if he carried it somewhere.

  But mostly I kept thinking over and over about what I just saw and heard. And how Devon was actually a homeless person. He lived under a freeway. I knew even less about him than I thought.

  My stomach felt sick for some reason.

  And unbalanced.

  But at the same time, I couldn’t wait to follow him again.

  I became obsessed with finding out about Devon. For the next week I couldn’t get it out of my head. I’d go to work with Mr. Red and daydream about what Devon might be doing. I’d be with Olivia at the beach, at night, listening to her talk and I’d start wondering about Devon.

  I was no longer depressed, either. I was too busy looking for clues. Some nights I’d spy him under the freeway bridge or hanging out along the train tracks or in the park. Sometimes I’d see him wandering the streets by himself in the middle of the night.

  One time I followed him into a grocery store. Watched him go up and down every aisle with his empty cart, picking things up and reading the labels and putting them back down, then wheeling his cart to the next item. He didn’t buy or steal anything. He just seemed lonely, like he didn’t have anything else to do. I actually felt sorry for him.

  Another night I followed Devon out from under the bridge with his girlfriend. They walked along the side of the freeway together, barely talking, and disappeared into the mouth of this big drainage pipe. When I got up to them I waited. I figured they’d probably come right back out, and I didn’t want them to see me.

  Ten minutes went by.

  Twenty minutes.

  Finally I climbed down near the pipe and peeked in. My eyes went wide with what I saw.

  Devon and his homeless girlfriend half naked and kissing and him laying on her and her hands wrapped around his neck. She was making little noises and her eyes were shut tight.

  I felt instantly ashamed and went away from the pipe and climbed up the hill and sat there behind the bushes, trying not to picture it.

  I watched night cars whizz by on the freeway. All different colors and sizes holding all different kinds of people. I wondered if Devon liked the homeless girl as much as I liked Olivia. And why didn’t he ever talk about her? And would me and Olivia ever kiss like that? Or were we just friends?

  I wondered if I’d ever be undressed like that with any girl. And if I’d know what to do. And would that mean the girl loved me? And we were together?

  All kinds of strange thoughts on love were running through my head, and then I heard Devon and his girlfriend start to come out. I hid behind the bushes, watched them walk along the freeway back toward the bridge, still not holding hands or talking.

  I decided not to follow them anymore that night.

  Another time I followed Devon as he walked the beach by himself, in the same direction as Olivia’s favorite boarded-up lifeguard tower. He went slow and kept looking at the ocean, like something was happening out there. But the water was calm like any other night. He walked all the way to where we confronted the college guys, and then he stopped. Like he was looking for them. But there was nobody.

  He sat in the sand and pulled a banana out of his bag and started eating it.

  Here’s the weirdest thing, though. During all the times I followed Devon, I kept thinking he knew someone was behind him. He’d sometimes peek over his shoulder. Or he’d stop in his tracks and just stand there, listening. But he never looked at me.

  Maybe it was too dark and I was just being paranoid.

  As I watched Devon with his banana, I started wondering even more about him. I knew he had no family, and he had a death drive, and he was depressed. I knew he wanted to have a revolution against rich people, and he didn’t think blond girls had spices, and he stole everything he owned.

  But what else?

  Like, what’d he think about when he walked the beach all alone? And why’d he always go to the train tracks? And did he ever think about his future? Like how I thought about doing the summer intern thing with the zoo?

  I wondered what would happen to him.

  The Scariest Place I Followed Devon

  One night Devon came by later than usual and stood on the other side of my tent, just breathing.

  “Special, man,” he finally said. “I’ve been thinking.”

  I didn’t say anything back.

  Peanut made a growling face at me until I pet him.

  “Maybe I’ve been wrong about you all these years,” Devon said.

  There was another long pause, and then he cleared his throat and turned his shadow face to the ground. “Maybe you’re better off here. With these rich people you hang with. Maybe this is where you belong.”

  I sat there in shock.

  As long as I’d known Devon he never said anything like that. I even thought about unzipping my tent to make sure it was really him.

  “I’ve decided to leave you alone,” he said.

  I stared at Peanut.

  Peanut stared back.

  “But yo
u’re no longer part of my revolution,” he said. “And just so we’re clear. If you’re not with me, Special, you’re against me. You understand?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He ran a finger down my tent wall and said: “Anyways, this is it, dude. This is goodbye.”

  I listened to Devon’s footsteps going away from my tent. I waited a few seconds, then unzipped my tent and saw him walking down the campsite path toward Mr. Red’s work shed.

  I slipped out and followed him.

  Devon jimmied Mr. Red’s lock and went in and pulled the door partly closed behind him. I stared at the outside of the shed, wondering why anybody’d wanna break into a work shed. All that was in there was Mr. Red’s tools and materials like paint and water hoses and bags of fertilizer and work gloves. And it wasn’t big. You had to duck your head to walk around.

  I slipped behind a bush and stared at the shed door. For a while I thought he must be sleeping, and I wondered what Mr. Red would say when he found Devon in the morning. But then Devon came out and redid the lock and looked all around. He didn’t have any tools in his hands.

  He walked right past my bush but didn’t see me.

  When he was far enough ahead I followed again.

  He went to Olivia and her friends’ campsite and hid behind a tree. I watched Devon watch them and I instantly realized what was happening. The girls were just sitting around their campfire, talking, and eating s’mores, but Devon’s eyes were stuck on only one of the girls.

  Olivia.

  He was staring at her the whole time. Even when she walked to the bathroom a couple campsites up the path, Devon’s eyes never left her.

  Everything he’d just said at my tent was a fake. He wasn’t leaving me alone, letting me be on another side. He was just trying a different way to get back at me.

  Through Olivia.

  I remembered all the times Devon said Olivia wasn’t pretty and why would I waste my time on a blonde, especially one who hid part of her face under a ski cap. I didn’t think he could actually like her.

  So I decided something.