Trash Can Days

by Teddy Steinkellner

Friday, March 26th

  Despite a truly heroic 33-point effort from team captain and super-sevvy Danny “Señor Clutch” Uribe, the San Paulo Pirates lost to the La Mesa Bulldogs 65–60 in the San Paulo County Middle School Boys’ Basketball Championship game.

  “I just thank my teammates for getting us this far,” said Uribe after the game. “I’d be nothing without my brothers.”

  Early on, it appeared the Pirates would have no chance at victory. Near the end of the first half, San Paulo trailed La Mesa by 16 points after some unusual substitution patterns by Coach Ruben Morales.

  With Uribe on their side, however, the Pirates never gave up. In the fourth quarter, the Prince of Hearts scored ten straight points to pull San Paulo to within two. While the Pirates ultimately lost, their spirits never flagged.

  “These guys deserve to hold their heads high,” said Coach Morales, a smile on his face. “What an outstanding group of leaders.”

  Guillermo Torres added 12 points and 10 rebounds for the 2nd place Pirates.

  28 • Dorothy Wu

  Tuesday, March 30

  Starting a secret society is hard work! You have to make it popular enough so all the kids know about it, but secret enough so adults like the principal and your father do not find out about it. You have to recruit with all your energies. You have to locate a special meeting place. You have to create lesson plans that make people say “Aha!” and not “Ha-ha!”

  It is very difficult to do all this when your cofounder has not been able to devote his full energies to the group because he has been too busy with his basketball team and with his preparations to become a Jewish adult. It is even harder to get anything done when he thinks that the endeavor is going to be a gigantic failure anyway. Ack.

  And yet, despite all these tribulations, I have successfully done it. Thanks to my grueling efforts, the writing club once known as Write On! has been reborn as The Super Story Samurai. Like the phoenix from the ashes, or the Easter guy, the club has risen again.

  Step one in becoming the hottest thing to hit the school since Hot Cheetos and cream cheese was generating “buzz.” I posted secret signs advertising the club on the wall, like in my memorable dream. In doing this, I drew upon the stealth skills that I developed in the days when I used to leave locker gifts like Boo Radley.

  It was a great thrill trying to post the signs so that no one would see me do it. Usually I would wait in the school’s hallways, behind my favorite garbage can, until around five o’clock or so. I told my father that I had after-school tutoring until then. Then, when the time came, I would take action. The janitors would be left in the halls, but they would never take my signs down. Only our esteemed principal cares about doing that. I think he has made clubs illegal, but I am not sure. I hope he has. It makes this adventure all the more dangerous and, I must admit, sexy.

  Of course, making this secret society happen took a lot more than signs that feature well-drawn pictures of swords. My future students had to know where and when to meet. So, in each of my classes, I passed around several notes that read:

  Two days ’fore the day for the Norse god of war,

  At exactly four hours before four,

  At the place where there are gross smells galore,

  There will be all kinds of writing in store!

  SUPER STORY SAMURAI. HARD-CORE!

  I also had Jake pass around the notes in his classes. I figured that the poem made it supremely obvious that our club would be meeting every Tuesday at lunch behind the Dumpsters (the one place I could think of where no administrator would ever look).

  Yet, disappointingly, there were only three of us there at our first meeting: myself, Jake, and Tyler Bell. I was immensely discouraged, of course, but I tried my very acting best not to make it seem so. I led a lesson inspired by my failures at math-studying in which we took different letters of the alphabet and gave them different personalities. B is a kindly nurse or a female farmer, depending on who you ask. G is a wacky prankster who never manages to get the girl. (Actually, Jake said that G means something else in real life, but I told him we are making our own real life here.) K has a lot of money but does not want to spend it. Z is the fresh new guy in town with all the cool moves. Q and U are best girlfriends—Q is the leader and U is the second banana, only U is secretly much prettier and nicer than Q, but Q does not want anyone in Alphabet Town to know that.

  It was wonderful. Both of the boys responded very well to my lesson. Laughs and good times were plentiful. I am a pretty boss teacher, if I do say so myself.

  At our second Tuesday meeting, we had six writers there. Just like the old days! There was myself, Jake, Tyler, Whitney Dealy, Whitney’s friend Leah, and Andrea Molina, a quiet girl with a well-defined jaw. Of course everyone there complained a great deal about the smelly smell, but once we started thinking and writing, no one seemed to care as much. Together, we wrote a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story that took place at an enchanted carnival. Here is a hint: When the carny offers you a choice between the sack of shiny gold and the old boot, take the boot! It will turn out much better for you that way.

  At our third meeting, we had eleven (ELEVEN!) attendees. In addition to our previous members, we added Willy Kreutzkampf, Devon Adams, McKenzie Hall, Ross Hawkins, and Heather Kirby. Once again, everyone complained about the smell, but I turned those complaints into yet another kickin’ writing exercise: Smelly Similes! Everyone had to write down ten things that the stench smelled like, and they were not allowed to say “trash.” Jake suggested, “Krill that was recently regurgitated by a whale.” Devon said, “Action figures marinated in garlic broth.” I liked mine the best: “An overweight gypsy’s scarf after a long trek through the desert.”

  Today was meeting number four. And what a meeting number four. A whoppin’ twenty-three people came, including ASB President Nisha Patel and a few of Jake’s sister’s friends—a.k.a. populars! The cool girls said they wanted to learn how to write so that they could start a revolutionary blog of their own. But here is the important part: they wanted to learn how to write from me. A lot people said that they had been missing Mr. Morales’s cool lessons, but then they said they heard that my lessons were basically like the same thing. I think about what they said. I think about what they said a lot. For me to be compared with Ruben Apollo Morales…whoa.

  (Note: I do not think his middle name is really Apollo. I do not actually know his middle name. But I like to pretend.)

  Today’s lesson was especially primo. I had everyone pair off. Each person had to share their most embarrassing story that has happened to them at San Paulo with their partner. Then, each person in the pair wrote down their partner’s story in the partner’s voice. At the end, a few people shared. We had some funny stories about pants-ripping, accidental gas-passings, and menstrual escapades. The only disappointing moment was when Jake refused to share his most embarrassing story with his partner. I do not understand why he was so sensitive. I mean, yes, the episode between Jake and myself in the hallway before winter break sure was humiliating. But you do not see me crying about it still.

  That is the lovely thing about chillin’ with the Super Story Samurai, though. Even when events do not go according to plan, we are able to adapt and have tons o’ fun and learn, regardless. Everyone has such a sensational positive spirit.

  I absolutely cannot wait to unveil our secret club to Mr. Morales. I love the Super Story Samurai. I love my friends.

  29 • Danny Uribe

  Friday, April 2

  The bell rang and it was time for spring break. But that’s not what was important about today.

  I got to the locker room. It’s the first time I’d been back since we lost the county finals, but it’s not like I give a crap about basketball now.

  Pretty much the whole team was waiting for me. Guillermo, my cousins, Chuy, Edgar. Jake wasn’t there, but we don’t think of him as part of the team. There were the usual other guys too. Jaime, Junior, Gordo, all my other brothers. Everyo
ne was wearing dark shirts, long shorts, high socks, baseball caps with the stickers still on. When we start school again next week, I’ll be wearing that stuff, just like them. Underneath my hat, my head will be shaved too. Like Guillermo’s.

  I nodded at them. They nodded at me. We walked.

  We walked past Truman Elementary. That’s where I’ll recruit after break. It’s right in the middle of the city. The Destroyers think of it as their turf, but we know it’s Eastside. I looked at the kids in front of the school, the kids waiting for their parents to come pick them up. They had their little backpacks with cartoons on them. They were playing little kid games. When we recruit, those aren’t the ones we’ll be going for.

  We walked past the Teen Center. They built the Teen Center a few years ago, basically to stop gangsters from doing gangster stuff. I think it has bean bags and a big screen TV or something. Maybe an air hockey table. I didn’t see anyone in there. Same as always.

  We walked past Bella Vista. That’s where we were going, but we had to make another stop first.

  San Paulo High School. We walked through the parking lot. We walked past mad people making out in their cars. That’s so sick that they do that in high school. We walked through the hallways, past the lockers, and over some lawns. We walked to the end of the basketball courts, to the edge of the campus, same place where the Mexicans hang out at the junior high.

  There were five fools waiting for us. They were all big like Guillermo and they had mustaches, too. He went up and talked to them.

  They were high school veteranos, Raiders since they were maybe ten years old. I don’t know their names, but I will soon. They don’t usually do stuff with us younger guys, but I guess Guillermo convinced them that it was going to be a good time. They came with us.

  There were maybe fifteen of us by this point. When I thought about it like that, when I thought about what would happen with that many people, well, I didn’t think about it. You can’t wuss out at these times. You have to man up.

  Normally when all these guys are together there’s lots of talking and laughing and stuff. But today there was business to take care of.

  We walked past a parked cop car on the way to Bella Vista. I thought maybe we were gonna change our direction or something, but the other guys kept walking. I followed them.

  There was a little group of boys playing at the park when we got there. White kids. They were playing tag or some crap. Guillermo went up to them. He said something. They left.

  We had the park to ourselves. I knew what was coming next. This was basically my last chance to get out if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to. Everyone turned around and looked at me.

  They made kind of a circle around me. I looked around at the different faces surrounding my body. Edgar was almost squinting. He was so serious. Gordo was the opposite. He had a little smile on his face. He kept shaking his head like he was remembering a funny story. Javy and Carlos looked at each other, then at me. I couldn’t read anything into Guillermo’s stare. The high school guys just looked huge.

  All of them had one thing in common: they all seemed like they wanted to kick my ass. But I was ready for them. I was trying to be ready for them. At least I knew what was coming, and why.

  Guillermo nodded at me. I nodded back. He nodded at the rest of them.

  A punch to the back of my head was the first thing I felt and one of the last things I clearly remember. I think it was a couple hard shoves in the back that knocked me to my knees.

  I remember I didn’t want to fall completely to the ground. That shows weakness, and that’s not what being a gangster’s about. I stayed on my knees and I took every blow.

  There was a kick to my chest. Two or three of them, maybe. Someone kneed me in the head. Someone else whacked the side of my face. Two punches hit both of my eyes at the same time. Then there was a punch to my balls. I bet it was Guillermo.

  This was all before three seconds were through. The worst injuries I’ve ever had, and only three seconds in. But all I could do was count. They had told me not to try to defend myself. They told me just to count and not to fall to the ground.

  I braced myself by putting a hand to the grass below me, but a stomp to my fingers made it so I wouldn’t be going there again. Then there was a scratch all the way down my left arm. Another couple hard shoves. Then a kick. It was the kind of strike that would send in a goal from midfield. It hit me in the face.

  I knew that my arm and my nose and my mouth were bleeding by this point. But I didn’t care. All I cared about was seven more seconds.

  Three or four punches to my gut. I wasn’t breathing at this point. I was going in and out of feeling things. I knew they would leave me alive, but I didn’t know how alive.

  I was trying my hardest not to scream. I didn’t scream. I was counting. Five more seconds, then a punch to my mouth, then four more seconds, then a whole body jumping with all of its weight onto my left leg, then three more seconds, and I felt fingers going into both of my eyeballs.

  Two more seconds. There were punches all over my body. Cheeks, chest, arm, stomach, balls again. One more second, and I felt like giving up completely even though there was just one more second. I honestly would have yelled stop if I’d thought about it. But I couldn’t think. I just had to focus on counting, on staying up, on not crying. My whole body wanted to cry, but I didn’t, and that’s how I know I’m a man. I didn’t scream. I didn’t fall. I didn’t cry. I didn’t open my eyes.

  Then time was up. Thirteen seconds were up. I was a Raider.

  Then the guys all started beating me up again. That’s what it felt like at first. My entire body was so bruised and bloody and sore and stupid from what they’d done that every touch felt like a knockout punch. But they weren’t trying to hurt me anymore. They were slapping me on the back. They were giving me noogies. They were trying to give me fist pounds. I didn’t mean to leave them hanging, but I couldn’t lift my hand.

  But the worst was over. They had jumped me in. They had made it count. Now I was one of them.

  I couldn’t move again without at least a little bit of me wanting to cry. Probably won’t be able to do anything normal for weeks. But the rest of the day was so good. They gave me cold beers to ice my bruises with. They joked about all the sounds I made during the jump-in, even though they mostly seemed like they respected me. They showed me Raider stuff. The high school guys and Guillermo all showed me the same tattoo they have on their arm.

  P/V. Stands for por vida. Eastside for life.

  It was one of those afternoons that I’m always going to remember this year by. Not because of getting jumped in, either, but because of what it was like after. What I’ll remember is what getting jumped in earned me. It earned me this day and it earned me these guys. We hung till way after dark, and we talked and drank, and the veteranos told us about high school, and we made plans to recruit and plans to chill.

  At the end, as we were all leaving to go home, Guillermo asked me where I live. It was a weird moment for a second. Most of the guys know by now that my room is at the Schwartz house, but I’ve always tried to keep that stuff from Guillermo. I feel like he shouldn’t know about that part of me.

  So when Guillermo asked me where I live, I didn’t say Seabrook. I told him something else. Something that feels way more true anyway. I told him Raider Territory.

  30 • Hannah Schwartz

  Thursday, April 8

  It was really only a matter of time before they were going to shut me down. My dad always says that no one wants to hear the truth.

  Well, in this case that’s only partly true. Hundreds upon hundreds of people were checking my site every day to see who I would go after next, so obviously everyone who matters wanted to know my truth.

  But I guess after a while, a few too many kids and their parents got a little too crybabyish about the whole thing, and so next thing I knew, Principal Greene was calling my house to set up a meeting with him and me and my parents.

  The
meeting happened last Friday, the last day before break, and it was hilarious. My dad’s in between projects right now, so he was able to come, and that’s what made it so awesome. Principal Slimeball began with this lame little speech about how school shouldn’t be gossip and scandals but studying hard and following guidelines and the golden rule and all this BS, and then Daddy just straight-up interrupted him.

  First my dad patted me on the shoulder, and he said that he was proud of the fact that I’d undertaken an outside project like my blog and that he loved seeing me be creative. He said one of the reasons he had been so happy with SP up until this point was that he felt like the teachers here allowed students to express themselves in unique ways. He talked about Jake’s writing club and the teacher who started it and stuff. Then my dad said yes, maybe I had gone too far with the kinds of things I was saying online, but better too far than nothing at all.

  This left Principal Nutless fully flabbergasted. He like, couldn’t talk at first. He made a pathetic attempt to try and decide a proper punishment for me, but my dad interrupted him again and said that he and mom would set my sentence at home. “Hannah’s punishment will fit the crime,” Dad said, and then he winked at me. It was so obvious I had totally gotten away with everything. And then Principal Ferretface tried to get in one last thing, but my dad just said, “We’re done here.”

  When Jeffrey Schwartz says it’s done, it’s done. Mom, Dad, and I walked out that door and I haven’t heard anything from the office since.

  My parents told me I had to take the blog down, but I said, “Mommy, Daddy, I like having my voice heard.” My dad said he understood that. My mom said I could keep the site if I could figure out how to do it without hurting people’s feelings.

  It soon became clear what I had to do.

  Every celebrity reaches a point where she doesn’t want to be known anymore for the thing that made her famous. If she was an actress, she stops appearing in big blockbuster movies. If she was a supermodel, she stops photographing in lingerie. If she was a reality star, she stops pretending to date other reality stars. In all of these cases, no matter what their career was before, these stars go ahead and do the exact same thing: they make a difference. They spread awareness of a disease. They start a charity. They take pictures holding baby pandas.