by Anne Schraff
“Can anything be done?” Ernesto asked.
“You bet your life,” Luis Sandoval replied with a sharp grin. “Julie Sanchez and I had a long, long talk about what really went down there. Clearly, the administration was asleep at the switch while bullies were torturing this kid, and he ends up the scapegoat. I told Ms. Sanchez that we all dropped the ball here, and that we’ve got to make it right. I told her the kid is very bitter about what happened. I told her he’s throwing in with real bad dudes and his life is going down the drain. Ms. Sanchez promised me she’d take the appropriate steps. In her defense, she’d tried working with the parents at the time. But she didn’t get them to respond much. Her guess was that they were uneducated people. For some reason, they seemed afraid of dealing with someone in authority, like the principal.”
“Dad, that’s amazing!” Ernesto remarked. “You’re the bomb, Dad.”
“Well,” Luis Sandoval wagged his head and smiled right at Ernesto. “I kind of have you to thank for the way it all turned out, Ernie. Remember when Dom Reynosa and Carlos Negrete were giving me a hard time in class? They were saying they didn’t like their boring old history teacher. You told them about my Iraq experience. I was kinda miffed at the time. I don’t want to use my tour in Iraq to hold sway, but that sure did change the way Dom and Carlos looked at me.”
Dad shoveled some rice and chicken into his mouth. “Mmm! Mama? Maria? Whoever cooked tonight is a queen of the kitchen!”
“Hunger is the best sauce,” Abuela said, grinning happily that her son was home and at his dinner table.
“Anyway,” Dad continued, “what you told them kind of helped me get through to those guys. We were able to keep them in school to do that mural. Hey, I thought while I was talking to Julie Sanchez, mi hijo is a pretty clever guy. Well, Julie was hemming and hawing. Oh, how hard it would be to get Tony back in class after he’d been busted for brawling on campus. So I happened to mention that the boy’s father is a war hero. He was a young guy who went overseas to defend his country, and he paid a real big price. He lost an eye and suffered serious scarring on the left side of his face. This guy won a Purple Heart and some other medals.”
Another forkful of arroz con pollo disappeared into Dad’s mouth. “So,” he continued, as he munched, “I told Julie Sanchez that’s what Guillermo Valverde did for his country. So maybe the school could cut the kid some slack. All he was doing was defending himself against a pack of jackals that the school couldn’t control. She changed real fast. Her tune was very different.”
Abuela clapped her hands. “Viva mi hijo!” she cried. Katalina and Juanita joined Ernesto in applauding while Mom added music by beating on the table.
The next day at school, Ernesto decided he would ask Naomi Martinez for a date—a real date. It was time. A new 3-D movie was out that everyone was raving about. The special effects were supposed to be amazing. Ernesto and Naomi had talked about it, and they both wanted to see it.
Ernesto skipped lunch with his friends in the usual place and went looking for Naomi. He found her at the vending machine trying to decide between an apple, a pear, and an orange.
“The pears are awesome,” Ernesto commented.
“Yeah?” Naomi responded. “They look beautiful. I love pears when they’re just right. Not mushy, but crisp. That one in the slot looks good.”
“Go for it!” Ernesto urged. His heart had begun to pound. He was pretty sure this was the time to make a real date. Naomi gave every indication that she was warm to the idea, but Ernesto still doubted himself.
Naomi put her coins into the slot and reached into the compartment for the pear. “Ohhh,” she sighed, taking a bite, “it’s perfect!”
“Naomi, uh,” Ernesto hesitated, “you doing anything special Friday night?” His attack of the nerves got a little worse. He focused on how she’d kissed him in that special way. That kiss had to mean something. She even said she thought she was falling in love with him. Maybe those were just hollow words, spurred by the excitement of the moment. Maybe she’d thought about her words later and regretted them. But Ernesto was going to give it a shot. Ever since that kiss, ever since those beautiful words, he could think of little else but Naomi.
“I don’t think so,” Naomi responded. “Why?”
“You know that movie we were talking about?” he reminded her. “The one with the awesome special effects? It’s playing at the mall, and I thought I’d go see it Saturday night. It’d be great if you could make it too, you know. I mean, we could get pizza or something after, whatever you’d like. And, you know, they say the thing is a real experience and if you’re not busy with anything else, I just thought . . .” Ernesto ran out of breath.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Yes?” Ernesto gasped.
“Yes, I want to go, silly,” Naomi giggled.
“Okay then, gr-great!” Ernesto stammered. A big grin spread across his face. For the rest of the day and rest of the week, Ernesto walked on a cushion of air, not on the campus of Cesar Chavez High School.
That Saturday night, as they drove to the multiplex theater at the mall, Naomi made an announcement. “My dad was in a really good mood last night. He just got a raise at work. His boss told him he was the best guy they ever had on the heavy equipment. The boss, whom Dad calls ‘bobo estupido,’ really went up in Dad’s estimation. So I grabbed the opportunity. I dragged out some old photo albums of long ago when we were all little kids. I showed Dad me and my brothers playing on the slides and the monkey bars. At first Dad had kind of a weird look on his face. He even looked mad. Then he got nostalgic, which isn’t normal for him.”
“What did he say?” Ernesto asked.
“Well, he starts talking about him and Mom wanting kids right away when they got married. But they’d about given up when Orlando was born. Dad grins and tells me how happy he was to have a son, then two more sons, and a daughter. Then he leans back in his chair, and he goes, ‘What happened? It was so good back then. Why did those boys go bad? Did I do something wrong?’ ”
“Your dad said that?” Ernesto asked, with an unbelieving look on his face.
“Yeah!” Naomi answered. “Usually he right away blames Mom for being too easy on my brothers. But last night he wondered if he made some mistakes. So I get really nervy. I ask him what he’d do if Orlando showed up at the door right now.”
“What’d he say?” Ernesto asked as he drove into the parking lot at the mall.
“He goes, ‘Orlando ain’t never gonna show up around here,’” Naomi went on. “And I say, ‘But what if he did? Him and Manny too?’And Dad looks at me and says, ‘You don’t ever forget your kids, even if they hate you and you hate them. You don’t never forget them.’ ”
“Man!” Ernesto exclaimed, as he parked the Volvo and put on the parking break. “Maybe, just maybe he’s softening up a little. You need to call Orlando and tell him. I mean, years ago I read something in a history textbook. This tough Israeli guy, Begin, he meets up with this tough Egyptian guy, Anwar Sadat. The two countries were at war and hated each other. But they made a peace treaty, and Israel and Egypt stopped being enemies. That happened with two tough old politicians after years of hatred and war. So maybe your dad and his boys could make peace too.”
Naomi laughed. “Yeah, I think I’ll call Orlando and tell him what happened. It would make Mom so happy if our family was whole again. It’d make me happy too. And even though he’d never admit it, I think it would mean the world to Dad too.”
A lot of people were in line at the theater. The movie had created a big buzz. Finally Ernesto and Naomi got to their seats, their 3-D glasses on. Then the movie started. At first, they spent some time ducking the 3-D missiles coming off the screen toward them. When scenes got very scary, Ernesto put his arm around Naomi’s shoulders, and she snuggled up to him. The movie lived up to what Ernesto expected and then some. Any movie that got Naomi close to him was all right with him. For that reason alone, the movie was a big winner.
> After the movie they stopped for pizza in the mall. They both liked pepperoni and lots of cheese.
“You know,” Naomi remarked as the pie was served, “I don’t ever remember having as much fun on a date as I did tonight.”
“Me too,” Ernesto concurred. To himself he said, “I’d have fun watching paint dry if you were beside me watching it too.”
As they headed home in the car, Naomi made another comment. “Clay hasn’t given up. He texts me all the time. I’m polite to him, but I’m answering him less and less. I hope he and that Mira get closer. Then maybe he’ll forget about me.” Naomi turned serious then. “You know what, Ernie? If it hadn’t been for you, I’d probably still be with Clay.”
Ernesto stiffened. He wasn’t sure what she meant. Did she regret that her long relationship with Clay had ended. “Yeah?” was all he said.
“Yeah,” Naomi went on. “It’s so weird. I’ve just never before been close to a guy like you. You can be very masculine, even macho when you have to be. But you can be sensitive and compassionate, and really sweet at the same time. You do that in a way that just melts my heart.” Ernesto would have been very content if Naomi had stopped talking at that point.
But she went on. “I love my dad, but he’s rough and harsh a lot of the time. And my brothers. .. Orlando can be as tough as Dad, and Manny is so weak. Zack just goes with the flow. Then I met Clay. He could be so romantic and nice and very macho. I liked him a lot, but he put me down all the time. He thought he was funny, but he hurt me. He did it often enough that I found myself being careful about what I said and what I did. But I thought, hey, that’s the way guys are. I’d never really known any other kind. If you wanted a man—a strong man—you had to put up with the bad stuff. Then, of course, he hit me, and that was too much. But I still needed the courage to end something that had been in my life since middle school.”
Ernesto’s head was spinning. She started by talking about a guy who’s sensitive and compassionate and sweet even though he’s masculine and a little macho too. Ernesto had thought she was talking about him. Now he wasn’t sure. He was silent, trying to figure out where he stood with Naomi.
Just before they reached their part of town, Ernesto stopped the car for a red light. In the dark interior of the car, Naomi turned to Ernesto and spoke softly. “I never knew a guy like you existed, Ernie.” She smiled and ran the back of her soft hand down his cheek.
“Babe,” she sighed, “you showed me something I’d never known before, something I’ve always wanted even though I didn’t know how much I wanted it. You gave me the courage to do the right thing—to break from Clay before I ended up in a world of hurt. Thank you for that.”
Ernesto’s doubts blew away like so much smoke. He wanted to hold her tight at that moment. But then the light turned green, and he had to go.
Still, this was just possibly the most amazing, wonderful night of his life. He didn’t want this night to end—ever. He wanted it to go always.
As they neared their neighborhood, suddenly the best night of Ernesto’s life turned ugly. Up ahead, near where they lived, he could see the flashing lights of police cars and emergency vehicles. As ecstatic as Ernesto was just seconds earlier, now he felt stark terror. Something had happened in this neighborhood, near where his family lived.
A million thoughts sped through Ernesto’s head—all of them bad. “Oh man!” he blamed himself. “While Naomi and I were at the mall enjoying the movie, something big was going down around here. Is my family okay? Did something bad happen, maybe worse than a chunk of concrete coming through the window? Was it gang warfare? A shooting? Were people hurt or killed? Did someone attack our house? Is my family OK? Is Dad OK?”
Ernesto drove over to Bluebird Street to drop Naomi off. She had turned the car radio on and was hitting the scan button for some local news. A terse voice was reporting a police operation on Starling Street. The whoop of a siren and other voices could be heard in the background. A meth lab and a cache of guns and ammo were found. Three gang members were in custody. One of them was Condor.
Ernesto pulled into Naomi’s driveway. All seemed well at the Martinez house. They embraced for a long moment. Naomi knew Ernesto needed to get home. Then he left.
Ernesto was numb by the time he reached his driveway. But all seemed OK. When he came into the house, his father smiled at him. “I just called the Valverdes,” Dad said. “Tony is safe at home. If we hadn’t talked to him, he might have been in that house on Starling tonight. Did you hear about that raid? We saved him, mi hijo.”
Then Dad added one more thing. He’d called his friend on the police force. His friend wasn’t on duty but told Dad about a major no-knock raid on 217 Starling Street. Dad reported on part of the conversation.
“Do you think any of them were responsible for the concrete coming through our window?” Dad had asked his friend.
“Probably, Luis,” the police office responded. “But nobody’s going to waste time on a vandalism charge. These guys are looking at dealing, weapons possession, maybe even money laundering. They were really connected. Even if we turn them to get at the bigger dealers, they’ll have to go into witness protection. It was a really big operation for such a small town, Don’t worry, Luis. Your windows are safe from now on.”
Ernesto gave his father and mother big hugs. It had been a good night—a beautiful night. Ernesto would remember this night for as long as he lived.
Shortly afterward, the excitement had died down. The family members were all finally ready to try getting some sleep. Ernesto went down the hallway to his room.
Lying in his bed in the dark, Ernesto noted that the night was quiet again. It was also far less frightening. His dad, Mr. Luis Sandoval, had shown no fear. Street gangsters had sent a clear sign that he was in danger. But Dad kept doing what he needed to do. What he thought was right to do. And he won that staredown. Not only that, he’d saved Tony Valverde from destroying himself.
“My dad’s a great man,” Ernesto almost said aloud, alone in his room.
Ernesto also thought about Mrs. Martinez. Perhaps someday she could live as Dad does. She’d taken a big step by meeting with her sons. But she still chose to live in the shadow of a bully and abuser.
“Someday,” Ernesto hoped, as he drifted off to sleep, “she will live with no fear too.”