Natural Disasters

by J. K. Wise

  Damn.

  Something must click for her. Her eyes fly wide open and panicked, and she looks around the room.

  “Jared,” she says, jerking her head up. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Jared. What time is it?” She unfolds herself and scrambles to sit up, fixing her clothes.

  “The sun’s coming up. I fell asleep too. Are you going to get in trouble?”

  “My parents will kill me. They think I’m with Alec. They’ve probably called the police or something.”

  “If it were true, that would be smart,” I say through my teeth.

  “I’m so, so sorry, for everything, Jared, for falling asleep,” she says as she grabs her shoes from the floor and searches for what I guess is her purse.

  “You said you left your bag in his Jeep.” My jaw is throbbing.

  “Right.” She heads up the stairs.

  “No, my mom’s up there. You should go out this door.” I hold back the sheer curtain in front of my sliding patio door. “And Melanie, you don’t have to be sorry.” She ducks under my arm. She won’t look up at me.

  “Thanks. I’ll give you back your shirt…” She doesn’t finish her words, and she doesn’t look back as she slips along the side of my house to the opening in the cactus fence.

  I watch her disappear through the prickly pears in the blue early morning light, and I lie down in my bed, as if I could fall back asleep. My body sure doesn’t react to Mel as if she were a little sister or an old friend.

  I have to break up with Stina…

  . . . . .

  It’ll take me an extra ten minutes to get to school at Pima instead of Northside, so I should definitely get up. Still, I lie on my bed and watch the ceiling fan spin for a few more minutes. It’s damn near impossible to think of a single reason to get out of bed these days. Well, except for one, but I keep pushing that reason into the back of my mind.

  Melanie didn’t come by yesterday, and I didn’t go talk to her either. I thought about going next door and asking for my shirt, but I didn’t want to sound like a dick.

  I haul my ass out of bed and throw myself into the shower. When I’m in the car, driving to Pima, I reach down into the pocket next to my seat for smokes. Damn! I left them back at the house. No good. If I double-back right now, I can still make it in time for 2nd hour.

  My mom’s car is still in the driveway, so I give a shout out as I run through the house and down the stairs to my room. After I grab the pack out of my jeans from last night, the shadow of two people standing out back catches my eye through my curtains.

  Mom and Mrs. Stillman stand facing each other out back. They’re arguing, and I can’t hear what they are saying. Mrs. Stillman waves her hands in the air and takes a step towards Mom. Mom holds up her hands and tries to reach out and touch Mrs. Stillmans’s shoulder. She swats at mom’s hand, and then, putting her face in arm, her shoulders shake like she’s crying.

  All I can think of is what Melanie told me about her dad and my mom on the earthquake night. The hand-holding. The look. I wish I could hear what they’re saying.

  Mel’s mom backs up. Tears are running down her face. She yells a final word back at my mom before she takes off to her house.

  Mom stands, her back still to me, her head turned up to the sky and her arms limp at her sides. My head spins, and my stomach hurts. I want to go out there and talk to her. I don’t think I can take what she might say, though. Instead, I leave, start the car, and get the hell out.

  I turn my music up as loud as I can stand it, but I have to slow down to drive around a bunch of men, mostly neighbors, standing in the dirt road near by the mailbox cluster.

  None of them move as I drive by. It’s almost like they’re waiting at a bus stop or something, except they’re all carrying shotguns and rifles. It isn’t legal to shoot in the city limits except on a range, even though pretty much everyone I know takes his gun out into the desert sometimes.

  But these guys are wearing going-to-work clothes, like button-down shirts and jeans. One guy is even wearing a tie. No one would go shooting like that, and why are they standing in the middle of my neighborhood?

  I’m still up in my head about Mom, but I wave as friendly as I can fake it. They smile and wave back. Super weird, but I don’t have time to stop and chat.

  I have to take a crazy path to get to school. I try three different ways to find roads that aren’t cracked up and closed, so of course, I’m late. All the high schools on this side of town are meeting here. When I peek inside the classroom where English is supposed to be, every desk is filled, and kids are even sitting on the floor. No way. I don’t want to go in there.

  My phone rings. It’s Stina. A picture of her cute face shines up at me from the screen of my phone. I shove it back into my pocket and slouch against the wall until the bell rings.

  Chris, Dave Wilson and Kevin Mellen are standing around in the hallway after class, checking out the Ironwood High girls and complaining about not having football practice anymore.

  “All you freaks did was complain about having football practice for the last four years. Now you can pursue your other interests,” Dave says to the guys, checking out a pretty girl with long, swinging hair.

  “Is she your new other interest?” Kevin laughs. “These girls are all skanks.”

  “I’d rather hang out with skanks than wave guns around with my dad and his robo-cop Dockers posse,” Dave scowls.

  I have to laugh. “Yeah, I saw your dad and a bunch of dudes hanging out at the end of the mailbox road. Are they javalina hunting at the school bus stop?”

  “They’re protecting the neighborhood,” Dave says.

  “From what? Alien life forms?” I ask.

  “Southsiders, I guess. When the grocery riots started, Dad and his friends decided keep looters out of the neighborhood. It’s messed up,” Dave answers.

  Chris yawns and looks up from his phone. He leans against the vending machine. “I heard that a flatbed of guys followed the Sparkle water truck through Continental Ranch. When the water truck got to a stop sign, all the guys jumped out of the bed, held the driver down, and stole all the bottles of water in the middle of the day.”

  “My dad and his buddies make the lamest army I’ve ever seen. We could do a better job against the invisible enemy,” Dave says.

  “My dad’s a pretty good shot,” Kevin says.

  “He’s going to shoot a person? He’s a dentist. They’re wearing khakis, dude.”

  “Yeah? Because a bunch of dads protecting the neighborhood wearing, like, camo would be less disturbing? This isn’t Call of Duty.”

  “Well, no one fights wars with guns. That’s totally medieval.” Dave says.

  “They didn’t have guns in medieval times, douche,” Chris says as he rolls his eyes.

  ‘Whatever. Details.”

  I hear these guys, but I’m thinking about my mom standing in the backyard, her face looking up at the sky, like she was looking for answers. What if Mom really is hooking up with Mr. Stillman? That’s disgusting.

  I know that my face must be twisted pretty awful when Kevin kicks my heel and nods down the hall.

  “Check it, guys. Here come JT and Brandon, and they’ve been talking a lot of shit about you since Saturday, bro,” Kevin says.

  I follow his eyes to the DeBrees twins. They’re heading straight for us.

  “Let’s get out of here. I don’t want any part of that.” I mutter and start to back up. Chris holds out his arm against my shoulder.

  “There’s four of us and two of them. Let’s hear what they’ll say to your face before I tell them to fuck off,” he says just loudly enough to be
heard in the chaos of the concrete hallway.

  “Who’s gonna fuck off?” JT asks, the bigger and smarter of the twins.

  “Maybe you?” Dave says.

  “Maybe Portillo,” JT says, and he steps toward me. These guys should really be playing football if we still had a team. Instead, they spend all of their time getting high and racing dirtbikes through the desert washes.

  I shake my head at JT. “There’s nothing here, man. I’ve got nothing with you.”

  JT narrows his eyes. “You had something on Saturday night with Newton and his girl. What’s your deal? You on that?”

  I’m pretty sick of people asking me if I’m “on” Melanie, and I don’t have the patience today to manage the bullshit of JT DeBrees.

  “Why don’t you move to the other side of the aisle, dickhead?” I say, and this time instead of stepping back, I step up.

  Chris gets between us. “Not here, guys.”

  “Melanie is not Alec’s girl, and in case you haven’t seen his face lately, I already took care of that situation. If you and your brother want to take up with that creeper, that’s your choice, but I’ll finish it, I promise,” I say, low and quiet, leaning into JT’s face.

  He smiles. People are starting to slow down around us. They smell a fight.

  “Watch out, Portillo. Everyone knows that you Mexicans fight dirty and take everything that isn’t yours to take,” he says.

  I jump. Chris grabs me, but Dave and Kevin are in it now.

  “I’ve been brown my whole life. You’re just noticing today, asshole?” I swing. Chris grabs my arm. He tries to keep me down.

  Just then, a teacher walks out of a nearby door. He checks out the situation and sees Chris’s arms around me, and all of us, pumped up and silent. “Time to move on, boys,” he says.

  We all step back and force it down. No one wants suspension right now. School sucks, but home isn’t better.

  “We’ll see you later,” Chris says with meaning to JT as we walk past them and towards the door.

  “What was that?” I say as soon as they are out of sight. I run my hands through my hair. “What is even going on right now?”

  “Just stay away from him. Those boys have always been crazy.” Dave says, but I can see that he’s still fired up.

  “I’ve gotta go. Later,” I mumble, and I punch my already bruised hand into the doorframe as I take off towards the quad.

  “Hey, you could at least say thanks for keeping your pretty face safe,” Chris yells after me.

  I raise my throbbing hand without turning back around. I’ve got tunnel vision, red and rage-y.

  I know one thing.

  Alec Newton had better stay out of my way, because if I see him, I’m going to kill him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Borders

  Pull water, kick, breathe. Slow and long, don’t push, don’t push. Blue and cool, sunlight through the blue. Back under, turn, push off, kick, kick. Up to the surface, breathe, pull. Keep the pace, keep cool, this isn’t a race. Push through. Push through.

  Too many words in my head.

  I lift my eyes to look at the large digital clock at the edge of the pool, and the world rushes back in when I see that I only have enough time for a few cooldown laps. Uncoached and swimming without a team, I lost track of my lap count. Others are waiting, so I finish my set and swim over to hold onto the lip of the pool deck. My lane time is done, but I’m not ready to get out of the water.

  Resting my head on my folded arms, my legs dangle and my toes brush the bottom. Swimmers chat and laugh as they walk past me. As my breathing recovers, the burn in my muscles is already turning into pain. A week makes a difference, but even though I hurt like hell, I would swim the whole set again if I could be underwater a little longer.

  Yesterday was long and painful at the new high school. At Pima, everyone is carving out new pathways and hangouts on the huge campus. On my way to first hour, I turned the corner and almost walked straight into Christina. She stared at me from under her perfect eyebrows. I ducked into the stairwell. I guess she hates me because of Jared and the party and the fight and all of that stuff. I haven’t talked to him since that morning when I woke up at his place.

  I pull myself out of the water and head to the locker room. It’s strange practicing up here at Red Rock High, but this is the closest pool that’s still intact and open for business. The shockwaves didn’t do damage this far north. I heard some swimmers saying that on the morning after the earthquake, the aftershocks sloshed water out of the pool during their practice.

  State was finally rescheduled for next Thursday, and even though I’m not at the top of my game, I’m going to be there. Every swimmer in Southern Arizona who still plans to compete has been scheduling practice time at this pool about twenty miles up the highway from Tucson. I could ride my bike up here, but Mom and Corrina said they would take turns driving me. I’ve been lucky enough to schedule some swim times in the afternoons. I have a few late night times this week, and I’m going to have to miss school on Thursday for practice too.

  I’m trying to find my rhythm again, both in and out of the water. At school, I force my aching body to climb the stairs to my next class. I keep my head down and breathe my pattern, En-glish, En-glish. Wow, the halls are packed. I’m not ready for class today. I didn’t do the reading last night after I got home from swimming at Red Rock. I was so tired after being back in the pool, I couldn’t keep my head off my desk.

  When I look up at the landing, there’s Alec coming down the stairwell. I turn and try to hurry down to the first floor before he sees me. Too late though. He catches me by the arm.

  “Are you okay? I looked all over for you at the party. I didn’t want you to be stuck without a ride home. You were pretty out of it.”

  I try to pull my arm away from his tight grip. “ “Yeah, I…” I have no words, not even stupid words.

  He laughs. “I was surprised, you know? I wasn’t expecting you to hit the party so hard. Now I know to watch out for you.” He grins and leans in closer.

  I don’t know where to look. I don’t remember what happened, but I know how I woke up in the Jeep. I step back from him and force my eyes up to his face to look for clues. His face is marked with dark bruises, one on his cheekbone, the other, swelled to purple under his eye.

  “Your face,” I say, an offer of evidence.

  His smile turns dark as he lifts his strong hand to his cheek, His knuckles are red and purple with bruises. “Yeah, my face.” He laughs a dry laugh. “Portillo and I, that’s not about you. I know everybody thinks he’s such a great guy, but he’s a dick.”

  I twist my arm away from his hand. “I have to go, Alec. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

  “Wait, Mel. I have something for you,” he says, still holding my arm. I try to push myself into the crowd of passing students. He pulls my purse out of his backpack that dangles off one of his broad shoulders and holds it in front of me. When I lift my hand to take hold of its strap, he finally lets go of my arm. If he says anything else, I don’t hear it. My head spins, and I let myself be carried away by the hallway current.

  I can’t concentrate during English. I stare out the window at the tops of palm trees that circle the tall building. My stomach churns as I play back everything I can remember from Saturday night.

  I passed out. Or maybe that’s what “high” is like? Maybe I was kissing him, and I don’t remember. Maybe he was buckling my seat belt. Maybe Jared over-reacted? The thoughts in my head are looping. I force myself to breathe through my nose. Don’t think, don’t think.

  As soon as the teacher excuses us from class, I make my way to the col
lection of vending machines in the open, tree-shaded quad full of umbrella tables that serves as our cafeteria on this borrowed campus. I find Corrina in the crowd, her face two inches from her phone. She is scrolling wildly.

  “Oh my god, Melanie, you are not going to believe this story. ‘Race Wars Begin North of the Border’. That’s the headline. I’m freaking out,” she says. “In Tucson, Arizona, people are taking violently to the streets,” Corrina reads from her phone.

  “Um, really?” I look around my little slice of Tucson at the other students who are sitting on picnic tables, laughing and listening to music. Jenny Hepburn sits with her friends on the other side of the large courtyard. Jenny Hepburn’s house burned down, Gloria had said at the party. But Jenny is right here, sitting on the bench, her head tipped back. Her eyes are closed, soaking in the warm sun. Life moves on.

  “Are you listening to me?” Corrina demands. “Apparently some stupid FOX News guy was trying to be funny or make a point or something about the grocery store riots and he said this dumbshit thing. Listen to this.” She holds up her phone and plays the video from the 24-hour news station. A man in a suit sits behind a news desk. He speaks angrily into the camera:

  If you don’t like people coming into your neighborhood and taking what belongs to you and your family, stop them. If your family lives in this country as United States citizens, stop them. If the local police won’t put an end to this looting by illegals, then it is up to the citizens of this country. This isn’t about race, it’s about citizenship. It’s about doing what is right, and Americans, I know you know what is right.

  “An earthquake is not a race war,” I say.

  “Well, some dude who heard that crap on the news walked into a store on the Eastside, walked up to a ‘Mexican’ family,” she says, framing the word with her fingers, “and told them to get out of the country. Then he decked the dad right in front of his kids. A bunch of people jumped in, and the whole store went off. People went to the hospital, it was so bad. Someone recorded the whole thing on their phone. Here, I’ll find it,” she says, scrolling madly again.