“I don’t believe him,” said Joe.
“Ni yo tampoco,” said Mike.
“I have a personal question,” Joe said to me.
“Yeah?”
“Is she a blondie down there?”
Mike howled long like a coyote. His reaction was as crazy funny as his brother’s question, and I was almost crying.
“Pues, todo que tenemos son estas revistas,” Joe explained.
“Cómo no que you never seen no blondie?” said Mike. “There’s a few at school.”
“But we never seen those pelitos de aquel chango, pendejo!” said Joe. “I’m always wondering if they’re the same color,” he said to me.
“You never seen any of those pelitos, never ever!” said Mike. “For all you know, they could all be turquoise!”
“How do you know I haven’t seen any?” said Joe. “What about our prima Norma that time?”
“ÀAyyy, que sucio!” screamed Mike. “She’s like the stack of manteca in the grocery aisle, pero without being in those square boxes!”
“Still,” said Joe, “you said I never saw nothing, y ay está.”
* * *
The French textbook was perfect for me. It was a lot easier than I expected too. Words and a few verbs and adjectives that I could teach myself, and the twins, laughing, gave me some of the pronunciation. I decided I’d learn a few sentences to mess with the Cloyd’s brains. I probably wouldn’t have to say much, if anything. Just leave the book around so he saw and maybe he’d ask. Then I’d say something. He was supposed to be French. He said his name was anyways. I was thinking of Nica. How I could say words to her. That’d be all romantic, right? Made me smile. I wanted to make her laugh. If I could make her laugh, she might want me to kiss her.
I was so gone inside the book, trying to read and pronounce in quiet whispers, I didn’t notice when my mom came in.
“It is good that you’re studying so hard, m’ijo,” she said.
Her wrists were weighted with clangy silver, and liquidy stones dangled from her neck and ears. Her hair had some touch of new styling or color, something.
“J’aime la pizza,” I said.
She laughed. “What?”
I liked that she laughed, because it proved French was funny and not only to me.
“J’aime la pizza and j’aime l’orangeade.” It was because limonada wasn’t in the textbook, but the second I said this drink word out loud—which was maybe what we call orange juice and not orangeade, because the book taught with pictures—I knew I’d just make the one I wanted up when I said it to Nica. I couldn’t wait to learn more sentences. “It’s French,” I told her.
“That’s wonderful, m’ijo. You are full of surprises.”
“Mais oui, ma mère.”
She came and sat on the bed next to me.
“J’aime le taco aussi.” I’d been laying on my stomach, but I turned sideways and sat up to say that.
She rubbed my head like I was still her little boy.
“I made that up. I wonder what taco is in French.”
She laughed. “Taco,” she said. “What else could it be?”
I guess she never got it when I was making a joke. “It’s what I think too. Like enchilada is enchilada, burrito is burrito.”
She was shaking her head. “I didn’t know you were studying that. I should know it though, shouldn’t I? A good mother would know.”
She had stopped making my bed and doing all the cleanup in the room lately. There was no more trying to keep up with whatever it was before. “I decided I should learn it for when I go to France.”
“What?”
“You know, when I get to visit Notre Dame.”
“Sonny, what are you talking about?”
“Cloyd said I’d go to Notre Dame, right?”
“Sonny, please, what are you talking about?” She copped a tone with that.
“Does he know where you’re going?”
“I’ll be back before he gets in.”
I looked at her.
“Don’t.”
I looked down.
“He had to drive way up north and isn’t getting in until late. Later than I will.”
There were two big black dudes in Alley Cats, which was usually only Mexican people. They were drinking a couple and talking to each other. They seemed like men who had good jobs to me, because they both had those kind of shirts on. The regulars at the bar were acting the same as always, sitting there squeezing their beers and whatever was in the red glasses Mr. Zúniga used for drinks. He was the one scared about it, these dudes were scaring him. I could see it easy, like everybody else. He was moving in short confused steps, not doing whatever he wanted to do right. For instance, he was even talking to one of the most regular regulars, which he never did, named Rufino Cervantes, and we were hearing Rufino Cervantes say how he was born in San Antonio but raised in El Paso, then how it was for Mr. Zúniga when he was stationed at Fort Bliss army base, how it was, right at the border, and those wild bars where the GIs and Mexicans fought and even shot each other sometimes. I’d never heard Mr. Zúniga talk about anything to anyone else before that didn’t have to do with the business.
“¿Traes tu hambre, muchachito?” Mrs. Zúniga asked me.
“Yeah, I can eat.”
“¿Y qué vas a comer hoy?”
“J’aime beaucoup les hamburgers,” I said.
Mrs. Zúniga stared at me like I was talking a foreign language.
“I’ll take a cheeseburger, with fries.”
“I woulda believed this joint served Mexican food,” the black guy closer to me said. It was that I was sitting near them, a bar stool between us.
“It does,” I said.
“Oh yeah? So what you recommend?”
“Hamburgers or cheeseburgers.”
They both laughed easy and loud. Neither of them seemed to notice, or care, that the place had become all about them, no matter who else was talking or whatever was going on the TV.
“What the hell kinda Mexican food you used to?”
“It’s Mexican now,” I said. “It’s that all you do is let her make it with jalapeños, and she puts her salsa de chile on it too, and then it’s Mexican—as Mexican as it is American.”
“Sounds hot,” he said. They were both laughing.
“Sure, but you said you wanted Mexican, and it’s good too.”
“We want two of them then,” said his friend.
Mrs. Zúniga nodded at them. “Something else too?” Usually, when someone only spoke English and was new, Mr. Zúniga took the orders and told her in Spanish.
“What else you got?”
“Tenemos un caldo de pollo,” she said nervously, not to them but to me. “Viene con arroz y tortillas.”
“A chicken stew, rice, and tortillas,” I told them.
They looked at each other.
“They got beans too,” I said. “They’re really good, man.”
“I ain’t eatin’ those Mexican beans,” said the one farther from me. “I don’t wanna be around you eatin’ ’em either.”
“I say we’ll stay with the Mexican hamburgers,” said the one closer to me.
“Cheeseburgers,” said the other. “Double cheeseburgers.”
They ordered another couple of beers from Mr. Zúniga. They finished everything—the beers in a couple of gulps, the burgers in what seemed like three or four bites—faster than I could make it through any of mine, and then stepped out as loud and with as little movement as they had sitting there, telling me I was right, that was good, and politely thanking Mrs. Zúniga. When I went to pay, Mr. Zúniga shook his head, like he was talking to himself. “Thank you very much,” he said. He was washing dishes, not wanting to talk anymore to Rufino Cervantes or anyone else after those men left.
I sat on the driver’s side of the Bel Air and I stepped on the clutch and practiced shifting. I was feeling the gears, where they were. I could see The Flowers from where I sat, but I didn’t think anyone coul
d see me because no one, except Pink, would be looking here. Close as the car was, it seemed as far away as a dream of driving it. I might have started it up, until I saw my mom driving out, her car bottoming a little too hard as she came out the driveway and onto the street in her distracted hurry. Her leaving was good news. I didn’t feel like talking. I didn’t feel like sweeping either. I could go in and be alone. I took off for the back door of #1. I almost didn’t turn around when I saw Gina driving up behind me. But I didn’t want it to seem like I was avoiding her.
“Hi, Sonny.”
“Hi.”
“You doing good?”
“Sure.”
“That’s good.”
I nodded and shrugged and got really self-conscious.
“The place is still looking really great.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Okay then,” and she winked at me and went the rest of the way down the driveway.
I was walking fast, I thought, but not fast enough. Because it was Bud pulling in the driveway, right after I made the sharp turn toward the back door I wasn’t through yet.
“Hey tough guy,” he said from inside his truck. He’d leaned away from the steering wheel and rolled down the passenger’s side window and his body was still on both sides. He’d been sweating or still was. He was looking dirty. “Your dad around?”
I knew he was saying that to grind his mean into me. “Not in years,” I said. “Maybe he’s with your mama.”
“What’d you say to me?”
“Nothing.”
“What I heard sounded like you said something to me.”
“I didn’t,” I told him. “I said no.”
“I swore it sounded like you were getting cute with me.”
“I gotta go in.”
He was nodding and nodding, and right at me. “So you don’t know if Cloyd’s there?”
“No. But I don’t think so.”
“You know when he’s supposed to get back?”
“Probably not until late.”
“That so?” he said.
What was I supposed to say?
“I saw your mom,” he said. “Driving.”
Now I wished my thoughts were my actions and would bust all into him, would do something to his fucking face.
“She was in a hurry.”
“Why’re you telling me?”
“No reason. Thought maybe you might know is all.”
“Know what?” I hated myself for talking to him.
“You tell me.”
“Sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I wished I wasn’t afraid of him. “Hey, if you don’t mind, I need to go in now.”
“Hey,” he repeated.
If I moved it wasn’t because I was trying to.
“You watch how you talk to me, all right? You understand?”
I couldn’t understand why he was this way with me either, what I’d said or done. I didn’t like this face though, I didn’t from the start. Maybe he knew it. “I wasn’t trying to talk to you bad.” But maybe I shouldn’t like him either. Maybe I didn’t because I shouldn’t. Maybe it was that he didn’t like me from the start and that’s what. “I gotta go in now.”
“All right then.”
“Okay.”
It was the time of night for lights inside, but still not so dark that you couldn’t see. For a couple of minutes I was mad at myself for being twitchy, then I let myself get mad but smart and that got me a little nervous. I was thinking, This is the time. I paced around the darkening apartment, thinking thinking thinking how it would play out if, though mostly how bad if I got caught and how really wrong—really really—it was. How scared would I feel once he found out it was gone, once he started looking? How I wanted to and how that feeling felt like it was talking back and not being afraid of Bud. Thinking, I do it cold, I stay fucking cool, ando suave. How if I didn’t do it, if I didn’t do it now, I could feel worse later. I stopped pacing. I went to the office and the drawer and pulled it out and there was the envelope. He hadn’t touched it, it hadn’t moved since I took it out and put it back. I wondered how often he looked. No, I could not touch it again. If I touched it, it could only be to take it. I shut the drawer and went out and walked back and forth and then I was doing laps from the kitchen through the dining room, by the maple table with lazy susan thing of salt, pepper, napkins, toothpicks, and like on it, spun into the living room past the elk, trout, owl, leather furniture—quick through the hall and not into the bedroom I slept in but turn and back into the kitchen and around again and around again. This was, definitely, the time if I was gonna do it. This might even be the only time. If I’m gonna do it. If if if. If if if. If I’m gonna do it, do it. Now. Do it. Now.
I went into the office again, all the dead eyes on me and not seeing, the Goofy noses smelling, and I sat in his squeaking chair and fuck the rifles. I sat, it swiveled, it squeaked. If he even saw me in the chair, ever, then I could never do it. I decided! I went into the kitchen and grabbed a dish towel and came back and I opened the drawer like an oven and I took the envelope. I shut the drawer. My heart was crazy beating in my legs and arms and fingers. I was panicky. I hurried the envelope over to my spot in the bedroom I slept in but it was too much to put there, a lump not too fat but so serious it seemed like it.
I was behind the parking stalls, where the trash cans were, looking for a better hiding place. I wished I didn’t do it but I couldn’t put the money back because I’d even crumpled the envelope holding it. It was like there was no way I could go back, I’d be guilty no matter. I couldn’t think where to go, where to hide it.
“Sonny.”
My body jumped like it was him, even though the voice obviously wasn’t.
“You taking the trash out?” Gina asked.
I said something but I don’t know what.
“Are you all right?” She seemed to mean it.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You sure?” she said in a funny voice. She stood there holding a plastic garbage bag.
She didn’t believe me, but I was positive she didn’t see me drop the envelope.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s not trash day.”
“Oh,” she said.
“It’s that he likes me to put them in the fewest containers.”
“O-kay.” She said it like that was two words.
“Let me take it for you,” I said. I looked in several containers. Then I put her bag in one and I picked up another bin and dumped what was in it on top of the one I put her trash in.
She watched. “Thank you then,” she said.
“Sure,” I said.
There was no turning it around, no explaining. I wished I didn’t but it was done. I couldn’t give this money, say, to the twins to hold. I couldn’t tell nobody. I was in that bedroom again and sorry. I stuffed the money between the two boyscout books. Voilá. Saying something in French didn’t even make me smile enough and that I knew I was real fucked. Not much of a secret place but who cared. Because if they were going to look in this room, they’d find it no matter where I hid it. Then again, nothing was going to happen so fast. It could be a week, or two even. Then again, it was a good place in another way. It wouldn’t be a place to look first. I was not going to mess up. I knew how not to mess this up. I wasn’t tired but I fell on my back and closed the eyes and I was safe deep inside a mountain and I could hear and not be seen. I could hear whatever I wanted. The wind calmed me, until it was pushed away by the other building’s neighbors talking. I still couldn’t tell what language they spoke, but their sound made me feel like I was going away. I went there. I was going to make a sharp turn, any second, like a turn too flat on a ground around it that was too flat too. I’d made it before. I could still feel this curve on me, when, going so fast, I went up what should have been a down. Then Nica’s father’s voice interrupted, and I could understand him as well as I heard him. He was asking where were his ironed pants, why didn’t she iron better, how hard was it
to iron? That cat outside started hissing and I saw a lizard staring back. I saw a spider at the top corner of the room’s sliding glass window, still, hanging stick legs up from a thread. I got off my back, taller, shorter, ready, getting ready because I did it.
“Sonny. Up here.”
That was Cindy, leaning over the balcony and looking down. She was in something low-cut, and she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“What?” I said.
“Come up,” she said. “Come over.” She was kind of whispering, kind of shouting.
I didn’t want to do anything messed up. “Not right now,” I said.
“Sonny!” she said. “Come up here!”
“Not now,” I said again. “It’s too late.”
“Sonny.” She started coming down the stairs.
I met her halfway and she took my hand. I didn’t want that. But I went into her apartment. The TV was murmuring, the place was all junk and dishes and glasses again.
“You haven’t visited me.”
“Cindy, I need to do some shit.”
“Come on.” She shook her body at me, then she put her hands on my pants. “I want to play.”
“Are you crazy?”
That made her back off.
“Sonny,” she said quietly.
“We’re both gonna get shot.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“You’re gonna get us both—”
“He’s working late again tonight.”
“I gotta book, man.”
“Please don’t.”
My hand was on the doorknob.
“Sonny, I’m broke. I’m lonely. I’m bored.”
She was sitting balled up, soft as a pile of pillows, as I opened the door.
“Will you come by tomorrow then?”
I only wanted to watch out safe behind the windshield, and what I was watching was Pink talking it up to a black dude, counting money the guy gave him, signing papers on the hood of a Lincoln I’d never even noticed before. They shook hands in some black way and the man got in and drove away. Pink talked to him with his hands, kind of nodding as the man went down the street to turn left.
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