When my turn came to be sworn to secrecy and they asked me to promise to not tell our parents, I said, “Sure, but it will cost you fifty cents each for me to promise.”
“Fifty cents each!” yelled my sister’s friend, Virginia. “That’s blackmail! Where did you learn that?”
“From Chemo,” I said.
“You learned blackmail from Chemo?” they all asked, glancing at our big, gorgeous cousin.
“Yes,” I said. “He paid me a whole dollar to not tell anyone that I found him in the barn with—”
“That’s enough!” said my cousin, laughing and grabbing me. “He’s only joking.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “Don’t you remember, you paid me to not tell anyone that you were in the barn with—”
Quickly he covered my mouth with his hand, grinning at my sister and her girlfriends. They were all looking at him.
“So who were you in the barn with?” asked Joan, another of my sister Tencha’s friends. She liked Chemo a lot. You could tell by the way she was always smiling at him.
“No one,” said Chemo, his face turning red. “The kid is just kidding—get it? Kid, kidding!”
But no one laughed. They just kept looking at him.
“All right,” I said, getting his hand off my mouth, “then it will be a dollar each if you don’t hurry up and pay me!”
“Look,” said Chemo, taking me aside and whispering, “I gave you that damn dollar to keep quiet, but we can’t just keep paying for everything we want to do. Blackmail isn’t a joke, Mundo. It’s terrible, especially when you do it to your own relatives.”
“But why, Chemo? It sounds pretty good to me. You big, old guys want a party, so you get your party, and I want a few dollars so I can buy myself a pint of strawberry ice cream and a new bow-and-arrow set. My old bow is too weak, now that I’m bigger.”
“Look, we’re not going to pay you a cent,” said Chemo, “and that’s that!” he added in a strong voice.
We were in the back patio next to the waterfall with the tall ferns and flowers. Birds were singing in the aviary. It was a beautiful day. And my brother Joseph really did look a lot better, but I could also see that he didn’t really care about the party one way or the other. It was Chemo and my sister Tencha and her girlfriends who wanted the party. Back then our local Oceanside High School also took in all the students from Carlsbad, Vista, Bonsall, and San Clemente, so Oceanside was the center for all the teenagers in the whole North County of San Diego. Also, with Chemo being drop-dead handsome and a star football player, Tencha and her girlfriends really wanted him involved in their party. I had them over a barrel.
“All right, don’t pay,” I said, “but then I’ll just tell mama and papa about your party as soon as they get back from Las Vegas.”
“I’ll throw you in the garbage can and ship you out to sea with the rest of our city’s garbage!” shouted Chemo, getting angry.
“Hey, you’re not going to throw him in a garbage can,” said my sister Tencha, coming over and stepping in front of Chemo.
“But Tencha, he shouldn’t be trying get rich off of us!”
“Why not?” I said. “It’s you guys who are hiding? And papa always says that where there’s fear, there’s money to be made.”
“But not off your own family!” insisted Chemo.
“All right,” I said, “then I’ll only charge you twenty-five cents each, the price of an arrow.”
My brother Joseph, who was sitting over to the side, never said a thing. He just kept watching. Finally, a deal was made, and that afternoon each person who came to the party put a quarter in the little basket that I’d put on a table in the front patio. I quickly told my sister Tencha about the ones who didn’t pay and then she and her girlfriends would either bankroll the person, if they wanted them to stay, or ask them to leave. I loved it! I was getting rich just like our church in downtown Oceanside, with the tall, beautiful ceilings, that collected money on Sundays and sold masses during the week.
When I saw the blonde arrive—the one who’d been with my cousin Chemo in the barn on the haystack—I acted like I didn’t recognize her, so I wouldn’t embarrass her, and just asked her for her quarter, too.
“Is this a house tax?” she said, sarcastically.
Instantly, I liked the sound of this much better than blackmail, so I said, “Yes, it’s a house tax for the party.”
She paid and walked across the patio to be with Chemo. I could now see why our cousin was so embarrassed about anyone finding out what they’d been doing in the haystack in the barn. She wasn’t that big or strong-looking, and yet when I’d climbed up the ladder and taken a look, I’d seen that she was on top of our poor cousin. And they’d both looked like they were in terrible pain, but still she’d been able to hold him down and keep riding him like a cowboy rode a bucking bronco.
That night at the party, I climbed up into the apricot tree outside of our back patio with my pint of strawberry ice cream. I’d never had a whole pint to myself. All my life, I’d only been allowed to have one scoop at a time. I loved blackmail—I mean, taxes. Because with my own money, I could buy anything I wanted anytime I wanted. And best of all, I was still young and just getting started, so who could tell where I’d be in just a few weeks or even months if I kept my eyes open and learned all I could about black—I mean, taxes.
I was up in the apricot tree, eating my big pint of Carnation strawberry ice cream, my favorite, and keeping watch on the party. I’d collected money for twenty-six people, and from up here in the tree, I figured I could keep track of anyone new who came into the party, so I could collect their money, too.
The party was just beginning to get kind of good and wild, and I was truly enjoying myself, leaning back on a branch of the tree, eating my ice cream in big luscious spoonfuls, when I suddenly felt dizzy. I dropped the carton of ice cream and I fell out of the tree just like the squirrels that Shep got to fall off of the fence posts.
The next thing I knew, I was crying and crying and my sister Tencha was at my side, trying to help me. But my cousin Chemo and his blonde girlfriend weren’t trying to help me at all. No, they were laughing and saying that I deserved what I’d gotten because I was a greedy little pig.
The rage that came out of me, I don’t know where it came from, but instantly, I stopped crying. I didn’t care if my body was broken or not, and screamed. “YOU WILL NOT LAUGH AT ME! Do you hear me? You do, AND I’LL TELL on both of YOU!” I shouted.
“YOU LITTLE SHIT!” yelled Chemo, lunging at me. “We had a deal! I’ll break your neck!”
The music stopped. My brother Joseph came up. “You won’t be breaking anyone’s neck, Chemo,” he said in a soft, firm tone of voice.
“Joseph is right,” said Tencha, also coming up alongside my brother Joseph to protect me. “That kind of talk isn’t right, and you know it, Chemo! We’re family!”
“But he gets away with murder!” shouted Chemo.
“Not murder,” said my brother, “just a quarter each, and that’s a small price to pay so we can have our party in peace.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” said Chemo, his whole face and body twisting.
Then I saw it. I could smell it coming off of my big, strong cousin. Chemo was scared to death of anyone finding out about him and that blonde on the haystack. I was shocked. He was so big and brave and strong out on the football field, knocking people left and right when he ran with the ball, and yet, here it was fear that I’d been smelling coming off him all day long. I guessed he was deathly afraid of people finding out that a girl had been on top of him instead of him, the rooster, being on top of her.
“Chemo,” I whispered to him, “I’ll never tell anyone about you being on the bottom.”
“What?” said Chemo.
“You know, on the hay, when she beat you up.”
Hearing this, Chemo started laughing and laughing. “So that’s what you saw?”
“Yeah, but I won’t tell anyone that you lo
st.”
“Good,” he said. “Thank you! That’s great!”
The music started once again and everyone went back to the party. My cousin Chemo seemed happy now. I guess he just didn’t realize that women were ten times stronger than men, and so it was okay if they won.
I looked down at the ground, saw my crumbled, soggy carton of Carnation strawberry ice cream, and realized it was all gone. All this work to get a pint of ice cream, and I’d still ended up with probably no more than a scoop.
I was scared. We were going too fast. It was the day after the party and I was with Chemo and my sister Tencha. We were in Joan’s parents’ car. They were all three up in the front seat and I was in the back. Chemo was driving and we’d gone up California Street and turned right. We were barreling down the hill on a curvy dirt road leading to the duck lagoon between Oceanside and Carlsbad. They were laughing and having a grand time.
“Slow down,” I said. “You’re going too fast!”
“Shut up, you little twirp!” shouted Chemo back at me. “I know how to drive!”
Normally, I didn’t get scared when someone drove fast. In fact, I liked it and thought it was fun. But this time it was different, and I just knew that something terrible was going to happen to us if I couldn’t get our cousin Chemo to slow down.
“Chemo,” I said, “please, I’m not joking! You got to slow down!”
“Shove it!” he said, giving the car even more gas.
Then I saw it in a flash, a great big, old red truck was coming up the road from the bottom of the hill with a huge load of lumber, taking up most of the steep, little road.
“OKAY, CHEMO!” I yelled. “This is your last chance! I swear, if you don’t obey me and slow down right now, then I’m going to open my door and jump out and you can all get killed by yourselves around the next corner, hitting a big red truck!”
“Sounds good to me,” said Chemo, laughing. “Jump! I don’t see any truck, red, green, or purple,” he said, refusing to slow down.
Now what could I do? I’d opened my big mouth and he’d taken my bluff. In my mind’s eye, I could see the big truck changing gears and coming up the hill, so clearly inside of my head. The man driving the truck had on a beat-up old cowboy hat and he was trying to light a cigarette as he drove, and when he looked up, I recognized him. It was Bert Lawrence, the man who shoed our horses for us, and Bert, a big handsome man, was married to Jackie, the most beautiful woman in all of Oceanside, next to my mother Lupe and George Lopez’s wife Vera.
I got hold of the door handle, and when I felt Chemo slow down a little bit as he took the next curve, I opened the door and jumped.
The dirt road came rushing up into my face with lightning speed, and I hit the stone-hard gravel road with a scream of pain and went rolling into a ditch full of rocks on the side of the road!
Tencha SCREAMED!
Chemo BRAKED!
The red truck SWERVED!
Tencha’s girlfriend was in wild hysterics, and her parents’ car barely missed the big red truck.
All this I saw happen like in a slow dream, as I hit the dirt and felt my face and right shoulder get cut to pieces on the gravel.
My head snapped back against one of the rocks in the ditch and I was gone!
I wasn’t here anymore!
I was dead.
Stars were all about me. Beautiful stars.
Then, I realized that I wasn’t just dead. I was also outside of my body, about twelve feet up in the air. I’d seen my own body go rolling off the road and my head snap against a rock.
From above, I now watched my sister Tencha leap out of the car as Chemo came to a quick tire-skidding stop, gravel spraying everywhere. She was screaming and calling for me, her “Shrimpito!”
Tencha was the only one who ever called me “Shrimpito.” “PLEASE, LORD GOD!” she screamed as she came back up the steep brown gravel road. “DON’T LET HIM DIE!”
I was really enjoying watching everything from up there. I’d never realized that roads and streets looked so smooth and wide from above.
“I’ll kill the little shit if he isn’t dead!” Chemo was shouting as he got out of the car, all red-faced with rage.
“No, you won’t!” shouted Tencha at Chemo. “He was right, Chemo! You were going too fast! We would’ve all gotten killed by that truck if he hadn’t jumped out and caused you to brake!”
“That’s a lie! I know how to drive!”
“But how did he know about the red truck?” asked Tencha’s girlfriend Joan.
Hearing this girl’s question, I then saw it so clearly. Even when I’d been alive, I hadn’t just been in the backseat of the car as we’d been speeding down the curvy gravel road; no, I’d also already been outside of my body—up above—seeing myself down below and everything else just like I was now doing.
I laughed, and watched my sister Tencha and Chemo and Joan come running up the steep hill, but to me it looked like they were going in slow motion. Then they went down into the ditch where my dead body lay still against the rocks.
“SHRIMPITO!” Tencha yelled.
“OH, MY GOD!” shouted Chemo. “The damn fool! I thought he was joking! No one is really stupid enough to jump out of a speeding car!”
I could now see that Chemo loved me, too. He was just all confused and scared.
“Is he dead?” asked Joan.
Hearing Joan’s question, I suddenly realized that this was my decision. I could go either way. I could be dead or I could be alive. Living or dying was really all up to us.
I took a deep breath. I didn’t know which way to go. A part of me really liked being dead and way up here above everyone and everything. But also, I could see how much my death was hurting my sister Tencha who loved me so much.
“I want to live,” I finally said to my Other Self, and saying this, I was instantly back in my body. I was in awful pain and I was crying.
“Oh, my Shrimpito!” said my sister Tencha to me. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said, still crying. “My arm’s all twisted and feels broken.”
“Good! I hope it is!” yelled Chemo. He looked so upset that I thought he might cry, but he didn’t, and instead he just kept on yelling. “You damn fool! I really didn’t mean for you to jump when I said jump!”
“Stop that!” shouted Tencha. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and my little brother, Chemo, but you stop it!”
“Thank God, he’s alive!” said Joan.
“Come on, Shrimpito, let’s get you in the car so we can go home,” said my sister Tencha, helping me to my feet.
“No, I’m walking home,” I said, once my sister had me on my feet. “I don’t want to get killed again.”
“You’re not going to get killed,” said my sister. “Chemo is going to drive real slow from now on, aren’t you, Chemo?”
I turned and looked at my cousin. He was still angry. “No,” he said, “I’m driving like I normally do! I’m not going to let a little kid boss me around!”
“Look,” I said, “you guys do what you want. I’ll just walk home.”
But when I turned, I realized that I didn’t know which way to go. My head was throbbing with fire, and I was all confused. As I closed my eyes, it started coming back to me, and I realized that I could go back up the hill towards California Street to go home, or down the hill towards Vista Way and go along the lagoon. Either way, I’d get home. But when I tried to move, I couldn’t get my legs to work.
“Look at you! You can’t even walk!” said my sister.
“Yes, I can,” I said. But my knees wouldn’t work going uphill. I guess they’d hit the rocks, too. I turned and started down the hill towards Vista Way, but I was in so much pain, that I wobbled all over the place.
“Shrimpito!” called my sister.
I ignored her. I had to. The whole road looked blurry to me. I could feel tears running down my face, but when I went to wipe them, I found blood on my hand. I began to tremble and feel
real cold, but I knew that I couldn’t give in to the pain I was feeling.
I continued down the road with tears and blood running down my face, and I was doing pretty well, but then I don’t know what happened. One moment, I’d been moving along okay, and the next, I was falling to the ground.
Instantly, my sister Tencha was at my side. “Chemo!” she shouted, picking me up in her arms. “That’s it! You’re not driving! Joan is, unless you agree to go real slow!”
“All right! All right! We’ll do whatever the little king says!”
I was up above myself once again, but this time I wasn’t dead. No, I was alive and I could see myself down below as my sister Tencha put me in the backseat of the car and got in with me.
All the way home, Tencha stroked my head. I was happy that I’d chosen to come back and live. This was when I realized that we weren’t alone in the car. No, Jesus was also here with us, just as He’d been with me when I’d walked down that long, dark hallway to face the huge Frog. I smiled, thanking Him, and drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER fourteen
Getting home, Chemo immediately started telling my brother Joseph that I was crazy, that I’d jumped out of the car because he wouldn’t obey me and slow down.
“I knew what I was doing!” shouted Chemo. He was so upset that he was almost ready to cry. But he didn’t. He just kept shouting. “You got to talk to him! He thinks he’s a king, and everyone has to obey him! Who the hell does he think he is? And he’s willing to die, if he doesn’t get his way! He’s crazy-loco out of his head, José!”
Joseph listened very carefully, then he called me inside. Boy, I could feel it. I was in deep trouble. “We need to clean your wounds,” my brother said to me once we were inside the house.
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