by JB Salsbury
“Hmm.” He shoves the food around more, his shaggy black hair falling over his forehead and into his eyes.
I pull out the PB&J I fixed for myself this morning and hand it to him. “Here. You take this. I’ll take your spaghetti.”
He looks at the damn sandwich as though it’s his first meal in weeks. “Are you sure?”
Sliding his tray in front of me, I remove the milk and the brownie that I know he won’t have a problem eating and set them in front of him. “Where’s your sidekick?”
“He got detention,” he says through a cheekful of sandwich.
I start working on the chicken strips on my tray. They taste like rubber, but food is food, and people who know what it feels like to go hungry don’t complain.
“That sucks,” I say. “For what?”
“Got caught cheating on a test.”
I shake my head. “You need to find new friends, cabrón.”
He shrugs one shoulder, and I swear my brother has created an entire language with his shoulders. When they move, even if it’s subtle, it means something.
We eat the rest of our meal in silence, and when I’m finished and satisfied my brother’s eaten his fill, I take both our trays to the garbage. Miguel follows behind me with his eyes on the floor.
As bad as things were for me as a kid, Miguel had it worse. We were raised by El Jefe—the boss—of the Latino Saints, he expected tough-ass sons he could groom into gangbangers, not an introverted vegetarian. I could handle it. Hell, at the time, I wanted it. But not Miguel. He was always soft, a natural-born target for our dad’s anger.
High school’s been no different.
Miguel was picked on and pushed around until people realized he’s related to me. Now they act like he doesn’t exist. They keep their eyes off him and their crappy comments to themselves. One would think being ignored would be better than being beat on, but they both suck. At least if you’re getting your ass kicked, you know you’re important enough to piss someone off.
Miguel drops his empty milk carton into the trash and slips on his backpack.
“Take the car and grab Julian after school, all right?” I say. “I’m cleaning the gym today, so I’ll meet you at the field when my shift is up. And try to get your homework done.”
“Yeah, okay.”
I want to rub his scruffy head, but I know touching him will only make him uncomfortable, so I shove my hands into my pockets. “You sure you’re good, ʼmano?”
“I’m good.”
“All right. I’ll see you later.”
He walks away slouched over, and the sight lights an all-too-familiar fire in my chest, which I push back and ignore.
Poor kid.
Poor fuckin’ all of us.
AFTER SIX THAT night, Miguel, Julian, and I push through the door at home.
“Boys?” Laura calls from the kitchen as the smell of a hot meal meets us in the doorway.
“Yeah!” Julian drops his backpack and races toward her voice with Miguel and me on his heels.
She stands over a huge pot of something bubbling. “Hope you guys are hungry. I made enough meatless chili to feed a village.”
We all line up at the sink to wash our hands.
She tosses us a towel and moves around the kitchen, pulling out bowls and spoons. “Chris has a late client, so let’s go ahead and eat.”
Once we’re all sitting at the table with heaping bowls of steaming chili in front of us, we say a quick word of thanks, something our abuelita always made us do. Meals at her home were different, because although she knew her son was the head of one of Los Angeles’s most notorious gangs, his business was never welcome in her house. I’ve never seen my dad cower before anyone in his life except for his mom. I wonder if she’d have strangled him herself for where we ended up, if she were still alive. I wonder if she’d have believed me when I told her what her son had done, what I know down to my soul he was responsible for.
We eat in silence as we usually do. Talking is hard while shoveling food into our faces, and after we fill our bowls with seconds, the pace finally slows enough for anyone to get a word in.
“Listen, there’s something I wanted to discuss with you guys.” Laura’s serious tone gets her three sets of eyes.
Call it foster-kid paranoia, or maybe it’s something about that abandonment-issue crap my case worker is always throwing around, but when your foster parent says there’s something she wants to discuss, all the panic alarms fire in my head.
Her hands clasp under her chin, and her dark eyes travel to each of us. “I’ve been working with a kid at the facility for a while now, and well . . .” She takes a deep breath, and her eye contact doesn’t waver. “I’d like to take in a new foster child.”
She may as well have dropped a bomb right in the middle of the table—a silent bomb. Although the room is so quiet I could hear a mouse fart, the aftershock of what she said blares all around us.
Julian, only eleven and with zero filter, speaks up first. “The facility? Is the kid crazy? Like Michael Meyers!”
“No, of course not.” She pushes away her bowl and leans both forearms on the table. “I wouldn’t bring someone potentially dangerous into our home. We’re a family, and as much as I’m okay with bringing in someone new, I won’t do it unless we all agree.”
“There’s no room,” soft-spoken Miguel whispers from the far end of the table.
“Things will be tight. Julian, you’ll move into Miguel’s room like we did when Milo lived inside with us.”
She and Chris made it clear just before I turned eighteen that they wanted me to stay, telling me I was good for my brothers. The people who owned the place before Laura and Chris turned the two-car garage into a workshop and installed a sink. Chris helped me lay some flooring and paint the walls to make it my own personal pad. The problem is there’s no bathroom. If I get up in the night to take a piss, I can duck between the six-foot hedge and go in the grass, but anything that requires more, like a shower, I have to go to the main house for. Even with their encouragement to transform the detached garage into a room, I’ve always felt like a leech for sticking around. After all, I’m twenty years old and fully capable of living on my own.
My chest feels a little tight when I think about a kid who needs a family and that I’m still here as an extra mouth to feed. “I don’t want to be a burden to you or Chris if you’re taking on a new foster.”
“You take the boys to school every day and bring them home, which is a huge help. If it were up to me, I’d never let you leave.” She smiles softly, a smile that always manages to set me at ease.
I’ll never understand how she can look at us as though we’re her blood, her familia, when our own familia screwed us over so badly we had to be physically removed.
“I know it’s a big decision, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to make a choice right now, but the sooner the better.” Her eyes slide around the sullen faces at the table. “Take the night, and ask yourselves if you think we can open our hearts to one more.”
Julian looks at me as if asking for permission. “I don’t need to think about it.”
“What’s your vote, Jules?”
“I say bring the kid.”
I turn to Miguel. “And you?”
“Wouldn’t be cool to say someone can’t have what we have, ya know?”
Laura nods, and I don’t miss the way she tries to hide her grin.
“Yeah, but I’ll miss having my own room,” Julian huffs.
“It’s okay with me.” Miguel starts collecting his bowl and spoon to bring it to the sink.
“So it’s settled. We’re adding a new kid to the family.” Laura slaps her hands together. “I’ll have Chris move Julian’s things into Miguel’s room tomorrow and—”
“Tomorrow?” Miguel picks up Laura’s bowl and spoon followed by mine. “That soon?”
Her smile falls. “Oh, I don’t know for sure, but soon. Is that a problem for you guys?”
&nbs
p; I glare at Miguel, who looks as though he’s about to tell her just how big of a problem it is.
He rolls his lips between his teeth. “No. No problem.”
I stand to clear the last of the dishes. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
She jumps up and grabs her cell phone off the countertop. “Thanks, guys. I’ll call the caseworker now. I promise this is going to be such a good thing for our family.”
Once she’s out of the kitchen, I speak openly to the boys. I can tell they’re not completely on board with the idea Laura presented. We’ve been with Laura and Chris for three years. Julian was in second grade, and Miguel was practically mute when they took us in. For a long time, they were the only steady thing in our lives. The idea of that being disrupted is upsetting, even for me.
“New things are scary, but don’t forget who we are, ʼmanitos. We’re Vegas. We don’t back down from anything, right?”
“Right.” The confirmation comes out in unison but with little conviction.
“Chin up.” I grab the boys from behind, around their necks. “Go take showers and finish up your homework.”
They drag their feet down the hallway, and I wonder if they’ll end up okay. They’re still young, and Laura and Chris are great parents—balancing firm rules with a lot of forgiveness. It might be too late for me, but them . . . I hope to God they still have a chance.
Milo
I WAKE UP before the sun to the sound of voices coming from the open window of Julian’s old room, just across the small backyard from the garage I call home. A couple days have passed since Laura told us about the new kid. As excited as she was to get the foster moved in, nothing happened the next day or the next. I started to wonder if it all fell through and hoped Laura wouldn’t be too disappointed if it had.
When I’m at the main house after grabbing a shower before school, I realize Laura must’ve gotten the okay from the higher-ups to bring on the newbie. She’s not wasting any time. I don’t think Julian was even awake before they moved him across the hallway to Miguel’s bunk bed.
Dressed and running a towel over my hair, I peek inside to see Laura vacuuming and Chris hanging some heavy drapes over the window.
The vacuum stops. “Morning, Milo. Could you help the boys get breakfast?”
“Sure.” I lean against the door frame as the room is plunged into darkness by the blackout curtains. “Hey, this kid you’re bringing home ain’t a vampire, right?”
Chris chuckles and slides open the fabric, letting in sunlight. “Not that we know of.”
“Milo, Chris should be home in time for dinner, but I’ll be later. I left money for pizza on the counter.” Laura shakes out clean white sheets to make the bed. “Go ahead and order if you guys get hungry before Chris gets home.”
“All right.”
Chris squeezes my shoulder as he passes by me. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem.”
“Laura!” Julian’s voice screeches from down the hallway. “I can’t find my other black sock!”
“Then wear the white ones!” She doesn’t take her eyes off the task of hooking the elastic over the mattress corners.
“White looks stupid with these shoes!”
As she huffs out a breath and begins to stand, I hold up a hand. “I got it.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Milo.” She turns back to the mattress. “Have a kick-booty day!”
I sigh and mumble, “White people.”
Then I spend ten minutes looking for the other black sock.
“YOU’RE AN IDIOT.” Damian’s fingers click on the Xbox remote, his eyes cast forward to my television in concentration while he’s sprawled out on my couch. “I’d wear whatever color—hell, I’d dress like a damn rainbow every day for a year to get a chance at hookin’ up with Carrie.”
“You think she’s worth all that? Taking my balls in her purse by dressin’ me in pink in front of the whole school?” I kick my chair back to balance on two legs as I study the offending shred of fabric Carrie referred to as a swatch.
“You’ve seen her in her cheerleading skirt. ʼNuff said.”
“I’m not wearing pink.”
She cornered me and shoved the little square of silk into my hand with an order to “match it.” I tried to control my expression while looking at the offensive thing, but judging by the disappointed look she gave me, I’d say I failed.
He laughs. “Still think you’re making a huge mistake. And it’s not like you give a shit what people think about you anyway. Just throw on a pink tie or something.”
“A tie? I’m not wearing a tie.”
“It’s prom.” He leans slightly from side to side while beating the crap out of the controller with his thumbs. “You’ve got much to learn about women, ese.”
“I’m three years older than you. Seems you’ve got much to learn about being a man, putin.”
“What does that even mean?” he asks, chuckling.
“It means there’s no way women get hot for a guy wearing a rainbow suit. Or pink.”
He groans and tosses the remote on my thrift-store coffee table. “I hate that game.”
“That must be why your ass is planted on my couch six days a week, playing it.”
“No, my ass is planted on your couch because my sisters drive me crazy.” He’s the only guy in a house with four women, so he hides out here any chance he gets. He blows out a long breath and digs into the bag of Doritos at his hip. “You heard Sebastian’s getting out, right?”
“Yeah, dude. Cause I’m the first person people call to share good news about all our criminal relatives.” I chuck a pen at his head. “Dumbass.”
He tries to throw it back at me and misses by a good two feet. “I figured you’d know because word on the street is once he’s out, you know, your dad might come back and call you back into service.”
My molars grind together at his mention of the three-letter word.
Dad.
The man who contributed to my and my brothers’ genetic makeup died to me the day he disappeared or, better yet, the day he ran to Mexico. Coincidentally—or not—that was also nine days after our mother disappeared. Damian’s mom reported her missing to the police, thinking she’d been kidnapped or worse. El Jefe didn’t seem upset at all, even making it look as though she left us. Her clothes were gone, her jewelry and purse—charges were even made to her bank card just outside town. The police agreed that she’d abandoned us and dropped the case.
I never bought it for a second.
My mom would never leave the boys and me behind. She hated what the LS had done to her husband. To me. The last year she was with us, all she did was cry. I’d wake up to hear them fighting, my dad threatening what he’d do if she tried to leave and take us with her. Things got weird after that. The fighting stopped, but I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t giving up.
Then one morning, she was gone.
“Who told you that? About Sebastian?”
“His mom called my mom.”
“Whatever. If he comes back or not, it won’t make a difference to me. I’m done with the LS.”
Damian nods but doesn’t keep eye contact. “Yeah.”
What he’s not saying is no one is ever done with the LS. Anyone who leaves does it in a body bag, my mom being a prime example. My brothers are safe. They were born into it but were too young to make any personal vows.
I, on the other hand, became an LS soldier at fifteen. The son of El Jefe. Respected street-thug prince of the Saints. But my dad and I got beef, and foster care has helped me to slip quietly away from the life. I plan to keep it that way.
“My mom’s all kinds of pissed. She went off on Bastian’s mom for, like, forty-five minutes on why he needs to stay away from the Vegas.” He makes a pained face, reliving the fury of a Hispanic woman protecting her kids, I’m sure.
Damian’s mom was married to my dad’s brother, Tió Chino. She tried to leave him and take Damian and his sisters with he
r, swearing she’d protect her kids against the life. She didn’t get far. Lucky for her, Chino eventually got nailed for a laundry list of crimes that included armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Because of California’s three-strikes law, the guy went to prison, and my aunt told him she’d keep his secrets if he’d grant her the divorce. He’s a better man than El Jefe and set her and the kids free.
Damian wipes his Doritos-cheese fingers on his jeans. “Just don’t be surprised if that puto shows up wanting to talk.”
A sick feeling grows legs and tap dances in my gut. I swore my soul to the LS, believing that they were family, that no greater loyalty existed in the world than that of the Saints. All that changed once I realized they’d kill one of their own, an innocent like my mom. No one believes me, but I know she died trying to protect us, and I’ll do the same to keep Miguel and Julian as far from the LS as possible.
Headlights flash through my window as a car turns into the driveway. I check the clock on my desk, which reads almost midnight.
“Shit, is that Laura?” Damian tries to see out the half-opened blinds. “Where’s she been all night? Will she be pissed I’m still here?”
“Nah, man. She doesn’t care about that.” I flick the blinds open just in time to see the taillights of the car go dim. “She’s bringing home a new kid.”
“Didn’t know you had any more kids in your family.”
I flip him the bird. “Funny.”
“No, but seriously.” He leans over to get a good look out the window. “Who is it?”
“Someone from the facility she works at.”
“Nuh-uh.” His dazed eyes come to mine. “Está loco?”
“No more loco than we are.”
Laura races around the back of her sedan, and Chris comes out of the main house to meet her.
The car door opens, and I squint as a kid folds out of the back. Seeing him only from behind and in the dark, all I can make out is baggy jeans and an oversized hoodie. He’s walking a little hunched over with his hands tucked deep into his pockets.
I can tell by the stiff body language of Laura and Chris that they’re trying hard not to help the kid walk. Not a kid. I’d say he’s a teenager, sixteen maybe, Miguel’s age and height.