“I will, Mother.”
Nevin jumped out of the car. Gripping the umbrella in one hand and the garment bag in the other, he sloshed his way to the school’s main entrance. His clothes were drenched. Nevin would have to switch into his Safari Bob costume right away.
Rawly waited for him outside the auditorium. He had been debating whether he would go through with Open Mic Nite. Originally he had agreed to take part in the program to prove to Miyoko that he could be funny. He realized now that she couldn’t care less if he was funny. She couldn’t care less if he existed. Rawly had tried to talk to her again on Saturday after tutoring class, but she abruptly cut him off and left to hang out with her friends.
“You’re way out of your league if you think you have a chance with Miyoko Elena.”
Nevin was right. Girls like Miyoko didn’t go for boring, going-nowhere, loser, comic-book geeks. They went for football jocks like Cruz Vega or witty, charming guys like Nevin Steinberg.
Rawly peeked inside the auditorium. Miyoko was sitting in the front row, tuning her guitar. Iris was with her, along with a few other Open Mic Nite participants. Rawly wanted to talk to Miyoko, but why bother? He was invisible to her. She couldn’t even remember his name.
Maybe he would go down there and start up a conversation with Iris. She had been helping him with his algebra. He could talk to her about that. If Miyoko said anything, he could ease into a conversation with her.
He walked down the aisle.
Iris was playing her scales on her clarinet. She looked up and smiled. “Hi, Rawly. Are you ready for tonight?”
“Sure. As soon as Nevin gets here with my costume.”
“I can hardly wait for your act,” Miyoko said. “You’re going to look so funny dancing onstage, dressed like a gorilla.”
Rawly beamed. “Yeah?”
“I think you guys are pretty gutsy to get up there to do something like that, Rawly,” she said.
“My name’s . . . ” Rawly started before realizing that Miyoko had called him by his name. “Yeah, uh, thanks. How about you? What are you playing tonight?”
“Moon River,” Iris answered. “Listen.” She played a few bars on her clarinet.
“I was asking Miyoko,” Rawly said.
“Bésame Mucho.”
Rawly’s face grew hot. Had Miyoko just told him to kiss her?
“It’s an old song my dad taught me,” Miyoko clarified.
A song. She wasn’t telling him to kiss her.
“It goes like this.” Miyoko strummed her guitar and sang, “Bésame, bésame mucho. Como si fuera ésta noche la última vez. Bésame, bésame mucho. Que tengo miedo perderte, perderte después.”
Rawly swooned at the sound of her voice. And those words! Kiss me; kiss me many times, as if this was our last night together. Kiss me; kiss me many times, for I have a fear of losing you later on.
When she finished, Rawly applauded. “You sound like a professional.”
Miyoko shrugged modestly. “Thank you, Rawly.”
There! She said his name again.
“Did you get a chance to go over the algebraic formulas I showed you this morning?” Iris asked Rawly.
Algebraic formulas? We don’t need no steenkin’ algebraic formulas.
“No, not yet,” Rawly said. “But I will.”
“How are things working out with Iris tutoring you, Rawly?” Miyoko asked.
He smiled. “All right, I guess.”
“Rawly’s a good student,” Iris told her. “I think he’s going to survive algebra after all. How about you, cuz? Has Nevin been able to help you?”
Miyoko placed her guitar back in its case. “Not really. We got together a couple of times, but Nevin mostly sat around cracking jokes. For example, when a problem said to find x, Nevin drew an arrow pointing to the x and wrote, here it is.”
“That’s Nevin for you,” Rawly said. “He doesn’t take anything seriously.” A tinge of guilt came over him. He wondered if he was betraying Nevin by talking bad about him. Still, how did the old saying go? All’s fair in love and war.
He had an idea. “Why don’t you join us for tutoring, Miyoko?” he asked. “Iris has been a great help to me. She can teach you a lot more about algebra than Nevin ever will.”
Iris flinched. An uneasy look appeared in her eyes. “Sure. We’re, um, meeting tomorrow morning in the cafeteria around seven-thirty, cuz,” she said flatly. “You’re welcome to join us if you want.”
“Maybe,” Miyoko said. “I’ll ask my mom if she can drop me off at school that early.”
“By the way, is Tía Kimi coming tonight?” Iris asked.
“Yes, and she’s bringing Granny Sayuki,” Miyoko said. “Granny Sayuki wanted me to sing a Japanese song, but I can barely speak the language. I’m a lot more comfortable with Spanish.”
Rawly said, “I think the song you’re going to sing tonight will . . . ”
“George, George, George of the jungle, strong as he can be,” Nevin sang as he strolled down the aisle. “Watch out for that treeee!” He gazed around the auditorium through his binoculars. “Anyone see any gorillas in here?” He stopped in front of Rawly and aimed his binoculars at him. “Ah, here you are.” He turned the binoculars to Miyoko, then back to Rawly. “I see you’re still up to the same old monkey business,” he said with a wink.
Rawly ignored his comment. “Did you bring my costume?”
Nevin held up the garment bag. “No, dude, I brought you a sack of bananas. Of course I brought your costume. We can’t do the show without it.”
“Can I see it?” Miyoko asked.
“Why, soitenly,” Nevin answered in a high voice, imitating Curly from the Three Stooges. He unzipped the garment bag and pulled out the mask. “Here you go, Rawls. Put it on. It’ll improve your looks.”
Rawly slipped on the mask. Then he pounded his chest and roared.
The girls laughed.
Nevin asked, “Do you know why gorillas have large nostrils? Because they have large fingers.”
“Put on the rest of the costume, Rawly,” Miyoko said excitedly.
Nevin noticed people filing into the auditorium. “Uh, you’d better not,” he said. “I want to keep it as a surprise.”
At seven o’clock, Mr. Hair, the principal, welcomed the audience. He turned the program over to Ms. Coleman, the drama teacher, who was coordinating Open Mic Nite. She introduced the first participants.
Andrea Marino sang Stormy Weather, while Nicole Chadima accompanied her on the piano. After that, Santiago Pérez recited Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee. Iris Solís followed with her clarinet solo of Moon River. The audience applauded politely for each performer.
Things became frenzied when Michelle McCutcheon and her all-girl band took the stage to sing AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. The girls wore black T-shirts that stopped above their stomachs, short denim skirts and black fishnet hose. Michelle played rhythm guitar, Lisa Kirksey, the bass, Falesha Coe, the keyboard, and Criselda Cobos, the drums.
Mr. Hair had no hair, but if he did, it would have stood on end as he listened to Michelle and her band belt out, “I’m on the highway to hell, on the highway to hell, m-m-m-m, don’t stop me!”
The auditorium grew calmer but still lively when Travis McHenry and Daniel Vásquez performed “Dead Parrot Sketch,” a popular comedy skit from the old British TV show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Rawly watched from the back. The skit was about an angry customer who had been sold a dead Norwegian Blue parrot and what happened when he tried to return the bird to the shopkeeper. Travis and Daniel delivered their lines with almost perfect British accents.
Rawly spotted Miyoko in the front row. Ms. Coleman had asked the Open Mic Nite participants to sit with the audience, where they would wait until it was their turn to perform. Nevin had requested that he and Rawly be allowed to remain in the back, because he didn’t want people to see their costumes until it was time for them to go onstage.
When Travis and Daniel fini
shed, Ms. Coleman took the microphone and announced, “Next, we have the team of . . . Jumex—Nevin Steinberg and Rawly Sánchez. Here they are to perform for you, ‘A Mangled Tango.’”
Nevin appeared alone in front of the closed curtains.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Safari Steinberg, renowned game hunter. Throughout the years, I have caught and tamed some of the wildest, fiercest, creatures in the world—the barayakas of Borneo, the menaboras of Madagascar and even the vengatores of Vanuatu. Recently, my travels took me to the remote jungles on the island of Bonga Longa in South America, where I managed to capture the most ferocious, the most vicious, the most terrifying beast the world has never known—the black sable ape of Bonga Longa. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you . . . El Bruto!”
The curtains opened. Rawly, dressed in the gorilla costume, was chained, hands and feet, to two tall, white, plaster columns. The plastic chains had been painted silver to look like metal. Rawly let out a loud roar. The audience laughed and applauded. As he pretended to struggle against the chains, Rawly looked down at Miyoko. She laughed harder than anyone.
I do have a chance with her. Rawly could hardly wait to talk with her after the show.
“Do not be alarmed, dear patrons,” Nevin said. “El Bruto cannot harm you. Even his incredible strength is not enough to break the titanium chains that bind him.” He looked at the gorilla and said, “Bruto! Be calm!”
The gorilla stopped roaring.
Nevin patted it on the head. “Unlike other game hunters, who use a vast arsenal of weapons to capture their prey, these are the only weapons I need.” Nevin pointed to his eyes. “You see, I also possess the uncanny ability to hypnotize animals. Allow me to demonstrate.”
He stood in front of the gorilla. “Bruto, look into my eyes.”
The gorilla stared at Nevin.
“Deeper. Deeper.”
The gorilla slowly closed its eyes. Its head dropped, and its body went limp.
“Good.” Nevin turned back to the audience. “El Bruto is now under my total control. He must do exactly as I say.” Nevin undid the gorilla’s chains. He took it by the hand and led it away from the plaster columns. “Watch as El Bruto obeys my every command. Bruto, sit!”
The gorilla grabbed a chair, sat down and crossed its arms and legs.
The audience laughed and clapped.
“Good, Bruto. Now beg!”
The gorilla pulled out a cardboard sign that read: WILL WORK FOR FOOD.
More laughter.
Rawly drank up the attention. Inside the gorilla costume, he felt so free, so uninhibited. After all, he wasn’t performing in front of the audience. The gorilla was. He saw Miyoko enjoying every minute of it. Wait till she saw what came next.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, I will demonstrate the full extent of my hypnotic abilities,” Nevin said. “I will command this once fierce, uncontrollable beast to perform in a remarkable way, the likes of which it has never done.”
The stage lights went out.
When they came back on, Nevin and the gorilla had one arm wrapped around each other. With fingers locked, they held their other arms outstretched. The gorilla’s head was tilted back, and it held a long-stemmed rose in its mouth. The tango song, Por Una Cabeza, began to play. Nevin and the gorilla glided across the stage. When they reached the end, they pivoted, cheek-to-cheek, and danced to the other side. Neither Nevin nor Rawly knew anything about dancing the tango, except what they had seen in movies, but it didn’t matter. This was strictly for laughs. Nevin had borrowed the music from his mother’s CD collection.
Rawly almost fell when Nevin tried to dip him. The soles of the gorilla costume’s feet were made out of a slick, vinyl material. He managed to hold on to Nevin’s neck to keep from falling.
He didn’t have as much success when Nevin twirled him around a few seconds later. The first time they did the twirl, they executed the move perfectly. When Nevin spun him around the second time, Rawly lost his balance. He whipped his arms to try to straighten back up, but his momentum carried him to the edge of the stage.
“Whoa!”
Rawly hopped off and skidded across the concrete floor. His feet went out from under him, and he fell—right on top of Miyoko!
She shrieked.
Rawly pushed himself off her lap. To his horror, he saw that he had crushed Miyoko’s guitar, and the strings had sprung loose from the bridge. Miyoko’s eyes and mouth widened with shock.
Granny Sayuki hopped out of her seat and ran down the aisle. She gestured wildly with her arms and spewed angry Japanese words at the clumsy gorilla. Mr. Hair and Ms. Coleman ran down to the front.
Rawly didn’t know what to do. People were pointing and laughing. Travis McHenry and Daniel Vásquez rolled in their seats and howled.
Rawly looked at Nevin, who had a big stupid grin on his face. He turned back to Miyoko. Mr. Hair, Ms. Coleman and Miyoko’s mother surrounded her, checking to see if she was all right. Granny Sayuki grabbed the broken guitar. She waved it at Rawly and yelled more words he didn’t understand.
Rawly’s head swiveled around to the audience. To Miyoko. To Nevin. Laughter rang throughout the auditorium.
Humiliated and embarrassed, Rawly raced up the stage steps and disappeared behind the curtain. Backstage, Nevin doubled over with laughter. “Dude, what were you trying to do out there? Play musical chairs?”
Rawly tore off the mask and flung it at him. “Shut up, Nevin!”
Nevin stepped back.
Rawly stripped off the rest of the costume and got dressed. He threw open the school doors, and ran outside.
He wished he had never agreed to be on Open Mic Nite. He wasn’t a performer. He hated being onstage. Guys like Nevin hungered for attention, thrived on it. But not him.
When he was in the fourth grade, Rawly had been chosen to play Father Miguel Hidalgo, the famed hero of Mexico’s independence, in his school’s Cinco de Mayo program. He had to ring the bell of a wooden mission façade and shout, “Down with bad government! Down with the gachupines! Long live Our Lady of Guadalupe!” His last line was supposed to be the cue for the choir to start singing El Grito de Dolores. Rawly practiced his lines every day for a week.
On the night of the program, he walked onstage wearing a priest’s robe. He grabbed the bell rope and stood in front of the microphone. When he saw the packed auditorium, he froze. He rang the bell, but no words came out of his mouth.
Mr. Dibbles, the choir director, motioned for him to start speaking, but Rawly remained mute as a stone. He kept yanking the rope, ringing the bell, with an idiotic look of fear on his face.
Again Mr. Dibbles signaled for him to say his lines, but Rawly stayed clammed up, saucer-eyed, with his right arm moving up and down. Mr. Dibbles shook his head testily. Finally he gestured for Ms. Haas to start playing the piano.
While the choir sang, Rawly, still in his hypnotic state, continued ringing the bell. Mr. Dibbles led the choir with one hand. With the other, he tried to shoo him off the stage.
Rawly gave the rope a final tug. The wooden structure leaned forward. Then it toppled and fell on him.
Ooohs echoed throughout the auditorium.
Rawly made a grab for the wooden façade, but it was too heavy for him. He managed to scoot from under it and let it go. The church mission crashed on the stage with a heavy clap. The bell broke off and rolled onto the floor with a resounding clang-clang-clang-clang.
Mr. Dibbles jumped up onstage to check on Rawly. He gave the audience an apologetic smile. Then he righted the structure and escorted Rawly off.
After the show, the enraged director blasted Rawly. He accused him of being irresponsible, of not caring about the program. He told Rawly that he had let everyone down. Rawly had never been so humiliated in his entire life.
Until tonight.
If he ever thought he stood a chance with Miyoko Elena, he blew it for good. He could still see the expression of disbelief in her eyes when he plopped his big
fat gorilla butt on top of her. Not only did he destroy her guitar, he kept her from performing that beautiful Spanish song. Worse, he had embarrassed Miyoko in front of her family and everyone else in the auditorium.
Rawly sat on the bus stop bench, ignoring the rain that poured down on him. His insides burned with anger. With shame. With disgrace. He hunched over, buried his face in his hands and cried.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next day, Rawly didn’t meet Iris for tutoring. He didn’t want to face Miyoko in case she showed up. He thought about what he might say if he saw her, but he didn’t think she would be in any mood to listen.
When he entered first period English class, Travis McHenry winked at Daniel Vásquez and asked, “Hey, Daniel, why did the gorilla cross the road?”
“I don’t know, Travis,” Daniel said, snickering. “Why did the gorilla cross the road?”
“To sit on Miyoko’s guitar!” Travis burst out laughing.
“What happened to you last night . . . El Bruto?” Daniel mocked. “Did you slip on a banana peel or something?”
“Gorillas shouldn’t eat bananas while they’re dancing,” Travis said, wagging a finger in Rawly’s face. “Didn’t momma Bruto ever teach you that?”
The teasing continued all day.
“Hey, Rawly, what’s black, hairy and dangerous? A gorilla that can’t dance!”
“Roses are red, violets are blue, gorillas can’t dance, and neither can you!”
Nevin caught up with him between classes. “Hiya, dude. Heard any good jokes lately?”
Rawly stared straight ahead and kept walking. “Get lost, Steinberg!”
“Steinberg?” Nevin raised an eyebrow. “Ooh, why so formal? I thought we were on a first-name basis.”
Rawly sped up. He rounded the corner and headed toward the stairs.
Miyoko and some other girls were standing at the foot of the steps, talking. One of the girls saw him. She said something to the others. They all turned and glared at him.
Rawly circled back and walked past Nevin. This time Nevin didn’t try to follow him.
Later, while Rawly was taking his books out of his locker Iris approached him and said, “It wasn’t your fault, you know. It could’ve happened to anyone.”
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