There is no comfortable place to sit. Joists run across the ceiling floor with just enough space between them for him to lie down, but that will mean becoming covered with dust and dirt. He feels a sneeze coming on, and he squeezes his nose hard to prevent it. If he clears the insulation out of the way and gets low enough, it will be possible to hide from view. He will save that job for later. In the meantime, however, he sits with his back against the wall, perched on the narrow edge of a two-by-four. He tries to think of anything else but the situation at hand.
His grandfather knew about building houses, knew the names of things, sometimes even knew them in English, which he spoke with a thick accent that made Rickie laugh. But never in public. He would never hold his grandfather up for ridicule in public; he had too much respect for him. After he died, Rickie never mentioned him again, not to his friends. Abuelo was like some treasure, like… Rickie has nothing to compare him to since he has no possession he values in any measure similar to his grandfather. So, he simply put him away, out of sight, out of speaking, so that no stupid homie would make the mistake of joking about him.
He remembers that his grandfather would say “share” when he meant “chair”—“Sit down in your share, mi’ jo,” he would say, patting the chair at the table on his right-hand side. It was a privilege to sit next to him. “No, abuelito, it is chair, ch, ch, chair, not share,” Rickie would say, and he and his grandfather would laugh. “Pues, siéntate aquí, mi’ jo,” he would say as he patted the chair again. “Tell me all about your day in school,” he would say in Spanish. Rickie, worried that he had insulted him, would search his face, but he did not find any sign of injury there, only a true desire to hear about the little life of his grandson. Oh, God, where have those days gone? Rickie wonders, a jolt of longing and self-pity and love for his grandfather flowing through his body.
Where will he hide if they come? It is dark where the pitch of the roof meets the walls. He will get on his stomach between the joists and scootch as far back there as he can. He will lie low, bury his head. Maybe they will think he is a pile of rags or clothes. If he lies very still…
He will have to clear a space soon. He knows it will get him sneezing, so he should do it sooner than later.
This is an old house, maybe forty or fifty years old, maybe even older. His grandfather told him about the small block houses built for soldiers who had fought in the war against the Germans. Which war was that? Rickie heard teachers mention this war and that war, this event and that event, but he never cared to listen hard enough to make any of the information stick. Is this one of those houses, or had it been built earlier? His grandfather would know. How did he, a man who hadn’t lived in this country even half of his life, know these things?
It’s warm up here even though it’s the middle of the night. What time can it be? Two, three o’clock? Not even that late? He has no idea. No matter, the roof still radiates the heat of the day, and the air, undisturbed for years, maybe decades, is redolent with the scent of baked dust and timber. It isn’t an unpleasant smell. It is somehow reminiscent of old people in general, his grandfather in particular. He wishes, can almost make himself believe, that his grandfather is still alive, that he might walk out of this place and go home and find him there once more.
Go home. He is never going to go home. A terrible panic and sadness well up in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he should get out of here and run, run to his father in Ventura. He should get up and run toward the ocean—he knows which direction that is—run until he collapses, rest for a few minutes, and run again until he finds the sand and the water. How far is it? Twenty, thirty miles? He can do it. Once he finds the beach, he will run along the sand until he comes to Ventura and then… What? Finds his father? What is he thinking? His father never wanted him before; what makes him think he’ll want him now, particularly after he hears what Rickie has done? No way! He shakes his head in disgust at the thought of his father and at his own crazy thinking, and adjusts his sitting position.
Tension has built up in his legs with the thought of getting up and running, but now it begins to lessen. The whole neighborhood is crawling with cops. They probably have the dogs out as well. The idea of running out the front door into a waiting army of cops with their Berettas or Glocks drawn, who will feel no hesitation at gunning down a cop killer; the image of himself being chased down by German Shepherds or dead-eyed Dobermans and finally being overtaken and torn apart—both of these pictures root him in place.
Maybe he will be one of the lucky ones, someone who gets away. No, that’s impossible. They already have Alex. Of course they will connect the two of them. Rickie’s prints are all over the cop’s gun. Oh, Jesus, he is going to die.
He sits with his back against the dry and splintery wood, perched uncomfortably on a two-by-four, his arms around his drawn-up knees where he rests his head. He wants to cry, but the tears will not come. What will his grandmother think? His coach? His brother and sister? They won’t understand. They’ll be shocked. He can see them shaking their heads in sadness and disbelief, each of them asking how Rickie could have become a cop killer and why hadn’t they seen it coming. They won’t have any answers. He doesn’t know himself. Things just happened, as though behind some kind of curtain. He remembers leaving his house—why? What made him leave? He met Alex. Then the electronics store, beating on the door. And then the cops and running and then the young cop and the scar on his face and then nothing, nothing but a sort of redness, a red drapery before his eyes, until the pistol fires and the cop falls with that look in his eyes, so young, so surprised, so sad; it’s like looking into the eyes of one of his friends.
He wants to think of something else. School. Tomorrow, no, today by now, will be a school day. Will people know by the time school starts? Will Claudia know? Dennis? Tony? Oscar? He thinks with joyless pride for a brief moment that he has shown that dumbass. Let him top this! Will people cry? Will someone tag “RIP Grt Whyte”? Will people buy black T-shirts and have R.I.P. scripted on the back as they do when others die? But who really knows him or cares about him enough? Claudia will cry. She will be sad because she is a sweet girl, maybe even more because she will feel guilty about what went on at the wedding reception. She will cry maybe because she loves him, but he also knows that she will make sure it is in public in order to draw the most attention and sympathy. Girlfriends and girls who don’t even know her will come to her and put an arm around her or hug her and share the limelight.
The tears well up in his eyes for himself as he imagines other people’s sadness, but also as he realizes that not many will care. He has been so successful in making himself a shadow in the hallways that people either fear him or don’t know him. Phelan. Phelan will be sad. But Phelan cares for all of them, all of his students, Rickie among them, and in its being generalized, the caring is somehow on the surface, not very deep. Yes, Phelan will be genuinely sorry, but other kids, other issues, will command his attention. And next year there will be a whole new crop of students for the teacher to care about and try to teach. Who will really miss him, and not for just a few days? His grandmother, maybe Daisy and Bill for a while. Bill and Daisy will be hurt, even angry with him. But his grandmother—she will feel his loss deep within her. She won’t think of him as he is now; she will remember the little boy she and his grandfather rescued from selfish, indifferent parents. He knows that even after she returns to Mexico to live with her sister, her heart will ache for her lost grandchild.
Suddenly, he feels that ache himself, and tears spill out of his eyes. He feels very young, strange inside his teenage body.
He needs to think of something else, something that will not make him sad. He does as teachers do—he assigns himself a topic. Favorite TV shows. He goes through a list of the sitcoms that come on in the late afternoon and early evening, all involving cute white or black girls, and a guy girls find cute and his stupid friend. What about them? He doesn’t watch them for longer than a minute, so he can’t remember any
thing specific about them. The characters blend in with the people in the commercials for fast foods, cereal, candy and toys that interrupt the story. For all the color and flashiness and noise, there is a blandness about it all that makes all of it difficult to remember.
He thinks of The Simpsons and South Park, two shows he hardly ever misses. The kids are wise and the adults befuddled and corruptible. Someone finally made TV shows about what kids suspect—adults don’t have much wisdom or many values. They make it up as they go along and only tell kids that they believe this or that.
But once again, he can’t remember any particular episode with clarity. Is it because of the amount of marijuana he’s been smoking? He begins to feel desperation that he can’t remember anything. He tries to see some image, some person or place by pressing his eyes shut, but all he sees is a sheet of black and then red and then little floating things like spiky balls.
He opens his eyes again. It feels like everything is a lie, everyone a liar, nothing what it seems. His coach and some of his teachers, only a few really, are the only adults he partially trusts, but he doesn’t really know them and they don’t know him.
What about his teachers? He remembers one time his team played in a tournament in one of the towns in the foothills, not far away in terms of mileage, but light years away in other respects. The hillside houses were shaded by big leafy trees, yards were cool and verdant and neatly trimmed, the people all Anglo and driving SUV’s or Mercedes, Audis or Lexuses. The high school where they played was clean and untouched by graffiti.
After the game, they stopped at a big supermarket to buy drinks and chips. It was clean and bright, the floors polished and the aisles wide, not like the market where his grandmother shops where only one person at a time can push a cart down an aisle, and so most people don’t, opting to carry things in small hand baskets or juggle them in their arms.
Rickie had been studying the magazines displayed at the end of an aisle in this large supermarket. When he turned to head for the front of the store, he almost bumped into his history teacher, Mrs. Halprin.
“Rickie,” she said, not hiding the surprise and the fact that it was not totally pleasant behind the smile frozen on her face, “what are you doing here?”
Suddenly it seemed too bright and polished in there, the music—the Beach Boys singing “I wish they all could be California girls…”—too loud. Rickie felt like a trespasser. “My team… tournament at the high school,” he stammered.
Coach Vega turned the corner of the aisle, saw them talking, and came along quickly. Rickie could read the fear on his face that something bad had happened, that Rickie had said something or been caught stealing. After they had introduced themselves and it had been established that there was nothing wrong, Mrs. Halprin—she had always insisted on being called “Missus”—and Coach Vega stood in the aisle and talked in quiet voices, she in jeans and a sweatshirt, he handsome in his baseball uniform. She was obviously impressed with his lean good looks and self-conscious about being caught in casual clothes.
“She don’t have her armor on,” Lenny had whispered to Rickie after Coach told him to rejoin his teammates; the team gathered at the far end of the aisle. Lenny and Rickie had Mrs. Halprin for U.S. History this year.
“Huh?”
“Her armor, her school clothes. You know, those old lady teacher clothes. She’d be almost pretty if she didn’t have that stick up her ass. How old you think she is?”
The members of the team watched their coach and the teacher converse. They could see that Mrs. Halprin was uncomfortable being the one observed.
“I don’t know. Old. Why is her hair like a helmet?”
“I wonder if she is telling him about one of her wonderful kids or her important husband. Man, I am so sick of hearing about them.”
Mrs. Halprin nodded eagerly and made slight turning motions to signal that she wanted to get away. Coach let her. He held out his hand, and she shook it. Lenny called good-bye to her. The others waved.
What will she think about Rickie? Of course, her opinion of him will be confirmed; she always looked at him like he was a dangerous alien, not a member of the same species as her. And when she talked about the poor neighborhoods around the school, it was with distaste and wariness and obvious relief that this wasn’t her reality. He can imagine her tomorrow morning at the front of the room pausing dramatically for a second after she has said that tragedy in places like this is inevitable, you must go to college and get away, make a better life… And then she’ll proceed with the lesson. Her worksheets on the Gilded Age in the U.S. or her lecture notes on Theodore Roosevelt are of great importance. We have to get through the Great Depression before the school year ends.
Coach Vega is the person Rickie trusts the most. If Rickie only knew exactly where he lived, he’d chance it. He’d leave this place, run without stopping until he found him, fall into his arms—yes, he would throw his arms around him—and beg for protection. But with agonizing frustration, he is forced to accept the fact again that he has no idea where Coach lives.
He turns his attention to the night outside. He hears something and strains to make it out. No voice, no footsteps, but something. He pushes himself up carefully and stands. His legs ache; his rear end is sore from sitting on the edge of the board. He stands so that he’s closer to the screened vent and looks out. The vent is still a couple of feet above him, so all he can see is the top of the tree. It is tossing side to side. The air moves in the attic. The winds have returned. They will blow the smog and heat away. Tomorrow will be cooler and clearer, not so oppressive. He’ll feel better tomorrow.
And then with a certainty that weakens his knees and makes him sit again, he realizes again that there will be no tomorrow. They are out there, somewhere, on the sidewalks, in back yards, on the streets, with spotlights and long flashlights and dogs, moving relentlessly and grimly from block to block through the neighborhood, drawing closer and closer. Sometime in the night they will find him, and they will need no excuse to kill him. He sobs, terrified at the picture he sees in his mind of the execution he knows is coming.
Unless the guy didn’t die. Maybe he lived. Maybe Rickie imagined the picture he had of the back of the cop’s head exploding and blood and bone and brain spitting forth from the wound. Maybe the bullet only grazed the side of his head.
No, he knows too well that the picture is real. There is another hope, however.
Maybe there can be some kind of miraculous intervention, God or the Virgin Mary or Jesus or an angel stepping between him and the police, throwing a cloak of obscurity over him. He has heard people talk about miraculous events on TV, when an angel protected them from being killed in a shootout or a car wreck, or Jesus or the Madonna had appeared to them and cured them of cancer. Why? Why would they do that? How did a person get that to happen? He knows so little about religious things. He used to attend Mass with his grandmother, but she said it was not the same. She missed La Virgencita, she said; they must hope that She, along with San Judas and Jesucristo, still looked after their children even here in this country. She lights candles for them and places them on a table in the living room.
Rickie hadn’t understood. He remembered that there was a statue of the Madonna at the front of the church, and once, as a little boy, he pointed Her out to his grandmother with the hope that she hadn’t seen the statue before and, once she did, she would be comforted. His grandmother said she had seen this pretty white Virgin; she said he would understand better when they went to Mexico and Mexico became part of his blood. Then she had looked at him for a long moment and sighed.
He doesn’t want mournful thoughts. He forces himself to turn back to the possibility of divine intervention. Why do some people get angels to help them or Jesus to put his hand on them and cure them? Is it like the lottery, just blind luck, or do they have to do something to deserve it? What has he done? He has been over this territory before and has not been successful in finding anything in his life to warrant salv
ation. He has been a good baseball player, but he knows that his talent was given to him. He has taken it for granted, never thanked God for his sure glove hand, his graceful agility, or his keen eye at the plate. He has heard award recipients on TV thank Jesus for their success, but it always sounded dishonest to him.
Should Rickie have thanked God before each game, taken a knee along the first base line and bowed his head in prayer before each game? Wouldn’t God know it was phony? And, anyway, he has grown tired of baseball and in a year or even after this season, he’s going to quit. So he’s already throwing away his gift. He has… He can’t think of anything, so he settles on the fact that he’s still a kid. Kids make mistakes, they have to make mistakes in order to learn, isn’t that what everybody says? He has a right to have this mistake forgiven. He deserves it.
His thoughts grow wilder and more desperate as he tries to find a strong reason why he shouldn’t die. He sits perched on the board again, his arms around his knees drawn up to his chin and his face resting on his knees, and he goes over and over the same people and places and events, searching for a reason why he should be allowed to continue to live. He knows that once he thinks of it, he will be okay, he won’t die.
He sits this way for another half-hour until he begins to doze. He wants to lie down. With his feet he pushes away the insulation from between two of the joists, covering his mouth and nose with his T-shirt to keep the dust out. When the dust has settled, he stretches out in the space between and rests his head on his crossed arms. He remembers that he should pull the ladder up, but he is too sleepy. He’ll get it when he wakes up. He falls into uneasy sleep, his ears straining to hear any noise that might signal that the cops have finally found him.
Rickie Trujillo Page 18