by Fred Aceves
Jason don’t need basketball like we do. Give that loner a BMX bike and he’ll freestyle all day, sometimes far from Maesta, in a park or the parking lot of the closed-down Winn-Dixie. I’ve always wondered how he can do that for hours, nobody but him around.
Now that he’s replaced his stolen bike, we’ll probably see him less.
“She moved away!” Ruben’s saying. “That’s why I didn’t get with her.”
Jason laughs and shakes his head. Turning to me he says, “Hey, it’s Future Success boy.”
“Hey, Whiteboy,” I say.
I decided to tell them about the course instead of inventing detention every Friday. They didn’t make too many jokes and Obie told me it was dope. Even congratulated me like I’d gotten first draft-pick into the Heat.
And I think his dealing drugs is stupid and don’t say nothing. After more than a week delivering, he says it’s a cinch, but all you need is that one guy who wants to rip you off, or that junkie who needs his fix. My boy could end up dead and instead of telling him to stop I’m all, “Dope kicks.”
Jason’s shaking his head at something Ruben said.
Ruben aims all his hate at Jason. “You jealous.”
“Of your virtual girlfriend?”
And so on, Whiteboy having a blast and Ruben getting madder.
They talking about the latest internet girl he met through Instagram. Ruben’s forever getting on the library computer to check out pics and hit up cute girls at other schools, and sometimes they hit him back.
He’s a good-looking guy. That’s just fact. Girls look at him, look away, then look again. On his page they can scope him out more, see him shirtless in some selfies, see his thick chest and rock abs. But in person girls notice he’s short.
Jason gives a lazy “Whatever, little man,” and spits on the dirt.
Ruben’s bushy eyebrows bunch up.
How come it’s okay to forever trash someone and then, one day, the same words spark rage? That’s happened to all of us. Once Ruben kicked me for making fun of his mom’s accent. When Art got the fake Nikes with the upside-down swoosh, Jason kept calling them “Sikes” and got put into a fierce headlock until he took it back.
Ruben turns to me. “Cool sneakers, bitch,” he says, changing the subject.
I show him my favorite finger.
Jason’s also looking at my left sneaker, at the quarter-sized hole over my big toe. A square of duct tape covers it from the inside, sticky side up, the light gray of the tape’s back just about matching the dirty white Adidas.
“Bring them to my mom,” Ruben says. “She can sew a cute smiley face patch over the hole.”
I left the tape in but what can I do about my worn-down soles? I hop over puddles when it rains, but my socks get soaked anyway.
Art’s coming around the building, pushing his seatless bike. He’s got on his only decent shirt, a black button-up he wore to his brother Cedric’s funeral.
Nothing bums me out more than thinking about Cedric, dead at seventeen. The bullet that was meant for someone else. On the news they said Cedric was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he was two blocks from school a few minutes after being let out. Exactly where he was supposed to be. At the exact time.
They never caught the shooter. Nobody wanted to snitch.
Before the sadness creeps up on me I gotta bust a joke. I come up with “This ain’t the prom, bitch.”
“Yeah,” Ruben says. “You looking for a job or going to court?”
“Gonna charm the managers, bitches. Make an impression so they remember me.”
“They’ll remember ya as the ghetto kid with the shirt fancy.” Ruben cocks his head to the side while figuring out his mistake. “I mean fancy shirt.”
“Who is ghetto?” Art asks in a perfectly white voice. “I will speak properly to the managers.”
That cracks us up.
We hop on our bikes, cut behind building H, and right away spot something on the side of building M. It’s a graffiti mural with tons of colors and swirls that might mean something. Why does it feel like I should get it?
Metallic blue on the edges. Curves of red in there. Splashes of orangey yellow. It’s what my art teacher last year would call abstract, a word that means you ain’t figuring it out.
Instead of a squiggly line, the tag’s as beautiful as the rest of the art—a metal hook piercing a ball of fire. Keep staring and you see the flames flicker and fade and burst, you know, how fire changes nonstop but is always fire.
Crazy how something out there can match what I’m feeling inside. This piece gets me.
“Shit’s amazing,” Ruben says.
Art wonders if this genius was on LSD or something stronger. Jason says the guy has big balls, bombing in our hood.
True. Some guys around here will kick your ass for not belonging. I can’t imagine the beatdown you’d catch for coming here to bomb a building that ain’t yours.
Ruben says the guy’s taunting us. “’Cause ya know it took hours.”
They laugh when I tell them it could be a girl.
In the riot of colors I see eyes, right there in the middle, really sad or maybe tired. I got no idea what they, what any of it means.
I love the smooth glide of my bike, the wind whistling in my ears and blowing through my T-shirt, the distance I can cover without wearing down my kicks.
Obie ain’t allowed out past six on a school night so just four of us are rolling one behind the other in the warm, sticky air. Cars zip past, the asphalt rushes beneath us, and our bikes cast long shadows on the sidewalk and parking lots, turning us into monsters on stretchy wheels.
We don’t go riding much anymore since we stopped being little kids, but when exactly was that? There should be an official end-of-childhood day, one last time to play with Legos, pretend to be superheroes, and make up complicated handshakes. Then the next day you can start worrying about money, your virginity status, and if your breath stinks.
Every palm tree we pass makes me think of the book I’m supposed to read for English. It has a tree on the cover. That’s all I know ’cause I ain’t even cracked it open.
Oh, well. Making money’s more important.
They say money changes people. No kidding. I could have more shirts, keep my hair decent. Plus extra money to go out. Not that I’m gonna ask Amy on a fancy-pants date or nothing, but while hanging out she could get thirsty or hungry, and whether at the 7-Eleven or McDonald’s I gotta stand tall like a gentleman, dig into my pocket and be all, “Let me get that.”
“You best not fuck this up for me,” Art tells us for the third time. He needs us to be chill in the parking lots while he goes inside to chat up the managers.
Again we promise, put it on our moms’ lives, which I never have a problem doing.
At the first shopping center, Art hits the Hungry Howie’s while I go into the CVS. I’m thinking if someone’s going to pay for me to sweep, it will be the biggest business here.
“Excuse me, is the manager around?” I ask.
The lady looks up from the cash she’s bundling into a zipper bag and says, “That’s me.”
When I offer to sweep the parking lot she tells me that she could get an employee to do it. “Or else I’d have to pay you out of my own pocket.”
I wait.
“Which I wouldn’t do.”
Right. Why would she? I need to try smaller businesses, where the owner is around.
After Art comes out we keep riding up Dale Mabry, along more traffic, getting a little sweaty. Nobody has taken off their shirts yet, which I never like to do. I’m all skin and bones, no curves on my arms or nowhere else. If not for my nipples, you wouldn’t know where my stomach ends and my chest begins.
This could be a new city now with how different the buildings are. Bright-colored shopping plazas, no-litter parking lots, restaurants without drive-thrus, banks instead of check-cashing places.
At our tenth stop Art goes into Taco Bell and I dash over to the Ch
inese buffet, the smell of all that deliciousness hitting me at once. “All You Can Eat” is what the sign outside says, and I’d take that challenge, fill up my plate just like that guy in the Bucs jersey who’s balancing an egg roll on his food mountain.
I’ve always wanted to sit down in a restaurant to order food from a menu in my hands, but this is way better. Take what you want and no waiting.
I could work here. There’s a lot to do. Sweep the bits of food on the floor. Wipe the tables. Take those dishes in back to wash. Everything I do at home I can do here.
I walk over to the Chinese lady at the cash register. Standing straight and with my professional voice full of respect, I tell her I can clear the tables, sweep and mop the floors, wash the dishes.
“I have enough employees.”
“I’ll do it for cheaper.”
She laughs at that. When I don’t laugh, to make it clear I’m serious, she gives me a fake smile.
So I offer to sweep the parking lot. Lucky for me you can see some litter from here, edged against the curb separating this plaza from the other.
She waves her husband over. He looks suspiciously at me as he listens to her Chinese. She’s using a lot of words to say “This kid wants to sweep the parking lot.”
Finally he says, “You clean parking lot?”
“Yes.”
“Saturday morning, when no cars here, you sweep. Okay?”
“Okay.” He’s gone before I can thank him. The man didn’t even tell me his name or how much he’d give me.
I rejoin my boys outside the Taco Bell, happy about my job but a little bummed that I gotta wait for the weekend. Amy won’t see me with a fresh new look.
Ruben, standing in the shade of the drive-thru menu, says, “The heat has welded my nuts to my left leg.”
I pull at the front of my shirt, where it clings to a wet spot in the middle of my chest. “Don’t need status updates on your nuts.”
I’m thirsty again. During the third stop at the supermarket, we all gathered our jingle of coins for the purified water machine. We stuck our heads in there one at a time, mouths aimed upward. On my turn most of it splashed on my face and shirt. It felt great.
Jason busts another turn on his bike and goes for a front pogo, his rear wheel popping up. He slows to a stop. “Art’s either getting a job right now or fapping in the bathroom.”
“I’m rooting for the first one,” I say.
Nothing from Ruben. Since beefing with Jason earlier he ain’t talked much. I wanna ask him if he’s alright, but we don’t ask each other stuff like that.
Sometimes you dis someone hard and people are all, “I can’t believe you went there.” So many topics are like that—places we ain’t allowed to visit.
Me, I’m still thinking about Amy pretty much nonstop. If this gets any worse, I won’t be able to walk, talk, or function in any normal way. Basketball don’t take my mind off her, and this trip out here ain’t doing it neither.
Jason stops wheeling around to watch two girls coming over here, crossing the lot from the supermarket. Too bad for Ruben that it’s Gisela and her cousin.
Gisela takes off her sunglasses—blue eye shadow over brown eyes—and smiles. “Hey guys, what ya doing here?”
“Looking for hot girls.” I scan the parking lot. “Can’t find none so we better go.”
They laughing so I guess the cousin has learned some English. While they both Colombian, only the cousin’s from Colombia, still takes them immigrant classes.
Weird that I’m cool around girls I know, or when I ain’t trying to hook up, or when I know I can’t anyway. But put me in front of a girl I’m into and I become a stuttering, shaky fool.
“Wassup with you two?” Jason says.
“Her mom’s shopping for the lady she works for,” Gisela says. “We’re getting something to eat.”
Ruben’s ignoring both of them though he could have a shot with the short cousin. His Spanish is perfect, unlike mine. I’d need a bilingual dictionary or an interpreter to talk to the newly arrived girls.
“Catch ya guys around,” Gisela says, and we watch their bare legs until they disappear behind the tinted glass door of the Taco Bell.
Jason grins. “My future wife’s hot.”
Can’t blame him for saying that around Ruben. He don’t know what went down.
Halfway into last semester, me and Ruben was sitting in the back of geography when this new girl in tight-ass jeans walked in and sat down next to him, on the only free seat. One question from the hottie—Where’s the teacher?—and they was vibing.
What other kid can chat up girls that easy? Most of us need an introduction, and then we take super-slow, super-tiny baby steps to throwing game. Or else we tell a friend to tell her friend something and keep our fingers crossed.
After class, Gisela wrote her name and number on Ruben’s folder, dotted the i with a tiny heart. But when he called that evening she couldn’t talk, and the next day she somehow found another seat, closer to the front.
Though he shrugged it off, called her a tease, we both knew the deal.
Girls will go out with a boring guy, a pimpled guy, even a complete asshole. But if you’re their height or shorter, you might as well give up.
Whiteboy lands a 180 bunny hop and brakes. “Her cousin’s also fine,” he says, putting one foot on the ground. “Too bad I don’t habla español. Ruben, why didn’t you ask them girls to check out your Instagram?”
Ruben’s squinting at him.
“And let them see you shirtless, check out all your miniature bodybuilding muscles.” Jason laughs. “Ya can hook up just like with them other girls.”
“Shut up.”
“Ruben the pimp-midget Cuban.”
Ruben’s off his bike and charging. He throws a right hook. Jason bends outta the way, he and his bike crashing on the asphalt.
These idiots! We promised Art!
Before Jason gets up I rush to bear-hug Ruben who easily shoves me off. I tell them both to chill—a total waste of breath. This is already a fight, my two boys squared up and circling.
Though Jason can throw hands and is tall with crazy long reach, Ruben lifts every day, can probably hit harder. A pretty even match. What else can I do but watch and come up with Joe Rogan–type predictions?
Ruben throws a jab and misses. When a fist catches him on the forehead he staggers back. Now he’s raging forward, thick arms pumping, and shoulder-slams Jason against a Ford Explorer, whose long legs are air-bound for a second. The alarm goes off.
The dozen people in Taco Bell are on their feet watching Jason and Ruben get tangled on the asphalt. Gisela and her cousin have come out for a better view. My boys are flopping around, one arm holding on tight while the other tries to land a punch, both refusing to let go. It’s getting pathetic.
The stocky black manager with a tie and name tag rushes outta the Taco Bell shouting, “This is a family restaurant!”
Art trails behind, looking angrier.
The man pulls Jason and Ruben apart with ease. “Both of you just take it easy, alright?”
But this fight ain’t over. Not even close. We gotta get the hell outta here, but these idiots are circling the man, murderous eyes locked, waiting for a clean shot.
Art’s watching this with a bagged black shirt in his hand. He got the job! Wait, will he lose it now? I notice the huge stitch job on the side of his jeans, the jeans that’ll soon rip somewhere else, eventually be unfixable, and though I ain’t supposed to get sad for myself, much less for others, I can’t help it. I feel something inside me break into a hundred pieces.
“Peace it out,” I tell the dumbfucks. Then I do something super stupid. I turn to Art again, for a moment too long, and with that the manager knows we all here together.
“We already called the cops,” the man says, standing between the fighters again.
All four fists drop.
The manager goes and snatches the black shirt from Art’s hand. “You get lost too.”
Art’s staring down at his empty hands like he’s lost in a dream or like there really is something in them, maybe a crystal ball showing him the future.
The rest of us shout for him to hurry, already on our bikes.
“Cops” is all we had to hear.
9
LATER THAT week, outside of Future Success, I slap hands with Zach and bump fists, without thinking, like he’s my homie from Maesta or something.
He says, “Ready to succeed?”
“Yep.”
He has one of them old-school abuelo shirts today.
“Nice guayabera,” I tell him.
“Muchas gracias,” he says, smoothing down the rows of pleats on his black shirt.
I noticed him during lunch today, rehearsing some sorta play with two girls on the grass between halls. I mention that to him.
“Yeah, it’s for a play coming up. You should come.”
I’m thinking about the few times I’ve had to get in front of a classroom to speak, and that’s no more than thirty kids. “Ain’t you nervous in front of all them people?”
“I probably will be, but I have to get used to it. I want to be a professional actor.”
He’s the second kid I know who has his future planned. Obie is sure he’ll be a physicist. How about me? I can’t think of a single thing I’d like to do besides basketball, and I probably won’t be good enough for the NBA.
Zach tells me that he’s got a big box of clothes and hats at home, stuff from the Salvation Army. Just for fun, all by himself, he’ll sometimes act out favorite movie scenes.
I gotta give him props, confessing to that weirdness.
“Move it!” says a girl’s voice.
I check behind me. It’s my girl Amy, blowing a bubble with her gum. Just before the expanding pink bubble touches her nose she pops it.
I step away from the doorway to let her pass. If she’s being an asshole to me, maybe I should be an asshole to her. Would that work?
The bell rings and we head inside.
I had the two-seater table to myself last week but now Zach sits next to me. So we hanging out during this class. Afterward, it’s gonna be harder to talk to Amy but it’s on no matter what. It’s just me and my ratty gray tee, my holey sneakers, and whatever comes to mind.