by Fred Aceves
Today Breckner ain’t pacing. Straight as a flagpole, he says, “Let’s consider some statistics. Out of the two hundred and thirty-three sophomores in this school, at least two of you will be lawyers or teachers. At least one of you will be an engineer. Another will be a surgeon. These are the good jobs that require education. Many of you will work terrible jobs for terrible wages. The choice is yours.”
Yep, he’s talking about the future again.
I guess he don’t think our lives are real yet, that what I’m dealing with is only preparation for what’s coming.
He holds up them scary green sheets of paper. “I have asked your teachers for progress reports based on the first weeks of the semester.” He walks up and down the rows handing out the unofficial report cards, also thick envelopes for our parents.
It’s all Fs on my sheet except for one C, thanks to Mr. Dawson. He’s the fresh-out-of-college teacher who promised me easy grades in geography if I could hook him up just once, so he could find a local connection. When he called my name after class that day I thought I was in trouble, but he was just a new guy in town wanting to score weed.
On the bottom of the sheet, the teacher comments say, Doesn’t put in enough effort and Doesn’t do homework.
The usual. It makes me sound lazy in general which I’m not. I spend hours looking for work and would spend hours working if somebody would pay me. It’s just that school don’t make much sense no matter how much I try to pay attention or care about homework.
“These envelopes contain information about Future Success. It’s for your parents to look over, in case they haven’t or can’t visit the website.”
That’s my mom—hasn’t and can’t. And won’t.
“You need to buckle down and get your grades up immediately. Okay, people? Though you all have great potential, you won’t achieve success until you tap into it. You need to care about yourselves as much as your teachers and parents care.”
A few huffs rise. Some kids are shaking their heads all pissed off. Amy lets out a “Yeah, right!” and I cough out the word “Bullshit!” at the same time, but she don’t notice. She’s hunched over her notebook, doodling. Openly ignoring Breckner.
Our reactions stun him. I’m sorta surprised too. With so many kids here on the principal’s shit list, I figured this class would slip into chaos quick, but so far it’s been chill, no reason to press the red button.
Breckner’s gaze sweeps over the room like he lost something. “Excuse me?”
Not one word from us.
Amy raises her head from the notebook and brushes the bangs away from her eyes. “Mr. Breckner? No offense or nothing, but you’re talking out your butt.” She’s staring him down like with Uppercut on that day I fell in love.
“Yeah.” This from the normally mute goth kid by the pencil sharpener. “You don’t know squat about our parents and teachers.”
The room goes rowdy with everybody agreeing.
“Okay, people. Settle down.”
We start to and Breckner gets back on his positive kick. That smiling’s gotta be like a stutter—hard to get rid of.
“All I’m asking is for you to consider your futures. It may be fun to live carefree but the future is coming. It’s coming whether you’re ready or not.”
Just like last Friday it’s future, future, future. I can’t stand it anymore. I wish a time machine could zap Breckner into the future and keep him there.
He tells us we’ll do an activity and gets to handing out the sheets of paper. “Where do you see yourselves in five, ten years?” The handout in front of me says “Life Map” on the top. Blank spaces all over, diagonal arrows connecting them.
“How do you plan to achieve your goals?” he asks, setting a handout beside Amy’s notebook. “What is it you want?” He hands one to a kid who mumbles something.
Me, I want Brian dead. Stabbed about a thousand times. Where’s the blank space for that?
There’s a space for college (four years) and a space for a master’s degree (another two years). I try to picture me in one of them super-smart colleges where ropy plants crawl over the old brick buildings. At the graduation ceremony my mom shows up ’cause you can’t shrug off success like that, can’t help but take proud photos of your son in a judge robe and square hat.
How come it’s so hard to hold them thoughts in my head? It could happen, I guess, though most people in Maesta go to jail instead of college. I don’t know nobody who’s gone past high school. Don’t even know anybody with a really good job besides Carlos, Jason’s neighbor, who manages the Dollar Mart. He walks around the air-conditioned store rocking a vest and tie, with a card attached to a string on a belt loop for swiping through cash registers. Carlos gives orders to the workers or else hangs out in the office, but how good’s that job, really, if he’s still living in Maesta?
Breckner says, “First jot down a few professions that appeal to you. It could be anything as long as—” He narrows his eyes at Amy, who ain’t even glanced at the handout yet. So focused on her drawing that she don’t notice Breckner going over to her.
“Doodle another time!” Breckner closes her notebook.
The room goes quiet. Amy, mouthy with kids and grown-ups, just sits there looking up at him, open jawed, nothing in her mouth but air.
Last week Breckner had our attention and now that it’s gone, so is his smile. He’s pissed. Watching him do that to Amy, I’m also pissed. I wanna stand up for her. For me too. I wanna be brave like she was with Uppercut.
“All we ever do is talk about the stupid future,” I say. “How ’bout the present?”
A bunch of comments pop up, stuff like “Yeah!” and “That’s right!”
Amy turns, like she feels what I’m saying.
I hope she does. The world’s so fucked that my imagination can’t reach past the three years before my life becomes my own. Zach’s gotta be feeling hopeless too. Teachers want him to solve equations, memorize dates, and write stupid information in stupid blank spaces, all while his mom might die in the next second.
Every eye in the room’s on me. All you hear is Breckner’s shoes squeaking over. He ain’t tall, especially for a grown man, but right now, standing in front of me, he’s eight feet of towering teacher rage. “I need everybody’s attention, Marcos. We are not to be doodling. We are considering our futures.”
I stare back at Breckner, the idiot. What should I tell him? I could say that picturing the future’s hard when messing with today takes all you got. That doodling feels good. It might be the best thing we can do, letting something inside us come out.
But saying that to a teacher? With everybody staring?
So I show him my middle finger. “Consider this!”
The classroom explodes with cheers and applause. Mess with the girl I like, that’s how I do it.
Then my heart starts beating like mad. What’s gonna happen to me?
Breckner comes over to me so quick I think he’s gonna punch me or something. He makes the get-up gesture, palm up, fingers closing over it twice. He just wants me out.
As he’s leading me out the door to the sound of all that applause, I feel like a hero. For Amy and everybody else.
I sit on the hall floor by the drinking fountain to wait for class to end. Me and Zach walk home together—that’s my excuse, but mostly I’m thinking about Amy and how much easier it will be talking to her now.
From here I see the fish tank through the glass wall of the principal’s office. I get up and walk over there. The office is empty, looks almost peaceful. As usual, the fish don’t seem to notice me. Nobody expects anything from these guys, swimming around a tank. Must be nice.
I count fourteen again, and wonder if Breckner will kick me out of his class for good and if I’d even care if it wasn’t for Amy. I think I would. I don’t love talking about the future or staying an extra half hour every Friday, but I like that someone believed in me enough to put me in that class.
I wanna believe in me too
.
The class door opens. Here they come, all smiles, telling me how great that was, giving me the thumbs-up. Two kids high-five me. The metalhead who hangs with Amy nods as he passes.
Amy trails behind them and sticks around. After everybody except Zach takes off she walks up.
“That was awesome.”
She really just said that. Used that word. And since I did that awesome thing maybe that makes me awesome?
“Thanks.”
“For real, I’d totally slap your palm but I don’t do high fives.”
Zach grins like a villain. “You can kiss him.”
Amy laughs. Her in front of me and that sweet sounding laugh is better than a million congratulations from a million kids.
“What’s your name?” she says.
“Marcos Rivas.” I actually say both names and hold my hand out.
A dorky move. Now what? Dropping my hand would be doing the robot so might as well leave it there, between us.
“Wow. Formal.” She pumps my hand up and down twice, like I just sold her a car. “Amy Carrington. Pleasure to meet you.”
I roll with her joke and say, “This is my associate, Zach.”
“Hi.” Then he turns to me. “Gotta get something from my locker.” He takes off, and I almost love him for that.
It’s only me and Amy in the hall now.
“I know you just spoke your mind in there,” Amy says. “But you also spoke my mind. Plus you flipped him off, so thank you.”
“No problem.”
“I didn’t say anything because . . . I don’t know. I was in shock.” She moves her binder from one hand to the other. “He’s usually super nice. Clueless, but at least he seems to give a shit.”
Is that true? He’s got enthusiasm, that’s for sure, always trying to give us some, pushing us to do better in all them classes that ain’t got nothing to do with him.
“I guess that’s true,” I say. “He cares, but not for doodling.”
We start toward the school exit, passing the computer club kids in room 208.
“It’s only us and the after-school nerds here,” I say.
“We’re sorta after-school nerds too.” I love the way she says we.
“Sorta,” I say. “Breckner and some teachers think we got nerd potential.”
We walking and talking so naturally it’s almost like I could reach over and hold her hand.
Zach’s waiting by the “Welcome to Hanna High” bulletin board. “Have you two kissed yet?”
“Turn around,” Amy tells him, twirling a finger in the air.
I laugh while Zach actually turns around and Amy rolls her eyes. I’m still laughing when Amy plants a kiss on my cheek.
It’s a speedy peck but it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.
10
ME AND Amy sitting together at our own cafeteria table, her giving me the rest of her fries, us hanging out at the mall, at her house, us mixing with each other’s friends—ain’t none of that happened yet.
I know a kiss don’t magically turn a girl into your girlfriend, especially if it’s a peck on the cheek, not a make-out session. Still, I expected something. To at least talk and get to know her. But I’ve barely seen her around school in the six days since that kiss.
I ain’t been able to think of anything else. On Saturday I swept the parking lot of the Chinese buffet. Mr. Zeng paid me ten bucks and told me try back in a month. With the money I already had, that was enough for a haircut and a new solid black T-shirt, which I’m wearing now.
Looking as sharp as I’ve ever looked, I’m feeling pretty good, and I ain’t trying to wait for Future Success tomorrow. When the last bell rings I bolt over to 127, the art room, where I saw Amy go in a few weeks back.
When I spot the back of her head coming outta there, the brown hair with blue streaks, I take longer, quicker steps to catch up. Then I slow down to run into her by chance.
“Hey, Amy.”
She stops. “Marcos Rivas.”
We stand in the middle of the hall as kids stream past us on either side. Her smile jumbles up my brain. I can’t think of what to say, can’t remember what I planned to say. If I had a plan at all.
“So . . . Amy . . . wanna hang out sometime?”
She’s considering it, giving me an extra-slow nod that might last forever. What’s coming will either make me crazy happy or make me wanna take a running dive off the school roof.
“Okay,” she says. “Follow me.”
She means now. Being real with this girl works! We walking through noise and bodies. What if my boys see us? I don’t wanna explain Amy until there’s a reason to.
“Where we going?” I ask her.
“Someplace private.”
I see Art toss a book into his locker while Obie waits with a fully loaded backpack. He’ll drop the books off at his aunt’s, stuff the backpack up with drugs, do the deliveries, then grab his books again before going home.
With his job and the Bible study and church twice a week and the homework he does, I hardly see him anymore. Good money or not, it makes no sense for one of the best students in school to be dealing.
Art spots me first and then Obie looks over. Later, if my boys ask, I’ll tell them we was going to detention.
Super popular Tina and her two hot friends, the Tina Trio, are coming our way. They teen-movie popular, the sophomore version, and move through the halls like they doing you a big favor by being there. As always, I try not to look. Let the other guys fall over each other to stare with tongues and eyes popping out. I ain’t with giving these stuck-ups the satisfaction.
“Those girls are the worst,” Amy says, and zags left.
The trio come to a sudden stop.
Amy beams a huge smile at them. “Hi, skanks.”
A thrill shoots through me. Now I’m watching closely.
Tina’s eyes sweep down Amy’s body and back up. “Excuse me?”
“Your outfits are adorable,” Amy says in an extra-girly voice. “I’ll come over later than usual today to listen to crappy pop music and invent rumors to spread. I’m gonna get a spray tan first so I can be bright orange like you.”
After a moment of shocked silence Tina says, “Whatever.”
“What’s the deal with you?” Amy asks the other two. “I called you all skanks. Does Queen Skank need to give you permission to speak?”
Say that to a Maesta girl and she’ll take off her earrings, but here the Tina Trio just stand around blinking.
The one with the braces finally says, “Who are you?”
“I’m the girl you were talking about during lunch today. My friend heard it.” She’s looking all hard at each girl. “So now I’m giving you a chance to say it to my face.” When their cheeks go red Amy says, “Thought so.”
And we take off. I’m laughing and following Amy as she turns down the other hall.
“That was great,” I tell her. “You’re my hero.”
“Now we’re even.”
When we outside and passing the gym it hits me that she might be . . . No way. Really? Could she be taking me to the dugout? Why are my palms sweating?
Stuff happens in the dugout. Secret stuff like your best friend showing you molly, meth, and weed in his backpack. Plus less secret things like people making out during school dances or Alex and Liz banging, according to rumors. Now I wonder if it’s a place where love can show up.
We cross the baseball field. Step inside the dugout and sit on the cracked plank of wood.
She says, “I’m not a big fan of the sun.”
I love the sun, could be president of its fan club, but I don’t say nothing.
She unzips a coin purse and pulls out a tiny pipe, grainy and gray like a stone.
“I pinch so little that my mom never notices.”
“Cool.”
And I guess it is cool though I ain’t into weed. It can make you forget your sadness, sure, and gets you thinking big important thoughts. But when the high bec
omes low your mood drops and it hits you that the thoughts wasn’t very big or important.
A breeze comes through carrying Amy’s sweet scent. I wonder if it’s her soap, shampoo, perfume, or a bunch of scents that make her smell like a basket of fruit.
She hands over the packed pipe with the lighter. I take a big toke, the smoke warm and thick in my lungs until they feel a pinch and I’m coughing.
“Lightweight,” she says. “Don’t you guys ‘spark blunts’ all the time?” She giggles at that.
“Funny,” I say. “Don’t ya punks usually shoot heroin with shared needles?”
Which gets me a smile.
Right away the weed’s lifting me, shedding my nervousness. But that’s just how it starts. Weed makes other things better. If aspirin’s for headaches and backaches, then weed might be for all the hurt that comes from having nobody to vibe with, from empty fridges and mean words shot your way on the daily, from pushing the pain deep down when it’s trying to tear itself out.
When you high, that stuff don’t matter. When you high, that stuff don’t even exist.
As my brain buzzes beautifully, I look past the baseball field to the blue sky in the distance, above the squat houses across the street, the sunshine bright on everything except us, me and Amy, in the cool shade of the dugout. Everywhere the talk of birds fills the warm air.
The grass sparkles with water spurting from the jerky sprinklers going tak, tak, tak, such an amazing sound, the sunlight catching in the water, flashing rainbows, such an amazing sight, and what an amazing thing water is, so necessary ’cause we drink it, ’cause it drops from clouds so plants and food can grow, and it hits me that water’s the only thing in the world that can’t get wet, ’cause that’s what water is.
“Dude, you’re way high.”
I snap into the world again to notice Amy staring at me. “Not really.”
“Shoulda seen your face. Like you were figuring out the secret of the universe. Or taking a dump.”
“I was thinking.”