The Closest I've Come

by Fred Aceves

  “Is there something you’d like to tell me about home?” He stays put but somehow he feels closer now, like he’s all up in my space.

  “Life sucks for some people, Mr. Breckner. I guess that’s all I’m saying.”

  “I’m sure it does.” He nods.

  I almost mention Brian, come super close to opening up for the second time today. Then I think of something else. “Ya know why Zach ain’t here?”

  “No.”

  “His mom is dying. She might be dead already.”

  With the way Breckner’s face just hangs there you’d think I slapped him. I think back to the time I gave him the finger. I remember some of what I’d wanted to say.

  You ain’t supposed to teach teachers anything, but if he don’t want me bullshitting him, he ain’t bullshitting me.

  “You don’t got us figured out. Nobody does. We don’t even got us figured out. So maybe you could stop talking to us like we lazy and got it easy? Maybe we suck at school ’cause life sucks for us.” I don’t say it mean at all. I say it nice.

  He takes his time nodding and considering what I said. “You’re right, Marcos. Of course you’re right.”

  I’m right? Did a grown-up just say that?

  He asks, “Is everything okay, Marcos?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He turns to me, expecting more. “Just know you can talk to me about anything. Alright?”

  For some reason I believe him. “Sure.”

  We having a conversation for the first time. Before now it was just him, the knower, passing on the knowledge. Now we taking turns talking and listening.

  “Not just about school,” he adds. “About anything.”

  It’s more than nice of him to say that. Maybe this is gonna sound crazy, ’cause you supposed to respect meanness instead of niceness, but I respect Breckner right now. More than ever.

  I stare through the big windshield and try not to think of me alone with Brian. The beautiful night helps, the Gulf of Mexico glistening on both sides of the highway and there, in the distance, blurry dots sparkle from Tampa buildings.

  I could get up now but I want what just happened to sink in for me. And I want it to sink in for Breckner too.

  “Listen, Marcos,” Breckner says, talking in a softer voice. “Perhaps you have problems at home, and perhaps school seems trivial in light of those problems. Kids work hard when supportive grown-ups encourage them. But I want you to know something. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  I nod.

  “Your teachers and parents not caring doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care. In fact, it means you should care more.”

  I think about what that means. It’s like balling with fewer teammates, I guess. The harder it is to win, the harder you play. I got no mom on my team, no dad to get up off the bench to help out. It’s on me to do good in life, and school is the one good thing in my life. My only ticket outta Maesta.

  How weird that I do care more at this moment. It’s got something to do with Breckner caring, which sorta goes against what he said.

  “Thanks, Mr. Breckner,” I say.

  I get up, walk slowly to the back of the bus, my heart pounding, and take my seat next to Brian.

  He nods like he’s plotting revenge. “When we get home,” he says, and downs the rest of the beer in one gulp.

  I wanna be fearless. I got another three years before I can live freely. Until then, there’ll be more disses and humiliations, more chokings and punches. No choice there. But I get to choose if I’ll be afraid or not.

  I take a deep breath and turn to him, already trembling. “When we get home? Ya didn’t complete the sentence, dipshit.”

  Brian’s jaw clenches and pictures flash in my head. Me dead from strangulation. Me lying in a coffin. My mom acting sad at the funeral.

  Brian’s voice lowers to a whisper. “Listen, you little—”

  “Just complete the sentence, dipshit. When we get home . . . ,” I say, my heart thumping. “How about ‘When we get home I’ll drink more beer’? Or ‘When we get home I’ll bake some cupcakes’?”

  The bus pulls into the school parking lot and hisses to a stop. Above us the lights snap on, shining yellow throughout.

  “Just wait ’til we get home,” he says.

  Rock music’s blasting in Brian’s Hyundai, the tiny speakers rattling in the doors as we head to Maesta. Back in the day, before rust chipped off over the wheels, a teenage girl mighta considered this green hatchback a cute ride.

  I’m trying to keep my mind busy, thinking about the car and music, looking at the buildings we pass, thinking about anything except what’s gonna happen to me at home.

  Brian turned up the stereo as soon as the car cranked and it’s been playing loud ever since, an actual rock CD from the nineties—Soundgarden. Both of his hands grip the steering wheel and not one word outta his mouth yet, which is freaking me out. Hardly a car out tonight as Brian drives down the streets, probably thinking about all sorts of ways to bring pain to me when we get home.

  If I was a punkass snitch I coulda called the cops a long time ago. What should I do instead? Don’t know, but Brian ain’t gonna touch me. Not tonight.

  Nah, scratch that. Never again. Tonight I crash with one of my boys. Tomorrow I figure out my next move.

  While swinging a left into Maesta, the music still blasting, Brian don’t slow down and I bounce against the door. We pass the older guys by the thumping blue Mazda who turn to watch us when a guitar solo cuts through their hip-hop.

  Art and Jason are practicing shots from the bottom corner of the court, the only spot to see the hoop this late, a little light from building J angling onto it. They smile at the craziness of me rocking out with Brian.

  Smiling ’cause they got no idea, but that’s gonna change.

  Brian turns his head to give me a murderer look. It scares me so much that I know tonight I’m gonna tell my boys about Brian. I gotta look out for me. That no-snitching rule seems really stupid right now.

  Brian parks in front of our door. Before he kills the engine I hop out and head to the court.

  “Where ya think you’re going?” he asks. I keep moving. After a few more steps his voice shoots down the parking lot. “Get your ass over here!”

  I make a run for the court. Then I turn my head to see Brian trailing behind. That’s when I slip, my hands catching my fall some before my chest slams against the asphalt.

  I hop up and try to pick up speed again, arms pumping, but my T-shirt yanks me back. Brian’s got me. I shout “Help!” once before his hand covers my mouth. His other arm lifts me kicking the air. He squeezes tighter, breathing heavy as he muscles me forward. He’s taking me home.

  My mom’s standing in the doorway. “What’s going on?”

  “Fucking move,” he says, outta breath.

  Brian carries me onto the porch and shoves me in the house. I tumble on the living room floor, one hand slowing my fall before my hip thuds. I get up with some trouble, pull the cell outta my pocket, and dial the three numbers. As Brian closes the door I wait for a voice. I try to run off but my right leg can barely move.

  “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

  Brian rushes at me. That’s when I throw the phone at him and hear my mom shout, “No!”

  20

  “DON’T TOUCH your face,” a voice says.

  A blazing brightness from the ceiling makes my eyes go tight. My head throbs. When I reach up to rub my eyes someone grabs my hands.

  “Don’t,” the same voice says. It’s my mom.

  As the light messes with my vision I spot another bed in the room and what looks like a file cabinet. I’m in the hospital.

  A blurry cop walks in. “Marcos, I’m Officer Clemins.”

  The big man comes into focus. He’s tall, muscled under the fatness, like a retired football player who now eats at buffets. I wonder if he was there, at my house. Guy woulda crushed Brian like a bug.

  “Just a minute,” my mom says. />
  She’s in the chair next to me, her fingers wrapped over mine. Lightly squeezing my fingers. Her hands ain’t hot or cold. Ain’t sticky or dry. They feel just right. The throbbing in my head calms down.

  “Ma’am?” the cop says, taking another step. “You’ll have to wait outside.”

  My hands used to be smaller than hers and one day they’ll be bigger. Right now, though, they the same size. The thickness of the fingers and everything.

  “Just a minute with my son, please,” she says, turning to me. “Marcos, you’re going to answer some questions, but I need you to listen to me.”

  “Ma’am? I need to speak with Marcos alone.”

  The cop’s standing next to my bed. My mom’s got the same face she has on when the car don’t start. She gives my hands a final squeeze before letting go.

  “I’ll be right outside, honey.”

  Honey? She ain’t never called me that before. This could be the start of something new, just me and my mom, no new boyfriend around to mess up our lives.

  The cop wants the story straight from me. I’m ready to tell it—that Brian wrestled me into the house, that I threw the phone to protect myself. Don’t remember what happened after the swing.

  To make sure Brian never comes back to mess with me again, I’m gonna give the cop every detail from the last year. But first I gotta pee.

  In the bathroom mirror I look at my face. Damn! My left cheek’s puffy, purplish around the bandage. A thin red line has seeped through the white patch. I peel the gauze back and it freaks me out. Six blue stitches over a gash caked with blood. I cover it quick, feeling nothing ’cause that area is numb.

  My tongue feels something on the inside of my cheek. I turn it inside out until it feels weird, and see another blue thread—five more stitches. It gets me raging pissed, thinking of payback. Going at Brian’s face with a baseball bat.

  But he’s in jail no doubt, and that’s where I’m making sure he stays.

  Yeah, I’m telling the cop everything and it won’t even feel like snitching. Why should it? I ain’t getting somebody in trouble for the hell of it.

  Just like Art’s little brother wasn’t snitching when he told Art about the bully who made him kiss his shoe at school. The next day we came up on the kid walking home and pinned him down, his three friends scattering like roaches when the lights switch on. We threatened to stab the kid in the neck with a pencil if he fucked with Trey again.

  The way I’m looking at it, you gotta protect yourself no matter what, and sometimes you need help with that.

  Back in the hospital room a nurse comes through with a tray of food. The bed’s set up like a comfy recliner. On a table attached to it she places the tray with plain pasta, a chicken thigh, and green beans. There’s also a carton of milk and a fruit cup.

  “Chew on the right side of your mouth, dear, and don’t eat the oranges, which may irritate your wound.”

  She tells me the medicine will make me drowsy so I should sleep as much as I can. When she leaves, the cop sits in my mom’s chair.

  “Go ahead and eat your dinner, Marcos, but I need to ask you some questions, alright?”

  Instead of waiting for an answer, he asks me how the incident began.

  I start with the part about getting outta Brian’s car and I end with the punch. The cop’s writing everything down in a little notepad.

  He wants to hear about previous incidents. I fill him in on the punches, the body slams, all of it.

  How dope to let him in on every detail, knowing I ain’t gotta deal with Brian ever again.

  When the cop stops scribbling, he says, “Has your mother ever hit you or—”

  “No.”

  He fires more questions, the same ones in different ways, either confused or trying to confuse me, writing maybe one word for every ten I say.

  “Has your mother ever witnessed Brian doing any of these things?”

  “No.”

  The easiest lie ever told. He can pull out that revolver and demand the truth with it pointed at my head. Still I’d tell him the same.

  “She didn’t even know about it,” I say.

  Though I got questions for the cop, it seems he ain’t even close to done. He keeps interviewing and jotting away, fist wiggling. I respond “yes” or “no” or “I already told you.”

  With the right side of my mouth I’m working on the flavorless chicken and pasta, wondering if I can undo the stitches with all this chewing.

  “Marcos, be honest with me.” He’s looking at me for the first time since the questions started. “Are you trying to protect your mother?”

  I take a gulp of milk to help push down the dry chicken. “No, I already told ya.”

  Rat out my own mom? Yeah, right. I peel the plastic wrap off my fruit cup.

  “No oranges,” he says. “Don’t forget.”

  I almost laugh at that. A cop looking out for me. When there’s a pause in the questions I got some for him.

  “Were ya there?”

  “No,” he says, looking through his notes.

  “Do ya know what happened after I got knocked out?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  He raises his eyes from the notepad. “Your neighbors showed up.”

  Maesta got my back.

  21

  THIS MORNING my head don’t feel so heavy and the buzz between my ears is less buzzy than yesterday. That’s the only way I can describe it, a buzz I feel and sometimes hear.

  Dr. Winfield, a robot with a clipboard, told me I needed to rest. With every visit to my room he becomes less human, that fake one-second smile and those dead eyes, so next time I’m expecting him to come in all, “Beep beep boop boop.” He said that when Brian punched me and I fell, I hit the back of my head. The robot doctor said something about motor skills and balance, which means my basketball game might suffer, and something about concentration, which could mess me up during all the studying I’ll start doing, all that catching up I gotta do.

  Nurse Rita hurries in with a tray of food in one hand. “The best resort in Florida, with room service breakfast,” she says, rounding the bed and going for the curtain. Each yank of the cord brings in more sunlight. She presents the window with a fancy roll of her hand, like a hostess on a game show. “And a spectacular ocean view.”

  It’s actually a view of the parking lot, but with how happy she is you’d think this was the beach, her favorite place to be.

  She sets down the tray.

  I liked the day nurse Rita as soon as I met her this morning. Her question ¿Cómo te sientes? I could answer okay, and when we had to switch to English she didn’t get annoyed. Other people treat you like some kind of traitor for not knowing good Spanish, like classes were free and you refused to show up.

  Breakfast looks great—scrambled eggs, toast, jelly and butter in tiny cups. Apple juice. A banana that’s too bright yellow to be ripe.

  I switch on the TV with a remote I ain’t gotta bang on my leg first. I sit up comfortable, two pillows supporting my back. A sip of the sweet apple juice cools my throat. I could live in this place.

  After a shampoo commercial, news comes on about an accident on I-75. Then, just as I’m taking a bite into my sweet, buttery toast, I see a photo of him on TV. It’s Brian, no mustache, with hair to his shoulders.

  My heart drops. The panic of last night comes back.

  I turn the volume up to hear the newslady:

  A Tampa man is in Hillsborough County jail after police say he committed assault and battery on his girlfriend’s son, a fifteen-year-old boy. The attack took place at their home around nine thirty p.m. Carver Shepard, thirty-six years old, has been the main suspect sought by police in connection with the meth lab explosion in Zephyrhills last November that killed two people.

  The arrest report states that Shepard, who has been living under the alias Brian Johnson, hit the boy before neighbors intervened. The boy was taken to the hospital, where he will remain until he rec
overs from his injuries.

  A search of the court records shows Shepard has prior convictions, one for DUI manslaughter and another for grand theft pertaining to a vehicle he purchased from a Broward County auto dealership with a closed bank account.

  So Brian is actually “Carver,” a career criminal on the run. Hiding out in my house for almost a year!

  Did my mom know? What will she say about it now? If she was feeling bad last night, sitting beside my hospital bed, she must feel worse now, but I ain’t gonna enjoy it. Now that it’s just me and my mom, I’m ready to forget everything, to start fresh.

  And it hits me that I’m a celebrity. Sorta. They didn’t mention my name but my boys must know what went down and are probably spreading it around school.

  I want more news, more information on Brian. When I find a report on another channel, it shows the same goofy mug shot, gives the same details.

  About an hour later Rita drops by again and tells me I can’t check outta here until my mom comes, that I’m supposed to stay in bed, but I can wander nearby.

  “I gotta keep this hospital thingy on?” I still refuse to call it a gown. This ain’t the prom and I’m no girl.

  Rita nods like it’s bad news for everybody. “Hospital rules.”

  So all day I’m lying down on the comfy bed. That’s how my boys find me, during a Fresh Prince rerun. I’m shocked stupid, can’t get a word out.

  Art and Ruben are smiling. Jason too, though he’s got a nickel-sized bruise under an eye. They slapping me on the shoulder like I sunk the winning shot, all “When ya getting out?” and “Do it hurt?”

  They tell me Obie will be by later, and I know it’s ’cause of his deliveries.

  They lean in for a close-up. When I show them under the gauze, they make painful noises, faces bunching up.

  An Indian doctor with a dark tie pauses in the doorway to say, “Please keep your voices down.”

  My boys obey. Ruben even apologizes. Go figure.

  “That was close,” Ruben says, and peeks in the hall.

  “Wait,” I said. “Did you guys sneak past reception?”