The Closest I've Come

by Fred Aceves

  Ruben nods.

  Ain’t no secret that being Maesta poor makes us different from them girls and everybody else, but saying it out loud changes them as much as it changes me. We been hanging out for years, talking about everything except what’s going on deep down with us, so now it’s like we just became friends for real.

  That openness I had yesterday with Zach and Amy I could have with my own boys, so something else gets knocked loose inside me. Right here, outside the Florida Palms Mall, while the sun’s baking our heads, I decide to go for it.

  “You know these last weeks I ain’t hung out? I was bummed about Amy.”

  I fill them in on Amy since the beginning, how I was thinking love when it was just friends. I tell them everything straight through to the end.

  “If I ever get sad like that again, I ain’t staying in my house. Fuck that. One of you is gonna get a visit from me.”

  “Sure,” my boys tell me. “Anytime.”

  This letting go of what’s inside is totally unlike me, and you know what? I’m totally into it. I think they might be too.

  I turn to Obie. “That’s why I didn’t write these last weeks.”

  “Don’t sweat it.”

  Art lets out a big sigh. “Seeing Asha with Rich Boy didn’t surprise me none.”

  “At least you’ve had a girlfriend,” Obie says.

  “Yeah,” Ruben says.

  “There’s always next year,” Art says.

  Although it’s hard to tell if this cheers anybody up, he’s right to be thinking of the future.

  “That’s the good thing about being totally screwed,” I tell them, and can’t help but smile. “Things can only get better for us.”

  Everyone laughs except Art.

  “As long as we don’t go to jail,” he says.

  “We ain’t going to jail,” Obie says. “That’s over with.”

  “Or as long as we don’t get shot,” Art says.

  Cedric on the sidewalk, blood oozing outta a hole in his stomach.

  “We ain’t getting shot and we ain’t going to jail,” I say. “We getting outta Maesta.”

  “How’s that?” Jason asks.

  Only Obie knows where I’m going with this.

  “You got a rich daddy?” Obie asks. “Can you rap? You good enough to play for the NBA? How you gonna get out?”

  “School,” Ruben says.

  “High school ain’t got shit on me,” I say. “I’m crushing it the next two years and then I’m making college my bitch.”

  Which gets them all laughing again, even Art.

  A security guard comes outta the mall to stand in the thin strip of shade in front. I’m so not in the mood for this today. I’ll ignore him. I turn to Jason who’s silent as always, a faraway look on his face.

  “You okay, man?” I ask him.

  “Yeah, Whiteboy,” Art says. “Why don’t ya ever say shit?”

  Jason shrugs. Without a bike, he don’t make much sense. Even when he’s balling with us it seems like he should be off on his own, wheeling around and doing tricks. It’s his thing.

  Ruben says, “What ya think about all this?”

  Jason takes a deep breath. He looks down like he dropped something, then raises his eyes to us. “I want ya guys to stop calling me Whiteboy.”

  The rest of us look at each other. I wonder who started the nickname years back. Maybe that’s who better apologize. I guess it don’t matter though. We all do it.

  “I won’t say it again,” I say.

  Obie pats him on the back. “That Whiteboy stuff was just messing around.”

  Could it be that Jason has something else in common with me and don’t like being alone? Maybe feeling different’s the reason he spends so much time by himself.

  I ask, “Ya know we down for ya, right?”

  “Uh-huh, sure.”

  Jason don’t say nothing for a while and then pulls from his back pocket a rectangle of paper and holds it out. “Since we talking about stuff . . .”

  I unfold the paper and find a drawing done in colored pencils. Graffiti on paper. I recognize the style from the buildings in Maesta. In my hands is a future mural! Right there, at the bottom corner, is the hook and fireball tag.

  While the rest of us go stiff from shock, Art’s freaking out. “You? No fucking way! That really you?”

  Jason tries to fight off a smile but cracks a small one.

  Ruben does his lunatic laugh and Obie snatches the paper from my hands to admire it up close. The eyes in the middle of the splotches of color are gray, like Jason’s, and shaped the same way. Then I figure something else out.

  “The tag,” I say. “It ain’t a fireball. It’s the sun! The hook’s a J, right?”

  Jason nods, but my boys ain’t getting it.

  “J,” I tell them, and point to the bluish hook at the bottom right corner. “Sun.” I point to the ball of fire burning around it, orangey red. “Jason.”

  “My boy’s an artist!” Ruben shouts.

  “Keep it on the down low,” Jason says, unable to hold back the smile. “I ain’t trying to go to juvie for this.”

  “Your secret’s safe,” Ruben says. “Don’t worry.”

  Jason folds the paper and pockets it. “I ain’t worried.”

  That’s right, no need to worry.

  Know why? ’Cause other people will let you down, will rat you out, will make promises they don’t keep or turn away when you need them most. But me and my boys? That ain’t how we roll.

  How lucky that I been tight with these guys all my life. With friends like these, who needs family?

  Suddenly I’m thinking about the courts in Chapa Park. Ain’t played there for months. Ain’t balled in weeks.

  “Chapa Park, bitches,” Ruben says, like our brains are attached.

  “Crazy,” Obie says. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  I laugh. “Me too.”

  Jason and Art are nodding.

  “It’s time to go,” the security guard says. “No loitering.”

  He’s walking over to us, wide shouldered, his uniform almost looking like a real cop’s, except there’s a walkie-talkie where the gun’s supposed to be.

  The sun’s burning us up and we got our bikes pulled from the rack so we obviously leaving.

  “We going,” Obie says. “You see we going.”

  “Alright, then.” He stops halfway between the doors and us. “I’m waiting.”

  I point over to the entrance outside Macy’s, where three white kids are still hanging out, one of them leaping off a bench. “Tell them to hurry up and go. They been there forever.”

  “I’m telling you to hurry up and go.”

  Art gives us the look. Though his fuse is crazy short, he won’t do nothing unless we do. And we ain’t in the mood for that. But we can mess with this guy.

  Obie starts it off by nodding to Art. I scan the parking lot, then turn to the security guard again. Ruben undoes his watch and puts it in his pocket. Jason creeps one step forward.

  The man uncrosses his arms, dropping the badass cop act.

  We stand here staring him down. But we ain’t gonna do anything.

  “Not as tough as ya think,” I say, and we all laugh as we hop on our bikes and ride off.

  35

  SMOOTH, UNCRACKED courts, gleaming white backboards, and orange hoops with nets. At Chapa Park, when you hit a swish, you ain’t gotta imagine the sound. Four courts are separated by two wide strips of grass shaped like a plus sign. There we let our bikes fall and face the superstar court. College boys today, some in the green and yellow gear of the University of South Florida.

  When Ruben calls downs the shooter laughs. You’d think he was right outta boot camp with that haircut, but the green tee with the yellow USF initials tells you he belongs with the others. The only black person on the court, a guy with tiny dreads, points to the court behind us, where the players are around our age.

  We all shake our heads. We got downs right here.


  The other player with the headband, the tannest one, might got some Latino in him. There’s also an Asian guy and the rest are white. They look like a Gatorade commercial.

  The players keep on with the game.

  They balling damn good, but see how they don’t feel each other right? The new-sneakers guy keeps falling for pick-and-rolls, and Tiny Dreads throws passes that hesitate. Individual skill they damn sure got but ain’t playing like a true team.

  When Soldierboy takes another jump shot the game’s over.

  “Let’s do this,” Art says.

  We hop up right away. Before the winners are done high-fiving, we standing on the court, looking wrong in baggy jeans.

  Tiny Dreads gestures to the older guys who just showed up.

  “Fuck that,” I say. “We had downs first.”

  “Seriously? This is ridiculous,” Tiny Dreads says. “You can play over there.”

  I get all up in his face. Actually, all up in his neck. He’s really tall. “Ya scared of getting stomped?”

  Obie snatches the ball from Soldierboy and sits on it. He and the rock ain’t going nowhere.

  The college guys look at each other.

  “Whatever,” Tiny Dreads says, shaking his head. “Throw it in.”

  We take off our sweat-soaked shirts and toss them on the grass. Except for buff Ruben, we look smaller, super skinny next to the Gatorade guys. Don’t give a fuck though. I’m feeling strong.

  “I’m covering the Rastafari princess,” Art says, his game face on.

  “Okay,” I say. “I got G.I. Joke.”

  On the sidelines, Obie grips the ball over his head. “Try to score at least one shot, college bitches. Make this less embarrassing for yourselves.”

  The moment the ball’s thrown in, we bringing it hard. We in synch with each other, perfect gears in a shiny new machine.

  Whether it’s offense or defense, me and my boys know how our teammates will react. Sometimes what’s gonna happen I can see in my brain for half a second before it actually happens, like déjà vu.

  I got the same fire on the court as always, and how dope that I brought that same fire to my last weeks of school. Gonna bring that same fire everywhere I go.

  I sink a perfect jump shot over Soldierboy.

  After ten minutes into this the Gatorade guys have gone from annoyed to pissed. They trailing, 6–2. Even joggers have stopped to watch us, the wrongly dressed ghetto kids dazzling on the court.

  Every score, stolen ball, or blocked shot’s followed by talk like How did that one feel? and Why ain’t nobody filming this?

  Now Art swipes the ball from Tiny Dreads, all of us changing direction, and no-look passes to Obie who spins around Headband Boy before tossing it to Ruben who sinks an easy one off the board.

  These college chumps got nothing on us. Before they know what came at them we one point from winning.

  “10–5, bitches,” Ruben says. “Game point!”

  We take our spots on the other side of the court.

  Soldierboy dribbles toward me, us head-to-head. I ain’t letting him pass. When he goes up for a jump shot, I’m there too, going even higher, and slap that ball right outta his hands.

  The spectators oooo as the ball bounces off the asphalt and rolls onto the grass.

  “Go home and practice,” I tell him.

  “Hey, watch it.” His freckled face is inches from mine.

  Tiny Dreads comes through to put an arm between us. “Take it easy,” he tells me. “It’s just a game, bro.”

  But we one point from victory and it feels like much more than a game. Winning’s everything.

  So when Soldierboy throws the ball back in, me and my boys keep playing like our lives depend on it, ’cause they sorta do.

  You see, the girls we like are into other guys, and we so poor we got no seat for our bikes or enough shirts for all the days of the week, or we so jinxed we get two bikes ganked in eight months, or we got moms who don’t care or who call the cops on us, and we forever dealing with bullshit ’cause we from a place where good things rarely happen.

  But here, on the basketball court, winning’s possible.

  Here you can take to the air like some heavenly being and snatch a rebound off the rim, like Obie just did, and bullet-pass it to Jason who dribbles twice before side-arming it to me.

  And you can hustle, like I’m hustling now, cutting past one guy, spinning around another, nothing before me but hoop, moving full speed toward it, all eyes on me, the baddest Maesta kid you’ve ever seen, and you can leap into the sunlight, release a layup so amazingly perfect that I know, that everybody knows, even before the ball leaves my fingertips, that it will be the winning point.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THIS BOOK would be nothing more than a file in my laptop’s memory if not for my wonderful agent, Louise Fury.

  It would be less readable if not for the insight of my editor, Jessica MacLeish.

  I am honored to be working with Rosemary Brosnan and the entire team at HarperTeen. Thanks for loving this book, for working with me to keep it authentic, and for always having my back.

  Thank you, Annie Berger. You read this quickly, loved Marcos, and it changed my life in the best way.

  Marko Fong, Chaz Josephs, John Knight, Lorena Cassady, Sydney Oliver, and Anne Louise Pepper were my first readers, and gave me helpful notes on the manuscript. Thank you.

  The kindnesses of two friends when I needed it the most helped me focus on my first draft. Thank you, José Pareja and Paul Jove.

  I am especially grateful to my sisters, my mother, and Tío Pedro for their love and encouragement since the beginning. You believed in me and it meant more than you will ever realize.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo by Geovanni Trujillo

  FRED ACEVES is a Latino author who grew up in a community like the one described in The Closest I’ve Come, a tough, working-class neighborhood filled with single moms. He attended five high schools and worked two jobs before eventually dropping out of school. He later earned his GED and traveled around the world. He was born in the United States and currently lives in Mexico with his wife. The Closest I’ve Come is his debut novel.

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  BOOKS BY FRED ACEVES

  The Closest I’ve Come

  CREDITS

  Cover art by Shaun Oakley

  Cover design by Katie Fitch

  COPYRIGHT

  HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  THE CLOSEST I’VE COME. Copyright © 2017 by Fred Aceves. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943589

  ISBN 978-0-06-248853-4

  EPub Edition © October 2017 ISBN 9780062489876

  17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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