by Matt Mendez
“I heard my parents say it was like eight thousand for last year,” Joaquín said. “Something like that.”
“Holy shit.” Juan looked at Danny, who was staring at the ground, suddenly uncomfortable and not wanting to look at him. “That’s like buying a new car every year or something.”
“Well, like a used car,” Manolo said, putting his hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Everything cool, Daniel? You don’t look like yourself.”
“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.”
“Shit, not as good as me,” JD said, draining his beer and then slapping Danny on the back. “I just found out I’m wasting my education for free. Time to go outside. C’mon, Juan.” They grabbed fresh tallboys from the fridge and made for the door.
Danny stayed inside with his new friends. Juan didn’t blame him. He shouldn’t have asked about Cathedral’s tuition and embarrassed him like that. Having money wasn’t Danny’s problem. It wasn’t even a problem. Juan watched him from the backyard, through a window. Standing in the kitchen with Manolo and Joaquín, with Carmen and Adelita, he seemed to be having a good time. Laughing and drinking. He remembered when Danny used to live with his grandparents, in a tiny house with a leaky roof and only one bathroom.
The wind blew cold, but it didn’t stop anyone from partying. Music blared from tiny speakers that looked like rocks placed along the concrete walkway leading to the patio, where pockets of kids Juan didn’t recognize blobbed together. Another group hung by a chiminea in the middle of the yard, its open mouth glowing orange as the wooden logs popped and hissed inside, plumes of smoke rising from the slender neck. Nobody talked to Juan or JD.
Just as Juan was going to tell JD that they should go back inside, a slash of bluish light suddenly crossed Juan’s chest. He jerked his head up. Other bluish beams zigzagged the inside of the house and the backyard. Conversations that had been humming only moments before abruptly stopped, all sound blanketed by the whop whop whop of helicopter blades. The ghetto bird buzzed overhead, a single wash of brutal light kicked on, drowning out the full moon that had been bright enough to light the party. This wasn’t how parties were broken up in the movies, where a single cop warned the party’s host to keep the music down and the bash kept going afterward, because in movies cops could be fucked with.
This was a raid. But who was raiding? Was it the cops? The sheriffs? Or was it ICE, there to hunt for “illegals”? Gangsters?
A half dozen uniformed men swarmed the backyard; a girl standing across from Juan erupted into tears as a light was shined in her face. “I’m sorry,” she said to no one before doubling over and puking. The mix of preppy white kids and fresas suddenly seemed out of place; they were still in the middle of the desert, where having money meant nothing.
The whop of chopper blades clapping against the air grew louder.
Juan gave his head a shake, trying not to freak, wishing he hadn’t downed that last forty, wishing he didn’t already feel fucked up. He tossed his freshly opened can to the ground—stupid!—because the movement grabbed the attention of a lawman. Instantly drawing a gun, he approached Juan. He was an El Paso cop—not that it mattered, really; all law enforcement was designed to fuck with brown people. This wasn’t the first time Juan had had a gun aimed at him. A gang of cholos from Central, dudes who relentlessly cruised a gray Cutlass, once peeked the double barrel of a shotgun at him after a game, the driver asking him if he thought he was faster than a speeding bullet. To run away so they could see. They seemed more interested in a laugh than actually shooting him, so he turned and ran, giving them the joke they wanted and hoping to get as far away as he could. But apparently there was no escaping from the cops, not even at Cascade Point.
Whatever. Juan was used to being hassled. Usually the chota wanted to take down names and snap pictures for the citywide gangbanger database, check for warrants and now, papers. Do their big-brother routine. If he played it cool, ate a little of the shit the police served, he could be on his way. But this time he wasn’t going to get the chance to play it cool. The cop drawing on him suddenly holstered his weapon and yelled into the radio fastened to his shoulder, his attention drawn to something behind Juan.
Juan turned. It was JD, perched on the back wall of the yard. “Come on, Juan. Let’s go!” JD yelled, then jumped. Dude, what!?
Juan glanced back at the cop, who was now eyeballing him. Try it, his eyes seemed to be begging. Juan could tell he was about to be taken to the ground and wrestled into handcuffs. About to be taken to jail and charged with some made-up shit. About to lose. The cop charged him, and Juan gambled, waiting for the cop to get close before pulling a hesitation on him. He stutter-stepped, and the cop, unsure of which direction Juan was going, lost balance. But unlike on the basketball court, where a speedy point guard could blow by an undisciplined defender without being touched, the cop grabbed the bottom of Juan’s T-shirt as he zipped by, yanking Juan toward him and the ground. Juan planted his feet into the desert dirt and struggled to stay standing, his shirt ripping as he finally pulled away. The cop fell to the ground, landing flat on the beer can Juan had just tossed, booze splattering everywhere. Juan spun and raced for the wall.
He vaulted over it easy. Less easy was the ten-foot drop on the other side. He flailed for a second before collapsing to the ground, his left ankle rolling underneath him. It began to throb immediately. Run through it. It’s nothing. Just run through it. He tried to gather himself, figure out where he’d landed, expecting to be in an alleyway like the ones in Central. Juan was used to using the alleys for escape; he once ditched those same cabrones from the Cutlass—only then they were chasing him on foot—who had planned on jumping him, pissed he’d said no to their invitation to join Los Fatherless. But now, as Juan realized he was in another backyard, he had no idea what to do. The yard was similar to Danny’s, only smaller and with a slab of concrete alongside the house, the premade footers and rebar poking through, ready for a cheap wooden patio like Danny’s to be built.
“This way!” JD hissed just as a voice came from the other side of the wall: “Two went over.”
JD bolted across the yard and over the far wall. Juan limped as he ran, his ankle hot with pain.
As he leapt the second wall, Juan found himself in yet another backyard. A pair of floodlights flashed on. Footsteps pounded behind him. How many identical backyards would he have to jump through before he found a pawnshop or bar or bakery or auto shop, even a dumpster to hide inside? He hustled to catch up with JD—cursing his burning ankle. He would be lucky to be able to play with this injury. To just be able to walk on the court and be slow and have no vertical would be a miracle.
His ankle went numb as he finally caught up with and passed JD in their fifth backyard. Adrenaline pumping, Juan sprang up and pulled himself to the top of what turned out to be the final wall in their way, a ten-footer at the end of the development. Juan caught his breath and watched as JD tried to make the jump. From on top Juan could see the broken-up party: police cars surrounding Danny’s, partygoers spilling into the front yard and being directed to leave. Of course. None of them had guns pointed at their chests. None of them were going to be handcuffed. None of them were going to jail. If only Fabi hadn’t come to his game, he thought furiously—she never came!
“JD, come on!” he barked.
JD struggled to make the jump, only managing to slap his chest against the wall before collapsing to the ground, breathing hard. Two cops entered the far end of the yard. Damn. Juan jumped back down. The same blinding bluish lights that had slashed through the party were now on him as he prepared to give JD the boost he needed. JD wasn’t used to this, to being on his game when shit really mattered. To crunch time. Juan lifted and pushed JD over the wall.
“Stop right there!”
Nope. Juan was over the wall a second later, the cops screaming for them to stop, to get their bellies on the ground and give it up. On the other side of the wall a steep dirt hill sloped toward a construction site with tracts of half-built homes and emp
ty plots. That’s where they needed to go. Where they could hide until morning.
As they sprinted down the remainder of the hill, Juan worried about what was beyond the development. If there was nothing but more desert, endless dirt and rock and bullshit cactus, then they could be running toward nothing. The cops could surround them. They could already be waiting. And where did that helicopter go?
“Man, why’d you run?” Juan yelled, struggling to keep ahead of JD, losing steam himself.
“Because . . . I don’t know, fuck!” JD said, panting.
A chain-link fence surrounded the development at the bottom of the hill. Juan heaved himself onto the webbing and pulled himself over the fence, narrowly missing the crisscross points on top but landing on the same ankle, hard. This time it seemed seriously fucked, the pain sharp and pulsating up and down his leg, unable to hold his weight. Behind him JD tripped on his own feet and stumbled into the fence, his face planting hard into a support post. He dropped instantly to the ground, disappearing into the shadows.
“JD . . . JD . . . Shit,” Juan whispered from the other side. He limped over to where he’d thought he heard the thud, but he could also hear the cops coming, the rubbing and squeaking of their leather gun holsters and shoes pounding the hardening ground. The gamble wasn’t going to pay off.
“Fuck, man, why’d you run?” he cried out again. Then he limped as fast as he could through the construction sites, across the empty lots and through the unfinished houses. Wooden frames, beams and joints and exposed electrical wires turned out to be no place to hide. The bright desert moonlight illuminated everything. Juan made his way toward the only unit that had some interior walls up. He was pretty sure JD was busted but wanted to text him anyway. To check on him. He hoped the fence post hadn’t fucked him up too badly, that the cops didn’t when they found him.
He spied a box of tile inside the house and sat on it, trying to regulate his breathing. He was surprised by how drained he felt, like he just finished playing an entire game. He looked around; the roof of the house had yet to be mounted onto the frame, the back walls were still unfinished. He was now totally exposed. And he’d been right about there being nothing but desert beyond the development. Nothing but mesquite trees and yucca and hills with rocks and hard dirt. There was no place for him to hide, no place to run to.
Juan’s phone buzzed. It was a text from Danny:
Why you clowns run? Sooooo ghetto! WTF?
He was about to respond when he heard the whop whop whop of the police helicopter overhead. Fuck. He slid his phone back inside his pocket.
Down the street, a motorcycle cop was carefully cruising toward him, his spotlight cutting from one side of the site to the other, red and blue lights silently flashing. The guts of the half-built homes glowed as the light passed through them. The light then cut across Juan, and the motorcycle stopped. He thought about running toward the desert, but then what?
Juan limped from the unfinished house, hands in the air. The spotlight from the helicopter flooded on, Juan instantly in a swirl of light and dust, chopper blades thudding loudly as police sirens called from the distance. For the second time tonight Juan knew he was going to lose big. At least this time he’d run his hardest, and through injury. He’d shown some fucking heart.
JD DON’T KNOW
(CHAPTER THREE)
Juan Diego sat on his bed and watched as his amá tore his room apart, tossed socks and underwear from his dresser, dug into the closet he shared with his younger brother, Tomásito. JD’s shoes were dumped in the middle of the room after being checked for any contraband stuffed inside. Tomásito, who’d been sent outside to play, spied from the backyard through their cracked bedroom window as their mother, still clutching the box of condoms she’d found hidden in JD’s dresser, began pulling his collection of bootleg DVDs off the shelves. JD had arranged them alphabetically, by director and genre. Mostly B-movie horror, classics and zombies. Some kung fu and Hong Kong and Samurai. Cine Mexicano, American indie, and a growing documentary collection. Outside, Tomásito tried to pretend he wasn’t snooping, occasionally tossing a basketball in the air and trying to catch it whenever Amá looked out the window. He was nowhere near the portable hoop, so there was no obvious game the little pain could be playing.
“What kind of drugs are you on?” Amá asked.
“The none kind,” JD answered.
She’d dumped his movie collection on the bed, his Taratinos now mixed with his del Toros, his Eastwoods and Ed Woods and Cuaróns and Gondrys all in a meaningless pile. Now taking a seat beside him, Amá tried looking JD in the eye, but he wasn’t down with that and stared at the floor instead, his head throbbing. He had a bump on the middle of his forehead, dried blood around his nostrils. All he wanted was a shower, to sleep and then skip the awkward conversation his amá seemed intent on having.
“Where did you get these things?” She held out the open box; six were remaining from the original twelve.
“I bought them,” JD said, trying to sound casual, like she was holding sticks of gum and not evidence of an affair. Truth? He’d found the condoms on Christmas Eve, hidden under the driver’s seat of his old man’s truck. He’d been looking for the small screwdriver set his old man usually kept there, wanting to take apart an old Super 8 camera he’d lifted from a garage sale—a Russian model with a clockwork drive—when he found the box stashed in a paper bag.
“Why won’t you look at me?” Amá asked.
He couldn’t because he knew that when Tomásito was born Amá had had her tubes tied, had lost a lot of blood during labor and almost died—her or Pops always told the story on Tomásito’s birthday. It was the worst! So he knew that the condoms were for Pops and his sidepiece. That Amá had no idea. And no way was he telling her.
“I just want to shower and go to bed. Por favor, Amá.” Amá grabbed JD by the chin and examined his face. The way she looked at him, like if she wasn’t physically touching him she couldn’t be sure he was real, freaked him out. He turned away, thinking he might cry if he looked directly at her.
“Tell me again what happened to you.” Amá’s expression was like it always was: part worried, part pissed off.
“I fell.”
He fucking fell, all right. The night was a blur, especially the part after he face-planted into the fence post, the blow dropping him into a trench along the bottom of the fence. The cops who’d been chasing him and Juan must have leapt right over him without bothering to look down. When JD came to, everything was quiet and dark; he was alone, the moon blanketed by clouds.
Amá pressed. “I texted you. I called you, and you never answered. What else am I supposed to think? You have to be on drugs, right? I mean, look at you.” She let go of him and waved her hand at the pile of movies on his bed. “Look at the stuff you’re into.”
“There’s nothing wrong with this stuff. They’re just mov—”
“I never know where you are,” Amá interrupted. “You’re always coming and going as you please.” She was in her church clothes, a neatly ironed black button-down shirt and black slacks. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun.
“I broke my phone,” JD argued. True, his phone had been smashed when he fell, the small screen a spiderweb of broken glass. But she wasn’t having it. Amá’s face was sharp and hard and brown, like his own. Both of them were blasted from the same mountain rock. The black clothes were her Sunday uniform and not too different from the brown scrubs she wore to the State Center, where she worked the swing shift as a caretaker.
“Ay Dios, mijo. Are you sure you’re not on drugs?”
“I’m sure,” JD said. Smoking weed every once in a while was not the same thing as being “on drugs,” not in JD’s book.
“What about sex?”
“No one wants to have sex with me,” JD said, afraid that was true, then thinking he shouldn’t be talking sex with his amá. Fuck, I am dumb.
“Then why are there condoms missing? You’re lying to me.”
> What could he say? You’re right, Amá. These belong to Pops. I guess he’s not having as much trouble getting laid as I am.
“And where’s your car? Tell me that.” Staring at the mess in the room, JD had the thought that Amá should’ve been a homicide detective. She held the box of condoms like it was the murder weapon in a crime she’d just solved.
“It wouldn’t start. I walked home last night.” Her eyes drilled into him, searching for proof he wasn’t full of mentiras. Then, suddenly, she dropped the box between them on the bed. It split open, and the six remaining condoms spilled out. Her shoulders fell as she stared past him, her lips pinching tight.
“You’re a bad liar,” Amá said, sounding like she might cry. “Or, actually, you’re really good at it. I’m just finally catching on.”
“I’m sorry, Amá,” JD said at last, slowly realizing they weren’t only talking about last night. Not only about him.
“Tell me about the condoms. Tell me the truth, for once in your life.”
JD remembered the brown paper bag he’d found them in, the same type of bags they used at Jasmine’s, the liquor store he bought forties at without ID. “I’m sorry I have them.”
“Why do you have them?” She squeezed her bun, loosening it and then letting her hair down.
“I don’t know.” Not completely lying. “But I’m sorry.” When he took them from the truck he wasn’t sure what else to do. He planned to tell his sister about Pops stepping out, knowing Alma would go straight to Amá and everything would blow up, but he hadn’t yet. Having the condoms meant JD could keep his life the way it was, keep the fantasy of a normal family—even if that fantasy, come to think of it, wasn’t even a good one.
Amá shook her head in disappointment. “Not as sorry as your apá was when he saw me with these this morning. He said I had no right to be snooping in his truck. He tried to make me the bad person. Can you believe that? And I know you’re hiding more secrets in here. I’m not stupid, me entiendes?”