Barely Missing Everything

by Matt Mendez

  Juan wrapped his hand around it. A gun? He pulled it out from under the seat. The weapon felt like a natural part of his hand, light but somehow weighty. His thoughts instantly flickered to how easily this could solve their Cutlass problem. He became dizzy thinking about it: cruising up to those fuckers at the next red light and leaning out the passenger window, lighting them up. His finger traced the trigger, the smooth curve begging to be squeezed. He remembered the sound from Danny’s gun, the crisp pop cutting through all the noise, making every other sound vanish. He wouldn’t hear them calling him Banker or laughing at him before they realized what was happening, wouldn’t hear them crying out in terror as he squeezed the trigger, only the sound of firing: Pop, pop, pop.

  “What the fuck is that?” JD yelped as he pulled into an alleyway behind a dumpster, not far from Juan’s old place.

  “I guess . . . it must be my má’s?” Juan said, now seething. “I had no idea she even had one.” He hated how those dudes always had him running scared. But holding the gun had quickly erased that fear. It let him be mad. It was like magic, a bad magic. But now he wasn’t fearing them.

  “What do you wanna do?”

  “I don’t know. . . . What do you mean?” But Juan knew exactly what JD meant.

  JD banged the steering wheel with his hands. “Should we go after those assholes? I bet they’d quit fucking with us if they knew we had this. . . . Is it loaded?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know how to check.”

  “I bet it is, and that’s twice those dudes rolled up on us.”

  “I know,” Juan said, laying the gun down on the bench seat between them, not mentioning that it was the fourth time for him. Now JD was gripping the steering wheel, his legs fidgeting up and down, surging with angry current, a circuit about to blow.

  “So?”

  “So, my old man’s about to get the death penalty. It’s the whole reason we’re here right now. Maybe we shouldn’t fuck with this thing.”

  “Fuck, man! I hate this shit.” JD slumped back in the driver’s seat. But he kept glancing at the gun, like he wanted to hold it but needed Juan’s permission first. Juan wanted to tell him that holding it would make him feel as powerful and as in control as being on the other side of the barrel had left him feeling weak and helpless. How could it not?

  “So, you wanna hold it?” he said. They remained parked, engine idling. No sign of the Cutlass. JD’s driving had done more than a gun could to get rid of the fuckers.

  JD looked at the black metal between them. “No,” he finally said. “But what are we gonna do with that thing? We can’t take it with us. If we get pulled over, we’re fucked. We gotta get rid of it.” JD sat up, suddenly smiling as he pointed through the windshield. “There’s a dumpster. Let’s toss it in that dumpster and go.”

  “It’s my ma’s. And what if some kid finds it?”

  “Again, fuck! Maybe we should call the trip off, then.”

  “We’re not calling off nothing,” Juan said. He couldn’t take the gun home. By now his má would be all pissed about the truck and probably already blowing up his phone. JD’s, too. Thing was, they’d both agreed to turn their phones off until they’d reached the halfway point to Livingston, to avoid chickening out and turning back when angry phone calls from home came rolling in. Because, honestly, he might chicken out if they did. Then Juan nodded as an idea came to him. “Can we leave it at your place?”

  “I thought you said not to drive by our houses. What if those fuckers see us?”

  “You’re right, you’re right.” Juan rubbed his face, the cool palms of his hands a temporary relief. He had to think. The gun was going to fuck everything up, and of course those assholes in the Cutlass were still out there. All Juan needed was a break to still make it, a small bounce to go his way. A lucky call. Anything.

  “Let’s hide it at the apartment!” JD cried. “We were going there anyway. You can update the blog, and I’ll find a place to stash it. We hit the road after. No big deal.”

  “I don’t know,” Juan said. Getting out of the truck was a bad idea, especially with Jabba on the lookout for him. It was desperate. But then, he didn’t have a better option and there were plenty of hiding spots for the pistol. The never-used shed, or inside the flowerpots, buried in the potting soil. Tuck it into a hole along the eaves of the roof. He would have to be fast. He could be.

  “How about you upload the blog, and I’ll hide the gun,” he said at last. “I know the perfect spot.”

  JD eyed him. “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I got this.”

  • • •

  As JD drove the few remaining blocks to the apartment, Juan kept an eye out for the Cutlass. JD shut off the headlights before cruising up the alleyway behind the apartment building and parking, then killing the engine. The backyard lights glowed dimly, and the windows inside the complex were dark. It was Friday, everyone probably out partying or at the movies. Doing something that didn’t include guarding their backyard. Juan opened his doc with his blog post and his JPEGs, went over with JD which ones to use, the username and password for the account.

  “You sure you didn’t see those dudes on your way up here?” Juan said, holding the open laptop tightly. Not wanting to let go. Not wanting to pick up the gun.

  “No, man,” JD said. “How’s the signal?”

  “The Wi-Fi’s good from here,” Juan said. The screen was the only light in the cabin.

  “Dude, who knows where those assholes went. . . . They probably hassle half of Central. C’mon, let’s go. We need to get the fuck outta here.” JD eased the laptop away from Juan.

  “You’re right. I’ll be quick.” Juan took a deep breath, grabbed the pistol, and stealthily moved toward the back of the apartment. It was hard to see; the dull lighting from the porch provided him cover, but it was making his options for hiding the gun hard to spot. He scanned the yard. The flowerpots by the sage bushes had been moved. And the door of the toolshed was secured with a chain-and-combo lock— Damn, when had Jabba done that? He spied an empty Chico’s Tacos bag on the ground. Okay, he could wrap the pistol inside and then toss the bag on the roof of the toolshed, where no one would ever see. Unless they happened to be on the second floor of the apartment building. Shit. The hole in the eaves had to be there—no way was Jabba fixing that. Juan had wanted to avoid getting this close to the building, especially with the gun. The indestructible, badass feeling it had given him earlier was long gone; now he just felt crazy nervous, his whole body buzzing.

  He could hear the sound of tires crunching rock and dirt in the distance, them coming to a stop, an engine idling. There were no headlights. Juan glanced back to see if JD had noticed, but he was plugging away on the laptop, oblivious. He’d fucked up, coming back to the apartment. Juan squeezed the gun’s handle, ran his index finger over the trigger. It seemed obvious now, how his future was knotted with everyone’s past. His old man’s. His má’s. Even Grampá’s. His fuckups were all part of an ancestral knot of fuckups that was impossible to untangle. This was it. Juan hunkered down, kept still.

  What if he turned and ran down the back of the alley, leaving JD behind?

  What if he just started shooting?

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Juan chucked the firearm into a bush and bolted.

  When floodlights lit up and the red and blue siren lights circled, the first thing that popped into Juan’s head was the PAC. How the harsh fluorescent lights sometimes created the same disorienting effect on the basketball court. His arms and legs pumped as hard as they could.

  “Stop! Put your hands where we can see them!”

  Juan ran toward the truck. He could see JD, the absolute terror in his eyes as the floods exploded light into the cabin. He caught a glimpse of the laptop screen, it tumbling toward the passenger seat as JD jerked back. His baby picture next to the image of the gurney. What he’d never noticed before was the look on his má’s face, her trying to dry him as he twisted angrily in her a
rms. She’d been afraid. Afraid she was doing it all wrong. Juan recognized that look—his look. Juan couldn’t see the cop, or cops, or tell where the shots were coming from; he only heard the sounds echoing from all around. The bullets dropped Juan to the ground, to the rocks and dirt, as he reached for the truck’s handle. He barely missed making it back inside. Barely missed everything.

  PIEDRAS

  (CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO)

  JD never saw Juan running toward the truck. Never saw his friend lost in the blinding whiteness of the floods. But he heard the gunshots. At least five of them, all popping off one after the other, the sound seeming different than that time with Danny.

  JD didn’t duck underneath the dash, or flee the cabin after hearing the first shot. Instead, he froze. In the driver’s seat, he looked straight ahead and waited for the bullets to blast through the windshield and rip through him.

  When the firing ended he heard yelling. A man calling to stay down, to get his hands up. Before JD could even do that—get his hands up, stay down—he was pulled from the inside of the truck and slammed chest-down to the dirt, his head colliding against a hunk of rock embedded in the alley ground. A knee dug into the middle of his back and another was against his head.

  From underneath the truck, on the other side, he could see Juan. Still as a stone. A single cop, a shadow, knelt beside him, close, but not touching. Juan. JD couldn’t breathe. His head was cut; he could feel the blood pooling around his face, his eyes burning. He sucked in dust trying to breathe. Coughed. Choked. There was so much weight on him. Someone yelled they’d found the gun. The bushes. That this was the same truck reported racing around earlier. He was yanked up as hands jammed down his pockets and waistband, racking him in the balls, searching, but for what? Another gun? They pushed him back down on his back, discarded. He knew Juan was dead.

  A cop was talking about all the bullshit he was going to have to go through because of this piece-of-shit gangster. How everyone saw the perp pointing that fucking gun at him, that piece of shit probably an illegal. Right? We all saw. We all saw, right?

  JD’s phone had fallen underneath the truck. He glanced around, and with no one watching, he reached for the phone, not able to take his eyes off Juan, and grabbed it. He glanced around again, then, sitting back up, he wiped the dirt and blood from his face and turned the phone on. Juan’s má had called. Had texted, too. He texted her back, telling her she needed to come. Next JD called his old man, his father being the only person, in that moment, he could think to call. JD was cuffed and hauled away before either of them showed.

  • • •

  His father picked him up from the station the next morning, where JD hadn’t been under arrest but had been kept all night answering the same questions over and over, a medic even stitching his face as different sets of cops kept at him. What, exactly, were you doing at the apartment? “Uploading the blog. Dumping the gun.” Why were you “dumping” the gun? “Because getting caught by the cops with a gun could get you killed. The gun belonged to Juan’s mother.” Did you know Juan took the truck without telling his mom? “I thought he had permission.” What were you going to do in Livingston, Texas? “Juan was going to meet his father. I was going to film it. It’s on the blog. Read the fucking blog.” Did you see Juan point the gun at the officers? “No, but he didn’t.” How do you know that for sure? “Because fuck you. That’s how I know for sure.”

  He and his father drove to his father’s new apartment, stopping for McDonald’s on the way. Turned out Pops still lived in Central, in an unfurnished one-bedroom on Piedras just north of Mobile. His bedroom had a mattress on a box spring in the middle of the room, a pair of blinds with bent and missing slats pulled halfway open, and a trash bag burping dirty clothes in the closet. The kitchen had hardly any food, the counters lined with crumpled bags of takeout. The living room had a futon, a small TV on top of a mini fridge, and a coffee table bubbled with water damage.

  “Put this in your belly,” his father said, tossing him a breakfast sandwich.

  “I’m not hungry,” JD said, crashing down on the futon.

  “I know.” Pops dropped his keys on the coffee table. “You need to eat anyway.” Before they’d come inside, Pops had to jiggle his keys to get the lock to work, and JD heard the sound of his dog tags on the key ring knocking together. The clinking noise had always meant Pops was home. JD was surprised how much he missed that sound. He closed his eyes, wanting to conjure a warm memory, but instead his mind flashed to the image of Juan dead in the dirt, halfway underneath a truck. He reached for his father’s keys, rubbed his thumbs over the raised lettering. I am never going to see Juan again.

  SANCHEZ

  TOMAS

  012-80-4179

  A POS

  ROMAN CATHOLIC

  “Can I have these? Please?”

  His old man sat on the couch beside JD and took the keys, worked the tags from the key ring, and handed them to him. He turned on the TV. The Cowboys were playing. JD would remember the game for the rest of his life—not the score or even what happened, but how he and Pops didn’t do anything but talk football, and how good it felt to not think about what was happening. At halftime his old man went out for tacos even though JD still wasn’t hungry, and JD called the recruiter, knowing he was ready to vanish completely. Bullard answered, even on a Sunday, and JD explained how he didn’t give a shit about the film production job. That all he wanted was to leave the day after he graduated high school.

  LAST STATEMENT

  Date of Execution:

  February 14

  Offender:

  Armando Aranda #999178

  Last Statement:

  “After spending most of my life on the row, I’m not afraid of dying. I’m more afraid of saying something stupid, of being remembered as the worst thing I did or as the worst thing that happened to me. I don’t want to turn into a scary story, but I don’t want to be forgotten, either. For it to be like I never existed or even mattered. There is a boy who thought I was his dad. Who wanted to meet me, but he never made it to the prison. I know who his father could be, a good dude. The kind of man who can point a kid in the right direction. The one he took for himself and not the dead man’s way.”

  20 June

  Fabi,

  I’ve been thinking of all the things that could’ve gone different. If I’d never run from the cops at Danny’s party and got him busted, or put the idea of visiting Armando in his head. I should’ve been the one hiding the gun. I don’t think he trusted me to do it. I should be dead. I know how bullshit that sounds. That it doesn’t change anything.

  Juan was running away when the cops shot him, not pointing the gun like the local news said. Like the cops kept saying. For a while I thought there would be some CNN or even Fox News coverage about the shooting, that the truth would come out. What a joke. Now I know black lives matter, but no one gives a fuck about brown lives, and when gringos shout “all lives matter” they’re just throwing white shade on everything. I looked up his dad after you told me about him. All I could find was a tiny blurb: “Staff Sgt. Martin Morales died during his second deployment in Iraq, in a city called Baqubah. A bomb exploded inside a house he was attempting to clear.”

  I have footage of Juan—it’s not very good—and I watched it almost every day before I left. I was making a movie when he died, and I’ve kept at it even though I have no idea what I’m doing. I took some B-roll at the cemetery where he’s buried. I filmed my family. Got scenes as my parents split up for good, Ama packing up Apa’s things and leaving them on the porch for him to get. All the pictures in the house coming down as Ama got ready to move. She and Tomasito are moving in with my Tia Monchi, Pops is staying in his terrible apartment, and Alma is moving in with her novio. Ama wasn’t surprised when I told her I’d joined the air force, not that I meant joining to be a surprise. She finished a bite of pan dulce, nodded, and said, “I figured you’d abandon us completely one day.” She was right. Pops took it different w
hen I told him, said he was proud to be the father of a military man. Glad his son was following in his footsteps. His dog tags are the only thing I took with me.

  I read the last words of Armando Aranda a week after the execution and wondered, How the fuck did that guy end up there? I wondered how Martin Morales ended up in Baqubah, Iraq. Did he ever wonder? No one recorded Martin’s final words. Juan’s last words to me were “I’ll be quick.” If he said anything after, to the police, to God, to anyone he thought may have been listening, I don’t know.

  Boot camp isn’t hard but feels like it could be at any moment. There’s a lot of waiting for something to happen, and everybody is freaked out all the time. At night I hear dudes sobbing. Crying that they want to go home. That they’ve made a mistake. I didn’t cry after Juan died. Not the day he was killed. Not at the funeral. I haven’t cried about my family either. Before I left for the air force I was hooking up with a girl I’d been stupid over ever since I was in eighth grade. I really liked her, but I left without saying goodbye. I barely talk to Danny. I’m the ghost my family said I was.

  Juan was the person I would’ve told all this to. You’re the only piece of him left.

  Goodbye.

  AB Sanchez, Juan D

  322 TRS / FLT 462 / (Dorm A-9)

  1320 Truemper St. Unit 369520

  Lackland AFB, TX 78236–6095

  SOLVING FOR WHAT’S UNKNOWN

  (CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE)