Jumped In (14 page)

No freakin' way.

He retyped the whole damn poem.

Twice this time.

One copy for him. One for me.

It must have taken him half the night to remember it all—to get it right—and poke every letter into that typewriter.

Last night it was gone … gone with the freakin' wind.

This whole thing was over.

And now Luis is here. And the poem is back from the dead.

I don't know what to do.

He looks at me, then looks down at the ground like he's waiting for me to respond.

Then he says, “Sorry about last night. It won't happen again.”

 

BACK ON THE HORSE

I
T'S
T
UESDAY
. Only three days to go.

I'm shaking as we take off for Luis's apartment after school.

Who's to say something like last night won't happen again?

We're at the intersection at 220th and Pac Highway, waiting for the light to change. Luis has his hands in his pockets. He's staring at his shoes. “My brother talked to Frankie. He told him to never show his face at the apartment, or he'd…”

Or he'd what?
Stab him? Shoot him? What the hell? It doesn't make me feel any safer. It just makes it clear how messed up in that world Luis is.

“Frankie promised he wouldn't come around anymore.”

I shouldn't be doing this.

I shouldn't be going anywhere near Luis's place.

I know that.

But what I tell him is, “Sounds good.”

 

ROLLIN'

W
E CRACK OPEN A COUPLE ROOT BREWS AND GET DOWN TO BUSINESS
.

I take my spot a few feet from the wall. Luis stands by me. But before he counts us off, he points a finger at me and makes circles.

“We're barrel rollin' this baby. Three hundred sixty degrees, Sam.”

It's so stupid it's great.

“Do it with me,” he says. “Let's Tex it up!”

I make the circle with him and from that point on, we look at each other and do the three-sixty sign before every run-through.

We practice hard. We nail the transitions, the tempo, the unison starts and stops until it feels like we're so good we can't get any better.

Until we know we're ready.

I get my stuff packed as Luis puts the pages of the poem in our folder.

“Hey, Sam,” he says, without lifting his eyes from the pages.

“Yeah?”

“Next time someone busts into my house and comes after me, you wanna grab a frying pan or something? I mean, serious.… You gotta have a homie's back, homie.”

He looks up and starts laughing.

I start laughing too. “All right,
homie
.”

Luis walks me to Pac Highway. We see Bob's 99 Cent Burgers down the road and make a pact to celebrate with an all-we-can-eat burgerfest after we kick butt at the slam. We shake on it and I make my way across Pac Highway's four lanes.

I get to the far side and something tells me to look back. I turn around.

Luis is still there.

He's jumping up and down making the circle with his arm extended. He's laughing and shouting like a nut case. I can't hear him over all the traffic, but I know what he's saying.

I make the circle and shout back at him.

“Three hundred and sixty degrees, baby! Three hundred and sixty degrees!”

 

ANOTHER SHOE DROPS

T
HURSDAY AFTERNOON
.

I'm in US history waiting for class to start. I'm smiling like an idiot, thinking about how great the slam's gonna be. How Luis and I are gonna blow everyone away. How all morning he's been making the circle in class every time I look at him. He's been pumping himself up. Pumping me up.

Ms. Nguyen walks to the front of class and Luis still isn't in his seat. The bell rings. She gives us our assignment, and kids get to work.

I hear a
psssst
behind me and this asshole, Cooper, whispers, “You hear what happened to your buddy?”

I shrug.

“He's with the rest of them cholos. Fight off campus at lunch. Across the street. Blacks versus Mexicans. Cops broke it up. They all got suspended for a week.” Cooper laughs. Mrs. Nguyen shushes him.

I feel like I'm gonna throw up.

We have this simmering Black versus Latino thing at Puget. It's stupid to call it that. It's only a couple kids on each side. They fight over territory—the bathrooms. They fight over who disrespected whom, and
someone looked at my girlfriend,
and crap like that. It's stupid.

I guess the whole thing finally boiled over.

I don't
know
if Cooper is full of shit. I don't
know
if Luis is involved, and I don't
know
if he'll be suspended, but,
come on
. Gangster kids are always talking about “having each other's back.”

He isn't in either of our afternoon classes.

It's pretty obvious Luis was at the fight … with his
real
homies.

He made his choice.

If he isn't there tomorrow for the slam, I don't know what I'm gonna do.

 

WANNA KNOW

W
ALKING DOWN THE HILL
toward my grandparents' place. All I can think about is,
I
wanna know for sure. I wanna know if he was in the fight and if he's suspended.

I wanna know if this whole thing is over.

I press the menu button on my phone and go to my contacts list. There's only one: Luis Cárdenas.

I snap the phone shut and shove it back in my pocket.

If there's something up with Luis, he'll call me. This slam is too big of a deal to him. If there's something going on—if he can't make it—he'll call.

Fuck it.

I pull the phone back out.

Ring. Ring. Ring and ring.

Hey, Luis here. Can't pick up. Leave a message.

“It's Sam. Just wondering what's up. We're practicing tonight, right? We should hook up one last time just to make sure we got this thing. Call me.”

I hang up and walk.

And wait.

 

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

F
RIDAY MORNING
.

Puget High School.

Five minutes before the bell.

No Luis.

He never called me back. I haven't seen him since Wednesday morning, before the fight. He's clearly suspended.

I had held out hope that somehow he'd show.

You'd think I would have learned by now.

I've got years of practice with this hoping thing.

What I've learned is people are either there for you or they're not there for you.

And no bunch of hoping is gonna change that.

So here I am.

Alone with a choice to make. Should I go to Cassidy's and watch the other kids do their thing and sit there pissed off at myself—and at Luis?

Or should I get lost?

The bell rings.

I take off running.

I'm out the front door, and think I'm in the clear. Then Carter sticks his head out the office window.

“Hey, where are you going, Sam? There's a special delivery for you in the office. Come pick it up and head to class.”

I trudge back inside the building and into the office. Carter hands me a CD and a note. The note reads

Hey, Sam,

Sorry I can't be there. I hope you can forgive me. I can't really explain what's going on, but I'll tell you all about it soon. I know you're not going to want to do this thing by yourself, but I think you should. Do it for me. Do it for yourself. We worked too hard on this. I recorded my part on CD, so I'll be there with you. Just press play and do your thing, man! You're going to be great!

Your brother in slam,

Luis

Why doesn't he come out and say he's suspended?

As mad as I am, there's something about the note that makes it okay.

So before I know it, I'm walking to Cassidy's, CD in hand, running the lines of the poem in my head.

I pull the door open. It's dark in there.

Cassidy has replaced the fluorescent lights with candles. There's a spotlight outlining a stage. A music stand is set up for people to put their poems on. There's cookies and juice. There's coffee! It doesn't look anything like our class.

Cassidy strides my way with a huge smile on her face. “Sam, my man. I'm looking forward to hearing what you got.”

It's wishful thinking on her part. She has no idea about the poem.

But she says it like she knows.

“Grab a cup o' joe. Sit back and enjoy. Hey, where's your partner in crime?”

“I dunno.”

Cassidy hollers, “All right, gang!” She lays out the ground rules. “Listen respectfully. Fill out a reflection for each poem—respectfully. Stand up tall and speak into the mic like you deserve your classmates' adoration. And you'll get it. I promise you.”

This girl Sherice puts her hand in a bucket and pulls out a piece of paper. She's about to read the first name.