Dispatch (14 page)

I'd had a few scattered dates after Sandra Fortuna, but I'd gone through my senior year without getting seriously involved with anyone. My semicelebrity status still ensured that I would never be alone unless I so desired, and I asked out Holly Moch, a girl from my earth sciences class.

Holly was cute, but her nicey nice act had completely disappeared by prom night. She not only expected the usual corsage, expensive restaurant and official prom photos; she wanted a limo and expensive champagne and a whole bunch of outrageous luxuries. As far as she was concerned, this was her one and only high school prom and she was going to make the most of it. I made it clear that none of that was going to happen, and we reached a kind of truce before we got into my parents' station wagon and headed for the pavilion where the dance was being held.

The prom was fun in a ritualized school-sanctioned way, and afterward we met up with Robert, Edson, their dates and a couple of Holly's friends at a coffee shop for some laughs and late-night discussion. We split up sometime after midnight. I drove back to Holly's neighborhood and parked the car in front of a darkened house a few streets down. There'd been jokes in the coffee shop about making out and backseat sex, and while I had no plans to see Holly after tonight, there was no reason why we couldn't have a little fun.

She was obviously on the same wavelength because the second I turned off the ignition, she was all over me. She was already out of her dress, her bra came off with a quick snap, and then our mouths were meshed together, tongues working overtime. She pulled away, panting, obviously ready. I was already erect, but I told her to suck it first to make sure it was hard enough. I didn't really want to fuck her—it seemed like too much work—so I just surprised her and came in her mouth. She tried to pull away at the first spurt, but I was ready for that and held her head down until I was finished. Sighing with pleasure, I pulled out, satisfied.

I found myself wondering what Sandra Fortuna was doing right now.

Holly popped up like a jack-in-the-box, all angry and incensed, but I didn't care. I pulled up my pants and then drove her home, leaving her to desperately try to put on her own clothes while we passed down her well-lit street.

I drove back to my house feeling good.

The school year was almost done, and the last few weeks of the semester were a blur. Finals, yearbooks, award ceremonies, rehearsals.

Grad Night was held at Familyland. The amusement park was closed to the general public, and celebrating high school kids from all over Orange County were allowed to run wild within its borders. Prior to that, graduation ceremonies were held in the school's stadium. My grandparents didn't show up, didn't even bother to send congratulation cards, and of course Tom was nowhere to be found, but at least my parents came, and in front of my friends' families they even pretended to be loving and caring and normal.

Robert, Edson, Frank and I spent the night hanging out, along with our various dates. There was a sense of finality about the evening, a feeling that this would be the last time we would all be together like this, that this summer we'd all be moving on ... and in different directions. The mood was celebratory but sad, and there was an undercurrent of melancholy to the party atmosphere.

Familyland was open for us until dawn, but I was already fading by one, and by two o'clock all I wanted was to find a comfortable place to sleep. I decided to hit the road and said good-bye to all my friends, who urged me to stay. "Take a nap on the train for a few swings," Robert suggested. "You'll get your second wind." But I didn't want my second wind, I wanted to go to sleep, and I told them I'd call them tomorrow. I'd stupidly hooked up with Holly again, but sometime during the evening she'd abandoned me for a jock from Loara High School. I didn't really care, and her defection made it that much easier to leave.

My dad beat the shit out of me when I got home.

I wasn't expecting it, and had no real idea what was behind it. All I knew was that when I walked into my room, it was trashed, the broken remnants of my word processor on the floor, and my dad was seated on my messed-up bed, glaring at me. I had about two seconds to take all that in, and then he was on me, swinging like a lunatic, fists flailing. I did my best to protect myself, but I was tired and caught by surprise, and he was focused and ready. I think he knocked me out, but I'm not sure. All I know is that one minute I was trying to block punches to my head, and the next I was waking up and it was light outside.

I hurt all over, but I forced myself to get out of bed and walk to the kitchen.

"What the hell happened to you?" my mom asked when she saw me. It was midmorning, according to the clock above the oven.

"He came home that way," my dad lied. The old man was sitting at the kitchen table, coffee cup in hand. "I asked him what happened, but he wouldn't tell me. Some type of graduation party fight or something, I guess."

"That's a lie!" I shouted. For one of the very few times in my life, I looked to my mom for comfort and support. "He did this! He attacked me when I came home, and he trashed my room! You can go see it!"

It was obvious she didn't believe me. "Jason." My mom's gaze was hard, her tone of voice disapproving.

"I want charges pressed!" I demanded. "Call the police! Have them take fingerprints!"

"I have never laid a hand on you," my dad said calmly.

I pushed my face an inch from his own. "You're a lying sack of shit."

But he did not take the bait. He turned his head sideways, took another sip of coffee, a small uncharacteristic smile playing about his lips.

I shoved the coffee cup into his face and was gratified to hear his roar of rage and pain as the hot liquid splashed onto his cheeks and chin, dripping down his neck. But I didn't stick around for the retaliation. I fled back to my room, slamming and locking the door, and waited there, trembling, fists clenched, for my dad to come barging in.

But he didn't.

I could hear the murmur of low conversation from the kitchen, but no footsteps followed me to the back of the house and there were no screaming recriminations from either my mom or my dad.

I looked around my room, filled with a white-hot anger. This was it. This was the last straw. I was going to take my savings and my scholarship money and get out of this house for good.

Only that wasn't enough.

No. I wanted my dad to pay for what he'd done.

I wanted the bastard dead.

And I knew just how to do it.

Excited, I sorted through the jumble of debris on my desk and found a clean sheet of paper and an unbroken pencil. Last weekend, Rosita Aguilar had been killed, struck by a hit-and-run driver while walking across Seventh Avenue. As there were no witnesses, police were relying on friends and family of the murderer to come forward. I knew Rosita. Not well, but enough to speak to if we met outside of school. Her brother and boyfriend were both in gangs, and I knew that they'd rather have a chance at the man who killed Rosita than turn him over to the police.

I wrote to her brother anonymously. Disguising my handwriting should this note ever find its way to the police, making sure I didn't get fingerprints on the paper, I wrote that I'd been a witness to the accident ... only it had not been an accident. A man had tried to pick up Rosita and she had refused. But the man wouldn't take no for an answer. When she started to run away from him, yelling that she was going to report him, the man put his car into gear and intentionally ran her down before speeding away. I got the license plate number
and
followed the car home.

I gave my dad's license number, our address and a detailed description of my father.

It wasn't the best or most believable story in the world, but it was all I could come up with, and I wrote the letter with a passion that translated itself to plausibility. Later that day, when my parents were out, I got Roberto Aguilar's address from the phone book and mailed the letter.

The deed was done.

I'm not sure what I felt at that moment. Regret? No, definitely not that. I think I felt satisfied, the way a person would after successfully completing an important job. I walked back home. My parents had returned from wherever they'd gone, and I looked at them as I passed by the living room on my way to my bedroom. I felt nothing. No pity, no sadness, no remorse.

Days passed. A week. But I had no doubts, no worries that Rosita's brother would not take his revenge. I had faith. Faith in Roberto. Faith in my letter more than anything else. I might not be that confident or sure of myself in any other circumstance, but when I was at my desk, paper in front of me, writing, I was king of the world.

The following Thursday night, my dad was late coming home from the store.

It had happened.

I don't know how I knew, but I knew. He'd gone to Vons to buy some booze for himself and tampons for my mom, and he wasn't actually that late. He could have run into traffic, started talking to someone in the checkout line, anything. But the air around me felt charged, electric, and decidedly different.

He'd been killed.

I felt perfectly calm. Calm and a little bit ... pleased. Strange, I know, but there it was. I looked down at the steadiness of my hands. I was like the godfather, I thought. I could order a hit on someone and it would come to pass—as long as I did it in writing. I sensed very strongly that it was only through letters that my wishes could be made real, that I could effect change. It was my writing that granted me this power, if power was what it was.

I sat there, knowing my dad was dead, and thought about all of the letters I'd written, all I'd accomplished. There seemed, in a way, something magical about it, and while I knew that such a mystical view of a prosaic activity like writing a letter was ridiculous, I couldn't help thinking along those lines. Like songwriters who claimed that they simply channeled music from some higher plane, I felt as though my letter writing tapped into a mysterious force far greater than myself.

The call came an hour later.

My mom had already worked herself into a frenzy, revving up for the fight she intended to instigate the second my dad walked through the door, and it took her a few moments to switch gears. When she did, the entire composition of her face changed. I watched her carefully, intently, as anger changed to sorrow—sorrow for herself. I don't know if she'd ever loved my dad, but at the moment she learned of his death, all of her feelings were centered on herself. I could see her thinking about the new responsibilities she'd have to shoulder, the extra work she'd have to do, the added financial burdens, and I was sickened by her selfishness.

When she spoke to me, though, after hanging up the phone, she was more of a mother than I could ever remember her being before. She came over and hugged me, crying, and when she told me that my dad was dead, the victim of a random drive-by shooting, when she asked if I was okay, she seemed genuinely concerned for my emotional welfare. But in the time it took me to hug her back and reassure her that I was fine, she'd returned to her usual bitchy self.

We separated, awkward with each other once again.

"We should tell Tom," I offered tentatively.

"I don't even know where he is," she said, and the steel was back in her voice. She glanced around the room as though looking for something. "I know he had insurance. I made him get it. I just hope to Christ it's all paid up." She began reciting a litany of my father's financial misadventures, working herself up again, the anger building, and I retreated to my room, pretending I needed some time to myself after receiving such devastating news.

In truth, I
did
need time to myself.

Time to plot my escape.

For there was no way in hell I was going to stay in this house with just my mom here. It was bad enough with both of them, but without another parent to deflect the anger and attention, I could not remain at home. I needed to find a new place to live. I broke out my calculator, added up my bank balance and my scholarship money, tried to figure out how much I would continue to bring in if I kept my Gemco job and took another part-time or even full-time position during the summer.

I needed to leave as soon as possible. Tonight, if I could. I wanted to be out of here before the funeral talk started, before concrete plans had to be made and I got sucked into participating. But what to bring? I would not be coming back, so I had to take everything of importance with me. And it all had to fit in a suitcase and a couple of sacks. That left out my record collection, though. And my stereo. I could live without my desk, bed and other furniture, and since my word processor had been smashed, it was no longer a factor. But I needed my tunes. I'd spent a lot of effort, a lot of time and money, building up my record collection, and I couldn't just abandon it.

I would have to leave tomorrow.

I called Robert and Edson while my mom went to the coroner's to identify the body. I didn't tell them about my dad, although they'd find out about that soon enough. I did tell them I was moving out on my own and needed their help. They were both impressed and, I think, a little bit shocked. But they agreed to come over tomorrow when I called and to help me take out my stuff.

In the morning I waited, hiding in my bedroom behind a locked door, pretending to be sleeping deeply, until my mom left to find a funeral home and make arrangements. The moment she was gone, I called my friends. I'd spent half the night piling up my records and packing up my clothes, bagging my important books and papers, and by the time they arrived in Robert's dad's Cherokee, I was ready to go.

I could not face my mom directly, so I left her a hastily written letter that explained I was gone. I had the money I'd saved from Gemco as well as my scholarship funds, I assured her, so I'd be fine (not that she really gave a shit). If we'd had a normal family, I could have called up Tom, moved in with him, but I didn't even know where he was living. And didn't care. So Robert drove us around Acacia and, Anaheim, Fullerton and Brea, looking for apartments.