In the Break (3 page)

“You sure were tired,” my mother said, placing the gravy bowl on the table and sitting down. “It’s not like you to sleep all
afternoon. Are you feeling well?” She placed her hand on my forehead.

I recoiled from her touch. I didn’t tell them about walking home, about F and Jamie on the beach.

“He’s fine, just lazy.” Nestor was half finished with his food before we’d even served ourselves.

“No, I’m not,” I said.

Nestor bared his teeth at me, his teasing smile.

“Leave him alone,” my mother said. As she chewed she always ground her teeth, something that made me squirm, sort of like
when you hear chalk screech over the blackboard.

My sister wolfed down her food, following my father’s lead, laughing from time to time. She was starting to develop already,
and she was going to be real pretty, like my mother. My mother was short with a “full figure” and a bright smile and she colored
her hair a reddish shade. My sister had brown hair and green eyes and the fair skin of our mother.

My father, finished with his food, pushed his plate forward,
stood up, and said, “I’m going to read.” That meant he was going to take a nap before going to work. He was a printer, a foreman,
and he worked the graveyard shift, eleven at night until seven in the morning, but he had a far drive to get to work, and
he always went in early on Sunday night, the first work night of the week for workers of the graveyard shift.

As we finished our dinner, my mother said to me, “Are you okay? You’re awfully quiet.”

“Mom, can I get a subscription to
CosmoGirl
?” Patti said.

“I’m okay,” I said.

“I want my own computer,” Paul said.

“You’re too young,” I said.

“Nobody’s getting anything,” my mother said.

“I’m gonna go shoot baskets,” I said. My mother gave me the stare. “May I please be excused?”

It was around sunset when I climbed on top of the block wall that surrounds our backyard and looked out to sea. From a standing
position on the wall, I could see the surfline at Playa Chica. The waves did seem to be building — there was a solid line
of white-water crashing on shore. Cool. Tomorrow would be good. But tomorrow was a school day. Monday. Maybe I could fake
being sick.

I sat on the wall, watching the colors of the sky as they transitioned from day to night, from bright and textured to dark
and flat. When it was almost dark, I went inside the house.

A theme song for some bogus reality show was going when I thought I heard something outside. My mother was asleep. Because
she worked in the morning, she’d go to bed early. Nestor had already left for work, taking his old Toyota pickup. My younger
brother and sister were asleep, since they went to bed at 9:00. Probably the wind. It had been really blowing when I came
in at sunset.

I sort of had the house to myself and was enjoying it. I had some homework to do, had to study for a test, print out an assignment
for English, nothing to get excited over. I liked to stay up late and do my schoolwork when the house was quiet. The problem
was that I aced everything without trying; I just wasn’t challenged, as Mr. Vance, my homeroom teacher said. I was considering
skipping eleventh grade next year and going right to twelfth, if this year stayed so boring. The problem was that Jamie wasn’t
in the H classes — the honors classes — and I’d be a grade ahead of him, and I’d graduate a year before him. I resisted last
year when my counselor, Mrs. Perez, had approached my parents. I’ll give this to Nestor and my mother, they don’t force things
on me that I don’t want. As the theme song continued playing I went into the kitchen to get a bowl of ice cream. I thought
I heard a tap at the front door, but ignored it because nobody would come over on Sunday night. I plopped back down on the
sofa, spooning ice cream down my gullet, with all the big, comfortable pillows propping me up. There it was again. Tap, tap,
very lightly. And again.

What the? I thought on my way to the door and opened it.

“Juan,” Amber hissed. She wore a T-shirt and her frayed cutoff Levi’s and her hair was all messed up and she was way out of
breath and it looked as if she’d been crying. She held her hands together, wringing them, a gesture I’d never seen her do,
making her backpack fall off her shoulder.

I hated to admit it, but after dinner I had forgotten about the shit this morning. Overcoming my surprise, I said, “Come in.”
I could count on the fingers of my right hand the times Amber had been over, and I couldn’t ever remember when she was here
on her own.

“No,” she said. She was breathing hard, as if she’d been running, but she was trying to mask it so she’d be quiet.

I’d always had a crush on Amber. And now here she was at my door, her chest heaving up and down and her powerful and perpetually
tanned legs twitching into a pigeon-toed stance. Her individual features were angular, sharp, and she shouldn’t be good-looking,
but she was. She was beautiful, in my opinion. It wasn’t that Amber was so stunningly good-looking or an outrageous babe or
anything. But once you saw her you wouldn’t forget; her beauty was not ordinary.

After she caught her breath she said, “Jamie’s on the beach. He beat the shit out of F.”

“Come in.”

“I’m taking him money. He got some stuff together and left. He asked me to get you.”

“Where’s F now?”

“I’m not sure. My mother called the paramedics. I think the cops’ll come too.”

“Crap. Get in.” I leaned forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her into the entry hall. I turned off the porch light. “Let
me get a sweatshirt.”

Jamie was in trouble. My best friend in big trouble, the sinking feeling right in my gut told me.

Moments later we ran across the field over the hollows, underground trenches for storing World War II munitions. Sometimes
kids would hang out at the hollows when they were avoiding their parents.

A slight overcast blew in off the ocean, obscuring the half moon that washed the land in an eerie light. The smell of saltwater
permeated the air, and Amber and I were huffing and puffing, but still, we ran toward the sea. It was just beyond the marsh,
beyond the four-lane highway that skirted the beach and went all the way to the pier, all the way to Mexico.

“Wait,” Amber said. She leaned over, panting.

“You okay?” I said.

Her braid fell over her head, almost hitting the ground. She stood upright, gave me a sad smile, and pushed me. “Yeah. F was
drunk, Juan. Drunk! And yelling at all of us. Jamie stood up to him and kicked his ass. He hurt him. F’s hurt, I mean really
hurt.”

“Let’s go!” We took off again.

After we’d made it through the strawberry field and through the cornfield we slowed to climb down the small sandstone cliff
that would put us on the marsh. The cornstalks rustled in the night breeze, and it was as if you could hear the tidal movement
through the marsh — the tide would recede for another hour. There was nothing to do but wade through the muck, which sucked
at our feet as we trudged on. Soon the water was up to our knees, then our waists, and at this point you could really feel
the tidal current wanting to take you out to sea.

“He’s got a gun at the house. He said he’d kill Jamie.” Amber huffed long, deep breaths as we stopped again.

My family was probably the only one in the nation not to have an arsenal of firepower at our disposal in our house. In fact,
my family was totally old school. I couldn’t have piercings, tattoos, iced hair, cell, and my brother married his girlfriend
just because she was pregnant. My father told my brother that he was doing the right thing. I thought he was a chump, even
though I liked Bonnie.

“If F was drinking, maybe he’ll cool down,” I said after thinking about it.

“F’s messed up. He was, like, convulsing on the floor.”

Soon we slogged through the shallow marshy part in front of the Coast Highway, and stopped before crossing. This was potentially
dangerous because if cops were looking for Jamie and saw us crossing, then they could get to him.

“I don’t know if we should both go at once or separately,” I said to Amber.

She knew what I referred to because she said with no hesitation, “At the same time. Otherwise there’d be two chances to see
us.”

She was right, of course, and I wondered why I wasn’t thinking so clearly. Fact of the matter was, I was scared. At first
I thought I was only scared for Jamie. Then I knew my fear was for Amber as well. Now, this minute, as I prepared to cross
the Coast Highway, I knew that I was also scared for myself. What if F had his gun and was coming for Jamie? I didn’t want
to die by gunshot, I wanted to drown in huge waves. Waves that were totally out of control. Fucking chaos!

As we caught our breath I thought about F. He didn’t like me anymore. At first he seemed to, but more recently he’d try to
bait me into arguing with him, and had even used a racial slur to intimidate
me. I knew that if he ever went too far, I’d tell my father, and my father would stand up to the dick, kick the royal shit
out of him, should it come to that. But now my father wasn’t around. Besides, Jamie had already kicked his ass.

“Well,” I said, “we’d better get to it.”

“Let’s wait for a good break,” Amber said.

When it came we sprinted across the highway and then lay in the sand off the road, not far from the asphalt. A few cars whizzed
by, nothing out of the ordinary. After a time of catching our breath, we sprinted the long sandy beach to the water’s edge,
where Jamie should be.

The overcast was in strong, small cloud wisps rushing past our faces as we stood right above the shoreline. Amber began yelling
for Jamie, but he never would have heard her, what with the roar of the breaking waves and the onshore wind. Her words were
just blown about like whitecaps far out at sea. As I looked at her, she was peering out onto the black ocean, and I felt a
sudden urge to hold her.

But I said, “Let’s split up; I’ll go north, you go south.”

“No,” Amber said. “We’re not separating.” The tone in her voice made it final, and she took my arm, placing her hand in mine
and pulled me forward with her.

First we walked north, calling for Jamie. When we got pretty close to The Strand and the houses on the sand, we turned back.
Walking south, I began looking up on the mesa for my house. There were only a few other buildings on the huge flat piece of
ground overlooking Playa Chica. Our neighbors were horse people, and I could see the lights from the various barns and houses
surrounding my own house.

When we were south of the mesa we found Jamie. He was sitting in the sand shivering. Amber hugged him. She tried to give him
my sweatshirt, which I’d gotten for her, but he refused, and it wouldn’t have fit anyway.

“Did you see anything? Cops or …” His voice was hoarse and nasal as it trailed off.

“No.” I wasn’t lying; I hadn’t seen anything, and I was on high alert for sirens.

The wind was howling, and it seemed to be blowing the tops of waves right on us: I felt damp inside and my hair was wet. We
sat in silence, comfortable in each other’s company, knowing there was no good solution to Jamie’s problem. The high-tide
surge was almost up to where we sat.

“I’m going to hitchhike south,” Jamie said. “I can’t stay here.”

“Only psychos hitchhike,” Amber said.

“I’ve got to get out of here. I’m not getting arrested for that prick.”

Silence.

“What if the cops are driving Coast Highway?” Jamie on the highway with only the beach for cover, which was no protection
at all, wasn’t a scenario that I relished.

“It’s cool, there’s nothing else to do,” Jamie said with a resigned quality to his voice that I’d not heard before. It was
acceptance and calmness at the same time.

Amber pulled Jamie into her shoulder.

“What’s going on, guys? I mean, shit’s happening pretty fast. Jamie, you fought F?”

“Yeah, I did.” He sounded as if his tongue was too thick or something, making his words raspy and soft at the same time. “I
kicked
his ass. I surprised him. He went off on me twice and I didn’t respond. This time, I nailed him right in the throat and got
him on the floor and worked out on his face. I fucked him up. I hit him and hit him and kept hitting him. And you know what?
It felt really good. I mean, really.”

“It was ugly, Juan. I hate F, but I don’t want Jamie to …”

“Be killed by that fucker,” Jamie filled in.

“No, get arrested. You wailed on him. It’s different now, Juan. F’s weird or crazy or something. He changed big time.”

“He takes everything out on me,” Jamie said. “And I’m through with it.”

Amber removed her arm from around Jamie’s shoulder and sat up straight.

She had always protected him, especially after their father died. She had a fierce protective net around Jamie, always looking
out for him, once even challenging a bully who was giving Jamie and me shit after school. We were in the first grade and thought
it was very cool.

One time when I was with Jamie in his room shortly after his father died, he started crying. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t
know what to do, but Amber came in and held him. Simply held him and they both cried. I left, letting myself out of the house
and walking home in a sad daze. At that time she made it a point to keep a close eye on him, to spend time with him when I
wasn’t around, even taking him with Robert Bonham when they went to Disneyland on one of their first dates.