Jumped In (11 page)

 

YELLING AT AN OLD MAN

S
UNDAY
, F
EBRUARY
24
TH
.

I head over to Luis's for another day of work.

As I walk through the gate, I see him leaving an upstairs apartment. There's a super-old African-American man leaning out the door on his walker, pointing his finger at Luis and hollering in the rain. Luis hollers something back that I can't hear. The old man waggles his finger and slams the door shut. Luis hops down the stairs.

I don't know what to make of it. It doesn't look good when teenagers yell at old men with walkers. Doesn't look good at all.

Luis sees me coming and waits for me to get to the apartment.

“Who's that?”

“Mr. Graves. Family friend.”

Is he serious?

“He's cool. We get in some arguments sometimes, but it's all good.”

I make the choice to believe him.

 

SOLOS

I
NSIDE
L
UIS'S APARTMENT
,
WE READ THE POEM TOGETHER
. I'm trying to bounce but I know I'm doing a shitty job of it.

Luis doesn't seem too concerned about my lack of bounce, but something is bugging him. He keeps stopping and losing focus. His head swivels, like he's looking for something.

I ask, “What's up?”

He sits there with his hand on his chin. He rubs his shaved head, goes
hmm
 … and says, “Too much rhyming.”

“You don't like it?”

“I think the rhyming is good.”

“So we keep the rhyming?”

“Oh yeah, we should keep it. We just need to break it up.”

He grabs a red pen and starts marking up the pages as he talks. “We wrote this whole thing for the two of us to say together. We need to break that up too.”

“How we gonna do that?”

“I'm pretty sure we need our own sections. Short poems. They shouldn't rhyme. We'll each write one and just stick them in there to change things up.”

“But when we read it for the deal at class, we'll read those parts together, right?”

“No, man, that's the point. It's like a rock song with guitar solos. We're each gonna take one. It's your moment to shine, Sam.”

I don't want a moment.

Bouncing is one thing, but shining is something different altogether.

I didn't sign up for shining.

I don't know what to say.

I don't mean to offend Luis, but I leave the room because this is crazy.

I go grab a root beer.

After it's been too long, he comes to the kitchen and asks me if I'm okay.

“Fine. Just thirsty.”

“You wanna grab one for me, Mr. Manners?”

Now the gangster is all concerned about manners.

I grab him a can. He takes an aspirin bottle out of his pocket and washes a few down with a swig of root beer.

I look at him like that was a lot of aspirin.

“Nasty headache. Don't tell my mom. Mexican moms are the worst worriers in the world. Especially Mexican-American ones. So keep it on the down-low.”

“I won't say anything.”

“Sam, our poem is gonna be great. It flows. And that flow is gonna be even more ass-kicking if we break out of it then come back to it. You'll see.”

I take a long sip of root beer. He can tell I'm not convinced.

“So you go home and think of something—
real short, no big deal—
and I'll do the same. We'll come back tomorrow and check out what we got. If it works, cool. If it doesn't, we can trash that idea and come up with something better. All right?”

I wanna say
no
, but I can't.

He makes it sound like it's nothing. Like it's the easiest thing.

So I don't say no.

I want to.

But I don't.

I say, “Okay.”

 

THE BLUE NOTEBOOK

I
GET TO MY GRANDPARENTS' AND OPEN THE DOOR
.

“GOOD-BYE, SAM!”

Not now, Gilbert.

I head straight for my closet.

I dig all the way into the back and take out the backpack. Zip it open. Reach in. Root around, and pull out my old blue notebook.

I open it. The smells of Aberdeen and salt water and dirt smack me in the face. I think about writing back then. In the yard under the cedar tree, down at the pier, at the river …

I read some lyrics.

Some of my songs: “Fish Hook.” “Jealous Teacher.” “Bent Frame.”

The lyrics are crap.

I was a punk writing stupid lines, trying to sound like a rock star and failing miserably.

But I wrote 'em.

I tried.

And goddammit, I'm gonna do it again.

Right now.

I turn to a fresh page in the notebook. I set it on my desk and put my pencil on the paper. I tell myself I'm not gonna pick this fucking thing up until I've written something to take back to Luis. I'm gonna sit here and do this.

 

MORNING

I
WAKE UP AT MY DESK
. The sun's back. A ray cuts through a gap in my curtains, reflecting up off the white page of my notebook, stinging me in my face.

I look down at the page.

There's nothing there.

I stared at it for an hour last night and fell asleep with nothing.

I look back up at that beam of sunlight. I open the curtains and check out the morning. Something about it makes me start writing.

When I stop, I've got a poem.

This sliver of sun

Slicing through curtain cracks

Cuts a hot stripe on my skin

Dragging me up

When I don't want to be bothered

Don't want to see, hear, feel, think.

This sliver of sun

Spreads like wildfire

And I have to watch.

I throw my glowing curtains open,

Feel a warm hand touch my face

Through squints

I watch the sun rise higher

Birds singing the soundtrack

As light paints the day with color

Like for the first time

I think I'll give this day a chance.

 

DON'T LOOK BACK

I
DIDN'T HAVE THE GUTS TO SHOW
L
UIS AT SCHOOL
.

I'm showing him now.

My heart is blasting.

He's got one hand on top of his bald head, the other holding my poem. His eyebrows are scrunched until he looks up from the page.

“I know. It's shit,” I say, reaching out to grab my notebook.

Luis pushes my hand away. “Don't, man. It's good.”

I don't believe him and he can tell.

“It starts bleak. And sad. But it's hopeful. And it's gonna work. Here's mine,” he says.

I read it. It's about him liking a girl. She has got to be great, because in the poem he seriously wants her.

“It's all right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say.

“You sure?”

I hand it back. “Yeah.” He knows it's good. I don't know why he's asking.

He thanks me and says we should practice the stuff we wrote together yesterday.

A couple times through and my shaking goes away. I get the words out all right. Us reading together sounds good.

We get to the part where my poem is supposed to go. Luis stops reading and I know what he wants.

In a split second, I feel my throat go dry. I feel it close up on me. I cough it back open enough to ask Luis for a drink of water.

“Sure, man. No prob.”

I hear Luis open a cupboard and grab the glass. I hear him turn on the tap.

I try my poem out. I whisper it to myself. I say the whole thing from beginning to end.

No big deal.

It's gonna be okay.

I can do this.

I hear his footsteps walking my way and I start shaking again. I hear Gilbert in my head and those kids from Rainier Middle School. Luis is back. “All right, Sam, let's hear what you got.”

“I should probably write something different.”

He's got two glasses. Gives me one.

I chug.

“It's good,” he says, popping some aspirin. “It fits. Read it.”

I try to read but my throat shuts down on me harder than before.

I cannot speak.

I hear Luis tell me it's okay. “Don't worry about it, man. It's cool. Let's go back to the top and read it all together.”

He counts us off, “One, two, three,
go
—”

And I do.

I grab my notebook and bolt.

Because this sucks.

This whole thing is a crock of shit.

“Sam, don't—”

I head straight for the door.

“Sam, it's all right! You don't have to—”

I slam it and haul outta there.

And I don't look back.

 

CAN'T ESCAPE

I
LEFT
L
UIS'S SO EARLY
I
'M IN BED BEFORE DARK
. Just like old times.

“Floyd the Barber” is blaring. I try to see Kurt singing that song. Try to visualize crazy Floyd coming after Kurt with his razor-sharp scissors.

But no matter how much I try, this brain movie is all me.

Gripping my notebook.

Red face.

Open mouth.

No words.

Running away.

I feel cold coming in through holes in the blankets. I see light knifing through the covers, and I don't want it to.

I get out of bed and tuck my sheet and blanket in as tight as I can.

But I still see light.

I throw off my covers and get up. Swing the closet door open and yank out an old comforter and a wool blanket. I tuck in all corners.

I'm on my back, the blankets weighing on my face, soaking up my wet, warm breath—and, goddammit, there is still light in here!

I bury my face in my pillow and scream the lines of my poem until I exhaust myself and fall asleep.

 

MUMMIFIED

M
ORNING COMES
. I can't move from my bed.

Ginny knocks on my door.

I tell her I'm sick.

I skip school.

I don't take a call from Luis.

Don't get dressed.

Don't even get out of bed.

Ginny comes back again and again; I just grunt every time she asks me how I'm doing. And I turn down all offers of sweet potato stew, Thai potpie, fruit salad, fruit leather, hot tea, iced tea, orange juice, NyQuil, DayQuil, Pepto, Vick's VapoRub.

I feel like a jerk, because I know that more than anything, my grandma wants to help me.

Luis calls again.

I still don't talk to him.

I think about my life too much.

And I wonder if I'll ever do anything worth anything.

 

THE NEXT DAY

B
ILL TRIES
.

He opens the door a crack.

I tell him I'm gonna get up in a little while. I tell him
no,
I don't need to go to the doctor.

He says he and Ginny love me.

Him saying that makes me feel so small.

I can't say anything back and that makes me feel even smaller.

“You rest, Sam. You do what you need to do. But let us know if there's any way we can help.”

“Okay.”

He closes the door.

I pull the covers up. Close my eyes. Try to think if there's any way they can help. I can't come up with anything because I don't even know why I'm lying here.

The door opens again.

“I'm coming in, Sam.”

Bill walks into the dark. He sits on my bed and reaches around till he's holding my hand. He puts a metal ball in and closes my fingers around it.

“Sam,” he says, “I had this friend Alvin Johnson. An old-time Boeing test pilot. Everyone called him Tex. Tex was one of the first to fly the 707 prototype. Summer of 1955, it's his job to pilot the flyover for industry hotshots and all the folks at the hydro races at Seafair. Thousands of people. So he's got the big new jet over Lake Washington and he thinks,
Let's barrel roll this baby.
A full three hundred and sixty degrees. It's an insane idea, Sam. The 707 is too big for tricks. It was built to carry passengers. To make sure they get places safe and keep 'em real comfortable while they eat a baked potato and steak and drink a glass of wine. It's the farthest thing from a stunt jet. The thing about Tex Johnson: he's crazy. He doesn't care what that jet was built for. He wants to have some fun. So he goes for it. He risks his life and his job. But, Sam, he nails that three sixty. He rolls that plane in the sky above Lake Washington like it was no big deal. Like that 707 was born to roll. Then, for good measure, you know what he does, Sam? That lunatic rolls it again.”