Jumped In (2 page)

Cassidy starts walking him my way and they're all looking.

Looking at him.

Looking at
me.

I feel the glares pelt my skin. My heart thumps hard. The blood rushes to my brain and the red to my face. Cassidy and the kid keep on coming my way and I'm like,
Do not sit there. DO NOT SIT DOWN!
The words ricochet inside my head. I glare at Cassidy with all I got, hoping I can change her mind.

She ignores me and the thug does it. He sits in No-Man's-Land.

“Sam, this is Luis Cárdenas,” Ms. Cassidy says fake sweetly.

I don't say hi. I don't say anything to him.

And he doesn't say anything to me.

He just turns away, in slow motion. It's like an action movie where you see a creepy dude for the first time, and you just know he's gonna end up being the bad guy. And he's gonna do something awful to someone before it's over.

He sits there and looks straight ahead without a word.

I look straight ahead too.

To show him I don't care he's there.

We go almost the whole period without even looking at each other.

Until I sneak a quick one.

And I see it.

Holy crap!

He's got the gnarliest, sickest scar on his neck—the side of his neck facing me. Four inches long, just beneath his jawline. It's one of those thick ones that puffs up like a mini mountain range.

I space out and visualize Luis getting his neck slashed in so many ways.

A rival gang member stabs him in a dark back alley.

A bunch of his cholo homies jump him and cut him for his initiation.

He stands in front of the bathroom mirror and coldly does the deed himself because he knows it's gonna make him look like a
badass
.

The pictures keep on coming until … “What are you looking at?” One mighty vein pops red from his forehead. He clenches his jaw, glaring at me like I'm a complete idiot. Like he's about to kill me.

“Nothin', man.” I turn away, trembling.

He huffs and shakes his head.

I see kids tap one another on the shoulder, pointing. Whispers are firing from all directions. Their eyes are accusing me, wondering what I did to him, what I said to him to piss him off. And I know they're all wondering what method Luis is gonna choose to kick my ass.

I plant my head back on my desk and throw my hood over it. I try to block out all the eyes. All the whispers.

I fight hard to breathe.

In.

Out.

I plead with my heart to slow its massive pounding.

In.

Out.

I wait for the blood to flow from my face and make a pact with myself: No staring. No peeks. No glances.

I'm not looking his way ever again.

Dearest Poets of Room 108,

We've read and discussed examples of personification in the poems of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and William Carlos Williams. Soon we'll discuss examples of personification in
your
poetry. Write about an item from your daily life. Give that “thing” human characteristics. This will shed light on both the human experience and the subject of your poem. Deep stuff, poets. You're deep kids, so I wouldn't have it any other way. Now, make me proud. Make me weep, laugh, think.… Make me happy I went into teaching. Please! Now get to it!

Sincerely,

Ms. Cassidy

Your brilliant ideas:

My Scar: An Old Man in the Community Pool

My scar is old man Pyle

Floating alone in the Highline Pool

The shriveled viejito grandpa

Smiling in his tiny Speedo

With skin like prune fruit leather

That sags and folds and droops

You stare at Mr. Pyle in his microscopic trunks

Your jaw drops

Your eyebrows scrunch

You don't want to look

    But no matter how hard you try

You just can't stop looking

—Luis Cárdenas

 

HE'S EVERYWHERE

T
HE FINAL BELL IS STILL RINGING AS
I
BUST THROUGH
P
UGET'S FRONT DOORS
.

The whole situation's exploded.

The gangster is not just in Cassidy's class. He's in all my classes. All six! And the brilliant teachers of Puget High School have seated him in No-Man's-Land in every one.

Every single frickin' one.

 

STOP NOISE

G
RAY SKIES CAVE IN
,
SHRINKING THE WORLD
. The rain pours harder.

I want out of this weather.

I want my bed.

I'm so close I can see Ginny and Bill's house.

But I can't move. I'm stuck boots deep in muddy water, trying to stop his voice. Gilbert's voice. That damn parrot is camped out in my head alongside Luis and the rest of them. And he's screaming it! I'm nowhere near the front door but I hear him louder than ever. I press my hands over my ears, into my brain. I fight to get Krist's bass line from “Scoff” thumping and Kurt's gravel voice surging in …

But there is no way.

Gilbert wins.

Gilbert takes me back.

Back to the day my mom's life fell apart. When she lost her crappy job canning juice at the cranberry plant in Aberdeen. When her idiot boyfriend, Lance, socked her in the jaw and she decided we needed to get away from Aberdeen and head to Grandma Ginny and Grandpa Bill's.

It was just after school let out after seventh grade. I had plans to go salmon fishing with Rupe and his dad. Dave had gotten a real electric guitar from his uncle and Rupe's grandma had bought him an old beat-up drum set. We were shopping for a used bass for me. This high school kid was selling what he claimed was the very first bass Krist Novoselic ever played. Who knows if it was true or bullshit? The point is we were finally growing our hair out. Finally kick-starting our band.

I picture myself reassuring Rupe and Dave that we'll be up and rocking as soon as I get back in a couple weeks. I tell them my mom needs this little break. I tell them she deserves it after what she's been through lately.

I grab some clothes and my blue lyrics notebook. My mom and I hop in the car and set out east on the Olympic Highway.

In the afternoon we get to Ginny and Bill's little Des Moines rambler. We walk in the door and there's a birdcage right there. Ginny introduces us to her new pet, Gilbert. She says he's an African Grey parrot and she calls him my cousin. She tells us he talks, but he's shy.

They feed us ham sandwiches and potato salad for lunch. Bill—all gussied up in his flannel shirt, bolo tie, and cowboy boots—motions for me to join him for a Fudgsicle in the living room. He shows off a model of the Boeing 737 jet he and Ginny used to build before they retired from the factory. He shows me snapshots from his hunting days, laughing from the gut about the time he and his buddy Anderson got treed by an elk.

From the kitchen, Ginny yells, “Don't believe a word that old man says, Sam.” We all laugh and I figure these couple weeks won't be so bad.

He goes on with the stories and when he finally takes a breath, I hear Ginny—perky positive Grandma Ginny—turn serious in the kitchen, asking my mom all these questions like
How long do you think you'll be, Anne? Do you have friends there? Wait, who is that again? Do you have a job? Money?

This whole thing is sounding like a big deal. So I head in there to see what's going on and my mom is like,
I have to. I need sun. I have to go.

The words are a massive kick in the gut.

How long are we going for, Mom?

She grabs me by the shoulders and looks at me with a plastered-on smile. She says she has to leave me here in Des Moines for a short stay. She's heading for Phoenix, Arizona, to see an old friend from high school and get her head on straight. Then she'll come get me and we'll go back to Aberdeen and start over.

Start over? Who needs to start over?

My mom is talking so fast she can't catch her breath. Her face turns pinker than the walls. She's got her fingers locked on my arms. I look at my mom's hands and they're beet red, but the ends of her fingers are bone white. She starts sobbing, going on and on about how sorry she is, saying all this trash about my loser dad—who's never been there to defend himself—and hugging me and freaking out that I won't hug her back.

I can't be in the same room with her, so I break out of her squeeze and barricade myself in the bathroom. No matter how much she begs and screams, I won't come out.

I focus on the green wallpaper with the repeating pheasant-and-duck pattern. The birds are flying around some sunny mountain lake. I would do anything to be there with them.

I want my mom to go.

I close my eyes and wish her away.

Her bawling gets even louder and more intense. She pounds the door with a slow
bam-bam-bam
—and through her sobbing, slobbering tears, she screams, “GOOD-BYE, SAM!” I mean, my mom
screams
it. And she sprays all her fear and anger and hurt all at once.

All at me.

It was the first time I can remember my heart pounding like it does now—like a jackhammer—and my face stinging like it's a pincushion for pissed-off bees.

I wish I could forget.

I
could
have.

I think I would have.

If it wasn't for fucking Gilbert!

From his living room perch, he saw it all. Heard everything and recorded the moment in his pea brain. Locked it in forever.

So ever since that horrible day, whether I'm coming or going, I can't get past Gilbert's cage without him screeching, “GOOD-BYE, SAM! GOOD-BYE, SAM! GOOD-BYE, SAM!” I hear my mom's trembling voice and see her crying eyes. And I feel just like I did that afternoon two years ago.

Every day this happens.

Every day I'm transported back.

Every day, at least twice a day, the stupid bird does this to me.

Everyone experiences a painful moment in life. But not everyone has to relive the moment every … single … day.

I do.

Thanks to a stupid parrot.

I feel the rain pelt my face as I sprint toward the house. Past the mailbox. Up the gravel driveway. Through the muddy yard.

I bust through the front door and I'm met with the screech: “GOOD-BYE, SAM!”

I jump at his cage.

“GOOD-BYE, SAM! GOOD-BYE, SAM!”

I wrestle with the latch until the door pops open.

I reach in and Gilbert pecks my hand. Claws my fingers. I clutch his scrawny neck and lift him out of there. I squeeze. He tries to wiggle free. I squeeze his neck harder. I swear he's looking into me, pleading for his pathetic little life.

I see horror in his eyes.

I see me reflected in them.

What in the hell, Sam?

What are you doing?

I let go of his little neck and he immediately inflates. “GOOD-BYE, SAM! GOOD-BYE, SAM!” He screeches it louder than ever.

I push him back in his cage.

“GOOD-BYE, SAM! GOOD-BYE, SAM!”

I latch the door and haul ass into my room.

“GOOD-BYE, SAM! GOOD-BYE, SAM!”

He's always gonna say it.

And there's nothing I can do about it.

I collapse on the bed, pull the covers over my head and try to check out.

But I can't lose the images.

Gilbert's eyes.

The look on Luis's face.

The look on those idiot kids' faces.

My mom's face, eyes, fingers … the sound of her scream …

Stop thinking, Sam!

Stop.

Just press Play.

I run my fingers over the player till I hit the button.

Do-do, dow-ow, do-do dow-ow.
It's “Big Long Now.”

The distorted guitar is a slow steady hop. A cymbal rolls. Kick drum and toms. Krist's bass loops up and down, somehow pushing the rhythm while holding it back. The most haunted voice ever seeps into the noise, then soars above it all.

I fight to feel Kurt's pain. Fight to forget about mine.

I watch a thousand raindrops run down my window. Watch mold grow on the sill. Watch darkness come. “Big Long Now” plays over and over, and all I can think is how this music used to make me want to be something good.

Now I just want it to take me away.

What the hell happened, Sam?