Jumped In (5 page)

Because both of us are following the Rules.

Maybe everything's gonna be okay.

Maybe my life can go back to normal.

Just as I think it, Luis leans over to me and says, “Do that again, and I swear I'll kill you.”

 

I WON'T DO THAT AGAIN

W
OULD
I
HAVE BEEN ANGRY
if Luis had so blatantly broken a Rule and threatened my peace?

Yes, I would have.

Would I have felt like killing him?

Yes, I would have.

Would I have killed him?

No, I wouldn't have killed him.

Kids say “I'm gonna kill you” all the time. But when they say “kill,” they don't really mean
kill.

But Luis isn't just a kid.

He's a gangster.

And what do gangsters do? Besides tag buildings, steal cars and guns, and deal drugs?

They kill people.

And that fucking scares me.

On the other hand, if Luis is such a badass, why would he work so hard to follow the Rules? To try to
not
be noticed? To try and disappear?

Like I do?

Why is it important to him? What makes him that way? Why would he care? He's a big, cold-blooded, cholo gangster with a scary neck scar.

A cold-blooded cholo who just threatened to kill my ass.

 

TELL US ALL ABOUT
THE LIFE
,
GANGSTER BOY

I
T'S A COUPLE DAYS AFTER THE INCIDENT
. Luis and I sit in Cassidy's class, eyes trained on the board, following rules 3 and 4.

We're ready for anything Cassidy might dish out as she starts in on
metaphors
. We both follow rule 7.

She asks for “an example of a metaphor for our society.”

We follow rule 6.

Smartass Mick Weatherspoon does not follow rule 6. He fires his hand up and Cassidy calls on him. He asks if gangs could be a metaphor for society.

Possibly a deep question.

But at the moment, I can't give a rat's ass because Cassidy's knee jerks and she immediately turns to get feedback from Luis. Like he's the class expert. Like he's dying to educate us all about gangbanger life.

She walks right at us.

I can't believe she's coming back at him so soon after he blank-stared her down.

I freak out about all the looks from the class. But I'm not worried about Luis. He's gonna prevail again.

Cassidy's standing directly over him and she says, “Luis, what's your take on—”

It's all she can get out.

She's frozen.

Stuck in her tracks.

Luis hasn't done anything. Hasn't said a word. But Cassidy is stopped cold.

You can see the wheels turning in her head. She's looking up at the ceiling, thinking the whole thing through.

It's quiet.

The furnace clanks in the corner.

A jumbo jet slowly whooshes overhead.

Cassidy looks down at the ground. She turns and walks away from Luis. And she completely changes the subject.

It's awkward. But for the moment, the attention isn't on Luis. It's on Cassidy. Everyone is checking her out, wondering what the hell made her stop like that.

The bell rings and the class bolts up to go.

Cassidy's off the hook.

But she doesn't take the free pass.

As Luis walks toward the door, she stops him. “Luis, I hope you don't think that I've assumed anything about you. Because I haven't.”

He doesn't respond. He just stands there for a long time. Then he looks up at her like he wants to say something, but he can't. He struggles to talk, but no words come out.

Carlos called Luis
Callado.
I looked it up. It means quiet, or like, the Quiet One. Well,
Callado
is all he is until he dashes out of the classroom.

Running.

Without a word.

 

ON A STRING

O
N MY WAY TO CLASS
, I'm trying to figure out what made Luis run from Cassidy.

And just like that I smack into—

“
Ojos,
man. You never
not
bumping me?”

Aw, hell.

“You gotta keep your head up, son!”

“I'm just going to class, so—”

“
Callado
beat the shit outta you yet?”

“Nah—”

“Serious?”

“No—I mean, yes, I'm serious.”

I try to take off, but Carlos pulls me back to him. He looks to make sure no one's listening and says, “Ain't no
vato
in this pen don't fear
Callado
.” Carlos pinches his thumb and finger right in front of my eyes. “He's got us all right here,” he says, “on a motherfuckin' string.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So whattaya gotta do?”

“I … um … I—”

“Don't you listen to nothing I say?”

“I do. I listen.”

“You gotta keep your eyes open.”

“That's what I was gonna say.”

“Do it, then.”

I nod my head, noting that I'm being singled out by a kid who missed half of last year when Mel, the security guard, got tipped that he had a knife in his locker and was gonna jump this junior, Marcus Shelton. Mr. Carter and Mel went into Carlos's locker and found the knife and a bunch of weed and figured out Carlos had been dealing at school. That same day, the cops busted some older gangbanger friends of Carlos's who were sneaking onto campus to help him beat the shit out of Marcus.

So, if Carlos is that much of a badass and
he's
afraid of Luis, how bad must Luis be?

“He ever say anything to you?”

I shake my head.

“Nothin'?”

I shake my head again.

“Well, if he ever say anything about me, or about his crazy brother Rubén—they call him Flaco. Flaco-Rubén. Rubén-Flaco. Same dude—or he say anything about Flaco's crew, Sixteenth Street—you gotta tell me what the fuck is up. 'Cuz Luis and me … we're not talkin' much lately. It's not a beef or nothin'. It's more like he's on his own trip and I don't wanna piss his angry ass off. So if you hear anything, you lemme know what he says. We straight?” Carlos offers me his fist. So I pound him, knuckles to knuckles. “That's my boy,” he says.

I run my ass inside and take my seat by Luis. He's on time, looking stone cold as usual.

The bell rings, and Cassidy starts flippin' shit about poetry.

I think about what Carlos asked me to do.

Well, you can forget about that, because I'm not telling anyone anything. Even if I
do
hear something, I'm keeping my mouth shut.

 

LUIS AND THE GO-TO GIRL

I
T'S THE THIRD WEEK OF THE UNIT—
the third week of Luis–and we've made it to rough-draft poetry sharing day.

“I am so excited to hear from my brilliant poets!” Cassidy hollers. “This is going to be awesome.”

Awesome?
You can't use the word
awesome
by itself to describe rough-draft poetry sharing day. Nope, for
awesome
to work in this context, you'd have to team it up with some other words, like
amount of steaming bullshit.