Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (8 page)

Mr. Rodrigo stepped on the porch for a second
and agreed with Jack, mentally. “Yeah, my boy is sleeping in his
own bed right now, so I know he didn’t go,” he stated, stepping off
the porch at the same time. He stood next to Jack and stared at
Pete O’Conner, waiting for another explanation on why he was saying
their boys ran away.

“So, you two don’t believe me?” questioned
Pete. He slowly picked up his gun, while Jack and Mr. Rodrigo
looked at him with some fear, the fear of why he was grabbing the
rifle. Pete turned toward the door of Maria’s house, put the gun
next to it, and asked, “You want to read the note?” Maria then got
up from the porch step and walked slowly toward her door; she
didn’t want to be out there when they read the note, the goodbyes
that would get her in trouble. Pete retrieved the letter from his
pocket that Darell wrote, and handed it to Jack first. Jose’s dad
waited impatiently for him to finish reading, and started to
tighten his fists; he was stressed.

When Jack finished, he threw the letter at
Pete and shouted, “Your boy is behind this, not mine. Damen is
twenty-one years old; he already chose the profession of farming.
Darell’s just messed up in the head, is all. He probably made this
whole letter up. He probably added Jose and Damen in this letter so
you wouldn’t be as mad.” Jack’s words, his loud meaning, caused
Pete to look at his gun for a moment. Pete was agitated, angered,
stressed, and nervous; he was capable of doing anything at this
point.

Pete then walked off the porch, very calmly,
and stepped up to Jack in a very close manner. “My boy is not
messed up, you low-class farmer,” Pete yelled. He punched Jack in
the face, causing Maria to show tears. Jack fell on the ground,
causing all sorts of insects to fly out from underneath him, and
stared at the sunlight with madness in his gaze.

Mr. Rodrigo picked up the letter and read it
in a fast motion, a speedy way. As he read it, Jack Schultz roared,
“You’re dead.” He jumped up from the warm ground and added, “Your
son, Darell, is nothing but a loser.” He then punched Pete in the
gut, with a smile of relief and stress being released engraved on
his face. Jack looked at Mr. Rodrigo and also added, “Your son is a
loser, too.”

The fight began. Pete and Mr. Rodrigo began
to fight with Jack, physically. They punched him, slapped him,
kicked him, beat him, smashed his head against the ground, causing
him to fall face-first on the green grass. That’s when they began
kicking him some more, the anger that they felt, from losing their
sons, shined through at that moment, and showed itself to Maria,
and her parents. Maria’s tears were revealed as she stared at this
tasteless fight, this bloody war between their fathers. She started
to feel anger toward this fight, so she looked up at her porch and
stared at her own dad, and how he was doing nothing to stop it, to
kill it, and talk man-to-man about this escape of the boys. She
suddenly let go of her fears, her terror of the dads, and said in a
screaming tone, “You’re all wrong.”

The fighting came to a halt, stopped by
Maria’s courage shining through. Maria walked off the porch and up
to the fathers. Damen’s father, Jack, got up from the ground, with
pain to his body, blood to his face, and asked, “What are you
talking about?” The men were too busy trying to find out which son
was the cause of this, which son did the brainwashing on the
others, when the whole time, all of their sons were guilty
equally.

They waited for Maria to speak the truth,
tell them which son was the bad guy, was the culprit in this
secretive escape. “Damen,” she began before Pete spoke over
her.

“You see, I told you, it was Damen’s idea,”
shouted Pete.

Maria then yelled out, “Let me finish. Damen,
Jose, and Darell wanted this. It was all of their idea. The letter
is telling the truth.” She paused, thinking of the words she was
going to say next, and then smiled, feeling pity that these men
would fight over such a thing. “You know, at first I felt sorry
that they’d left, because I knew you’d be worried about them, would
be terrified about them running away. But now I’m glad they left.
At least now I know they won’t end up like this,” continued Maria,
seeing the men standing there with blood on their faces. She spoke
the truth, causing the dads to look down at the ground in a sort of
disgrace.

Her mother gave her a smile; she was proud of
her daughter speaking the truth. The mother grabbed onto Maria’s
hand and said, “Come on, Maria, come in the house.” Her father then
grabbed her other arm and began pulling it also, and guiding her
toward the front door.

She walked up to her door and followed her
parents into the house. Maria’s dad stood behind her and allowed
her to go in the house after her mother, but that’s when she
stopped and turned around. Before she closed the door, Maria stared
at Jack, she stared at Mr. Rodrigo, and finally looked deeply at
Pete’s eyes. She spoke defensively, “Oh ... and another thing,
they’re not losers. I think you should take a good look in the
mirror and decide which one’s the loser now.” She walked in and
slammed the door.

The echoing sensation pounded at the fathers’
heads, ears, it allowed their minds to be transfixed by what Maria
spoke. They all gazed up toward the sky and saw the sun reflecting
its body toward them. Thinking and wondering that maybe, somewhere,
their sons were staring at the same sun and thinking how much they
missed their hometown, all of them closed their eyes and looked at
each other; it was a look of puzzlement, of turmoil.

Chapter Five

The sun pounded its heat down on the train,
causing it to turn into something like an oven, cooking at a high
temperature, sautéing its prey with malice to its motive. “Wake up,
wake up,” said Jose. The train came to a stop, and his sweaty face
turned to the doorway, staring out at the new setting, the new
surroundings that weren’t familiar to him. The sweat slowly dripped
off his face, and the aggravation from the heat caused Jose to
shout, “Come on, wake up.”

Damen woke up, to this loud, obnoxious tone,
and had an angry face to his image. But suddenly, he stared out the
doorway of the train and saw a sign that read, Welcome to The Windy
City, Chicago. He was excited, delighted.

Darell awoke, feeling terrible from the heat,
but then a grin also was received for this sign, as soon as his
eyes came to its silhouette. He stared, scanning over all the
letters, like he was examining this billboard with an x-ray
machine.

They were intrigued. Even though the sign was
rusted, had spray paint practically engraved to its texture, it
still caused a smile to appear, only because they saw it. This sign
was in reality now, to their minds and their sight. The excitement
began to build as the boys stuck their heads out of the train and
looked up at the tall monuments, which were skyscrapers, large,
massive structures that they’d only seen on magazines and
televisions. Behind the sign, their eyes caught cars on top of
cars, driving down an expressway, and their ears heard hundreds of
car horns, beeping on and off, in a perfect beat. They couldn’t
believe their sight, not believing that they’d made it this far;
their souls were proud of this moment. Making it here, even though
this sight was new and scary to them, allowed a sense of pride to
be captured, caught, and felt in their hearts. This was a moment to
remember.

“Wow, we made it, we actually made it,”
Darell said, as a yawn followed. Waking up to cows, and to large
pastures was what his eyes were used to, but this image, city,
these awesome surroundings were new to him, and caused his yawn to
be different. His yawn, like all yawns, was slow, boring, soothing,
and finally relaxing; but this new yawn was fast, exciting,
soothing, and over all, beyond relaxation, due to this moment.
Their characters, the small parts of course, were already changing
to this new surrounding, being molded and reborn once more; it was
evolving due to this new, pleasant, and exciting scenery.

“Well, we still have a long way to go,” said
Damen. He jumped off the train and placed his feet on the white
stones of the railroad pavement first; he felt like he was the
first man to step on the moon. “Come on, we still have a plane to
catch.” He lit a cigarette, still looking at the “Chicago” sign,
and gluing his eyes on the skyscrapers, he took a very large drag
of it, in order to create this memory. He coughed, knowing now that
this memory was going to be locked away in his mind forever, due to
the heavy and loud cough. Damen smiled again; he realized this
memory was staying for good.

Damen looked about, seeing that they weren’t
too far away from a railroad station, which was in the stomach of
the city, and stared up toward the sun. That was the only thing
that was the same to him, was the sun’s rays, and how it was still
in perfect circular form, just like back home in Ridge Crest. Jose
and Darell stared at Damen, and followed his sight to the sun’s
glowing, radiant aura. They thought it was strange for him to be
looking at its brightness, only because it could damage his sight,
place yellow spots in them for good, or even blind him. But Damen
kept on staring, realizing that his family, and even Maria, could
be staring at that same sun, right at this moment. Suddenly, he was
knocked out of his trance by the train showing movement. It began
to move, and Damen caught in his sight that it was heading closer
toward the city. So he jumped back on it, looking out the doorway
again, and feeling a small breeze rush against his face; he felt
alive.

Darell and Jose also looked out of the
doorway and saw how they were entering into a building, a station,
and the sight of skyscrapers went away from their view. The train
came to a halt once more, and Damen jumped off of it again, placing
his feet on the cemented ground of the station, and stretching his
legs; a smile came to his feet feeling the wooden ground of a
Chicago landmark.

As soon as Darell and Jose jumped out of the
train as well, they saw a sign entitled, “Union Station.” It was
too perfect once again, the plan went along great, causing Damen to
have a cautious look on his face; it was too good to be true.
That’s when he fixed his eyes on security guards, approaching them
with great speed. At that same time, the train that they came on,
began to move, slowly but surely, and lingered its heavy body past
the boys. They were trapped. Knowing that the security guards saw
them exiting a train, illegally, allowed Jose Rodrigo’s, Darell
O’Conner’s, and Damen Schultz’s minds to be filled with anxiety.
They were in a new setting, a new place that they’ve never seen or
been to before, so this was the last thing they needed, being
arrested.

“Excuse me, young men, but would you please
come with us?” one of the guards said. He grabbed onto Darell’s arm
with force. Darell knew that it wasn’t a question, even though it
was placed in question form. The way the guard said his words,
through his pudgy mouth, it sounded like an order, but with some
civilized tone to its build.

“What’s the problem, sir?” asked Damen. He
took the guard’s hand and released it from Darell’s arm. Mr.
Schultz was angry, he knew the officer had no right to touch
Darell, especially grab him with such force to his grasp.

The guard noticed some Southern accent,
enunciation in Damen’s speech, not very much, but just enough to
make the guard know he wasn’t from the big city. “Well ... the
problem is that you all came on the mail train. Now, if my memory
serves me correctly, I would say you boys traveled illegally on
it,” the guard replied, mocking Damen’s faint accent with his own
speech. Another guard grabbed onto Damen’s arm, laughing at the way
his buddy made fun of Damen’s speech.

Damen Schultz pointed to the mail train,
already far from them, and explained, “Well, the reason for that
was ... because my friend is very ill.” He paused for a little,
trying to think of what else he could add to this lie. “Um, you
see, we come from a very, very, very poor family, and my friend
needs a, a, um, a, a kidney transplant. Yeah, well, since he
couldn’t afford a regular train ticket, we had to take this
instead.” A smile came to his face. Damen thought that his lie was
well told and smoothly explained. Figuring they bought it, he
noticed the guard releasing his grip a little bit from his arm.

The guard began grinning, and reflected a
smile onto Damen’s face. Damen didn’t know if it was a smile of the
guard catching him in a lie, or a grin that meant he was going to
let them go, even though they knew he was lying; after all, the
guard was still holding onto his arm.

Finally, the grin grew on the guard’s face,
and that’s when he asked in an evil tone, “Oh yeah? Well, since he
couldn’t afford a train ticket, how the hell is he going to afford
a kidney operation?” Damen became speechless, staring at Jose and
Darell, trying to figure out how to add onto this lie, this
fictional explanation; his mind became overwhelmed, flustered with
nervousness.

“Well ... I really don’t want to tell you
that,” replied Damen. He looked around the train station, staring
at its grand shape, a trying to contemplate the situation. He
analyzed his lie, his explanation, and tried to think up of a plan,
an answer for the guard. But nothing came to his thoughts, mind, he
was speechless, mute to the answer. So, he turned to Darell, in a
frantic motion, and said, “I think Darell should explain that
part.” Darell stared at Damen with confusion; he didn’t want to
explain the ending to his friend’s lie.

“Me?” questioned Darell, slowly beginning to
smile at the guards. Damen nodded his head slightly, trying
desperately to tell Darell to play it off like they really did
travel on the train for that reason. Darell caught the nod,
understood it, and added with shakiness to his speech, “Yeah, I’ll
explain it... Um, what happened was my friend, Jose, this guy over
here, pushed me off of my roof. Um, that’s how my kidney went bad.”
They all looked at him like he was crazy, including the guards.
Damen and Jose couldn’t accept, couldn’t believe that Darell didn’t
come up with a better explanation. “What?” Darell asked, seeing
Jose and Damen’s disappointed emotions through their eyes. That’s
when they looked away from Darell, stood back, and waited for him
to explain this story, allowing him, in a sense, to dig his own
grave and enjoy the entertainment.