The Flowers (19 page)

I didn't need to nod.

“You can just tell him I won't be back too late.” Happy, as though she'd forgotten there was anything else before this, she handed me a few dollars. “Maybe you can convince him to buy a pizza for both of you.”

“I don't want no pizza with him.”

“Stop it, m'ijo, please.”

“How come you don't tell him what you want yourself?”

“Because then we'll have an argument,” she said like I was dumb for asking, “and then I might not be able to go or even want to.”

“I don't want to,” I said.

I hadn't seen her get that look at me since we'd moved here. I thought she might hit me like she used to hit Ceci.

“M'ijo,” she said, “I'm asking.”

“I don't want to eat dinner with him either.”

“Please. Please stop right now.”

Probably because I didn't say anything else about it, she changed too. She grabbed my hand and pulled me close and kissed me phony. “I better go quick,” she said. She went digging in her purse. Small as it was, she couldn't seem to find whatever was supposed to be in there and she gave up—her keys were already in her hand—and then she was saying good-bye.

Bud pulled his truck in, stopping next to where I was still standing, and rolled down the window.

“Hey,” he said. He had to be especially loud because his pickup was louder. He drove one of those huge ones, with tires out of a cartoon and the paint so waxed it looked like it could drip off.

“Hey,” I said back. This was like a handshake thing again, and mine was not hardass enough, so I was sure that's why he made a face at me.

“Dad home?”

You knew he said it to irritate me. “Cloyd's not my dad. He's not home either.”

“Your mom, she's not here, right?”

I nodded.

“Where'd she go?”

“Out, I guess.” It made me pissed to have to talk.

“Out, huh?”

I took a long time. “Yes sir.”

“Out.” He stared at me.

How was it his business? “Yes sir,” I told him.

“Dressed up?”

“So see ya later.” I pretended I didn't hear his question and turned and stepped up the stairs. I heard his truck go on toward the back parking area.

“Where have you been?” Cindy said.

The apartment was lots worse than the last time.

“Get in here,” she said. She shut the door behind me like she didn't want anyone to see. At first I didn't like it, but then I didn't want anyone to see me standing by her door either.

“So where have you been?” she asked again.

I scooted things to make room on that couch for my butt. She was standing, a T-shirt and gym shorts. The TV flickered, a rerun with a laugh that made you stop whatever you might need to be thinking, which fought with another TV show on another station going in their bedroom. It was mixing too much up, and it'd make anybody feel confused.

“I don't know what to do with myself,” she said. “I'm going out of my mind! I'm so glad you're here. You want something to drink?” She was in the kitchen, pushing dirty dishes around.

“I don't know what to do,” she said.

“About what?”

“About anything, about myself.” She was drinking a wine cooler, and she made me one and handed it to me and at the same time she was drinking hers. “I don't know what he's doing. What should I do?”

I sipped while she was almost chugging. “I'm not sure what the trouble is you got.”

“This,” she said. “Look at this mess.”

“Maybe just pick up,” I suggested. “It wouldn't take so long.”

She looked at me like she couldn't believe I could say that, I could misunderstand so much. She plopped in the chair and stared at the TV.

“How's school?” she asked, turning to me.

I made a sound.

“You need to do good in school,” she said.

“Okay, Mom.”

She laughed. “I'm teasing. I'm not serious.”

“Can you turn that down?”

She did. “So what about Gina? Did Gina talk to you?”

“Talk to me about what?”

“You know.”

“No.”

“You know.”

“Are you talking about those magazines again?”

She grinned.

“Screw her, screw what she says!”

“She says it's you.”

“Yeah, well she told my mom too. Except my mom knows I didn't steal them.”

“Gina says she knows it's you.”

“Knows what?” I gathered myself. “Let's talk about your life, man,” I said, fucking mad. “What does this Gina know about you?”

“You mean about us, Sonny? Are you kidding? I wouldn't say anything.”

I was so mad. I wasn't talking about
us,
but it did seem like a good one.

“And you can't either,” she said. “You know that, right?” She had a different kind of look on her face now. She wasn't laughing now.

“No,” I said.

“Sonny!”

“What?”

“You can't. If he found out. …”

I stood up and went straight for the door and out, and I didn't even slam it.

I pulled some money from my corner, and at the bowling alley I ordered a coke and some fries. Mrs. Zúniga stopped me.

“
¿Por qué siempre cenas aquí, muchachito?
” She always spoke to me in Spanish.

“I dunno,” I said. I almost always answered in English at first. “Because I like the way you cook? It's the best. It's my favorite food ever.”

“
Ay, que demonio eres,
” she said, shaking her head.

“No, really, it is, I do. Over there, where I am living, I don't like to eat. They got nasty food.”

“
¿A dónde vives? No vives con tus padres?
”

“With my mom. At The Flowers apartments, that's what they're named.”

“
Pues, bueno, ella tiene su trabajo alli, por eso.
”

“Not exactly.”

Mrs. Zúniga put chopped up green chiles and grated cheese over the fries I ordered. God, that was really good! She also gave me two bean tacos, with cheese all melted in. They were really good too. Every time I came here, I wondered why I didn't bowl more, and why I didn't just eat here every single day. I guess maybe I was kind of embarrassed. To not have friends, to not want to be home. Like the way she was asking questions now. It's why I always got some lanes no matter if I really wanted to or not, even if alls I really wanted to do was come to eat.

Bowling, lately, I was having a little trouble with this extra last-second hook. No matter what I did, it seemed like the ball
wanted to smash left of the one pin. I was even missing to the left on spares. It was only a matter of adjustment. At first I tried not turning my wrist. Then I tried using it. Not long ago I'd gotten all these high scores, so I had whatever it was right then. I was working on it, and I was having a sucky game, and I cussed loud this once when I missed a way-easy spare, and that's when Mr. Zúniga shouted at me that if I didn't watch my mouth, he wouldn't let me bowl here again. At first I didn't like that, but then I stopped myself. He wasn't like la Mrs. Mr. Zúniga never said nothing to me, except when I was leaving and I paid him at the register, and then it was only a thank-you-very-much. When he yelled at me right then, those drinkers who sat watching me blank-eyed were still blank watching me from their bar stools, like it was nothing. I was the only one here bowling ever. I was always the only one here. I took my time, I didn't bowl, I didn't leave. I didn't want to screw up. I didn't want to get mad because I wanted to come here. Mr. Zúniga didn't even charge me for as many games as I played—three was the most I ever paid for, and mostly not even that, only for the food.

I was thinking that if I was calm, didn't let myself get pissed off, if I concentrated, I'd roll strikes. If a pin didn't drop, I'd probably pick up the spare if I only took an extra second and focused before.

It was not my best day, but once I made a comeback, to 192, I quit, and I was back to feeling okay, like a kid skipping on the sidewalk even. I shouldn't have cussed. I liked bowling. I liked throwing the ball, aiming. I liked the smash of it.

“Thank you, Mrs. Zúniga,” I said.

“
Que le vaya bien, muchachito,
” she said.

“I'm sorry,” I told Mr. Zúniga at the cash register.

He didn't act like he'd said anything or I'd made him say something. Like most of the time, he practically didn't look at me. “Thank you very much,” he said.

* * *

It was black outside, but the streetlights and headlights and billboard signs on the boulevard were lots brighter than in daylight and I was hopping over the widest sidewalk cracks when I kind of lost my balance and accidentally bumped into some old white man with hair growing everywhere and a scary nose that was so smashed up it looked like it didn't come with his face but grew on it, like something that smelled and not what he smelled with. I made him drop whatever he was holding.

“Stupid punk,” he said.

“Fuck off,” I told him. I was sorry, but he didn't have to call me names, and really I was sorry I made him drop the paper bag he was carrying.

“What the hell?” he said. He looked in his sack, a glass bottle inside broken, wetting the cement. “Look what you did!”

I shoved at him because he was kind of trying to grab at me. “Hey, get off of me,” I told him. “Get your shit off me!”

“Lemme tell you something!” He was all bent into me, and spit was popping out and spraying.

“No,” I said.

“You speak English?” he asked.

“Whadaya think you're hearing?”

“Lemme tell you something,” he goes again. He was too close—he could spray his spit into my face, and he kept trying to touch my arm. We were standing in the dark and shadow of two or three stores that were closed. There were cars parked, probably for the bar across the street, making a wall on the other side of us too.

“Lemme tell you something,” he says.

This time he took hold of my arm and I reacted to it, flinging him off me, but because he kept his grip, he swung some, and, once he lost his balance, he banged into the glass window of one of the stores.

“Goddamn you!” he screamed. He took a second or two and then he came back and he took a real swing at me.

It was one that was easy to dodge, but when another caught me in the shoulder, I came back. I threw at that old man right in his stinky hocico, and then I hit on his face again. He didn't fall, and he was saying something to me, so I hit him again too—más harder, because, though he was a little dazed, he wasn't going to stop—a couple more times and then he did drop.

He was on the sidewalk and he was down and I should have walked off. But I didn't. It's that he was still saying something. “What?” I asked him. I was jacked up. He was saying something, but I didn't know what. I moved closer, standing over him. “What're you saying?” I asked louder. He didn't say. And then I did something I'd never done. It's because I could see his wallet bulging from the back pocket of his pants. I reached down and took it and I walked away.

I was carrying the Bel Air's keys on me—they were heavy in my pocket—so I jumped in behind the wheel and was about to start it up when I saw Nica's mom and dad leaving for work. The car wasn't parked right in front of the building, but it was close enough, so I made myself get lower. I didn't want them to see me. It was dark, so lights were on in #1. I was sure my mom wasn't home yet and wondered what the Cloyd would be doing in there while he was waiting for her. Then I went ahead and looked inside the wallet—was it just old, or was it soggy from so many years of sweat? It only had thirteen dollars, until I also found a twenty folded small in a little slot. The rest of the wallet was empty, not even a driver's license or a business card. I was feeling sick. It was sad that this old dude didn't have nothing. Why'd he have to go after me? It was his own fault, but I felt sorry and dirty.

* * *

I didn't even see Mr. Josep sitting there until I got too close and he saw me. He was in his chair, staring out, staring at me, I think smiling because he knew where I was going.

“The baby crying there,” he told me.

I guess he would hear that.

“Sometimes
she
is crying.”

I knocked on her door, careful and gentle, like the wood was part of her and she was sad and I didn't want to hurt her. Maybe she didn't answer because she didn't hear. “She's in there, isn't she?” I asked Mr. Josep, like I didn't already know. He nodded, not looking away from where he was staring, which was not at me. The TV was on loud, a movie in Spanish. I knocked again. I couldn't make myself do it any harder though, I don't know why. She didn't answer.

“Probably she not hearing,” said Mr. Josep.

I put my ear against the door, like that would help me.

“Probably you wait a little bit,” he said.

I passed his office and he wasn't sitting there, only the animal eyes and those fucking guns. I was at the bedroom door and his voice came up behind me.

“Where's your mother?”

I wasn't as deaf as I was pretending to be, though I didn't need hearing to feel and smell his breath when it was at my neck.

“Where's your mother?” He had his whiskey glass in his hand.

“I dunno, man.”

“Don't call me
man!
” Then he punched the wall right next to the door and it left a hole. “You hear me?” He shook his head at it, like I was the one who did it.

“Sorry,” I said. I was. I was trying to get myself ready. What if he came at me? If my body didn't step away from him to put distance between his fists and me, my mind was figuring out how to.

“You don't know where she is?”