The Flowers (22 page)

She didn't move.

“I'm bringing the pizza, and we'll have it over there.”

“I want you to be there when I am,” she said softly.

“I do too. I don't want to go now either, not really. I don't. I just better.”

“I wouldn't say nothing,” said Joe. “So what if the baby's a kitty-cat.”

“A él, le gusta más la otra kitty-kitty,” said Mike.

“Shut up,” I said. “Don't say it, don't say shit or anything like it.”

“Her dad probably didn't know she was talking about a cat,” said Joe.

They kept a distance as we walked.

“I think you're in a bad mood,” said Mike.

The pervert cruised past us slowly. It was like he never washed his car or changed his shirt. Both were kind of red but with so much dirt they could be called as brown as his stiff bristly hair.

Joe said, “It can't be the same dude, it can't.”

Mike said, “It's the same dude.”

We saw him turn around way up there.

I'd picked up a rock. It was a big one, baseball size and heavier. It was a good rock.

Joe said, “We should do something to him.”

Mike said, “We should fuck him up.”

“You could anyway,” Joe said to me, “but we'd help you out.”

“We couldn't help him out,” said Mike. “We wouldn't know how.”

“Yeah,” said Joe, “we're fucking pussies.” As he said this, he about tripped over his brother.

“That's not the same,” Mike told him in a whisper. “He's not gonna get mad about that.”

I smiled. I wasn't smiling because I wanted to laugh, just everything they did made me want to smile like a French word. And I wanted to smile. When the sickie came toward us, now from the other direction, I could see his insect eyes behind his glasses. I think he thought one or all of us was in the game. I got a little closer to the curb and he steered his four-door closer. When he got near enough, I stepped out on the street and threw
the rock as hard as I could at his face. It cracked against the windshield—a break but not the explosion I was wanting—and the rock ricocheted off. He hit his brakes, and when he did the twins stopped walking and ran. The twins didn't see I had the rock until I threw it. I was in the street, looking for another rock, and when the sickie realized, he pounced on the gas—not to hit me—and made a big curve around me. The twins were running over the railroad tracks and were across the other street, holding their books like girls squeezing their arms against a tight sweater. They were not good runners either, and they didn't look too good running. They did not hear me yelling at them. The twins always made me smile, no matter what, like French. It made me smile to see that sickie dude driving away hard.

After school, I'd rolled a 229, the score I wanted against that windshield. It was my highest score for a while, and I was walking strong. I was feeling lots better about myself. I was proud of my power inside and my aim, my roll. My shot. I wished I didn't take that money. In another way I was like, well, not sorry. Then again, I couldn't be. Then again, it didn't matter, it was done.

On our way back, avoiding the hijo de su madre puddles and globs of slime or maybe grease or none-of-us-wanna-know, while it seemed to me our shoes were only digging into an island of ugly gravel rocks on either side of the railroad tracks that made the crunchy noises at our feet, the twins kept going how we weren't just walking in what was once upon a time the ocean, we were cracking the crust of ancient earth, crushing shells of cellular lobsters. Our feet were like maracas, a stepping jungle music, and we were doing a cumbia that had to be heard with a brain. That's what these guys told me, and they got straight As,
so I couldn't say nothing much. My own theory was that maybe they were smoking the mota.

“Hey, so, what is it like?” Mike asked, almost shy. His brother got closer too.

“Like getting high, fucker. Whadaya think?”

“Ay, vato,” said Mike. “Honest, come on. I mean, is it like beer, or whiskey, or es como tequila?”

“Those are nothing,” said Joe.

“Cálmate,” said Mike, shaking his head. “You always exaggerate, cabrón.”

“No siempre,” said Joe, soft. “A little, nada más sometimes.”

“I guess it's like being inside her,” I said after a few seconds, trying to be serious, “except all the time.” It's what I could think of.

Both of them made groaning noises.

“It's that it's the only time I smoke is when I'm with her.”

They both made more noises and stuck their tongues out like they were having a spaz attack.

“He's no Catholic,” Joe told Mike finally.

“Not gonna be a priest anyway,” said Mike.

“Dude, you're our pre-Conquest warrior hero,” Joe said.

“Un indio que toma el polvo de las uñas de águila, and the heavenly white moon is shining down on your beautiful maiden's bigass chichis y nalgas.”

“La blondie Azteca!” said Mike.

“When I'm on the bed at night,” I said, “I do hear shit.”

“Stop snorting eagle nail powder, dude,” said Joe.

Mike started making sounds like we were in outer space.

“That's not the music, vato,” Joe told him.

“I'm Catholic. What the fuck do I know about my pre-Spanish, pre-Columbian musical heritage?” said Mike.

“It's there, hermanito, in your cells,” said Joe.

“It's in your skin color and on the bones of your nose,” said Mike.

“Your nostrils don't look exactly Swedish,” said Joe.

The route was our regular now because of me, and the twins were cool with that because they were into busting malt liquor bottles and pickle and peanut butter jars—this one of mole sauce didn't bust, and we cracked up about how tough Mexicans were—against the iron rails. We hadn't seen the sickie since that last time. He was there though, lurking. I was definitely planning to bomb the fucker with fat rocas, dent the shit out of his stink ride. I juggled my favorite monster rock between my hands, back and forth, ready: big as a softball, hard as a shotput. Every day I expected it to be his day to get to know the real deeper me better. I left this one rock where I could carry it in the morning, then I'd leave it at the other end to pick up on the way home. I wanted muscles flexing with each hand-to-hand toss, my blood to run so quick inside me it'd come squealing into my ears, the rushing wind in a conch shell. It made me feel like I was gliding and getting lighter, floating, a bubble coming up fast from below.

I skipped Alley Cats to get to The Flowers early because, the night before, Cindy looked her dirty way at me and was going how she was really lonely, so I was all Oh yeah, I'll come up, why not? I was getting in an y qué? and also an y por qué no? mood lately a lot, seemed like. I was going like, yeah, that's right, yeah, I
don'
care you like it or you
don'
. Fuck her candy-sales husband. Nobody was around in the afternoons, so it wasn't like I had to watch how I said what.

An ambulance was way up in the driveway already, the back loaded with Mr. Josep's wife, and there were even neighborhood strangers around, setting up sodas and chips, like it was a TV set. My mom was near—glossed and sparkling, ready to be gone, going wherever she'd go to—and Cindy was at the top of the
stairs, and Mr. Josep was coming out of his apartment door. Bud, a construction site stuck all over his workboots and jeans and T-shirt and face and arms and hair, was below too, eating a white-bread sandwich that sometimes would hang on his lips, which made it seem like he was distracted about something else. Maybe he really was only around for his lunch break, late. My mom hustled up the stairs to steady Mr. Josep down, and he accepted her arm. They were talking in Spanish, and I swear that made Bud growl out loud. He held his position like he had a memorized speech ready. Mr. Josep was dressed as neatly as every day, slacks ironed, shoes polished, a vest buttoned, his silver hair combed like an old important politician. He bent down to get in the back with one of the emergency workers, but like he was weak and sick, and then the ambulance whined in reverse and turned onto the street, rushing forward with a siren running.

“How bad is Mrs. Josep?” I asked.

“Her last name's not Josep,” my mom said, ticked I was so dumb. “They told me she didn't look good. They weren't hopeful.”

“They weren't married?” I asked her.

“Sonny, Josep is not a last name. It's his first.”

“Really?”

“Poor man, este pobre viejito. He is upset.”

Cindy turned back into her apartment. It was as though I was the only one who ever saw her standing there, because nobody else looked at her, and she didn't look at or say anything to anybody either.

Bud stepped up into my mom's face, though more like he was holding out on what he really had to say. “So, you're saying you didn't see him?” It might have been the subject he wanted, but it wasn't what he wanted to talk about.

“No, Bud, please,” my mom said. “Please don't raise your voice.”

“I swear to God I saw him.”

“I just don't know, Bud.”

“He don't answer the door, even though I know he's in there.”

“Well, I don't know what to tell you,” my mom said. It wasn't clear whether she was telling me or him or herself. She checked herself over, her clothes and shoes and jewelry, up and down, making sure nothing was wrinkled or dirtied, wiped on or off, hanging wrong. She squinted at her purse. It was wet black vinyl, and sunlight bounced off it and onto the nearby walls like it was a mirror, making flashes that seemed more like from a camera snapping photos of her. “I'll be back,” she said, like an announcement. Her high heels tapped the sidewalk toward her car.

Angry still, or maybe always, his mind not on what he was seeing with his eyes, Bud backed off but not away, watching her at a distance, and close, like she was a movie star. “Hey,” he said.

“Yes?” my mom answered, tired of him.

“So you're going someplace?” This time it was it, what he meant.

“Excuse me?”

“Wondering where you're going.”

“I don't think I'm married to you.”

“That's your loss.”

“Is it now?”

“Why are you all dressed into the tens?”

My mom fumed. “I'm leaving now.” She dug around for her car keys and when she found them she opened her car's door, got in holding the hem of her dress, making sure to catch what might show to somebody looking to see, and slammed the door shut.

* * *

Cindy'd already been smoking mota and drinking wine and something was making me think there was more serious shit too, something else. It was like a burning smell, except I didn't know if it was a real burning or in my head.

“God, it's about time,” she said. She went up on me and kissed me, her hands moving inside my pants and onto my butt.

“I miss you.”

I liked it, but her talk I didn't like. I'm not sure how to explain what it was, if there was a name for it. There was. Tino.

“I do like you, Sonny,” she whispered, kissing my face and neck.

“Don't say that shit,” I said, pulling away. “I hate your shit.” I was wrong to be there. It was not good, it wasn't right. But I went there because I was mad. I knew where to look and I was right.

“Don't be mean to me, don't.” She pulled me back.

“I'm not. I just don't wanna hear it.”

“But I do like you. Can't you tell I like you?”

She had one lit and we took hits back and forth wordlessly.

Smoking it
meant
sex to me. It slowed quiet into numb. We took swallows of the wine cooler she made too. It let me like her touching me, her hand going down and pushing at the back of my pants and, guiding me to the bedroom and bed, pulling them off me, and her hands gripping my cheeks, putting her mouth all over me there. The mota made me learn how to wait too, taking her up to me and making her. My hands moving on her were streaking sparks on a roller coaster's rails. She still was showing me things to do. At first I didn't think I would like my tongue where she wanted it, but then I did, my hands holding onto her nalgas, as soft and hard as her titties were. She moaned with me in her mouth. When she did, it was sunlight and moonlight at the same time, yellow and silver and too bright, too scary even, to stare straight at. She tangled us up, but I liked her from above,
her nipples tickling my chest, or turned around, the dimples above her butt like thumb holds to keep her where her curve was the sharpest, her back arched, the lines of her body a broad marker white in my mind, my eyes not even imagining before the pleasure that they were getting to see, my mind taking on light from this other sun or moon.

She was laying there naked on the bed, eyes closed. My face turned up and saw the photo hanging crooked on a wall with a group of others. It was another of him in a white cowboy hat and black snap-button Western shirt, smiling—not happy smiling but smiling like Yeah, here, I'll smile. He was a man, a grown man, and he had a gun, I knew he had a gun. I'd seen it before. I saw it when she'd been in the bathroom too and I dug around. Now I felt like a big man, real bad, real chingón, while we were doing it. I don't know why I wanted to mess with him too, but I did, and that's why I was there, why I did it, why I came.

“You like what we smoked?”

“I guess.”

“It had something else in it.”

I was a little scared and it made me feel more fucked up too. I was too high. “I gotta go,” I said. I was so stupid!

She looked at me like it never crossed her mind I might leave. “Please don't, Sonny. Not yet.”

I was already getting my clothes back on, thinking smarter.

“It's still too early,” she said. “He always works late now.”

“I don't wanna get killed.” He was death, because he would kill me. He had a gun and he would shoot me dead. I'm thinking, I'm him, I cap me, then I cap her. No French word for any of this could make me smile.