We Were Here (14 page)

We sprinted the other way, across the street, hopped an
old rusty guardrail and ran along this grassy part near the beach.

About a mile or so down Mong veered us across this little bank, past an old unused road with mad weeds shooting up where paint used to be, and into the thick sand. We jogged heavy-footed, carrying our bags packed full of groceries, for another ten minutes or so, toward this cliff part, and then Mong threw his bag to the side and collapsed into the sand on purpose. He gagged a few times and held on to his stomach, rocking back and forth and searching for his wind.

Me and Rondell stopped too, bent over trying to catch our breath and looking at Mong and all around us to see where we were. But we were nowhere.

Mong rolled onto his back and stared into the sky. Even though he was still sucking in short, desperate breaths, a little grin came on his face.

None of us said anything for a while, but we were all sort of grinning now, and looking at each other, still listening for sirens though no sirens would ever come. Behind us the ocean hummed and sometimes crashed onto itself with a slapping sound like if a long line of people all hit their knees at the same time. Rondell started laughing for no particular reason and went on his back just like Mong, stared at the sky too.

I knew something important had just happened in that store. With the old racist dude. We’d crossed an imaginary line. Gone beyond just leaving the group home where we were still supposed to be. Now we’d assaulted somebody and stolen from their store. Soon as he found a way he’d call the cops and give our description and they’d be out looking for us for real.

I tried to think how I felt about what was happening.
Being wanted by the cops and trying to flee the country. The old me would’ve probably just turned myself in already. Or I never would’ve left in the first place. But what happened in Stockton had completely changed who I was. Made me into a totally different Miguel. One that actually
wanted
to cross imaginary lines because I now knew nothing in this world really mattered.

Growing up, Diego was always the crazy one. Starting fights and jacking beers from the bodega across town and messing with mad girls. My folks were always worried
he’d be
. the one who would end up in trouble one day. My pop used to sit him down every other week so they could have talks about his grades and his bad behavior in school and his choice of friends.

I looked at Mong and Rondell laying there, staring up in the sky. How strange that it was
me
sitting here on this beach with them. Everybody always thought it’d be Diego, including me and Diego. But it wasn’t.

It was me.

But then again, I thought, looking into the sky to try and see what Mong and Rondell were seeing. Maybe it’s
not
that strange. People always think there’s this huge hundred-foot-high barrier that separates doing good from doing bad. But there’s not. There’s nothing. There’s not even a little anthill. You just take one baby step in any direction and you’re already there. You’ve done something awful. And your life is changed forever.

And here’s the thing: it’s not even that your life changes because of what you
did
, I don’t think. Even if it’s damn murder. Sticking a knife through somebody’s chest and watching in their terrified eyes as the life drains out. Nah, man, it’s not even that. People change because they discover that this supposed line between being a good person and being a bad
person doesn’t actually exist. They realize that shit’s straight make-believe. Like the tooth fairy. Or even Jesus. I promise, man. Go on and take the nerdiest damn dude you know. Even
he
could cross to the other side.

It reminds me of when you stand right up near the tracks watching a big-ass Amtrak train barreling toward you. And you think, Yo, I could just take one little step forward, onto the tracks, and I’d be dead. And deep down you assume there’s some kind of line there you could never cross. A barrier. Something that wouldn’t ever let you take that step even if you tried. But guess what? There’s no line. You can do anything.

You can step.

You can die….

Eventually I stopped thinking so hard and Mong and Rondell sat up and our eyes all focused on the same thing. A few feet in front of us was this hole in the side of a medium-sized cliff that ran right up along the sand and rocks. All you could see was the hole, and it wasn’t that big or anything, but you could tell right away it was a cave.

I finally let go of my bag and hiked up toward it. Rondell left his bag too and followed me. We both looked into the mouth of the cave. It was dark and you couldn’t see much, but you could sort of make out what size it was and how deep it went. Because it was high tide, when a bigger-sized wave broke and rolled with the tide toward shore, some of the water sucked up into the bottom of the cave, shot around like the inside of a washing machine and then sucked back out to sea.

Mong hiked up toward us and looked in too.

After a few minutes we all started crawling down into it, without even saying we were. We struggled all the way to the
bottom and then just sat there with our backs against the cave wall, breathing. Crowding in on each other. Whenever the water came in, which wasn’t that much, we’d just step our shoes up on a big rock or a part of the cave wall until it went back out.

“This is exactly how I picture Mexico will be,” Rondell said.

It was mad dark at the bottom of the cave, but I could sort of make out Mong nodding his head.

“I bet no police could ever find us in here,” Rondell said. “Long as they looked too. Probably we could hide in here for the rest of our lives.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but, Rondo, man, then you’d never get to be a fisherman.” I was grinning, but he probably couldn’t see my face.

“Wha’chu mean?” Rondell said.

“You told us you wanted to be a fisherman, remember?”

“Oh, that,” Rondell said, laughing a little. “Nah, I bet I could catch ’em right from here, Mexico. I bet they’s lots of good ones that come right up into this cave.”

I smacked him in the arm with the back of my hand. “Come on, dawg,” I told him. “That doesn’t even make sense. How you gonna cook ’em? What’re you gonna use for seasoning? Fish need mad herbs and shit.”

Rondell was quiet for a few long seconds. That’s how I knew his goofy ass was taking me serious. “Maybe I could just have ’em cold,” he said. “Not all kinds of fish gotta get cooked, right, Mexico? Ain’t that what sushi is?”

I was impressed, it was the first damn time I’d ever seen Rondell actually put two and two together. “All right, all right,” I said. “So your whole life now, Rondo. It’s gonna be eating sushi in a cave. If that’s how you wanna do it.”

“Maybe,” he said.

We were all quiet for a while, listening to the sound of the ocean and each other’s breathing, and then Rondell started climbing back up out of the cave, saying he had to go to the bathroom.

“Don’t forget the paper towels,” I said.

He stopped and turned around, said: “Wha’chu mean, Mexico?”

“Nothin’,” I said. “Just don’t do it too close to our bags. All our food’s in there. Go down the beach a ways.”

“I already knew that,” he said, pulling himself out of the cave and walking off.

Soon as we couldn’t hear Rondell’s footsteps anymore Mong said he was gonna make a fire, but he didn’t go anywhere. He just sat there taking deep breaths and looking up at the opening of the cave. Fingering his brown tooth necklace. Every once in a while he would cough or spit between his shoes. I wondered if he even thought about what he’d just done at the store. Tying the guy up and gagging him and smacking him in the face. I knew I couldn’t spend too much more time with somebody who actually got off on that kind of thing. Soon as we got to that place in Mexico, I decided, I was gonna go on my own. No more Psycho Mong. No more short-bus Rondell.

Mong turned his head suddenly and puked against the cave wall behind him. Then he puked again and coughed like he was coughing out his damn lungs. He puked one last time and spit and then made this pissed off growling noise as he wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

“Yo, you all right?” I said.

“I need to go make a fire,” he said back. But again he didn’t move.

I thought about what Mei-li said about him being sick. And how he seemed to be getting worse. And then my curiosity
started going and finally I just asked him: “Yo, man, what do you got anyway?”

I could see the outline of his face turn to me, but he didn’t say anything back.

We both lifted our feet when a little water from the tide came rushing in. After it drained back out I said: “Your cousin said you were sick, right? I’m just asking, what kind of—?”

“What’d you
really
do?” he interrupted.

I stared back at him, caught off guard. “What do you mean?”

“To get locked up in the first place,” he said. “What’d you do?”

I shrugged and thought about his question for a few seconds. Wrapped my arms around my own chest and looked up at the light coming in through the opening of the cave. And I’ll be honest, a part of me wanted to just say it. Let the shit out finally, to some Chinese kid I’d probably never see again once we got down to Mexico. But when I opened my mouth nothing came out. And my chest felt hollow, like when you break open a chocolate bunny on Easter. Actually, more hollow than that even. So hollow I wasn’t even in my own body anymore. I was hovering up above, near the opening of the cave, watching to see what I’d say. Which words I’d use to explain the horrible thing I did. To my own family.

“What’d you do?” Mong said again.

I turned to face him, nodding my head up and down, said: “Stole a bike, man.”

The part of me that was floating over me shook its head and whispered about what a little bitch-ass I was that I still couldn’t even face what happened and just say it. But I didn’t give a fuck about that part of me. I was the one who had to live the rest of my damn life.

“No,” Mong said, “I mean what’d you
really
do?”

I looked right back at him. I could almost make out his eyes now that mine had adjusted to the dark. Could almost see the scars on his cheeks. “That
is
what I did,” I said. “I stole a bike. Just like everybody says I did. One with a little pink basket in front for my panties, and tassels.”

He reached out and touched his fingers to the cave wall, and then leaned back again. “All right,” he said. “You stole a bike, then.”

“What, you don’t believe me?” I said.

“Not really.”

“How come?”

Mong shrugged. “That first night when I was watching you sleep. When you woke up and looked at me, I could just tell. You did something bad. Something that’s gonna stay with you forever.”

I stared back at him, confused as hell. How could he know what I did from just me waking up? Plus, if you think about it, the dude was really my enemy. We’d already been in two fights and he’d spit on me. I remember wishing as hard as I could that something bad would happen to him. And now he was sick.

He coughed again, spit between his legs. “I’m gonna make a fire,” he said, and this time he actually pushed off the wall and stood up, started climbing toward the mouth of the cave.

Just before he pulled himself through, though, I told him: “I just wish I could stop thinking about it, man. That’s all.”

Mong paused and turned to look at me over his shoulder.

“I try my ass off, you know? But I just keep thinking about it. Over and over.”

Mong stayed there for a long time, looking down at me.

Staring at the air above his head, I went dizzy for a sec and
had a fully awake dream about diving off Mong’s bridge in San Francisco. I was falling toward the water with my eyes closed and my hands extended in front of me like an Olympic diver. I looked like a bird going down for prey or a big kite taking a nosedive. I felt the wind pushing into my face and then the surface of the cold bay as it sucked me in and held me under until my lungs were full of water and I was dead.

“I’m gonna go do the fire,” Mong said.

I closed and opened my eyes, still alive, still having to remember.

I heard Mong’s footsteps walking back to where we left our bags. Heard Rondell’s voice and the sound of somebody tearing open our bag of charcoal. And I heard somebody say my name: Mexico.

What Happens to Somebody’s Mind When They Sit
at the Bottom of a
Cave:

I stayed down there alone and made like it was my cave all along, from the beginning of time. Like God or whoever put it here just for me to find, tonight, and now I had to stay down here and think about what I thought, long as it took. But at the same time, even in my own cave, I still felt out of place. And I’m not just talking about tonight. I’m talking about all the damn time, in my own body, ever since that day in Stockton.

You know how when you’re a kid and you get a new badass rubber football for Christmas, and then when you wake up the next morning it takes a few minutes to remember why you’re so excited? It’s like that for me, only the opposite. When I wake up, everything’s normal for a while. I’m just plain Miguel. And then suddenly it hits me what I did. It punches me right in the ribs. It screams in my ears how everything
isn’t
normal anymore, it’s fucked.

I sat in the cave a long-ass time, lifting my feet whenever the water came in, imagining myself falling to the kitchen floor again in Stockton. For the hundred-thousandth time. Falling flat on my back, slamming my head against the wooden cupboard. The wind knocked out of me and my head all wet with my own blood. I stared at the dark cave wall and saw everything happening all over again. From every angle. In slow motion. Speeded up. Me falling and the sound of my head hitting the cupboard and the big knife in my hand. And the kitchen table turning over. And me falling and hitting my head. And the big knife sticking straight up. The blood gushing from my head, pooling on the cracked tile.

And his eyes—on mine, and then not.