JUNIOR

2016.

Stop. Think. No don’t think. It’s something other than think that you got to do. You’ve got to see it, to feel it, to hold its weight. Then you’ll know.

It’s like an orb of alien-colored light. A portal. A whisper from far away. Though in real life it’s actually kinda dirty and gives you fingers a gritty feeling. It smells like hours working behind a counter, like a dusty construction site or like the debt racked up from 6 years of community college.

The money.

Junior wasn’t sure if he should count it. It seemed like an invasion. After all it wasn’t his. But it was his – it came to him. Now he had to step up.

What would you do if you found a bag of cash on the street?

The hardest part of the question for Junior was that everyone he knew would know exactly what to do. Just like that. Like they had been waiting the whole time just to catch it from the air and then dish it back out:

Manny (older brother)

Clothes

Halo IV w/ a PS4 and Sharp Sniper

Hoverboard w/ sound system

New phone

Rest of money spent at the hookah spot till it was all gone

Junior wouldn’t mind some new clothes, like the bright green Phat City shirt he saw on Fulton with the crazy anime kid with his eyes popping out. But whenever he picked clothes on his own it always ended up not looking right later. And besides to do that he’d have to actually go into the store and hand someone the money which he couldn’t imagine doing without everyone in the store seeing right through him like he was butt-naked. Like when he tried to go back in line at the cafeteria though his class had already been called through so he could talk to Sarina Payero. He didn’t know what he was gonna say just that he was gonna look in her eyes and she would know like he did that they were meant to be together. And he went back there and stood behind the line and Sarina was nowhere to be seen so he just stood there looking around like he’d lost something when the cafeteria lady screamed out:

You! You already been through! Second’s is only after everyone’s served!

Which was worse cause it was some kinda nasty potato casserole day. Junior shuffled out (Yo my man’s hungry! screamed Mario Vega) but felt the casserole smell was stuck to him.

Anyway he didn’t want the new PS4 – it was too hard to set up when he played it over at Erick’s. And he liked the PS2 he had cause he knew how everything worked and he’d just started to get good at Mariokart.

Though this was all beside the point. This was way more money than what he’d need to buy all of Manny’s junk plus more.

Then there was Yordy who’d get…

Yordy (oldest friend)

At least 10 Punisher/ Spiderman/ other comics he didn’t even know, figurines from Forbidden Planet in Manhattan (though where would he keep them? Probably in their box in the closet)

Full super-sized combos for each meal

Stupid stuff like little snappers, candy trapped inside of Rubix cubes and long snap necklaces

Junior’d like all the stupid stuff too but he knew he’d feel too bad with each purchase cause his mom worked long long hours as a nurse. The kinda hours where it’d seem crazy that there could be so much time in one day. Impossible. And Junior’d look at her while she was brushing her gray-edged hair (another job) and think it seemed impossible that she could do just so many things. She could get dressed in her smock so she’d look older, respectable, but still nice. She wasn’t the nurse who’d get tough-faced and sassy with the druggies and the crazies and the homeless dudes but the one who’d stay nice and would say nothing, maybe cause they didn’t pay her enough to get her hands too dirty. And she’d smile, a real but just trickling through kinda smile, a little tired and always a little distant. Always just a little distant unless she was just with him and Manny or she was in church or she was back in her country. But lately Junior’d been coming up to her and doing the thing he always did where he’d just drop like he was fainting, like he’d been suddenly paralyzed, and fall of his weight face-first into her belly, but instead of saying Como estas papi? She’d speak in English and say, What’s up Junior? Like he was a patient not waiting his turn. So instead of going to sit with her on the couch and watch a novella he’d just lie flat on the kitchen floor doing nothing till he’d have to go pee or till he’d hear his brother turn on the PS2 in the other room. After letting him have a few turns on his own, he couldn’t resist.

Mamá was still mad cause of parent-teacher night. It wasn’t just that his best grade as a B in art class (and he wasn’t even good – the head on his clay Homer Simpson figurine concaved – but Ms. Haley liked him) it was about the word Mamá had fixated on though it seemed like she just learned it then and there from Ms. Tanner. Mediocre. Junior’s Mamá’s nostrils flared and her eyes deepened into two cold black pinpoints. Her head dropped an inch like she was going limp, like she’d lost bodily control at the sound of that word.

It seems that he’s satisfied with mediocrity. We all know he can accomplish so much more – here Junior’s eyes went wide. Who we talking about? But he’s contented himself with laughing with his friends and not seeing the bigger picture.

Junior right then was embarrassed by at least 3 things at once:

He’d started getting fat cause his mom had bought a bulk box of microwave popcorn after he’d complained that there was nothing to eat after school. Standing up he could suck it in well enough and walk stiff and slow like the other boys so it almost seemed like muscle, but sitting down his belly popped out over the top of his jeans, like a public reminder of the hours alone spent on the couch, like he was some kind of ridiculous transmogrification of a 45 year old in 14 year old’s body.

His mom spoke English funny. When she turned to him and cut in: Why you do that Junior? Why you do that? He couldn’t think about why he did that, just why what she was saying was wrong when the teacher was there. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, which made it hard to keep on his tough face with his lower lip sticking out. He wanted to disappear, but couldn’t, especially not with his gut sticking out like that.

The laughing with the others he liked more than he could admit to himself. He was the one who laughed more than everyone else, so the girls looked at him cross-eyed, but he couldn’t help it. When Janelle Rines sneezed in class and Richard Hu in the row in front of him reached up slowly to touch his neck and said, like he couldn’t not admit that he’d just been sneezed on: Ewww… Junior knew exactly what to do: to laugh. It was the only time really when he knew exactly what to do. He couldn’t help it, and Junior’d laugh so much and so out of control his belly would slip out from under his shirt and snot’d get snorted out his nose till his laughing was funnier to the boys than whatever started it in the first place.

What made it hard for Junior not to over-laugh so much was that he was not, like his teachers suspected, dumb. He knew it took him a long time to figure out what the heck questions were asking him to do, but once he figured that out he could answer everything quick. And he would do it, and do it right, but he was never ever first. And if he was first he’d waste his time checking his work cause he’d figure something must be wrong in there. This was all a problem for Junior because he’d think about something that was funny in class after he’d given up trying to understand a problem and he felt deeply, profoundly (Ms. Tanner would say) that he was right. It was really funny. Mr. J the substitute math teacher when he went to erase the whiteboard but the bottom felt part of the eraser had fallen off and the eraser slipped – swooooop – without erasing anything. It was funny. When the principal in front of the school at the awards ceremony put the program folded in half into his pocket but he didn’t realize how big it was and it slowly crept out of his pocket during the speech, And we’ll show them who Triumph Charter’s scholars are! Am I right? The girls screeched yaaah! cause it was fun to screech while the boys either did nothing or roared in gorilla voices arrrr! when the principal raised his fist in the air and screamed again Am I righ– and the program delicately slipped out of his pocket and cause it was folded in half like a paper airplane it swooped across half the stage before coming down and the principal and the secretary almost collided trying to catch it. It was funny. It had to be funny. If it wasn’t funny then everything Junior thought or felt or was was wrong and he’d sit in detention (as he had to after bursting out laughing uncontrollably in the assembly) and twirl a paper straw wrapper in his fingers till it turned brown and sticky and gross. Junior are you okay? Ms. Tanner said sitting down next to him on the cafeteria bench. But he wouldn’t talk to her, not when he knew that the only conclusion their conversation would reach was that he was wrong. After all, he wasn’t dumb.

Mamá kept repeating the word as they walked home from the school. Mediocre. Med–i–ocre. Med–i–ocre. Slowly converting it to the Spanish pronunciation, which was always a sign he might get his hair pulled or get slapped when they got home. But she did something much worse instead which was to go dead silent and not look at him at all and watch TV with her bottom lip sticking out like maybe I’m gonna go like Papi like maybe he was right to go off to North Carolina and it wasn’t just cause he had to for work and cause New York’s too much money. Junior cried in their room so bad with his face stuck into the crack between his bed and the wall that even Manny didn’t say anything, he just had a sick look on his face like he really wanted him to stop. But Mamá didn’t come in and say anything. She was the nice mom, the sweet mom and the pretty mom, but she also had watched her brother die just cause the water was bad and knew what it was to want protein so bad, so bad – just one little egg sizzling in a frying pan – and to not have it, so she could let Junior cry all night if she had to. In the morning she spoke to him but only to tell him with an exasperated look that he better not forget any books.

No, he wouldn’t go to Mamá with the money. He wasn’t that stupid.

It happened on the way home from after-school when he was just thinking he wished he had something to do other than watch TV and eat microwave popcorn when the motorbike sped out across Myrtle Avenue and the guy jumped off the bike with something like a little blue plastic football in his hand and started running harder than Junior’d ever seen someone run. The cop car took after the bike but a young cop jumped out the side after the cop car stopped impatiently on the other side of the street. The cop was faster but there was one split second window when the runner was out of sight, when he turned down Lafayette. The runner hit it on the dime – his hand slammed through the black fence surrounding the apartment building’s yard and spiked the package into the bushes, hard enough to make sure that you’d have to get your hand scraped up to pull it out. Junior wasn’t sure if they caught the guy or not but he thought he made it into the building on the corner.

It was the same feeling of rightness he had when he was laughing in class, but something deeper. Something that was for him and just him though he didn’t know what to do with it. Maybe something that could help out his dad a bit so he could come back and Junior’d be the man, the hero. Or just a big fuck it that made him go up to the building and reach through the fence. He didn’t try to be discreet. He knew he wasn’t capable of discreetness (discretion, Ms. Tanner said, even right then in his mind, as he reached through the fence). He just walked up and said ow, ow, as he jammed his hand into the dense bush and tore out the pouch. That was when he started walking fast. It was like when he’d actually caught the football in gym class and everyone was screaming at him so hard to run he dove head-first into the first kid he saw though he wasn’t even gonna get tackled. Except this time he didn’t get tackled, but he realized he was walking right towards where the runner had gone, so he stopped and turned around right in the middle of the street and headed back towards school. Dang it Dang it you shouldn’t turn around like that. After a block he realized it was pretty obvious that there was something under his jacket. But was he gonna pull it out right there and put it in his backpack? Did anyone see him? Finally he realized he couldn’t walk around with a puffed up jacket like he’d just stolen a cabbage from the supermarket. So he stopped and dropped his backpack on the sidewalk and knelt down so the pouch fell onto his knees under his jacket. Then once he’d unzipped his bag he just lifted his knees till it fell into his bag. He took out his phone too from the bag so it’d look like that’s all he’d been doing and put on some Linkin Park, but after 30 seconds the noise was just stressing him out, so he turned it off and walked with his headphones on but no sound.

Wow. Wow. What did I just do?

He thought about this white guy who’d visited his class and told him that the police cannot just search him if they wanted to. That he had the right to refuse or something or that he could demand something–what? A lawyer? Maybe that was just TV. But what would he actually say? He couldn’t imagine telling a cop to do anything. If he got searched he would just think of if his mom could see him there on the street and how he’d rather die than have her see that. But what if she could see him right then, hustling down the street like a baboso? He has just thought to himself Please God don’t let me see anybody I know when Filo Rodriguez stepped out of the bodega and looked at him like, whatsup with that guy?

Yo.

Yo man.

Why you all like rushing?

Junior tried not to hesitate:

I’m just late.

Pssh. Here Filo decided to ignore whatever was happening with Junior. He said,

Yo you shoulda seen this shit, these two dudes almost just got ’demselves killed chasing out the policia on their bike.

Right then two shots sounded from the direction of Myrtle and Lafayette.

Yo! Filo sang out, choosing to ignore Junior, who had shrunk to a squat at the sound. That’s gotta be a 9, or a glock. (He didn’t know).

That’s… fucked up. Junior said, trying to say something.

Whatever.

Junior had clearly used up all the time he’d merited with Filo.

It’s just what it is you know.

Later, Filo said, bypassing the standard hand slap.

Peace, Junior tried to add on, but he’d already gone.

Junior walked the rest of the way home tripping over untied laces he didn’t stop to tie. It was like there was a wind behind him, someone poking him square in the center of his back so he couldn’t keep up with himself. He finally got into their building and comforted by the familiarity, let him his walk turn into leaps up the three flights of stairs to their apartment. First he hid the pouch first under the sink, but when he stood back and pretended to be his mom looking for one of the cleaning bottles or the other stuff down there he didn’t know what was for, it seemed too obvious. Like a faded blue decapitated head resting there in the corner. After, he tried just burying it in the clothes pile in the bottom of their closet, but the problem was that once in a while Mamá got angry and took it upon herself to go through their stuff to do laundry. He sat on his bed and looked across the divide to Manny’s part of the room. He had above his bed a magazine cut-out of a blonde girl in a bikini looking over her shoulder in some kind of factory, with pipes going everywhere and sparks flying in the background. Her lips were just the right amount pouty and her nose had a round little Q-tip end. Junior thought if I had her I’d be okay forever. I’d love her and we’d have a little fight sometimes but it’d always end with her running into my arms gazing at me like is this real? in the rain, or something like that. He started to feel that warm feeling deep inside that made him want to curl up in the corner with a pillow between his legs but right then he realized the pouch was sitting right there on his lap and wasn’t going away.

I am fucking dumb.

He opened it then cause he had to, his face shining in the 5 o’clock light, breathing just barely but evenly, a boy who’d only recently learned how to not cry but the memory of crying was still there, collecting in a pool under his skin. Or a lake, right there under his bed. But he couldn’t jump in, not now.

The zipper was thick and hard to pull but clean and unrusted. The pouch must have been for a helmet or a bowling ball.

The cocaine almost made him not see the money. It was powdery like donut sugar but brighter. It seemed to scream at him this is not powdered sugar I am something very very different but then it very well could have been powdered sugar. It didn’t weigh any more than the box of Domino’s his mom kept in the kitchen for suspiritos. Just try sprinkling me on a donut.

Junior stood up and strangely began to touch his face. Like a blind person making sure a long-lost family member was really there. He closed his eyes and patted his face with his full hand, holding his out-stretched palm from his left eye down to his jaw. He shifted his hand in little movements till it was over his nose, before turning it sideways, covering his mouth and nostrils. He made one last movement standing in the center of his room to cover his eyes, squeezing them in on the corners.

All this time I thought I was something else, but I was just fucking dumb. Should such dumb people be allowed to live? Do we? Wouldn’t everything be just right if it wasn’t for people like us?

Junior imagined a world filled with people laughing confidently, people walking knowing exactly who they were and where they were going.

Hey Fred!

Hey there Billy!

Ah, aren’t you glad we got rid of that Junior kid and all of his kind!

Oh boy, I was just thinking that!

What a pain he was!

Thank god!

Then his mom and Manny show up, his mom looking ten years younger and Manny dressed up nice like a prep school kid. They just smiled and waved sarcastically, “tata–ing” with only their four fingers and not their whole hands. His mom tossed back her hair like a model in a shampoo commercial and sighed with relief.

Junior you–pop pop! His mom was gonna say something when the two shots sounded off again. He knew it was just a memory but the echo of it was so real he could feel his arms tingling.

No, he said out loud. I won’t be a dumbfuck. I won’t. I got this, he said, using Manny’s words.

Kiery was the girl with the big nose who Junior knew all the way back since kindergarten and so even though he thought she was pretty sometimes she didn’t seem too pretty to talk to cause he’d known her so long. She was standing at the top of the C–wing stairwell the next morning when he came up the stairs. She noticed that something was a little heavier in his step, he was a little more uncomfortable with his enormous backpack stuffed with three textbooks, a binder and a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. He was already sweaty at 8:15 in the morning.

So your mom beat you for that assembly detention?

Beatings, slappings and whoopings were their favorite in-road to conversation and Junior would reenact for Kiery the ferocity of each of his mom’s slaps, which were much less frequent than he let on, though truthfully as fierce, and she’d repay him with giggles, non-blinking stares and an occasional slap on the shoulder. Keiry’d as quickly as possible then switch the conversation to rock music which Junior had the most impressive knowledge of in class from watching youtube videos and then reading each band he like’s Wikipedia. Though since Filo had made fun of the Linkin Park guy’s screaming in the cafeteria after seeing it playing on Junior’s phone, he hadn’t worn any of his rock t-shirts except with a zipped up jacket on top.

Ah no, he smiled and shook his head and walked off. It was a strangely honest response from Junior. Like he was so happy to see her and too tired to even think of coming up with a good story to entertain her. Like whatever was weighing on him was so heavy that all he could do was go through the motions of the day. Up the stairs, off to class…

Que pendejo.

Being like Manny it seemed wouldn’t be as easy as he thought, especially not in class. Okay everyone before we continue with our campaign debates– oh my god, there’s only two weeks left till it’s all over! We need to remember that even some of our candidates don’t believe in backing up their claims with supporting details, we do. And that goes for both sides. I don’t want to hear “He’s a racist who hates minorities.” I want to hear, “The candidate has demonstrated certain undeniable prejudices against America’s proud minority communities – and then – for example “yada yada yada.” That “for example” with a citation and a date attached is the most important thing in this assignment.

Holy shit motherfucker what the fuck did you do?!

We’re not here just to hear what you think. Anyone anywhere can say what they think. We’re here to support our claims with text-based evidence.

Oh my god you left it under the bed how could you leave it under the bed she’s gonna find it!

Any questions– she glanced at Junior’s corner of the class and then zeroed in on him– Diana? Her eyes stayed on Junior an extra second even as Diana spoke.

I mean how we supposed to prove that somebody a racist? For example, “he don’t like niggas.”

Diana please–

Laugh, dammit just laugh with them. Junior smiled widely and tried to let out a chuckle but it came out like a sigh. Ah… Stacey Li looked at him sideways.

I’m just saying we know these things cause we know our own history but we can’t prove…

You can’t prove it? Not with a good quotation? With a little research?

I dunno.

Okay– Ms. Martinez was making a mental note to tell the counselor to talk to Junior later. Something really seemed wrong with him. Well let’s see. Turn to page 4 of our election packet…

Oh my god now the teacher knows something is up she does she does

Kiery was staring at Junior directly from the other side of class, something she never did normally but she couldn’t help it today. Is he getting molested or something? Is he high? In class? Holy crap he must be high.

Junior was thinking if I could just get to the bathroom. Sanctuary in the bathroom. A splash of water and you’ll have this, no problem. But to get to the bathroom you have to ask to go to the bathroom. You have to raise your hand and say the four, no five words, Can I go to the bathroom? So easy to say it wrong. Say it right and you’re good, you’re bored, you want out of there and you don’t importa un culo el stupid election. But if you say it wrong, you’re asking to go tinkle in the potty. Shit–

He stood up and bravely pointed at the door and gestured that he was going without a word, like he was a senior. Ms. Martinez, fearing losing the class and, distracted by her own curiosity, just nodded her assent.

–and complete your Claim/ Counter-claim chart before you begin writing your final persuasive essay.

Kiery used the chattering that began any task as a cover to sidle up to Ms. Martinez and use up the 14-year-old-girl card that she knew she wouldn’t work again for months.

Ms. Martinez can I go to the bathroom?

What but Junior’s already–

It’s kinda–that time, y’know.

Okay be fast.

She found him at the top of the stairwell by the window, the light hitting his frozen, immobile face looking down at the street.

Junior what is up with you?

What? What– nothing. I’m just going through some shit.

And suddenly he seemed normal again.

You sure? You’re acting…

Junior was staring into her eyes for longer than he ever had before. Oh no he’s gonna try to kiss me. But he was just thinking that maybe he could tell Kiery. Tell Kiery! That sounded amazing! But no words came through his throat.

It’s just I can’t talk about it now.

No?

No later, okay. After school I’ll tell you.

After school where? But Junior didn’t want to commit. Maybe it was a bad idea.

Just after school. You’ll find me out front. I gotta go back now. He started to the hallway.

Junior you worry me.

No it’s okay. He stopped and turned around.

Really, I’m better now.

And it was true. He did feel better. So he gave her a smile in the corner of his mouth and a quick head nod towards the door.

C’mon mami, let’s go.

They walked down the hallway together for a minute in silence.

I really don’t know why boys are so dumb.

Junior didn’t have a response to that.

All of you are so dumb sometimes, it’s just astounding.

Well girls can be pretty dumb too.

No we’re even dumber cause we think we need you all.

Isn’t that from a song or something?

Maybe. So?

I gotta go check my phone, she said, nodding towards the bathroom. See ya back there– and she took off without looking back. Junior watched her walking away with a little skip to the back of her heels, a purple backpack tagged up by her friends and bleach-white tight jeans with the pre-made hole below the pockets and the imitation wavy wrinkles across her thighs. His plan was essentially to marry her but only after achieving great things (either baseball or music, he hadn’t decided) and after rejecting many other girls first. But right then he thought maybe it’d be better if he didn’t wait, if she would be his right then.

If only she was mine and I could tell her everything…

The rest of the day went better as Junior passed it in mourning for himself. It had been an alright 14 years and now it was over. That was it. Some of the girls in class would probably cry for him, though much more out of a sense of obligation than real sadness. His mom would be devastated and would pass the rest of her life in profound regret, wishing just that she had appreciated him more. He could see her turned white in front of an altar full of pictures of Junior lighting incense and praying in Spanish. Manny would never get to be cool again cause he’d be too busy trying to answer the one question: how could I ever have been such a bad brother?

The way he would actually die was what took up most of his time. The best one was definitely the one when the runner found him after school and just started shooting. He wouldn’t mind just taking a bullet in the heart right on the front steps, reaching out a hand to the sky to say Why?, Why? before collapsing to the ground. And Kiery would find him then and kiss his hands and forswear all love for the rest of her life. Though maybe it’d be better if he had to jump in front of the bullet to shield someone, like someone’s little kid brother who was just hanging out in front of the school, and Junior would have died protecting all future generations of Spanish youth.

It also wouldn’t be bad to get killed by the police in the midst of their gun battle with the runner and get his mural painted on a wall on Myrtle Ave. His eyes would look out severely on the street like none of you – none of you are innocent of my death. But then if he daydreamed too long about dying something real of death would seep through his skin and he’d feel that it was a shameful, almost perverted kind of fantasy. He wouldn’t see the death then through the eyes of other people but through his own self being lowered into the ground. You. Everything. Done. No that can’t be right can’t be right can’t be right and Junior would really really wish his mom was there. It would take him awhile to train his mind to not think about dying.

Yo man–Filo came up to close and whispering in art class and woke him so suddenly he was scared a tear might leap out.

Yo you know Ronaldo?

Who?

Ronaldo, nigger. Filo still sounded like he was just trying to use the word, so Junior wasn’t intimidated.

No I don’t know any–

Cause he was asking about you.

What? What was he–

Nah – nothing man. Not here. Filo gave him the customary hand-slap with a pat on the shoulder. I’ll hit you back later. Is all good, Junior. Don’t stress.

Alright.

Junior tried to go back to the modeling clay in front of him but when he looked down the gray lumps of clay looked just like gray lumps of clay, impossible to convert into anything else, especially not the wizard holding a staff he’d envisioned. He was twirling little lines of clay worms in his fingers counting down the seconds to the end of the period when Mr. Davies said:

Okay everyone we’re gonna clean up a little early today to get down to the assembly.

What! Another assembly! The kids screamed.

Yes yes another assembly now make sure if your clay’s still wet that you put it–

The kids were too busy talking amongst themselves to follow any directions.

And leave it to dry by the window if you’ve finished and want to start painting tomorrow. Okay? Everyone got that?

The lady was small and white with a nice bird face and a pointy beak nose that was sharp but not in a mean way. Like she kept saying to the kids, I know my nose is sharp and pointy but see? I’m nice, really. She walked back and forth on the stage and bent forward just a little bit with her hand on her heart when she wanted to emphasize something or when it was hard to get something out. Her dress was light blue and down to her ankles and somehow all the 200 kids in the creaky-wooden-chaired auditorium with the tattering, nameless flags hanging down from the balconies were all listening to her.

And it was then, then, that I realized that my little brother, the kid who used to follow me to the train though I made him walk on the other side of the street and pretended like I didn’t know him, the kid who just wanted to show off his leather jacket and look cool smoking a cigarette in front of school–it was then that I realized he was really gone. And that was years before he’d even died. But I knew then, with his head lying there in my lap like an old rag doll, that my brother was gone and that something, this virus, this monster known as drug addiction, had taken over.

That’s when I started to get mad. But who at? At the dealers on the corner? At some drug kingpin down in South America? Maybe at the government for letting the dealers run amok? Or at my brother himself? At my father who was never around? I got so angry I thought maybe the whole world was to blame, and that’s when I was most vulnerable, most defeated. I had to know – so I went down to the corner and plunged into a time of my life that though I’d like to I can never forget.

She was silent for a moment, and sniffling.

We all become what we hate, I guess. And I’ll tell you what no one else will: if you want to go down that road, no one can stop you. Not your mother, your father, your teacher, your best friend in the world can stop you. You guys know that right? You’re old enough to know. But there’s something else they don’t tell you out on the streets, and that’s that you don’t ever get back the years you lose out there. That being high is an escape, but it’s only an escape because it’s a death, the death of yourself. And though being dead–disconnected–can seem cool or nice or easier, there’s so much to live for. And you only got one chance. One life. You know that right? One life and then – poof, it’s over.

Junior just kept watching his best friend Yordy, praying that he would make some small joke, a grimace, anything other than watching her with his withdrawn, I-know-this-already face that despite the boredom in his mouth showed a glint of rapt empathy in his eyes. Yordy was guilty of what every kid in the auditorium was guilty of: plastering her story onto their lives, casting her script with their characters, and making themselves the central heroine, overcoming, fighting, struggling and overcoming again. She was white and little and dressed like she had money but the Brooklyn twang in her accent and her knowledge of the subway system was enough to make the blueprint transferable.

It took Junior awhile to collect the bits from past lunchroom conversations but once he did he was sure he had a winner:

Yordy be collecting some material for later… whatsamatter, internet down at your place?

Yordy’s unibrow arched downwards so sharply to convey not just that Junior was unfunny and a poseur but that his discussion of Yordy’s masturbatory life made him downright weird.

He answered in his mock baseball announcer voice: O-kay!... Junior…

Junior hated his name right then. It took just a little twist at the end to make it into “son.” A little more of a twist, a little spittle with the jun and it turned into “little bitch.” Maybe he should try to go by Francisco again, but he wasn’t a Francisco.

Yo why you getting tight?

Yordy was so beyond Junior right then he didn’t even need to respond. He also wanted to get back to the speaker.

So there it is, Junior thought. It’s me versus the whole auditorium, and the nice white lady is their leader, making me definitely the bad guy. I am the bad guy, and not a bad guy who lives long or puts up a good fight but a bad guy who gets squashed and is remarkable only for his pitifulness cause his arch-enemy is a sweet little white lady. Even the guys he thought were real bad guys, the drug dealers and mareros and killers would look down on him cause he wasn’t into drugs to feed his starving family or something, he was just someone who went along with things. A mediocre bad guy.

But I didn’t sell no drugs!

So what are you gonna do with it then? It’s a virus, a monster, in your hands.

I’m gonna get rid of it! And then I’ll take the money and with the money I’ll buy things so neither my best friend nor all these kids can call me like I’m chump.

No you won’t cause you’re too scared. You’re too scared to tell and you’re too scared to do anything. And you’re definitely too much of a little bitch to spend that money.

Junior couldn’t quiet the high-pitched cartoon-voice bickering in his mind even after Yordy gave him a hand-slap after the assembly and reconfirmed a video game session for later on. Kiery, he thought. If I can just go and talk to Kiery I’ll figure this out. He let himself get carried out the front door by the mob of kids into the 3 o’clock light and was instantly made self-aware as he was every day upon leaving school of his white stained uniform and how it branded him a student. He brazenly ripped off his sweatshirt going down the front stairs, hoping his indifference would counter-balance his gut which may or may not have spilled out in the process. He looked angrily at the door, reconfirming his purpose, that he was waiting for someone. But once he started pacing along the sidewalk running parallel to the school he couldn’t figure out how to do a 180 turn so he kept walking, down past the bodega towards Myrtle and under the overpass and back to the apartment where the blue pouch was waiting for him.

What he was most sure of when he began to flush the drugs down the toilet was not that drugs were bad or even that he was doing the right thing but that he loved the little white lady. He loved the white lady and when she’d hear what he’d done she’d love him too. Love him more than anything. His story that he’d tell to the auditorium in a slick back suit with a sly I’m-a-person-of-color with money kinda smile would enrapture (Ms. Tanner word) the students more than they’d ever been before. They would scream and holler and the girls would cry and they’d take to the streets in joy and celebration and the world would change in some deep-to-the-core fundamental kinda way and it’d all be because of him, Junior. His mother would finally recognize his heroism and would sit beside him on the stage when he gave speeches and Kiery would already be pregnant with their first son. That’s what he was thinking when the drugs went into the toilet, when they got stuck like flour from a pizza under the rim and he had to use the toilet brush to get it unstuck, and then he had to use his hands to get it out of the brush and got so scared the drugs would get into his bloodstream through his fingers he felt short of breath–am I high already?–but once every drop of white powder was down the drain the feeling changed, the feeling, he thought, of after an earthquake when the ground had budged a few inches. Except there hadn’t been any quake, just a flush. Junior held out his hand in front of his face, expecting it to be shaking but it seemed so still. Was it even his hand? Something had changed. Something was emptying and expanding in his lungs. In the small white windowless bathroom he was dropping, dropping deep down into the earthquake’s chasm. He stepped out into the hallway but now the whole apartment was dropping. He looked through his open bedroom door out through the window but that just made the whole city feel like it was falling, falling.

Aaaaaaaaah! HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH

He inhaled deep. Do I suddenly have asthma? Should I get Manny’s inhaler?

Knock knock knock! Junior! Quien estas alla? Que te pasa?

It was Irene, the Peruvian lady from next door.

No, it’s okay. I just… had a nightmare.

Que fue?

Fue una –(what the hell’s that word)–una pesadilla. Esta bien.

Okay, okay, pero que no grites asi…

Junior closed his eyes and leaned his head against the front door and put his right hand over his eyes like the Christians in movies do when they’re praying. Then when he stepped back into the middle of the room he wasn’t falling anymore. It was okay. The door was the door. Irene was Irene. The apartment was his home. Okay, okay. So what now?

He decided to call his mom at work, but he didn’t want to do it right away. In an hour, that way I have something to look forward to and the time’ll go quicker. He tried to sit down and play some Mariokart but he couldn’t get into it. Controlling the car seemed to take an enormous effort. Just turning left or turning right was like flexing a never-before-used or non-existent muscle so he just crashed into the side of the road and let his car get dragged by the trees and the billboards and then off a cliff into the river. Let’s see how bad I can lose, if I can get the worst score of all time…

Mamá?

Si? Yes Junior. Everything okay?

Is okay.

Whatsamatter?

Nothing. I just want to know when you’re coming home.

Oh baby I’m not sure yet. Before nine, okay?

Yeah, it’s no problem.

How was school today?

Good. Okay. We had another assembly.

Junior knew right then that he said the wrong thing.

No problems there? No trooble?

No, Ma.

You sure?

You’re not calling to make a confession?

No Ma, can’t I just call?

Didn’t you have your computer club today?

No is not today.

Oh, okay. Listen baby I gotta get back to work. Te quiero much you know.

I know Mamá.

Okay bye-bye.

Bye.

Having a secret wasn’t like it was on TV or in the comics. Batman had a secret but he also had Albert, and sometimes Robin, and sometimes the commissioner who all knew about it. And he also had all the people he saved, who would look at him and thank him and if they were a desperate redhead lady would try to kiss him. It wasn’t really even a secret, Junior thought, it was just his other identity, and both of his identities worked together and built on each other. My secret identity is a kid flushing things down the toilet in an empty apartment. Am I him, or am I the other kid, the kid who laughs with his friends in class?

He’d had secrets before. When he was 6 or 7 and he knew his dad wasn’t coming back and that even if he did come back that it wouldn’t be the same, this thing came down upon him. This asymmetry (thanks, Mr. Halbern) parting the air. It wasn’t just his dad. He wished it was just his dad. And it wasn’t a being young and scared of the world kinda thing either. The world was fine. It was him. He remembered his mom buying him a bag of sliced mango from the Ecuadorian lady outside the Wyckoff stop. It was his favorite snack, with the chili sprinkled on top and the toothpick you could use afterwards to pick your teeth, though junior wouldn’t actually pick his teeth but just shifted it around in his mouth like Manny. His mom liked to get it for him too, cause it was cheap and it felt good that the Ecuadorian vendors were poorer than they were. But suddenly Junior felt nothing from the mango. He tore his teeth into the fleshy sweetness but it was like it was someone else’s mouth. And if he couldn’t feel anything eating a bag of mango with his mom on a Saturday afternoon Junior knew he didn’t want to be alive. All there was was asymmetry cracking through his skull like lightening and there were no words to tell it to anybody. He had been born into the world without a tongue and his only tools of expression were throwing tantrums on the train, squatting down like he was going to poop his pants on the platform and running from room to room in the apartment till his mom started screaming. And then he’d look closely at her face and it was like she wasn’t his mom, she was somebody else’s mom, he was from some other family on some other planet and everyone felt it but only he knew it and it was all just a big secret nobody was saying.

Every year he would give himself a new deadline: if IT doesn’t go away by the time I’m 8, by next Christmas, by the time I’m 10, I’ll fall accidentally onto the tracks. At least then there’ll be a big funeral for me and everyone would be sad for me like I was Jesus.

But would it even really be me they were sad for? Or some other kid?

As the deadline kept getting pushed back Junior found newer and newer ways to not think about it until there was a great day when he was he was twelve when he didn’t think of it once. Almost once. He was going to bed, drifting off, when the thought crossed his mind: You did it. You didn’t think of it the whole day. You really were that kid who walked with his shoulders bouncing up and down, who untucked just the back flap of his uniform cause it made him look like he doesn’t care, who understood all the cool things like rap and skating and could say thot and ratchet and yolo like he really meant it. But wait– didn’t you just think of it right then? He fell asleep before he could answer.

He thought he was done with the secret. He had even started thinking nostalgically about it sometimes, thinking it would be nice to go back and be the kid crying on the train again. The alien baby. He was depressed back then (that was what he came to accept to be the adult word for it, though he always felt it was the wrong word, there should be something else to describe it) but time passed slower back then. It didn’t go so fast like now, when months would just breeze by and afterwards Junior would think, what happened? Nothing happened. Things happened of course and Junior would try hold on and remember them but there was little that he seemed capable of really holding on to. Walking home from school with a bunch of guys and jumping onto the chain-link fence and everyone climbing horizontally across though people on the street stopped and stared at them. Nothing. Winning the basketball game in gym class with just half a second to go before the bell rang. Nothing. Going shopping with Mamá and Manny and getting a super-sized meal on the way home. Nada…

And now his secret and it had a physical form. It had transmogrified and shifted into an earth being, a light blue round bag shoved behind a duffel bag under his bed with gritty green paper insides for guts. And it blared its message so loudly Junior couldn’t even play video games: you were right when you were 6 years old at the mango stand. I mean what kind of normal kid doesn’t know what to do with money?

Secrets are the worst thing there is, Junior thought. I may not be smart but I know that for sure and most people don’t know it. Secrets are the worst thing ever and one day I’ll live without any secrets, I’m sure, but not yet. Now I can’t.

Kiery did a good job not seeing Junior in the hallway. Though he was pretty easy not to see with his predictable slouch, his slow walk and the way he’d keep looking up at the hallway lights to try not to seem sad but then the lights would blind him and he’d rub his eyes and it’d seem that everyone around him was laughing at a joke he’d missed. So predictable. All Kiery had to do was make sure not to look back when Soryana was pushing her into their next class, though she wanted to look real bad. Not looking back at him in the hallway seemed like one of the meanest things she’d ever done, though she’d been planning on celebrating and relishing it after having stood in front of the school for 20 minutes the day before with only her phone to keep her company.

She was just starting to get into math class when her phone buzzed.

Shit shit

Kiery managed not to budge or look down at her backpack but Ms. Ortega had clearly heard it anyway. Her eyes cut left and right across the class like a samurai sword:

Next time it’s mine.

The problem was she now had to choose between math and the intrigue of a new text. The math problem wasn’t bad. She had to measure the three angles at a junction in a diagram and subtract their total from 180 to find the value of x. It was easy and it felt good to be right. But who had texted her?

She figured it’s better to just get it over with and look and that she’d concentrate afterwards. After checking that Ms. Ortega was still in the back working with Dariel she easily shifted her phone from the front pocket into the main pouch. She pretended to be looking for something, reaching deep into bottom of her bag while she effortlessly swiped her passcode.

Junior: Cut gym

Junior: I’ll be in the C wing stairs

He was being pretty brazen (Esperanza Rising, p.16) for a kid who hardly seemed able to dress himself. But then it didn’t seem too forced like everything he did when he was with his friends. When he wasn’t trying to be anything he was pretty cute in his way. Mainly his big brown eyes were what made the girls notice him. They were shifty and hard to catch for a long time but once you did they made you feel warm, like you’d want to go and cuddle up somewhere safe with him. And he and his brother both had long curls for hair that they seemed unable to control. For Manny it was on purpose, as if to say look I don’t care so much even if my hair drops down over my ears like a girl’s. I don’t care you can’t say anything. While for Junior it was more just that since Manny did it, he could do it too.

She knew they couldn’t be a real couple, at least not for a few years. Junior’s awkward chubbiness would be too much of a liability for her with the other girls, and her nose would be the same for him with the boys. But maybe one day when they were older. And Junior would be some kind of artistic stay-at-home dad type who she’d support while she’d be an architect or a lawyer.

Kiery: OK cabron

She was hoping the cabrón was playful and not too harsh but also that he’d think that she was meeting him only cause she had nothing else to do anyway. Cutting gym had become standard even for good students like Kiery ever since the other gym teacher quit and now Mr. Desarbres was alone with 70 kids in a gymnasium divided between two different schools. There was supposed to be a partition that cut the gym in half but it stopped closing, so now all the kids from both Liberty and Learning First (the upstairs school) were together in one great cacophony (Wordly Wise Vocabulary Chapter 6) that sent the quiet kids out wandering the stairwells and left the girls deep in their cell phones since it was too hard to talk to the person next to you. The boys struggled to play basketball without having anyone walk across the court and yelled jokingly when the girls did it, but if a boy who was pendejo enough did it he’d get shamed savagely right there or at worst (as had happened to Mauro Sanchez the week before) a ball chucked at his chest.

Kiery made sure to show up in the stairwell ten minutes late after checking herself in the girl’s room. They began walking up and down right away so they could just say they were getting something from upstairs or going to the bathroom if they got spotted.

Junior didn’t have any idea what he was going to say to her but when they started climbing the stairs it was the best he’d felt in weeks. She laughed at his jokes a little bit even if they weren’t funny but not too much so he’d learn not to say the same ones again and she played expertly into their running smart girl vs. dumb boy routine (though not really a dumb boy, as Junior played it, just a not-school-smart boy). They had gone up and down at least seven times when Kiery finally said, Shit I’m tired, and leaned against the mint-green metal window grate on the 4th floor. It freaked out Junior for a second coming down the stairs behind her cause he knew it was exactly the moment when Manny would creep up to her and get his hands on her waist, but there was no way he could pull that off. Instead he just bounced around back and forth between the stairs and the grating like he was listening to music on invisible headphones. Finally it got old and Kiery wasn’t saying anything so he came up next to her and put his nose through the grating looking down out the window.

I swear I’m getting out of this city.

Kiery started to roll her eyes at the running-away cliché but kept looking at him when she saw that he meant it.

There’s nowhere to go.

No?

Where?

I dunno.

So go.

I will.

Okay send me a postcard.

They were quiet for a moment and Junior started to look a little like he was gonna cry, but not in a babyish kid kind of way. More like tears of someone getting kicked in the stomach, like it was a physical pain.

Junior what’s going on with you?

He turned to her suddenly and almost grabbed her forearm but just grabbed air instead.

Yo what if I told you I suddenly got mad money but I don’t even want it?

Kiery’s eyes went wide, a little like Junior’s mom’s when she got mad. This wasn’t what she expected.

What? From where? What did you do?

Nothing, nothing.

Did you do something stupid?

No, no.

I swear to god Junior–

I didn’t – yo, keep your voice down.

She clenched her fist wanting suddenly to punch the chubbiness around his shoulder which she had thought was cute just a minute earlier and took a step towards him.

You know what they’ll do to you? You think this is a joke? You know I told you about my cousin JC. His mom don’t even let him in the house no more.

Junior had to bail. This was too much, too fast. She was gonna get him busted.

Yo just keep your voice–

Who is it? Los trinis? El trinitario, Junior? They’ll fucking–

Right then she saw his eyes and realized how ridiculous the idea was, of any street gang having anything to do with a kid like Junior. Of him having their money–

What did you do?

Yo I gotta bounce–

Junior!

He jumped into the stairs right ahead of a group of upstairs kids in green uniforms and she knew she wouldn’t catch up with him.

Idiota! She checked the time on her phone and decided to just wait there until her next class started. Once she calmed down she thought that maybe she’d been too harsh on him. She didn’t even let him speak. He’s probably thinking now that she was gonna go home and tell her mom, but she wasn’t going to tell anybody, she decided right then. Not even her mom.

That night he managed to lie straight-faced right to Manny which made him feel a lot better. If he could lie to Manny, then that meant he could be like Manny. And if he could be like Manny, then it was like the lie wasn’t even a lie.

Manny was standing next to his bed looking down at some new shirts he had spread out. He made it seem like he was stretching everything out cause that was what you did to take care of clothes, but really Junior knew he was planning out his wardrobe for the week.

Yo Manny you know some Ronaldo guy?

Who?

Ronaldo.

Ronaldo Cummings?

Maybe.

Stay away from that dude. He’s got the fucked-up neck tattoo and’s rockin’ the green.

Oh.

Junior waited a moment.

The green means what gang?

Manny stopped folding his clothes and looked at him.

Why you wanna know?

I dunno, just wondering.

Just wondering?

Manny had a way of staring at you if he thought you were lying, like he could keep staring at you forever, a constant reminder: I can beat you to the ground…

Yeah– I dunno, I heard some things.

Like what?

And Junior just had to tell himself that he wasn’t scared and it was like he wasn’t scared. You just tell yourself that you don’t feel something and after a while it’s like you really don’t feel it.

I just heard he lost a package from some of them drug dealers and that now they’re after him.

Who told you that?

I dunno some kids.

What kids?

Here he knew he had to make something up fast, cause Manny would never let him hold back any details.

I think Filo–

Filo’s always running his mouth. Don’t listen to that kid.

Yeah, I know.

It felt good to talk to his brother. If he could tell him everything! But he couldn’t. Not yet. He had screwed up too much, there were too many places he’d done the wrong thing and he couldn’t take being called a dumbfuck right now. If his brother said it to him right then it would be engraved on him forever. Like he would be drowning deep in a tank of his own stupidity and could never again swim to the top. But he also didn’t want his brother to stop talking and lie down with his phone, so he figured he could keep telling him kinda true things. At least closer to true than saying nothing.

Well, it’s cause – you won’t say anything?

No I won’t say anything, Manny sang back, mocking him.

It’s just– I think Filo’s got his hands on his cash.

What?

Yeah– like found it.

He told you that?

Nah but he was flashing some money.

So his moms probably left out her purse.

Maybe. But it was a lot.

A lot. Like how much.

Junior thought down to the blue pouch under his mattress. The truth was was that he hadn’t had a safe enough time and place to count it. There were eight or so stacks of cash folded in half, the outside ones at least were all 100’s. He imagined what one of them unfolded would look like and gestured with his thumb and forefinger the approximate width.

For real! You saw that!

Yo you can’t tell nobody–

They were 20’s? It wasn’t just ones–

Nah nah I don’t know I don’t know but you can’t –

Tell nobody, I won’t. Don’t you know there’s more going on than just you and your little friends.

He ain’t even my friend.

Manny had finished putting away all of his clothes and he wished he had something else to do with his hands. He sat on his bed with his head against the wall and decided that Junior was lying about something, but he didn’t know what or if it was worth his time. For one, it could be worth his time, cause if Junior got into some trouble Mamá would crack down on both of them, maybe even mainly on Manny cause “Junior was his responsibility” and “he’s not like you, he needs someone to look after him” and all that. And Manny really didn’t need anything infringing on his free time right then, not with Iris Palmera just about ready to let him go all the way. Just the thought of her right then made him imagine some things that made him wish he had his own bedroom. But then he looked up and Junior was staring at him with his sad puppy-dog face. He threw a pillow at him.

Yo what are you staring at?

Nothing. Damn.

Yo you do something Junior?

What? No–

Cause I don’t have time for this shit right now I swear to you–

Manny crept down to the edge of his bed to be closer. He wanted to reach out and grab Junior’s shirt collar but Junior wasn’t budging. Instead he did the opposite of what Manny expected. He crept to the edge of his bed so he was face to face with him and said:

Yo. I ain’t trying to take up your precious time. And if I did have a problem it’s not like I would come to you anyways.

Manny’s shoulders dropped. He didn’t want to be the bad brother. He wanted to do all those good big brother things, like teach him how to get girls and how to copy assignments without getting caught. But he also couldn’t find in himself the patience to listen to him talk anymore.

Yo don’t speak like that, Junior. I’m just looking out for you alright? You know that, right?

Yeah, Junior said sarcastically walking out of the room. And for a minute Junior thought he had pulled it off. He had lied and it had worked and now the truth was what he wanted it to be. Just like Manny did. He was going to go into the bathroom but when he glimpsed at the light condensed into the white-tiled floor and walls he didn’t want to go in there. He didn’t particularly want to go into any room in the apartment but he settled on the TV room in the end.

Yeah maybe I pulled it off, but what’s it good for anyway?

Junior was able to put things out of his mind for a couple of days by ignoring Kiery and telling himself: This weekend, this weekend it’ll all be resolved.

Cause this weekend was The Test.

He got up on Saturday like normal, ate a big bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and sat down to play some single-player Halo. He liked the two-player mode also, but it was much better single-player first thing in the morning with the light creeping through the trees into the window and no one else awake. As his life bar was just starting to hit the red he could sense a thought flying around inside the dome of his head, like a lost kite: You are lying, and you’re going to lie now to your best friend, but he didn’t respond, he just kept playing. There was a sinking feeling inside his chest and a flash from how he got sick in the bathroom the other day when the whole apartment was sinking, but he didn’t feel that either.

There, there. I got this.

He waited till 1 o’clock to call Yordy and then pretended that he’d just woken up.

Yo whatsup boss.

Whatsup sir! Yordy’s response to anybody’s attempt at using new slang was mockery with an adult-swim cartoon voice. Though his response to anyone saying something uncool was the same. It was a way of winning the game without having to play.

Junior ignored his mocking disinterest and went ahead with the plan.

Nothing, man. Bored out of my skull. What you got going on today?

Me….? Nothing!

His voice was like a sports announcer calling a home-run.

Yo you wanna go to the city?

Me…? No money!

It’s good. I got you.

Yordy was silent for a minute. Junior’d never offered to share any money with him before. Though Yordy had never asked, not even for a bag of chips after school when Junior had money and he didn’t.

Yordy switched to his old Chinese lady voice:

I don’ kno’ sah.

Yo we can go to Forbidden Planet and then hit up the Papaya Dog.

Okay sah’! We go we go!

Um okay, at the train in an hour?

For the first time Junior heard Yordy’s real voice:

Where’d you get the money?

Don’t worry about that man…

O–kay…! He sang out. He knew he’d get it out of him by the end of the day.

All right.

All right, baby I be seeing you– Yordy had switched to his sexy lady voice.

Peace! Junior hung up before he could go on.

There was one last part of his plan that Junior hadn’t figured out yet. Manny could sleep at least another 2 or 3 hours depending how late he’d been up on his phone the night before, and the money was still in the pouch squeezed into the corner behind the duffel bag with his baseball equipment. He could wait until Manny got up and took one of his two hour long showers but that seemed to go against the plan. He wanted to hang out in his living room with some of the bills in his pocket. Walk around knowing the money was there. Even talk to his mom while twiddling a billfold between his fingers.

He decided he’d try to quietly lift up his whole bed and shift it a few inches from the wall. It was just a thin metal frame and wasn’t that heavy. After, he could lie down like he was going back to bed and could reach down into the gap, and without even looking, take out a few bills.

He walked in swiftly and walked right up to the bed. No fear of the crocodile gently snoring three feet away. Before he could think, he squatted down and lifted the back two feet of his bed straight up, pulled it towards him and set it down.

The fuck you doing mamáhuevo!

Nothing. Chill.

Yo I swear to god Junior–

Junior climbed into bed and pretended to go back to sleep.

Why you moving shit–

But Junior didn’t respond. He was already back asleep and anything Manny said now was just an annoyance, something hindering his rest after a long day as a teenage tigre. He was planning to throw it all right back at him, pretending that he was asleep and Manny had woken him up, but Manny was already dead-silent, facing the wall with the sheets pulled up over his head.

Now just wait, wait.

He was able to find the pouch right away and the zipper didn’t make any noise.

Patience, Junior, patience.

To kill some time before he reached in completely he thought about kissing Kiery for a while. He went to the stairwell when she was leaning back against the grate, looking at him like, What you gonna do, Junior? And he would just kiss her and it would be amazing and she would tremble in his arms and couldn’t stop kissing him back. But then he thought about how Yordy had made fun of her once by putting his fist on his nose like it was Tucan Sam’s beak and he tried to kiss him but the beak kept blocking his way. Junior I want to kiss you but– oh no my nose I can’t what am I gonna do oh no…

What an asshole. Why am I going to share my money with him anyway?

It was the first time he’d put a “my” before the money and he thought it wasn’t too bad.

Enough waiting. Do it now.

Like he was just moving in his sleep, Junior swung his hand in the gap until he felt it hit the pouch. Amazing – a part of him didn’t expect it to still be there, to have ever been there. He found right away where he had unzipped it and slipped his hand in and pressed the first stack into his palm. So weird, that it was real. He held it there tightly and put his face into his pillow and for some reason some tears started to bubble up from his chest, but he didn’t fight them. He just didn’t think about it and squeezed the money like it would give him secret life-force and soon he felt okay. (Tenuously, Ms. T would say).

Junior? Come eat baby, I’m gonna make you some eggs.

Junior pretended he was sleeping. Manny held the pillow tighter against his head.

Yo why’s your bed all crooked?

I’m good Mamá I already ate.

Junior spoke up nice and loudly since he knew Manny couldn’t scream at him with their mom right there.

Whadjou eat?

Just Corn Flakes.

Okay, papi. And then Junior heard her taking a step towards the bed. He acted quick–with the billfold still in his hand, he flipped over and pulled up the blanket right up to his chin. Mamá sat down on the chair next to his bed even though it was covered with clothes. She didn’t seem uncomfortable. That’s why she was a cool mom. She knew that sometimes it’s okay to sit on a lumpy chair full of dirty laundry.

How’s mi amor?

He opened his eyes and looked right at her. All of her features were nice, young and beautiful, but tinged with just a little bit of hardness. Her lips were full and their natural position was like a soft smile, but then they’d stay parted just a little to remind you how those lips were capable of screaming. Her hair was squeezed back into a single ponytail that seemed ready to explode at any moment but somehow the stretchy elastic always maintained it. Her eyes were full too, full and rich black like sleeping on a summer night in the country, but then they would always twitch away after a few seconds to some other thought, some other pressing matter.

I’m gonna go shopping for a bit baby. You’ll text me if you go somewhere?

Later on in school they’d read Camus and the teacher told them Camus’s main idea was that life was absurd. He didn’t really get the book, but he got what the teacher meant by absurdity because he could think of this moment. People kill each other just cause it’s hot outside. Locos become presidents. And a kid in Brooklyn could hold thousands of dollars in his hand while his mom kisses him goodbye before going to go buy groceries with an EBT card. He didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing, the absurdity, or if he even really wanted to think about it, but that it was incontestable truth. If the adults only understood the absurdity they’d know why the kids loved laughing some much at stupid stuff. It confirmed what they already suspected.

Si, Mamá.

She always gave him an extra little smile in response when he spoke Spanish.

Okay, bye bye. She stopped for a second by Manny’s bed.

You too malcri– and she bent down and gave him a big smooch on the one little piece of head sticking out from the pillow.

Ay Mamá, let me sleep!

But you’re so handsome Manny I can’t help it.

Diablo, Mamá!

Okay, okay, bye–bye my princes.

Junior smiled back at his mom while Manny riled back and forth in anger. He made sure not to make a peep as he lay there or he knew that Manny would lash out at him hard.

See it wasn’t so bad, he thought. But what if I had just whipped out the cash while she was sitting right there? Would it be a good thing then, the absurdity?

Junior showed up at the L Train steps on Wyckoff wearing Manny’s Empire State Building shirt with his black jean jacket on top. He almost stopped and changed before leaving, thinking it was weak to wear a shirt that matched the Manhattan background, like he was over-excited for a field-trip, but then he thought he could pull it off like he didn’t care and that Yordy would be the weird one for noticing. There were no clouds up in the sky between the buildings, a clear Autumn day gearing up for a hot afternoon, but strong spasmic winds cut in every few minutes to chase the empty bags across the street, like kids playing tag.

Junior could feel the wad of cash bouncing back and forth in his jacket’s breast pocket as he walked. He wasn’t going to bring the whole billfold, just a few 100’s, but then he decided to just take the whole thing. Why the hell not?, he thought. I don’t care. Before leaving he went into the bathroom and carefully peeled out three 100’s from under the purple rubber band holding the fold tightly together, going right across, he noticed, a new guy’s face (Benjamin Franklin?), then put the $300 into the tiny square pocket that his mom told him to keep his keys in, and dropped the rest of the wad into the breast pocket. At least this way he wouldn’t have to deal with Manny again.

Yo Richy Riches!

Yordy came up behind him on the train platform. He had a bad limp. After each step onto his left foot his shoulders arched straight up like Frankenstein.

What happened to you?

I messed up my ankle chasing my stupid cousin down the stairs.

When Yordy leaned his elbow onto Junior’s shoulder, Junior thought he might be the happiest kid on the planet. Yes, I could tell Yordy anything! Why the hell not? Look he’s not even embarrassed to be walking with a limp. He doesn’t think he’s some cool kid – he mocks all coolness. He mocks everything, actually.

They got onto the train and chose to stand next to an Orthodox Jewish lady with a baby stroller even though most of the seats were open. Neither of them said anything for a while–they both had their headphones on–until Yordy leaned over with his white Beats headset in his hands and said,

Yo listen to this motherfuckin’ Doom!

Yordy only listened to funny hip hop that sounded like it was made by guys who watched way too much cartoons and then spat back out hundreds of episodes condensed into one song. There were always Hi–ya! karate chops in the middle of songs and punching sounds intermixed with women’s orgasms.

That’s dope.

Yeah, you got some rock n’ roll for me?

Yeah man, hear this. And Junior gave him System of a Down’s Toxicity. It was old but still good, and Junior knew that Yordy’d respectfully bounce his head up and down and look out of the train window as if he was thinking about the lyrics he couldn’t understand.

Yo, man. Yordy had almost listened to a whole song before taking them off. You know what we need to do? Hit up that laser tag place at Union Square. Bzzow Bzzow, he started shooting up at the advertisements above their heads.

I just wanna go in there and like take down all of the little kids running around. Ruin some kid’s birthday party.

Yeah, Junior laughed and then froze. He’d seen this moment coming. This money that had been spoken of was being tested and it was up to him now to set the limits.

Well let’s hit up Forbidden Planet and then see.

Yordy wasn’t going to push it any further and instead got carried away with his daydream.

I just want to be like bzow, bzow, bzow. He aimed and shot at 3 different faces in the advertisements as some of the adults in the train started to watch him.

What’s that shit like, 20 bucks each?

I dunno. Why? How much you got? And what bank you rob anyway?

Just enough to get some grub and hit up the comic store.

Yeah? Alright but I feel like shooting something’s all I’m saying.

What about your foot?

I can take it.

They got off at 14th street and ran up the steps onto Broadway. Something was always different in the air in Manhattan. It was like they had come out onto a new climate, a new planet all together. The white people were busy doing all the career things you didn’t see them doing in Brooklyn where they’d just be going home or socializing in bars and cafes. Here’s where the strange foreign business of making money was taking place. They both were always quiet when they first stepped out of the train and they thought: This was a mistake. This is the time we’re gonna get really lost or fail onto the tracks or arrested for something. But then after walking around for a while the fear turned into excitement. They could be louder on the streets of Manhattan, cause everything was loud and even if they shouted something stupid, no one knew them anyway.

Still Yordy’s game of shooting at all the billboard’s eyes with an imaginary laser gun was too much.

Yo man chill. You want some cop shooting you? Junior didn’t know why he sounded so anxious.

What– Yordy stopped in his tracks and looked right at him before he burst out laughing.

Yo are you serious man? You cannot–

Junior walked across the street into Union Square. He had just reached the other side of the street when Yordy leapt onto his back:

Yo I got a bomb motherfucker!

Yordy quit playing!

Junior kept walking across the park but Yordy was frozen with laughter on the street corner. Junior kept going till he came upon the sculpture of George Washington on a horse. He popped out his phone, leaned against a tree and waited.

Yordy came up to him out of breath.

Yo why you disappearing on me?

Junior kept his eyes on the phone.

Nothing man, I’m good.

You know I didn’t mean to mess with you.

I know, it’s good man. Sometimes I just don’t feel like kidding.

This made Yordy’s ears perk up. Junior was always the one who laughed the most. Even in elementary school it was Junior who laughed at nothing till apple juice squirted out of his nose. Yordy didn’t particularly want to take his place as the loudest laugher in the crowd: it was better to be the performer than to be watching the show.

I know, man, I know. You don’t want to be one of them clowns.

Junior kept flipping through his phone reading nothing. The wad of cash against his chest felt like a stone. It was the closest he had come yet to talking about the money. He tried to picture what he could say: Yo man, I’m in some shit, really/ Yo Yordy, I think I did something stupid/ Yo man I fuckin–

Hey– Yordy put his hand on his shoulder. Whatever you wanna do man, I’m down.

Yeah?

Yeah, man, whatev.

But Junior really didn’t know what to do. What did people do with money anyway? He needed guidance, and Yordy seemed to be his only option.

Yo for real, if I tell you something–

Yeah man–

You can’t tell no one. Not Mauro, not Benny–

No one. You know me man, c’mon.

Yordy looked him straight in the eyes with his eyebrows arched down so Junior could see his moustache and unibrow. Just tell him the kinda-truth-things, he thought. Like you did with Manny. Feel it out and see if it’s okay.

I took some slinger’s money.

Yordy’s eyes deepened and seemed almost to go cross-eyed. He kept his hand on Junior’s shoulder and his voice low.

Whose?

I don’t know.

Anyone see you?

I don’t know.

Okay, okay. Yordy took a step back. How’d you get his money?

Here Junior was ready to be convincing: look straight at him, don’t flinch.

He just dropped the shit. I don’t know. He was running from somebody and I guess that shit just came out his pocket like.

Word?

Yeah man and now some dude Ronaldo–

Ronaldo who?

I don’t know. Ronaldo. Manny says the dude’s wearing blue though–

But nobody saw you?

Well Filo saw me after.

Filo? That kid’s got a big mouth–

I know.

But wait wait wait. You’re forgetting the most important thing.

How much?

Junior just shook his head.

Yo c’mon how much was it? You know I won’t tell nobody.

I didn’t count it all.

For real?

It’s like–a couple hundred.

Pshh. That’s no big thing man. You got lucky. Why you so worried?

If somebody knew, man…

Yo nobody knows, Junior. You’re good. This shit happens all the time. You’re just lucky and you don’t even know it.

I know I’m lucky man but I can’t have it being everybody’s business.

Yordy stood still with his mouth cracked open. There had never been anything serious about Junior to him before. Any little detail of him seemed game to be made fun of. His trying to wear his brother’s clothes, his chubby cheeks and his long light brown curls, everything about him was kid-like. But now his eyes stayed open and Yordy could see the red of his eyeballs sticking out.

Yo that’s true man. You can’t tell nobody about this.

I know.

They didn’t speak for a minute. Junior watched the picnickers on the other side of the statue while Yordy chewed his cheek staring at the ground, thinking hard.

Hey man why don’t you just save it for Christmas and like buy something real nice for your moms?

Yeah, I thought of that. But if I got anything too nice anyway she’d know something was up.

Yordy was starting to lose patience.

Well fuck it! Give it to a bum.

Give it to a bum?

Yeah man! Just to see the look on his face!

Junior thought about this for a moment.

Yeah, I would, but the dude’d probably just spend it on liquor.

Yeah.

Maybe if it was a lady with a baby or something.

Yo let’s go find a lady with a baby!

For real!

Yeah I wanna see her face.

I’d give her one if I saw her.

Let’s go mani!

Yordy ran up to the George Washington sculpture, jumped onto the black rail encircling it, and leapt off with a 180 spin. Junior could tell that landing hurt his foot but he bounced off it like it was part of the move.

Ayeee!

After having spent five minutes in a serious conversation, Yordy needed to bolt ahead, jump off railings and play some more invisible laser tag. Junior ran to keep up with him, with the clear-skied movie-like sensation that something was beginning that he’d always remember, though it was an episode that Yordy and him would never talk about. It just didn’t make any sense when you put it into words, giving money to a homeless lady. But they both knew it was true and that it had made sense to them at the time even if it made no sense to everyone else.

And the old dude with the shit-stained sweatpants talking to the ghost of Christmas past receives the prize of… nothing! Yordy had morphed his sports announcer voice into a game show host’s.

Ha! Junior knew his mom would be pissed if she saw him laughing at homeless people but he laughed out loud anyway.

And our next contestant: the nasty white girl with the two dogs she sleeps with every night since her man left her. Sorry dear! Maybe next time!

Yo yo yo check it out– Yordy put out his arm to stop Junior as they reached the sidewalk across from the subway entrance on the Northwest corner of the park. A pregnant Spanish lady had just walked up the stairs and was walking back and forth trying to make eye contact with people. It looked like she might be asking for directions, but then real quickly and quietly she’d throw herself in front of someone and say something under her breathe. Few words but buckets full of eye contact.

Yo I’ll do it.

Junior felt a sour taste in his throat. He thought about how ridiculous this would sound to all the other kids, but Yordy was wound up and ready to go. It was too late to stop him.

Okay, here.

He carefully slipped out just one 100 from the little square pocket and passed it to Yordy without making eye contact.

Holy shit you weren’t playing!

Go do it, man.

Okay, okay.

Junior watched the woman as Yordy approached her. He was thinking about strange things he sometimes thought about. Like maybe she was his mom visiting him from an alternate reality. Maybe she is my mom and I just don’t know it and that’s what’s wrong with everything. And we’ll be reunited and she’ll scream mijo! and everything’ll be alright. No, no, you’re crazy. Your mom is your mom. The lady is just some lady. But then Junior thought she looked nice. She’d probably be a nice mom and would sing songs from her country and would try to make sure her kid has good clothes and good food. What’s it like to be her? What does she think of when she wakes up in the morning? Of some other place? Was this one of those absurdities? That a poor lady from another hemisphere meets the kid with thousands of dollars in his pocket?

The light finally changed. Yordy ran to the other side and tried to walk casually but he was obviously going right up to her, looking distractedly across the street as if he’d seen someone he knows. She seemed like she wouldn’t have bothered asking him but he was right in her path.

Mijo tiene un dolar para mi yo no–

Si Senora.

Ay gracias mi amor. Eres tan amable.

He passed her the bill and started walking off with a nod of the head, like he had a meeting he didn’t want to be late for. She spoke to his back:

Es real esto?

Si. Si, es real.

Si no es real esto no lo es chistoso.

Yordy turned around and enunciated clearly:

No. Es real. Para usted.

Her eyes looked up at him unblinking. It wasn’t clear if she was going to shout in anger or throw herself into his arms. Without moving her eyes from his she reached out and took his forearm:

Que dios te bendiga joven.

A usted.

She let him walk off.

Y donde encontraste esta plata?

Senora, uno no se debe dudar los regalos de dios.

Si. Gracias joven!

Yordy had already turned down the corner of Broadway and was sitting on the front steps of a pizzeria staring down at the street when Junior caught up with him.

Yo that was straight the most bugging-out thing I ever done in my life.

What’d she say?

Just que dios me bendiga and all that.

Word.

Junior looked back down the street. She was gone, disappeared into her own world.

Yo man, Yordy said. That was crazy but it was good, you know?

Yeah.

Whoooo! If I told my brother about this. He’d say I need my head examined.

Yeah.

Oh man her face–

I saw it.

It was like, just, I dunno… makes you think of the shit people livin’.

For real.

One thing for sure: the world is fucked up.

Junior was shocked by the simplicity and severity of what Yordy was saying. He didn’t want to affirm it cause that would make it true in a way he couldn’t take back later. But Yordy wasn’t the type to make big declarations, so when he did you couldn’t deny them.

Yeah, man, I know.

It felt good to say it aloud.

Oh my god son!

Yordy leapt up and shook his head.

For real though, Junior, you did the good thing man. All those kids who would just buy clothes and whatever with it, they don’t get it.

Junior didn’t feel like he could win any awards for generosity right then, not with the rest of the money just sitting there in his pocket. His wished for a moment that it was Yordy’s. For him it wouldn’t even be a problem.

Junior decided to change the tone of the conversation fast:

But hey, seeing as we’ve done our good deed of the day, I guess we could go spend a bit of this money on ourselves…

Word! For real!

You wanna go to Forbidden Planet?

Ahhhh! Yordy wanted to so badly all he could do was scream. Let’s do this!

They cut across Broadway and arrived at the store in 2 minutes. The guy at the door gave them the customary nod and a Whatsup guys? which they hardly noticed as their eyes caught the display case with the giant figurines. There was an 18 inch Thing barreling forward with a fist in the air like he was gonna break the glass, a majestic old-school Batman looking out critically upon all of Gotham City, some weird indy characters they didn’t know, The Lady Death, Scud and Swamp Thing. Nothing though caught their eye like Ryuk, the Shinigami demon who brought the Death Note to earth, unleashing havoc and justice upon all of Japan, and he did it just out of boredom.

That Ryuk is dope loco…

Yeah….

His wings were slick black like oil and stretched out at least 8 inches in each direction. Around his collar there was some kind of grey fur coming out over his shoulders. It was stringy and bristle-like but comfortable for him cause he was a demon. His face was the really arresting feature. The black streaks coming out from his eyes also came out of each corner of his mouth, so it seemed like they were both his tears and his food. Ryuk kneeling upon a pile of skulls feeding upon tears.

Yo you could totally buy that shit Junior. Just pop, like a 150 dollars and it’s yours.

Yeah but what would I do with it?

I dunno man say you found it.

True. I dunno let’s go look at the mangas first.

They piled up on Vagabonds and Berserks and read half of a Sandman comic before deciding it was too complicated to understand. They each picked out a black shirt, Venom for Junior and Carnage for Yordy, like they were matching but not too much, just a little bit. Junior started to think that that might be it. It would be easy, getting a handful of comics and a couple shirts, but then that wouldn’t really be passing The Test. Ryuk would be a different story. Every time someone came over to his place he would have something crazy to show them. In fact Ryuk alone would be a reason for them to come over. And then he’d just have to say that he found it. People find all kinds of crazy stuff in the city.

Yo ask the guy for me to take it out of the case.

What– Ryuk?

Yeah man.

Oh shit!

When he saw how excited Yordy was Junior thought it’s be impossible to turn things around, but Yordy had turned strangely reverent throughout the course of the day. When the guy handed him the enormous box it came in, almost the size of Junior’s entire torso, Yordy even said,

You sure about this ’migo?

He felt some doubts– or was it tears? – pressing at him from behind his eyes, but Junior didn’t want to turn back then. He’d done enough things in the past week that he didn’t think were possible. He could handle Ryuk.

Yeah. Fuck it, he said. Yordy seemed a bit taken aback by the profanity, which was strange, cause he cursed more than anybody.

They got in line silently and looked around with their heads arched back all the way, trying to take in the place before leaving. Yordy tried to take a picture of the wall displays but cursed cause he couldn’t make out anything in his phone screen. With a sick feeling in his stomach, Junior realized that he wouldn’t have enough with just the bills left in his pocket. He had to reach into the inner breast pocket of his jacket and deal with the rubber-banded wad.

Shit…

If there was only one rubber-band it would be okay, but there were two, one going in each direction, and they were on tight. He needed a bathroom, but no one let you use the bathroom in Manhattan except McDonald’s.

Yo Yordy hold the place a sec I gotta go check for something.

What? Yo Junior we’re almost there.

Just one sec. He took off for the first aisle that he saw was out of view and tried to undo a rubber band with his hand in his pocket while he looked at some Archie comics. It was on too tight.

Stop wasting time, just do this.

He knelt down with one knee onto the carpet as if he wanted to look at a comic on the bottom shelf. Sucking back his chest so there would be a bigger cavity between the open sides of his jacket, he quickly reached in and pulled out the wad. For the first time he got a real sense of how much money it actually must be. The three bills he had taken out earlier were so little in size compared to the big bundle but were so much on their own. And he had eight of these things.

Sir, can I help you with anything?

Nah, I’m good.

Junior didn’t look at him but knew which employee he was. The skinny dude with the acne and glasses who walked around like, Hey, I might be a skinny guy with acne and glasses but I still won’t let anybody steal from Forbidden Planet.

Okay then, he said, though he really meant: Just try anything and the alarm’ll get you.

Finally, Junior decided to just rip off both rubber bands and hope the wad stayed together on its own in his pocket. Yordy looked a little hurt when he came back to the line. He must have suspected what Junior was doing. But after a minute he deferred back to his reverent gaze from before, as if this whole thing was simply outside of his understanding.

O–kay, now, you guys going on a spree?

Junior was elated that it was a black girl with frazzly hair and green extensions checking them out. It would have been too much for him to see a white person trying to act like everything was normal.

You win the lottery or kill somebody?

Fortunately, Yordy took over things for him, answering her straight-faced, almost bored: Killed somebody.

Yeah? Who was it?

Fat guy. Just kept feeding him and feeding him till the dude keeled.

Yeah?

Yeah. Oh and I had Junior here marry him first to collect all the inheritance.

Yo Yordy quit playing.

She let out a laugh that she tried to cover quickly with her hand.

You two… have made my day. I won’t ask no more questions.

Junior passed her the bills which were double-checked, first with a marker and then by the manager. Yordy and Junior’s eyes carefully followed every step of the process.

And there you are gentlemen, she said while handing them the receipt, seeming to relish the victory along with them. Have a wonderful day.

No, madam, Yordy continued. Thank you. He took her hand. Y que dios le bendiga y guard un espacio santo para usted en el cielo.

Yordy, ya! Junior yelled, but he was laughing.

Ha sido un placer, mami.

I don’t speak Spanish, honey.

She seemed like she’d had enough.

Bye now.

Yo we rich! Yordy yelled skipping to the door.

Junior, Junior where’s the receipt?

I got it right here.

Yordy took it from him and walked up to the snickering security guard before he could stop him.

Would you like to check our receipt, good sir?

My pleasure, young man.

He looked carefully through their two over-sized bags.

You gentlemen have a nice day, he said, and gave them a wink.

And they stepped out into the bright afternoon, everything pulsating with energy, the earth seeming to spin at a new speed beneath their feet.

After a celebratory dinner of two hot dogs with fries and a coke for Junior and a cheesesteak with no onions or peppers and papaya drink for Yordy, they got on the train and were each already halfway through a manga before they’d crossed the river. Junior’s eyes scanned the story of a young samurai seeking vengeance in the pre-Edo era, but the story only served as a facsimile beneath which he watched the story of his own life playing out. For the first time in a while he was thinking it might play out okay in the end. For the first time maybe ever he saw his life without any exaggerations, no great acts of heroism or just barely defeated villains. It was the story of a kid who some things happened to, who had a mom a brother and a few friends, and who in the end if he was lucky might be able to have a good life and a good girl like Kiery. It wasn’t like any of the books you’d find at Forbidden Planet but right then it didn’t seem like such a bad story.

Still there were too many unresolved questions in this story, too many different ways that things could go. He didn’t know right then if he could handle the magnitude of it all alone. When they were two stops before Myrtle/ Wyckoff he said to Yordy:

What’s the deal now, man? Halo time?

Yo I think for me it’s passing-out time.

For real?

Yordy slouched down all the way to bottom of the subway bench and looked down at his sprawled-out legs, as if he were asking them if they could make it.

Yeah, I’m done.

Junior knew to leave it at that. No one ever went back with Yordy to his apartment. Junior had only gone once when he climbed up the four flights to demand back a long-ago borrowed skateboard. Yordy had left him impatiently at the doorway. It smelled inside like all the food was cooked with old dusty spices. Yordy’s dad didn’t look back from his plaid orange recliner which he rocked shortly back and forth, territorially. Quien esta Yordy? Nadie, papa, es solo un amigo mio. Junior thanked him for the board and left without making eye contact.

Ai–ight.

Yo so whatchu gonna do with Ryuk.

On the shelf right above my bed.

That’s gonna be chulo right there.

I know, he smiled.

Yo but for real Yordy you remember? Junior started poking his right finger into his left palm, to give emphasis.

We found it by the dumpster in back of the store.

I got you. You know I won’t give you up, Capone.

He appreciated being called Capone, but it was a guilty joy. The bundle in his jacket pocket was loose now. You could see the bulge like it was his abuelo’s pacemaker.

Alright man. Junior stood up and slapped his hand. Yordy’s stop was coming up.

Yo it’s alright if I take the Battle Royales to start? And we trade up Monday?

No doubt.

Alright! Hast–a loo–ay–go! He screamed in gringo Spanish getting pulled backwards out the train doors, his voice fading out, like he was getting sucked into a black hole.

Peace!

The doors shut behind him. For an extra goodbye to demarcate an extra great day, Yordy put into reverse the suction machine and pressed his face against the glass panel on the train car’s door, his eyes shifting up and down in mortal fear as the train started rolling. Junior watched him laughing, not caring about the other passengers in the train. Yordy pulled away at the last minute, saving his life. Junior sat back down and tried to figure out how he was gonna carry everything.

When he got back home the apartment was too quiet. Junior couldn’t tell if it was because of the day he’d just had or because Manny wasn’t home. The windows were open both in the living room and in their bedroom so that all the sound got pulled from the building’s back courtyard out through their window into the street. All that remained was his mom having a quiet phone conversation in her bedroom. It wasn’t loud and laughing like when she talked to her friends. Papa? It sounded more like there were conditions being set. She was acquiescing, not to the person she was talking with but to some uncontrollable force in the world. She and whoever she was speaking with were acquiescing together, and all Junior’s mom had to say was si, si, okay, ya sé…

Junior would have tried to listen in but something told him that that was for the old Junior. The new Junior had passed The Test and he gave people their space when they wanted it. He didn’t care. That and he knew he wouldn’t hear anything anyway.

He followed the breeze through the hallway down into his bedroom. His bed pulled into the middle of the room. The gap between it and the wall was black and of unknown depth like the inside of a crocodile’s mouth. I didn’t leave it like that…

Junior leapt onto his bed. He didn’t care about the loud creaking of his bedsprings – Junior papi, you home? He pulled out the blue pouch and exhaled deeply when the first face of Benjamin Franklin was looking back at home but his relief disappeared into the black recess of the pouch.

One, two, three…

There were only six bundles. One of them was missing.

What the–

Junior?

Wait Mamá! I’m changing.

Okay okay principe…

Manny. Ese pendejo! Of course he would– but how did he know? He thought back to that morning, thinking he might get sick from those two hot dogs he ate. It was that whole thing he made up about Filo flashing the money. Of course Manny knew it was BS.

Junior you eat?

Yeah Ma I’m not hungry.

Whatchu mean you’re not hungry?

Me and Yordy ate Grey Papaya’s.

Ustedes comen pura basura en vez de verdadera comida.

I’m not hungry!

Okay Manny! Calling him by his brother’s name was her way of saying he was being difficult, but she always over-emphasized the sarcasm. To Junior, Just hearing his brother’s name right then seemed like the world’s worst timing.

He took quick stock of the mess in his room: the displaced bed, the bags of new comics and Ryuk, which would need to be explained, and the blue pouch, that damn blue pouch which had fallen on him like a meteorite from an alien world. But this meteorite was living. It was an egg waiting to hatch a demon. He seriously thought about throwing it out the window while he took two deep breathes and put his hands on his face. His mom could bust in at any moment: it was her way of reminding them who paid the rent. Saying you’re changing only bought you two minutes at max.

Junior–I need you to get out the garbage.

Okay, okay.

He couldn’t just put the pouch back under the bed. Screw it, he decided. He shoved it into his school backpack and decided that from now on wherever he goes, it goes with him. Ryuk got thrown into the closet and he left the comics on the floor.

Junior?

Coming!

He shoved the bed up against the wall and went for the garbage without stopping to say anything when he passed his mom’s bedroom. He moved purposefully through the apartment, more purposefully than he was used to moving. Usually it took him ten minutes to take out the trash. He was always scared of the knot coming lose or the bag ripping at the bottom seam. And he’d take a break halfway down the stairs to play a game on his phone or text somebody. This time he was out the door in twenty seconds with the untied garbage clenched in his hand and the door banging shut behind him. He descended in careful brisk steps and welcomed the cold air outside. Only when he was at the bottom of the front stoop did he slow down to his normal pace.

Manny. He took it! It must’ve been him. Though maybe this was a good thing. Maybe this was a way of getting rid of the whole thing. He thought of Manny’s smile, how he’d laugh with his friends, telling them how he’d taken it.

Nah, nah– shit is mine!

Junior kicked the trash can and threw in the bag without tying it shut. He sat down on the stoop and made a pyramid with his elbows resting on his knees and his chin resting in his hands. This was supposed to be his thinking pose, but he wasn’t even sure what the question was.

Manny. What was he going to say to him when he got home? How was he going to explain everything while also demanding back what was his? Yordy would probably go wild on him and scream and fight till he got it back, even if it meant getting beat. But that wasn’t Junior’s way of doing things.

There was another question that Junior had to resolve before he could figure out what to do. It was the most screwed-up (or teacher word: perplexing) one, but Junior felt he sensed the answer now that he was outside. Why did Manny only take one? He looked up at their bedroom window. He could see the light reflecting off the painted yellow wall. It was the room of two kids. And right then he knew – Manny was scared. He knew it wasn’t just Junior that he was robbing and he was scared, maybe more scared than Junior was.

Junior could empathize with his fear but that didn’t stop him from hating his brother. He imagined Manny’s self-assured smile, his carefully placed curls and his new brand clothing. Junior looked down at his hands and wanted to crush Manny’s throat. His hands clenched shut and he saw Manny flailing his arms and pleading with god to spare him as Junior crushed the life out him right on his bed. Junior would be cool and business-like about it, not sweating. Easy effort.

He got up and stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the stars. He could still make out two or three of them though the street light was blinding his left eye. He waited another minute, the longest he could hold out before his mom got suspicious, and went back inside.

Junior decided to stay up all night and wait for him to come home. He sat up in his bed leaning against the wall at a straight right angle, with just a reading lamp on for light and an unread manga in his hand. He’d taken Ryuk out of his box and run his fingers over all the life-like ripples and folds of his face and his wings, but after a minute the novelty wore off. He tossed him onto his back on the bed and left him there though it looked like it may be bending a wing. This way he couldn’t lie down even if he wanted to.

The plan was to demand back the money without offering any explanations. He would be hard. Say something like, Give me what’s mine, and then snatch the money from his hand. He’d count it in front of him, give him another hard look, and that’d be it. If Manny asked him, Well what you doing with that kinda cash anyway?, he’d just turn his head at a psychopathic tilt and murmur slowly, like The Rock: Well, I guess that’s my business, ain’t it?

He made it till 3:30 in the morning, when he told himself he’d just lie down next to Ryuk for a minute, and that he’d hop up the second Manny opened the front door. He woke up at 9:30 the next morning when the sunlight hit his face. Ryuk’s left wing was bent backwards and wouldn’t go back to its right position. Manny’s bed was untouched.

Tia Linda lived in Queens in a Chinese neighborhood so she always gave them a list of Spanish food ingredients to bring with them when they came over on Sundays. Usually it was Manny’s job to do the shopping for Linda but since he had slept over at Dougherty’s house (But don’t worry, said Mamá, he’s not getting outta going to Tia’s) it was Junior’s job. He walked down to the supermarket by his school on Irving and Putnam and filled up a hand-basket with longaniza, avocadoes, green platanos and condensed milk (coño but she can get all this in Queens, Tia just likes giving out jobs…) while his mom baked a chocolate cake for desert.

Junior came back inside, left the groceries on the table, and went to back to bed. His head felt like it was full of the black and white static of a broken TV. It was definitely a day to hide out inside, rewatch one of the Batmans and eat popcorn.

Junior don’t go to sleep we’re leaving in 20 minutes!

He didn’t respond, but just buried his face deeper into his pillow. A wave of pure self-pity came over, warm and comforting as a cup of hot cocoa on a cold day, but there wasn’t any time to relish it. He couldn’t sleep or cry.

You ready Junior?

Yeah mom…

They got on the M Train to Queens and since his mom started texting his aunt he took it as a cue that he was allowed to listen to his headphones. He put on Bruno Mars’s “Grenade,” something he’d definitely never listen to with other guys around, guys who could pull out his headphones at any time and fill up the train with Bruno ’s crying. Shit’s gay!, he could see Filo saying. But with Mamá he was safe. Actually, she liked Bruno Mars.

They got off the train at Metropolitan Avenue and started walking along the highway underpass to her house. It was a real house, not an apartment, though they only had the first floor and it was painted a dark army green color Mamá said was ugly. Junior didn’t mind going over there and watching baseball and playing Call of Duty with his cousin Marlo but he didn’t like entering the house, cause it meant kissing his Tia and talking about school and things like that.

Mamá opened the outer door which was never shut right and they walked right into Tia’s place, the door always left open when she was cooking.

Que mire este handsome young man! Como estas baby?

Good, good. Here’s your food.

Ay thank you.

Tia Linda and his mom started speaking so fast in Spanish Junior couldn’t really follow, so he went and knocked on Marlo’s door.

Yo!

Yo primo.

Come in here man.

Marlo was in Manny’s grade. He was actually a year older, but for some reason he got held back a year at his high school in Queens. He took off his big red headphones and made some room for Junior by pushing all his clothes off his extra chair onto the floor.

Yo check this out man, you know about GTA right?

Yeah.

Well look you just gotta modify this code here– Marlo started hammering in numbers into a little black box in the corner of his computer screen– And you see my guy in the car right there?

Yeah.

Yo look– He finished typing his code. His character, who was a white guy driving around in a red car with a shotgun sticking out the window, suddenly turned dark-skinned and the video game music became Spanish rap.

Yo!

Yo you see that!

Yeah hol’ up hol’ up now I’m gonna show you how to make the girls do some wily shit here.

Yo how’d you learn how to do all this?

Google University, cuz.

For real…

Junior was just starting to want to get out of Marlo’s room, it was pitch black in there with the shades drawn, and he had to look over Marlo’s shoulder to see the screen, when Tia called them out to eat. The table in the living room was filled with rice and beans, pastelon, and Tia’s bacalao salad. Manny was telling them a funny story in Spanish. He spoke it a lot better than Junior cause unlike him he wasn’t born in the US. Junior didn’t say anything and just focused on eating slowly so he wouldn’t have nothing to do when he finished.

They all burst out laughing at the end of the story, Tia frozen with her mouth wide open holding her gut and Mamá just shaking her head back and forth with a mischievous smile.

Entiendes Junior?

Si, entiendo, he lied.

After eating everything Marlo put on some music and they all sang along while cleaning up. Junior caught his mom just as she was picking up the half-eaten plate of bacalao:

Mamá donde esta Manny?

Manny… that boy.

What’s he doing? Tia asked.

I told him he could sleep at Dougherty’s only if he was coming today. That boy.

Junior could see that she was clenching her teeth down hard.

I’m gonna text him right now and if he doesn’t write me back I swear that boy’s phone is mine.

Marlo couldn’t help cutting in:

Leave the man be you know he’s too busy with his novia…

What? Who?

Marlo knew to stop talking before he betrayed his cousin.

Yo no dije nada.

Okay here I’m writing him…. MANNY WHERE YOU AT?

Ay, Lisbeth let the boy be with his girlfriend, no?

No hay espacio para mas que una mujer en su vida.

Celosa!

All I know is that boy needs to call his mother.

They listened to more music as they cleaned up. Junior and Marlo cleared the table and then they were allowed to go watch the baseball game in the living room. Marlo knew all about the players and their stats and even some of the obscure rules that came up like the Ground Rule Double. Junior was usually happy when the Yankees were winning, but this time he couldn’t stop looking back at the kitchen table where his mom’s phone was sitting. It seemed to shift an inch across the table each time he looked back.

Manny call you yet Ma?

She didn’t usually let Junior sway her into punishing Manny. She was a solo commander. But she still went to check her phone and after swiping away what seemed like junk mail said:

Nope. Haven’t heard from him.

It was hard to tell if it was repressed rage in her voice or just concern.

Junior was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, leaning back against their recliner while Marlo sprawled all the way across the couch. Mamá and Tia Linda sat down with Mamá’s chocolate cake and began a hushed conversation in Spanish. Junior and Marlo didn’t try to listen in but the hushed tone made them both respectfully quiet. They watched the game without making any comments, even when Starlin Castro hit a single home run across left field.

After a while, it occurred to Junior that they weren’t even talking about Manny. They were talking about his dad, or money, or the two of them together. Junior didn’t want to hear any of it. He looked at the wall full of family photos across from him instead of the glaring light of the TV. The photos for an instant seemed to be moving around in circles and the wall looked like it was sliding backwards. Holy crap is it happening again? Like in the bathroom? Shit shit shit… He just closed his in one long blink, like a gulp of water for his eyes, and everything was okay. But the photos were looking back at him, stubborn and implacable in their impossibility. Impossible to go back to that black and white time. To know all the people who were gone now or aged beyond recognition. Impossible for him to take part in whatever party it was that seemed to always be going on back there. Junior was adrift and no one knew. Not the people in the pictures, his mom or Kiery or his teachers or Manny. He was drifting off alone into space, dislodged from the world, from the home that seemed so well-defined in the photos.

He was glad to hear his mother’s voice pierce the ozone of his thoughts:

Junior, papi, we’re gonna be leaving in a minute so–

The digital song of her ringtone cut her off.

Yes… yes that is my son… What? No. You’re sure. Can I speak to him? Wait wait wait that’s not right you can’t be... No sir, I speak English. Okay, but…?

She was standing now, bent down low to not hear the sound of the TV, her right index finger plugged into her exposed ear.

Are you sure there’s not a mistake? My boy never got in no trouble mister.

Everyone was watching her except for Marlo, whose eyes stayed glued to the TV. He chewed on the side of his cheek.

What? NO. NO. I am coming there right now I am not waiting for no weekday. Where is he? Sir? Sir? I demand to know where my son is you hear me? You gotta be…

Linda was standing beside her with a hand on her back.

What? No! Where? Atlantic? Okay you listen to me my boy is still a minor you hear? He is 17 years old. And I am coming for him right now and you are going to put him… in my possession or you need to lock me up too you hear me? Yes? Yes okay? Okay I’ll be there in an hour.

She hung up the phone and though Linda was holding her fighting for her attention she looked right at Junior sitting on the floor.

Your brother’s been locked up.

Junior didn’t say anything.

What?! What?

Marlo jumped up.

What’d he do?

They say he tried to skip the bill from some Manhattan night club—

Repeating it was too shameful and grotesque for Mamá. She choked on her snot and buried her face in Linda’s neck and hair. Linda spoke soft but unsure:

It’s okay, okay? I’m sure it’s not gonna be that serious in the end. He’s not been charged yet it’s just the weekend y’know?

Junior’s mom cried hard onto Tia Linda. It was only the second or third time he’d seen her cry. Once after a bad fight with his dad, the other time when she got the call from back home that her brother was dead. She didn’t cry in a nice way. It was a last resort kind of crying, always intermixed with Oh my god’s and ay dios ay dios. It was the end-of-the-world, all-is-lost crying of someone who’s put their entire life into a struggle only to see it end unequivocally.

It was over quickly. She stood up straight, balanced with her hands on Tia’s shoulders and stared angrily at the ground.

Junior you know something about this? Marlo?

Junior would have said something right then–he wanted to–but his mom looked capable of anything right then. He knew there was all kinds violence in her repertoire stored in a “Just in Case” folder for this kind of situation.

No, Junior said.

Pero no tia, yo no se lo que le pase con Manny…

Okay, Marlo, that’s enough, said Tia Linda.

Mamá put up her hand before they could talk anymore.

I am going to this station and I am coming back with my son. Junior, you’re going home and… and you’re getting yourself ready for school tomorrow, you hear?

Yes, mom.

Yo voy contigo.

No, no, Linda I got this okay.

You sure?

I’m sure. I gotta go.

Linda took her by both elbows.

Okay but you promise you call me? Tonight? As soon as you know what’s what?

Okay, she lied.

She took her coat off the hook by the front door and for the first time ever left without kissing everybody goodbye. With the echo of the door slamming shut, that missing kiss lingered in the room for all three of them, like they had eaten something bad. Junior just wanted to call her and beg her to come back and give them all a kiss goodbye but he knew she wouldn’t answer, and if she did she’d be super mad.

Junior papi time to get your stuff together. Marlo you can walk your cousin to the train.

Yo he’s no little kid.

What?

Tia Linda grabbed a bottle of hot sauce from the table and seemed ready to throw it at him. His attitude had changed too quickly from mournful to everyday whiny.

Alright Junior let’s go to the train.

It was too loud to talk with the sound of their feet clanking down the stairs and then with the trucks passing by the cemetery. They both appreciated the pause it gave them and then wished it was louder on Metropolitan Ave.

Yo Junior you know anything about all this? Cause I mean Manny’s smoked a little herb and all but no shit like this.

Junior was too tired to tell a half-lie like he’d told Yordy. If he could just go home and sleep—but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. The apartment seemed like the worst possible place to go. He could imagine their kitchen table, still caked with flour from Mamá’s baking. Empty, it was worse than if his mom was really there crying at the table, screaming into the bedrooms. Empty it was like her ghost was there doing all the crying and the ghost was even worse than the reality. That and there was still the stacks of cash shoved into the bottom of his backpack beside his bed.

Whatever he was gonna do, he knew didn’t have to tell nothing to Marlo.

Nah man I don’t know nothing.

Cause I been hearing that Manny was flashing some cash about—

What—?

Yeah, man. Yo don’t tell your mom’s but—

But what?

He wanted me to go out with him last night.

Yeah?

Yeah he said he was taking Iris out to Manhattan and that her cousin Steven was gonna be there and he was like, yo I need you to get my back.

Get his back? For what?

I dunno, just that this George kid was shady as fuck but he was trying to make it with Iris.

But you didn’t go?

Nah man. He tried to convince me but I ain’t no Manhattanite.

Junior took this to mean that he preferred to stay home and play video games but he didn’t say anything. They walked in silence till they got to the steps up to the platform.

Yo you want to go get a McDonald’s apple pie or something? I got you.

Junior snickered to himself. It was funny, Marlo offering to pay for him.

What?

Nothing, nothing, I just thought of something.

Alright primo listen you don’t worry too much about your brother.

I know, I know.

He’s still just a kid they ain’t gonna charge him.

Junior wasn’t sure about this part but he nodded along.

Alright peace.

Hey and you llamame when you know something.

Alright, man.

Junior went through the turnstile and ran to catch the M Train. He sat down and decided that before the train reached the next stop, he would decide what to do. The next stop came before he was able to put a single thought together so he decided he’d have until his stop came up. How could he tell his mom about the money… if he left out the drugs it wasn’t all that bad. He found some money, he didn’t know it was drug dealers, and Manny took some and got into something. The problem was the half-lie thing didn’t work with Mamá. She was like a predator that could sniff out any weakness. Her big black eyes had Superman’s eye-ray power that could melt you till you were just a puddle of guilt wondering, what happened?

He didn’t make a decision about what to do, but he decided not to go home. It seemed like a start, at least.

Kiery lived a few blocks away on the corner of Linden and Wyckoff. He wasn’t going to do anything but then walking by the outside of her building and thinking about her being inside kinda made him feel nice and it helped him daydream about actually doing something, like climbing up on to the dumpster to leap into her second floor window, or tiptoeing up the fire escape to meet her on the roof. He passed by her building and kept walking. He didn’t even know what floor she lived on.

At the end of the street there was a tiki bar filled with white people drinking bright pink cocktails. There were big fake palm trees in each corner of the bar and a bartender in the center wearing a Hawaiian shirt with black shades. Junior’d only been back with Mamá to her country once before but he remembered what real palm trees were like. He couldn’t figure out why the white people liked the big fake ones. Palm trees were nice and all but they were just trees. And why were the white people places always so open and bright and you could see everything inside like it was on display? A bum came up in front of the bar and starting watching the inside with him so Junior took off. He didn’t get it either but he didn’t want to be gawking alongside some bum.

Before he could stop and think about what he was doing, he took out his phone and texted Kiery:

Junior: Care to meet me for a cocktail at the tiki bar?

He was scared she wouldn’t get the joke. Kiery lived with both her parents and they didn’t let her go out anywhere.

Kiery: LOL you see that place?

Junior: Yeah I’m just chillin here.

Kiery: What you doin’?

Junior: Nothin. Just don’t feel like going home.

Kiery: Cuz you in trouble…

Junior stopped and leaned against the side wall of the laundromat instead of responding.

Kiery: ….?

Junior: Nah is my brother. He’s the one always fuckin up.

Junior listened to the washing machines humming through the wall.

Kiery: You still there?

Junior: Yeah.

Kiery: Be out front of my building in 1 min.

Junior: You sure I don’t want your dad to machete me.

The story was the Kiery’s dad had threatened her sister’s last boyfriend with a sugar cane machete he kept hung up on the wall.

Kiery: Be there.

Junior walked back to her building and leaned against the front gate with one ear bud in. He tried not to look back at her door too much. Finally he got so lost in thought he didn’t even hear her calling to him.

Psssh! Psssh cabrón!

Kiery was struggling to keep the door open with one hand while holding a laundry basket with the other.

Aw you guys got a machine in your building you’re mad lucky.

Hurry I can’t hold this door.

Okay I got it.

Junior stepped into the dark vestibule that smelled like shoe polish but was clean and had fancy wood-working on the walls. Kiery walked towards the back stairs without saying anything.

Yo where you going?

Laundry! She called from the stairwell.

Junior waited there for a second. What was he supposed to do? She didn’t tell him to follow her down. Ay bruto que si you’re supposed to follow her!

He walked down to the laundry room with big plodding steps like Manny did when he was going to school but was trying to be late. Kiery was folding some white shirts in the brightly lit room, the overhead fluorescent lights buzzing like giant mechanical crickets. She wasn’t saying anything. How come she’d be so nice when they were texting and then get all cold in person?

Yo this place is mad nice you guys got laundry and dryer and all this wood stuff on the stairs.

Yeah Junior it’s like a freakin palace.

Yo why you so tight?

Yo why can’t you be real with me?

What are you talking about?

At the last word she banged the shirt she was folding down onto the top of the machine.

I just wanted to tell you that I didn’t tell nobody about that stuff you were saying. Not my mom, not my sister. No one. And that it’s not me who’s got a big mouth.

I know. That’s why I told you.

You didn’t really tell me nothing.

Well what do you want to hear?

She turned around suddenly and let the shirt in her hand come unfolded. She was giving him a look he’d been waiting for for years but it was impossible to identify it so quickly. It might’ve been: I know you better than you know yourself. Or it might’ve been: we both know that we love each other so why are we playing games? Or it might’ve been: Is this kid really an idiot or does he just act that way?

Junior slowly stepped towards her. It was time to make the Manny move. He reached out his hands and took another step so both of them were on a straight trajectory towards her hips.

She let him come all the way till he was two inches in front. She let him put both index fingers into the side belt hoops on her jeans. But when he went slowly in for the kiss—his aim was off anyway and he probably would’ve hit her eye socket—she pushed him straight back into the machine behind him.

So that’s it? she said.

What I do?

I’m just a character in your story.

What?

That’s what you think. That this is all just your movie and you need some girl to fill the part—

No it’s not like that.

So then how come it’s you kissing me?

What you mean?

How come it’s you who decides when we kiss?

I don’t know. That’s just the way it is.

No it’s not the way it is.

Well fine, damn. Junior sat down on the floor and leaned against the dryer. He reached up and put an index finger into the corner of each eye.

I’m just too tired to sleep but I can’t go home.

Kiery kept folding her clothes. Junior thought he could detect a hint of sympathy in the way she peaked at him. She was also folding the clothes a lot slower than she did before. Maybe it wasn’t a complete failure, he thought. She did let him put his hands on her waist.

You know what some of the other girls call you?

What? He answered tiredly.

El niño.

El niño?

Yup.

Why?

Just cause. You’re a kid.

We’re all kids.

Yeah but you’re more of a kid.

I don’t care what they say.

Okay. Her clothes-folding seemed to speed up and Junior searched for something to say. He didn’t want to leave the laundry room just yet.

Nah it’s true. Soy el niño. But I don’t even care. What do they all know anyway? They just good at acting like they got shit figured out.

True.

And grown-ups too don’t know shit either. No one knows anything.

Now that’s a little extreme.

Y’know yesterday I gave a homeless lady 100 bucks.

What?

Yeah.

Why?

Cause I don’t care!

Kiery shook her head back and forth looking at the wall.

That’s just…

Crazy?

No, I don’t know… If it’s some gang money anyway…

How do you know that?

I don’t know. You don’t tell me nothing.

It’s like there ain’t nothing to tell.

Okay.

But I tell you more than anyone. Even my own brother.

Kiery folded the last shirt and exhaled deeply.

I gotta go back upstairs.

Before he comes down with the machete?

Yeah.

Alright.

Junior was hoping she’d feel bad for leaving him down there, but she seemed fine. He just kept staring into the corner of the room, not making any eye contact. Resigned, like he was waiting for his execution.

Okay, Junior.

He didn’t even see her coming, didn’t hear a sound or see a shadow, when he suddenly felt her kiss him softly right under his left eye.

Okay, bye Kiery.

Bye. You can leave out the back door at the bottom of the stairs.

Okay.

I’ll see you tomorrow?

See you tomorrow.

She turned around swiftly to pick up the basket and was gone. The laundry room door clinked shut behind her.

That night Junior fell asleep before his mom came home. He dreamed of her on a beach in a palapa drinking and laughing at things Junior didn’t understand. He just remembered her face seemed pale with thick black shadows under her chin and her nose. She was wearing the make-up of mourning, some foreign rite he didn’t understand, and Junior kept wondering, what kind of laughter is this? He woke up to her slamming the door shut and screaming maldito pais! But then when his alarm went off in the morning she was dead asleep in her clothes on Manny’s bed. He managed to grab his things, get changed in the bedroom and get out the front door without waking her up. Or if she did, she pretended to be sleeping.

At school Junior really really wished he hadn’t had the brilliant idea of leaving the money in his backpack. It was like there was an infrared light beaming out from the cracks in the zippers but only he could see it.

But then, strangely, when the guidance counselor Ms. McDowell called him into her office, he was happy he had it with him. It gave him a kind of leg up. Whatever she thought she knew about him or about anything, he knew something that she didn’t, and he could hold onto it right there in his lap. She was a fat white lady with glasses who seemed really nice but also seemed like she had something else to do.

Okay, Junior, been a long time since we spoke?

Yeah.

How’s things going?

Good.

How’s your mom?

You know, she’s fine.

Okay. She pushed some papers out of the way on her desk and took off her glasses. White people always seemed to think that if you took off your glasses you’d trust them.

So I talked to Lisbeth this morning and she told me about Manny. I know how that must feel.

It doesn’t feel nothing. That’s all Manny’s problem.

She stared directly at him, her face naked without the glasses.

But I think we both know you’re concerned for him. And it’s not easy to concentrate on Math problems and George Washington and whatever when you’ve got such big stuff on your plate. Am I right?

Yeah…

Okay. So the point then, I guess, is… that I certainly don’t have the answers for you. And I definitely won’t tell you that it’s easy. But the world keeps spinning regardless of what’s happening in our personal lives and we just don’t want you to fall behind.

I’m behind anyway.

Ms. McDowell didn’t know what to say to that. He was behind. But he was also confident in his being behind. He had thought this through and wasn’t about to be convinced of the contrary. That was the odd part: he always had seemed like a kid who was easy enough to bend to your will. She decided to question him some more.

Why do you feel that way?

I dunno. Just cause even when I try my best I get C’s.

And you’ve come to the homework clinic?

Yeah but it’s like hard to focus there.

Yeah, why is that?

I dunno. I’m just tired is all.

She kept smiling at him with that look that made Junior want to leave the room. It wasn’t an I’m-seeing-through-you-and-now-you’re-naked kind of look, but more like a I-know-this-is-difficult-but-aren’t-you-cute-and-you’ll-get-through-this-wth-the-help-of-inspiring-peple-like-me kind of look. Junior clutched the bag in his hands. Instead of asking to leave like he’d normally do, he just waited it out.

Junior is there anything else going on?

He didn’t want to lie directly, so he figured he’d try to avoid it if possible.

Like what?

I dunno. Things good at home?

Like aside from my brother being locked up?

Yeah. Aside from your brother being locked up.

Yeah it’s all good. My mom’s always stressing but that ain’t new.

That’s what good moms do. Especially when they want to see their kids do good.

Yeah, I know.

Let’s talk later this week when we see what happens with everything okay?

She clearly had a lot of things to do. Junior felt this had been a little victory for him so he was extra polite tucking back in his chair:

Okay bye Ms. McDowell. Thank you.

Bye Junior.

He hopped back out into the hallway and sang to himself one of the bachata songs they’d been listening to at Tia Linda’s. Maybe things weren’t so bad after all. He was just looking at it all wrong. Manny got himself into something, but that was Manny’s problem. His mom would get over it when he got out. What was the bad in it all really? He had money! He thought about some cool things he could buy, but more than that, he thought about how funny it all was. This was way better than any of the other little things he used to laugh at. There was a teacher walking towards him, the old black guy who always wore sweater vests and bow-ties. Imagine if he could see that I got more cash on me than he makes in a month! No, maybe a year! Junior didn’t laugh out loud but he smiled contentedly, like he’d just eaten a nice hot meal, till he came to the door of his math class and Filo stopped him:

Yo Junior.

Yo.

Look up, we gotta have a little meeting at gym today.

A meeting?

Yeah, nigga you heard.

About what?

Just you and them other computer club kids. Whatshisname, Yordy, William, Juan Carlos.

What’s this Filo?

Yo we just talking. That a problem?

Nah, it’s good.

I thought so. You know the back stairwell back by the pool?

Yeah.

Go down that one to the bottom and there’s a locked door down there. Wait there. Ten minutes into class. Yo, and bring them other kids.

I ain’t going nowhere unless you tell me what for.

Filo looked up at Junior, weighing how aggressive his response should be. A week earlier it would’ve been a direct threat followed by an entiendes maricon? But Junior seemed to be suddenly aware of the five inches he had on Filo. And Filo, in the end, was just trying to do a job.

Yo it ain’t nothing. You scared? Is just a heads up that’s all.

Aight then.

Aight.

Junior really really wished he didn’t have that money with him. What the hell was he thinking? He could handle Filo if he just didn’t have it on him. He tried to think of places he could hide it in school. In movies he’d seen people get up on a desk and move a ceiling tile to the side and stick things in there. But there was no time that he could be alone in a classroom. Teachers at Liberty always locked their doors: he knew from trying to sneak around on their floor during lunch. There was under the radiators in the bathroom or under the bleachers in the gym but they were both too prone to janitors and other kids. And the last thing he wanted to happen was to just lose it, to just throw it into the wind. That would certify him as a dumbfuck for life.

He could try to pass it to Kiery for the afternoon. It would maybe seem kinda cool: Yo I need you to hold onto something for me. He liked the idea of saying the I need you and he knew she’d like the being needed part. But he felt bad, bringing Kiery into it. She was a good girl, straight A’s without even trying. If she got into any kind of trouble her dad would lock her up even more than she already was.

No, there was no solution. All he could do was pray the day somehow ended. That the day somehow ended…

It was simple, Junior told himself. If grown-ups knew about all the shit kids went through, then they’d understand why we do all the things we do. It doesn’t mean we’re bad cause of what we do. Or did it? Maybe if you do enough bad things after a while it doesn’t matter why you did it.

Either way he wasn’t going to be stupid about it this time. That much he knew. There were cameras in all the hallways, little black glass triangles wedged into the corners of the ceiling. The staircases he could see didn’t have them. He had to be completely anonymous (which was “no name” in Greek or Latin or something, ay que these teachers are in my head!) so he put up his grey hoody and made sure no curls were sticking out the front.

He sat out lunch in the stairwell, listening to music and thinking things over.

It was the right decision. He couldn’t go down those stairs and have Filo and maybe some of the upstairs kids put his hands on him. If he didn’t want to get searched he’d just look guilty, but if he did get searched he’d be the biggest chump in history.

He wasn’t going to Kiery and he wasn’t going to no guidance counselor. This was it. This was the time to step up.

When the lunch bell rang Junior could feel a trembling in the stairs rising up from the first floor. He got up put his head against the window grill and pretended to look at his phone as the kids rushed by him. Then he realized he never told Yordy and the other guys. This could come back at him, though he knew there’d be no meeting.

Junior: Yo

Yordy: Where r u

Junior: Yo Filo wants us to meet in 10 at the bottom stairs

Junior: The stairs by the pool

Yordy: Fuck that kid I’m playing ball

Junior: K but I told you

Yordy: He can make an appointment with my secretary

Junior: LOL

Junior looked down at his phone. It was 12:51. He knew that gym started at exactly 12:47. So if he waited till about 8 minutes after the bell he would wait till 12:55. That gave him 4. What was he gonna do for 4 minutes?

Filo: Yo where you

Junior made sure to write back quickly.

Junior: Yo I’m coming

Filo: You tell them?

Junior: Yeah

Filo: Aight

Junior didn’t bother looking at the time. He had to do it now. He went down to the third floor without jumping down the last few steps as was customary. He ran down in short jogging steps like the marines in their training videos. He came out onto the third floor hallway — alien territory, an unknown school. Even the walls were painted a different color. Bright orange with purple trim. He only gave himself enough time for one look right — no one. And one look left — no one, and with his hand covered by his hoody sleeve he crossed the hall with two steps, reached up and pulled the red horseshoe of the fire alarm. He knew it might be hard so he jumped up a little to put his weight into it but he misjudged his landing and fell right onto his back. The siren blared so loud it was like it was inside his head trying to get out. Junior turned around and barreled straight into the green stairwell door, bashing his lip, and came out on to the platform. In front of the window grating his ripped off his hoody and shoved it into his backpack on top of the blue pouch sitting comfortably at the bottom of his bag. His heart was beating so hard it hurt. He wanted to run and scream, but instead just skipped at a normal pace. He was going to gym and Oh was he late? Oops.

He came out on the first floor and as he expected the gym class mob was already in the hallway. Mr. Desarbres had probably only just managed to get them inside the gym when the alarm sounded.

Everybody stay together and meet me out front! Keep your voices down please!

Junior blended into the crowd and did the penguin side-to-side walk they had to do when the hallways were over-filled. He saw the sunlight shining in through the open front doors. The doors were so close but so far. The crowd was moving at a snail’s pace. He wasn’t gonna make it. Any second there would be Filo’s hand grabbing his shoulder. A teacher saying his name. The roof caving in. Just let me get there lord I swear I’ll be good por favor por favor. The mob spat him out onto the front steps and he realized the sunlight had been lying. It wouldn’t save him. He had to get farther away. Farther away. He let the crowd carry him out to the sidewalk and then with an angry turn he ripped off his hoody, threw it on over his uniform and kept walking. Just an angry kid on the street going somewhere other than school.

He was too scared to go home. Mamá had an erratic schedule and you never knew when she was gonna show up. So he just started walking down Myrtle till he was so far down he didn’t recognize any stores. It occurred to him to buy some empanadas or a slice but he didn’t want to have to break a 100. So he just kept hiking onwards. His shoulder rolling forward, daring someone to try to stop him. He didn’t stop at any lights but just walked right through, relishing the sound of the horns blaring. Before he came to Nostrand Ave the overhead train platform turned right and the sky opened up a bit. Junior missed the noise of the train, it replaced having music on and helped keep him hiking, but he stayed going straight on Myrtle. In front of Fort Greene Park a kid leaning against a mailbox jumped up and starting walking next to him:

Yo man you lookin’ for somethin’?

Junior kept walking straight, no eye contact.

Yo– I’m talking to you man!

Then he heard from behind him:

Yeah fuck you, bitch!

Finally Myrtle ended at the base of the Manhattan Bridge. His legs were aching above his knees and it was already past 3, late enough for him to go home from school. But he knew his walk needed a final destination. He cut through Trinity Park and found the stairs on York. The stairs were stone and the air in the stairwell was cold. Each step seemed to tear right through all of his leg muscles. Then all of a sudden he was out on the pedestrian path. He followed it up wishing Yordy was there. Yordy would definitely do something as crazy as walk all the way to Manhattan with him and would probably get himself killed playing around on the ledge. But Junior was alone and was thinking it wasn’t so bad being alone. Whatever happens here stays with me and just me and no one else will ever get it cause they weren’t here. Except the guys smoking a blunt at the midway lookout and the bum in the brown winter coat that’s way too warm for today but he keeps wearing it anyway. But actually they don’t get it either, cause they’re not me. No one can possibly get what this is like but me. At the lookout point Junior stuck his face into the chain-link fence and breathed in the ocean. He thought about how it was the same ocean all the way back in Mamá’s country. When you breathe in that ocean air it doesn’t really matter where you are. Even a blind guy could look out there and know that it was the ocean. Except no one knows about this, right now, but me. Junior looked around him. There must be somebody there to confirm that ocean air, the Manhattan sleeping monolith buildings, the Statue of Liberty small and dark like a left-out toy soldier. But there was nobody, just people talking with each other or walking forwards. He thought about sending out a text to Yordy or Kiery, but what could he say? Then he thought that he should feel bad, that he was enjoying himself while his brother might still be sitting in a jail cell. But Manny wasn’t even real right then. Nothing but the breeze and the bridge were real.

He turned his backpack around so it was facing forward and opened it up. At first he just felt the money through the blue pouch. Then he opened that up too and looked at the wads at the bottom of his bag. They weren’t so scary right then, next to the ocean. They were almost nothing next to skyscrapers! But all those people in all of those buildings were doing what they were doing just for what was inside that little pouch. And he had it! He wished he could tell all of them but he couldn’t tell any of them.

He checked his phone. Just one message from Yordy.

Yordy: Where you go?

Junior: Cuttin

Yordy: Yo why didn’t you tell me I woulda come

Junior thought Yordy resented him going off and spending money without him. He sent him of a photo of the water in response.

Yordy: Yo! Where you at?

Junior: The bridge

Yordy: The Brooklyn?

Junior: The Manhattan

Yordy: Yo next time you gotta tell me

Junior: For real

Junior took another look out at the water and wanted to feel the way he did a minute before but the feeling was already passing. He remembered that he was supposed to come out here to make a decision. But it didn’t seem right then like there was anything to decide. He had found a bunch of money, flushed some drugs down the toilet, gave $100 to a homeless lady, tried to kiss Kiery and pulled a fire alarm. He didn’t know what was gonna happen next but it was all right. He was glad he took it. It might’ve been one of the best things he ever did.

Junior turned back towards Brooklyn and headed down the bridge to look for the nearest train home.