We Were Here (16 page)

My eyes bugged as I flipped to the next page. I looked back at where Mong and Rondell were, but I couldn’t see them from my spot on the street. Suddenly I was sober as hell. I knew I was reading some shit I wasn’t supposed to be
reading, but it was so fascinating to find out about someone you’ve been around for over a month.

I turned back to Mong’s file and kept going:

Under health issues: Shot in face from point-blank range at age fourteen. Bullet entered one cheek and exited the other. In hospital for four months, multiple surgeries, months of physical therapy. Ultimately recovered with major scarring around face and reconstructed teeth. At sixteen diagnosed with major kidney disease. Now “advanced.” Must be taken to health clinic every forty-eight hours for hemodialysis. Currently on waiting list for donor and kidney transplant. Outlook uncertain.

Under criminal history: Arrested at fourteen for arson, set fire to family house in Los Angeles. Arrested at fifteen for first-degree assault. Arrested at fifteen for vandalism and disorderly conduct. Arrested at sixteen for first-degree assault. History of substance abuse. Clinically depressed, severely antisocial, suicidal tendencies.

Under Mong’s family history: Father Chinese, graduated Harvard Law. Mother half-Chinese/half-Vietnamese singer from Shanghai. Moved from China to Santa Monica, California, a few years after marriage. Mother diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Showed improvement as a result of medication, relapsed after second miscarriage. Father moved wife’s entire family from China to California to form support system. Mother refused to leave house, stopped all communication with husband and family. Mong raised by nanny. Family therapy, couples therapy, but marriage ultimately failed.

September 13, 2006: Father shot wife in back of head while she slept, killing her instantly. Father shot Mong in face, intending to end his life also, then placed gun in own mouth and committed suicide. Mong survived with major
injuries to head and face. Copy of father’s suicide note written in Mandarin (translated):

“Our family was no longer happy in this life. We will try again in the next one. Things will be better.”

Five months in UCLA Medical Center, multiple surgeries. Mong moved up to Guerneville, California, to live with extended family: grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle and cousin.

Holy shit, I thought as I closed Mong’s folder. My life was twenty times better than Mong’s. His old man had actually killed his moms and then tried to kill
him
. Mei-li’s whole story of “true love” was actually Mong’s damn life. He had to have been the baby the singer had in her stomach that made her not able to win the contest. Holy shit.

And how could all that shit happen to somebody and then they get a kidney problem too? How’s that even fair? To have so many bad things happen in one life? No wonder Mong never ate anything and was always tired and throwing up all over the place. No wonder he was so pissed off and wanted to fight everybody.

I sat there for a few minutes, completely stunned. I didn’t even know what to do or think. I stared down the empty highway not really seeing anything but going over Mong’s life in my head.

Without even thinking I picked up Mong’s file and ripped it into a thousand little pieces, got down on my hands and knees and dug a huge hole by the side of the road. I buried everything I’d just read and covered it with dirt and sand and gravel, patted it all down with the underside of my fists so nobody could ever read his life again.

I grabbed Rondell’s file, opened the cover:

Under education: Held back in first grade, again in third grade. Placed in special-ed program in fifth grade, dropped out
of school entirely halfway through school year. No further public school records. Placed in vocational school program in Juvenile Hall, failed to turn in work.

Under health concerns: Born extremely premature, underweight, with critical addiction issues. Underdeveloped lungs. Small head circumference. Mild learning disabilities. Health improved dramatically during adolescence. Now far above national average in height, weight, strength. Nationally ranked AAU basketball player at time of first arrest.

Under criminal history: Arrested at eleven for assault. Arrested at eleven for grand theft auto. Arrested at twelve for assault. Arrested at thirteen for assault with a deadly weapon. History of alcohol and substance abuse. “Aloof,” “antisocial,” “deeply religious.”

Under family history: Born to a crack-addicted mother, father unknown. Great-grandmother took him home from hospital, raised him in projects in Oakland, California, until she died of melanoma when Rondell was six. Placed in foster care for a year and a half, until aunt and her partner adopted him. Social services took him away a year later under suspicion of male physical and sexual abuse. Placed back in foster care. In and out of various foster families for next three years until first sentenced to Juvenile Hall. In system ever since.

I closed up Rondell’s file and tore his to shreds too. Got back down on my hands and knees and dug another hole, right next to the one I’d dug for Mong’s file. I buried his pieces at the very bottom, covered it and packed everything in with the underside of my fists.

I grabbed my own file, stared at the cover:

“Miguel Castañeda.”

I wanted to open it so bad, to see what they said about me. How they explained what happened in Stockton. Or with my dad. Or what they’d say about my moms and how she
feels about me now. Or my grandparents in Fresno. But at the same time I was scared. Maybe I didn’t really wanna read what somebody wrote about me. What if they got something wrong? Or if I read about my moms not ever wanting to take me back? Or something about Diego that pissed me off?

I sat there at the side of the road for a long-ass time, staring at the file, trying to decide what I should do. I took deep breaths preparing myself so I could read it. Peeked open the folder, flipped to the Crime History part and read the first couple words about what I did.

Then I slammed closed the damn thing and ripped it to shreds. And instead of digging a hole this time, and burying it in the ground next to Mong and Rondell, I threw my pieces up in the air and let the wind carry ’em all over the place. Little scraps of my life blowing away from me, blowing down the road, into the sand, across the street. I sat back up on my rock and watched them go everywhere, and then I zipped up my bag and went over everything I’d just read about Mong and Rondell in my head. The ocean still buzzing behind my back. And then I thought how the ocean would
always
buzz like this. Long after us three were gone. And the moon in the sky too. It would always come climbing up above the clouds when nighttime came around. And like Mong said, we were just temporary. People. We were just passing through.

But even so, I decided something sitting there: me, Mong and Rondell might be temporary, but while we were here we were more than just what some file could say. We were real people too, just the same as anybody else who was alive. If somebody wanted to know about us they should meet us face to face instead of just relying on typed words.

I unzipped my bag, pulled out my journal and started writing everything down.

When I was halfway done I grabbed my bag, got up and
went over to where Mong and Rondell were laying on their backs in the sand, both their bags underneath their heads as pillows. Mong shot his head up and opened his eyes when I got up to them, but when he saw it was just me he slowly lowered his head back down, closed his eyes again.

I laid on my back right next to them, bag under my own head. I stared up at the moon for a little bit, at all the stars in the sky. It made me think of when me and Diego used to lay on our backs near the levee some nights and look straight up in the air. Sometimes we could see stars for days. And now I was laying here with Mong and Rondell, doing the same thing.

I flipped over and opened my journal.

The last thing I can think of before finishing my writing is if I’m being disloyal to Diego by looking at stars with anybody besides him.

July 20

Before I got put away, Moms always went after me and Diego for fighting so much. She’d pull me aside when I was on my way out the front door for school, or she’d grab Diego off me in the hall, screaming us down, but mostly she’d just try to bring it up all casual when we were sitting around the TV after dinner. Like it wasn’t a big deal. Like it didn’t completely tear her apart every time she saw it.

“Tell me something, boys,” she’d start, “why are you two always going after each other? Every time I turn around. Can somebody please explain this to me?”

Neither one of us would give her much of an answer, though. Diego would shrug, or I’d glance at my big bro and tell her: “We don’t even know, Ma. Just happens.”

And it’s true, things sometimes just get out of hand when
me and my bro are together all day. Especially since our old man has been MIA. We get in these wild fistfights at the levee or wrestling matches in the backyard or Diego will pin me against the floor in the bathroom and try to make me say mercy:

“Say mercy, Guelly!”

“Hell nah!”

“Come on, Guelly, just say mercy and I’ll let your bitch ass go!”

“Hell nah!”

According to Diego, it isn’t that big a deal, though, ’cause we never hit each other in the face. He says you only punch somebody in the face when you’re really trying to hurt ’em, in a
real
fight, and if we’re not really trying to hurt each other then technically we’re just “fooling around”—no matter how crazy serious we might seem at the time.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Moms will say, flipping the channel to a baseball game or some reality show we all like. “You two love each other. As much as any two brothers I’ve ever known.”

She’ll turn to look at us with this concerned face that kills me, then go back to the TV shaking her head, legs curled underneath her on the couch, the way she’s always liked to sit. Me in the rocking chair on her right, watching her.

“It’s just how brothers are, Ma,” Diego will say, kicking his feet up in Pop’s old La-Z-Boy. “You even said so yourself. Dad and Uncle Armando were the same way coming up. They’d get in scraps all the time, right? But when it came down to it, they had each other’s backs.”

“That was different, Diego,” Moms’ll say. “Nobody ever got
hurt
. Look at your brother’s eye, baby.” She’ll reach out and take my face in her hands, turn it so Diego can see my
latest war wound in the light. “Look at this gash. Your Dad and uncle never drew
blood.”

“Come on, Ma,” Diego’ll say, waving her off. “That was just a freak head butt. It wasn’t on purpose or nothin’.”

“We were playin’, Ma,” I’ll add, so Diego knows I’m taking up for him again.

“See?” Diego will hold his hands out all innocent-like.

And that’s when Moms will force a smile and shake her head, pretend like she knows it’s not as big a deal as she’s making it out to be. But I can usually see it in her eyes: she’s genuinely scared about how we are with each other.

“What am I gonna do with you two boys?”

“Tell you what,” Diego will say. “Me and Guelly’ll try and cool it a little, all right, Ma? He’ll watch that mouth he gots, and I’ll cut the kid some slack. That work for you, Ma?”

“We’ll chill,” I’ll add. “We don’t wanna make you worry or nothin’.”

She’ll roll her eyes and shake her head, say: “I’ve heard
that
one before.” Because she has. A grip of times. But still she’ll drop it. And we’ll all three of us just sit there watching TV together, not really talking anymore. Or she’ll change the subject to something about school. Or me and Diego will cruise into the kitchen to rummage through the fridge and cupboards for something else to eat.

But that’s just how it is with me and my big bro. We hang together all the time, so occasionally we get on each other’s nerves, right? Plus Diego’s got this crazy temper. Sometimes when he’s bombing on me he’ll even forget about his rule, how we’re not supposed to hit each other in the face. But I always bomb right back. I know he respects me way more if I stand toe-to-toe and fight.

And most times when we get tired we’ll just stop mid-brawl and lay on the floor next to each other breathing all hard.

“Dude, Diego,” I’ll say, between huffing and puffing, “I think you caught me, man. In the liver. With that last body shot.”

Or he’ll say: “Yo, Guelly. Peep the back of my neck, man. That shit bleeding?”

“Nah, it’s just red.”

“What up with them fingernails, dawg? You gotta cut that shit.”

And then we’ll just lay there, still breathing crazy hard, laughing at each other’s wounds.

Like since we were kids.

July 21

I cracked open my eyes early this morning when the sunlight crept over the cliff to the east. I sat up and stretched, yawned, walked over between two big boulders to pee. Even though it was the middle of the summer, and I had a sweatshirt on, it was still pretty cold. I held my arms in close to my body and blew warm air into both my fists.

When I came back I looked down at the huge black mound of human body that is Rondell, laying there all curled like a baby. Surprise, surprise, I thought, still asleep. I looked up, spotted Mong down on the beach, in water up to his ankles, staring out over the horizon.

I kneeled next to Rondell and rolled his big head to the side a little so I could get my book,
Of Mice and Men
, out of his bag. Dude was so comatose he didn’t even change his breathing.

I read the last couple pages on my stomach, facing the water. The ending was pretty damn sad. But I liked how short the book was. And I liked the characters—made me think of me, Mong and Rondell, and how we were kind of living off the land too. And Rondell was sort of like that dude Lenny except he’s never killed an animal just by petting it—at least, not that I know of.

When I closed the book I glanced over at Rondell for a sec, going back over what I’d read in his file last night. He didn’t seem like a kid who’d had all that bad stuff happen to him. He just looked normal. Except the fact that he’s so damn big and not that smart. I looked down the beach at Mong, though, just standing there in the water, staring out at the ocean in one of his trances, and I could actually
see
it. Mong was touched by all the shit he’d been through.