We Were Here (17 page)

I moved Rondell’s head again, stuck the book back in his bag and pulled out the next one in my stack:
The Catcher in the Rye
. I know pretty much every-damn-body in the damn world’s read
The Catcher in the Rye
at some point. But not me. I think it was assigned in my English class last year, but I never got around to it.

I read the first twenty-something pages, and right off I knew why it was so popular. It was the way the kid, Holden, talked about stuff. And how he seemed so honest about everything that was going through his head. The only thing I wonder about sometimes, though, is why some rich kids like him complain about their lives so much. I know everybody’s situation is hard in its own way, but when you look at a kid like Mong or Rondell, when you read their files and think about how they never even say a
word
about it, they just deal, and then you start reading about some prep school kid like Holden, and how the whole time he keeps complaining and complaining … I don’t know, I just think about that
sometimes. I’m not saying the book’s not good so far. I like it a lot. I just wonder how this Holden kid would be if some
real
bad shit went down, like he was born to a crackhead mom or his dad shot him in the damn face.

By the way, reading on the beach, early in the morning like this, with birds chirping and flying all over the ocean looking for fish, a little bit of beach dampness covering everything in sight, including you—it’s probably the coolest thing you could do with a book. Trust me.

The reason I didn’t read so much back in Stockton is ’cause I figured I was too busy living my own life. Why would I read about different characters’ lives all the time when I had a damn life of my own: me and Diego cruising the hood, fishing off the levee, playing ball at the park, looking in people’s windows and watching them sleep. But now I know it doesn’t matter. You maybe even get
more
from a book if you have a life of your own, ’cause you can relate.

Anyways, I read until Mong came back from the water and Rondell woke up and then we gathered up all the stuff we were gonna take with us—some of the food and the matches and the leftover beers and Cokes—and shoved it all in Rondell’s bag. We didn’t say much as we took off walking, just that we were gonna go along the highway to see if we could hitch a ride to Santa Cruz, where Mong said there’d be a major bus station. He also said we had to watch out for cop cars in case they were looking for who tied up and robbed that old store dude last night. The place was miles back from where we were, but cops can spread the word about what happens in different places mad quick through their system.

And I don’t know why, but I didn’t care as much about following Mong anymore. Maybe it’s ’cause it didn’t matter who was leading who anymore. Or because it was only
temporary, until we got to Mexico. Or because of what I read in his file. But I hardly even thought about it now.

We walked along the narrow side of the road single file, holding out our thumbs and watching for cops. Twice in the first two hours we had to duck off the side of the road when we saw a black-and-white moving toward us in the distance. But they never saw a thing and we just watched ’em roll on by. The problem was for the longest no regular cars slowed for us either. It was three hours into our walking before a stock-looking black car finally pulled to the shoulder in front of us and slowed to a stop. I was happy as hell too, ’cause the whole pedestrian thing was getting mad played out, but then Mong sort of hesitated.

“Shit,” he said.

“What?” I said.

“What?” Rondell said.

“I think that’s a cop,” Mong said.

My stomach dropped.

Sure enough, right after Mong said it a big Mexican cop wearing sunglasses got out and leaned against his trunk, waiting for us to get up to him. I looked at Mong to see if we should run but he motioned with his head for us to keep going.

“Gentlemen,” the cop said.

“Hey,” we said back.

He pushed off his trunk and crossed his arms. “You know it’s not real safe to hitch a ride these days, right?”

We all nodded and looked at the pavement.

“Where you headed?”

Mong smiled and looked up, said: “We’re gonna go ride the roller coaster in Santa Cruz.”

“That right?” the cop said, nodding his head and staring
at each of us, one at a time. Then he didn’t say anything for a second and neither did we. He reached in the window of his car and pulled out a folder, started looking through some papers in there, peeking up at us every couple seconds.

The guy was rocking a pair of those shiny cop sunglasses, and on both of the little lenses I could see me, Mong and Rondell standing right there in front of him—a Chinese kid with damn bullet holes in his cheeks, a skinny cholo-looking kid, and a giant black kid with a baby ’fro. Add to the fact we all had on the exact same stock sneaks, the same jeans, same black sweatshirts, same bag slung over the same shoulder.

I was surprised dude hadn’t
already
thrown our asses in the back of his undercover cop car.

“Gonna spend a day in the Cruz, eh?” the cop said, closing his folder again. “Sounds like a blast.”

“We’re excited,” Mong said.

“Okay, lemme get your names real quick and hopefully I can send you on your way.”

“How come you need our names?” I said, maybe a little too fast.

He smiled and put his folder on the roof of his car, pulled a little notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. “Just standard procedure, gentlemen.” He pointed at me to go first.

I looked at Mong and Rondell real quick, then turned back to the cop, said: “Marco Sanchez.” I watched the cop scribble it down.

He pointed at Mong.

“Yao Chang,” Mong said.

The cop scribbled down the name Mong said too, and then pointed to Rondell.

“Rondell Law,” Rondell said. He pointed at the cop’s pad of paper and added: “Gots two
L
s at the end of the first part,
Rondell.”
He looked at me all proud of himself as the cop scribbled down his name.

Me and Mong both looked at Rondell with our mouths hanging wide open.

“You guys just sit tight for a minute,” the cop said, and he went around to his door, reached in for the radio and held it up to his mouth. He looked back at us all skeptical, then picked up his folder and started riffling through his papers again.

Mong tapped me on the forearm, motioned with his head toward the beach.

I nodded, turned to Rondell and whispered: “Good one, homey.”

“What?” he said.

Soon as the guy turned his back to us again, Mong broke for the beach. I grabbed Rondell’s arm, pulled his big ass with me, and we all hit the sand racing south toward Santa Cruz, our bags still slung over our shoulders and bouncing with every step.

The cop spun around, yelled out “Hey!” and sprinted around his squad car. He chased us down the beach for a ways, but when he saw he wasn’t gonna catch us on foot, he spun around and ran back toward his car.

Mong slowed and turned to us out of breath. When he stopped, me and Rondell stopped too. Mong coughed and spit, said: “We gotta go back. The other way.” He was having trouble catching his breath.

“To where the cop is?” I said.

“He’s gonna call on his radio.” He spit and bent over for a sec, looked up. “They’ll have cops looking for us. All down the beach.”

“Shit, that’s true.”

Me and Rondell leaned over too, trying to get our wind. “We gotta go back,” Mong said, standing straight up and spitting. “We gotta go past where he is and wait. Maybe till nighttime.”

I nodded. Then I turned to Rondell and punched him in the arm as hard as I could.

He frowned, grabbed his arm, said: “Ouch, Mexico.”

“What the hell were you thinkin’?”

“Wha’chu mean?” he said, rubbing the spot where I hit him.

“You gave him your
real
name, Einstein.”

“He told me to say it.” Rondell stared back at me, baffled, then turned to look at Mong. It was amazing, the guy genuinely had no idea what he’d done wrong.

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Mong said. “He was looking for our description. I was wrong to use the road in the first place.”

“Still,” I said, frustrated as hell.

“He told me to say it,” Rondell said, shrugging.

I looked down at my sweatshirt and jeans and told Mong: “Yo, we need different clothes.”

Mong nodded. “Tomorrow.”

He started creeping back the other way, along the cliff, and me and Rondell followed him.

We snuck around to the small cliff that stood between the ocean and the highway where the car was, peeked around at the cop. He was sitting in his front seat with the door wide open, radio up to his mouth. He lowered it into his lap, listened, raised it and said something else, then he just sat there for a couple minutes. Cars occasionally sped by on the highway, a backpacking couple on mountain bikes pedaled past. It was much warmer now, because the sun was up higher over
the mountains. But behind us, over the ocean were evil-looking black clouds that seemed headed our way, made me think it might rain soon.

I looked at the road just as two normal-looking cop cars pulled up next to the guy and cut their engines. Three cops got out, slammed closed their doors. They huddled next to the Mexican cop, talking. One had a cup of coffee in his hand. Then three of the four started climbing back down to the beach again.

Me, Mong and Rondell scurried into a big cluster of boulders, out of sight. They walked by, carrying their walkie-talkies, sunglasses now up on the Mexican one’s head. He looked around and talked to one of the other cops, then into his walkie-talkie. Another cop, a female one, turned to face the water. She kicked at a shell and looked up at the dark clouds over the ocean.

I was nervous watching them, but at the same time there was no way they could see us. And they were more talking on their radios than actually looking. They probably figured we were still booking it down the beach, a long ways down there by now.

Rondell tapped me and whispered: “Hey, Mexico, I get it now. I shouldn’t have told ’im my real name, right? That’s why you said you was Marco.”

“Whatever,” I whispered back. “It’s over now.”

“I get it, though,” he said. He turned to Mong, said: “I get it now, Mong.”

“It’s okay,” Mong said, patting Rondell on his shoulder.

I thought how weird it was that Mong never got frustrated with Rondell like I did. He was always nice to the guy, which almost made Mong seem like a regular person.

Rondell turned back to me, started whispering something else about this incredible discovery he’d just made about
saying his real name, but I put my finger up to my lips so he’d stop making noise.

He nodded his head and smiled, said: “Okay, Mexico, but I get it now.” Looking at Rondell’s face, you’d think he just found the cure for damn cancer.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine, Rondo,” I said. “You just gotta
think
, man.”

“I know.” He hung his head.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mong said.

“We’ll be all right,” I said, trying not to be so pissed.

Rondell nodded and patted me on the shoulder.

Me and him glanced at each other real quick, and then we looked back at the cops with Mong. They stood there a while longer, gazing up at the black clouds now coming in over the choppy ocean, pointing. One of them said something else into his walkie-talkie and then they all hiked back through the sand and over the guardrail to their cars.

The three of us snuck up to the cliff again, watched them climb back into their driver’s seats and take off down the highway, the lead car’s lights spinning but making no sound.

July 21—more

We hiked through thick sand the opposite direction of Santa Cruz to lay low for the day, stopped about a mile past where the Mexican cop had asked our names. We ducked into this perfect little crevice, between a few big boulders and the face of a rugged-looking dirt cliff that shot up over the sand about two times higher than my apartment building back in Stockton. If any cops were gonna find us now they’d pretty much have to scour every section of the beach, and even then they might miss our hiding spot.

Plus me and Mong agreed we probably weren’t even that important to them in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, they most likely linked us to the tied-up store worker, got our descriptions, and maybe they even knew we were from the Lighthouse, but it’s not like we’d hurt anybody really. And all we took from the store was food. We didn’t go into the cash register and steal all the old dude’s money.

Just to be safe, though, we decided to wait until dark to continue down the beach toward Mexico. Mong guessed it would take at least six or seven hours to walk all the way to Santa Cruz in the dark, but we’d learned our lesson about hitching. Wasn’t worth the risk. And anyways, who would be crazy enough to pick up three group-home-looking kids in the middle of the night?

Shit,
I
wouldn’t.

The Storm:

We were in a tight space together for a pretty long-ass time, but we didn’t talk too much. Rondell mostly slept. Mong just stared out at the ocean without blinking like he was meditating. Sometimes fingering the brown tooth around his neck. I read some of my book and then wrote in my journal and then went back to reading again. Occasionally I’d look up at them, though, and think about what I found in their files last night. But it didn’t make me feel closer to them like you might think. Actually it was the exact opposite. It made me feel farther away. I didn’t see them as random kids anymore. They were real. And I think it’s harder to be close to people when you know they’re real. Like, if it’s just some dude you’re sharing a Juvi cell with you start to know how they act and what they say and how long they’ll sleep for. You know they did something bad to get put away, same as you, and that they damn for sure don’t wanna be there. But when you find out
about all the stuff they’ve been through in their childhood and their health problems and what crimes they committed, it becomes totally different. They turn into real people. And it makes it way harder to talk to them, because now if you just talk about ordinary stuff like the weather or what day it is you know you’re both being mad fake. Which I hate.