We Were Here (28 page)

I spun my ass around to look, and I couldn’t believe it. There was Rondell’s big dumb ass, bag slung over his right shoulder and this huge grin on his face.

The Return of Rondell (with Two Ls) Law:

“Yo, man,” I said, and then I just shook my head cracking up at him. I had to admit, I was kind of happy as hell to see the guy again. Even though I played it like I didn’t care that much.

“Yo,” I said, standing up. “You’re supposed to be in damn TJ right now.”

“I know,” he said. He put a fist up to his mouth and giggled his ass off for a few seconds. Then he wiped a laughter tear off his cheek and said: “You know what I thought about, though?”

I shook my head. “Go ’head, this oughta be interesting.”

“I thought about maybe I don’t gotta go all the way to Mexico to be a fisherman. Not just yet, at least. I could probably be one right here in this country first. And then go to Mexico later on.”

“I see.”

“And while I’m here I could help you raise up the money to pay back them Lighthouse people. ’cause I don’t think we shoulda took it neither.” He held his wad of cash out to me, and I grabbed it.

He slipped his hands in his pockets. “Is it okay if I didn’t go, Mexico?”

“It’s a free damn country, Rondo. You could do whatever you want.”

“But is it okay if I go with you instead?”

I made a big show like I was thinking about it for a few seconds, and then I looked up at him, reaching into my bag. “Long as you hold these books for me,” I said, holding out the ones I’d took back just last night.

He took ’em and stashed ’em in his bag. “Thanks, Mexico.” He sat all the way down in the grass, and I did too.

We were both quiet for a sec and then he looked at me and said: “So, what we gonna do now?”

A big smile went on my face. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it, Rondo? I was just sittin’ here tryin’ to figure that one out.”

“You’ll come up with somethin’.”

“You think so?”

He nodded. “’Cause you smart too, Mexico.”

I patted him on his big-ass back and said: “Well, I’m glad you feel that way.”

He smiled big and said: “Ain’t as smart as me, but you all right.”

We both cracked up a little and then I looked out onto the road. Watched the cars drive by. I tried to think what we were gonna do. There were two people to consider about now. I snuck another little look at the side of Rondell’s head. Big Rondo. Dude was back. I laughed a little inside ’cause I knew if I had a damn chocolate sundae I’d flick some ice cream right in his baby Afro.

When he turned his head to look at me, though, I went right back to watching cars on the road like I was in deep brainstorm mode.

July 31

What’s the last thing you’d think could happen to a group-home kid on the run? Him meeting a girl, right? Think about it, the guy hasn’t showered in days, no place to stay, chased by the cops, pretty much wears the same gear 24/7. Shit’s basically impossible, right?

Think again, partner, ’cause that’s exactly what happened
two nights ago, at some ghetto-ass baseball park in National City: I met a girl. A fine-ass Mexican one named Flaca. And we both fell in damn love, man, almost from the second we met.

Here’s How It Went
Down:

Earlier me and Rondell were wandering around Imperial Beach for the third day in a row trying to brainstorm our next move. But nothing was coming to either of us. Again. When we were going to Mexico at least we had a goal. Now we didn’t have shit. We knew we couldn’t go home (Rondell didn’t even
have
a home). We knew we couldn’t go back to the Lighthouse. We were just two wandering-ass kids now, cruising any which way on random sidewalks in San Diego with bags full of everything we owned hanging from our shoulders. We caught a local bus going north and only got off ’cause the driver called last stop. We bought tacos and ate ’em on a curb between two parked cars, watching these construction guys tear apart an old liquor store and carry pieces of wall to an old dinged-up dump truck. When the sun started going down we just randomly wandered into this run-down park.

As we got down into the baseball field part, though, we spotted a group of like five girls already there, sitting in a circle drinking cans of beer.

We stopped.

They looked up at us.

At first I was gonna have us roll back out, find some other place to chill, but instead we walked way on the other end of the field from them.

They went back to what they were doing.

Me and Rondell sat with our backs against this rusted chain-link fence in right field and watched the sky. I told him
we’d probably have to steal from a store to get back the money. It was the only way I could think of. I told him if we tried to do regular jobs they’d look up our names and we’d be screwed. Plus I don’t think places will even hire you if you don’t have an address to write down—which sort of makes me think about all the times I’ve walked past a homeless dude begging for change and thought: Yo, money, you need to get up off your ass, find yourself a job.

People reading this journal will probably be thinking that exact same thing about me and Rondell. That we should just get jobs like everybody else. And I wish we could. But it ain’t that easy, man. Trust me.

And I know it don’t sound right, us robbing one place to pay back another, but like I told Rondell, we’d just steal from a place that makes so much damn money they won’t know the difference. Like a McDonald’s or Starbucks or Wal-Mart. We both got mad quiet after I told him that, probably ’cause the shit was easier said than done and what if we got caught. Everything, including us paying back the petty cash, would be ruined.

I thought for the first time how basically we might be fucked no matter
what
we did. ’cause how many more nights could we sleep on a beach? Or in a park? Just so you know, you can’t even really sleep, man. You always got one eye open, looking out for somebody who might come try to roll your ass.

Just having a place to crash at night is a bigger deal than most people realize.

Anyways, I started picturing the store we’d have to rob, how we’d have the cash person count out exactly how much we needed to make $750, not a dollar extra, when two girls from the group started walking over to us sipping their cans of beer.

A Mexican Girl Even Diego Would Say Is Fine:

“Who are
you
guys?” the bigger girl said. She had on a black Dickies jacket and these tight-ass white pants. Her bangs stuck all up in the air like ol’ girl had on a damn visor.

“We’re nobody,” I said.

“You gotta be somebody,” the prettier one said. “Everybody’s somebody.” She had on a short jean skirt and a tank top that said
HERE COMES TROUBLE.
Her legs were long and brown and perfectly shaped.

I told her: “Well, we ain’t nobody from around here, man. That’s for sure.”

The pretty one looked at her friend and rolled her eyes and then looked back at us. “So where you from, then?” she said.

I picked up a rock like Diego would’ve done and tossed it up in the air, caught it. Real mellow style. Like I wasn’t even thinking about them. “Portugal,” I said, ’cause it’s what popped in my head.

“Portugal?”
she said, looking all shocked. She took a sip of beer and thought about that for a sec. “Nah, I don’t think so. People from Portugal speak Portuguese.”

“I promise.”

“Then lemme hear you say somethin’ in Portuguese.”

I made some crazy-ass random sounds and then turned to Rondell, said: “Ain’t that right, dawg?”

Rondell looked at me all confused.

“That wasn’t no Portuguese,” the bigger one said.

“How do
you
know?” I said.

“Okay, what’d you say, then?” the pretty one said. She had a tiny hoop ring in her nose. Silver.

“I said: ‘Man, it sure is nice of these girls to come offer us a beer. Especially since we were just sayin’ how thirsty we are.’”

She walked up close to me, so close so I could smell her lotion, and my heart started going all quick. She grinned a little and said: “Oh, you’re one of those comedian guys.” She turned to the bigger one and said: “Yo, Jules, he’s one of them comedian guys.”

“Great,” Jules said, and she took a long swig of beer.

“Yo, we just got your girl Jules’s name,” I said to the pretty one. “What’s up with yours?”

She looked at me for a sec and then held out her can of beer. I took it and pulled a long swig, then rested it on my knee.

“I’m Flaca,” she said.

“Nice to meet you, Flaca,” I said back. “I’m Miguel, and this is Rondell.”

Rondell gave her a what’s up with his head.

Flaca snatched her beer out of my hand, told us: “Anyways.”

She kneeled down, balanced her can of beer in the grass, and retied her shoelace. Then she stood up and motioned for Jules to follow her over to the other girls. After she got a few steps away she turned around, backpedaling, and said: “You guys can come if you want to. Long as you don’t try to rape us or some shit. But I wouldn’t ’cause Jules got Mace, right, Jules?”

“Got
two
cans,” Jules said. “One for each of them fools.”

They laughed and kept walking, and me and Rondell looked at each other. It seemed like we were both sort of curious, or at least I know I was. For the simple fact that I’d never flirted with a girl so fine as Flaca. And my game seemed like it was flowing too. I was saying shit straight out of Diego’s playbook without even thinking about it.

I nodded to Rondell.

We got up and followed after them.

We joined in the group and got two warm beers out of
somebody’s duffel bag and the girls started talking nonstop. There were five of them and they said stuff about kids in their neighborhood mostly. Or in their school. Or at some fair they’d just gone to the night before. But the whole time I could tell Flaca was kind of looking at me on the slick. Not like how regular people look at each other either. More like how girls look at Diego. After we’d all been talking a while she even made an excuse to come sit closer to me.

She crossed through the circle and got all up in my face, said: “Yo, hold up.”

All her girls went dead quiet and turned to look at us.

Flaca pointed at me and Rondell, said: “We’re sittin’ here tellin’ these fools our entire life story, and they haven’t said shit.”

“Not a peep from either of ’em,” this skinny girl with a birthmark on her cheek said.

“Yo, should I get my Mace?” Jules said.

Flaca smiled a little at her girl and then turned back to me on the serious. “I’m for real this time,” she said. “Who
are
you guys?”

“And don’t give us no shit about Portugal,” Jules said.

Everybody got real quiet, waiting to see what I was gonna say back. Even Rondell. I took a long sip of beer and shuffled through shit in my head. “Nah, man,” I said all calm, “it’s just that me and Rondell ain’t nothin’ that special. We’re visiting from Idaho with his parents, who are both zoologists. They went to Tijuana for a couple days to do some study about these wild rabbits they got down there. We said we’d just stay here and wait. That’s it.”

Rondell was looking at me with no clue what I was talking about.

Flaca made a face at her girls.

“Boring as hell, right?” I said.

“’bout as boring as it gets,” Flaca said, laughing. She punched me in the arm.

The rest of the girls seemed to think it was boring enough too, and they went right back to talking about themselves. Flaca didn’t move back to where she was, though. She stayed right next to me. And before they all left to go home, she told me and Rondell about some house party they were all going to the next night and said we should come with ’em.

“That’s cool,” I said, and I shrugged how Diego always shrugs when girls ask him to do something.

“It’s gonna be huge,” Jules said, slipping on her backpack. “The guys throwin’ it all go to college. They’re in a fraternity.”

“You can come with us if you want,” Flaca said.

“That’s cool,” I said again.

“Where you want us to pick you up?”

Me and Rondell looked at each other, and then I turned back to Flaca sipping my beer. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, said: “How ’bout you just come get us right here?”

August 1

Yo, some of the freakiest shit you could ever think of just happened. Got everybody mad spooked when they saw it, including me. But lemme take it from the top.

The party was a crazy-ass mix of people. White frat dudes in plaid button-downs and mesh trucker hats. High school kids from the neighborhood in black Dickies or baggy jeans, white wife-beaters, chains hanging off belt loops. Blond college girls in sundresses or short skirts and low-cut tops. Mexican hoochies, like our crew, with huge hoop earrings and too much makeup (except Flaca, who didn’t even
need
no makeup).

And then there was us. Me and Rondell. A couple group-home kids from San Jose dressed in sweatshirts and jeans. Runaways who hadn’t showered in a
grip
and probably smelled like week-old sweat and seaweed and sand from the beach. Who had their entire lives zipped up in bags stashed back at the baseball field.

When we first walked in I couldn’t stop thinking how other people saw us. Or if they even saw us at all. Neither of us had ever been to a college party before. Rondell said he’d never been to
any
kind of party. We were straight outsiders, crashers, and neither of us knew how we were supposed to act.

But after I downed my first cup of this jungle juice they had—me and Rondell and the girls all posted in the kitchen for the first hour, talking just with each other—I automatically switched to having fun, like everybody else.

There were two kegs in the huge backyard—which was where most people were kicking it. There was jungle juice and hard alcohol and mixers in the kitchen. There were five bedrooms in the house, and two were “special rooms,” where you could go do bong hits or score an E tab. In the living room guys were spinning records and freestyling over the beat.