We Were Here (3 page)

I laughed at the rest of their sorry asses and said under my breath: “Bitches.”

Right after I said it, though, the Chinese kid, Mong, stood up and said: “What’d you just say?”

“Bitches!” I shouted in his face.

And he spit on me.

I couldn’t believe it, yo. The guy straight up hawked a loogie right in front of Jaden and
spit
at me. It landed on the bottom of my damn pants, dripped down onto my shoe. I flipped like a mother and charged his skinny ass with my fists clenched. I threw a wild overhead right at one of his cheek scars, but he caught my fist in his bare hand and squeezed so hard I thought he was gonna break all my stupid fingers. But I didn’t even care. I kneed his ass in the side and went to throw a left, but before I could connect Jaden wrapped me in a bear hug and pulled me back.

Jackson and Rene stepped between us and pulled my hand out of Mong’s grip, and then they both stood there swiveling their heads back and forth between us.

“Let him go,” Mong said in this calm-ass voice. He had an ugly brown tooth hanging from a string around his neck. A smile even came over his scarred-up face, and he said it again: “Let him go.”

I been in mad fights before—with Diego and random kids in school or at the park—but I’d never seen somebody smile right in the middle of one. Shit pissed me off even more, man. But at the same time it was kind of confusing, too.

“Lemme go!” I yelled. “I’ll kill this bitch!”

“Breathe easy!” Jaden shouted, still bear-hugging me. “Both of you, just breathe easy. It’s not worth it.”

The fat white kid, Tommy, leaned in near my ear and said: “I’d back off, man. Trust me.” But I didn’t even look at the guy.

“Let him go,” Mong said again, still smiling. He wouldn’t take his eyes off me or even blink. He just stared at me with this crazy-looking smile on his face. He wasn’t big or anything. I’m like five eleven and he had to be at least two inches shorter. And he was even skinnier than me. But you could tell by looking in his eyes that he really wanted to throw down. He wasn’t faking.

Diego taught me about that after my first real fight in junior high school. He said you could tell if somebody really wants to get down or not just by looking in their eyes. If their heart isn’t in it all you gotta do is look mad crazy and hit ’em once in the face and it’ll be game over. Which is exactly what happened with me and that first kid. I barely grazed his chin and he acted like he just got shot and collapsed to the damn ground crying. Almost every fight I been in since has gone
the same way—except the few times Diego’s whupped me. But this Mong dude had a different look in his eyes. He was for real about it.

“Let him go,” he said again, nodding his head.

“Lemme go,” I said.

The Asian kids in my school back in Stockton barely even talked. They just sat there at the front of the class and took notes and got As on all the math tests. They packed together at the two far tables in the cafeteria at lunch. But this Mong dude wasn’t like that. He was a different kind of Asian kid.

Jackson told me: “Miguel, man, squash it. Mong don’t play.”

“I don’t give a shit,” I said. “I ain’t lettin’ no Chinese fuck spit on me. I’m gonna kill—”

Then dude spit at me
again!
Right in the face. Before I could even get my damn sentence out. And he started laughing.

I straight up lost it, yo. Wrestled out of Jaden’s grip and charged Mong. Pushed him and then threw the hardest right I could. But he ducked it and shoved me into the wall. And then he spit on me again. This time in my hair.

I growled and went for Mong again, ready to rip his damn eyes out, but Jaden tackled me. And Jackson and Tommy pulled Mong over to the couch and sat him down and stood in front of him so he couldn’t go anywhere.

Jaden turned and shouted: “Reggie, go get the cordless! Now!”

Reggie took off into the kitchen.

I was so out-of-my-mind pissed I damn near punched Jaden, just to punch somebody. But I didn’t. I gritted my teeth together instead, breathed through my mouth super loud as I wiped Mong’s spit off my face and out of my hair.
And I rattled off every curse word I knew and threatened to kill the guy like a hundred times.

Reggie came back with the phone and handed it to Jaden.

“Here’s the situation,” Jaden said, holding the phone out. “Mong: all you did was spit so far. That’s it. You’re gonna get written up, but it’s not a major. If you hurt Miguel—I’m serious, Mong, if you harm him in any way, even if he throws the first punch—they’re not gonna send you back to Juvi this time. We talked about this.”

Jaden turned to me.

“Miguel: Today’s your first full day, bro. Ask any one of these guys, you play by the rules, do your time, you’ll most likely get out early and move on with your life. You start right off getting in trouble like this, though, and they’ll just extend your sentence. Make it so you’re part of the system all the way until you’re eighteen. Trust me, bro, that’s no way to live out your high school years. Take a deep breath, bros, and really think about it. How do you want this to go? It’s a choice. It’s in your hands. Right now. This very second.”

Mong leaned back on the couch, still smiling. He touched the stupid tooth around his neck and then turned his attention toward the TV, focused on another rap video that had started. I stopped trying to fight past Jaden and calmed down, dropped my arms, unclenched my fists. I looked at Jaden for a sec and he didn’t even look spooked. Which sort of surprised me. All the other residents started talking again and moving around the front room sneaking glances at me and Mong.

Jaden pulled me to the side and asked me a couple questions about my “head space” or whatever, but I didn’t have any answers for him. I couldn’t concentrate. I stared at Mong, who was staring at the rap video, smiling. He looked crazy
just sitting there smiling, eyes all calm, shaved head. I’d never seen a Chinese kid look so crazy. Shit, I’d never seen
any
kid look that crazy. It kind of weirded me out a little, to be straight. I started thinking maybe this is what a person looks like when they’re a damn psycho.

And then I did that thing I can do with my mind. I stared at the rug and concentrated about Mong, wishing something bad would happen to him. Something worse than bad. Something that would make it so he could never spit on nobody ever again. And I actually felt what I was thinking bouncing back and forth in my chest. I looked up at Mong and it shot out of my body.

Eventually everybody cleared the room and took showers and got dressed and ate breakfast, and after breakfast we did our chores. I cleaned the bathroom sink and the mirror and mopped the floor and scrubbed the toilet—the one I’d just been hanging all on last night—and then Jaden called us back into the kitchen to start preparing lunch. On my way I peeked in the living room and there was Mong, still sitting there watching TV with the same dopey-ass smile on his scarred-up face. He didn’t even look at me as I passed by. Like he was in some kind of weird trance or something. I don’t think he was really even watching TV.

He was the only resident who didn’t eat lunch or do any chores.

A few hours later Lester came by. He walked in without knocking and waved at Jaden. Then he nodded for Mong to follow him and they both walked outside and climbed into Lester’s house van.

Me and Tommy took a break from cleaning up the game room to watch them shut their doors. I nodded toward the
van, said: “He takin’ him ’cause of what happened this morning?”

Tommy shook his head. “Nah, man, Les picks Mong up every other day at this time. Brings him back a couple hours later.”

“For what?” I said.

“Nobody knows.”

I shrugged, and we both watched Lester’s van pull away from the curb and drive off. I tried to think where he’d be taking Mong. Like a special psychologist or a probation officer. But I don’t really know that much about how group homes work yet, so I just put it out of my head. And me and Tommy both went back to doing our chores.

June 5

Today at lunch Tommy and the only other Mexican kid, Rene, walked over to where I was sitting, on a cinder block in the far corner of the yard. They sat down on the blocks on either side of me and at first they didn’t say anything more than “Hey.”

I didn’t say hey back, though. I’d already decided about that. How it’s probably better in a group home to just roll solo and do your time and don’t mess with nobody. So the fact that they even came over by me in the first place kind of pissed me off.

It was quiet for a minute as we ate. All three of us had paper plates with microwaved corn dogs and big piles of ketchup and mustard. Tommy lifted a corn dog to his mouth, took a huge-ass bite and chewed. He was wearing short sleeves, the same generic white T-shirt we all had to wear, and I stared at his fat-ass arm as he looked at the ground.
Sometimes I can’t even look at fat when it jiggles, man. Straight up. I know it’s wrong to think that way, and some people can’t help it ’cause of their thyroid glands or whatever, but I’m sayin’. Jiggling fat makes me kind of sick. I don’t even know why. Shit’s even worse when the dude whose fat it is, like Tommy, is sitting there chewing on a damn corn dog with his mouth all open.

I turned to look at Rene, who was waving at a fly buzzing in his face. There were a grip of flies in the backyard, by the way. At a certain point you just had to give up trying to wave their asses away.

I finished my first rubbery dog, tossed the stick back on my plate and picked up the second. Dipped it half in ketchup, half in mustard, and took a bite.

“Me and Rene thought we’d better tell you somethin’,” Tommy finally said. “Right, Rene?”

Rene nodded. He swatted at another fly, then kicked at it.

I didn’t say a word back, thinking maybe they’d get the hint, but they just kept on talking.

“Mong’s touched, man,” Tommy said, tapping his right temple with his pointer finger. “Me and Rene been here longer than anybody, and trust me, man, that dude’s sick in his head.”

“Don’t seem like nothin’ when you look at ’im,” Rene said. “But
vato
never lost no fights here. He’s out his mind, that’s why.”

I lowered my food and looked right in Rene’s eyes, said: “Yo, dawg. I got an idea.”

“What’s up?”

“Why don’t you go tell this to somebody who gives a shit.”

They both looked at me, stunned. Then they looked at each other.

“Oh, it’s like that?” Tommy said. Then he paused for a long time, trying to think up what he was gonna say next.

“You that much of a badass?” Rene said.

I shrugged. “Nobody’s callin’ anybody a badass. I’m just sayin’.”

“You know what?” Tommy said. “I didn’t even wanna come over here. Rene
made
me ’cause you’re both Mexican.”

“We was just tryin’ to tell your dumb ass,” Rene said.

I shrugged and looked at the ground. I felt kind of bad for popping off like that, but at the same time, man, it’s not like I asked people to come over and tell me how messed-up some Chinese kid is.

Rene swatted at another fly and shook his head. He took a deep breath and said: “Look, I’m just sayin’, all right? That boy don’t got no morals. And you and him had a beef. Like Tommy said, I look out for my people. It’s how my uncles raised me.”

“Watch it, that’s all he’s telling you,” Tommy added.

Rene nodded. “That
vato
will just do any single thing that comes in his head.”

I took another bite of corn dog and stared at the patch of dead grass under my feet, chewing. Flies all in my face, ketchup soaking through my bullshit paper plate and getting on my pants. The more I thought about the situation, the more depressed I got. Not just for me, but for the two dudes sitting next to me too. The three of us eating on cement blocks, waving away flies that supposedly puke on you every time they land, wearing the exact same clothes and stupid white shoes. I’m not saying we didn’t deserve to be there. It’s just weird to think we still had to act like we were alive like anybody else. We still had to eat and sleep and walk and talk. For some reason I started picturing us all on some video people could watch on YouTube. Like there was a hidden camera
on us at all times, 24/7, and people could watch us eat our corn dogs and fight and talk shit and spit on each other. I pictured three normal kids sitting around one of their fancy computers eating popcorn, pointing at us and laughing, like we were monkeys in a damn zoo or some shit. Ah, look at the group-home kids! And when they got bored they could just go outside and ride their skateboards or bikes or go to the mall. But we’d have to stay right here, under the cameras, for when somebody else wanted to watch us.

That’s one thing I hate about myself, by the way. When I start thinking about something like that I can’t get it out of my head. No matter how hard I try. I just keep stressing on it, nonstop.

“Anyways.” Tommy was still yapping. “Mong’s probably the craziest kid I’ve ever seen. Including all the ones I met in Juvi. You know those scars on his face? I heard somebody speared him with a sword, man. Back in China—”

“Nah, man,” Rene interrupted, dipping his second corn dog in mustard. “I heard
vato
fell off a fishing boat and the propeller sliced his ass up. Shit happened in the water, Tom.” Rene took a big bite, chewed for a few seconds and then swallowed.

Tommy set down his plate and wiped his fat mouth with a ketchup-stained napkin. “Point is he’s off, man. First time he got booted from here wasn’t even ’cause he hurt somebody,” Tommy said. “We used to have this old Indian counselor in here, right? About four people before Jaden.”

“They always change, by the way,” Rene said, giving Tommy a fist pound. “Nobody can be around kids like us too long, man. They just quit. That’s something you’ll figure out. We already got bets on Jaden.”

“Anyways, the old Indian counselor was always telling
Mong not to sit on the kitchen table or else it was gonna break. But Mong never listened to him. Then one day the table
did
break. It cracked down the middle with Mong on it, right in front of the Indian guy. He went off to the office to get his book, wrote out a restitution paper and handed it to Mong. They argued a little while and then the counselor yelled for Mong to go in his room and said he had to stay in there the rest of the day. But Mong didn’t go anywhere. He hopped right up on the kitchen counter and dropped his drawers. And you wouldn’t believe what he did. He took a shit, man. I swear to God. I put that on my aunt Mary and her new baby. He pulled down his pants, squatted and took a shit on the counter. Right there in front of everybody.”