We Were Here (40 page)

I told him: “I always liked you, Rondo. You my boy, ain’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“I just lost it last night.”

“It’s okay, Mexico.”

“Nah, it’s not,” I told him. “I’m really sorry. I realized I need to go back and do my time and figure out my shit.”

We both got quiet for a sec and it seemed like maybe we were going to sleep, but then Rondell said: “Hey, Mexico.”

“Hey what?” I told him.

“You think we could still be friends even after we go different places?”

“Hell yeah,” I said. “People don’t gotta be in the same place to be friends, man. Some people have friends that live in whole different countries. But they’re still friends.”

“I thought so,” Rondell said.

I considered something for a sec and then said: “You know why I know we’ll still be friends?”

“Why?”

“Because we been through shit together. When people go through shit together, like walking miles and miles and what happened with Mong and them taking our money, it makes ’em mad tight.”

“That’s how I thought it too, Mexico.”

It was quiet for a couple minutes and then Rondell said: “Hey, Mexico.”

“Hey what?” I told him again.

“You know what I just been thinkin’ ’bout?”

“What?”

“I maybe could still go to Mexico.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But it ain’t just to be a fisherman, even though I still wanna do that, too.”

“What do you wanna do, then?”

“The person who gave us a ride from the gym, you remember what he said? He said people play ball for money in Mexico just like they do in the NBA, too. I been thinkin’ I could maybe be on one of them Mexican squads and it’d pay enough for me to live somewhere nice. That’s my word.”

I smiled in the dark, said: “I think you should, man. Shit, when I’m done with my time maybe I’ll go down there too. I could be the scoreboard operator or whatever.”

“You really would, Mexico?”

“Hell yeah. I still think it’d be cool to go to Mexico. My grandparents are from there. I just know I gotta make shit right here first.”

“Maybe they could give me enough money so I could get a big ol’ house. And you could have one of the rooms, Mexico.”

“That’d be sweet, Rondell,” I told him. “I’m gonna remember this conversation, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

“I want you to,” he said.

It was quiet between us for a bit and then Rondell said: “You’d really go there, Mexico?”

“Yeah, man,” I said. “Maybe I could marry a Mexican girl who’d teach me Spanish and then when I came back to visit here I could actually talk to my gramps. He’d trip out, man.”

“Yeah,” Rondell said, and then he laughed a little, who even knows why.

I could hear him rolling over on his pile of hay, so I told him good night. He told me good night back.

And then I sat up and pulled out this book. And that’s how I am now, sitting here writing. Trying to get down every single thing that’s happened the past two days. Even the parts that are hard to talk about or even think about. The stuff with Diego. But I’m just writing it anyway ’cause I know that’s how those authors I’ve been reading would do it, like in
The Color Purple
. They’d just tell the whole story, no matter how hard it was to say, because people need to read it.

That’s why I’m telling everything too.

September 13

And then it was the big goodbye scene for me and Rondell.

We were back in San Jose again, at the bus station, standing next to the Coke machine talking about what we were gonna do. Soon as he boarded his bus I was gonna walk all the way across the city to the Lighthouse. Rondell was taking the bus to Oakland, where he was gonna look for his auntie and his cousins.

I know what I said earlier about goodbye scenes and how it’s best if you can just walk away and move on. And I still believe that. But me and Rondell had entered a different category. We’d turned into almost family if you think about it. So it was different. I stood there with him until his bus came and then we shook hands like we were two grownups.

“I ain’t never gonna forget you, Mexico,” he said as the driver swung open the doors and people started filing in and finding seats.

“Same here,” I said.

“And if you really wanna go to Mexico and be in my big house you can.”

“I’ll track you down, Rondo,” I said. “Especially if you got a big house.

“You promise?”

“I promise.” I swung my bag from one shoulder to the other, said: “You got the money I gave you in your pocket?”

He reached his hand into his pocket, pulled his wad of bills out far enough for me to see and then shoved it back in.

“All right, then, man,” I said. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too, Mexico.”

We were quiet for a few seconds, neither one of us knowing what else we were supposed to say.

“All aboard,” the bus driver called out.

“You better get on,” I told Rondell.

And then, out of nowhere, he stepped forward and gave me the tightest hug you could possibly give another person without breaking their damn spinal cord. Wrapped his big arms around me, lifted me off the ground and squeezed to the point that I couldn’t hardly even breathe. My head pinned to his damn chest like I was a little kid.

I thought what a crazy sight it probably was for everybody
on the bus: this big black dude with a baby Afro hugging some skinny half-Mexican kid with holes in his shoes and sweatshirt.

I finally wrestled myself out of his grip and told him: “All right, all right, let’s not get crazy, man.”

He wiped a tear that was falling down his cheek, said: “You the first person who never leaved me.”

I shrugged and told him: “Yeah, well, it ain’t nothin’ to cry about, man. Pull your shit together.”

The driver yelled out to Rondell: “Bus is leaving right now, sir.”

Rondell looked at him and then turned back to me.

“You better get on,” I said. I reached out my hand and we shook again. “You gonna be all right, Rondo.”

“You too, Mexico. I know it.”

“Maybe I’ll see you in Mexico.”

“You better come there like you said. You promised.” He wiped his face again with his sweatshirt sleeve and then spun around and climbed on the bus.

He waved at me through the window as his bus pulled away.

The Walk Back to the Lighthouse:

On the long walk back to the Lighthouse I thought about all the shit I’d been through since we went on the run. Mei-li and the cave and getting chased by the cops and Mong saying I was his best friend and then going swimming and me staring through the Mexican border at the kid selling clay suns. But soon I was thinking about my brother Diego again. I thought about that look on his face, the one in the living room when we were both just happy kids still, playing around.

I kept thinking about it so hard that at one point I actually stopped cold and went down on one knee in the middle
of the damn street. I let it really hit me how he was gone. Before, I knew it was true, and I knew he was never coming back and it was because of me, but I never let it go deep in me. My whole body went numb and I almost couldn’t breathe, like I was drowning, and then I felt like I was gonna faint but I didn’t.

It was so overwhelming.

My brother was gone.

The person I loved more than anything in the entire world.

I stayed kneeling on the asphalt like that for a long-ass time, even when a couple cars came. They had to drive all around me honking their horns and saying stuff out their windows. But it was like I was paralyzed. I just couldn’t get up. Because what I did is real. I can never change it back. It’s forever. And for the first time since what happened I admitted that to myself.

And then when I reached up and touched Mong’s tooth necklace I just stood up.

My good-luck charm. I stayed holding on to it.

I thought how I couldn’t just stay kneeling in the street for the rest of my life. I had to get up at some point. So I did. It wasn’t like I was sick or anything. And it wasn’t like if I stayed kneeling in the street Diego would come back. Nothing will bring him back. So I told myself I might as well keep walking. Might as well go back to the Lighthouse and finish my time. Might as well pay my restitution and not owe anybody anything. Might as well finish this book I been writing and give it to the counselors so they could see how I think. And know about me, Mong and Rondell. Might as well try to make good with the rest of my life (even though I’d still trade mine for Diego’s any day of the week). Might as well call my moms next Sunday when it’s phone day and actually talk to
her. Tell her I’m so sorry about what happened and I love her even if she doesn’t feel the same way right now.

Might as well keep moving forward.

And before I knew it I was all the way back to the Lighthouse, standing in front of the door.

I was knocking.

Some big white dude opened it and then stood there staring at me for a while.

“Who are you?” he finally said.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said back. “Just go get Jaden.”

“Miguel?” Jaden shouted, pushing past the white dude. “Miguel! I can’t believe it. You made it back, bro. You have no idea how good it is to see you.”

He shook my hand and I held out the petty-cash envelope. He took it.

“I wanna do my time,” I said.

Jaden looked at the envelope in his hand and then looked back up at me. “That’s all anybody can ever ask of anybody else, Miguel.”

I shrugged.

“You know we aren’t here to make life hard. We’re here to help you build coping skills so you can get back out there and attack life again.”

He held up the envelope. “This is the first step, bro. I’m really proud of you.”

I switched my bag from one shoulder to the other.

“Look at my manners, bro. Come on in.” He took my bag and led me into the house. “Take a seat on the couch. Guys, this is Miguel Casteñeda. He was in here at the start of the summer. Move over, Dimitrius. Let the man have some room, bro. He’s come a long way.”

Nobody said hi or anything, but this time I didn’t call
anybody a bitch. I just smiled to myself and told everybody “Hey.”

Some of them said hey back.

Jaden smiled at me and set my bag on the floor by my feet. He was about to go into the office to call Lester when there was another knock on the door.

“That’s probably him right now,” Jaden said. “Wait until he sees who came back.”

The same white kid went to the door again and pulled it open. He stood there a sec, and then he said: “Who are you?”

Then we all heard the voice on the other side of the door, and it wasn’t Lester’s.

“Rondell Law,” the voice said. “Got two
L
s at the end of that first part.”

He pushed past the white dude and stood huge in the living room, looking all around until he turned and found me sitting on the couch.

“Mexico,” he said, smiling big and goofy.

“Rondell,” I said back.

He turned to Jaden, said: “I come back to do my time, however much they gave me.”

Jaden said: “Rondell Law! Come on over here, bro. Grab a seat next to Miguel. It’s like a reunion in here.”

Rondell looked at him funny and said: “Wha’chu mean?”

“I mean you guys coming back,” Jaden said.

“Oh,” Rondell said, turning to me.

Jaden held out the cordless and said: “You guys sit tight while I call Lester, all right? We’re doing everything by the book, bro. You guys made the right decision, I promise. Just sit tight and we’ll handle all the technicalities involved.”

Rondell sat next to me and looked at me with that simple-ass look he always gets. The thing that makes him Rondell.

I gave him a little shot to the arm, said: “Thought you were on that bus, man.”

“I told him to stop a little ways down, Mexico. We was goin’ and then I thought of somethin’. Maybe I could make good here too. Before goin’ to Mexico. And plus then I could do like your grandma told me and look out for you.” He shrugged and said: “So that’s how come I got off.”

“You’re crazy,” I told him.

He tapped my arm and said: “And you know what, Mexico?”

“What, Rondell?”

“Wasn’t God who told me to do it neither. It was me.”

I nodded at him as Jaden stood a few feet away with the cordless up to his ear, saying: “Les! Yeah, listen, bro. You’re gonna wanna come over to the Lighthouse on the double. I got two kids here who are ready to make good on their time.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d like to thank the following folks: Steve Malk, amazing agent, friend and sounding board; Krista Marino, for believing and pushing and always being such a pleasure to work with; all the awesome people at Random House, especially Beverly Horowitz, Angela Carlino, Dominique Cimina and the entire publicity department; Matt Van Buren, great friend, reader and writer; Albert de la Peña, the most authentic dude I know,
pari passu;
Roni de la Peña, the reason I try hard at life; Brin Hill; Rob Jones; Nora Jones; Gretchen Wolf; Amy and Emily; the de la Peñas; Rachel Sherman; Sandra Newman; David Andrews; Kuros Charney; Lindsey Davis; Ciro Parascandola; the painter downstairs (punk!); and Caroline Sun, my girl and my best friend and the star of all those three minutes.