“Where are the boys?” His mother released Trino’s hands. “Are they safe?”
“I hope so. I—” He stopped talking when he heard the weird metallic noise again.
“We need to get out of here, Mom. Something doesn’t sound right.”
They both turned to face two small beams from a pair of flashlights.
“Trino? María? Are you okay?” A man’s voice came from beyond the flashlights.
“Who is it?” Trino said, wishing he could see better.
“It’s Mr. Cummins. The boys came over to our trailer. They said you needed help,” he answered.
As their landlord stepped closer, Trino could finally see the short, heavy man. His black skin and dark clothes made him seem almost invisible, but his eyes revealed his genuine concern for them.
“Are my boys okay?”
“Sure.” His white teeth appeared in a smile. “Mrs. Cummins was drying them off and trying to find some dry clothes in the dark when I left to find you. The whole trailer park lost its power.”
The two flashlight beams shone into the bathroom. Trino could see the branches better now, and all the broken sticks and torn leaves all over the floor.
Mr. Cummins gave a loud whistle. “What a mess! You’re lucky to be alive, María.”
“My mom’s had luck with her all day,” Trino said, feeling relieved someone else was there to help them. He hadn’t realized how scared he had been until now, when he stopped to think about it.
The weird metallic sounds groaned above their heads.
“What is that noise?” Trino asked Mr. Cummins.
“Sounds like the rest of the tree is on top of this trailer. We’d better get out of here just in case more comes through the roof. Come on!”
Trino’s mom grabbed his hand again before they followed Mr. Cummins out of the trailer. She stopped only a moment to pick up the candles. “We might need these for extra light.”
He was glad she had taken them. He didn’t have much use for religious stuff, but with this storm, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep two veladoras burning through the night.
The next morning, Trino knew he would never forget the sight. The large tree he had liked to climb now had a jagged split from top to trunk. Most of the bushy branches fell on their trailer, covering it with a wig of leaves and sticks. One large branch looked like a giant elbow leaned into the top of the trailer. It was the same branch that had come through the ceiling just as their mother had stepped into the bathtub to look out the bathroom window.
“Yesterday, I thought things were finally going to change.” His mother’s words dripped with bitterness. “I got a job, finally! Today, I’m homeless. Why can’t I get a lucky break just once in my life?”
Trino turned and recognized he had grown taller than his mother. He glanced back towards the trailer, then back at her. Had she been sitting on the toilet last night, instead of standing in the tub to look out the window, she might not be next to Trino right now, staring at what was left of their trailer house.
He had never talked much to his mother, but being around Hector and his new friends had made him feel more comfortable about saying what was on his mind.
“Mom, we don’t got a house right now, but at least we’ve got all of us alive. I look at that—” he pointed towards the broken tree and smashed trailer. “—and I think, man, we lived through that. We’re pretty lucky.”
He saw her dark eyes fill with tears, before she started walking back towards the white trailer where the Cummins lived across the lot.
The Cummins were nice enough to share their floor with them last night, but then Mr. Cummins mentioned he had heard on his battery radio that there was an emergency shelter set up at the high school, and thought Trino’s mom should go there for help. Trino knew their problems were getting worse by the minute.
Mr. Cummins wouldn’t let them go back into the trailer to get any clothes. “My insurance man said to stay out of it—for safety’s sake, you know,” he said.
Their mother only had a thin pair of cloth slippers on her feet, Gus and Beto were barefoot, and all of them were wearing the only clothes they had left. As they walked out of the Cummins’ trailer, Trino carried Beto while their mother carried Gus. Félix walked beside them, complaining, but no one answered him. Finally, he shut up and trudged along.
The trailer park lot was sloppy with muddy puddles and ditches of dirty water. Trino’s clothes were stiff, and carrying Beto only made his steps heavier in the mud. Walking was hard and slow because he didn’t want to slip and drop Beto.
Steady drizzle had started to fall as they walked in silence for six blocks to the high school. Whenever they reached sidewalks, Trino put Beto down to walk, but he had to carry him across areas with no walkways and streets where construction had just added to the sloppy mess in the neighborhood.
At the high school gym, his mother signed a couple of papers, and they went inside. Rows of cots were lined up around the gym floor with the middle space left empty for chairs and tables and an area where kids were playing board games.
Beto and Gus were anxious to join the other kids, and Trino was just glad to rest his arms after carrying Beto so long.
“Don’t sit on the beds in those wet clothes,” his mother said, so Trino and Félix ended up sitting on the bleachers near the cots their family had been assigned.
“This sucks,” Félix said for the tenth time that day.
“Yeah, I know,” Trino said, only he didn’t know what was the worst thing: that he had no house, that he had no clothes, or that he had lost that feeling of “luck” he had felt earlier.
Lunch was hot dogs, chips, and cokes. The food was hot, and they could eat as much as they wanted. With food in his stomach and drier clothes, Trino started to feel as if he had come back to life. Only the life around him wasn’t where he wanted to be.
Everyone had used the TV in the corner to catch up on the news. The storm had affected the whole city, knocking out electricity, flooding out some areas, and leaving behind fallen trees and other debris from the rising waters. Strangers in the gym started talking to one another, sharing their stories. Félix started talking to everyone about the tree falling on their house trailer, and he made it sound as if he had rescued their mom. It made Trino mad, but he was too tired to do anything about it. He just stretched out on the cot and tried to fall asleep.
Big excitement came an hour later when a lady with a microphone and a man with a video camera from a local television station came into the gym to interview people who had to leave their homes and come to this shelter.
“I want to be on TV,” Félix said.
Trino still lay on a cot, his eyes closed. He could hear the babies crying, men talking loudly, and through it all, came a sad, long sigh he recognized as his mother’s. He opened his eyes slightly, and saw that she sat on the cot beside his. Her face looked tired, as if she had just come home from working an extra shift or two. But there was something pathetic in the way her mouth was drawn down, the way her black hair hung limp around her shoulders.
“How long will we stay here, Mom?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“At least through tomorrow. I wish the phones worked. I think we might be able to stay with your Tía Sofia, or maybe Irene would put us up a few days. But if we leave the neighborhood, how will you boys get to school? Who will take care of Gus and Beto so I can start my new job?” She sighed again. “I’m so tired of all this.”
“Why don’t you try to sleep?” Trino leaned up on one elbow. He felt like he had to help his mother, but didn’t know what to do, either. Maybe he could talk to someone and get some ideas.
“Excuse me, are you Trino?” said a female voice behind him.
He sat up on the cot and turned his head. A pretty woman in a clean red jacket and blue pants smiled at him. Her face had good make-up, and her hair was neat and combed. She just didn’t fit in among the rained-out, messy people in the gym.
“Are you Trino?” she asked again, and that’s when he saw the microphone in her hand. Behind her, stood a darkhaired man with a big video camera on one shoulder.
Suddenly, Beto bounced unto Trino’s legs. “This is Trino. Ask him, lady.”
“Get off me, Beto!” Trino said in a grouchy way, and pulled his brother off his legs. He swung himself around to stand up. Beto bounced on the empty cot and laughed.
“I understand from your little brother here that you rescued your mother last night when a tree fell on the trailer where you live. Is that true?” the woman asked him, holding the microphone a little closer to Trino’s mouth.
He looked beyond the woman’s shoulder and saw Félix standing there, but not for long. Félix moved around to stand beside Trino and be on TV, too.
Trino looked at the woman, then noticed a rubber camera lens moving closer to him.
“I—I just helped my mom, that’s all,” he said, feeling his legs turn cold. His stomach flip-flopped. Last night’s feelings of desperation and fear seemed to be part of him again.
“I understand there was no electricity in your house. How did you find her?”
“I listened for her voice. I knew she was stuck in the bathroom.”
The woman suddenly moved the microphone to Trino’s left and said. “Is this your mother, Trino? Ma’am, how do you feel about your son’s heroism? Are you proud of him—that he risked his own safety to save you?”
Trino’s mother stood behind him. She stepped forward, moving her hair back from her face, trying to smooth it down with her fingers as she talked.
“My son Trino is a strong boy. I knew he could help me.”
“But are you proud of him?”
“Of course I’m proud of him.” Her voice showed her annoyance with the question. “I could have been stuck under that tree all night.”
The woman put the microphone down and said, “That’s good, Joe. We have enough at the shelter for now.”
“Cool! Now we’ll all be on TV.” Félix grinned. “I’ve never seen myself on TV before.”
“You’ll look just as stupid on TV as you do in real life,” Trino replied, only to get a shove in the shoulder from his little brother. Before Trino could hit him back, the news woman turned back towards them.
“Trino, would you mind taking a drive in our van? Could you take us to where you live?” she said. “I’d like to film your trailer house and show pictures of the tree on top of it.”
When Mr. Cummins saw the white van with KVUE Channel 7 painted in red letters, he came out of his trailer to speak to the woman, who had told Trino to call her Liz, and to call the camera man, Joe. Before they could even unpack their equipment, he told them he had to show them worse damage from the storm in another part of the trailer park. Joe got the camera, and they looked eager to follow Mr. Cummins around.
“Wait here. We’ll be right back,” Liz told Trino.
Trino frowned, and leaned against the van. What could be worse than a tree smashing your house? he wondered as he watched Mr. Cummins lead them away. The man talked nonstop, making Trino glad he could stay behind.
Once again, he looked with amazement at the trailer. Someone had made a big X with yellow tape that had the word DANGER printed in black letters. Wondering what the inside of the trailer must look like, he stared at the door. Everything they owned, as little as it was, remained in that trailer. He hated the feeling of helplessness that had taken hold of him the past few hours. He looked at the broken tree, but found himself thinking about a way to cut it down, as if this whole nightmare was nothing more than a tree job he had with Nick.
And that’s when Nick’s words came back into Trino’s head. “Sometimes a man has to help himself before he can help others.”
A plan began to form in Trino’s mind. He looked around for anyone watching him. He didn’t see Mr. Cummins or the TV people anymore. But he knew the trailer park wasn’t that big, and if he was going to act, he had to do it quickly. He looked around one more time, then ran to the front door. He yanked on the yellow tape. It pulled down easily.
The front door was stuck, but Trino leaned his shoulder into the door to get it open. Once inside, he could see wet towels that inches of mud, water, leaves, and sticks had jammed against the door. The floor was a squishy, sloshy mess. His shoes sank as he walked. Cold, dirty water slid through the holes in his tennis shoes. In four steps, his feet were soaked.
The trailer was dark, but there was some light coming through the small windows. He walked to the kitchen, hoping to find a trash bag in the cabinet by the refrigerator. He found two of them on a middle shelf, and said a quick “Yes!” Then he headed towards the bedroom.
The metallic sounds groaned above him. Trino looked up, wondering if the tree would eventually fall through the whole trailer. But if it did, Trino hoped it wouldn’t be in the next two minutes.
Beto’s and Gus’s shoes floated near the sofa. They were soaked and caked with mud, but they could still be worn once they were cleaned up. He sloshed his way down the hall, and tried not to think about the mess in the bedroom he shared with his brothers. The smell was awful, like a pond where water never moved. Their beds were muddy, and the closet had filled with several inches of water. The clothes they had carelessly tossed on the floor were wet and dirty, so he didn’t touch them. Instead he opened drawers and grabbed any clothes he found.
Then he went to his mother’s room. He knew his mother needed shoes, and some kind of clothes she could wear to work. He saw her purse on top of the dresser and put it in the bag, too. The carpet squished under his feet as he walked around. He took pants from her closet, some blouses, and opened her drawers, too.
He felt weird grabbing his mother’s underwear and bras, but he knew she’d need them, and stuffed them into the second bag. The metal noises above him sounded loudest in her bedroom, and Trino knew he had to hurry. As he worked, sweat slid down his back, and his throat felt like he had been walking in a desert.
Trino looked beside the bed, and felt a jolt of gladness. He found the black laced shoes his mom usually wore to work, as well as some worn-out sneakers she wore around the house. They were slimy with mud, but he grabbed a damp pillow, shook out the pillow, and put the shoes inside the pillowcase before he put them inside the trash bag, too.
He stopped only a moment to see the bathroom damage in the daylight, because the bags were getting heavy. He trudged along, thinking he must look like a barrio Santa Claus with the sacks slung over his shoulder.
When he got back to the front door, he realized that he had opened it just enough to get his body through. He pulled the door back with one hand as he held tight to the bags with the other. He didn’t want to put the bags down and risk more mud and water getting into their clothes.
With clenched teeth and a second, more determined grip, he managed to get the door open wider, just enough to push the bags through and get his body out behind them.
“Trino! What do you think you’re doing?”
Startled by the loud, angry voice, he nearly lost his footing on the doorstep. He caught himself by pushing against the sacks. He cushioned himself against the wall of the trailer house until he got his balance.
Trino came out of the trailer to face Mr. Cummins’ pinched expression, the reporter’s wide-open eyes, and the camera guy’s amused grin.
“Are you crazy, boy? It’s dangerous to be in there! What’s wrong with you?” Mr. Cummins stomped towards Trino, pointing at the trailer as he talked. “I told your mom this morning that nobody could go in there. It’s dangerous. The police even came to tape up the door. You could get arrested for going in there. Do you know that?”
Trino put the bags down. His arms felt numb from their weight, but at the same time, he felt very strong. He noticed Liz staring at him, and he remembered what the reporter had asked Trino’s mom at the shelter. “Are you proud of him?”
This time Trino felt proud of himself. He stood up straight and faced Mr. Cummins’ anger head on.
“Mr. Cummins, my family’s got nothing right now,” Trino said. “But my mom just got a new job, and she needs her clothes. My brothers have no shoes to wear, and this T-shirt and jeans is all I have left. If you had been me, wouldn’t you have done the same thing to help your family?”
At that, Mr. Cummins’ lips pressed together in a thick line across his face. His dark eyes still looked mad, but he didn’t say anything else.
Trino turned around, and stepped back towards the trailer. With both hands, he pulled the door closed. He grabbed the tape and tried to press it back into place.
“That’s okay, leave it. I’ll fix it in a while myself,” Mr. Cummins said. His voice seemed calmer. “I was going to get the extra key and lock the door anyway.”
Trino nodded. “That’s good, Mr. Cummins. We don’t want anyone to take our stuff.” Even if it was dangerous, he knew there were punks who would risk it just for a few things they could steal, even though Trino knew that nothing left inside was worth taking.
“Trino, why don’t you load the sacks into our van, and we’ll take you back to the shelter?” Liz told him, and he noticed she was blinking a lot. She took a deep breath, then stepped towards Mr. Cummins. “What are your plans for the trailer?” she asked him.
“I can’t say right now. I’ll have to get somebody out here to cut down the tree and get it off the trailer before I can see how bad the damage is,” he answered.
Despite the weight in his arms, Trino turned back towards Mr. Cummins. “I know a man who cuts down trees. He and I work together on the weekends. He could—we could—do the job for you.”
Mr. Cummins frowned as he shook his head. “No, I’m going to hire professionals. My insurance company will pay for someone good to do the job right. Sorry, kid.”
His quick dismissal made Trino mad, but the loss of money, which his family needed so badly, made him even angrier.
As Trino walked to the KVUE van, his arms and legs ached. His shoes were filled with mud and water. He carried what was left of his family’s clothes in two trash bags.
This should have been a grim scene in a TV movie, but here was Trino’s life, mud and all.