The Only Word I Know in Spanish

by Patry Francis

 

 

When I read Patry Francis’s debut novel, Liar’s Diary, last year, I knew that this was a book worth savoring, and a writer worth my absolute attention. Now she writes a very different story, about violence and young men and what guilt can do to a boy when he thinks too long and hard on what he’s done. Once again, Ms. Francis demonstrates that she’s one of those rare writers who not only knows how to tell a story, she knows how to tunnel deep into our emotions.

—Tess Gerritsen, author of The Bone Garden

It all started with a crime I didn’t commit. But could have. I mean, I’ve done similar shit in the past; I just never got caught. But that’s irrelevant, right? This time, when the cops dragged me and a couple of my friends in and beat the crap out of us, I was totally innocent. From what I hear, a bunch of kids lost it on some old guy who was trying to make a living selling Puerto Rican food on the street. You know—chicken and rice. That crispy flatfish they eat. I’ve had it before myself; it tastes like their cooking grease, but otherwise it’s not bad. Okay, maybe I was in the vicinity. But my friends and me, we were what you call innocent bystanders. Spectators. Kind of like those people who used to hang out at the Coliseum waiting for the show.

At first, they just called him a few names, told him to take his grease wagon elsewhere. Then they circled the block, giving him a chance to disappear. They’d had a few beers by then. Probably some other stuff, too. When they came back and found he was still there—a skinny old man folded over his little flame … Well, that’s when they got seriously pissed. It wasn’t anything personal; they just wanted him off their streets, out of their sight. But no matter how loud they got, the old man just ignored them. It was like they didn’t even exist. The next thing you know, they had kicked over his stupid little cart. And then they were kicking him, too.

I was standing a couple of rows back, but somehow the old man on the sidewalk found me and looked right into my eyes like he knew me. Like he’d always known me and always would. I can’t describe it, but there was so much sorrow in those eyes, it went right through me. Not hate, not even pain—just sorrow. “Let’s get out of here,” I said to my friend, O’Toole. I mean, why was the guy looking at me? Out of all the people on that street, he has to stare at me?

I was down on Station Avenue, shooting hoops with O‘Toole and Ryan Dawson when the cruiser showed up. From nowhere, the cops are all over us. Talking about this guy—this Mr. Reyes. According to the cops, the guy was down at City Hospital getting his head X-rayed as we spoke. And the worst part about it, this pig who’s slamming us into walls, calling us project scum and shit like that, has family in the Heights himself. Officer Monahan, his name tag said. My brother, Chip, actually used to hang out with this Officer Monahan’s cousin. They’re Irish like me and O’Toole, probably with something else mixed in, the way everyone is these days. But still, there ought to be some loyalty.

That’s what Ma says anyway; she remembers the days and all that. I stared up at that name tag from the floor, thinking that if you changed a few letters, his name was the same as mine: Moran. I know it was a funny thing to be thinking about at a moment like that, but after you take a few good kicks to the head, you start getting a lot of strange shit jumping around in your head.

It was all over pretty fast. A few hours later, they put us in the lineup, and the street vendor—that Mr. Reyes the pigs kept yelling at us about—said we were the wrong kids. Monahan was practically screaming at the old man by the time he got through with him. We could hear him from the other room where they were holding us just in case Mr. Reyes wanted to take another look. “The kind of beating you took, and you’re going to let these kids walk?” he said, like he wanted to whip the old man’s ass himself. “You mean to say you’re going to let these punks get away with it?”

The old man’s voice was so low that even with his ear against the wall, O’Toole couldn’t hear a thing. But I heard it clear as could be, even with the accent. “Can I go home now?” the old man said over and over, like he was the one locked up instead of us. For some reason, I was desperate to get a look at the old man’s face. To make sure he was okay. But I never did. Still, when I think about him, the way I do sometimes right before I go to sleep, I can see his face perfectly. Especially those eyes. Los ojos. I don’t know why, but it’s the only word I remember from Spanish class.

Anyway, if it weren’t for my mother, that would have been it. Three kids get knocked around a little down at the station, and then tossed back out on the street. Kind of thing happens every day; that’s what Dawson said. Afterward, we went out and got ourselves totally wasted, figuring we deserved it. And that should have been the end of it. But not with good old Ma around. You’d have to know my mother to understand. It’s like the lady sits around her whole life just waiting for a chance to get even. With who or for what—it doesn’t really matter, as long as she gets even. Naturally, when she saw my face in the bright light of the kitchen, there was no way she was going to let it drop. Mrs. O’Toole and Ryan’s foster parents? They looked at their kids’ bruises, shook their heads, and went back to their beers. Probably figured they could use a beating or two whether they needed it or not. But not Ma.

I spent most of the weekend avoiding her, passed out on someone’s living room floor. The kid’s name was Dougie and I guess Ryan knew his sister. Anyway, his mother was over at her boyfriend’s house or something, so we had the apartment to ourselves all weekend. When I woke up Monday morning, it took me a few minutes to remember where I was.

Picture it: there I am laying on someone’s dirty rug, picking dog hairs off my T-shirt, feeling like shit, and I’m trying to come up with some story to tell my mother. Even though half the time she doesn’t bother to ask. Sometimes when I hear her talking to the other mothers out in the parking lot, she says she’s been through all this shit with Chip before, and he used up all the good stories. I couldn’t come up with anything original if I tried.

But this time, when the only thing I really want in the whole world is to be left alone, Ma practically comes running down the walk to meet me. “Where the hell have you been?” she’s screaming right in front of this whole pack of little kids who are lined up waiting for the ice cream truck. Course, kids in our neighborhood are so used to people yelling, they don’t even bother to look. Not unless the blood starts flowing. My mother takes my face in her hands like it’s some kind of specimen, turning it this way and that, poking at the bruises, the cut on my lip. I push her hand away.

“I’m tired, Ma,” I tell her.

But of course, Ma’s having none of that. “I bet you’re tired,” she says, her touch turning rough. “How do you think I feel? I haven’t had a moment’s sleep all weekend.”

I was about to ask her why the hell not, maybe mention that I’m gone almost every weekend, and she usually sleeps just fine. But instead, I duck into the room I used to share with Chip. It’s all mine now—ever since Chip’s girlfriend had a kid and they decided to get a place together. All I want is a chance to bury myself in sleep. With luck, I can sleep till three o’clock when Ma leaves for her job at the nursing home. And by the time she gets home at eleven, I’ll be out again.

Most of the time it’s an arrangement that works pretty well for both of us. But as soon as I hit my room, I see my clothes laying across my bed. A pair of khakis and a white shirt I haven’t seen since I made my Confirmation.

“What—are we going to church?” I say to Ma who has followed me into my room, and is standing there with her arms folded across her massive chest. “Is it a Holy Day of Obligation or something?” It’s a joke, because neither Ma nor I have set foot in the church since the day of Confirmation. After pushing church on us all those years, Ma all of a sudden decides the place is full of phonies, and the priests are all perverts anyway. She says they’re just lucky none of them ever laid a hand on Chip or me when we were altar boys, or you can bet she would have made them pay.

“Just get dressed, wiseass,” Ma says. “We’re going down to the courthouse.”

So there I am, hungover, my face sore as hell from the way Ma pressed her thumbs into the bruises, and I’m aching for sleep. “The courthouse?” I say. “I told you I didn’t do anything. They dropped the charges, I told you.”

I hate the way my heart is starting to pound at the mention of the courthouse. And the worst part is I know if it were Chip, he wouldn’t even blink. Even when he got sentenced to six months a couple years ago, he just stood there with his hands in his pockets, smiling. All he’d needed was a beer, and he would have looked like he was hanging out in the courtyard with his friends. Like it was a summer day, music blasting, nothing special going on.

“Damn right, you didn’t do anything; that’s the point,” Ma says. She’s going through my drawers by then, firing clean socks and underwear at me. “They messed with the wrong kid this time, Cody. The wrong family. That trashy Monahan and his buddies, they’re not going to get away with it. Now get yourself dressed and looking respectable.”

Ma’s eyes look so angry that for a moment I think she’s planning for us to go downtown and kick the shit out of those cops ourselves. Or maybe she’s got a gun concealed under her aide uniform. But then that word “respectable” sinks in; and I understand. She intends to beat them at their own game. File a few charges of our own—police brutality, false arrest, or just generally being assholes—anything that will stick.

 

 

A couple days later, Ma’s got the night off, and she makes me go to the grocery store with her so I can carry the bags. Says her back is killing her from work. So what else is new? Anyway, when we get home, Chip is sitting in our living room working on a can of malt. From the pile of empties on the coffee table, it looks like he’s been there for a while. Course, right away Ma knows what’s going on.

“I hope you don’t think you can come running back here every time you and Allison have an argument,” she says. She’s putting away the food by then, slamming the cans and bottles around the way she always does when Chip is home.

“It’s a little more than an argument this time, Ma,” Chip says, after finishing off his malt in one long swig. “It’s over. Allison and I are done.”

Ma stands in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. “And what about your son?” she asks. “Is he done, too?”

Chip stares at the television set where a tennis match is on. I know he’s not watching it, because Chip hates tennis. “Hey, what can I tell you?” he says. “Girl’s a total bitch.”

For the rest of the night, none of us says much. Ma makes stuffed pork chops with mashed potatoes. But when it’s time to eat, Chip says he isn’t hungry; maybe he’ll have some later. So there we are in the kitchen, Ma and me, chewing on our pork chops in total silence. I can tell Ma’s thinking about the whole thing with Allison and the baby, probably wondering if Chip is really home for good this time. And me, I’m thinking that I’m supposed to meet Mike O‘Toole and a couple of other kids in about fifteen minutes, and I’m wondering if O’Toole has any weed.

Then all of a sudden Chip yells from the living room. “I heard about those charges you filed against Monahan down at the courthouse,” he says. “Big mistake.”

“The world’s leading expert on mistakes speaks,” Ma says, scraping the bones from her dinner into the garbage. She pauses a minute, her plate in hand, waiting for Chip to answer back. When he doesn’t, she drifts toward the doorway. “And what was I supposed to do? Let those assholes kick the crap out of your brother—for something he didn’t even do? You got to stand up for your own in this world, Chip. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

By then, I’m wishing I didn’t eat those pork chops. I’m starting to feel sort of queasy and sick to my stomach. All I know is, if I get the chance, I’m gone. Then, Ma and Chip can sit around and talk about Monahan all night if they want to. But before I can get my Nikes on, Chip speaks up again. “Well, maybe so, Ma. But if you stand up for your own with the cops, your own are going to pay. I’d drop it if I were you.”

So even though I don’t want to get involved, I hobble in from the kitchen, one sneaker on, the other in my hand. “That’s what I told her,” I say. “But do you think she’d listen?”

“Shut up, Cody. You stay out of this,” Ma snaps. Like this is just some argument she’s having with Chip. Like I’m not the kid who’s going to have to go out on the street and live with it.

But there’s no winning, so I put my other sneaker on and get out of there.

I’m already having one of the shittiest days of my life when I get to O’Toole’s. Then he pulls out this newspaper, obituary page.

“Read it,” he says, sitting beside me on his bed. After I scan it real quick and see that no one under the age of sixty-one is listed, I hand it back to him.

“Is this supposed to mean something to me?”

That’s when he points out the tiny obit in the corner: “Felipe Reyes, dead of a heart attack at age 63.”

“Coincidence,” I say, still trying to give that paper back. “You know how many Ricans out there are named Reyes?”

But then O’Toole makes me read the whole piece, including the paragraph that mentions that he had been the victim of a street attack a week earlier, and that no one had been arrested for it.

“So the guy died, what’s it to me?” I say. “It’s not like he was my uncle or something. Besides, read it. The old man died of natural causes. A heart attack. Had nothing to do with what happened on the street.”

But when O’Toole looks at me, it’s obvious that whatever the obit says, we know why the guy died. We saw it in his eyes that afternoon on the street.

That night I got so messed up that when I came home I didn’t even notice that Chip was gone. Probably back with the girl he was calling a total bitch a few hours before. Anyway, I was glad to find myself alone. Before my mother got up, I went and cut Felipe Reyes’s obituary out of the paper. There was no picture, but all the time I’m cutting, it’s like I’m seeing that face. Feeling those eyes on me, looking at me like he thinks I can save him. And like some psycho, I’m talking back to a dead man.

“What do you want from me, man? What the fuck was I supposed to do?” After I had read the clipping over three or four more times, I stashed it in a cigar box where I hid my pipe and rolling papers.

 

 

The hearing against Monahan was pretty much hell—dressing up in my Confirmation clothes, high-water pants and a sports jacket that Chip used to wear to court, and trying not to look at Monahan. To make it worse, half the courtroom was packed with his relatives, the other half with cops. But that was okay. I didn’t need too many seats for my supporters. All I had was Ma—that’s it. Oh yeah, don’t forget Allison and the baby who squalled his effin head off until the judge had to ask them to leave. So that leaves me with Ma all dressed up in her polyester dress, fake gold jewelry, hair blown into some TV-lady style, trying to look like she’s someone else. Trying to look like she hasn’t spent half her life on welfare, the other half wiping people’s asses. Chip said he would have come, but he was still on probation—why aggravate them?

Then, when I turn around, who do I see but my old English teacher sitting a few rows back. And I’m thinking, what the fuck? But then, Mr. Boyle isn’t your average teacher. For one thing, the guy’s got to be about a hundred years old. At least seventy. To make it worse, he’s half blind, and so deaf that he was pretty much in his own world up there in front of the class. Going on about some effin Shakespeare play like it’s the most important thing in the world. Like it’s real or something. I swear, sometimes the poor old geezer gets so worked up about these plays, that he goes all misty-eyed right there in the classroom. Makes a real ass out of himself.

But to tell you the truth, some of those plays aren’t bad—once you get past the way they talked back then. For a while, I really got into some of that stuff. When no one was around, I’d sit up in my room reading them to myself—sometimes out loud like Mr. Boyle did. It was weird—like this guy Shakespeare, who died about a thousand years ago, was writing about exactly what was happening to me. Like he understood me better than my own mother. Better than O’Toole even.

I even stayed after class to talk to Mr. Boyle a couple times when I had nothing better to do. I’d ask him what a certain line meant or something. Of course, the poor old geezer was thrilled; it was probably the first time in twenty years that someone was actually interested. But then Mr. Boyle started getting weird. He’d look at me with those watery blue eyes of his and talk about my “potential.” Why wasn’t I doing better in school? he’d ask. Had I started to think about college? That kind of crap. So I figured this guy is totally in the dark. After that, I stopped dropping in on him; didn’t even show up for my final. And now when I pick up one of those plays I used to like, it’s like they’re written in Greek for all the sense they make.

To tell you the truth, I can’t even believe Mr. Boyle still remembers me, or that he’d bother to come out to my hearing. I know I should go over and say something to him—thank him for coming, shit like that. But when I look in those watery blue eyes of his, I suddenly feel like I’m going to do something stupid. Like I’m going to break down and bawl or something. So instead, I jam my hands in my pocket and turn away—just like Chip would do.

As far as O’Toole and Dawson were concerned—the other “victims” —they weren’t going near the place. Even if my lawyer called them, they swore they’d lie. The night before the trial, Ryan cornered me in the courtyard. “You know what you’re going to be if you go through with this?” he said. “A marked man. Everything you do, the cops are going to be on your ass. Everywhere you go.” Like I needed to hear that shit, right?

Still, there was that one moment when the whole thing felt pretty good. The moment when the judge pronounced the word “guilty.” Telling the whole world that Monahan was the criminal. The loser.

The scum. Not me. The shock that crossed his face, and the way the relatives all kind of gasped at once was almost worth the whole thing. I didn’t even care that the sentence was so light it was a joke. All he got was a two-week suspension, and six months office duty. And since the suspension was with pay, it pretty much added up to a couple of extra weeks of vacation.

Of course, Ma was pissed as hell. “You call that justice?” she ranted to her buddies in the project. As if any of them knew the first thing about justice. But me—I was satisfied. No matter how light the sentence, nothing could take back the word that the judge had pronounced for all to hear. Guilty.

 

 

At first, it looked like my brother and Dawson and all the other kids in the project were wrong. No cops came out of the woodwork to make my life a living hell like they had predicted. At least, not any more than usual. But I have to admit one thing: until the trial, I never actually noticed how many of them there were in the world. I mean, they’re everywhere. Outside the school, cruising the mall, in front of me on the street, behind me in my mother’s car. They stopped at the same places I went for pizza, talked to girls Chip knew. Unconsciously, they touched their guns right in the middle of an ordinary conversation, as if to remind themselves they were there. And at home in the Heights, only the cockroaches outnumbered them.

When I asked O’Toole if he thought the city had added to the police force or what, he told me I better stop smoking so much weed—I was getting paranoid. I guess it’s pretty bad when a kid whose nickname is “Chimney” tells you you’re smoking too much.

Anyway, it was several months after Monahan went back on active duty that things began to happen. Maybe it was those lonely hours driving around in the cruiser, or the assholes that got away, or just all the people who hated him. Or maybe he had just been laying low those months. Kind of like Chip does when he’s on probation. Laying low. Biding his time. The first time I knew something was wrong, I was at a party.

It started off as a typical Saturday night. We’re all in this girl’s house, having a few brews when all of a sudden the cops show up. Three cruisers, like it’s some kind of raid or something. And the thing is, they’re acting like storm troopers. Tearing up this girl’s mother’s apartment like she’s some major dealer. For a minute, I thought maybe she was—like we’re all about to get busted for possession over this stupid girl’s mother.

But then out of nowhere I hear one of them saying, “Are you Cody Moran?” And, “Are you gonna tell us who Moran is or what?” Of course, none of my buddies are about to give me away, but some asshole who was in my home room in seventh grade decides to play the big man; he points me out. That’s him over there.

Well, the next thing I know this fat fuck grabs me off the couch, lifts me right up by the shirt, and says, “So you’re Moran, are you?” And the whole room goes dead silent, like everyone’s wondering if this guy is going to kick my head in right then and there or give me time to think about it. But he just tosses me back onto the couch like garbage.

“I just wanted to know what you looked like,” he says. And all the cops laugh like it’s a huge joke. Of course, I’m scanning their faces for Monahan. He’s easy to spot, with his sharp nose and those flinty eyes, but he’s not there. Only later did I see him outside in the cruiser. Just waiting, maybe humming a little song. When I walked by, he waved at me kind of cute like a girl would. See ya.

All right, so I admit I’m pretty freaked. I run all the way to Chip’s house, heart banging like a fool, and when I get there, my brother’s not even home. Instead, Allison comes to the door. It’s obvious she’s been crying—like she does at least half the time. So there I am, half the city police force on my ass, and I’m listening to this girl whining about what a jerk my brother was. As if I didn’t know. The last thing she says is that if I see Chip, I can tell him not to bother coming home; then she practically slams the door in my face.

When I hit the street again, I see a cop car parked less than a block away. But I’m determined to walk real slow, like I’m not worried about a thing. By the time I get home, I’ve decided I’m not telling Chip anyway. What can he possibly do but make matters worse for me, and probably end up back in jail himself? And I’m sure not about to tell my mother. The way I see it, if the woman stands up for me any more, she’ll probably get me killed. No, this is my problem now. There’s no one who can help me with it. My only hope is that Monahan is satisfied that he ruined our party, shook me up a little, and that will be the end of it.

But that was before I knew Monahan. I mean really knew him. Not that I actually saw the guy much after that party. But I didn’t need to see him. I knew he was around. Lurking just outside the Heights in his cruiser, waiting for me to screw up. Though he never showed his face, he never let me forget he was there. He was there when his buddies followed us one night when we went out in Chad Baldini’s car, there when every single one of our parties got busted, there that afternoon when a bunch of cops parked their cruisers by the basketball court and just sat there watching us shoot around. Laughing, smoking butts, and flicking them on the asphalt, closer and closer to us.

Though I hadn’t seen Monahan since the night he’d parked his cruiser outside that party, Remembered exactly what he looked like. I knew that pointed chipmunk face; the irises of his eyes were like small gray pebbles. A real flat color, like there was no life in them—nothing.

And I was ready for him, too. The very next day, I went to Chip, and asked him to get me a gun. At first, my brother laughed at me like he always did. “What the fuck would you do with a gun—besides shoot your own foot off.” But then he turned serious. “Harm one hair on a cop’s head, Cody, and you know what’s gonna happen to you?”

“Who said anything about going after a cop?” I said. “I’m talking self-defense here.”

“You kill a cop, it ain’t gonna matter what you’re defending; they’ll hang your balls out to dry,” Chip said.

But the very next week, he showed up with an old .357 Magnum. I didn’t even ask where he got it. “Emergency use only, right bro?” he said, and I nodded. After he was gone, I took the clipping out of my dope box, wrapped them both in a T-shirt, and put the Nike box in the back of my closet.

Meanwhile, Monahan kept coming at me. I have to admit it wasn’t too hard to bust me for something back in those days. In fact, it was almost like a game I was playing. Or maybe I was just trying to feel for the edges of this thing I had gotten myself into, seeing how far he would go. Every night I went home and checked on my gun, made sure it was still there in the back of the closet. In the span of about a year, I got myself arrested for an OUI, illegal possession of pharmaceuticals, and receiving stolen property. And those were only the highlights.

Each time they threw me into lockup, they would taunt me. “Make sure you treat this one real special now, boys. We wouldn’t want him to break a nail or anything. Might haul us into court on police brutality.” Eventually, I just gave it back to them. “That’s right,” I’d yell. “My lawyer expects me to be treated real nice while I’m here.” I knew I was only making things worse, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. And besides, what was I going to do—break down and bawl like some little kid?

I spent so much time in juvey that sometimes when I woke up in my own bedroom, it was so quiet I thought I was going to explode. I can’t explain it, but it was like I was just waiting for what was going to happen next. Between the deadly quiet and Ma’s lectures, I’d almost rather be anywhere than home.

“Go ahead,” she’d say, filling the doorway of my room in her white uniform. “Give them another reason to arrest you, Cody. You’re only proving they’re right, you know. Go ahead.” She pushed her chin in my direction the way kids do when they’re challenging you to a fight.

By then I had gotten nicknamed “the Magnet.” Everywhere I went the pigs showed up. Eventually, people slammed the door on me when I tried to get into a party, and the only people who would even hang out with me were the project desperadoes—junkies and girls who’d blow you for five bucks—people so low that the cops can’t be bothered arresting them. And of course, O’Toole, my best friend since fourth grade. Even if I was the Magnet, Mike still invited me over to his apartment to smoke weed while his mother was at work. When we were really high, we would sit and stare out the window, and look for Monahan. He was never there, but Mike would point down the street and say, “Look, there’s his cruiser. I’d recognize it anywhere!” Or else I would look out on the one lonely tree in the courtyard, and pretend I saw his feet dangling from a branch. Then we’d laugh our asses off. To tell you the truth, those hours when Chimney and I were high out of our minds, playing Where’s Waldo? with Officer Monahan were the only times I really felt relaxed in those years. The only time I felt free of the two guys who were following me—one an asshole with a badge, the other one a dead man.

There’s no telling how long this might have gone on, or how soon I would have ended up facing adult charges, but one Saturday afternoon things came to a head. Picture it: I’m walking home from the store with a pack of butts, minding my own business, when I see this black BMW parked on the side of the road, the window open just enough. And right away, I’m aggravated. I mean, there is this guy with everything, a Bose player, a pile of discs laying all over the floor, leather seats—you know, the whole works. And he doesn’t care about any of it. It’s almost like he’s saying, here—take it; I don’t want it anyway. And being me, I can’t let him down. Not because I want his stupid box—I don’t. I don’t even have a car to put it in. And with all the addicts selling shit like that in the project, it’s not like I’m going to get any serious money for the thing. In the end, I guess the only reason I pulled that box out of the car was because the asshole who left it there deserved it. And like Ma, I believe in giving people what they deserve.

The crime was so easy I felt like I was sleepwalking. No rush at all. But as soon as I pull the box out and I’m standing there with it in my hand, this cruiser shows up out of nowhere. Like he was always there. Like maybe the whole thing was a setup—the open BMW, the box just waiting for me to grab it. And though I can’t see the cop’s face, I’m pretty sure it’s Monahan. I can feel those flat eyes on me, cutting through me like the siren as I run down the street, the useless piece of shit I had stolen slowing me down. My only advantages are that I’m on foot, and I know the neighborhood. But when I duck down the alley next to Our Lady of the Angels, the cruiser pulls over and I hear someone behind me. Hear their feet thumping like mine on the pavement. And then their breathing—heavy like mine. We’re both running so hard, I can almost hear his heartbeat in my ear. By then, I know it’s Monahan.

Even though the voice that is yelling for me to stop gets closer and closer, I’m surprised as hell when my face slams the pavement. All of a sudden Monahan is on top of me, screaming, cursing as loud as he can in my ear. But as close as he is, I can’t hear what he’s saying, can’t decipher the words. All I hear is my own heart; all I feel is the sudden gush of water on my face. At first, I think, Shit, what am I doing—crying? But then I taste it and realize it’s blood. Though I’m facedown in the alley, tasting dirt and looking at nothing but concrete, I can see Monahan’s face as clear as can be.

That’s why I can’t believe it when the guy pulls me to my feet and starts reading me my rights. And it’s not him at all. It’s this black cop I’ve never seen before in my life. When I realize he doesn’t know me, I tell him my name is Fred. Fred Monahan. It’s not like I even think about it. It just comes out.

So there I am, sitting in a cell again, staring at those cinder-block walls. Fred Monahan. The black cop comes in and tells Fred he can make a call, so I go to the phone and dial home. But while it’s ringing, I see what’s about to happen as clear as one of those psychics on TV. I see Ma dragging her tired ass out of bed because it’s not even noon yet. And then when she hears my voice, I see that disgusted look she’ll get. The way she kind of twists her mouth. “What the hell’ve you done this time, Cody?” she’ll say. Then she’ll tell me that she’s not coming down, that I can sit here and rot, even though I know she’ll be starting to wake up by then, running her fingers through her wiry hair, mentally adding up the money in her checking account to see if she can make bail.

Before any of this plays out, I slam down the receiver. “You got a phone book?” I say to the black cop. His name tag identifies him as Officer Wainwright.

“What—you forgot your mother’s number?” he asks.

“I don’t have a mother,” I tell him. “She died when I was five. Got stabbed by one of her Johns.” I figure if I’m making up a life, I might as well make it interesting.

Apparently I’ve done a good job because while I scan the phone book, Wainwright stands there watching me, his hands on his hips, like he finds me real fascinating. Or maybe he’s just wondering what I’m trying to pull. “Would you mind? I’d like a little privacy here,” I say. But the truth is I can’t believe I’ve got my finger on the number of my old English teacher. And that I’m actually thinking of calling him.

While I’m waiting for him to answer the phone, I’m wondering if the old man still remembers me. I mean, it’s pretty strange calling a teacher you had two years ago to bail you out of jail—even if he did show up at that dumb hearing. But who else am I going to call?

Anyway, Mr. Boyle practically hangs up on me when I ask him real politely if he’d mind coming down to the station and bailing me out. But I’m not surprised when he shows. I mean anyone who stands in front of a class and cries over people who don’t even exist has to be some kind of a sucker. Not that I care what the cops think, but it’s pretty embarrassing when the old man walks into the station with this fussy little white dog on a leash, wearing a pair of jeans that look like they’ve been ironed. Or when he pays my bail, counting out the bills like he’s in the checkout line at the grocery store. Wainwright looks from me to Mr. Boyle and back as if he’s wondering what the connection could possibly be.

And I’m wondering, too. I mean, it’s kind of awkward, the two of us just gawking at each other when I come out. After he pays, Mr. Boyle stares at me real hard for a minute. Then he turns and leads his little dog out. Not that I want a lecture or anything, but the guy doesn’t even say hello.

“Well, what are you waiting for? You’re a free man,” Wainwright says when I stand there like I don’t know what to do. “Until the next time anyway.”

By the time I hit the street, Mr. Boyle has a couple of blocks on me. It’s a pretty pathetic sight: a hundred-year-old man wearing ironed jeans and walking his little poodle through a neighborhood like ours; poor guy’s just asking for a mugging. I don’t know why, but I follow him. I mean, he could at least say something. Hi Cody, how you doing? Good Luck, with your court case … something.

When I run up behind him, he looks over his shoulder. “Good morning, Mr. Moran,” he says, the way he used to talk in class. Mr. Moran. Miss Phillips. Even the whores, he talked to like that.

So there I am, out of breath from chasing a guy who’s moving at nursing home speed, and I say, “I … I just wanted to thank you for coming down. And to let you know that you’ll get your money back. I’m not going to skip out or anything.”

That’s when he stops dead right in the middle of the sidewalk, takes off his glasses, and gives me a long look with his water-colored eyes. “It’s not my money I’m worried about, young man,” he says. Then he puts his glasses back on and resumes his walk.

Of course, I’m forced to follow him again, to find out what the hell that’s supposed to mean. When he asks me if I’d like to stop somewhere for a cup of tea, I tell him I’m not much of a tea drinker, but I wouldn’t mind a Coke or something.

Don’t ask me why, but the next thing I know there I am sitting in McDonald’s having a Coke with this English teacher who’s so old he probably knew Shakespeare personally. And to make it worse, I’m spilling everything—the whole story about the crime I didn’t commit and everything that followed. I even tell him about Monahan’s pebble-colored eves.

The only thing I leave out is the part about how Felipe Reyes looked at me that afternoon on the sidewalk. Believe me, I wanted to tell Boyle about it. Maybe being so smart, he could explain why the old man let me go. Why he looked right at me in the lineup and shook his head. But there are some things you just can’t tell anyone.

Anyway, all through the whole stupid story, Mr. Boyle’s studying me, the way he used to study those ancient plays. When I’m done, I figure he’s going to say something really deep like he used to say in class sometimes.

But instead, he just looks at me a while and says, “Well, Mr. Moran, it sounds like everything you touch turns to shit, doesn’t it?”

And I’m thinking—what the fuck? Does this old geezer think he’s cool or something, talking to me like that? I’m dehydrated as hell so I take a huge gulp of my Coke; then I get up to go.

“Thanks for the soda,” I say. “But I just thought of something I have to do. Some more shit I’ve got to get into.”

He lets me get all the way to the door before he says, “You can leave if you like, but it sounds like the way you’re living isn’t working out terribly well. Maybe it’s time to consider the alternative.”

All right, so he’s got my attention. And to tell you the truth, I’m pretty aggravated with the old man—even if he did just bail me out. “And what’s that?” I say, standing in the middle of this restaurant like a fool. “Going to church on Sunday? Running for student council, maybe? You don’t know anything about me, Mr. Boyle.”

He narrows his eyes like he did sometimes when he was reading a play out loud. “I know you better than you know yourself, Mr. Moran,” he says.

“Oh yeah—how’s that?” I say. By now I’m figuring this guy isn’t only deaf and blind; he’s senile, too.

“You have no idea how bright you are, for one thing,” he says. “Whereas I—I knew it the first day you walked into my classroom. Even before I went down to the office and saw it confirmed on your records.”

“Didn’t you hear a word I just said to you?” I say. “My problem is what’s happening in the neighborhood. All that school shit—those tests they do on you and all—that’s irrelevant.”

“I heard every word; it’s you who’s not listening, Mr. Moran,” Mr. Boyle says in that dramatic way he talks. “What I’m trying to tell you is that if the neighborhood is the problem, then maybe you need to remove yourself.”

“My family’s been in the Heights for twenty-five years,” I say. “Where the hell do you think we’re going to go?”

“Stop thinking so narrowly, Mr. Moran,” he says, repeating one of his favorite lines from class. “I’m not talking about a change of address, but a change of focus. For a start, I want you and your mother to make an appointment to meet with Miss Curtain. I’ll come, too, if you don’t mind.”

“Miss Curtain—my guidance counselor? What’s she going to do—call Monahan and ask him if he’d please leave her student alone?”

“Forget Monahan,” Mr. Boyle says with a wave of his hand. Like it’s that easy. “A change of focus means taking your mind off this Monahan character, and directing it toward your future.”

That’s when I know the old geezer is totally clueless. But for some reason, I don’t walk away. I sit there and listen to him talk about focusing on my strengths, and addressing my weaknesses. About college and scholarships and maybe getting a part-time job down at the Y where he knows the fitness director. I sit there and listen for close to an hour—almost like I believe this shit could actually happen. Mr. Boyle even says that if I make the effort, he’ll testify in my behalf when my court case comes up.

Since I’ve got nothing left to lose, I drag my mother out of bed a week later on Monday morning, and show up at this meeting he’s set up. Mr. Boyle thinks I’m all excited about this college thing, but that’s not it. I’m just wondering if what he says is true: If I stop thinking about Monahan so much, will he disappear? And if he does—what does that mean? Was he just a figment of my imagination all along?

Anyway, for a while, I really gave it a try. I kept both my focus and my body away from any place Monahan was likely to look for me—in the courtyard where the desperadoes hang out getting high, on the street, at parties; I didn’t even go to O’Toole’s apartment.

At first, Ma was suspicious as hell. “What’s this Mr. Boyle taking such a big interest in you for?” she’d ask. “Calling the house. Going for meetings with the guidance counselor … What does he want from you?”

But when she saw me working out, or studying at the kitchen table for the first time since sixth grade, she shut up. “Cody just needs to get one C up in Math, and he’ll be on the honor roll,” she bragged to her cronies in the parking lot. “His guidance counselor says if he can do that, he’ll get a scholarship for sure.”

If kids in the project didn’t want to know me when I was the Magnet, they wanted to know me even less when I became the Great White Geek. Only O’Toole came around, looking through my books for the homework papers, and holding them up like relics.

“You did this?” he’d say, looking at the neat rows of math problems like he couldn’t believe it.

Every now and then, to prove I wasn’t totally lost, I would smoke a bowl with him. Or maybe drink a couple of the beers he was always stealing from his drunk uncle. But for some reason, I couldn’t enjoy being buzzed anymore. Instead of relaxing me like it used to, it made me feel kind of edgy and nervous. The way I used to feel when I was waiting for Monahan to show up out of nowhere.

For a while things were so good that I started to believe that Mr. Boyle was right. Maybe I could be someone other than the person I was born to be. Maybe I didn’t have to be the Magnet. And even more amazing—for a couple of months, I didn’t see Monahan at all. I started thinking he had lost interest; maybe he was even bragging to his friends that he had “scared me straight.” There were days when I didn’t even think about him. Not once. But other nights, I’d wake up in my room, my heart pounding like it was the day that black cop chased me down the alley. And it was like Monahan was right there in the room with me, sitting on my chest. Sometimes I thought he was the only person who really knew who I was.

Then, a couple of months ago I get out of work, and I’m heading for Ma’s car in this dumb good mood when I spot Monahan’s profile in the cruiser. That sharp chin, kind of hunched-up shoulders. This time he didn’t send his buddies; it’s him.

So I walk real fast, trying to tell myself it’s a coincidence. Even though, deep down, I know there are no coincidences between Monahan and me. Never were. It’s not a coincidence when I see him three or four times in the next week, once parked outside of school, then just outside the entrance of the project, and finally near Mr. Boyle’s apartment when I stop in to visit him. And though I want to tell someone, I know there’s no use. Even when I didn’t see him, I knew he was there. Watching from someplace where I couldn’t see him. Waiting for that one moment when I would screw up. The moment he knew was bound to come.

And today was it. Payday. The day Monahan was waiting for all these months. It all started when O’Toole asks me if I want to shoot a few hoops on Station Avenue. But when I get there, he’s not on the court. He’s sitting in Chad Baldini’s car.

I have to get to work in an hour, but I figure what the hell; you can’t play the geek all the time. So we sit there for a while, smoking a couple of bowls, listening to some tunes, laughing about old times. Before I know it, I look at my watch and I’m fifteen minutes late for work. And I don’t know why, but I panic; I tell Chad he’s got to take me home right away. Then, when I realize he’s too messed up to drive, I take the wheel.

Maybe it’s the herb, but I feel like my whole life will be over if I don’t make it to this stupid job. So while we’re driving, I’m all revved up, cursing, practically riding on curbs. And when we get stuck in traffic, I yell out the window so loud I can feel every vein in my head.

O’Toole and Baldini are saying shit like, Calm down, man. You’re losing it. What’s wrong with you, Moran? But they don’t understand. They never did. It’s not the job; it’s getting out. Getting out.

So all right, maybe I’m speeding a little. Maybe I’m on edge. But when I came to the stop sign right before you turn into the project, I swear I looked. And it’s not like people actually stop at that corner anyway—not if it’s clear.

As soon as I saw the blue and white of the cruiser, I knew it was him. I mean, who else? And what’s more, I knew it was all over for me. Even before he dragged me out of the car, screaming all up in my face, I knew.

“You think you’re going to get away from me, Magnet?” he was saying. “You think you’re going to go to college? Well, it ain’t gonna happen; it’s never gonna happen.”

He said a lot of other things, too. But that was all I really heard, all I remember.

It was as if this whole dance we’d been doing these past couple of years finally put us face-to-face. For a minute, I thought Monahan was going to kill me right then and there he was so out of control. But instead he just threw me onto the hood of Chad’s Hyundai. “Go back to the Heights,” he said, spitting out the words.

 

 

By the time I got home, I was crazier than he was. I was kicking things, screaming, blubbering, saying the same shit over and over again no matter how hard my mother tried to calm me down. “Wherever I go, whatever I do, he’s gonna be there,” I scream. “Don’t you get it, Ma?”

At that point, I’m not sure whether I’m talking about Monahan, or just about old Mr. Reyes, the guy who’s been tracking me with his eyes ever since the day we knocked over his stupid cart. How can I explain that Monahan is the only one who really knows me? And like he says, I’ll never get away from it. Never. Anyway, it wasn’t like I expected my mother to understand. Not her or anyone else, either.

Eventually, I guess I wore myself out with all my yelling and throwing things around, busting stuff up. I went into my room and got real quiet. A couple of times, I felt Ma breathing outside my door. I felt how tired she was, how tired she’d been for years; her exhaustion was seeping right through the wood. I knew she wanted to come in, see if I was all right. But she probably figured it was best to leave me alone, let me get over this in my own time. And she was right. Besides, there’s nothing she could have done to change anything.

Anyway, I guess that’s why I wanted to get all this down. So Ma would know it’s not her fault. Not hers or O’Toole’s or Mr. Boyle’s, either. Not even Monahan’s. The first thing I did was go into my closet and make sure the gun was still there. After I pulled it out of the Nike box with the clipping about Mr. Reyes’s death, I laid them both on the bed beside me and sat down to write in this old school notebook.

Don’t call it a suicide note—just the story of what happened. Kind of like what happened to that dark old man the day we started circling his cart. Sure he could have run away. Spent his whole life running. But instead, he hunkered down over his little flame and waited, his eyes—los ojos—so black with sorrow that anyone who looked into them would be burned forever.