Hector and Mando huddled together as they read the morning edition of The Fresno Bee. They were glowing and reading the “Today’s Youth” column for the fourth time. They read the inch-long paragraphs and had to agree that in the picture they looked handsome, standing nearly cheek to cheek and smiling for the camera.
“But we’re not A-average students,” Mando said. “I get mostly C’s.” Mando’s best subject was homeroom, but that didn’t count for much when grades were handed out.
“Yeah, maybe we’re not great students,” Hector agreed, “but you know we’re pretty smart.” He had accumulated a row of C’s and B’s year after year with a sprinkling of A’s, mostly in P.E. But his attendance was solid. He was sent off each day in an ironed shirt, his mother on the porch shouting, “You better behave yourself.”
Mando thought for a moment. He never considered himself dumb, just lazy. Also, there were too many brothers and sisters in his house. Three shared his bedroom that looked out onto the bar Under the Skies of Vera Cruz. “Yeah, maybe it’s our environment,” Mando said, echoing an article that he had read in the newspaper about why children do poorly in school.
“Yeah, we ain’t dummies.”
Uncle came out of the bedroom, rubbing his fists over his sleepy eyes. He yawned and asked, “What time is it?”
“Uncle we got a surprise,” Hector said. “Remember when we were at the newspaper office yesterday?”
“Yeah, what about it?” He retied his robe and staggered to the kitchen to put water on to boil for coffee.
“We were interviewed by the lady you like.”
Uncle’s interest perked up. Suddenly he wasn’t sleepy one bit. “Did you get her telephone number?”
“Whose number?” Hector said innocently.
“Don’t be a tonto. You know who,” Uncle said.
Uncle had been pestering the boys since the day before about Ms. Moreno. But Hector and Mando remained quiet about their interview in order to surprise Uncle. They wanted him to find out about the “Today’s Youth” column while he was grubbing on a plate of huevos con chorizo. No matter how much he grilled them, no matter how much he promised to buy them any CD’s they wanted, they wouldn’t crack. They kept saying, “Chill out, Unc, you’ll see tomorrow.”
Tomorrow arrived and the newspaper arrived, hurled on the wet grass by some guy on a motor scooter. Hector and Mando were in the public’s eyes, including Freddie Bork and Huey “Crybaby” Walker.
“No, we didn’t get her telephone number. We’re in her column ‘Today’s Youth.’ Here, look at it.”
“You’re in what?” He took the folded newspaper from Hector and shook it open.
“‘Today’s Youth,’” Mando said. “That’s a funny phrase. It should be ‘Today’s Vato Loco.’”
Uncle leaned against the kitchen counter and read the column, his lips moving over each word. When he finished, he scowled at the boys. “They published this?”
“It’s cool, huh?” Hector asked proudly.
“No, it’s not cool.”
“It’s not?”
Uncle rubbed his chin and returned to the kitchen when the kettle began to whistle and rattle. “No! It means that we’re a target.”
“A target?” Hector asked.
“You shouldn’t have said anything! Those thugs might come after us.”
“But there’s an article on the front page, too,” Hector said as he followed his uncle into the kitchen. Uncle took the newspaper from Hector, read about the armed robbery and almost jumped when he saw Hector, Mando, and himself named as eyewitnesses. Stewart was also mentioned, but only his first name.
“Hector, Mando!” he said as he slapped the newspaper. He looked vaguely around the room. “We’re in trouble. These guys are probably gonna come after us.”
Hector and Mando looked at each other. They hadn’t thought about the robbers. They had completely forgotten about them as they blabbed to the reporter. They were eager to get their faces and names in the newspaper—but they weren’t thinking of the obituary page.
When the telephone started to ring, the three of them jumped. They looked at each other, too frightened to answer it. They walked over and stared at the telephone.
“Should we get it?” Hector asked.
“No, just let it ring,” Uncle answered.
What if it’s the robbers? Hector wondered. He was suddenly sorry for blabbing to Ms. Moreno, but she’d seemed so nice. She had even given them each a ten-dollar food certificate for the McDonald’s on Shaw Avenue.
The phone rang four times before the answering machine kicked in. After Uncle Julio’s curt recorded message, a woman’s voice demanded, “Is Rick there? I wanna talk to Rick!”
Uncle laughed and said, “It’s Rick’s ole’ girlfriend. He got out of town when she started to get loca. You’ll understand one day.”
Uncle fixed himself instant coffee and told the boys to help themselves to cold cereal. Hector and Mando had already eaten, but if they hadn’t, they would have been too depressed to shove spoonfuls of Captain Crunch into their big mouths.
Uncle took his coffee to the couch. He asked, “So what’s Ms. Moreno’s first name?”
“Vicky,” Hector said. “I had a girlfriend named Vicky. But she spelled her name with an ‘i’ not a ‘y.’”
“Nah, you never had a girlfriend,” Uncle said, getting comfortable on the couch.
“I did, too,” Hector said and turned to Mando. “Huh, Mando.”
“Don’t remember.”
“You do too, man.”
“But what was my Vicky like?” Uncle asked, interrupting their argument. He blew on his coffee, took a sip, and waited to hear about her.
“She’s pretty nice, but she tricked us. She said she wanted to hear about us and the robbery,” Hector said.
“Did she say she was married?”
“No.”
“Did she say if she were going out with a dude?”
“No.”
“Did she tell you where she lived?”
“No.”
“Did she tell you anything?”
“No, we’re the ones who did all the telling.” Hector wasn’t feeling too good about blabbering. He asked his uncle if he and Mando could take a walk around the block.
“Okay, but don’t go far,” Uncle warned them. “I don’t want you two to get hurt. Your mom would kill me, Hector.” He took a sip of his coffee and said, “Vicky. That’s a nice name. Common sense name.”
Hector and Mando left the apartment, the collars of their jackets up like sails. The day was cold and the morning sun hung in the east behind a feathery fog. The trees hung with dew. The lawns were icy and carved up with bicycle tracks. They walked up the street in silence, their breath before them, white as a fistful of dirty cotton. They turned the corner and began to walk up a business street.
“Mando, when you get big, where would you like to live?” Hector asked.
“I wanna live near water. Maybe Hawaii.” They walked in silence, almost two blocks before Mando asked, “How ’bout you?”
“The moon,” Hector joked. “It’s safer up there.”
They stopped in front of a Denny’s Restaurant, where a row of newspaper racks stood. They stared at the front page of the newspaper. The headline screamed at them: ARMORED CAR ROBBERY. The smaller headline said EYEWITNESSES’ REPORT.
“Yeah, Uncle Julio’s right, Mando. We’re probably in big trouble,” Hector moaned. The last time they were in serious trouble was when they locked themselves out of Mando’s house and tried to get in by sliding down the chimney. But Mando got stuck. When the police and fire trucks arrived, gumballs flashing, they pulled him out and took the boys to a correctional center, where they were booked for breaking and entering.
That was two years ago. Now they were in Fresno, with their faces splashed on thousands of newspapers. Hector jumped at every honking horn or tire screech. It seemed to him that every car on the road was a blue Caprice with two thugs fondling handguns in their pockets.