We Were Here: July 20–July 25

She’d pull me aside when I was on my way out the front door for school, or she’d grab Diego off me in the hall, screaming us down, but mostly she’d just try to bring it up all casual when we were sitting around the TV after dinner.

We get in these wild fistfights at the levee or wrestling matches in the backyard or Diego will pin me against the floor in the bathroom and try to make me say mercy...

But I can usually see it in her eyes: she’s genuinely scared about how we are with each other.

I kneeled next to Rondell and rolled his big head to the side a little so I could get my book, Of Mice and Men, out of his bag. Dude was so comatose he didn’t even change his breathing.

It was three hours into our walking before a stock-looking black car finally pulled to the shoulder in front of us and slowed to a stop. I was happy as hell too, ’cause the whole pedestrian thing was getting mad played out, but then Mong sort of hesitated.

Add to the fact we all had on the exact same stock sneaks, the same jeans, same black sweatshirts, same bag slung over the same shoulder.

He looked back at us all skeptical, then picked up his folder and started riffling through his papers again.

Rondell stared back at me, baffled, then turned to look at Mong. It was amazing, the guy genuinely had no idea what he’d done wrong.

We ducked into this perfect little crevice, between a few big boulders and the face of a rugged-looking dirt cliff that shot up over the sand about two times higher than my apartment building back in Stockton.

Mong just stared out at the ocean without blinking like he was meditating.

But there were two of them, still struggling through the air, scavenging for food or whatever.

At first the plan was to tell each other ghost stories ’cause it was so dark and eerie walking the long stretches of abandoned beach.

One day, Rondell told us, the cat lost its mind after seeing this one particular calico and started tearing around the house...

It ricocheted off a tree and somebody's awning...

It ricocheted off a tree and somebody's awning...

He catches a long toss from me, cups the football under his arm and points to this buoy floating out past the waves.

Start hyperventilating and reaching out for Diego’s shoulder and trying to keep my head above the water so I could breathe.
But he’s brushin’ my hand away, thrashing around to keep his nose and mouth up too.

By the way, everybody says L.A.’s supposed to be about movie stars cruising the streets with their agents and paparazzi hanging out of car windows snapping photos and models sipping tea at every café you go by.

Some guys had finesse, but others were big Shaq Diesel types who could toss somebody around without even trying.

But on the court? Nah, man, on the court Rondell was a damn ballerina. He was valedictorian.

The guy genuinely acted like I’d just done something special when really it was him the whole time. He’d single-handedly won the game for us.

Dull thud and more blood flying and his body sprawled across the asphalt on his stomach and then curling up.

As we were leaving sirens wailed in the distance, coming toward us, and this long lanky guy stepped in front of me and said: “Y’all got any transportation?”

Mong started clearing space for a makeshift barbecue pit, me and Rondell trying to help out but really just getting in the way.

We wadded up pieces of newspaper and scattered them in the hole, put the firewood on top of that and doused everything with lighter fluid.

“People spend so much time on trivial things they forget to look at the ocean. Look at it, Mexico.”

I pictured Diego’s lit-up face whenever he’d be reeling in a fish at the levee.

And then there’s nothing, just ocean and waves. Dark green and gray. Kelp floating in packs past the small swells.

There were even a few chicks in there getting their lift on. I watched this one burly blond woman doing curls and I felt like I was about to throw up.

All these people with bongos were gathering in the sand straight down the way from us, and this beat started growing, making this hypnotic rhythm.