We Were Here: July 26–The Walk Back to the Lighthouse

It was worse than a cliché. It was nothing.

I was just completely stuck in my breakthrough about nothingness with no idea what to do or think and Mong’s psycho smile somehow transferred onto my face.

“I think a lot of decisions are made that way, Miguel. People act on impulse. But, bro, sometimes spur-of-the-moment decisions don’t turn out to be so good.”

Little Mexican kids darted in and out of all the cars stuck idling in traffic, selling packs of gum and cigarettes and shaved ice and batteries.

The dirty streets and sidewalks. The mangy dogs laying along the sides of stock-looking buildings, sleeping.

And he had every kind of sun you could think of: big ones, little ones, smiling ones, laughing ones, mean ones. All of ’em made of orangish-brown clay and hung on a warped wall so you could get a good view as you sat in traffic waiting to get back to America.

’Cause if you watch you might jinx ’em, might make ’em lose. And if that happened you’d never forgive yourself.

“Miguel, my man, that’s in my all-time top five. Holden’s a trip, right? He says some pretty funny stuff about the people in his life. Ha ha! But at the same time, he’s really just a vulnerable, lost kid.”

I get to the living room and there it is: five guys holding back a crazed Rondell. His face contorted and neck veins bulging, arms and legs driving the pile forward like a running back.

His face so mangled and bloody I can barely make out features.

Big Mexican guy charges, throws a wild punch that glances off the side of Rondell’s face.

The Mexican guy swinging another wild right, but Rondell deflects it, grabbing the Mexican by his hair and head-butting him right in the face.

Rondell spinning and swinging fists at anybody, everybody. Including me. The speed and agility he had on the basketball court.

Me not thinking anything but diving at the guy, knocking the bottle from his hand. Wrestling to the ground, grabbing at each other in the scuffle, and somehow I’m smacking him in the chin with an uppercut and his head is snapping back.

It’s just Flaca and her four girls, running after us, bags flailing, their eyes wild with fear.

He pulled his bag out from under the dugout bench where we’d stashed ’em, but when he saw the look I was giving him he pushed it back under.

“And you got this look in your eyes, man.” I smacked him on the arm so he’d look at my impersonation of the psycho look on his face.

I unwrapped the bar of soap I’d picked up at a liquor store, and eased into the water on the shallow end, but it was way colder than I expected.

Anyways, I remember I was stressing the whole time I was on the bench waiting to play ’cause everybody else’s dad had on regular gym shorts and high-tops, but not my pop. He had on his damn army fatigues and work boots.

There was even this big controversy when me and him were checking in at the start of the second quarter.

Rondell started saying something else, about God or Jesus or the damn Immaculate Conception, but I didn’t hear a word.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, man, but lately I’ve been consumed with how fine some girls are.

I make up scenarios in my head and then play ’em out for mad hours, like they’re really happening.

I turned around, saw Rondell standing outside the store across the street, holding his clipboard, waiting for people to walk past so he could give them his magical pitch.

It didn’t seem like much when we first went up to it. The tree was scrawny as hell and barely had any leaves.

And the reason we’re laughing is ’cause we always mess around like this after school. It’s like our ritual.

I reach up, trying to pry his hands away from my head one finger at a time.

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.

“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.”

“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.”