Mexican WhiteBoy: List 1

Dressed in a well-worn Billabong tee, camo cargo shorts and a pair of old-school slip-on Vans, Danny Lopez follows his favorite cousin, Sofia, as she rolls up on the cul-de-sac crowd with OG swagger.

He’s trying to suck back into his shell, like a poked and prodded snail.

Angela and Bee comb Danny over with their almond-shaped eyes, devour his out-of-place surfer style like a pack of rabid dogs.

Uno steps up to the makeshift home plate again, an overturned metal trash can lid, and waves a duct-taped bat through the strike zone.

The tennis ball’s headed straight for Big Raul’s open mitt, a baby-fat seventeen-year-old rap wanna-be from down the block, when his best friend and biggest nemesis, Lolo, swoops in at the last second and snatches it with a bare hand.

He’d be toweling off after a shower, and he’d stare at his upper half—seemingly overnight he’d gone from skinny-ass mess-up to a six-foot-two seventeen-year-old with crazy cuts.

Chico makes his way back into pitching position, impatiently watches as Uno leads his little bro through an elaborate home run handshake.

“You ever think maybe today’s my day?”
Uno scoffs, looks back at Chico, who shrugs.

Lolo stands up straight, throws a dirt clod at Chico, who ducks at the last minute.

Then he turns around and haphazardly tosses the next pitch.

The ball soars high into the air. All the guys on the lawn crane their necks as they wait for it to finally start dropping back down to earth. When it does, they jockey for position.

Uno’s already stepping forward with all his weight, delivering an overhead right that smashes flush into Danny’s face.

But he doesn’t know if he’s hurt yet. Doesn’t know if he’s awake. He hears people above him. Sees their images. Muddled voices and shadows moving around above.

The warm liquid running down his neck. Sweat? Blood? Running into his mouth. Salty. Smell of copper. Pooling under his matted hair.

But then a week later he gave some frat dude a beat-down outside the Horton Plaza Mall. Gave him a nasty gash under his left eye, dislocated his jaw. A couple security guards caught the tail end of the altercation, rushed the scene and contained them both until the cops showed.

Senior’s a distinguished-looking, reformed-gangster type.

Keeps his salt-and-pepper crop cut close to the scalp, his silver sideburns and goatee meticulously sculpted.

“The American aristocrat. You ever heard that word, Uno? Aristocrat?”

I got all kinda bookshelves in my house. Filled to the capacity with books.

Uno’s mind is a mixed bag as he veers right on Twenty-eighth St., heads toward Las Palmas Park.

He was always on the outside at Leucadia Prep, but it didn’t get more outside than having to watch the varsity baseball squad take the field without him. Daily. While he stood on the wrong side of the chain-link in his generic private-school uniform: white short-sleeved collared shirt tucked into pleated khakis, navy blue tie knotted at the neck and falling toward the school-emblem buckle of his belt.

He lit up the radar with his fastball, sure, but he couldn’t put it where he wanted. Not the greatest situation when you consider Leucadia Prep baseball was perennially top ten in the state.

They opened their eyes a little wider, folded up well-worn newspapers and set aside Styrofoam cups full of sunflower seed shrapnel.

And when his grandma passes out homemade tortillas, hot off the griddle, she does it based on family rank. It’s a subtle and unspoken ranking system, but one each and every person in the house understands.

That’s when he wishes he didn’t get such good grades. When he wishes he lived even closer to the border than they did, in a one-room shack in the worst barrio this side of Tijuana.

But at the same time, he bets they subconsciously resent him, too.

But at the same time, he bets they subconsciously resent him, too.

Take two Mother’s Days ago when Uncle Tommy pointed to a line in the sports page and said, “What’s this mean, Danny? ‘H-o-l-i-s-t-i-c-a-l-l-y'?”
“Holistically,” Danny fired back (he was still talking at that point). “Since the Padres are so young this year, the writer’s urging fans not to get caught up in wins and losses but to consider the bigger picture.”

“Now, your mom and I figure it’s only right to give you some time to mull things over. We’ve just thrown you guys a pretty good curveball, right, Danny?”

“But do understand,” Wendy said, “if things work out between Randy and me, we’ll be—honey, I’m not being too presumptuous, am I?”
“Baby, you’re not being presumptuous enough. We’ll be a family. Plain and simple. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”