Je’sus
by Tim Weaver
I don’t know if I would have made it through high school without my friend Jeśus. Maybe it’s the same for everyone at that age, but it seemed like some people were out to get me for no reason at all. I guess it didn’t help things much that I was one of three white kids in a nearly all-Hispanic school. Freshman year I got jumped a total of six times before I started learning my way around the school. I survived that first year by ducking, hiding, and running away from guys who were bigger than me. Everything about the school was bigger than me, in fact. There was a huge banner that hung over the main entrance of the building that read: “Welcome to All Saints: the Largest High School in Los Angeles County.” The claim was true; at least according to the Internet.
When we first moved here I remember when we drove by the school. The practice field where all the sports teams meet was surrounded by this huge thirty-foot stonewall. I stared at it and thought it looked just like a prison yard. Some of the students acted like it was. The worst of all of them was Luis Gutierrez.
During summer school, Luis got into so much trouble that he was suspended for the first week of school when it began. Even though he was only 16, he had already been arrested so often that he could legally be charged as an adult. Luis hated school more than anyone and he made sure that everyone else suffered right along with him. Especially me.
The first time I pissed off Luis was in Mr. Longworth’s European History class the first day of my sophomore year. We were having a class discussion about the fall of the Roman Empire. Now, I don’t usually volunteer to speak up but I love history. It’s one of my biggest hobbies and I’ll read about it even outside of school. If I can ever find a girl that’s a huge history buff, I’ll be in business. Mr. Longworth finished his lecture and then asked for somebody to start the discussion. Nobody said anything. Had there been crickets in the room, the chirping probably would have sounded like a bombs going off.
“Anyone? Anyone at all…”
I looked around and saw nobody else making a move, so I finally raised my hand.
“Yes. In the brown shirt there. Mister…”
“Robert Calloway.”
“Mister Robert. How would you explain the collapse of the Empire?”
“Well, there were a lot of reasons, but I guess the main one would be that they simply got too big. There was no way that the Romans could manage all of the territory that they had conquered over the years. All of those people needed things and eventually all of the resources got dried up because the Empire was stretched too thin. They ran out of money because they got greedy and tried to control too much land.”
I felt satisfied with my answer but somebody disagreed.
“That’s BULLSHIT. What are you some kinda fucking retard?”
The voice had come from the back of the room and the entire class turned to see who was responsible for the outburst. Luis was sitting in the corner desk, furthest away from the front of the room and the blackboard. He was wearing a baggy red shirt and black jeans and his pudgy, brown face was sneering at me. A shiver ran up my back.
“Well that’s quite an insightful remark, Mr. Gutierrez. Would you care to elaborate on it?” Mr. Longworth groaned.
“Yeah. This kid’s a history retard who doesn’t know shit about history.”
“Duly noted. Now, would you care to offer your own theory, or would you like to just continue sitting in the back of my class, chewing gum and wasting our precious time and oxygen?
The class laughed which broke some of the tension. I tried to laugh too, but not very loud because I didn’t want to piss him off. Luis leaned back in his desk and he blew a bubble with his gum then popped it.
“Yeah I know what happened.”
“Well, by all means enlighten us. Preferably sometime before the prophecy is fulfilled and the Empire returns.”
“They got soft. That’s why they collapsed. It wasn’t cuz they conquered too much land or ran out of money. It was cuz they stopped kicking ass and taking names and started helping the people they just conquered. Now, if they had just stuck to war and taking the peoples gold and shit, they woulda been just fine. But when they started feeding everybody and building roads, that’s when they fell off. Them Romans was killers. They shoulda just stuck to what they was good at.”
“Interesting theory. Mr. Robert, would you care to retort?”
I froze. Normally I love to debate history, but arguing with this thug who was three times bigger than me and already had a rap sheet wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
“Uhhhm. I don’t know. I guess that could be what happened.”
“No SHIT that’s what happened.” Luis snapped. “You a pussy, you know that? Soon as anybody disagrees with your theory you back off it just cuz you don’t want any drama. You gotta stick to your point, you pussy. People like you is the reason we’re losing the war.”
As angry as I was, I was still more afraid of him. So I balled my hands into fists inside my jacket and furrowed my eyebrows. But that only made things worse.
“Who YOU lookin hard at?”
Luis had been wearing a black durag on his head but as he said this he yanked it off and stood up from his desk, revealing a clean-shaven head. His eyes were dark and shining like those wild animals eyes that you see in night vision. I stayed in my seat and tried like hell not to visibly shake. Luckily, Mr. Longworth intervened.
“Alright, alright, enough. Can’t we have one class discussion that doesn’t end in a felony assault case?”
Luis spit on the wood floor and then put his durag back on before he sat back down in his seat. “Whatever. Pussy.” Once he was back at his desk I realized that I had been holding my breath. I wasn’t sure how long I hadn’t been breathing but I felt like I was suffocating so I exhaled deep and tried to relax.
“Now, does anyone else have a theory to offer?”
“Maybe if the Romans had Luis they never would have gone soft and they would still be around today.”
There were a few nervous giggles at first and then the entire class erupted into laughter, even Luis. Mr. Longworth smiled and walked over to a desk in the front row and stood over the student who had made the comment. The kid was wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans and he was flashing a brilliant white smile.
“Excellent idea, Jeśus. But, barring having Mr. Gutierrez in a Roman cape and brandishing a short sword, how do you think they could have survived?”
“I don’t think they would have. It was an inevitable decline, for a lot of reasons like Mr. Robert said earlier. But I would add that the collapse was really spurred on by a morality crisis. I mean they just went off the deep end. Bread and circuses, bathhouse orgies, feeding people to lions, it was crazy and they knew it. The empire collapsed because it needed to.”
“Very well said, Mr. Ramirez. If I had a little gold star or a smiley face to bestow, you certainly would have earned it.”
“Thanks.”
Luis mouthed off again in the corner.
“Pussy ass gold stars.”
The bell rang, signaling the end of the period. We all jumped up from our desks and made a B-line for the door. Mr. Longworth called after us that the discussion would continue tomorrow. After I made it through the doorway, I jogged up the hall partly to catch up with Jeśus and partly to get away from Luis. Just when I caught up to him, Jeśus turned around and shook my hand.
“Hey, I’m Jeśus.”
“I’m Robert. Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
“That was awesome, man. I don’t know anyone our age who knows that much about history.”
Jeśus smirked. Luis walked by and shot the two of us a cold look. Jeśus shook his head.
“Don’t you have puppies to be kicking or something?”
“Oh shit that’s right.”
Luis ran off down the hall. I don’t know if he actually had an appointment to abuse small dogs, but I didn’t really want to know anyway.
“What’s his problem?”
Jeśus shrugged.
“I dunno. He used to be cool but then his parents split up and since then he’s been a little bit crazy loco. Anyway yeah you should hang out at my house after school. My old man has a whole volume of books on Rome, I think you’d dig it.”
“Cool.”
And that was that. I had never been to any parties my freshman year, but Jeśus invited me to all of the most happening events. He had house parties almost every weekend and they were the most awesome things I had ever seen. There were couples making out in every room, alcohol that never seemed to run dry, and best of all, there was never any drama. People just seemed to gravitate toward Jeśus and they all got along. Not long after, I learned he was probably the most popular kid in school. But he wasn’t like most popular crowd people who act like dicks and/or bitches to everyone else; he made friends with everyone. Even though he was into rock, he hung out with the hip-hop crowd, the jocks, the nerds and even the Asians. Nobody was excluded.
Of course I couldn’t be around him 24-7 and every time I was on my own, somehow Luis would find me. Between periods in the halls, after school in the parking lot, during the weekends at the movies, he was everywhere! It got to the point that I expected to see his face when I woke up in the morning.
Jeśus told me just to ignore him and eventually he’d go away, but it was hard when him and his crew of Neanderthals seemed to be everywhere I turned. When they weren’t beating the shit out of me or some other poor sap, they would get high in Luis’ black Escalade and rap about immigration reform. He would even ride by Jeśus’ house while he was jamming on his guitar, and he would blast his rap out of his speakers to throw off Jeśus’ rhythm and then throw gang signs. Eventually I learned to listen for the rumble of his Escalade’s engine and I could hide when I heard it coming. But sometimes he just came out of nowhere.
2
I remember it was a really hot day early in October. It was 96 degrees on top of a smog alert, so breathing was pretty much unbearable. During second period I got up and excused myself to get a drink of water. I walked down the hall to the bathroom and turned on the faucet, then started splashing cold water on my face. When I was done cooling myself off, I looked up into the mirror over the sink. I could see the reflection of the stall doors in the glass. They were painted a dark red and all of them were sealed shut. But as I was wiping the beads of water from my face, I saw the middle stall door slowly swing open and Luis came stumbling out. His pants were unzipped and he was holding them up with one hand and carrying a bottle in a brown paper bag in the other. When he saw me, he wiped sweat off his forehead and smiled.
“Is that you white boy?”
“Uh…”
“Yeah, that’s you alright.”
Luis smirked and took a long swig from his paper bag then pitched forward to the sink. He smelled like the inside of a bottle of Tequila that has been sitting in the sun for seven hours. Luis leaned over the sink next to mine, bent at the waist, and groaned. He reached up and turned the faucet on and held his bald head under the running water. It was an opening to run away. I looked at the bathroom door and estimated it was about fifteen feet away. I figured I could make it in a dash if I did it without any warning. Luis seemed to notice me eying the door and he chuckled.
“Haha. Don’t worry, white boy. It’s too damn hot today for me to be fuckin with you. I’m too drunk. You don’t know me when I’m drunk, I’m a totally different person. I’m like a split personality, you know?”
“I guess.”
He opened his mouth like he was going to vomit but then held back and took several deep breaths.
“Man it’s even too hot to puke today. It ever get this hot in Minnesota?”
“I’m from Wisconsin.”
“Same difference.”
Luis chuckled and finally reached down to zip up his pants, then splashed some more water on his face. With his other arm he held out his brown paper bag to me.
“You want some Tequila, cheese-face?”
“Cheesehead. We’re called cheeseheads.”
“That’s what I said. You wanna drink or not?”
I knew it was a trick. It had to be a trick. For all I knew, he might have put acid in the bottle and I’d spend the next 5 hours pacing around the bathroom, freaked out of my mind. But something told me that he was being sincere. There was a window right behind me and the sun was coming in down on my shoulders, hard. I could feel little drops of sweat forming on my forehead already. Suddenly a drink didn’t seem like a bad idea.
“Well, I guess it is too hot to go through the whole day sober.”
“There you go. There you go.”
I quickly snatched the bag from him and then took a step back, out of striking distance. Luis laughed and shook his head and slapped his hands on his thighs. The clapping noise they made echoed through the small bathroom, making it sound like a whole auditorium of people applauding.
“God damn you’re like the most skiddish mu-fucker I ever seen.”
“Well, you have tried to break my ribs twice this week.”
Luis furrowed his eyebrows and titled his head at me.
“Did I for real?”
“Um. Yeah.”
“How bout that. I don’t remember that shit.”
“Well you did.”
Luis just shrugged and I so tipped my head back and took a gulp of Tequila. Instantly, my tongue and lips and throat burned, and I coughed.
“Woah that’s strong!”
“White boys can’t jump, and they can’t drink either. But I can teach you. I can get you fuuuuuuucked up the right way, you know what I mean?”
“No.”
“Let me ask you something- since you’re all buddy buddy with Jeśus and shit. Has he ever gotten you drunk? Huh? Has he gotten you laid yet?”
“No, not really.”
“Sheeit, you see? What kinda friend is that? If you were hanging out with me and my boys, we’d get you drunk, we’d get you blazed, and you’d be fucking junior girls in no time at all.”
“Really?”
“Yeah man!”
Luis took the bag from me and chugged at it. He sighed and smacked at his lips when he was done. Then, he handed the bottle back to me and I looked in to see that half of the liquor was gone already.
“Wow. You drank all this by yourself?”
“Hell yeah all by myself. And it ain’t even 10:30 yet.”
Luis giggled and then took the bottle back from me again.
“You’re crazy, man.”
“Yeah, I know.”
And then Luis lurched forward and punched me in the stomach. I fell to my knees instantly and the Tequila that had just gone down came back up.
“Uggh. That’s nasty, dawg. You really shouldn’t drink so much. Gotta learn your limits.”
Luis laughed and hopped backwards so that none of my vomit would get on his kicks. He kept peddling backwards until he bumped into the door and then turned and left. I could still hear him laughing in the hallway once the door shut. It took me nearly five minutes to get myself together and I managed to pull myself up by the windowsill. I stared out into the south lot where the students parked their cars. In the third row on the left, I spotted a familiar black Cadillac Escalade gleaming in the sun and I smiled.
Finally, I turned away from the window and started walking towards the door. That’s when a janitor walked in. He was wearing a faded blue uniform, and he was carrying a mop in his arm and a scowl on his face. I looked down and tried to walk around him, but he grabbed hold of my arm.
“Just a second there kid.” He brought his face close to mine and he sniffed. “You’ve been drinking, I can smell it on you.”
The janitor pulled me aside and he spotted the little yellow pile of vomit on the floor and he groaned. His eyes were blue and tired looking and he looked at me with them like I had just ran his kitten over with a tractor-trailer.
“Oh come ON. Do you know how long it takes me to clean these bathrooms, huh? Do you think I want to clean up your puke? You think I do this in my free time just because I enjoy it that much? You think I collect puke trading cards? Mickley Mantle, Henry Aaron, and Your Fuckin Puke! Huh?”
“No! I… wait what?”
“Put a sock in it. I’m taking you down to 111.”
“But it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t even my liquor, it was Luis Gutierrez! I swear!”
“If I had a penny for every time I heard one of you punks say it was Luis Gutierrezesez’ and not mine, I would have a mop made of solid 24 karat gold that would clean the floors all by itself. Now move your ass.”
He took me by the arm down to room 111, which was the principal’s office. I was suspended for two days for being intoxicated on school grounds. And of course when my parents found out, they didn’t believe my story. My dad grounded me for a week. After a few days he calmed down enough to actually listen to me and I was able to convince him that Luis was the reason I got into trouble. Thankfully, mom convinced him to go with me to see the principal. Once Mr. Raundhauser got it clear that I was really in danger, he promised that if Luis laid another finger on me, he would be expelled permanently. It was a huge relief. In fact it was so great that I was able to enjoy a little payback with impunity.
One day I cut my fifth period Biology class and went out into the lot. I snuck up to Luis’ car and I keyed a series of X’s and fuck you’s into his ride. He went ape-shit when he saw it and Luis knew it was me that had done it, but he couldn’t do anything about it. It was sweet.
3
The party after the Day of the Dead talent show is the huge first party of the year. Every year after the show, we all meet up in the south lot around midnight, when all the teachers and security people are gone. Then we all park in this big circle in the lot and get drunk, barbeque, eat tons of candy and play a soccer game. The party lasts all night. My sophomore year was the first and last time that I went. I had a bad feeling about it from the start, but Jeśus kept insisting that I needed to go.
“Dude, everybody goes to this thing. It’s gonna be a blast, what are you worried about?”
“Is Luis gonna be there?”
“Yeah, probably. But so what? I’ve got your back and even though Luis may act like he wants to get expelled, his dad will whip his ass raw if he does and Luis knows it. He won’t do anything as long as you don’t provoke him.”
“Yeah but, I dunno.”
“What? Why would he just flip out?”
I hadn’t told Jeśus about what I did to Luis’ car but I suspect that he knew. Either way, he wouldn’t have approved.
“He’s just crazy! That’s what he does.”
“Look, he won’t do anything. Just relax. Believe me, his dad put the fear of God in him after he got suspended for that first week.”
“That’s kinda messed up. His dad will really beat him?” Jeśus nodded. “Not really a surprise, but still. My old man will yell a lot but he’s never hit me. What about yours?”
“What?”
“Has your dad ever done anything like that?”
“No. He never beat me up.”
“Never yell either?”
“Nope. He’s actually pretty laid back once you get to know him.”
“What is he like a tree-loving hippy or something?”
“Something like that. Anyway, so you’re gonna come to the party?”
“Yeha I guess.”
“Cool. So what you gonna go as?”
So I ended up buying some white face paint and some fangs and went as a vampire. Jeśus had this whole Jedi getup with a long brown robe and a plastic lightsaber on his belt. Even I called him a dweeb when I saw it. Jeśus just laughed it off. He could get away with doing nerdy things like that, I couldn’t. Anyway the talent show went off great and Jeśus got a huge ovation for his song. When it was over, we went back to his house for a few hours to eat fish sticks and drink Sangria. We showed up at around a quarter till midnight and the parking lot was already about half full. There were dozens of kids already huddled around grills, drinking and chatting in their ghost costumes, Frankenstein outfits, and Dick Cheney masks. Jeśus pulled his Prius into the northeast corner and parked. Then we got up on the hood of his car and started drinking our bottles of Sangria. On the other side of the lot, there was a group of guys piled around Luis’ Escalade. They were pitching dice, passing blunts and yelling out numbers that I didn’t understand. Luis stood off to the side in his skeleton costume, manning his grill with a big two-pronged fork, and every few minutes he looked up from his sizzling hot dogs and stared at me.
Jeśus nudged me in the ribs.
“Hey man. Check this out.”
Jeśus shouted across the parking lot.
“Yo Luis!”
Luis looked up from his grill and looked. Jeśus cupped his hands over his lips and mouthed the words “I love you” and then made a kissing motion.
Luis shook his head angrily and muttered something that I couldn’t make out because he was standing about fifty feet way. Jeśus started giggling and I did too. Then I started giggling the way that turns you red in the face and takes your breath away and you have to stop laughing because your abs hurt too much.
“I can’t… I can’t stop laugh…” Jeśus was doing it soon, too. “Did you see the look on his face? Did you see it? The look?” When he could finally stop laughing and breathe again, Jeśus sipped his wine and wiped with the sleeve of his brown robe.
“Like flaming coals, man.”
Jeśus gulped down the last of his bottle and set it down on the hood. A second later, a soccer ball came flying out of nowhere and knocked the bottle off the car, sending it rattling across the lot. Some English kid’s voice came from behind us.
“Oh my bad. I was aiming for your head, Jeśus.”
I twisted my neck to look and I saw a tall black kid wearing a green soccer uniform staring at us. His leg was still extended out like somebody had snapped his picture in the middle of his kicking the ball. He had those super long knee-high white socks on with black cleats and behind him there were two guys and a girl dressed pretty much the same. Slowly, he brought his leg back down to the ground and then he walked up to the Prius.
“So you ready to lose again, Ey-Zoos?”
Jeśus smirked and shook the guy’s hand.
“It’s gonna be different this time, Justin.”
“Oh yeah? What’s the big surprise this time, then? Got Clark Kent to sign up?”
Jeśus patted my shoulder with his hand.
“Sitting right here next to me. I’d like to introduce you to Robert Calloway; the Minnesota Youth 2005 Soccer Player of the Year. He’s my wingman.”
I felt a cold chill come over me, and I wasn’t sure if it was a gust of Halloween wind or the fact that I hadn’t played soccer since kindergarten dawning on me. Justin stepped around the hood of the car and stared me up and down then shook his head.
“Ee doesn’t look like much to me.”
The school’s soccer captain snapped his fingers and his trio of teammates came over and inspected me.
“Well, Robert. I’m Justin, this ‘ere is Guillermo, Jose and Tracy. And we’ll be stomping you into the blacktop tonight.”
“Uh. Ok.”
All four of them laughed and then strutted out into the middle of the lot. They played hacky-sack with the soccer ball like it was natural to them. Jeśus chuckled, and then shook his head.
“Don’t worry about them man. They’re amateurs.”
“Uhm, I don’t know how to play soccer. They’re on a team and it looks like they practice five hours a day.”
“So what? We can still beat them.”
“I mean I don’t even know the rules, I have no idea how to go out there and…”
“Kick the ball into the goal and don’t touch it with your hands. Got it?”
“No, but yeah, but I mean, we only have two people. Where are we gonna find?”
Jeśus cut me off and he stood up on the roof of his car. He put his hand up over his eyes as if the sun was shining, then he scanned the crowd for suitable teammates. After a few seconds he spotted a pair of scrawny freshmen playing basketball on the hoop on the far side of the lot. Jeśus whistled to get their attention.
“Hey you two!” They stopped dribbling and turned towards him.
“What?”
“Come be on my soccer team.”
The freshmen looked at each other and shrugged, then dropped their basketball and came over. Jeśus stood us all in a line, looked us over once then smiled.
“Ok, we’re ready. Yo Justin! Set up the goals!”
They set up two pairs of orange cones at either end of the lot, about a third of the size of a regular football field. Then we all huddled in the middle and Justin explained the rules.
“Cheerio, chumps. Eers ow it goes. Four men and/or women to a team, first team to three goals wins, cars on either side are out of bounds. Got it?”
Me and the two freshies nodded dumbly and then retreated to our end of the field. Somebody blew a whistle and the game began. On the first play, the girl Tracy knocked me to the ground and then went in to score a goal easily.
Luckily, Jeśus was fired up so he didn’t need us to do much. The wine working in his gut, the fact that he’d lost two years in a row to these guys and the goal they scored so easy had pushed him into another gear. Even though he was only wearing sandals beneath his Jedi robes, he weaved effortlessly between Guillermo and Jose, then faked Tracy nearly out of her socks at mid-field and kicked a goal past Justin. If that wasn’t good enough, he did the exact same thing on the next play. One more to go.
But the soccer nerds were not about to go down that easily. Justin called timeout and cursed his team for about a whole minute, I think. I couldn’t really understand a word that he said. When we started again, they double-teamed Jeśus every time that he touched the ball. I was open and he tried to kick it to me, but Justin came out of nowhere and head-butted it down the field, then he kicked up a cloud of dust to dispatch the freshmen and scored a goal. He held his hands over his head.
“One more for the gipper, there. Right right.”
Jeśus called a timeout and came running over to me.
“I want you to run for the goal.”
“What?”
“They’re gonna double team me as soon as I get the ball, so the second before I do, I want you to run straight at the goal. I’ll kick it right there before they get to me, and all you have to do is knock it in with your head.”
“But… I…”
“Just do it. Stop thinking so much. You’re two inches taller than their goalie, there’s no reason you can’t.”
“I guess.”
So we got back onto the field. There were a million things that could have gone wrong during the play that Jeśus had planned. But the one that did, I don’t think even he could have anticipated.
As soon as the game got tied, everyone turned their attention to us playing. The entire lot had become a circle of drunken, awe-struck, teenaged soccer fans. For the first time I could see why they were so into it. Every inch of my body was covered in sweat. My muscles were aching from the cheap wine and the running, but I didn’t feel a thing. There was nothing else in that moment except the game. In my peripheral, I saw a couple of junior girls dressed as playboy bunnies watching intently. I needed to score this goal. This was one of those moments.
One of the freshmen in-bounded the ball to the other and the soccer pros went to swarm him. Just before Guillermo and Jose could pounce on him, he kicked it over to Jeśus. While the ball was half way there, rolling along the ground, I started running for the goal. I kept my head turned to the left to see what was happening and let my feet carry me forward. Two flashes of green rushed over to Jeśus, who held the ball under his foot to stop it. Then he lifted it up into the air and jumped. In mid-air, he twisted his body upside down and kicked the ball high into the air. I followed it with my eyes and didn’t take my eye off for a second. The swirling sphere of black and white flew down the field like a high arcing rocket. Justin advanced a few feet from the cones to intercept and we both jumped at the same time. Even the hairs standing on our heads seemed to reach out for the ball. But just as Jeśus predicted, I was taller and so I was able to make it there first.
The ball bounced off the top of my head and sailed over Justin’s, then landed right between the two orange cones. I came down and shouted. “Yeesssssssssssssss!” I pumped a fist into the air and roared. I had never felt so alive until that moment.
And then I saw where the ball was headed.
There was nothing to catch the ball once it had gone through our makeshift goals: no net, no wall, nothing. A few kids had been running after the ball and returning it to us after goals were scored. But in all of the excitement of the final play, somebody forgot to catch it. The innocent black and white circle of rubber kept bouncing along freely, headed right towards Luis and his grill. I saw it happening and I couldn’t stop it. I froze with my hands in the air like I’d been caught red-handed by an LAPD searchlight.
The ball crashed into Luis’ grill and toppled it over. Hot dogs were freed from the fire and went rolling along under the cars parked nearby. Red, glowing coals were spilled out and several people leapt out of the way to avoid getting burned. Luis flung himself backwards too, and then when he got up he started screaming.
“WHAT THE FUCK? WHO THE FUCK?”
Then he turned and saw me still in my victory pose, my fists raised in the air, and a huge smile on my face.
“Oh shit.”
Luis glanced down at the soccer ball that had come to rest by his feet then he glared at me. He reached down and punctured the ball with his grilling fork. The ball popped, like a clap of thunder and little strings of black and white fluttered down all over the parking lot. Luis then turned to me and for the first time since I met him, he spoke in a soft voice.
“You’re dead.”
I ran faster than I ever knew I could. Adrenaline will do that for you. What it will not do is make up for the fact that sometimes, the guy chasing you is nearly a foot taller and has a much longer stride. Adrenaline also doesn’t know if you’ve been playing street soccer for half an hour after drinking a bottle of wine. Adrenaline has its limits.
But I still ran. I had no idea where to go, all I knew was that a steaming locomotive of machismo rage was chasing me with a pitchfork and I needed to get away. I didn’t dare to turn my head to see how close he was, but I could hear his black and white and red Nikes slapping on the blacktop, getting closer with each stride. At the west end of the lot there was a six-foot stainless steel fence that separated school grounds from the Ralph’s parking lot next door. Even though I had never climbed one before in my life, I scrambled up the chain link fence in less than three seconds. I came down awkwardly on the other side and I felt something in my right ankle snap. But I kept running, even in pain.
Behind me I heard something metal hit the ground with a clang. I turned for a brief moment and saw that Luis had tossed his pitchfork over the fence and was climbing over himself. I ran towards the entrance of Ralph’s, hoping that there would be security cameras or something that would save my ass. My ankle, my whole body in fact, never let me get that far.
I started feeling my lungs burning with each breath. I was huffing and puffing and stumbling forwards more than I was actually running. My legs felt like they were on fire, my sides ached, and I felt like if I took another step I would collapse. In the middle of the lot I found a red Jeep parked. I decided to use it as a buffer. If I could get around to the other side, I could keep running around it to keep him away from me until help arrived.
When I reached the Jeep, I grabbed on to the passengers side door to prop myself up because I was so out of breath. I didn’t have time to catch it. Suddenly, the glass of the car door shattered. Some of it flew up and cut me over my eyebrow. Blood trickled down into my eye, so I held my hand over it and bent at the waist. On the ground I saw the double-pronged pitchfork that Luis had thrown at me and had broken the passenger’s side window. I started to reach down to grab it, when a freight train slammed into me from the side.
Luis had been running full speed and he sandwiched me between his 250 plus pounds and the Jeep. I crumpled down to the ground, then curled into the fetal position, and held my hands over my head. Luis rained blows down on my back and my head and my neck. His kicks and punches were not like they had been each time he’d beaten me before. This time they had the force of a hurricane behind them. He was trying to kill me by beating me to death with his bare hands. Luis did not say anything, he only grunted with each blow he landed. I only saw glimpses of his skeleton hands coming down to strike me, flashes of his shoes crashing into my face. Again I tried to grab the fork but Luis stomped on my hand and I pulled it back in and cradled it.
I started crawling underneath the Jeep to get away from him and meanwhile I feebly called for help.
“Help.”
Luis could no longer reach my head so he started kicking at my legs; covering them with golf-ball sized purple bruises. He shouted.
“Where you crawling you pussy? Huh? WHERE YOU GOIN?”
I felt his hands grab hold of my legs and I tried to kick him off but I didn’t have the energy any more. I reached up with my battered hands and grabbed the greasy, black metal under the truck and held on for dear life. I whimpered another cry for help. Then my grip gave out on me and I felt my head slam onto the concrete ground. Luis started reeling me out from under the truck. I reached out with my hands, pleading for anything to take hold of. As I was pulled along the ground my hands scraped the blacktop and were cut open. But just before Luis pulled me out, my left hand found the handle of his grilling fork. Suddenly I stopped resisting his pulling. I let him slide me out from beneath the truck and I sat up and plunged the sharp end of the pitchfork into his heart.
Luis staggered back and slapped at the metal protruding from his body. He hiccupped. Then with shaking hands he tried to pull the fork out, but he couldn’t reach the handle. Luis hiccupped again and blood came out of his mouth. Then he fell back, rolled over to his side, and laid his head on the ground. After a few moments he stopped twitching.
I dusted myself off and started to stand, when I heard the sound of distant police sirens. For the second time that night I froze. The knowledge that I had just murdered somebody and the cops were on the way hadn’t quite sunk in yet, but I was still aware enough to be terrified. For the third time I cried for help.
“Help?”
Jeśus came running across the lot. When he got to me he stood over Luis’ body and his mouth hung open.
“What did you do?”
“I… I don’t know.”
Then he heard the sirens coming, too. With each passing second they were getting louder. Jeśus took a deep breath and shook his head. He knelt down over the body.
“Get out of here, Robert.”
“Huh?”
“I said get out of here.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Just go.”
Some unseen force propelled my legs to move me forward and I managed to hide behind a big dumpster in the corner of the lot. I saw two LAPD squad cars come screeching into the lot, and the scent of burnt rubber invaded my bleeding nostrils. The cops got out of their cars and saw the same bizarre scene that I did.
Jeśus started screaming like a lunatic and kicking at the lifeless body of Luis. He grabbed the end of the pitchfork and shoved it further down into his chest, as if to make him more dead than he already was. Jeśus clawed at the corpse’s face and shouted.
“I fucking TOLD HIM! I told him NEVER to say that shit about my mother again! I FUCKING TOLD HIM!”
One of the dumfounded of LA’s finest came up from behind and pulled Jeśus off of the body. Then he flung him over the roof of his squad car and read him his rights. All the while, Jeśus kept screaming at the top of his lungs.
“I told him I’d kill him if he did that SHIT again!”
Then he trailed off into a series of Spanish obscenities. Jeśus struggled against his handcuffs and he spit on the ground, calling the cops pigs and fascists. It took them five minutes to finally subdue him and get him into the back of the car.
When the cops gunned their engines and pealed out of the lot, Jeśus glanced over at me, still quivering behind the garbage can, and he winked.
Since Jeśus was only a minor when it happened and he had no priors on his record, the judge went easy on him.
To this day I still don’t know why he did it.
But in three years, he’ll be getting out and then I’ll finally have a chance to ask him.
