Bait (4 page)

Diego glanced up, a tide of emotion tugging at him. Nobody in his life had ever talked to him this way. Suddenly the phone rang, startling him.

Vidas picked up the receiver, answering: “Probation.”

While Vidas spoke on the phone, Diego tried to figure him out. Was he really interested in hearing all this stuff? Why? What did he care?

“Sorry to hear he’s not feeling well,” Vidas said into the phone. “Is he behaving?…That’s good. I’ll see him next week then. Thanks for calling.”

He hung up and told Diego, “Sorry.” He glanced at his watch and said, “We’re about out of time. How are you feeling now?”

“Fine.” It amazed him how much he’d told Vidas, and in a way, he kind of didn’t want to leave. He wished Vidas could talk with him more. “When do you want me to come back?”

“Well…” Vidas flipped though his notes in Diego’s file. “I think I pretty much have all the info I need for my recommendation to the judge.”

Diego’s legs began to jiggle again. “Will I have to go to juvie?”

“No,” Vidas said. Finally, the straight answer.

“Thanks!” Diego exhaled a burst of relief.

“What I will recommend,” Vidas clarified, “is that you be ordered to pay restitution for Fabio’s ER bill.” He glanced down at Diego’s folder. “That’s three hundred fifty-two dollars.”

Diego’s elation abruptly ceased. Nearly his entire savings would be wiped out. “Why do I have to pay that?”

“Because that’s how the world works: You break something, you pay for it. Hopefully, this’ll help you to stop and think next time you’re tempted to punch someone.”

Diego closed his fists and shoved them beneath his arms, angry at Fabio—and at himself.

“Second,” Vidas continued, “I’ll recommend an SIS—Suspended Imposition of Sentence. As long as you pay the restitution, stay out of trouble, and don’t get into any more fights, your sentencing is suspended. You’re a free man. When you turn eighteen, your record will be sealed.”

Diego shook his head, a little confused. His attorney had never mentioned an SIS. “So will I be on probation?”

“No. An SIS is in place of probation. I don’t think you need a PO looking over your shoulder. You already get good grades. Your mom says you behave at home. You help with your brother. You’ve got a weekend job. You don’t need me keeping tabs on you. What you need is to find healthy ways to deal with your anger—through your studies, exercise, constructive things.”

Diego still didn’t understand. If he wouldn’t be on probation, then how was he supposed to learn to deal with his anger?

“So, like, you don’t want me to come talk with you anymore?”

Vidas shifted in his seat, looking a little uneasy. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk with you, Diego. It’s just that my job is monitoring, not counseling. If you’d like to talk more with a therapist, I think that’d be great. I can recommend you to the county mental health center. You’d have to pay for it, but they have a sliding fee scale…although there’s usually a waiting list.”

Diego kicked the carpet with his heel, at odds with the emotions battling inside him. He didn’t have money to pay some shrink and neither did his mom. Besides, he didn’t want to talk to anybody else. Why had Vidas asked to hear about his life and listened like he cared, if he was only going to pawn him off onto some stranger?

“Can’t I just keep talking to
you
?”

Vidas stared across the room at him. “Diego, my job is to evaluate your behavior and make a recommendation to the judge. I’m a probation officer, not a therapist.”

“But you listen good,” Diego answered. “What if you put me on probation?”

He said it without thinking. He knew he should feel ecstatic to be getting a pass on probation, but instead it felt like Vidas was ditching him.

“Look,” Vidas said gently. “You see this stack of folders?” He laid his hand atop the pile on his desk. “I’ve got a whole caseload of boys and girls who need help really bad. Even though they’re the same age as you, they can barely write a sentence. They’ve never held a job. Their parents are on drugs. Some don’t even have a home. You’ve got so much going for you, Diego. All you need is to open up and connect with people—other than through your fists. Do that and you’ll be fine. Okay?”

Diego shook his head in frustration. Wasn’t it obvious to Vidas that he’d tried to open up and connect with him?

The phone rang again and Vidas answered. “Okay, I’ll be right out.” He hung up and told Diego, “My next appointment is here.”

Diego glared at him, not wanting to move.

“Come on,” Vidas said, standing up, and the swivel chair squeaked beneath him. “I’ll walk you out.”

In the reception room, a couple of boys sat waiting for their appointments. One of them glanced toward Vidas, smiling eagerly, and Diego felt a weird pang—almost like jealousy. He wished
he
were that boy, so he could keep talking with Vidas, and have Vidas listen.

“I’ll see you at your disposition hearing.” Vidas reached out to pat Diego on the back. “Bike safely.”

For a moment Diego let Vidas’s hand rest on his shoulder. Then he pulled away angrily. When he got downstairs, he slammed out the door and got on his bike, pumping hard away from the courthouse.

D
IEGO RACED TOWARD HOME
,
feeling more out of sorts than ever. Why the hell had he asked Vidas to put him on probation? Was he nuts? He didn’t need Vidas’s help—or anybody’s. Definitely not some shrink prying into his life and telling him how screwed-up he was.

He pedaled hard along the bay front, determined to sort his problems out on his own. To start, he wouldn’t get into any more fights. No matter what. And he’d stop cutting himself, regardless of how much he wanted to. He’d be fine.

When he arrived home, he picked Eddie up from the neighbors. As they crossed the driveway, Eddie play-punched him on the shoulder, giggling.

“Not now,” Diego told him. He wasn’t in the mood to box. Not tonight.

He started to make dinner almost immediately: tuna casserole. Boiling the noodles and mixing the mushroom soup calmed his thoughts a notch.

After dinner, he helped Eddie with some math homework, further taking his mind off of Vidas. And later, in his room, he watched his fish swim around the aquarium, soothing him more.

The following day at school during lunch, he explained to Kenny about the SIS. “It means I don’t have to be on probation.”

“That’s great!” Kenny raised his palm to congratulate him, but Diego frowned and kept eating his franks and beans.

Kenny let his hand drop, confused. “It’s
not
great?”

“I guess it is,” Diego mumbled. But it didn’t feel great.

On Saturday, he biked to his job at The Pet Stop, eager to replenish his soon-to-be-wiped-out savings. The highlight of the day was a new shipment of butterfly fish. Even though he couldn’t afford one, at least he could enjoy watching them at work.

The following afternoon, he biked to the beach with Kenny. It was one of those bright sunny days when it made him happy just to smell the salt air, feel the sun warm his face, and let the wind whoosh through his hair.

They chained their bikes to a lamppost, climbed across the dunes, and wandered down the beach, scouting for shells until they grew sweaty. Then they yanked their shirts off and raced each other into the cooling waves. For a long while, they bodysurfed, tumbled, and splashed each other. Diego loved being in the ocean, feeling both its power and calm.

They’d ridden a particularly good wave into the shallows when a patrol jeep roared past across the sand, its roof lights flashing, heading down the shore.

Kenny squinted toward the crowd gathering around a lifeguard stand. Two more jeeps were coming.

“Let’s go look,” Diego told him. “Come on!”

They sprinted out of the water, grabbed their shirts and Kenny’s glasses, and ran to see what was going on. As they approached the throng of beachgoers, the jeeps’ CB radios crackled. Some EMTs had climbed across the dunes from the parking lot and were loading an ashen old man onto a gurney.

“What happened?” Kenny asked a lifeguard with sunglasses who was writing on a clipboard.

“He got caught in a rip current.”

“Is he dead?” Diego asked in a low voice.

The guard nodded grimly. “Rips are like a circle: They drag you out and under. If you stay on top and swim across, eventually the current circles back. But people panic and try to fight.” He pressed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose and looked out at the ocean. “The current always wins.”

He returned to writing and the boys stared at the old man as the EMTs covered him up and carried his gurney over the dunes. It was the first time Diego had ever been in the presence of a dead body. It didn’t feel creepy, like he thought it would. Mostly he just felt numb.

The two boys hung out by the lifeguard stand, each lost in his own thoughts, while the crowd dispersed and the jeeps drove away. Then, without saying anything, they wandered down the beach, until they had walked far beyond the last guard stand. There, the boys sat down on the sun-warmed sand, digging their toes beneath the grains, and stared out at the shimmering blue waters of the gulf.

“It looks so innocent,” Kenny said.

“Yeah,” Diego agreed. He thought how sometimes, especially when swimming, he’d get the sense that the shark from his nightmares was really out there, waiting for him.

The mist blew off the waves, lining the boys’ skin with a thin shroud of salt. The setting sun stretched their shadows across the sand. And as ghost crabs emerged from their burrows for their night’s scavenging, the boys returned up the beach toward home.

At school the following week, Diego ignored Guerrero’s obnoxious attempts to be buddies. Instead, he focused on his classwork, remembering what Vidas had said about working out his anger through his studies.

And every time he went to his locker, he recalled Vidas telling him to find ways to connect with people other than through his fists. He peered across the hallway at the person he most wanted to connect with: Ariel.

She was forever on his mind. Each evening when he climbed into bed, he imagined her beside him. He ran his hands gently across her skin while she kissed him. Her lips felt tender as flower petals, her soft blond hair brushing his face, tickling his cheek.

One morning, between classes, he spotted her at her locker attempting to unload an armful of books. The stack, more than she could handle, began to totter and slip. Faster than a bullet, Diego sped toward her, arriving just in time to catch the books as they spilled from her arms.

“Wow, thanks!” She smiled and her whole face lit up. “That was sweet of you.” One by one, she took the books from his hands and organized them into her locker, explaining, “I just came from the library.”

He gazed at her, knowing it was his turn to say something. But his brain had frozen and not even the warmth of her smile was thawing it.

She finished putting her books away and asked, “You work at the pet store, right?”

“Um, yeah…” he replied, amazed that she remembered. In his excitement, words began to tumble out of his mouth in an avalanche. “Would you like to—you know—hang out with me sometime?” And equally abruptly, his boldness sent him reeling. “I mean I’m sure you wouldn’t. You probably already have a boyfriend. And even if you don’t, I doubt you’d want to hang out with somebody like me anyway.”

With that, he spun around and stepped away. And just as quickly, he regretted his foolishness. Why hadn’t he let her answer? Maybe she
didn’t
have a boyfriend. Maybe she’d like to hang out.

He darted a glance over his shoulder and saw her staring at him, open-jawed, looking as if she’d just been sideswiped. Hurriedly, he turned away again, feeling more screwed-up than ever. Would he ever connect with a girl?

To make things worse, Guerrero had apparently witnessed the entire disaster.

“Yo, don’t tell me you wimped out with her
again
.” He stood at his locker, wearing a demonic grin. Diego tried to shove past him, but Guerrero rode his heels. “Look, if you’re too gay to make a move—”

Diego whirled around. His hand sprang out, grabbing Guerrero by the collar, and slammed him against the metal lockers. “Shut up!”

Guerrero stood on tiptoes, his face turning red, as Kenny rushed over and grabbed Diego’s arm.

“Stop it, Diego! Let him go.”

The familiar sound of Kenny’s voice snapped Diego to his senses. What the hell was he doing? He unclasped his hand from Guerrero’s collar, releasing him.

“You’re a wacko!” Guerrero sputtered, smacking his palms against Diego’s chest and pushing him away.

Diego stumbled back, shaken by what he’d done. Hadn’t he promised himself to stay out of fights?

“Can’t you just ignore him?” Kenny asked as Guerrero strode away. “Why do you let him get to you?”

Without answering, Diego turned to look across the hall, hoping that Ariel hadn’t seen the scuffle. He found her gazing straight at him, her eyes wide with concern. Worse still, a couple of her friends were also staring at him, shaking their heads and saying something to her.

“I didn’t mean it,” Diego assured her, even though she couldn’t possibly hear him across the hall.

Nevertheless, she nodded as if she understood. At least he
hoped
she understood as she walked away with her friends.

All during afternoon classes, Diego pondered how easily he’d almost gotten into another fight. In his mind he saw Judge Ferrara’s thick finger wagging at him, ordering him to juvie. And he recalled what Vidas had told him: Either you deal with your anger, or it’ll deal with you.

What if he couldn’t deal with it? What if he wasn’t able to stop fighting?

After school, when Eddie came home, he wanted to play and roughhouse as usual, but Diego pulled away, once again telling him, “Not today!”

Eddie lowered his head, sulking. “You never want to play anymore.”

Diego stared silently back at him, unable to explain his fear: What if he lost it with Eddie? He didn’t want to risk it.

That night he climbed into bed feeling more uncertain and afraid than ever. What if he couldn’t sort his problems out by himself? What would become of him?

As he sank into a fitful sleep, his nightmares began almost immediately.

The recurring dreams were usually similar: He’d be treading water in the middle of the white-capped ocean. Alone. Stranded. With no idea how he’d gotten there. Waves crashed over him, buffeting his head, while a forceful current pulled at him. His weary legs sank heavily, like weights dragging down his body, as he searched for land or a boat. Something to hang on to. Anything.

Suddenly a tiny triangle appeared in the distance between wave peaks. A sailboat? Diego’s arms sprang into the air, waving desperately as he shouted, “Hey! Over here! Hey!”

But as the triangle came closer, a chill rolled down his spine. It wasn’t a sail; it was a dorsal fin. A shark.

Diego watched, terrified, as the fin moved toward him. He wanted to scream, but his voice caught in his throat. Besides, who would hear him? He was alone. Powerless.

He took a breath, heart pounding, and plunged his head beneath the surface. Salt burned his eyes as he watched the gray form circle him. Ghostlike. Massive. Powerful. A tug of current radiated from each commanding movement of its tail. Only its silvery eyes remained fixed, keeping its prey in sight.

Diego thrashed the water with his hands, fighting the current, trying to back away. His heart beat furiously as the shark moved closer, its head swinging right, then left. Gallons of water pumped through its cavernous mouth. Rows of teeth spiked its jaws. With a flick of its enormous tail, the great shark charged.

But just as the beast rammed into him, the dream changed. A gunshot fired. Loud. Clear. Always a gunshot. And the weight of Mac’s body fell upon Diego.

He woke up gasping, trying to escape. He kicked at the bedsheets, scrambling across the mattress, and slammed back against the wall as he shoved the body off of him. Breath pumping hard, he fumbled the lamp switch on, terrified of what he’d find. But there was no body, no shark.

His chest rose and fell, his skin glistening with sweat. The dream had seemed so real. He listened carefully for the sound of Mac’s cigarette cough from his mom’s room, the footsteps in the hall, the doorknob turning….

But the house remained silent. Diego lay awake, waiting for his fear to die down. As his breathing calmed, he peeled off his drenched T-shirt, pushed aside the sheets, and climbed from bed to pull a dry shirt on. The dresser mirror tracked his motions as he stopped to stare at his reflection.

The crisscross of cuts and gashes carved into his skin made him look like a freak. A crazy freak. Slashing himself by day. Chased by a shark at night. Too messed-up to connect with a girl. Unable to stop fighting. Lashing out at people he didn’t want to hurt. Trying to be normal—but failing.

Maybe he should just slice the shark’s tooth deeper into his skin. There, just at the wrist. Watch the blood leak out and drip to the floor, growing into a puddle like the dark stain Mac had left behind on the garage’s concrete floor—the spot Diego had tried to scrub away. Tried hard.

He slid back into bed and left the light on, thinking about what Vidas had said: He needed to open up, or nobody could help him. But he didn’t want to talk to some headshrinker he didn’t know. If only Vidas would put him on probation…The things that Vidas said made sense. Diego had felt connected to him. There had to be some way to convince him.

Just before Diego drifted back to sleep, an idea floated though his mind: If Vidas wasn’t willing to recommend probation to the judge, then maybe his lawyer could ask for it.

The crazy idea was one of those half-dream thoughts that didn’t exactly make sense. But when he woke up the next morning, the idea remained in his consciousness, giving him a weird sense of hope. And as his court date approached, a plan took shape in his mind.