Facts of Life (2 page)

"Are you okay?" his aunt asked. "What are you doing around here?"

"I was..." Mickey stalled for a second, but then told his aunt that he'd been playing baseball with a friend.

"You look so red. You want something to drink?"

"Yeah," he answered.

His aunt waved to the backyard, where the hose was coiled. He would have groaned about her stinginess, but he was grateful for the safety of her yard.

Who cares?
Mickey reflected. At this point he would drink mud! He was safe; he was alive! He drank from an old hose wrapped in places with cloth, then washed his face and neck.

"Would you like some lunch?" His aunt sidled up to him.

"Nah, I'm okay," he answered. "I really got to go, Auntie."

She pouted. "Oh, shoot. I thought maybe you could help me do something." She shaded her eyes and looked at the roof. "I was cleaning the yard, but I cant get up there. Can you sweep up there? The roof?"

"Sweep the roof?" Mickey questioned. His aunt was a certified clean freak and was known to skate around her polished floors on towels to protect the shine. Now was she taking her craziness outside and to a new level?

"Really, Auntie, I got to go." He took a step backward, the water in his stomach sloshing.

"
Mi'jo,
" she sang. "I'm fifty-four. I'm old. I have nobody."

Mickey found himself leaning a ladder against the side of the house, troubled because the day was not going as planned. All he'd wanted was a good day of slow-pitch, a quick dunk at his friend's house, and an hour or two of Game Boy before dinner. But the day had it's own bag of tricks.

"My mom's going to kill me if I fall off the roof and die," he muttered.

At first he walked ducklike, but finally wobbled to his feet. He breathed in the air, and let the summer breeze play with his tangled hair. The world seemed so different at that height. He took a few cautious steps, then nearly fell off the roof when he spotted Raul walking up the street.

"He's gonna get me," Mickey whispered as once again he assumed a ducklike stance. His heart beat as fast as a rabbit's. He was glad that he had drunk like a camel because there was no telling how long he would have to remain on the roof.

"Don't forget to get around the chimney,
mi'jo
" his aunt instructed from below.

"I won't," he retorted in falsetto. He was glad his aunt hadn't called him by name. Raul might have heard it and, a gangster with time on his hands, would have waited for Aunt Ester to disappear into the house before he climbed the roof and got him.

Mickey moved to the other side of the roof, away from the street, and began to sweep, counting the strokes: twelve, thirteen, fourteen. He counted to fifty and then peeked over to the front part of the house. Raul was nowhere to be seen.

He finished sweeping the roof, descended the ladder, and herded the leaves, sticks, and pinecones into a trash can. He lugged the can to the alley, carefully unlatching the gate and peering out for fear that Raul was lurking there.

Mickey returned to the back porch and peered through the screen door into the kitchen.

"Auntie, I'm finished," he called, but not too loudly.

His aunt rewarded his labor by presenting him with a sandwich in a paper towel. He was glad for a meal, as the chili-flavored CornNuts had long ago been destroyed by his digestive juices. His stomach growled.

But when he peeled back the bread, Mickey saw only tomato—no meat, turkey or baloney, no cheese, no swipe of mayonnaise or mustard, or even a single leaf of lettuce. However, he assessed a sprinkling of salt and pepper the color of his father's five o'clock shadow.

"You're a growing boy," his aunt remarked.

"Looks tasty," he chimed.
Dang, she's cheap,
he brooded as he bit into the sandwich. Still, it was better than nothing. He devoured the sandwich in three bites, wiped his face with the napkin, and said, "That was good, Auntie. Gotta go."

Mickey left by way of the alley. The first thing he did was saucer his Dodgers cap into a trash can, disturbing the flies bulking up on nasty garbage.

"Good-bye, cap," he sang remorsefully. He had fond memories of it, but was savvy enough to realize it was a dead giveaway: Raul would be driving around in search of a boy in such a cap. He peeled off his Bart Simpson T-shirt, as this, too, was a giveaway.

"Dang," Mickey whispered. He imagined himself stripping off all his clothes and arriving home naked; his laugh came out like a snort. But his mirth fled when he came upon a cops cruiser idling at the corner.

"Aw, man, I'm busted," he muttered. He stopped in his tracks, wondering how to escape. The rabbit inside his heart began to run. When he was eight years old he'd been nabbed by a cop who'd caught him scratching his name in wet cement. Was a boy ever so dumb?

He crept back into the alley, glancing now and then over his shoulder. Ratlike, he scurried down the alley and saw, not a light at the end of the tunnel, but another idling cop car.

"It's messed up," Mickey told himself. "But just be cool." He sauntered into view, seemingly relaxed as he whistled "
Cielito Undo.
" He picked up a stick and demonstrated, in a corny manner, his swashbuckling skills as a buccaneer: jab, jab, parry. Dramatically, he wiped his brow, as if to indicate the heat of the day. He had to convince the cop that he was only a sunstruck youth, and harmless.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mickey eyed the cop. The cop's sunglasses turned in his direction, a glare sparkling. But he didn't roll down the window to ask, "Kid, you know anything about a break-in?" He remained in his air-conditioned cruiser.

He's probably just doing paperwork,
Mickey figured.
Cops are always parked with their engines running and using good gas just to kill time.

Mickey made his way down the street, tempted to turn and see if the cop was eyeing him with suspicion. But he kept himself looking straight ahead, not backward at that narrow escape, which he hoped would be a lesson in life—if he really
did
escape. He felt sorry for the old couple whose house he had helped rob.
If only I could do something for them,
he cried in his heart. But what? Arrive with a mower and cut their lawn?

Mickey walked, shoulders hunched. His favorite baseball cap was gone and so was his Bart Simpson T-shirt.
Dang, I'm almost naked,
he realized.

The day had started off so nicely with three bowls of Coco Puffs and continued with a bag of pork rinds as he walked to the baseball field. Yes, that's where it had all started, when he struck out and his teammates' angry stares became death rays.

"That stupid dust," Mickey snarled. But at least that was in the past, he figured.

But he was wrong there, too. The past came upon him when he spotted a member of his team bicycling toward him. It was Jesus Lopez, the guy he left stranded on second, and Jesus got bigger and bigger as he approached. He skidded to a halt, tossed a handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth, and asked, "Dude, how come you struck out?" He spit out the shells at Mickey's feet.

"You saw what happened!" Mickey's arms flapped like wings. "It was the dust. And quit spitting sunflower seeds at me."

"You messed up," Jesus sneered. "Get on."

Mickey was glad for the magical appearance of Jesus. On the handlebars of the bike, he could increase the distance between himself and the scene of the crime, plus the police.

At Jesus's house, Mickey helped pump up an inflatable pool and fill it with water from two garden hoses. "This is great!" He happily ripped off his shoes and socks, but kept his pants on as he stepped into the pool and sat down. A few bubbles rose around him like suds.

"Man, you were supposed to hose off first," Jesus complained as he stepped into the pool. "You're going to get the water all dirty."

"My germs are healthy" Mickey sighed, and splashed like a baby.

Jesus's younger brother and a friend appeared. Their necks were ringed with dirt from hard play.

"Let us in," Jesus's brother demanded. The corners of his mouth were blue from eating a Popsicle.

"Get outta here!" Jesus shouted. "And take your friend with you."

"Yeah, go play in the street," Mickey joined in as the two younger boys left.

The boys were having fun listing all the food they would never eat, even if they were starving on a deserted island, when a bubble rose and popped in front of Mickey.

"Did you fart in the water?" Jesus asked. He stood up, a sheet of water spilling off his brown body.

"Nah, man, I didn't! I swear." Mickey laughed. "But I did pee!"

Jesus was out of the water, and then Mickey was up and out, his belly rolling with laughter. "It was just an air pocket from my pants. I swear. And I didn't stream in your pool. It was just a joke."

"You farted! You disgust me! Now I gotta change the water."

Refreshed, Mickey dripped and savored the chills running across his body. His jeans clung to his thighs. He was still chuckling as he searched for his shoes.

"Where are they?" He found his socks, so dirty they were black as night.

Jesus turned in a circle, also puzzled. "I don't know, dude." Then he raised his face. "My little brother. I'm gonna kick his butt."

They went to the front yard and found the shoes, laces knotted together, dangling from a telephone wire.

"Your stupid brother!" Mickey scowled.

"Don't worry, I'll get him for you. And his big-nose friend."

They stood in silence as they gazed up at the shoes. But there was no way to get them down, and Mickey knew he had to go home.

He arrived home nearly naked and with a blister on each foot as proof he'd traveled far beyond the confines of his own block. He felt much richer in life, and wiser. His father greeted him.

"Heard you were over at your aunt Ester's," he reported from a chair on the porch. "Heard you helped her do something on the roof." He rubbed his stubbly chin and inquired about his son's clothes.

"Yeah, Dad." Mickey gazed down at his absence of apparel and offered, "It's a long story."

"I got no time for a long story." His father blasted his prodigal son, asking how he could walk five miles to help his aunt but not pick up the dirty clothes in his bedroom. "In fact, go get some clothes on, and come outside."

Mickey snuck inside to avoid his mother in the kitchen. When he opened his bedroom door, he discovered his father was partially right. There were clothes on the floor, and a sock—how did it get there?—hanging from the overhead light. He snatched the sock, found it's mate under the bed, put on an ice-cream splattered T-shirt, and pushed his feet into tennis shoes. He went outside.

"What do you want me to do?" Mickey asked.

"You were monkeying around on your aunts roof, and now you're going to do the same here." His dad handed him what, at first, Mickey thought were seat cushions. They were cooler pads.

For the second time in a day he was up on a roof, this time with a screwdriver in his back pocket. He opened the side of the cooler and detached the old pads, black as a smoker's lungs, and fit the new ones in. He stepped to the edge of the roof and dropped the old pads to the ground.

"That's all done," Mickey said proudly, a mustache of sweat on his upper lip. He moved toward the ladder, flipping the screwdriver into the air. "I'm pretty good at this," he claimed, seeing himself as a sort of circus act. He tossed the screwdriver higher and higher—and then, out of the corner of his eye, he made out Raul's truck on the street, tailpipe popping.

"Aw, man," Mickey sputtered.

The screwdriver flew out of his hand, and stuck in the ground within inches of his father, who was gathering mint from around the faucet in the flower bed.

"What the heck!" his father scolded. He hitched up his pants with both hands as he stepped back to locate his son on the roof. "Tryin' to kill your
papi?''
His father bawled him out in Spanish, but Mickey was deaf to his father's wrath. He stepped farther back on the roof, his heart racing, and squatted into the familiar ducklike stance. The back of Raul's truck was empty. He must have unloaded it and was making his rounds in a new neighborhood.

Earlier in the summer Mickey had begged his father to get a plasma television, but his father, a penny-pincher, had waved him off. Now Mickey was glad. Raul, a clever thief, would have sniffed out the television and made an unannounced visit. There Mickey would be, kicking back on the couch, three empty cereal bowls on the coffee table, his parents gone. Raul would push himself into the house, singing, "Hey, champ, long time no see. So this is your crib." He pictured Raul swiveling around and pointing, "Hey, nice TV, the latest in technology. Come on, help me carry it out."

Perish the thought that he, the prodigal son with blisters on his soles, would help rob his own house. Mickey remained on the roof until the truck disappeared and his father slapped open the front screen door, shouting, "Come on down,
mi'jo.
You've done enough for today"

AS THE SCHOOL BUS bumped over the road, Lisa Torres did a quick sketch of her classmate, Gaby Lopez. Lisa, holder of two blue ribbons from the art contest at the county fair, was inspired by the moment: a classmate studying the rain-wet fields of February. Lisa felt that she had caught Gaby's pensive mood as she gazed out the bus window. The high clouds had darkened the landscape, the shadows racing east toward the Sierras, the jagged range of mountains tipped with snow. Any other day the valley's smog would have obscured their view.

Lisa got up and moved unsteadily down the aisle. The next stop was hers. "Here," she said to Gaby.

Surprised, Gaby accepted the portrait, and offered a smile. Her friends huddled around to look at the drawing and made Lisa think of ponies peering through a stall—would that be another sketch at another time?

The bus groaned to a stop in the middle of the road. Lisa lived out in the country where few cars passed. When they did, they sped by, far faster than the posted fifty-mile-an-hour sign, as if hurrying to get away. Lisa had spent many summers sitting in a chair counting the cars: one car every hour, sometimes stopping to ask for directions. City people, Lisa learned, didn't know east from west, and couldn't name the crops growing in the nearby fields.