IA: Initiate (4 page)

“Uh—huh,” she said suspiciously.

Just as she was stepping onto the bus, she looked back at him and said, “By the way, I did get up last night when I heard you in the bathroom, but as usual, you had gone back to bed by the time I got there.”

Her words got lost in his thoughts. He was still stuck on her mentioning their mother.
Why would she do that?
he thought. Because she knew how to get in his head, and she was the only one that could because she knew he cared. She was good at mind games, a natural. He cared because he knew it bothered her to mention their mother, even though she didn’t show it.

Two years earlier they lost their mother and Meri’s father in what the authorities called a freak accident. Since that day Meri had never shed a tear, or at least she never let him see it. She was tough like that, and Naz felt that someday soon, because she hadn’t cried, she would require therapy just as he had.

Naz refused to call Meri’s father anything other than Bearn. Most of the time he referred to Bearn as “him” or “he.” It just didn’t feel right. But he never liked him either—with good reason—even before the accident. But he kept all that to himself. After all, he had been Meri’s father. Naz had no memory of his own father.

He continued to watch as Meri disappeared onto the bus, and it pulled away.
I have got to get her out of here,
he thought, as he turned and walked in the other direction. Meri’s bus stop was in the opposite direction of Lincoln Middle School, where he was headed.

As he walked, he thought,
if she thinks she’s going to Lincoln next year she’s mistaken.
Since she had started school, she never got less than an “A.” His therapist was in the process of setting Meri up to take a test for International Academy, a private school outside of the Exclave. If she did well enough on the test and in an interview, she could receive a scholarship to attend school there the following year. Naz was determined that was the way it was going to be.

CHAPTER FIVE

HAM

The
Exclave was a sprawling massive area covering over one hundred forty-four square miles with a population of more than a million people. Divided into nine boroughs and comprised of forty-two sections, it was a mosaic of different races, cultural groups, and factions—all fiercely territorial as evidenced by gang wars and incessant violence. In the midst of the differences and the chaos, the inhabitants shared one thing only. They were all poor, except for a fortunate few—and those who dealt in drugs.

Since coming to the Exclave three years ago, they were now in the fourth section in which they’d lived, and Naz was hoping it would be the last, if only for Meri’s sake. As he walked, he worried about her first day at Higginbotham.
She’ll be OK,
he thought.
How dangerous can elementary school be? I have to get her out of here,
he persisted.

There was no doubt in his mind that she would pass the test and ace the interview for International Academy. He figured if they could continue staying at Miss Tracey’s, he could find a way for her to get to and from International Academy every day for the next school year. He just knew it.

Meri always wanted to go where she thought Naz was going to be, and that was fine by him. The problem was he would go on to high school next year. But what she wanted didn’t matter to him.
If she thinks she’s going to Lincoln Middle School next year, she has another thought coming,
he decided.

It was only eight blocks to Lincoln from Meri’s bus stop. Naz had come to know this section well in the past two months. He saw the customary bums, panhandlers, homeless people, and broken men shuffling through the streets. He was always taught not to judge, but whenever he saw them he couldn’t help but think,
one day I’m going to help them somehow,
and then he wondered why no one else ever did. He would help them now, if he could, but he didn’t know how.
Maybe no one knows how, and that’s why they’re still here.
Why can’t they help themselves?
he wondered.
And why are so few of them women?
What do the women do when they’re down and out … kill themselves?
He handed one of the derelicts in the street all of the loose change in his pocket, then laughed to himself as a provocatively dressed woman smiled and winked at him from across the street.

As he passed by his house on his way back down the street, he noticed that the strange car with the mysterious man in the hat was no longer there.

He walked one more block, turned right at the corner, and immediately saw Hector. Naz had a knack for seeing things before anyone else did. Hector Antonio Martinez, who had yet to notice Naz, was the first and only real friend Naz had made since he moved to Section 31. Hector was on his way to meet Naz so they could walk to Lincoln together. He called himself Ham, because H.A.M. were his initials. However, everyone else called him that because he was a ham, an overly flamboyant kid who never seemed to run out of energy or things to say.

A nickname was important in the Exclave, but not just any nickname, it had to be the right nickname. The best and most respected nicknames were the ones given to you by someone else, someone who was also respected in the community. It might be a high school basketball star, a really cool teacher, or possibly even a drug dealer. The problem was that they usually came up with something that to Naz seemed real silly, like Cinnamon Roll or Water Bug—a name that Naz felt you had to wait out until it developed a ring to it. Naz didn’t think there was anything special about the nickname he had given himself, only that it was special to him, and he hated his given name.

“¿Qué pasa,
Naz?” Hector said, as they approached each other. They simultaneously put their arms out to shake hands, Naz with his hand closed in a fist and Hector with his open.

“What’s up, Ham?” Naz replied awkwardly in response to the botched handshake.

“Habla español mi amigo.”

“Look, we either get the Spanish right, or the handshake,” Naz replied with a smile.

Ham prided himself on his culture and had been trying to teach him Spanish since the first day Naz moved to Section 31.

“Here, let me show you,” said Ham. “You don’t wanna blow this on your first day of school. Rep is all a Railsplitter has,” he continued, as he began to demonstrate the latest handshake.

“A Rail what?” Naz asked. His attention was split between the crash course on handshake etiquette and whatever else Ham was talking about.

Like Meri, Ham was born in the Exclave and knew nothing else. His parents migrated from Mexico while his mother was pregnant with him. There were seven younger brothers and sisters, and his proud family was of Mayan descent, a fact Ham mentioned daily as a reminder of this. His family spoke fluent Spanish, something common among the Hispanic population of the Exclave.

“A Railsplitter, and as of today, you are an official Lincoln Railsplitter,” proclaimed Ham.

In a lot of ways Ham reminded Naz of Meri. They both possessed a surplus of energy, and no matter what was going on, both found a way to see something positive in it.

“You excited?” Ham prodded. After a short pause, he continued, “Of course you are. Who wouldn’t be? This is the first day of school. We talkin’
chicas calientes, chicas calientes, y más chicas calientes
… not like those
pollos
at Trenton.”

Ham often broke into Spanish without warning. Not knowing Spanish well at all, Naz more often than not had to use context clues to translate, and he had gotten pretty good at it. This time he was pretty sure Ham was talking about girls.

Naz had attended Monticello the first half of his seventh grade year and transferred to Trenton Middle School for the second half of that year. He nodded in agreement with Ham. There hadn’t been much to look at the year before in the way of pretty girls.

Naz didn’t say much, partly because Ham never stopped talking, and partly because that’s just the way he was—unless he was with Meri. He would talk to Meri. With others, he often answered questions in his mind without saying the words. This made people think he wasn’t paying attention, was ignoring them, or was just being plain rude. It was another habit of his that he couldn’t remember picking up or where, for that matter.

“What about basketball? You tryin’ out?” Ham asked. “We had the squad last year, only lost one game, and if I would’ve been on the team, we would’ve won ’em all. We blew Trenton out and won the fight after the game. They weak! I’m gonna get my grades this year, though.”

Ham often had a way of stretching the truth, but he was dead on when it came to basketball. He was good, very good. He spent most of his time playing basketball at the park during the summer, that is, when he wasn’t harassing the
chicas,
as he called them. He always got chosen first for pickup games, and he carried a basketball around wherever he went. In fact, this was the first time Naz could remember ever seeing Ham without a ball. Even more amazing was Ham’s height—almost a head shorter than Naz—something Ham attributed to his Mayan heritage. But his lack of stature didn’t stop him on the court.

“What do you mean?” Naz asked.

“My grades, they were bad … I guess. So they wouldn’t let me play. Besides, the teachers didn’t like me either. But this year I got it all figured out. I’m gonna hook up with the smartest
chica
until we get our first report card. The smartest
chicas
are the easiest to get because they’re the ugliest, right? Then, after I get my grades, I can dump her. I’m a genius,” he said, laughing.

Naz could not relate to what Ham had just said.
Genius
, Naz thought.
If he wanted better grades, why didn’t he just study harder?
Then it occurred to him that Ham was fourteen, more than a year older than Naz, but in the same grade. Somewhere along the way, Ham had been kept back. Naz wondered if grades were the reason: it seemed to make sense. Between the excuses and bad grades in school, Ham was starting to seem less and less like Meri.

“So?” Ham prodded.

“So what?”

“You gonna try out?”

Naz thought he had answered the question, but obviously only in his mind again. “I don’t think so.”

“Can you even play?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”

“Then you can’t. It ain’t like riding a bike or hanging out at the market. You have to practice … a lot if you wanna be good like me. I’ve been playin’ ball all my life … gonna make it to the league one day.”

Confidence was one thing Ham wasn’t short on.

Naz was more than intrigued when he first saw Ham play at the park, but between running errands for the Market Merchants to earn money and hanging out with Meri, there just wasn’t enough time for basketball. He was starting to tune out on Ham’s words. It was something he often did, if Ham talked too long. Naz decided to change the subject.

“What do you think about dreams?” Naz asked.

Ham didn’t know about Naz’s voices or his sleepwalking. Only the therapists, Meri, Miss Tracey, and his last two foster families were aware of his “problems.” Naz knew that you just didn’t go around telling your friends about these things. But when it came to dreams, he thought it was a safe topic to discuss.
Everybody dreams,
he thought. He knew Ham would have something to say on the subject, just as he did about everything else.

“What about ’em?” questioned Ham.

“Do you have ’em?”

“Everybody has ’em. Some people never remember their dreams, and others remember them as clearly as if they really happened.”

“Do you think they mean anything?”

“Naw, they’re just a bunch of pictures, thoughts, ideas, and emotions, I think. They’re stored up somewhere between your conscious and subconscious mind and become randomly active when you sleep. Then your brain acts like an iPod shuffle and plays whatever pops up next … or something like that.”

Naz knew Ham was no dummy. He knew a lot about a lot of things, and this made Naz wonder about Ham’s grades all the more.

Baiting him, Naz said, “Tell me about one of your dreams.”

“I don’t ever remember my dreams. Do you?”

Perfect,
Naz thought. “One dream.” He looked up and nodded his head. Almost drawing a complete blank, he could barely remember the dream he just had the night before. “Somebody locked me in my bedroom, and then seven people broke in the house … I think, and I couldn’t get out to help.” He paused. “Oh, and there’s stuff flying around.”

“What do you mean, stuff?  What kinda stuff?”

Naz honestly had no idea now. He just remembered telling Meri about stuff flying around.

“Just stuff,” Naz answered and then added, “Never mind about the stuff.”

“OK, let me get this right. Somebody locked you in your bedroom while seven people were breaking in your house … and there’s no stuff, right?”

“Right.”

“Who locked you into your bedroom? Miss Tracey?” Ham laughed.