Romiette and Julio (6 page)

“I’ve only talked to him on the Internet.” Romi waited for Destiny’s reaction.

Destiny jumped on the bed and dropped her pizza on the floor. “You met a man on the computer? Girl,
that’s where serial killers and rapists be hanging out. They make you think they’re OK, then they make plans to meet you, then you end up with your picture on the back of a milk carton!”

Romi laughed and picked up the fallen pizza. “He wasn’t like that. I don’t think he was one of those perverts. He sounded really nice. He seemed real.”

“You didn’t do anything stupid like give him your real name or something, did you?” Destiny was not going to be convinced so easily. She figured Romi had lost her mind.

“No, of course not. I’m not stupid. But he did seem really sincere.”

Destiny spent quite a bit of time on the Internet herself. It was her opinion that the whole Web was full of freaks waiting to find her and attack. “You better be careful, girl. Those sex stalkers on the Internet know exactly what to say to make you think they’re the same age as you are. Did he say anything about sex or freaky stuff?”

“No, not at all. But, now that you mention it, his screen name is Spanishlover.” Romi was enjoying Destiny’s reaction.

“Oh, no! You’re gonna get raped and mutilated, and I don’t have a thing to wear to your funeral!” Destiny was on the floor, rolling around in fake despair.

Romi laughed. “Calm down, Destiny. All he talked about was Texas and music and ideas. He was really fun to talk to. Not like the rest of them who just want to know your shoe size or breast size.”

“You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“Tell him what?”

“Your shoe size and your breast size!”

“I told you, he didn’t ask. The subject never came up.”

Destiny was not to be put off so easily. “Don’t you
dare
tell him your name, or anything about you, you hear?”

“I hear you. I won’t. But he did say that he lived here in Cincinnati.”

“That could just be a cover! Did you tell him where you lived?”

“No, of course not.”

They got out the second movie and as they put it in the VCR, Destiny was still voicing her concerns about the Internet mystery man. “You know, Romi, those kinds of people can trace you. They have secret codes they put in the computer and then they figure out where your phone line is hooked up and then they come to your house and ring your doorbell and slice your heart out after they have sex with you!”

“Destiny, does your brain ever hurt from all the wild imagining you do?”

“I’m for real, Romi! I didn’t make this up. I saw it on TV. You be careful, Romi. Stay away from that guy.”

“I’m supposed to talk to him tomorrow after school,” Romi said quietly.

“Not a great idea. Anybody with a screen name like Spanishlover is up to no good. I saw a talk show where this one man was giving these girls this drug
called Spanish fly. He would drug them, and they wouldn’t know if the man was having sex with them or not, and he got them all pregnant.”

“Destiny, I think you have sex on your brain. I didn’t take any drug from him or have sex with him through the computer screen. I didn’t let him know anything about me. All I did was talk to him in a private chat room.”

“You went to a private room? I saw another talk show where they used these private chat rooms to bug the phone lines of the people they lured into them. Then they stole their identities and charged up millions of dollars on their credit cards.”

“Destiny, you watch too many talk shows! And I don’t have a credit card. So I’m safe for now. But I will be careful. I promise.”

“Hey, Romi, I have a really serious question for you. This is a deep philosophical question.”

“Here we go again. Hit me with it.”

“Pizza is round, right?”

“Right.”

“And garbage cans are round, right?”

“Right.”

“So why are pizza boxes square?”

“Eat your pizza, Destiny.”

“Romi?”

“I’m almost afraid to answer.”

“The pieces are triangles. Why?”

“Eat your pizza, Destiny. Don’t think.”

Julio glanced at his watch and darted into the bathroom. He figured he had just enough time to make a pit stop before his last class’s bell. He didn’t even notice the boy dressed in a purple hooded sweatshirt that hung down to his knees. He was followed by four kids dressed exactly the same. They walked slowly, methodically, forming a tight circle around Julio. A toilet flushed. The boy in the stall, a scrawny kid who looked like he’d been flushed before, took one look at the scene in front of him and ran out of there before he had pulled his pants up completely.

“Hey, Chico!”

Julio tightened his jaw and tensed his fists. “My name’s
not
Chico.”

“Got something for you, Chico.” The boys in purple tightened the circle around Julio.

Julio’s fear was turning to anger. “My name is
not
Chico! And you better not get any closer.”

They backed away one step, in unison. “Got a message for you. We don’t want you here. Got that?”

Julio stepped forward, into the face of the tallest
purple threat. “What do you mean? What did I ever do to you? And who is this ‘we’ you talking about?”

The tall boy looked coolly into Julio’s eyes and showed no fear, only challenge. “You see purple—you get out the way. The Family ain’t happy about you being here. We know you from that Texas Tejano gang. You ain’t welcome here.”

“I don’t remember asking you for the welcome wagon! Just stay out of my way or I’ll show what Texas Tejano really means!”

“We don’t need no wetbacks movin’ in here takin’ over our territory! We own this area.”

“You wouldn’t know a wetback if it was dripping on your own yellow back!”

“Watch your mouth, Chico. Or it might get busted.”

Julio decided he wasn’t going to take any more. “I tell you what,” Julio said slowly and clearly. “Why don’t
you
stay out of
my
way instead? I don’t want to have to tighten you up, but I ain’t scared of you, or purple, or The Family. Now move out of my way!”

The figures in the purple circle took one step toward him, stared him down with eyes of hate, then abruptly turned as one and walked out of the bathroom. Julio stood there alone, shaking and angry, in that silent bathroom that smelled of urine and cigarette smoke. They thought he was from one of those Texas gangs he had been running from! Unbelievable! He knew they would only threaten for a while. Then the threats would turn to fists, or knives, or worse. But they wouldn’t attack him—not
yet. They weren’t really sure if he was from that gang, but this was their way of checking him out. They didn’t really need a reason to dislike him. They had already decided that.

Julio had started to relax and settle into the new school. His classes were bearable, Ben was a friend who could always make him laugh, and he spent his spare time playing on the computer. A couple of times he had talked to this one girl he thought was from Cincinnati, but who knew. Ben said everybody lied on the Internet. She seemed like somebody he might like to get to know. But he hadn’t been able to find her on-line lately. The last time he had talked to her, she said her friend had warned her about Internet perverts, so she didn’t feel real comfortable talking to him, then she had signed off quickly.

So now I’m a gang member. And a pervert.
Julio sighed as he walked down the hall to class. He was really late, but last bell was band, and he knew Mr. Barnes would understand.

Those gang kids,
mused Julio,
separated me right away as different—as Hispanic—as Latino. I wonder what the other kids here see when they see me? I’m tall and thin, but I can take care of myself. I’ve heard girls giggle behind my back, saying stuff like, “Oh, girl, he is fine!” but nobody’s ever told me to my face—yet. My mother thinks I have a nice smile. But mothers are supposed to like you, aren’t they?

Julio walked slowly down the dark, trash-cluttered hallway to class. He did
not
turn around to check for shades of purple behind him.

The phone rang, and Julio picked it up as he clicked the thermostat up another notch. He was freezing cold, and the snow outside the window made him shiver with anger as well as the cold.

“Hola,
my man Julio. How’s it going there?” Julio thought his friend’s voice sounded particularly far away.

He sighed. “Hey, Diego. Good to hear from you. It snowed all day here. No chance of school being canceled, though. It’s just cold and miserable. My feet are still cold, and I gotta get a heavy winter coat or I’m gonna die!”

Diego laughed. “I hate to tell you it’s seventy-five today, and I went hang gliding, so I won’t. How’s the new school?”

“Well,
amigo,
on the very first day of school, before the first class even started, I got into a fight. I mean as soon as I walked in the door, I punched out the face of some kid with green hair.”

“You don’t play around, do you? You get busted?” Diego asked.

“No, for some reason, the kid covered for me,”
Julio said in amazement. “I didn’t see him again all day. I’ve talked to him since, though. He’s OK.”

“That’s good. What’s your classes like? ’Bout like they are here?”

“Yeah, I manage to flounder through them all, keep to myself, and try to be invisible. My English class is reading Walt Whitman, who was pretty radical. History class is stuck at the Civil War. I think all eleventh-grade history classes must be stuck there.”

“Yep, we’re still on it too. Boring!”

“And guess what? They scheduled me for Spanish One! What a hoot!” laughed Julio.

“That’s just plain
estúpido!
Didn’t you tell them you were bilingual?”

“Naw, man. Why mess up an easy A? You ought to see the teacher! She’s this first-year lady who’s from China! Spanish with a Chinese accent! She had me weak!”

“You’re gonna go crazy in there, man,” Diego sympathized.

“Nah, it gives me something to laugh at, and besides, if I get my schedule changed, I’d have to drop band. The band teacher is cool. Long dreadlocks, a sixties kind of guy. Likes jazz. He was really glad to get a good sax player, and he even asked me to try out for jazz band next week.”

“Cool. Meet any girls?”

“Naw, there’s no Latina girls here, and I’ve been too stressed to worry about that kind of stuff. I talked to a girl on the Internet once who seemed really cool, but she thinks I’m some kind of sexual pervert, so I haven’t
been able to find her again. She was kinda special.”

“I’m never too stressed to find women, man. If this little lady turns you on, then keep trying,” suggested Diego.

“Yeah, but she might end up being some kind of nine-hundred-pound witch!” Julio exclaimed.

“So what. You’re never gonna meet her anyway. The Internet is for pretending, man. Don’t worry about reality.”

Julio sighed again. “Yeah, I got enough reality here. There’s gangs here at this ‘super-safe’ school that my folks brought me to, seven million miles away from home.”

“For real?” Diego seemed astonished.

“Yeah, I almost got jumped in the bathroom already.”

“Why you?”

“Why not? I’m new. That’s all the reason they need. But you know why they only stared me down and didn’t try to punch me out?”

“Your strong right hook on kids with green hair?” Diego laughed.

“Yeah, right. No, they think I belong to a gang from home called the Texas Tejano gang. You ever hear of them?”

“Yeah, man. They’re really bad. Guns and a big body count.”

“No wonder they just pushed a little. But when they find out I’m not in that gang, and they will, I may have to fight the battle of my life,” Julio said with concern.

“Your fist won’t stop a bullet, Julio.”

“I know. Got any ideas?”

“Join the track team,” joked Diego.

“I’m not running away. My parents ran away to bring me here.”

“Be careful, Julio,” Diego warned him.

“Yeah, man. I will. My other line is ringing. I’ll catch you later.”

“Peaceout.”

Julio clicked the phone to get the other call. “Hello,” he said, expecting someone for one of his parents.

“Hey, Julio, what’s up, my
amigo
with the strong right hook?” asked Ben’s cheerful voice.

Julio smiled. “Hey, Ben, what color is the sky today?”

“The sky is blue and so is my hair. Sky blue. It’s my message to spring to hurry up and get here. I’m tired of cold, wet weather.”

“What about me? I haven’t been warm since I left Texas!”

“I’m starting to lose sympathy for you!” Ben teased.

“Hey, Ben, let me ask you something,” Julio said seriously.

“Hit me.” Ben was rarely serious.

“What do you know about gangs in the school?”

“I know they’re there. Most of the students and all of the teachers pretend that they aren’t,” Ben replied with derision.

“Yeah, been through that stage before. They close their eyes and think it will go away. That’s the way it
was at my old school until one of the teachers was killed. Then they started to pay attention, but by that time, it was too late.”

“I hear you. It’s been getting worse here, though. Fights in the halls, in the bathrooms, at the bus stops. One girl got beat up real bad because she broke up with her boyfriend from The Family,” Ben offered.

“I almost got jumped in the bathroom today,” admitted Julio.

Ben didn’t seem surprised. “Dudes dressed in purple?”

“Yeah.”

“Hooded sweatshirts?”

“Yeah.”

“You got pushed by the bosses of The Family. They’re the strongest at school. Probably about fifty members. Most of them only wear something with purple on it. Only the leaders wear the sweatshirts with hoods.”

“The Family,” remembered Julio. “Yeah, that’s what they called themselves.”

“Their real name is the Devildogs. It’s supposed to be a secret, but everybody knows it. Were you scared?”

“I was so scared, I coulda peed in my pants, but they didn’t know it.”

“You watch your back, Julio. These dudes play with real guns,” warned Ben.