We Were Here (22 page)

Mong nodded his head and took a long swig of whiskey.

We both looked back to the dark water. I scooped up another handful of sand and tried to think what else I could add, but everything I thought about had to do with Diego, so I just let the sand pour out and stared at this tiny light coming from a boat way the hell out there.

When I looked back at Mong I couldn’t believe it. I saw tears coming down his scarred-up cheek. The dude was crying for no reason. Or ’cause he was so wasted he didn’t know what the hell was happening anymore. It made me feel mad awkward too, ’cause whenever a dude cries near me I can’t really look at him. I feel like it’s none of my business. And I can’t talk to him either ’cause all I’m concentrating on is not looking at him. But at the same time, I wondered if it was maybe ’cause Mong was sick or something. Or he was thinking of what happened with his parents. Or how it might be our last day in America.

I snuck a little glance at him and, I don’t even know why, tried to think if I’d ever seen an Asian person cry before.

Mong wiped his face and took an especially long swig of whiskey. Then he leaned away from me and got sick. Two crazy long heaves and all this nasty-looking barf came spewing out of his mouth and soaked into the sand. But when he was done he just looked right back at the ocean, smiling like nothing happened. He even laughed a little and took another sip from his bottle, two tears now dangling off his chin.

“Your kidneys?” I said without looking at him.

“The whiskey,” he said back.

We both cracked up a little and then Mong said: “I’m happy you’re here, Mexico. The first night I watched you sleep, I knew we’d be sitting here, talking about these things.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said, looking at him like he was crazy.

He nodded.

“How’s that?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes I just know things.”

I frowned and pointed at his bottle. “So how’s that treatin’ you, man?”

“What?” he said, looking at his whiskey.

“Bein’ drunker than shit.”

“No, I really know things,” he said. “Sometimes I think I’ve known every single thing that was going to happen to me. For as long as I can remember. Even the bad things. It’s weird.”

I waved him off and went back to my beer.

But I knew I was drunk as hell too. ’cause my whole body felt fuzzy and I could barely focus on the ocean. It seemed like a part of a movie, like the moonlight shining off the surface wasn’t even real, it was special effects. The sand in my hands felt fake too.

“I also knew we’d end up being best friends like this,” Mong said. “Before we went our separate ways.”

I shot him a crazy-ass look. Best friends? Me and him? Now I
knew
his ass was wasted. How could two people who didn’t know each other for shit, who’d been in more fights than damn conversations, even be friends?

“I know what you’re thinking right now too.”

I rolled my eyes, said: “Yeah? What’s that?”

“That we don’t know each other good enough to be friends.”

I frowned. “Not even close, man.”

“You sure?”

I didn’t say anything back.

“Don’t believe me,” he said. “But it’s true. You and Rondell are the only friends I have in the whole world.”

I took a sip of beer, said: “That’s pretty sad, man.”

“Sad but true.”

I spit toward the ocean. We sort of stopped talking, but
we stayed sitting there and drinking a while longer. I almost wanted to tell him he was me and Rondell’s friend too, but I didn’t. I just stared out over the ocean, trying to do it like he did, like I was in a trance and I was in love with it even though it wasn’t a girl or even a person. But after a while my eyes started drooping and I almost passed out sitting up. Soon as I’d close my eyes, though, everything would start spinning like crazy ’cause I was so drunk and I’d have to jerk them back open.

“Yo, I’m so faded,” I told him. “I gotta go crash.”

He nodded without turning to me, said: “I’m gonna stay here. I’m not tired yet.”

“Okay,” I said, stumbling to get up.

“Hey,” he said.

“What?”

He stared at me for a few seconds and then looked down at the sand shaking his head. “Nothing.”

I shrugged, standing over him. I wondered what would happen once we got to Mexico. Would he get even sicker down there? Could he even die from his kidneys? Or would he go to the hospital and get a new one? It’s weird, even though we’d been in a couple fights, and I still didn’t trust him that much, I thought he totally deserved to get better. It didn’t seem right for someone to get shot by their own dad, get bad kidneys, and then that’s it. There had to be more in his future, another chance.

I stumbled up to where Rondell was sleeping, put my bag under my head and laid down. I let my eyes close up shop and tried not to spin. A couple times I had to open them back up quick, though, ’cause I knew if the world turned even one more rotation I’d be sick.

The last time I opened them I looked up and saw Mong
was sitting up by the big boulders—straight down from the blue vacation house he used to stay at with his dad. He was carving something into one of the boulders with a small rock. I watched him for a few minutes, thinking about what a strange kid he was. Sick as hell but still beating up guys twice his size. Shot in the face. In love with the ocean. But watching him scrape a rock into a boulder, over and over like that, with total concentration, I don’t know, man, for the first time I saw him in a totally different way. He almost seemed like a little kid. A sad one who’d lost his parents. One that didn’t have no friends at the playground and just stood there watching while all the other kids were laughing and chasing each other around the sandbox and jumping off the bars.

I tried to think how I’d be if my own dad shot me. Or if I had bad kidneys. I let my head fall back on my bag thinking about those things. I decided first thing in the morning I’d go see what Mong scraped into that rock.

And right then my eyes closed up.

And I couldn’t even tell you if I started spinning that time ’cause right away I passed the hell out.

July 24

I wake up early with a bad feeling and lift my head. Rondell asleep in the same spot. Mong down by the tide taking off his sweatshirt. Mong. In an ocean trance and taking off his shoes and socks and T-shirt. Here’s this skinny Chinese boy in jeans stepping into the ocean.

Right away I know what’s happening.

I push up off the ground quick and then just stand there, thinking. Head pounding and heart racing. My lip swollen to twice its size, face sore. I step over Rondell and start down the
sand toward the water. “Yo, Mong,” I’m calling out. “Yo.” I’m calling this out ’cause it’s just hit me what it is I know. “Yo. Mong.”

He turns, looks at me. Knee-deep. Dark bags under his eyes and ribs showing through ghost white Asian skin. He hasn’t slept all night.

“Yo, man,” I say. “What’s goin’ on? What’re you doin’?”

“Swimming,” he says.

I rub my eyes and look at his face again. I know he’s lying. My head is killing me and I feel like I might be sick. And then suddenly I am. I lean over and spray puke onto a pile of fly-infested seaweed. Coughing and spitting. Throat burning. I look up and Mong’s watching me. But he’s not really watching me. He’s empty. He’s already done this thing in his head.

We look at each other.

The tide reaches his shoes, picks one of them up, carries it a few feet toward Mong and sets it down.

Rondell wanders down to us, yawning. “Wha’chu all doin’?” he’s saying.

“Mong says he’s goin’ swimmin’,” I say.

“Swimmin’?”

“That’s what he says.”

Mong stares at me and Rondell and then turns around and continues moving into the ocean.

“You goin’ in your jeans?” Rondell calls out.

Mong doesn’t turn around.

“Ain’t they gonna get all wet?” Rondell shouts. He turns to me and asks softer. “Ain’t they gonna get all wet, Mexico?”

I turn to Mong, shout: “You gonna answer Rondell, or what, man?”

Mong doesn’t answer or even turn around.

I take a couple steps toward him, into the water. One of my shoes gets soaked, and I step back. My heart is in my
throat now and I have no idea what to do. Everything is out of control.

“Mong!” I shout, but he keeps walking toward the waves. A small one breaks into his waist. The power of the moving water makes it seem like he’s walking in place for a few seconds. Then it calms and he’s moving forward again. A bigger wave breaks right into his chest, knocks him over. He gets up wiping water from his face and continues walking.

Rondell sneezes and says: “He gonna get his jeans all wet, Mexico.”

I turn to Rondell, tell him. “He’s not goin’ swimmin’, man. Don’t you get it?”

“Wha’chu mean?” he says.

I turn back to Mong. He dives under the surface and now he’s swimming.

I’m stuck watching him. Can’t move or breathe barely. My head pounding in my ears and buzzing with the sound of the giant ocean. Seventy percent of the earth’s surface. My stomach turning over and dropping out and Rondell’s voice in the background, saying: “Wha’chu mean, Mexico? What’s happening, Mexico? Where’s Mong going, Mexico? Mexico? Mexico?”

I don’t have any answers.

Mong is swimming out to sea now, farther and farther.

And the strangest thing. A perfect morning around him. A sky without no clouds and air crisp but not really cold. Birds soaring together in packs over the water, over Mong, making calls to each other and everything around us. The sun climbing over Mong’s big blue house behind us and touching warmth on the back of my neck.

“He goin’ out too far,” Rondell says.

I nod but don’t move.

We stay watching like this forever. See him swim, skinny
arm coming up and then slapping down and then the other one coming up and slapping down. Out past the waves now, past the kelp beds. Until I can barely see his shaved head bobbing up and down above the water’s surface. And then there’s nothing, just ocean and waves. Dark green and gray. Kelp floating in packs past the small swells. The birds white and flying just above the surface, sometimes going in with their beaks. Salt in the air and on my face and Rondell sneezing.

No more shaved head.

Still, we don’t move. Or talk now. Or even make a sound. We just search for Mong and find nothing.

After an hour I wake up and turn to Rondell. We look at each other. Confusion in his face.

I tell him: “Come on.”

He follows me back to our stuff, and we pack up in silence. Shoving things back in our bags and shifting them around and zipping up.

Then Rondell is staring at me and saying “Mexico” and pointing at my chest.

I look down at myself, and I can’t believe it.

Mong’s brown tooth on a string, around my neck. I look up at Rondell, his face concerned and so sad. I look back down at the tooth. When did this happen? I felt nothing all night.

What will we do?

I let the tooth fall back around my neck and pick up my bag. I start down the beach, south, in the direction of Mexico.

Right away Rondell follows.

We walked beside each other near the water. Carrying our bags on our shoulders. Not talking. I concentrated on the sand in front of me and kept my legs moving forward. I was like a guy in the marines, marching into war. He wouldn’t
want to do it or not want to do it, it’s just what they told him. I looked at the sand and kept moving and didn’t think about anything else.

We passed a group of people with swim caps stretching by the water, talking. They smiled, told us “Good morning.”

We passed a little boy and his mom doing a sand castle.

We passed a jogger and lifeguard truck parked with its door open, the man inside pouring coffee from a thermos into a cup.

We walked for hours before I remembered Rondell. I had to tell him. I had to explain. But when I turned to him and opened my mouth to speak, I saw tears running down his face. Big thick Rondell tears. He was crying without sound. He was hiccupping. When he saw me looking he turned away.

He understood.

I looked straight again.

I didn’t know where we were going, or how we were gonna get there, or why. None of these things came into my head. I just knew to keep moving forward. And to look at the sand.

I had to do just like the marine marching into war. Keep marching. Don’t think about it. Look at the sand. These are your orders. This is what you’re supposed to do.

July 24—more

All day long me and Rondell wandered down the winding beach, following the water’s outline. Not talking. And then it went dark and we climbed up onto this locked-up lifeguard tower and leaned our backs against the wall facing the ocean. My legs so tired and sore I could hardly move. My feet aching. I sat there and sank into the tower and didn’t think.

A dull yellow light shining down on us from the roof showed hundreds of initials carved into the dirty white paint: people’s names, people saying who they loved, people’s phone numbers, people telling whoever was reading to “Fuck Off” or “Eat a Dick.”