Angel stuck around the older boys as often as he could. Anytime he saw them gathered out by the park across the street from school, for instance. The boys sat circled around one of the picnic tables adjacent to the jungle gym. In their neighborhood, it wasn’t uncommon to see kids wander around on their own. There was a certain autonomy, even for kids who really could have benefitted from having their parents around. Their parents, instead, were busy working long hours at their low paying jobs and making only enough money to get through this month’s bills. The boys at the table weren’t old enough to have jobs yet. They should have been in school but most of them had stopped showing up by the fifth grade. This was the grade Angel would be going into when school started in a month.
The oppressive late July sun of south Texas did not deter the older boys from sitting at their picnic table each day. It didn’t deter any of the neighborhood kids from convening at the park. Most of the younger kids naturally gravitated towards the jungle gym, their screams and laughter echoing throughout the rows of aging houses and overgrown lawns. The older boys never interacted with the younger ones. They spent all day and all night at their table. Some would come and go, dapping the others up as they arrived or departed. Sometimes an even older kid would approach them and dap them up, before leaving soon after. Angel was the only one of the younger boys they talked to, though not because any of them wanted to.
“Ah jeez,” said Roel, rolling his eyes. “Bounce, little man.”
Angel made his daily attempt to approach the older boys but was met with contempt before he could even arrive at the table. Roel was especially cold to Angel. Angel thought that perhaps some of the other older boys might like him, or at least put up with him. He never thought this about Roel.
“Whatchu mean ‘little man’?” laughed Leo. “He’s only like three years younger than you.”
“Still little, ain’t he?” said Roel.
“Ah, man, he’ll grow into it.” Leo got up from his seat and walked around the table to Angel to dap him up. “What’s good, Angel?”
“Hey,” said Angel.
“Aight, so where was I,” Eddie interjected. “A ver, so me and Sofie are behind the portables, right? And this bitch is getting handsy, so I’m like ‘sheeitt-’ and through her shirt I can see—”
“Dude—” said Ale, motioning towards Angel.
“What?” asked Eddie
“He’s like ten!” exclaimed Ale.
“So what? I didn’t ask him to be here! Plus, it’s not like I’m telling him anything he ain’t probably already heard,” said Eddie. “Ain’t that right?”
“Um,” said Angel, not knowing how to respond. He had heard worse. From the other older kids at school, the few times they showed up, from his older brother, Sancho, before he got deployed, from movies his parents put on at home, even from his parents themselves.
“Doesn’t mean you gotta contribute to it, fool,” said Ale.
“Whatever, man. See, this is why I hate when this lil’ dude come around here,” said Eddie. “Fool cramps my style.”
Angel felt self-conscious when Leo chimed in.
“Ay, if it makes you feel better, Eddie, we don’t like your style anyways.”
The group laughed.
“Fuck you, Leo,” said Eddie, also finding some amusement in his own misfortune. “Ay, but forreal, this lil’ dude gonna have to bounce eventually.”
Leo turned to Angel, “He’s right. You can stick with us for the next few minutes, but you gonna have to dip. We got shit to do.”
“Shit, man, he shouldn’t even be here right now. What if they arrive early?” protested Roel.
“Man, who the fuck you know arrive early to this shit?” asked Leo.
“You never know, fool,” said Roel.
“Nah we’ll be good. Once it gets closer to three then we’ll tell him to dip,” Leo assured.
“Fine, man. Whatever,” said Roel, slumping his shoulders and taking a stick of gum out of his pocket, unwrapping it and forcing it into his mouth. He flicked the crumpled-up wrapper at a grackle that was picking at some grass near their table, then fixed his gaze on the younger kids playing on the jungle gym. One girl with pigtails was making her way across the monkey bars.
“Ay, what grade you in now, Angel?” asked Eddie.
“Going to fifth,” said Angel.
“Shit man, I remember fifth grade. That shit was ass, cuh” laughed Eddie to the rest of the older boys, who shook their heads in laughter, as well. “Ay, who’s your teacher?” Eddie asked.
“Mrs. Rosario.”
“Ha! I had her for fifth too!” Eddie exclaimed. “So did Ale. Ay, Ale, remember Mrs. Rosario’s? Man, she was such a bitch, huh?”
“She was aight,” said Ale.
“Aight? She hated my ass, bro! I didn’t even do shit in that class.”
“That’s why she hated you, fool,” said Leo.
“Ay, fuck you, Leo! You weren’t even in our class!” said Eddie.
“He’s right, fool, why do you think I didn’t have a problem with her? I actually did my shit,” said Ale.
“Because she’s a bitch, bro, I’m telling you! She hated my ass for no reason!” said Eddie.
Roel, who had not broken his gaze from the jungle gym throughout the entire exchange, now turned his attention to the street across the park. He noticed a silver sedan pull up and park along the curb. The sound of the engine was curious to him; It sputtered and rattled as if it had some sort of impediment. He turned towards the group and interrupted the conversation. “Ay, fuck your teacher. What kind of car did you say they drive, Ale?”
“Silver Civic. Por que?”
Roel nodded towards the car. The others looked that way, squinting and holding their hands up to their foreheads to see through the sun’s blinding rays.
“Shit. Why they early?” said Leo.
“I called that shit, man. Get him out of here,” Roel said gesturing Angel.
“Ay Angel, you gotta bounce now, aight?” said Leo, rushing the boy away from the table. “Go home or some shit. I’m sure you got homework to do.”
“It’s July—” Angel protested.
“Get lost, fool!” Roel yelled. Angel flinched as the words boomed out of the older boy’s mouth. Spittle hit him in the eye causing him to keep one closed for a few seconds after. He looked towards Leo, who tilted his head in a half shrug. Ale and Eddie stood up, focusing their attention not on Angel, but on the silver civic. Angel turned and walked home. His house wasn’t far from the park, only a block up the hill. As he made his way up the street, he looked back occasionally in an attempt to get a glimpse at what it was the older boys wanted him gone for. He saw Ale walking towards the car, from which an even older kid got out of the passenger seat and walked towards Ale to meet him halfway between the curb and the picnic table. In the middle of the field, the older boy and Ale dapped each other up. Roel, Leo, and Eddie, all standing and watching the interchange intently, remained back by the table. Ale and the older boy remained in the middle of the field talking briefly. Only a few seconds after they reached each other, the two boys dapped each other up once again before they each turned and walked back across the field to their places of origin.
Angel could not understand why they didn’t want him there. It didn’t seem like anything he couldn’t handle. He thought about heading back over to the picnic table, thinking that whatever it was the older boys didn’t want him around for was at least done with, but then, as if his gaze was tangible, able to be detected by the boys gathered around the table down the hill from him, Roel turned his head to meet Angel. Angel instinctively wiped his eye again, remembering the slight burn of the spittle hitting it. Roel must think I’m crying, he thought. He turned and resumed his walk home, his brow furrowed and his hair sticking to his forehead damp with sweat. He continued, frustrated and confused, stepping over cracks in the concrete from which weeds erupted. Roel followed the young boy with his eyes until the top of his head was swallowed behind the hill. Angel could still feel himself being watched. He kicked a pebble into the street.
Sancho and Angel didn’t share the same father. Sancho’s father left him and their mother when he was only a few months old. His mother says that his father was nineteen years old when he was born; she was seventeen. Seven years later, she and Angel’s father married. Three years after that, Angel was born. Angel did not know about his brother’s relation until two years ago. Eight months later, he would be in Kabul.
Sancho led a life not dissimilar to Ale, Leo, Roel, and Eddie. He made it further in school than them, though, if that means anything. His parents got on his case when they first noticed him sliding into bad habits, when his grades would start falling or when they would receive attendance notices in the mail. But by the time Sancho stopped showing up to school altogether in the tenth grade, they gave up. They let him stay in the house as long as he was working. He had a job at the Las Palapas on Evers, not far from their house. Of course, he had a side hustle, one that Angel was totally unaware of and that his parents deplored.
Angel would often come home from school to screaming matches between Sancho and his parents. He remembers a vein that would stick out of Sancho’s neck in some of the more intense arguments. He could hear them from his room, too. Sometimes he heard loud bangs, things breaking or shattering, followed by a slamming door.
One night two years ago Sancho hadn’t come home. This itself wasn’t uncommon. Sancho would be in and out of the house when he pleased, crashing with friends or staying at a girl’s house for a fuck. On this night, however, Angel was woken up by red and blue lights flashing through his blinds and shining in his eyes. When he looked out the window, he saw two policemen walking Sancho to the front porch, where his parents were waiting in their pajamas. His father had his arm on his mother’s shoulder; her arms were crossed. The officers and his parents talked for a few minutes. Angel watched as their dark silhouettes on the brick walls behind them stood motionless, the red and blue light shimmering around them with a freedom and grace that Angel was envious of. Eventually, the two officers walked back to their cruiser, leaving Sancho with his mother and her husband.
When they entered the house, Angel pressed his ear up against the door. He heard a brief muffled exchange between Sancho and his mother, a quiet one, in stark contrast to what usually transpired between the two. Then, he heard Sancho shuffling his way up the hallway and into his bedroom next door. The door swung slowly and quietly shut. Angel emerged from his room and stepped quietly down the dark hall towards the soft light radiating from the living room. He heard his mom and dad whispering to one another in the living room as the hallway around him grew more illuminated. When he reached them, they were surprised to see him awake. He asked them what had happened, to which his mother told him, “Don’t worry about Sancho, mijo.” She knelt so that her eyes were level with his and grabbed both his shoulders, softly stroking them up and down with her hands. “He just got into some trouble, but he’s okay. He won’t be getting into any more trouble. Let’s go back to bed, okay? You got school tomorrow”.
Sancho would leave for basic training a month later.
“What about McDonald’s? That dollar menu don’t fuck around,” said Eddie. The sun was setting at the end of the long summer day.
“Nah, I had that the other day” said Leo.
“Just order something else then, fuck you mean?” said Eddie.
“Man, the fuck am I gonna get from there that isn’t nuggets?”
“Burgers or something. I don’t know! They got a whole menu, fool!”
“What about Wendy’s?” chimed in Ale.
“Oh shit, I’m down for Wendy’s,” said Leo.
“Fuck you, Leo! I know damn well your ass gonna order nuggets there!” protested Eddie.
“It’s different, man.” said Leo.
“Aight, whatever.”
“Yo, Rolly, you down for Wendy’s?” asked Ale. Roel hadn’t spoken in a few minutes. Chewing a piece of gum and rolling the crumpled wrapper between his thumb and forefinger, he stared unflinchingly at the jungle gym, which was now void of children. No longer did screams and laughter emanate from it like they did earlier that afternoon. Though, the rusty chains from the swing set did release an impotent creak in the slight wind every few seconds.
Roel turned and faced the other boys, “Yeah that’s fine.” He flicked the wrapper away from him as he and the others stood up. “I’ll meet y’all there, though. I gotta go get some more gum from the Valero.”
“You and that fucking gum,” said Eddie. “Just get yourself some cigs, bro. You’d probably be better off then how much you chew that shit. It’s bad for your gums.”
“Yeah, okay,” said Roel. “I’ll see y’all in a few minutes.” Roel paced off away from them, up the hill in the direction Angel left earlier that afternoon.
The road was dark, save for the few streetlights that weren’t burnt out. Roel walked gingerly over the unkept sidewalk which jutted up haphazardly as if every few meters were rocked by its own individual earthquake. Beaten up cars lines the streets, all sporting some degree of sun damage on their roofs and hoods. Passing each house, he looked into the windows, squinting his eyes to try to make out anything he could see going on within the residences, careful to not be spotted. He felt bad for intruding these peoples’ privacy, but not bad enough to stop. To make himself feel better, he would move along as soon as he saw what he needed to see. What he saw varied: kids playing video games, couples eating dinner, fathers watching the baseball game, or a cat sitting on the windowsill. A dog at one of the houses began barking at him, which then triggered about four other dogs on the block to start barking. This frustrated Roel, perhaps more than it should have. He didn’t like dogs. They were too loud. Maybe he could tolerate a small dog, but even then, he hated the fact that many of the smaller ones were way in over their heads, thinking they were much bigger and ferocious than they really were. Some of the houses’ blinds were closed, or their lights were off. Roel took note of these, telling himself to circle back around if by the time he got to the end of the block he didn’t find what he wanted.
Finally, he arrived at a smaller house with a beat-up Camry in the driveway covered by a rusty tin awning and an unkept lawn. He peered in the window, just like he did with each of the houses before. Inside, he could make out three figures: one sitting on the couch in the foreground with the blue glow of the TV on their face, and two in the background sat at what he guessed was the kitchen table. Carefully, he stepped off the sidewalk and into the weed riddled lawn to get a closer look, focusing his attention at the figures in the background. One was smaller than the other. Another few steps in and his vision was clear. It was Angel, being served dinner by his mother. His father sat on the couch with a can of beer in hand. Finally, having set sight on Angel, Roel took in a breath and exhaled. A smile appeared on his face. He turned his body, looked down at the lawn beneath him, then glanced back into the window one more time before making his way back onto the pavement and heading back the way his friends went earlier. He paid no attention to the scenes inside the windows of the houses around him this time.
Roel rounded the corner and made it two blocks from the park on his way to the restaurant when he noticed a pair of headlights enter the street ahead of him. The headlights were very bright. Roel thought they could have been hi-beams, but he opted to shield his eyes instead of look into the light and find out for sure. As the car came closer, he thought the whirr of the engine sounded familiar, a slight rattle. He took his hand away from his eyes and gazed at the car approaching him. As it got closer and passed him, he was sure he had seen this car before. He turned around and followed the brake lights with his eyes. A silver Civic.
Ale emerged from the door holding his bag of food in one hand and his soda in the other. He walked gingerly, sipping foam from the top of the cup. He looked down at the other two boys sitting on the curb beneath the buzzing incandescent tube lights overhead. The two of them had already opened their meals and began eating. “You’re not gonna wait for Roel?”
“The steam’s gonna soak the buns, bro. Best to eat it now before I’m stuck eating a soggy-ass burger,” said Eddie.
“Yeah, Rolly’s a big boy; he’ll get over it,” said Leo.
“I guess,” Ale conceded as he sat down next to the other two. He placed his drink down on the concrete beside him and opened his bag. “They got that new soda machine. The type where they got all them flavors and shit and you touch the screen.”
Leo and Eddie looked at each other. “They’ve had that shit for months, mane,” Leo said.
“Oh. Guess I haven’t been here since then.”
They sat on the curb chewing their food in silence with background noise coming from the buzzing lights above and the bugs that congregated on them. The cars on the access road to loop 410 contributed to the white noise. An occasional honk came at the expense of a driver not paying attention to the stoplight flipping green.
The methodical rhythm of the urban scape around them was interrupted by a series of six pops that got all three of the boys’ attention. The pops were too quick and consecutive to be car backfire. Fireworks hadn’t been heard for a few weeks. It was clearly gunfire. They looked around, trying to triangulate the direction the pops came from like deer hearing twigs snap under the footsteps of a hunter.
The noise and bustle of the highway intersection around the boys continued as the echo of the pops hung in the air, or in their memories.
“Heh,” Eddie laughed. “Fuckin’ tweakers.”
Angel was startled to see the picnic table empty the following afternoon. The other younger kids were running and climbing on the jungle gym, where they always were. The grackles roosted in the trees lining the perimeter. Everything was in its right place except for this table that was empty. Angel stood close to it. He noticed for the first time the rust that ate away at its edges. The coat of paint was withering away revealing the aluminum beneath it. It’s metal, he thought to himself. He didn’t know what else he thought it would be made of but, for some reason, this perplexed him.
He looked up and scanned the circumference of the park. Maybe they just left. Maybe they were coming back. He turned to his right, kids screaming and laughing. He turned to his left, cars parked in driveways and on the curb; a police cruiser parked along the curb. There was always a police presence in the area. This, unlike the empty picnic table in front of him, wasn’t unusual. He looked to his right, again, beyond the jungle gym. Another police cruiser. Overkill, he thought. He looked back down at the table, picked at some chipping paint, and took a seat. He set his arms down on the tabletop but had to jerk them back quickly. It was hot to the touch. He rubbed them to ease the sting and noticed he was sweating. The sun was positioned directly above him. He looked up at it, scrunching his face. He stayed sitting for a few minutes before getting up and going over to the swing set. He was angry. What a bunch of jerks, he thought as he swayed back and forth. The metal creaked and groaned under his weight. They would rather alter their entire daily routine than have to put up with him coming up and trying to talk to them. He thought it must have been Roel’s idea. You don’t yell at someone like that and not be willing to put in the effort to avoid them like this. He kicked some gravel from underneath his legs as they dangled. A grackle landed on top of the crossbeam above him; it was missing some tail feathers. He remained there for a few more minutes before getting up and making his way home. He passed two more police cruisers in the short walk.
The days went by and the picnic table remained unoccupied, though it wasn’t long until it was colonized by another group of kids. After a week, Angel stopped checking the park altogether. School eventually started up again and Angel found himself in Mrs. Rosario’s class. There were a few kids in that class that he was friendly with beforehand that he got closer to as the weather got colder and the leaves got browner. He became great friends with a boy named Bengi, who lived further away from the school than Angel and was not in walking distance. Angel still walked to and from school each morning and afternoon, passing the park on each trip. He glanced over at the table out of habit. Still no sign of them. After confirming this, he put his eyes down to his feet and kicked leaves off the fractured pavement.
Angel would never see any of the older boys again. Though, he thought he saw Eddie one time when he was in Bengi’s mother’s car going over to his friend’s house after school. He saw him standing in between a police officer and a woman in a grey suit in the front yard of someone’s house. They were speaking to what Angel thought must have been Eddie’s parents. The car fled past the scene before Angel could know what he saw, what he might have seen. It was just a glimpse after all. He couldn’t be sure. The car continued, making its way under the loop 410 overpass, out of Angel’s neighborhood and into Bengi’s. They made their way through winding streets and past cul-de-sacs and over speedbumps. A woman in a tank top and leggings was running with her dog beside them. She had an iPod strapped to her shoulder. Bengi’s mother asked him how his day was from the front seat. He said it was fine.
Diego Díaz is a second year English major at the University of Texas at Austin. Díaz lived in the Balcones Heights area of San Antonio, Texas for the first seven years of his life with his parents and his older sister before moving out to the suburb of Helotes, just on the edge of the Texas hill country. At Sandra Day O’Connor High School, Díaz was a member of the varsity band and full orchestra, and was the section leader of the front ensemble. Though possessing a keen ear for music, his first interests lied in the liberal arts, taking up an admiration for literature that led him to his current studies. In his junior year of high school, Díaz received an honorable mention in a New York Times student essay contest for his essay on Saudi Arabian foreign policy. Díaz has written columns for The Daily Texan, and this is his first fiction publication.
