Broken Arrow Read online

  K.C. has been messing around with his uncle’s turntables since we were kids––I still remember when he cleaned toilets for his mom for an entire summer so he could save enough for his own set. My boy is talented, and it’s good to hear he’s actually doing something with it. Even as I feel a twinge of jealousy, I’m mad proud.

  K.C. mimes like he’s dusting off his shoulders. “Yeah, well. It ain’t gonna pay the rent anytime soon, but he did ask for more. I’m putting together another mixed tape for him next week. My cousins brought back this crazy shit from PR last year, this mix, sort of half-rap, half-reggae, from this cat, DJ Playero. Wait ‘til you hear it, man, this shit is bananas.”

  He practically bounces the rest of the way to school as he tells me about his next project, recording some kind of Spanish rap mix in his cousin’s bedroom in el barrio. I listen with interest, noticing the differences in how my friend is talking these days. Suddenly all these dudes are “cats,” not dudes or just people, and he doesn’t lapse into Spanish as easily as he used to. Like me, K.C. hasn’t been spending as much time at home, but for different reasons.

  “That’s awesome, man,” I say when he finishes. Then a thought occurs to me. “Mira, do you think your mom needs more help with her business? If mine can’t do it, maybe I can.”

  K.C. taps his chin. “I can ask. But honestly, I don’t know. We all had to go through background checks because of the security at this place. They don’t fuck around. And since you got a record now...”

  A record. Assault on top of robbery meant the district attorney wasn’t interested in playing nice with fifteen-year-old me––he was just interested in convictions and “cleaning up the neighborhood.” Was it stupid we were stealing? Was it dumb that we lured the owner downstairs so I could raid the cash register? Fuck, yeah.

  But the punishment didn’t fit the crime, if you ask me. I was one of three kids caught at the bodega that day, but I was the only one bussed out to Tryon––all because I was caught with a crowbar in my hand, and both the bodega owner and the kid who actually did hit him swore I was the one who did it. I wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. We all had brown skin and hoodies. We all looked the same to him.

  Tell me, what would you do if your mom lost her job again? That the food stamps you shared with your neighbor because, as an undocumented immigrant, your mother couldn’t claim public assistance, couldn’t feed her four kids, including a seven-year-old with eyes too big for his face? That because you’re only fifteen years old and brown, most people won’t hire you?

  Tell me: what the fuck would you do?

  Maybe I should have begged. Maybe I should have begged Mr. Cho for a job instead of robbing him. I might not be eighteen yet, but out of sheer fuckin’ bad luck, I ended up being the one kid caught that night who was charged and convicted as a juvenile offender. As a youth offender or delinquent, I might not have been shipped two hours away from my home, and, more importantly, my record would be sealed from employers. But as a J.O., I’ll have to check that little conviction box on every job application for the rest of my life.

  A siren sounds down the street, and we quiet for a moment while a fire truck passes. My gaze follows its path. There’s a station around the corner from our building, and when I was a kid, I’d always run to the window to watch the truck whenever I heard the siren. I used to want to be one of them, one of New York’s Bravest, a real live superhero in the city. Alba even helped Ma make me a fireman costume for Halloween, and I wore that thing for years until I couldn’t fit the waist around my legs anymore.

  But that’s all in the past now. The FDNY isn’t ever going to hire some punk kid with a record. As soon as the prosecutor made his decision, I kissed that dream goodbye.

  I say nothing more as we round the corner to see the solid brick walls of Park West High School––looking exactly the same as it always did. Just like before, the front of the school is crowded with kids, all jumbled behind the chain-link fence. I can smell hints of weed here and there––there are too many wannabe thugs at this school, and the teachers are too tired to check them for something as small as a little pot. What’s left of the white and Irish kids on the block crowd into a corner of the yard; most of the black kids have already disappeared into the building, where they usually roost on the third floor. The Latino kids––most of them Puerto Rican or some mix like me––take up most of the rest of the yard.

  Sometimes I wonder if life would have been a little different if we had grown up in Spanish Harlem or the South Bronx, surrounded by people who looked and talked like us and our families. Park West is a mess, with all different languages, all different kids, and sometimes that causes problems. Would it have been easier? Harder? I really don’t know.

  But I actually like that I didn’t grow up in one of those neighborhoods in New York where everyone is the same. As I look over the schoolyard, I see pockets of students who are black, white, brown. Puerto Rican, Ecuadorian, Haitian, Nigerian, Jewish, Italian, Irish––you name it, we got it. A perfect mini-version of the city, even if it’s actually more segregated behind this fence than on the street.

  Just like Tryon. Fences make people a little crazy.

  We walk by a group of girls messing with their hair before class, and they stop chattering as we pass.

  “Hey, Nico,” one of them calls at me while a few of the others giggle behind her.

  “How you doin’, mami?” K.C. stops and greets her with a line I can tell he’s practiced a few times in the mirror. “You lookin’ good today.”

  I pull my strap over my shoulder and turn toward the girls.

  It takes a second, but I recognize Sharon Fernandez, Alicia Capanelli, and Olivia García, all girls who attended junior high with me and K.C. and who were here when I left. Olivia smiles––she’s lost her braces. She’s lost a few other things too, if I’m not mistaken. And gained a few. Damn.

  I run my tongue over my teeth. I’m the luckiest out of the kids in my family. We’d get our hands smacked if we were caught sucking our thumbs because Ma didn’t want us to have crooked teeth. Mine are pretty straight; you can’t tell I never had braces. My sisters aren’t as lucky––already, Maggie has stopped smiling as much as she used to, and I wonder if it’s because of the way her bottom teeth stick out.

  “We heard you were back,” Olivia says to me while K.C. looks over Alicia like a wolf identifying its prey. And she’s...blushing? Damn, when did my boy get some game?

  “Um, yeah,” I say, shifting my backpack on my shoulder. “Friday.”

  “So is it true?” Olivia cocks her head. “You were locked in isolation for two whole years?”

  “I, uh––”

  I shift uncomfortably on the soles of my feet. I haven’t actually thought about questions like this, even though I knew I’d get them. But to be honest, only thing I can think about right now is the fact that I can see the line of Olivia’s underwear through her very tight black skirt. I swallow. Yeah, the girls I knew before have grown up too while I was away.

  “‘Course he was.”

  A voice cuts into the group, and I recognize it immediately: Jaden Matthews, one of the other two kids who were caught that day in the bodega. The one who actually did beat up Mr. Cho. The one who told the cops I did it, and who got off with a more lenient sentence, the kind that takes place in a counselor’s office instead of a detention facility. The kind that will be sealed from employers.

  By the looks of what he’s wearing, he’s doing a lot more now than just knocking over bodegas. His shoes are bright white under his baggy jeans, and he’s got a seriously fly leather jacket over his Knicks jersey. But it’s the red bandana hanging out of his back pocket that makes me stiffen. I don’t see a tattoo marking him as a gang member, but Jaden’s definitely trying to run with some heavy crowds these days.

  “Why else would he be wearing those tight-ass pants?” he jeers, causing his friends to laugh with him. “They had to protect the other boys from this puffer.”

&nbs
p; The girls giggle into their hands. I look down at my jeans. They fit fine, but all around the schoolyard, most of the dudes and even some of the girls at Park West are dressed like they should be in rap videos, with clothes three-to-five sizes too large. These hand-me-downs from K.C. would have been all right two years ago––back then only the kids who were really trying to be Gs wore that style. But times change. I’m out of the loop.

  So I do the only thing I can do in the situation. I shrug. And then I look Jaden in the eye.

  “We had other things to worry about besides fashion in juvey,” I say before giving him a hard look up and down, eying the gold chains around his neck. He’s trying to look like a thug, but he just looks like an asshole. An asshole who just ruined the first conversation I’ve had with a girl in two fuckin’ years. “Looks like you’ve been keepin’ up, though. You readin’ a lot of Vogue these days, Jaden? I hear that’s the magazine for maricónes.”

  “Oooh, listen!” Someone in the growing crowd whispers loudly.

  “What’d you call me, motherfucka?”

  Jaden’s not Hispanic, but you’d have to be an idiot to go to this school, live in this city, and not know that maricón means gay. It’s not a nice word, not one I like to use, even if plenty use it between friends. But K.C. calling me that as a joke is a lot different than me using it right now. And the only reason I throw it out there is because I know it will get under Jaden’s skin.

  He takes a step forward, clenching his fists. He’s gotten bigger in the past couple of years, but not as big as me. And I’d bet my left nut he hasn’t been doing the training I’ve done. So I stand my ground.

  “I’m just sayin.’” I cross my arms. “You seem to know a lot about it. Maybe you been readin’ up. Poppin’ down to Christopher Street while I was gone. Visiting the peep shows with some pretty boys, huh?”

  “Man, fuck you!”

  Jaden’s just about to lunge at me when the bell rings, a loud, angry buzz over the hum of the students. Over his shoulder, I can see a few teachers, already looking tired and beaten down, emerge to help usher students into the school. There’s murder in Jaden’s eyes, but the reality is, I don’t care. I’m out of shits to give about small-time gangsters like this motherfucker. He wants a fight about my fuckin’ pants, he can have it, but not here. Not in place where one bad report to my probation officer could land my ass right back at Tryon. Hell fuckin’ no.

  “Jokes, man,” I say, raising my hands in mock surrender. A few other students chuckle, and the crowd breaks up. “It’s just jokes, right?”

  Jaden looks around angrily, but finally shrugs. “Whatever. Come on,” he says to his two friends, leaving K.C. and me to walk into the school together.

  “You didn’t forget how to make an entrance, I’ll give you that,” K.C. says with a slap on my back. “Did you see how Olivia was eyin’ you? Say the word, and old girl will pop that cherry, mano, no doubt.”

  “Coño, shut the fuck up!”

  K.C.’s laughing, but I’m turning red. I don’t exactly want it broadcast all over the school that I’m still a virgin at almost eighteen. Seriously, though. You try getting laid when you live on a compound with two hundred other dudes.

  “I’m just fuckin’ with you,” K.C. says. “But for real. Jaden’s right about one thing. We gotta get you some new pants.”

  ~

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The hours at school pass quietly, with curious looks from my classmates and cautious welcomes from the teachers who, if I’m not mistaken, are a little scared when they see me. By the end of each class I feel lost, especially in math. Two years of worksheets at Tryon did not keep me up with my classes here, and that’s saying something since Park West isn’t exactly a top school. My reading skills are all right––there wasn’t much else to do in my cell at Tryon––but I’ll be lucky if I pass math at all.

  My last class is different. The familiar smells of the art studio––paint, charcoal, paper––are comforting as I slide onto a stool at one of the large, beat-up tables. Ms. Alvarez, my old English and art teacher (because Park West is the kind of school where teachers have to teach multiple subjects), greets me with bright eyes and a quick hug. It’s the first warmth I’ve felt all day.

  “Welcome back, hon!” she says after she lets go.

  I give her a shy smile.

  “Thanks,” I say. “It’s good to be back.”

  The classroom fills up quickly, and Ms. Alvarez gives me a wink before she moves to the front to call roll. I relax in my seat as she hands out the day’s assignment, giving me a fresh sheet of sketch paper to work on a still life. Several of the students chatter throughout the class, more interested in socializing than drawing. But I get straight to work. This is the one thing I can do, maybe better than when I left.

  After class ends, I file out with the rest of the students, ignoring the obvious looks from some of the girls. K.C. would say I should get on some of that––enough of them have been looking that I know they’re interested. But I don’t know...is it weird that the way they look at me feels almost the same as how some of the guards used to look at me and the other boys in Tryon? Like we’re not people? Just things.

  “‘Sup, man.” My friend Flaco greets me with a hard slap of hands after he exits the class after me. It’s a quick tug so our chests bump. “Good to have you back, papi. How’s it feel bein’ a free bird?”

  I hunch my shoulders and shrug. I’ve been getting variations of the same question all day. “Good, man. It’s good.” I don’t know what else to say. I don’t want to go back, but I feel weird being here too.

  “Hey, Nico.”

  Another group of girls whose names I don’t even remember pass by, decked out like the rest of them in short skirts and shirts that show half their flat bellies. Their clothes are so tight, it’s hard to think of anything else but taking them off. K.C. and Flaco follow the girls––specifically their asses––blatantly across the street. When they turn back, K.C. is shaking his head.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks me, then turns to Flaco. “This cat’s been getting fuck-me eyes all motherfuckin’ day. Everywhere he go, girls be like ‘hey, Nico.’ ‘My pussy’s waiting, Nico.’ All he gotta do is smile at them, and their panties would fuckin’ drop. To the floor. In a second.” He gives me a knowing look.

  I chuckle and shrug. “Nah, it’s not like that.”

  Flaco snorts. “Well, Erin Bishop doesn’t lick her lips at me like that every day. Maybe I should go to juvey, get my pick of pussy when I get back.”

  Flaco licks his lips like Erin and mimes doing a girl from behind. With his bug-eyes and skinny features, the movement makes him look more like a frog than usual. I can’t help but laugh.

  “Look at them busters. Whatchu doin’, planning your next orgy?”

  Flaco and K.C.’s faces both harden as Jaden’s voice cuts through our laughter. I turn around, but he’s not talking to us. We watch as he plucks the hat off a skinny kid named Arthur, who’s probably a freshman or sophomore, and pops it on his head while the rest of his crew circles Arthur and his friends like wolves. They continue to pick at their clothes while the boys cower. The chains around Jaden’s neck jingle until he gets bored and finally leaves, the boy’s hat still perched on his head.

  “I really hate that dude,” Flaco mutters as we watch. “He started running for some dealers here and there, and now he thinks he’s so bad.”

  “So, he’s not a Blood?” I ask, still looking at the bandana in Jaden’s pocket before he turns the corner. I’m not scared of him, but I’m not interested in messing with a gang like that if they have his back.

  K.C. snorts. “He wishes. He just walks around with that shit in his pocket so people think he’s a G. He ain’t shit.”

  We start the walk home, passing a group of cops who give us hard looks. No wonder Ma doesn’t want to leave the building anymore––even just a few years ago, most of the NYPD wouldn’t venture into this neighborhood. Flaco li
ves about four blocks away, but once he’s done with school, his parents are moving up to the Bronx since their building is turning into a co-op. It’s the same story we’ve been hearing everywhere. More cops. Less crime. People leaving. Condos rising.

  In some ways, it’s good. My mom doesn’t have to be so worried now every time her kids leave the apartment without her. When we were little, we’d walk down the middle of the street instead of the sidewalks to avoid getting robbed. Things are changing. But a lot of good people are getting pushed out with those changes too.

  We turn onto Forty-Ninth Street, and K.C. nudges my shoulder.

  “Que pa’o?” I ask. My friends don’t speak Spanish as much as they used to, but I’ve been doing it on purpose. I like the way it feels again, rolling over my tongue after two years of one-word sentences.

  K.C. nods up ahead. I follow his gaze across the street to where Jaden walks out of a bodega––the same bodega that ruined my fuckin’ life––with that same stupid hat, that same stupid swagger.

  That dumb fuckin’ bastard. Walking alone by himself on this block? Things may be changing, but this block is still ninety percent Latin. Looks like he’s been sampling whatever he’s selling, and it’s ruined his brain.

  “You wanna...” K.C. nods toward him again, but I only catch it out of the corner of my eye. I’m still fixated on Jaden’s bouncing stride.

  His words come back to me. The fact that I can’t get a job because of what he did comes back to me. The memory of David and my mom in the bedroom last night, audible even over the blare of the TV. She wasn’t screaming in a bad way, but it still made me want to break something.

  “Yeah,” I say darkly. “I want.”

  I don’t even have to tell K.C. and Flaco to jog ahead of me, quiet like cats. We cross the street, our feet muffled by a bus pulling away from a stop. We follow Jaden down a quieter street, and both K.C. and Flaco pounce, grabbing the collar of that loud leather jacket and tossing Jaden down the deserted alley that juts off the sidewalk. His face grows wide with fear as I take him from my friends and shove him against the crusty brick wall that’s peeling with old graffiti.