Chasing the Bear (9 page)

“How come you’re hanging around with Mexicans?” he said.

“I like Aurelio,” I said.

“He’s queer, man,” Turk said.

“You think?” I said.

“A
maricón,
” Turk said.

“That a new word you learned?” I said.

“Maricón,”
Turk said. “Aurelio
Maricón.
”

“I don’t know if he’s queer,” I said. “But if you’re right, and he is, does that mean he has to get beat up every couple days?”

“How ’bout ’cause he’s a beaner?” Turk said.

“Whatever,” I said. “Why you want to beat him up?”

“’Cause we don’t like them.”

“Them?”

“Mexicans,” Turk said. “You gonna protect him?”

“I’m gonna protect him,” I said.

“I never had you figured for a spick lover, man.”

Mr. Hartley said, “I’d like some quiet, please, in the back of the room.”

We sat still, and when Mr. Hartley looked back down at his notes, I whispered to Turk, “Just leave him alone.”

Mr. Hartley looked up again and saw Turk and me looking at him innocently, eager for knowledge.

The
low buildings of the Back Bay were dark. They looked, with the effusive sunset behind them, like a stage setting.

Standing on the little bridge, Susan and I turned and rested our hips on the bridge bulwark and looked at it.

“That’s very pretty,” Susan said.

“And it happens every day,” I said.

“I’ve heard that,” Susan said. “Was Aurelio really gay?”

“Don’t know,” I said.

“You didn’t ask him?”

“No,” I said.

“You didn’t care,” Susan said.

“No,” I said. “Didn’t then and don’t now.”

“Mexican either,” Susan said.

“Nope,” I said. “Mexican either. I never cared about that stuff.”

I grinned at her.

“Besides, I was a little hazy on exactly what it meant to be gay,” I said.

“Did they keep bothering you?” Susan said.

“Not bad, for a while. They teased us a little, but I didn’t have to fight anybody.”

“Were they scared of you?”

“Maybe a little scared,” I said. “They knew I could fight. But, you know, I played ball with a lot of the guys. I knew most of them. They all knew I’d punched out Croy Davis, who was two years older than I was. And I kept telling them to lay off Aurelio.”

“And they listened?”

“Some,” I said.

“So you were able to stop walking to school with him after a while.”

“I was, until a bunch of Mexican kids beat the crap out of an Anglo kid and everybody started taking sides.”

“Which, unless you were more different in those days than I think you were, wasn’t your style.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I said.

“You’ve never been a joiner,” Susan said.

“I wasn’t trying to solve race relations in town,” I said. “I was just trying to help Aurelio, because he was a nice little guy and because Jeannie asked me to.”

“When I was at Harvard,” Susan said, “the concern was mostly with larger problems, saving the world, that kind of thing.”

“How’s that working?” I said.

Susan smiled.

“Since I’ve known you,” she said, “you have actually been saving the world, one person at a time.”

I grinned.

“I guess I work on a smaller scale than Harvard,” I said.

“Thank God,” Susan said.

I
was leaning against the brick wall on the sunny side of the school, talking to Jeannie and Aurelio at recess. Carl and Turk came over to us along with an older guy I didn’t know. All three of them looked hard at Aurelio. But nobody spoke to him. I could feel Aurelio trying to shrink into the brick wall.

“How ya doin’, Spenser?” Carl said.

“Good,” I said.

“Hey, babe,” Turk said.

Jeannie ignored him.

“This here is Leo Roemer,” Carl said.

“Leo,” I said.

He nodded. He looked at Jeannie.

“Who’s this?” he said.

“I’m Jeannie,” she said.

Leo nodded.

“Not bad,” he said.

“Gee, thanks,” Jeannie said. “You’re pretty cute yourself.”

“Maybe someday I’ll show you how cute I am,” Leo said.

“Maybe,” Jeannie said. “Maybe not.”

“You go to school here?” I said.

“I don’t go to school nowhere,” Leo said. “I dumped it after the eighth grade.”

“Lucky you,” I said.

“It’s all crap anyway,” he said.

I nodded.

“Leo’s gonna help us with the spicks,” Carl said.

I nodded.

“And we gotta know where you stand,” Carl said.

“Stand about what?” I said.

“You with us against the spicks or you with them?” Turk said.

“I’m just looking out for Aurelio,” I said.

“They beat up Sal Dusack,” Turk said.

“Probably getting even,” I said.

“Hey,” Leo said. “You with us or not?”

“Whaddya do, Leo?” I said. “Now that you’re not in school.”

“I work with my old man,” he said.

“What did you say your last name was?”

“Roemer,” he said. “What do you care?”

“Roemer Construction?”

“Yeah, whaddya know about it?”

“My father is Sam Spenser,” I said. “He and my uncles do a lot of work with your father.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t care,” Leo said. “I want to know where you stand.”

“You know any of them?” I said.

“I don’t work with the subcontractors,” Leo said. “You with us or against us?”

“How about neither?” I said.

“We don’t like ‘neither,’ ” Leo said.

He looked around at Carl and Turk.

“Do we?” he said.

“No,” Carl said.

“Come on, Spenser,” Turk said. “You known us all your life.”

“How can you side with them?” Carl said.

“I’m not siding with them,” I said. “And I’m not siding with you.”

“You’re American,” Turk said. “Like us.”

“I might not be exactly like you,” I said.

“Aw, screw him,” Leo said to Carl and Turk. “He’s yellow. He won’t even fight for his own kind.”

My father always said there was no point in arguing about crap; when you got all through, the argument was still gonna be crap.

I made no comment.

The three of them turned away.

“Better watch yourself, Spenser,” Leo said.

Turk looked back at me and shook his head. I shrugged at him. And they walked off.

“What’s
going to happen?” Aurelio said.

“Don’t know,” I said.

“I think there’s going to be a big fight,” Jeannie said.

“Do you think so?” Aurelio said to me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I don’t like that Leo,” Jeannie said.

“What’s going to happen?” Aurelio asked. “If everybody starts fighting, you can’t protect me from all of them.”

“They might not be so interested in you alone,” I said.

“But you’ll stay with me?” Aurelio said.

“Yes.”

“I don’t like that Leo,” Jeannie said again.

“No,” I said. “I don’t like him either.”

“How old do you think he is?” Jeannie said.

“Sixteen,” I said. “Seventeen.”

“You think he really works for his father?” Jeannie said.

“He didn’t know my father and my uncles. If he did much in the business, he’d know them. They do a lot of work for Roemer.”

“I bet he just hangs around the office,” Jeannie said.

“Could be,” I said.

“I’m scared about all this,” Jeannie said.

“I don’t like it much either,” I said.

“Are you scared?” Aurelio said.

“Some,” I said.

“But you’ll stick with me?” Aurelio said.

“I will.”

“What are you scared of most?” Jeannie asked me.

“It’s gotten awful big,” I said. “And . . . I never had a fight with a guy sixteen, seventeen years old. That’s a pretty big difference.”

“Maybe you won’t have to fight with him,” Jeannie said.

“Maybe,” I said.

“But you think you will,” Jeannie said.

“Yes.”

“Why?” she said.

“Because he didn’t scare me,” I said. “At least not that he could tell.”

“So?”

“So he was supposed to, I mean, it’s why he came over. The guys wanted me with them, and I wouldn’t do it, so they bring in big bad Leo, and I still won’t do it.”

“But,” Jeannie said, “I should think if you weren’t scared of him, he’d less want to fight you, you know?”

“Guy like Leo, there’s a reason he hangs around with younger guys,” I said. “Maybe the guys his age don’t think he’s such a big deal.”

“Like the guys at the construction company?” Jeannie said.

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe he needs to be a tough guy and they won’t treat him like one.”

“That doesn’t make any sense to me,” Jeannie said. “Is it because I’m a girl?”

She looked at Aurelio.

“Does that make any sense to you, Aurelio?” she said.

He shook his head slowly.

“No, but I know a lot of boys need to be macho,” he said.

“Are you like that?” Jeannie asked me.

“I suppose,” I said. “Some.”

“But you don’t pick on people,” Jeannie said.

“No,” I said. “It doesn’t make me feel brave.”

“Is that what it’s about?” Jeannie said. “Feeling brave?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But you can only feel brave if you face up to something that you need to be brave about, you know?”

“Like with my father?”

“Yes.”

“And like trying to protect Aurelio,” she said.

“Yes.”

Jeannie shook her head.

“You are not like any other boy I know,” she said.

“I was brought up a little different, I guess.”

“Because you didn’t have a mother?” Jeannie said.

“I don’t know. I never had a mother; I don’t know what that would be like. But being brought up by my father and my uncles, the way they treated me.”

“Which is how?” Jeannie said.

“Like I wasn’t a kid,” I said. “Like I was a person.”

“And they’re all brave,” Jeannie said.

“They are,” I said.

“Is it so important feeling brave?” Jeannie said.

“I guess it is,” I said.

“God,” Jeannie said. “Being a boy must not be easy.”

“No,” I said. “No easier than being a girl.”

“Being a kid,” Aurelio said, “is especially not easy.”

A
kid named Petey Hernandez stopped me in the corridor when school was letting out. He was fifteen and already had a scar on his left forearm where someone had cut him with a knife.

“Got a minute?” he said.

I said I did.

“We know how you been looking out for Aurelio Lopez,” he said.

I nodded.

“Aurelio ain’t much,” Petey said. “But he’s Mexican, and I figure we owe you for it.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” I said.

Petey shrugged.

“Anyway,” he said, “Aurelio ain’t the only Mexican they been beatin’ on.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” I said.

“Roemer and his pack,” Petey said.

I nodded. Croy went by us without making eye contact.

“How ’bout Croy?” I said. “He in the pack?”

“Yeah,” Petey said. “Wouldn’t you figure?”

“Seems the type,” I said.

Petey nodded.

“Gonna be a rumble,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Down back of the Y,” Petey said. “Roemer and his buddies like to hang out there. We gonna go down there and settle things.”

“When?” I said.

Petey shook his head.

“You don’t need to know,” he said.

“Why you telling me at all?” I said.

“So you’ll stay away from those guys,” he said. “Don’t want to see you get hurt.”

I nodded.

“I don’t hang with them,” I said.

“Good idea,” Petey said. “You gonna tell anyone about this?”

“Nobody you’d care about,” I said.

“Nobody at all,” Petey said.

“Might talk about it with my father and my uncles. They won’t say anything if I ask them not to.”

“You can trust them?”

“Certain sure,” I said.

“You gimme your word?” he said.

“It ain’t about me,” I said.

“Your word?” he said. “Nobody tells Roemer?”

I nodded.

“My word.”

“I think your word’s good,” Petey said. “It ain’t, you’ll hear from us.”

“It ain’t my fight,” I said. “I got nothing to say about it.”

“Make sure,” Petey said.

“I’ll do what I can,” I said.

Petey nodded and turned and walked away. I watched him go.

Tough kid, I thought. Lot tougher than Leo Roemer.

“Sun’s
down,” Susan said. “And it’s getting chilly. I think we should go across the street and have a glass of wine at The Bristol Lounge.”

“What a good idea,” I said.

We walked off the little bridge and headed past the last of the cruising swan boats toward Boylston Street.

Susan took my hand as we walked.

“Was that Mexican boy’s name really Petey?” she said.

“Pedro,” I said.

“Did they fight?” she said.

I smiled.

“Yep,” I said.

“And?” Susan said.

“The Anglos got outthought,” I said. “The Mexicans sent one of their smallest guys down back of the Y. He let Roemer and his group see him, and he fired an apple at them and ran. Of course they chased him. He ran across the street to the Public Works parking lot, full of trucks and plows and tractors, and hid in there. Leo Roemer and his troop come after him and start looking for him, which causes them to split up into small groups looking in and around the heavy equipment, which is parked in rows with an aisle in between. The Mexican kids are in there waiting. When the Anglos get in among the trucks, Petey’s boys jump them, and, because the Anglos are split up, they are always outnumbered by the Mexican kids, and they get their tails whipped. The fight ends with Leo, with a bloody nose, leading his troop out of there at a dead run.”