Efrain's Secret (25 page)

I get into the bathroom and look in the mirror to examine the damage. No wonder heads were staring. I still got the best of him, though.

I shower with water as hot as I can stand, washing away the blood, the snot, the dirt, the street, the jail. But even though I lather twice and wash my hair, I just can’t strip the weight of what has happened. Sometimes my mother and Rubio’s voices rise over the hard spray of the shower. Only when I hear the apartment door slam do I turn off the faucet and pull back the curtain. I towel off, change into the dingy sweats hanging behind the door, slip into my
chanclas
, and go face my mother.

She stands in the living room staring out of the window. She hears me shuffle into the living room and turns to face me, her eyes swollen with exhaustion and anger. “First things first… Did you do it, Efrain? They arrested you for selling cocaine, and I need to hear the truth from you. Are you guilty of the charges?”

I knew this would be a hard conversation, but, man … I had
no idea how deep it would cut. I don’t know what hurts more: the fact that Moms still believes in me enough to grant me the benefit of the doubt or the fact that in the next second I will prove to her that I don’t deserve it. “Yes.”

And as if that single word gave her a push, my mother reaches for the windowsill to maintain her balance. “How long have you been doing this?” Damn, if she would just scream and curse, or even hit me, I can get through this. I can handle the rage. I want to take it. But I can’t carry this kind of weight. If I hurt her any more, it will break me.

“I’ve only been out there a few times.” I drop my head, tears stinging at the corners of my eyes. “And only to make money for college.” Moms scoffs. “That’s the truth!” I lift up my head because I know if my mother looks me in the eye, she will understand. “Mami, I’m tired. I’m tired of following all the rules and never winning the game. You want to hear the truth? Nice guys finish last, Mami.
No me metí en drogas
to have money for nice clothes or jewelry or anything like that, but why do I have to choose? I’m tired of being the good boy who never has anything to show for it, whether it’s a cool pair of jeans or money for school. Doing the right thing is supposed to be its own reward, but that’s not enough to pay my tuition. Whatever it takes, remember?” No one should understand better how exhausting it is to do the right thing for its own sake without so much as a rebate. Regardless of what happened tonight, this more than anything proves that I am her son.

But my mother grabs my chin like a vise and yells, “You don’t pay tuition when you go to prison!” Moms shoves my head backward as if she wants to snap it off my neck. “And if you get killed,
soy yo la que va tener que pagar
. I pay, Efrain. I’m the one who’ll have to pay for your burial plot.” She wraps her arms around her body as if trying to contain herself. But within seconds, Moms
explodes. “I’m sick of the men in this family taking me for granted! I sacrifice myself day in and day out for years,
¿y pa’ qué?
Just for you to decide that it’s not good enough and break all the rules and humiliate me, you selfish, insensitive …” In all my life, I have never seen my mother so enraged. No matter what he did, she never got this angry at Rubio. The knot of emotions sitting in the pit of my stomach paralyzes me. Moms points at me and says, “I’ll be damned if I bury my son or visit him in prison because he’s out there running the streets when I’m busting my ass to keep him off them, Efrain Rodriguez. This is not how I raised you, and I won’t stand for it.”

“Sí, señora.”
She’s had her fill of loving men who lie in her face. I get it.

My mother walks back over to me and reaches up to stroke the bruise on my cheek. Just as I lean into the caress, she snatches back her hand as if she’s afraid to be too tender. Moms says, “I want my son back, Efrain.” It sounds more like a plea than an order.

“Sí, señora.”

Then my mother falls into herself as if diving into her own heart for something deeply buried there. She swallows hard and says, “So I want you to live with your father until you graduate from high school. While you were in the shower, I packed your things in a laundry bag—”

“What?” No way. I can see the reluctance in her eyes and hear the doubt in the spaces between her words. Does Moms really believe that if she puts me out, I’ll crawl over to Awilda’s like the prodigal son, and Rubio will straighten me out? “No, nope, sorry,” I say, throwing myself against the wall and folding my arms across my chest.

“You can’t stay here, Efrain. What kind of example is that for your sister? What am I supposed to say to Amanda the day she
decides to do God knows what with strange men because she needs to
earn
money for college?”

“Damn, Mami, don’t OD!” Ain’t no need for my mother to paint that nasty picture in her own mind, never mind mine. “Like that’s going to happen.”

“If yesterday someone had told me my son was selling drugs, Efrain, I wouldn’t have believed it either,” says Moms. “And I refuse to hold you to a different moral standard just because you’re a few years older than she is, and certainly not because you’re a boy.”

“But I’m not a boy anymore!” I yell. “That’s the problem right there, Mami—”

“I don’t know what Nestor
y esos títeres en l’esquina
have told you, Efrain. I don’t give a damn either!” my mother interrupts. “Breaking the law and doing time and all that gangster nonsense is not some rite of passage to manhood. Until you understand that, not only are you merely pretending to be your own man, you’re not the kind of person who is welcomed in this house. Go, Efrain.” My mother’s voice wavers. “Before I call the police. It’s over to Rubio’s or back to jail. The choice is yours.”

I come off the wall. “Mami, you can’t be serious!”

“Take your shit and leave now!”
My mother pushes past me and heads to the apartment door. She grabs the laundry bag and my backpack and flings them out into the hallway. Clothes and cash spill across the dirty tiles, including the leather jacket and Baby Phat handbag I gave her and Mandy for Christmas. The second I rush across the threshold to retrieve them, my mother tosses my jacket into the corridor, then slams and locks the door behind me.

I scoop all the money and clothes back into the laundry bag and then pull my keys out of my jacket pocket. Nothing can stop me from letting myself back in and refusing to go. But when I step
to the door with the keys in hand, I can hear Moms wailing as if she were desperate to heave up her blistering heart to make the pain stop. Then I hear the patter of Mandy’s feet against the linoleum as she runs from her room to my mother. She cried, too, when my mother finally put out Rubio, but not like this. Nothing like this.

I slip my keys back into my pocket and reach into the laundry bag for a couple of bills. I smooth out each one and slide them under the door. My mother continues to sob, oblivious to my gesture. It’s all good. I would hate for her to misinterpret this as a bribe. As smart as I’m supposed to be, I never figured out a way to find a way to funnel some of my earnings her way. When Moms finds a couple of hundred dollars on the floor, will she throw it out because it’s from me? I won’t be here to take it back, so she might as well get ahead on a few bills.

When I’m done sliding my apologies past the welcome mat, I stand up, grab my bags, and bounce.

Raucous
(adj.)
loud, boisterous

Marlene answers the door holding an open bottle of soda in her hand. “Hey, Efrain!” She steps aside to let me in as I drag the bag behind me. “What you got in there?” Then Marlene notices my
chancl’as
. “You must be crazy, walking the streets in them sandals in this cold!”

Ignoring her, I ask, “Mind if I wait for Nes in his room?”

Claudia’s toddler Joshua races past me on his way from the kitchen to the living room. Seconds later some guy in his late twenties chases behind him. Must be his father. I think his name is Robby. He does a double take and stops in front of me. “Who you?” he says.

“That’s Nestor’s friend Efrain,” volunteers Marlene.

“Efrain?” The guy squints at me, his breath foul with Corona. “I don’t know you.”

Marlene sucks her teeth and yells, “That’s ’cause he’s
Nestor’s
friend!”

“Shut the hell up, Marlene! I heard you the first time, damn.” He starts to say something to me when his cell phone rings. Recognizing the number, Robby flips open the phone and barks into it. “Claudia, where the hell you at?” I take that as my cue to leave. “I know it don’t take
that
long to bail nobody outta jail!”

I get to Nestor’s door and reach for the knob to find a gaping hole and splinters of wood scattered all over the floor. Someone hacked the knob out of the door. I push it open and find Melo by
himself sitting on the floor playing Grand Theft Auto. “Hi, E.!” he says with barely a glance at me. “Where’s Nestor?”

It takes me a second to rebound from the question. “He’s coming soon.” Melo cackles as his game character yanks another out of his car, beats him down with a swift kick to the head for good measure, then roars away in his ride. I grab the box off the bed and read it.
Rated “M” for “mature.”
“Melo, aren’t you too young to be playing this?”

“My brother bought it for me. Sometimes we play together.” Then he makes a face. “But not a lot ’cause Nestor has to work and go out with GiGi.” Suddenly Melo gets on his knees and leans forward to open the console under the television. “You wanna play with me?” He’s already reaching for another game controller.

I’m not in the mood, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. “Ah, you don’t want to play with me,” I say. “I don’t know how.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“No, you play. I’ll learn by watching you, okay?”

Melo falls back on his butt and resumes his game. “Okay.”

Not wanting to take the bed should Nestor return, I ease into the lounge chair. All I want is to fall asleep in this chair and awake in my own bed to Mandy’s chocolate fingers and my mother’s pot banging, the storm in my head subsided and the fault in my belly healed. But with the
pariseo
down the hallway, Melo’s exaggerated reactions to his simulated pillage and plunder, and my mother’s anguish and rage tearing at my soul, I can forget about sleep any night soon.

Acerbic
(adj.)
biting, bitter in tone or taste

When I wake the next morning, Nestor is still not home, the Xbox screen saver runs across the television screen, and Melo is passed out across the floor. I haul myself out of the chair to pick him up and carry him to bed. He should be getting ready for school now, but I don’t have the heart to wake him. Instead, I head to the bathroom, hoping to find whatever I need to get presentable for school. That’s right, I’m going to school. It’s all I have left to undo the damage I’ve caused.

Someone beat me to it, so I lean against the wall and wait. And wait. And wait. I knock on the door, trying to play it off as if I’m concerned. “Hello? Is everything all right in there?” On top of everything, I don’t want to be late for Miss Polanco’s class.

The bathroom door opens, and a sheet of steam billows out into the hallway. Marlene stands there in a towel that barely covers all that should be covered. “I’m almost finished,” she says, running her fingers through her wet hair. “But you can come inside if you want.”

I jerk my eyes to the floor. “Just knock on Nestor’s door when you’re finished.” Then I bolt. I feel Marlene’s eyes on me, begging for me to turn and peek. And God knows I’m tempted, but not only is she Nestor’s little sister, she’s only fourteen. I can’t go back home too soon.

Then the second I walk into Spanish class, eyes latch onto me
while voices downshift into whispers. As I walk to my seat, Marco whispers to Stevie about the bruises on my face, and even Miss Polanco peeks at me from the corner of her eye. When the bell rings, she picks up a stack of booklets off her desk and distributes them to the first person in each row. In Spanish, she announces that we’re going to spend the next few days practicing for the Regents exam. The class groans, but I’m all for it. With the Regents almost two weeks away, this focus might keep me off folks’ minds and my name out of their mouths. At least in this class anyway.