Take Me There (2 page)

When it is so clear I’m anything but innocent.

I could start with what happened in juvie that made Wade the way he is and put me in debt to him for the rest of my life, or tell you how we never thought we’d do time for chopping cars, until we jacked a CD player out of a Honda one of Eight Ball’s gang had used in a hit-and-run.

I could go back to the day I dropped out of school and my uncle Mitch said he could get me a job with his old friend Jake, who owned a car lot in East L.A., and how Jake taught Wade and me a way to make some quick, easy money.

I could explain how I first met Eight Ball and how before we knew it, Wade and I had become associates of the Baker Street Butchers (BSB).

I could go back even further to when I was six years old and my father went to prison and how after that I couldn’t stay on the right side of anything.

I could even start with my father and tell you what led him to a life of crime, except for the fact that I don’t know.

And back there somewhere there’s probably another story about his father and his grandfather, what kind of men they were and what made them that way.

I could keep going back and back and back until I got all the way to Cain and Abel and Adam, but I won’t bore you with the history of the world.

Instead I’ll start with a girl named Jess.

I was twelve years old the first time I met Jessica Jameson. I’d gotten busted for lifting a pair of sunglasses from a grocery store when my mother decided to give up singing in nightclubs to become the assistant choir director at a church in Long Beach in an effort to give me a stable home life. Of course, she had to lie about her references, which wasn’t a good start.

When I first heard Jess sing, I thought she was an angel. I actually believed I could become a good person if I was allowed to just sit and listen to her voice.

Jess got the lead role in a musical at Holy Faith called
The Starz of Bethlehem
. One Sunday afternoon, about an hour after rehearsal had ended, Mom and I were starting to leave when we spotted Jess sitting alone in the foyer. She jumped up when she saw us heading for the door. “Wait!” she called out to us. “Don’t lock me inside.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize anybody was still here,” Mom said.

“My mom just sent me a text. She had to show a house in
Paramount. She’ll be here in fifteen minutes. I can wait outside.” She started for the door.

Jess was always the last kid to get picked up. Usually long after the others had gone. My mother and I shared a look.

“I completely forgot,” Mom said. “I can’t leave. I haven’t catalogued the new sheet music. Dylan, stay here with Jess while I run back to the office for a few minutes.”

The relief in Jess’s eyes was plain to see, and I silently thanked God for my mother.

While we waited, I entertained Jess by beat boxing and rapping my own lyrics for the Christmas musical.

Away in a manger, no crib to call home.

The boy is in danger and Mom’s on the roam.

She has a hard time explaining the truth about Dad.

So don’t ask no questions. Too much truth can be bad.

My singing was so awful Jess laughed her head off, and it sure felt good to make her smile. It was another hour before her mother finally pulled up in front of the church in her Volvo.

Mom never said a word about Jess or her parents, but she made it a point to have lots of cataloging to do when practice was over. Jess and I started hanging out every Wednesday and Sunday night, making up our own version of the Christmas story. Unfortunately, Mom’s job didn’t last long. She soon discovered how nosy church people can be.

We relocated to West Covina, and after a few more moves I found myself at Downey High School, where I met Wade the spring of my sophomore year. I was taking a nap in the theater one day while I ditched English, when I looked up and saw Jess
on the stage. I had to pinch myself, because I figured either I was dreaming or else I’d died and gone to heaven—which given my history was probably not where I’d end up.

She was even prettier than I’d remembered her, with hair that glistened like fire when the stage lights hit it just right, and bright green eyes. She’d gotten the role of Maria in
West Side Story
. That April I went to every single rehearsal. Wade gave me shit when I bought the soundtrack and started singing along to all the songs, but I didn’t care.

“Dude, there should be a law against people singing that bad.”

“Bite me.”

Day after day, I watched Jess in the theater and sitting at lunch with her rich friends. It was enough just to see her smile at them and pretend she was smiling at me. I don’t ask girls out. I can’t take the rejection and there’s usually no need. The sorts of girls I date are happy to make the first move. And the second … and the third.

That was never going to happen with Jess. Girls like her don’t go for troublemakers like me.

The final night of
West Side Story,
Jess finished singing “There’s a Place for Us,” and the entire audience gave her a standing ovation even though it was in the middle of the show. We were all thinking the same thing: how we were all going to be able to tell our friends,
I knew her when
…

Afterward I finally worked up the nerve to talk to her. She was standing outside waiting for a ride, holding a bouquet of roses, the stage makeup still coloring her cheeks. Kids all around her, pressing in like she was some kind of rock star.

“Jess,” I said, but not too loud, so she could pretend to ignore me if she wanted. I wasn’t sure if she’d even remember me. I’d
changed a lot in three years and not for the better.

She turned around. Looked at me funny for a minute. “Dylan?”

“Yeah,” I said, and then I looked away so that she could go back to talking to her friends if she didn’t want to talk to me.

But she pushed past them and grabbed my hand. “Dylan! I haven’t seen you in forever. Where have you been?”

I didn’t think where I’d been was a topic for civil conversation, since I already had a file down at juvenile court, so I just said, “I go to Downey High now.”

“Really? Do you have A lunch or B lunch?”

“B.”

“Me too. I sit by the pizza window. Come find me. We’ll catch up.”

“Okay,” I said, even though I knew I’d never fit in with her crowd.

“Wow, it’s really good to see you.” She looked excited, but I figured that was because of the play and all the attention she was getting.

“Jessica!” a voice yelled, and I looked up to see Jess’s mother pulling up to the curb in a convertible Mercedes.

“I’ve got to go, but find me at lunch,” Jess said. Then she got into the car.

“Who’s
that
?” Jess’s mother asked, looking at my long hair and baggy jeans.

“Mother, that’s Dylan!” Jess said, looking back at me to see if I had heard the disapproval in her mother’s voice, and I looked away—pretending that I hadn’t.

The following Monday I stayed as far away from the pizza window as possible. I even avoided the theater and went to English for the first time in two months. Mrs. Bates, who was
none too happy about me ditching her class, called on me to read out loud from
Great Expectations
.

I was fifteen years old and until that moment had been able through lying, sulking, avoiding, complaining, acting like a badass, and convincing my girlfriends to do my homework, to hide the fact that I couldn’t read, at least not well enough to keep up with school. We’d never stayed in one place long enough for me to learn.

So I did the only reasonable thing I could think of. I threw the book on the floor and said, “This class is bullshit.” Then I walked out of the room.

There was a wrought iron fence surrounding the school. The back gates were locked and the front was guarded by security, so I had to lay low until school was out. It was during that hour of watching the front gate and trying to avoid the campus police that I came to realize that a school is just another type of prison.

I decided getting a job would be a better use of my time. We were always short on money. Uncle Mitch got me the position with Jake. My uncle owns a used car lot in La Puerta, Texas, and he brings shipments of cars to Jake, who can sell them in California for higher prices.

Wade, who was already living with me and Mom, finished out the spring at Downey High and then started working with me at Jake’s. He never went back to school, though, because by the time August came around, we were in juvie.

Wade got his GED while we were in jail. I have to give him credit for that. We got out in March, and I was sure I’d never see Jess again, but then she came into my life for the third time, and that’s when I began to believe that maybe destiny didn’t always have to be something bad.

I
T WAS LATE JUNE AND ALREADY SO HOT THE NEWSCASTERS
were talking about rolling blackouts and power shortages. Wade and I were working at Gomez & Sons, jobs our probation officer, Mr. Grey, had gotten for us, hoping we might put our knowledge of cars to some lawful use. I have a natural talent for tearing things apart and putting them back together, and Gomez was training me to be a mechanic. Wade, who only has a talent for tearing things apart, was still sweeping floors, cleaning toilets, changing tires, and doing a piss-poor job of it.

While Gomez was yelling at him for forgetting to tighten the lug nuts on a Taurus, I took the opportunity to slip out of my sweat-drenched work shirt and hang it next to the Allen wrenches to dry. I was wearing a white tank top underneath, but I knew Gomez would tell me to put the shirt back on if he saw me. He is a proud and meticulous man. Not a tool out of place or a dirty rag left dangling. Gomez used to be a rich man. Years ago he owned a ranch down in Guatemala, before the government took it and he came to the United States as a political exile.

“You want the tires to fall off out on Rosecrans Avenue? You want someone to get hurt? You want me to get sued?” Gomez asked Wade, pointing at the Taurus.

“No, sir,” Wade said, hanging his head, the posture he assumed even when he wasn’t in trouble.

“What am I going to do with you? And pull up those pants. You think our customers want to know the color of your underwear?”

“No, sir,” Wade said, tightening his belt.

I could tell Gomez was nearing the end of his rope with Wade. I couldn’t blame him. Wade was a constant screwup. But he needed the job. It was a condition of our probation. Besides, he tended to get into trouble when he had too much free time.

Lucky for my friend, a man came into the shop looking for Gomez. Baby Face, who I kept chained in a corner, instantly sprang to her feet and started growling. She’s really a pushover, but she’s half Rottweiler and looks fierce. Gomez doesn’t mind having her around. He even posted a sign,
WARNING: GUARD DOG
,
on the window out front. His shop is in south Downey, but it borders on Compton and break-ins are pretty regular.

“Is that an attack dog?” the man asked Gomez.

“Yep,” he replied.

“Down,” I told Baby Face. She sat, but kept her eyes locked on the well-tanned stranger, who took a step in the opposite direction.

“My Mercedes is making a strange noise,” the man said.

Gomez forgot about Wade and turned to Kip, the head mechanic. They shared a smile. One of a mechanic’s greatest joys is listening to people describe the “funny noises” their cars make. Gomez usually knew within five seconds what was
wrong with an automobile, but he liked to have a little fun with people.

“Describe the noise,” Gomez said.

The poor man was sputtering and coughing like a backfiring engine when all of a sudden Max from M & M Towing came walking in, followed by Jess, wearing a bathing suit covered by some kind of wrap knotted around her waist.

I nearly dropped the battery I was changing.

“Got a dead Beemer,” said Max, pointing out the bay at the car on the tow truck.

“I’ll take care of this one,” I told Kip.

He looked at Jess and smiled. “I bet you will.”

Jess pushed her bangs out of her blazing green eyes. They looked like they were on fire. “There was a wreck on Rosecrans Avenue, and traffic got detoured onto a side street. All of a sudden my car just stopped. Right in the middle of Compton! My cell phone went dead and I didn’t know what to do. Thank goodness a cop stopped and helped me call for a tow.”

I tried to picture Jess, dressed the way she was, waving down low riders in the middle of Gangstaville, California.

Max went outside and started backing the Beemer into an empty bay while I set down the battery. It could wait till later. “I’m supposed to meet some friends at Soak City over in Buena Park in half an hour,” Jess said frantically. “What do you think is wrong with my car? It just died. Do you think this will take long? Can you fix it? Will it be expensive? Wait, are you laughing at me?”

A huge grin had spread across my face. I couldn’t believe it. Here she was, Jessica Jameson, standing right in front of me. Eyes on fire. Hands waving. Beads of perspiration forming on her neck. “I’m not laughing,” I said, trying to flatten my grin.

Recognition turned her eyes from flaming emerald to deep sea green. “Dylan?”

“Yeah,” I said. I wanted to swim in those eyes.

“Dylan, what happened to you? I saw you that night outside the theater and then you just disappeared.”

“Something came up. I had to quit Downey High.”

“Me too. My family moved to Hermosa Beach last November.”

Hermosa Beach was even farther away from my world than north Downey.

Jess narrowed her eyes and tilted her head, studying me. I could feel my heart pumping as she checked out my chest, and I wished I hadn’t taken off the blue work shirt. Did she think I was a slob, or was she impressed with my build? I’m pretty muscular. You have to have a strong upper body to work on cars all day, though I didn’t think that was the sort of thing that would impress a girl like Jess. I hoped she couldn’t see how hard it was for me to breathe.

I put my arms behind my back, not wanting her to notice the crude tattoo on my right hand. Caught my reflection in the side mirror of a Lexus. God, I looked like one of those muscle dudes puffing out his chest on the cover of
Iron Man
. I quickly folded my arms in front of myself and tried to remember to breathe.