By the time ninth grade arrived, Rey had become a serious and puzzling adolescent. Sometimes Isabel would see him watching cartoons before the school started and when she came in the room he’d switch to a news program. To break Rey’s solemn front and make him crack a smile, Isabel did everything short of juggling. She hoped his happiness was still there, invisible like the blue that has disappeared from a dark night sky, revealing itself when the sun, in whatever form, rose from the darkness.
She had learned that Rey’s privacy was sacred and that there were certain issues that weren’t up for discussion. When she asked Rey if there were any other girls in his class he thought were pretty, he rolled his eyes. Isabel looked out the window of their Saturn Ion. “It’s none of my business really,” she finally said. When she turned to see Rey nod, she realized that he never wanted to talk about girls with his mother and from then on she remembered that.
Since the arena of personal conversation was fraught with snapping turtles and occasionally alligators, Isabel devoted her mental focus towards giving Rey and his adopted sister Aisha a comfortable life. She graduated from Striar College and got her long awaited job at The Pemota Gazette. With the new salary she could afford to move Rey and Aisha out of Lighthouse Point. She chose not to opting to have the spending money to bring home a bag full of Adidas shirts once in awhile, which she had learned was her best bet at making Rey smile.
Since the beginning of eighth grade Rey had been getting C’s, B’s, and A’s in his subjects. Most days, he did his homework as soon as he got home from school; other times, he played soccer with the kids from the apartment complex. A few of those kids were in eighth grade, but many were much younger than he, and Isabel hoped ninth grade brought with it more friends for Rey his own age. Rey went to the movies with someone named Huron Anderson who always waited in the car; Isabel had not met him but he sounded nice on the phone. When Isabel asked about “Marv Core’s son,” and always in passing, Rey would say, “Huxley’s in advanced,” in a tone that implied “advanced” was so yesterday’s fashion.
Rey’s bus would be arriving in ten minutes and Isabel wanted to talk to him. Today, the entire ninth grade was going on a field trip to Overlook Park. Overlook Park was within walking distance of the school, but students rarely visited. Rey looked in his bag lunch as he did every day to be sure Isabel didn’t try to force a healthy lunch on him. Isabel was sitting at the dining table watching Rey’s inspection.
Rey was about to walk out the door. “I’m leaving Mom. See ya.”
“Wait a second,” Isabel said, “I want to talk to you ... about something.”
“Mom, I’ve only got ten minutes.”
“It’ll be fast.”
Rey walked over to her and put his blue Jansport backpack on the table. He began putting his lunch in it.
“I don’t want you to worry about it too much but I want you to be aware and to notice it if it happens.”
Rey was confused. “If what happens?”
“Ninth grade can be hard. Teachers can pick favorites. It happened to me...”
“In Mexico?” Rey said dubiously.
Isabel began to get nervous, but she had prepared a way of saying this without being awkward. “Yes. But Rey we’re Hispanic. And there’s racism. If anyone seems like they are being unfair grading or if they seem to have a bad attitude towards you, I want you to notice it.”
Rey nodded. “Okay.”
“And I want you to tell me about it. Promise me you’ll tell me about it.”
“I will.”
“Okay. Go to school.”
Rey could remember being in elementary school and looking forward to a day when he did not have to take Bus 13 – the unlucky bus. Bus 13, though, was his bus for high school too. The driver, Glenda, simply dropped the high school students off and then did the elementary school route with the same school bus. Rey jogged up the stairs and sat four seats back from the front right behind Ryan O’toole who lived on Garden Teal Drive in South Pemota. Rey liked Ryan because he was a good artist. Ryan didn’t really have any friends Rey was aware. His hair was never combed, and he always looked like he was lost in some subway in a strange city. Ryan was a bit weird, but he had won third place in the Pemota Film Festival the past summer for a claymation movie about bottles of medication that talk, and Rey thought the movie was cool.
Rey leaned over the back of Ryan’s seat. “Ryan, I liked your movie this summer.”
“It wasn’t very good. I’m going to make a better one.”
Rey sat back in his seat and looked up to see Mike Elsetta get on the bus. He strutted his big boned body down the aisle. Most people thought of him as closer to fat than jock-ish. After listening to Mike talk, most people equated his voice with a megaphone. He was easily the loudest person in the ninth grade. He went to the back of the bus as usual.
Ryan sat debating whether or not to start a conversation with Rey and then felt a motivation to. “Hey Rey,” Ryan whispered. “Come here.”
Rey moved up a seat and sat next to Ryan as Ryan scooted over.
Ryan kept his voice as low possible. “Did you hear about the Lisbon Convention Proxy?”
“The what, what?” Rey felt the right side of his face scrunch up.
“The Lisbon Convention Proxy. I’ve explained it to so many people. I can’t believe you haven’t heard about it.”
“I don’t know what a proxy is I guess,” Rey said.
“A proxy is when you let someone else vote in place of you. These delegates from all these countries met in Lisbon. There was an article about it in The New York Times. I was trying to find out what they were all doing there. But the article didn’t say. A few days ago I figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
Ryan reached into his backpack and came out with his Trapper Keeper. He pulled out an article from a file folder and a drawing slipped out and fell on the seat next to Rey. Rey picked it up -- it was of Superman. “Oh,” Ryan said. “I was wondering where that went.”
“Jeez Ryan, this is really good,” Rey said, thinking Ryan had talent worth a fortune.
“Here it is,” Ryan said. He showed Rey the newspaper clipping. The headline read: ‘Poles Show Apathy on Ozone Depletion.’ Rey looked at the blocks of texts below but didn’t read them thinking the headline probably said it all. “The Lisbon Convention Proxy is a way of allowing people to vote with their minds. See they figured it out during the Lisbon Convention. People don’t care about things like the ozone layer. They probably even looked at this article right here. And they got the idea to have people vote all the time with their subconscious.” Ryan made eye contact with Rey. ”You’ve noticed it too... haven’t you.”
“What?” Rey wanted to escape from this conversation without hurting Ryan’s feelings. But he was beginning to realize why Ryan didn’t have any friends.
“The electronics. When you stand close to them. Like a radio. Or a hairdryer. You have to listen closely, but you can hear the humming sound. Sometimes the electronics even stop working. It’s us. It’s positive and negative charges being shot out of our body and picked up by electronics so we can vote. So we can vote ...” Ryan’s voice was whispering and urgent. “... For things like this.” He held up the article on the ozone layer. “I’m telling everyone about it. The more people who know the better.”
Rey thought it sounded to him like what little he knew about schizophrenia. But he tried to be as sincere as possible. “I don’t know, Ryan. It’s a really interesting theory.”
Ryan switched back to a normal speaking voice. “I could have explained it better. It’s more understandable when I tell it better. With more details.”
Rey decided to change the subject. “What teachers do you have this year?”
“Um.” Ryan pulled his schedule out of his Trapper Keeper. They talked for a short while before arriving at school, but Ryan seemed embarrassed.
Rey knew he would have had to agree with Ryan wholeheartedly about the Lisbon Convention Proxy not to injure Ryan’s self-esteem, and he had done his best to be civil, but it was really just looney-tunes.
Looney-tunes like Aba Brule and her Avocadites.
Rey had wondered about Aba’s sanity during sleepless nights when the moonlight filtered through the windows and painted parallelograms on the carpet of his basement bedroom in Lighthouse Point. When he thought of Aba’s mysterious smile, he decided she was not a fraud. She didn’t give everyone a bottle of Looza Avocado Juice and tell them they were going to meet the Avocadites. She was expecting him before he even walked through her door. The Avocadites might be a band, for all Rey knew, but they were for real. He was sure. Aba was setting the stage for something and Rey knew he had to listen to the music on that stage.
He got Isabel to buy cases of Looza Avocado Juice whenever at Albertson’s Supermarket. He made it his favorite drink and fellow classmates could count on Rey to be wearing Adidas and carrying a bottle of Looza Avocado. It was perplexing to some, unclear if he was making a joke or if he was really calling himself a “loser.” Sometimes people said, “Why does Rey Naresh always drink Looza Avocado?” The first few times this happened Rey put the drink in his backpack feeling stupid. However, one night, when he was lying in his bed looking at a star in the sky as Aba told him to, he decided that anyone who called him by his first and last name wasn’t worth worrying about. From then on, his Looza Avocado Juice was with him regardless of public opinion.
The all-to-familiar surname he heard most in homeroom. “Rey Naresh?” Miss Calida looked around her thirty ninth graders for attendance. After a few weeks went by she would call him by his first name and stop smiling when he responded.
“Yeah,” Rey said, raising his hand.
“Good to see you Rey Naresh.” It was still early enough in the school year that even teachers were trying to make a good impression. The truth was, most of the teachers in Pemota High hated their jobs. The yellow brick walls, the stink bombs that perfumed the hallways, or the terribly awkward architecture of the school were all good reasons. The school looked like an enormous hockey puck, or a whole Swiss cheese with a wedge missing. Where the wedge should have been was a grassy area, where many students ate lunch. There were stairs indoors against the walls of the wedge. On the left side of the wedge, against the red brick, was a sign that read Pemota Regional High School. Because of the circular design of the school, each class was not a perfect square or rectangle but rather contained curved and diagonally opposed walls. The classrooms that were closer to the center of the hunk of cheese were quite small. In the middle of the Swiss cheese school was the cafeteria.
Today the class would only be in the school for the last period of the day which for Rey was study hall. While some students geared up for a day of relaxation at Overlook Park, Rey was nervous. Huron Anderson and James Owens better want to hang out with him. Otherwise, he’d be all alone which happened last year on the eighth grade class trip to the science museum and Rey knew that feeling of isolation too well. It was mortifying.
Rey fit in with Huron Anderson and James Owens like a foreign film buried among the action titles. Huron was always talking about girls he’d like to “bang” and movies he thought were “rad.” He had numerous gold rings, polo shirts, and baggy cargo pants. An earring in his left ear shouted “fashion conscious” and his clothes hung comfortably on his wide frame. His best friend James wore glasses and sported a sag that made some think gravity was working magic. The supernatural feat was accomplished by James wearing suspenders under his striped long shirts.
The bus was full of ninth graders busily chatting, their voices combining to create a roar of activity like a beehive that’s been hit with a baseball bat.
“Hey Rey, I know who you should bang,” Huron said, as if they had been discussing options for the past ten minutes. “That homeroom teacher of yours.”
“Miss Calida?” Rey tried to think of something humorous to say. “Nah, she’s too young for me.”
James laughed. “Miss Calida looks like a girl version of Martin Scorcese.”
Miss Calida had blue eyes, and a round feminine face. James must have been referring to her dark eyebrows and the strands of grey in her hair.
“If you dyed her hair all grey for real,” Huron said.
“You guys know she went to this school,” Rey said.
“How do you know that?” Huron asked.
“Heard it through the grapevine,” Rey shrugged.
“There ain’t no grapevine. How you know that?”
Rey seemed hesitant to say. “My mom told me. A lot of teachers went to this school. Ms. Daphne, Mr. Cheraw, Mr. Chandon.” Rey paused. “A lot.”
“Oh, his mom told him,” Huron said to James. “He thought were weren’t down.”
“Whatever,” James said looking away.
“You play basketball Rey?” Huron asked.
“Do my best.”
“We gonna rock the court. James has got skills. So do I.”
Once at Overlook Park, Rey found a team of four he could join. Huron and James played all morning non-stop and undefeated. Rey played point guard and hit a three, but his team lost so it was back to the bench for another session of observation. He sat watching Huron and James play whatever position they felt like, burying jumpers like the rim was five sizes too big.
The troublesome part of the day came around 10:45. Huron and James had had enough basketball and told Rey they were going to hit the paddleboats. The paddleboats were meant to be peddled like a bicycle into the pond where one could feed the ducks with five dollar bags of pelleted feed. When they got to the dock, the man who untied the boats let them know the boats only seated two.
“Sorry Rey,” James said, “We’ll meet up with you later okay?”
Rey sighed and walked away, kicking up some leaves in frustration. Now it was back to feeling like a loner. On these class trips, each student revealed who their real friends were. Whether or not Rey thought it was stupid, the feelings he felt were undeniable. The anxiety in his belly boiled up as he thought about his next move. He could find a sports team to join, go to the animal sanctuary, or mingle with people he didn’t know. Each option struck him as more lonely and depressing than the one before. He was better off staying out of sight and doing his homework he decided.
He went back to the picnic benches under the orange-edged awning where each student had left their backpack that morning. He picked up his backpack and walked past the animal sanctuary to an isolated field where he thought it a safe bet he would not be seen. He plopped himself down on the grass, opened his backpack, and took out his math book. If he finished his math homework now, he could play soccer with the kids from the apartment complex when he got home. He lay there for a moment on the grass just relaxing, the math book a reminder of his status as an outcast. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a Five Star binder with note paper inside it. Absent-mindedly he opened the cover of the math book. He didn’t register it until a few moments later. There were two numbers in the upper left hand corner of the book: 98.
“Book number ninety eight. That’s when it starts,” Aba had said.
He stared at the number for almost a half a minute incredulous. Then he began flipping pages. The first page had Algebra 1 written in the center in small letters. He had not seen this before having only opened the book once for an assignment and flipping to the middle and then to the assignment’s appropriate page. The second page contained a color illustration of a Chinese boy, a Black girl, and a Caucasian male and female all looking at the math book with big smiles on their faces. Rey turned the next page. He was looking for a clue, a sign, anything that would give him a better idea what Aba Brule had been talking about. That’s when he found it. Written in thick purple on a blank white page before the first chapter were the words: The Avocadites are watching you.
Rey ran his fingers over the purple writing.
Rey looked up and around to be sure he was alone. He didn’t see anyone. He began frantically flipping pages looking for more clues. One after another, page after page, he turned and turned. He had decided by page twenty that math homework was of little importance right now. When he reached page 200, he looked up to see three people laughing, talking, and walking onto the field. It was fellow ninth graders, Annette Oslow, Jenine Godfrey, and Christy Lane. Annette had her hair dyed orange and yellow. She wore bell-bottom jeans and a t-shirt. Jenine was overweight by about ten pounds. People noticed her love handles long before her attractive brown eyes. She wore jeans and a shirt that read: Pemota Fitness Club.
Then there was Christy Lane.
Since fourth grade, Rey’s dreamy infatuation with Christy had morphed into a subtle admiration and desire. Rey loved her face. But more important was that she knew her own mind, and valued her opinion high above anyone else’s. She still wore lumpy sweaters during the winter, making her the only person in the ninth grade to do so. Rey caught a glimpse of her across the field in her white t-shirt and khaki shorts. She was carrying a bag lunch. Her and her friends Annette and Jenine sat down. They were about fifty feet away but still audible.
“Rey Naresh is doing homework,” Jenine said quietly.
Rey saw Annette give a shrug and say, “So what?”
Jenine called across the field sending a flock of crows erupting from a nearby oak tree. “Hey Rey Naresh.”
Rey smiled and waved at the three of them. If Christy hung out with them they couldn’t be all that bad.
“Rey’s nice,” Annette said.
“You guys, I have Ms. Aster this semester,” Christy grimaced.
“I heard last year that Ms. Aster flunked half the math class,” Jenine said. “And if you have her for homeroom and you’re late she makes you explain to the entire class every single thing you did that morning.”
Rey had heard the stories too.
“Christy, are you bad at math?” Annette asked.
Christy nodded solemnly. “In advanced yeah. I used to be in standard and that was a breeze. But my Mom thinks that I should measure up to Brianna.”
“Did your sister go to Leander?” Jenine asked.
The word around the cheese wedge was that Brianna was in her freshman year at Leander. Leander was an Ivy League school, a stone throw away for Brianna’s 3.8 GPA. It sounded to Rey like Christy’s parents were oblivious to Brianna’s extracurricular activities which he’d heard included everything short of blatant prostitution. Rey couldn’t help but notice the cavalier way Christy had gone from talking about him to talking about school. What did he expect though? he asked himself. She didn’t even know him.
“Christy, how old was Brianna when she lost it?” Annette asked.
“She lost her virginity in junior high and I think she was born having lost her mind,” Christy said.
Rey looked up to see a tear sliding down Christy’s cheek. She wiped it away.
“I don’t want to talk about Brianna,” Christy said. “It makes me too mad.”
“All right,” Annette said abruptly, “Did you hear about Mike?”
“Mike who?” Jenine asked.
“Elsetta,” Annette said. “You know, the Cabbage Patch Kid.” Rey took it “Cabbage Patch Kid” was a reference to his padded body, and typical boyish face. “He made out with Gabrielle Reese.” Annette nodded with emphasis as if in agreement with the thoughts of the two of them. “And now he always wants me to sleep over at his house.”
“Do you think he’s trying to get somewhere with you?” Jenine asked.
“He’s trying to get somewhere with everyone,” Annette said. “If you give him a hug you’re lost in his grip for a month.”
“I like Mike Elsetta,” Christy said. “He’s funny.”
About fifty more pages had flown by before it occurred to Rey that he must look ridiculously stupid flying through the book like a madman. He closed the book, put it in his backpack, and walked off.
He headed back to backpack city by the picnic tables, where most of the class had gathered, and were digging in search of their bag lunches. He saw Der Kath setting his newsletter out on a stone table. Der had two piles of newsletters, and he put large rocks on each one to keep the pages from blowing away. Der Kath was in a class called Newspaper and Magazine Production. His dream for years had been to write for a reputable skateboarding magazine. The Nadine’s Puppies Newsletter that he published every couple of weeks was his first hopeful step towards journalistic fame.
Nadine’s Puppies were a club ordained by Huxley, Der, and Joe, as a response to Huxley’s relationship with Nadine Kim during the first few months of eighth grade. Nadine was a cute and popular girl who was always thinking of ways to excel farther in social politics. She went out with Huxley and let him finger her in a movie theater. When Huxley broke up with her a few weeks later, Nadine declared war telling everyone she knew that Huxley had tried to rape her.
It was Der’s idea to start the newsletter and title the first article, “Nadine Claims Responsibility for JFK Assassination.” Der continued to publish articles about her, until Nadine admitted she made up the rape accusation, the news gradually spreading around the class. The newsletter became the biggest conversation topic in the eighth grade. The main angle remained that Nadine’s Puppies pretended to stand for chauvinism and misogyny.
Yet with each passing publication, The Nadine’s Puppies Newsletter became less satirical, more libelous, more cruel. Huxley began to gain a reputation as a drinker who called women “bitches” when he was intoxicated. Der would often talk about wanting to slap different girls with his skateboard. Joe became known for swapping fictional sex stories with anyone nearby. The days of debasing Nadine had long since passed, and the function of the newsletter became unclear. Whether they wanted to admit it or not, they didn’t pretend to stand for chauvinism and misogyny; they genuinely did.
Rey removed his lunch from his backpack and sat on the edge of one of the picnic tables biting into his ham and cheese. Somewhere behind him a radio blared. He looked around thinking it was a perfect day out.
He looked over past the second row of picnic tables to see Huxley Core sitting on the grass with Der and Joe. Huxley was still as good-looking as he had always been. His bright blue eyes were isosceles trapezoids. He wore blue jeans and a striped shirt that showed off his biceps. He turned his head and made eye contact with Rey. Huxley stared at him for a few moments then shook his head in haughty disapproval capitalizing on the gesture with a roll of the eyes and a disgusted expulsion of chewing gum.
Rey walked over to the stone table, and picked up a copy of The Nadine’s Puppies Newsletter. He stood there in the realization this was one of the only times he had picked up the newsletter himself rather than found it on a floor somewhere. At the top of the page it read: “Nadine’s Puppies,” and there were graphics of puppies on either side of the newsletters title. Beneath it was the article. The headline read, “Gertrude Perry Gives Head to Forty, Wins Scholarship.” Gertrude Perry had never given head to anyone. She had won a scholarship to a writing school in Sacramento, California; that was true.
Rey read the first paragraph. “Gertude Perry, well-known chocoholic, won the prestigious first place award in writing for her short story about her experiences as a lesbian nut job. Perry, best known for the earthquake tremors she causes when walking down the hall, was thrilled about the scholarship saying, ‘I never knew I could do anything worth anything. I guess my Mom was wrong.’ Perry’s climb to future lesbian books and the hate crimes they are sure to invite may be stopped short by a scandal. Five lacrosse team players commented on the scholarship saying, ‘Gertrude goes down like she’s an asthma victim breathing on an inhaler.”
Rey crumpled the newsletter up and threw it in a nearby trash can. He took another bite of his ham and cheese and walke
d back to his seat. Huxley whispered something to Der, who turned his deep brown eyes on Rey. Rey knew that the newsletter was Der’s pride in print. Throwing it in the trash was going to inspire some enmity.
“Look, it’s working,” a familiar voice said at the picnic table behind him. Rey turned around to see Ryan O’toole with his hand above the radio. The Spice Girls were singing something about, “giving you everything.” Ryan kept moving his hand further from the radio and then closer. Every time he got close to the radio, it made a humming sound.
Viola Specks, a fellow ninth grade female said, “Ryan, you’re crazy. It’s because you’re blocking the signal.”
Viola was a white girl, with a boyish haircut, and kind brown eyes. She was one of the major outcasts at Pemota High, a long time enemy of Huxley, Der, and Joe, as well as an unfashionable dresser, and passivist when picked on.
Ryan sat back down on the bench rolling his eyes which seemed to cause his entire head to follow their lead. “Then you try it,” Ryan said.
Viola put her hand a few feet from the radio and then moved her hand gradually closer. She reached a foot and there was still no humming sound. Then she got to six inches – still no humming sound. Soon enough, she was touching it. No humming sound.
“See,” Ryan said.
“Ryan maybe you’re just made of radiation or something,” Viola said.
The song came to an end and the dj, a salesman type who had a megawatt smile in his words, began speaking. “That was the Spice Girls with ‘Say You’ll Be There.’ It’s time for that special moment of the day when one lucky winner is abducted for scientific testing and experimentation right here on our home planet in ...” The radio stopped.
Rey felt the world turning, and gravity releasing its hold. Ryan and the other few people at the table hit the radio with amused smiles on their faces saying, “the radio just broke.” Rey knew that when weirdness strikes there’s a balancing act between coincidence and conspiracy. Right now inside Rey, it was seesawing back and forth like two sugar-high six year olds. Rey didn’t know whether to believe in the sure-fire path of coincidence whose dogma insisted that life was like a set of dice being cast on a whim and every once in awhile coming up snake eyes; or to head down the dangerous possibly insane path towards something otherworldly. Part of him said that Aba’s prediction coming true was a little more weird than just two dice coming up snake eyes. Coincidence only extends so far before it becomes ... something else.
Looking down at his sandwich, no longer hungry, Rey got up to toss his lunch in the trash. He didn’t want to hang out with Huron and James for the rest of the day. He needed to think. Classmates were enraptured in conversations about teachers, and hook-ups, and what they would do for a million dollars. All of it seemed silly at the moment.
A hard shoulder collided with his and sent him back peddling to avoid falling on his back. It was Huxley with ice in his eyes. “Hey Rey. Who needs pussy if you are one, right?” Huxley smiled at Rey as he walked backwards. “That should be the headline of our next article.” He raised his eyebrows, threatening.
Rey said, “See you in court Huxley.”
“It’s not on school property.” Huxley walked away.
They distributed the newsletter on the Smokers Corner which was technically not within the administrations bounds to enforce school rules. That was why smokers could light up there. However, everyone knew the laws of libel were against Huxley, Der, and Joe. It was just that at that age there wasn't much anyone could do about it.
Rey turned around and almost bumped into Ms. Lonbell. Shockingly, she shouted, “Everyone. Attention here!” Rey stood there when the entire ninth grade turned to stare at him and Ms. Lonbell. “We’re here for one more hour then we meet at the buses for last period. I expect to see all of you at the buses at one o’clock.”
Under normal circumstances, Rey would have felt insecure standing there in front of the entire class. But now with Aba having spoken about ninth grade, and book number 98, and it all leading him into an uncertain future which, no doubt, included something called The Avocadites, in addition to the frustration of a day spent spotlighting his social ineptitude, he stood in front of the class with steely composure.
He spent the next hour sitting by the tennis courts, all alone, occasionally watching the ball whiz back and forth like the two opposing arguments within his mind. He hoped Aba was right. It would mean life had more in store for him than being a social outcast on days like today. On the other hand, he didn’t want to surrender to belief, end up being wrong, and spend the rest of his days trying to climb out of the looney bin. As he sat on the grass, picking it, and peeling the outside edges away from the strand in the center, the thought crossed his mind that Aba could have meant anything.
He needed to wait for another clue.
Mr. Gallagher, who was lenient and possibly senile, oversaw period H study hall in room 22. The room was close to the center of the cheese hunk that was Pemota High, so it was small, filled by only ten students. Rey liked to sit in the farthest corner and get some of his homework done so he could have his afternoon free. The study hall was usually noisy with people passing notes and shooting three pointers into the wastebasket.
Today, Rey reached into the compartment in his backpack that was accessed by a zipper on the inside of the smallest pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It was a letter he had written in the middle of eighth grade.
It was a letter to Christy Lane.
He had written over ten drafts of the letter to finely tune it until he was sure he’d maximized his chances of winning Christy’s approval. In light of their encounter today, Rey wanted to see if it required another draft. He didn’t know if the opportune moment to give Christy the letter would ever arise, but he wanted to have it just in case it did. He read:
Dear Christy,
My name is Rey. I’m in your Spanish class. But we never talk. I was wondering if you might like to go out sometime. I’ve liked you for a really long time. Since like sixth grade. I saw you fight your sister in sixth grade and I was rooting for you. I think Brianna is ugly on the inside.
I have a sister too. She’s four so I know it’s not the same. But Brianna thinks she can do whatever she wants, and that’s what my sister is like.
Remember in spanish class in seventh grade when Viola Specks smelled bad and you told her in a note. I thought that was mad cool. She would have never stopped hearing about that.
I had a dream about you. You and I were playing for the New York Yankees. You hit a home run which Brianna caught in her mouth while she was in the stands on all fours like a dog. Then she started barking and shooting baseballs out of her mouth like a pitching machine. When I woke up I started laughing.
I’ve never had a girlfriend before for a bunch of reasons, I guess. But you seem not to really care what people think. Sometimes I see you from my bus when everyone is leaving school. I hope you start to notice me too.
Love,
Rey
He sat on the graffitied wooden chair in Mr. Gallagher’s study hall thinking of Christy’s emotional reaction to Annette and Jenine’s few words about Brianna. Maybe the letter had too much about Brianna in it. He decided the letter might need another more tactful draft. He put it back in the secret fold in his Jansport and set to work on his math assignment.
When he looked up he realized Mr. Gallagher was no longer there. Neither was most of the class. “Have fun being the only person in study hall Rey,” David Benson said as he and another student headed towards the door. Where had everyone gone? He had been so immersed in his thoughts of Christy he must have missed the students filing out on account of the absent teacher. He tried to think of what to do next. He had forty-five minutes before school ended.
There were two exits from Pemota High School – three, if one counted the woods in back as an exit. The woods led to the back lawn of the Pemota Community Center, a f
itness and meeting facility. The second exit from the school led to residential neighborhoods, a slew of them, ranging in class from poor apartments, to middle class homes. The third exit led to Downtown Pemota. Rey knew he could head out that way, get an ice cream, and be back in time for the bus. He still had five dollars left over from the money Isabel had given him for Overlook Park.
Downtown Pemota was essentially one street called Pleasant Street that stretched in both directions. One direction led to the community college, and pizza places, the other to South Pemota where Rey lived. Many places in Pemota liked to brag about the fact that Pemota was one of the major avocado producing regions in the country. California is the leading producer of domestic avocados and home to about 90 percent of the nation's crop. There was a popular restaurant downtown that called itself Au Bon Avocado.
The best ice cream place in Pemota was called Melanie’s and Rey ordered a cup of Berries and More ice cream which was filled with chocolate chunks and real berries. He came out of Melanie’s and strolled down Pleasant Street with the ice cream in his hand. No sooner was he enjoying the feeling of freedom and the warm day than someone grabbed him by the shirt collar. It was a man Rey had seen around downtown Pemota quite often. A homeless man. He wore old sweaters, and a brown leather jacket that extended to his hips. He had brown and grey hair. He breathed hot garlic breath in Rey’s face.
He said something indecipherable. Rey was fairly sure the word he said was, “Avocadonine.”
Then, the man began laughing, a wheezing difficult sound, that must have required great exertion. Rey turned wide-eyed to watch the man walk away, his nervous system shaken. He could recall seeing this man around town, muttering to himself. One time, Rey had walked by and the man said, “Name’s Frank.” But Rey’s horrified expression seemed to sway him away from introducing himself further.
That night, when Rey lied on the grass in the backyard behind his apartment, he tried to organize an ideology in his head that he could carry to school with him each day. He decided that he would reach a fork in the road soon, and it would be up to him whether or not he was man enough to make the right decisions and meet whatever challenges awaited him, emerge victorious and with no regrets.
A story above, in Isabel’s bedroom, Isabel held Aisha in her arms staring down at Rey through the window, the two of them watching him as he stared at the stars. Aisha was a four year old adopted girl with blue eyes and light brown hair. Aisha was looking down at Rey. “Mom, why is he doing that?”
“Because he wants to babe,” Isabel said. “Because he wants to.”
“But what’s he doing?”
“He’s thinking.” About what Isabel didn’t know. “You ever think about what you might like to be when you grow up?”
Aisha pointed nowhere in particular. “I want to work at Sears.”
Isabel laughed. “Sears. Really.”
Aisha’s attention span had dwindled and she was preoccupied by the hat on her head, dropping it on the ground and saying, “Uh oh.”
Isabel picked up the hat readying herself to be irritated. Aisha was unfazed. She dropped the hat again after Isabel had put it on her head. “Uh oh.”
Isabel sighed. At that moment, the clock radio turned on, a Billy Joel song blaring for a moment, and then it went quiet. Isabel turned to it quite confused. The time on the clock that read 9:24 in bright green letters a moment ago was no longer visible. The clock radio had stopped working.
Aisha dropped her hat on the ground again and said with great dramatics, “Uh oh.”