Chapter 6
The next morning, Maria met me under the football bleachers and asked if I wanted to ditch to her house. Her mother and little sister were in El Salvador. Her stepfather was at work. The apartment was empty. I knew what she meant and I was ready. I was tired of waiting. I felt like I’d spent most of my life waiting. Waiting for Frank to send for me in El Salvador. Waiting for time to pass so I could go to college, get a good job, get my own place. Waiting for time alone with Maria. Did I want to ditch to her place? Yeah, I wanted to ditch.
The outfield fence of the baseball field had a place where it dipped down and you could get a good handhold along the side fence where it connected with the football field. I tossed our backpacks over the fence, helped Maria over, then climbed up myself and jumped down onto the sidewalk. We’d have to catch an RTD bus to her place, but we didn’t want to wait at the bus stop close to the school. Someone from the school might see us.
I grabbed Maria’s hand and we ran to the bus stop six blocks away. We sat next to the window in the back of the bus. I pulled her close to me. Her hair smelled like flowers. When she rested her hand on my leg, I wanted to kiss her, but I was afraid the driver would throw us off the bus if we started making out.
Walking up the stairs to her apartment, I half expected her stepfather to jump out at us. Like maybe he’d been fired or come home sick. He’d kill me or at least half-kill me. But the apartment was quiet. I smelled fried eggs and salsa, burnt coffee and toast, left-over smells from breakfast.
“What’s that?” Maria asked.
“What?” I looked around nervously.
I followed her into the kitchen. The coffee-maker was still on from breakfast and the half-inch of black coffee in the bottom of the glass pot was thick ands stinky, like Mr. Wilkerson’s coffee. Maria turned the coffee pot off. “I’ll clean it up after school,” she said. “You want a soda or something?” I nodded and she took two Pepsis out of the refrigerator. We popped the tops and stood awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen.
I took a long, cool sip. I wasn’t sure what to do or say. I mean, was I supposed to just come out and say, “Well, let’s go to the bedroom,” or what? And it wasn’t like there was a couch in the kitchen where I could casually sit down and pull Maria down beside me. Back at the bus stop and on the bus, I couldn’t wait to get to her place. Now that we were finally alone, I felt like a kindergartner, like I needed some old, gray-haired teacher to say, “Now, boys and girls, this is what we do next.” I’d never done IT before, but I didn’t want to look like I was brand new at it. I looked around, trying to appear casual. There was a small window over the sink, and over the window a large pink and blue crucifix.
“Are you Catholic?” I asked.
“My mom is,” Maria said. “My stepdad’s Pentecostal.” I thought about the tattoo of Jesus on his arm. “He’s trying to get my mom to turn Pentecostal, but I don’t care. My best friend in El Salvador gave it to me before I left. I’m not taking it down even if we do turn Pentecostal. Come on,” she said, taking my hand. “I’ll show you my room. I got myself a new TV.”
She led me into to her bedroom. I don’t know why I’d gotten so worried. I didn’t have to say anything and there we were. I was stirred up and scared all at the same time. Scared of doing something wrong, scared of her stepfather coming home. But I could stand being scared. I would have been willing to put up with anything for what was going to happen.
The TV was on a white table against the wall at the foot of Maria’s bed. She snapped it on and turned the channel till she found The Price is Right. “I was saving money for college, you know, because I’ve been thinking about being a doctor, but when I saw the TV I wanted it so bad. I love it.”
I took another sip of Pepsi. I glanced at Maria’s bed. The purple bedspread was covered with little pink and yellow flowers. And there were stuffed animals all over the bed. Dogs. Cats. Bears. There was a fuzzy red heart that said “I love you” and a pink bunny with big floppy ears.
Maria sat on the end of the single bed and I sat beside her. There wasn’t a lot of room, but that was OK because when I put my arm around her shoulders, she leaned in close to me, her one arm resting across my legs. I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to push the stuffed animals off on the floor, or take them off carefully, one by one and set them someplace, like on her dresser. But the dresser was covered with makeup and stuff like that. And maybe taking the animals off one by one seemed like I wasn’t being cool, like I wasn’t letting things happen the way they were supposed to happen. I didn’t know what to do.
So even though I didn’t really want to watch TV, we sat there drinking our sodas and watching The Price is Right. It seemed like we were concentrating on the show, cheering on the people, telling them to bid higher or lower, but I wasn’t really thinking about that and I don’t think Maria was either. By the time the contestants got to “Showcase Showdown” Maria and I were kissing. Still sitting on the end of the bed, but kissing.
Then my brain quit working and I quit worrying. It didn’t matter to me what I was supposed to do about the stuffed animals. Something else took over, and I didn’t think about what to do or how to do it or condoms or anything. I just shoved the damned stuffed animals on the floor, pulled Maria down on the bed beside me, and my hands were all over her. I don’t know how we got our clothes off, but we did, and IT happened. Without a condom. Without any protection at all.
It was kind of fast the first time. But then we did it again, and it took longer, and I wondered why people who were married or lived together didn’t have sex all the time because it felt better that anything I’d ever felt before in my life. If I was married to Maria, I wouldn’t go to the movies or the grocery store or anything. Just spend all day in bed doing it.
After we got dressed, Maria got us another soda out of the refrigerator. “I guess we should get condoms or something,” I said, as she handed me the Pepsi.
She shrugged. “Well, I’m not going to get pregnant because it’s the wrong time of the month.”
We went back into her room because she wanted to watch a soap opera that was on at that time. We crawled into bed again, and even though I hated soaps, I didn’t care. It felt good to lie back against the pillows together, drink our sodas, and watch TV. I’d never been happier in my whole life. I glanced at the clock beside her bed. It was the beginning of third period. If I hadn’t met Maria, I would have been in school, sitting in an uncomfortable desk, listing to my English teacher talk about similes or metaphors or some stupid thing like that. I set my Pepsi down on the end table, turned to Maria, and brushed my hand through her hair.
“What?” she said, as she pushed my hand away. “Come on. I want to watch my show.”
I didn’t stop, though, because I really hated soaps and I really loved her. We ended up doing it again and that was the best time of all.
We got back to school by fifth period. About ten minutes into class, the phone rang. The teacher answered it, looked my way, and nodded his head yes. Five minutes after that I received a summons from Mrs. Martinez in the ESL office. She was the ESL counselor and everyone liked her, but everyone was scared of her, too. She wouldn’t let you get away with anything. She’d call home faster than anyone at the school. She was short, and she always wore high heels. She could walk louder in high heels than anyone I ever knew.
When I walked in her office, she started in on me right away. “Where were you all morning?”
“School,” I muttered.
“Huh uh,” she said, shaking her head no. “I sent a summons for you periods one through four, and every teacher said you were absent. Mr. Wilkerson told me he thought you’d been ditching and to check on you.” I slouched down in the chair and crossed my arms over my chest. Why couldn’t these people leave me alone? “What’s going on?” she asked. As she talked she pulled up my records on her computer.
; I looked at the floor. Thought of Maria. Wished I was back at her place.
“What’s this? You’ve gone from A’s and B’s to C’s, D’s and an F. How come you have an F? You should have an A in biology. What’s going on?” I didn’t say a word. I didn’t even look up at her. “Huh uh, young man,” she said, slapping her hand down on the desk so loud it made me jump. “You’re not getting away with this. Mr. Wilkerson told me he had to call your brother about your tardies. I’ll call him again if you miss any more classes. Miss just one class and I’ll call your brother.”
“What if I’m sick?”
“No, Sir! Don’t give me any excuses at all. I don’t want to hear one single excuse out of your mouth,” she said. “You’re on attendance check.” She reached into her desk and handed me a piece of paper with places on it for every teacher to sign to prove I’d showed up. She wrote the date at the top and crossed out the first four periods with a black marker. “Write your name on the top,” she said. “You’re on attendance check starting today, this minute. Turn this in before you go home.”
I took the paper, set it on the desk, and felt in my pockets for a pencil or pen. Empty. “ Could I borrow a pen?” She handed me one and I wrote my name on the top.
“Don’t show up for class without a pen or pencil, you understand me? And paper and your textbook. I’m not going to put up with this.”
“They’re in my backpack in fifth period. You didn’t tell me on the summons to bring a pen. You want me to bring a pen, tell me to bring a pen.” I’d never talked to Mrs. Martinez like that before, but she was getting on my nerves.
“Ricardo, if you want to keep up that attitude, I’ll call your brother at work right now.” She picked up her phone. She held it to her ear and punched in the numbers on the computer screen. She held the phone out to me so I could hear it ring.
We had a stare-down for four rings until I heard, “Cambden’s Supermarket. May I help you?”
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“I must have dialed incorrectly,” she said into the phone. “Sorry to inconvenience you.” She hung up the phone and looked at me. “You’re to pick up an attendance check every morning in the the attendance office. Early. You may not be tardy to first period because you’re in the attendance office picking up an attendance check. Do you understand that? You get up earlier, if you have to. Catch an earlier bus. Do whatever you have to do, but you get here by 7:30 and pick up the attendance check. After school bring it to my office. I’m on bus supervision, but you can give it to the secretary. Every day. You miss one day, one period, and I’ll call your brother to come in for a conference. Do you understand me? I know your brother and I know he doesn’t want to be bothered with coming to school for a conference about you during work hours, but I’m not going to mess around with you on this, Ricardo. You’ve got too good a record to go messing it up now.”
I thought she was going to yell at me for the rest of fifth period and on through sixth period until the 3:00 bell rang. She wrote out a hall pass for me to get back into fifth period. “What’s going on? What’s up?” she asked when she handed it to me.
“Nothing,” I said. I didn’t look at her, just looked down at the attendance check in my hands, folded it and unfolded it.
“You started working last summer. Is that too much for you? Do you want me to talk to your brother about that?”
I shook my head no.
“Are you still hanging around with Marco? He’s a good student. Maybe he can help you get your grades up.”
“Maybe,” I muttered.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but it doesn’t help that you don’t want to talk about it.”
I was ready to get out of there, so I stood up. “Can I go?”
She shook her head yes. “I want your teacher to sign for fifth even through class is about over. I want to know you went back to class.” I opened the door of her office. “Be quiet in the halls,” she said.
Yeah, I thought. Like your high heels. They’re so loud in the halls nobody can think and if there’s a test, everybody gets an F. I was mad. I was mad at her and mad at Wilkerson for talking to her.
I got my fifth period teacher to sign the attendance check, but I didn’t pay any attention to what he said the rest of class. Maria’s mother was in El Salvador for a couple of weeks. Her stepfather would be at work every day. We had two weeks we could ditch in the morning to her apartment. And I was on a damn attendance check. Every day. Every period.
At 3:00 I met Maria in front of the school. She told me first thing that Angel and Sandra had a big screaming fight at lunch. “They told me he flirted with some girl at nutrition,” she said. “He probably did. He can be so stupid. Anyway she’s really pissed at him. Everyone broke it up before they got in trouble, but he’s so stupid.”
We set our backpacks on the ground by the school bus. Kids were getting on the bus, but it wouldn’t leave for a few minutes so we stood outside. Maria took my hand. “You want to ditch again tomorrow?” She looked so good, I ached all over.
“Mrs. Martinez put me on an attendance check,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “They can’t really do anything to you. What are they gonna do? Send you to jail because you ditch? They haven’t sent me to jail yet.”
“They’ll call my brother.”
“Yeah, but what can he do? What can any of them do? I mean they might hit you and stuff, but so what. They can’t control you. If you want to ditch, you can ditch. Let them hit you.”
The bus driver climbed on the bus. Maria kissed me quickly. “Angel can be so stupid,” she said again.
“Yeah,” I said. “Bye. See you at work.” She waved out the window, kissed her finger, and pressed it against the glass.
Mr. Wilkerson was on bus supervision, so I wandered over and told him I needed to talk to him. I was mad at him for calling Frank about my report card and for getting Mrs. Martinez on my back about ditching, but I knew I could get condoms from him. I could get them from Mrs. Martinez, too, or the school nurse, but they were girls and it would be too embarrassing.
I hung around outside until the last of the school buses pulled away. Then Mr. Wilkerson motioned to me and I followed him inside to his office. If I missed my RTD bus, I could catch a later one.
I wanted to get condoms from him, but I didn’t know how to start.
“What’s up?” he asked.
I felt my mouth go dry and my cheeks get hot. I waited too long because he ended up speaking first.
“Did your brother tell you I’d called about your report card?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He jumped all over me. How come you called?”
Wilkerson picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, made a face, and slid the mug across the desk. “Get me some fresh, would you?” he asked. These people think we’re like waiters or something. I dumped the coffee in the water fountain in the hall and filled it up in the front office. It still smelled like tar.
I took the cup back to Mr. Wilkerson. He took a sip, made another face, put the mug down, and pushed it away. And they say kids don’t ever learn. He rocked back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “You’ve been ditching school and your grades show it.”
“So what,” I said, angrily. “You don’t know what it’s like.” Dammit, I thought. I was trying to get condoms and here we were again, talking about my grades.
Wilkerson looked at me, real calm, like he’d heard it all before. “I don’t have to understand. I just have to stay on your tail until you decide to make it or not.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “How come you told Mrs. Martinez? How come you didn’t just talk to me?”
“Because she’s your counselor.”
“But she’s got me on a damn attendance check.”
“Good.”
I stood up. Still mad. Still not a word about condo
ms. I took a deep breath, desperately trying to get up my courage to ask him for condoms.
“Is that all?” he asked. I let out my breath.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s all.