Chapter 7
I took a long, hot shower the next morning. After I’d washed my hair, I stood under the nozzle and let the hot water run down my neck and shoulders. I felt different, like a brand new person. And I couldn’t stop thinking about Maria. I was angry, too. Why did I have to be on an attendance check when Maria’s mother was out of town. “Hurry up!” hollered Frank, pounding on the door. “Water costs money.” Like I didn’t know that water costs money. He pounded on the door again. “Turn it off!”
I turned off the faucet. “It’s off,” I hollered back. Man, I was never going to get so old I’d worry about stupid stuff like how much water costs. Back in my room I pulled on my jeans and T-shirt and went to get breakfast.
Imelda was at the kitchen table giving a bottle to Jennifer. Frank had gone in the bathroom to shave. I scooped some fried potatoes onto a plate and poured myself a cup of coffee. “Get me a cup, too,” said Imelda. I poured another one and put it on the table in front of her.
The potatoes were spicy, full of onions, peppers, and jalapenos. I ate a plateful, reached for a slice of pan dulce, took a bite, and stirred sugar and milk into my coffee.
I glanced at Imelda. She had on one of Frank’s old red T-shirts and a pair of black slacks with the hem out of one leg. She didn’t look as old as some of the teachers at school, but she still didn’t look young anymore. Maria would never look like that, even after we got married, even if we had a baby. I knew Frank and Imelda slept together and had sex, but I couldn’t imagine them ever feeling what Maria and I felt. Nobody could.
I caught an early bus that morning so I could get to the attendance office by 7:30, and then try to get from condoms from Wilkerson. After I picked up my attendance check, I went to his office.
“Hi, Ricky,” he said, like I’d never gotten mad at him, like he was glad to see me. He must have owned a million white shirts because he wore one every day. His walkie-talkie crackled about some trouble out in the auto shop.
“I gotta ask something,” I said quickly.
“Talk,” he said as he stood up. “I have to get out to the auto shop.”
“I heard they give out condoms at the school if you need them.” There. I said it.
Wilkerson stuck his walkie-talkie into the holder on his belt. “You need them?” I shook my head yes. “Come see me after school. And he walked out of the office.
I’d been hoping to get them that morning so we could ditch. But I was still happy. I could go to school that day, get the attendance check signed, act like it mattered, get on the good side of everyone, pick up the condoms after school, and ditch with Maria the next day.
At nutrition behind the ROTC building, everyone was talking about the trouble in the auto shop that morning. It was Eddy and Sandra in the back seat of an old Ford. Man, I thought, Sandra’s nuts. She’s caught screwing a Westside Raza at school, and she’s Locos 18. And she keeps going back and forth between Angel and Eddy. It was like she got off on getting guys jealous, on making things dangerous.
Angel paced the ROTC yard like a caged animal. I had wanted to spend nutrition making out with Maria under the football bleachers, but she was too interested in what was going on with Sandra. “How could she do it with one of them?” she asked.
I finished my juice and tossed the carton across the ROTC courtyard to the trashcan. I missed, but I didn’t care.
“She’s just trying to get Angel jealous,” Maria said. “They really love each other. They were going to run away and move in together, but her mother told her she’d call the cops and they’d send her to Juvenile Hall. I’ve never been there, but Sandra was there a couple years ago for about a month and she says everyone tries to have sex with you. These parents think if you just look at a boy they can send you to Juvenile Hall. They don’t care what happens to you there. And anyway Angel and Sandra didn’t have any money so they couldn’t get their own place. But I know they really love each other.
“Then how come she was doing it with Eddy?” I asked, although I really didn’t care about Sandra or Eddy or Angel.
“She just wanted Angel to get jealous, like I said. So he’d know how much she loved him.”
The bell rang and we went to third period. I already had lines one and two signed on my attendance check. I’d made it to biology for the first time in three weeks. On time. Frank would be happy. Mr. Wilkerson would be happy. Mrs. Martinez would be happy. I knew what would make me happy, and it sure wasn’t getting to biology on time.
After school, I turned in my attendance check to the ESL office and waited for Wilkerson in the discipline office. He finally came in from bus supervision and had to deal with some kids that got caught writing on the walls in the shop building. When he was finished with them, he called me into his office. I thought he’d just give me the condoms, but he told me to sit down. He pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk, took out a little pamphlet, and handed it to me. He told me to read it. Then we’d talk. I didn’t know what about because I sure wasn’t going to tell him about Maria.
The front of the pamphlet said “How to Use a Condom” in black ink. I opened it up. It had pictures of how to put it on and take it off, pictures that someone had drawn, not photographs or anything like that. I felt the back of my neck get hot, but I tried to be cool, like I knew what I was doing.
Mr. Wilkerson took his coffee mug out in the hall, dumped it in the water fountain, and filled it again in the front office. I heard him say to the secretary, “We’ve got to do something about this coffee.” I turned my attention back to the pamphlet.
Step 1 was how to put a condom on, and step 2 was how to take it off. It talked about sexually transmitted diseases and about how not doing it was the only way to be 100% sure. When Wilkerson sat down at his desk, I handed it back to him. I tried to appear calm, like I knew he was required to give me the pamphlet by the law or the school or the parents or whoever, but that I already knew the stuff. Anyway, it was over. Now I’d get the condoms and get out of there.
He told me to keep the pamphlet and reached back into the bottom of the drawer of his desk. He pulled out three condoms. “Now, explain it to me in your own words.”
Like I was some kind of nurse or something! “It’s OK,” I said. “I understand it.” Wilkerson tossed the condoms back in the drawer. “You don’t get them until you can tell me how to use them. Don’t worry. I’ve heard it all before from every kid that comes in here asking for them.”
Man, they make it complicated. They should just give out condoms on buses or something. For free. I was about to protest that I knew it all already, but I was getting to know Mr. Wilkerson pretty good. I knew I wasn’t going to get those condoms unless I talked. I picked up a picture that sat on the side of his desk, probably his wife and kids. Two kids. I stared at it, instead of him. I didn’t look at Mr. Wilkerson once, but I told him what I’d learned. When I was finished, he handed me the condoms.
Then he asked, “Have you already had unprotected sex?” I lied and shook my head no. “You’re talking about your life. If you have had unprotected sex, you want to think about having an AIDS test.”
I blurted out, “But we’re really in love.”
“If you think love can protect you from AIDS, google people with AIDS and find out how many people have given it to people they love. AIDS doesn’t give a damn about love.” I looked down at the three condoms, nervously shuffling them in my hands. “I know you’re going out with Maria de Leon. I’ve seen you with her and I know she’s in Locos 18,” he said. “Do you know how girls get into that gang?”
My cheeks flushed. I was ready to tell him it wasn’t any of his business, but he said, “If anyone in Locos has AIDS, probably every one in the gang has been exposed to it. Think about that, Ricky. When you have sex with Maria, you’re coming into contact with everyone she’s ever had sex with.”
I stood up so fast I bumped against his desk and knocked over
the picture of his wife and kids. “They don’t all have sex with everyone in the gang,” I said angrily.
“If you want condoms, it’s because you’re having sex, and if you’re having sex, you have to be willing to think about it. With your brain. Then said, real softly, “Sit down.”
I stuck the condoms in my pocket, in case he decided he wanted them back. He reached over and set the picture of his family upright. “Are you in Locos?” he asked. I shook my head no. “Do you want to be?” I shrugged. I didn’t care. It wasn’t about being in a gang. It was about being with Maria. “Is that why you’re ditching and getting bad grades?”
What the hell did he want from me? Just because a guy is giving you condoms doesn’t mean he has a right to pry into all your business. “You don’t answer when you don’t like the question, do you? You never used to ditch. How come you’re letting her influence you to ditch, instead of you influencing her to come to school.
I stood up and pulled the condoms out of my pocket. Nothing was worth all this. I tossed them on his desk. “I have to go,” I said. “I can’t be staying here answering all these questions.”
“No,” he said, picking up the condoms. He walked around his desk. “You keep them. I’ll give you more when you need them.” He handed them to me. “Think about what I said. Come talk to me if you need to.”
Yeah, sure, I thought as I left his office. Just because these guys work for a school, they think they’re so smart. Like Mr. Stamos. That morning when I’d handed him my attendance check in biology, he’d made some joke about it being the second day in a row I’d come to class and what was up? Had I decided to get a PhD in biology? I wanted to slug the son of a bitch.