B0061QB04W EBOK (39 page)

I tried to ignore the students’ giggles.
Yeah, yeah, I’m a big queen, but I’m only four feet eight inches tall, so what?

“Yes, that’s me,” I said, already thinking she was going to ask me if I was Mago’s sister. But I was surprised when she didn’t.

“You’re too young to be called that, don’t you think?” she asked. Her hair was so blond it was almost white under the sunlight. “Do you mind if I call you Princess?” I was so relieved that she didn’t know my sister that I almost shouted out a big yes!

But I simply nodded, and just like that, I became a princess.

My last class was something called band. Carlos said it was an elective, but I hadn’t chosen it. All the electives, except metal shop and band, were already full, so when the counselor was filling up my schedule, he said, “I’ll put you in band,” without asking me if that’s what I wanted. I knew it had something to do with music, but I didn’t really know what to expect. Carlos asked to be put in metal shop.

As I walked into my classroom, I hit my foot on the leg of a chair. I cried out in pain. The teacher asked, “Are you okay?”

I took a deep breath and answered in English as best as I could, “Yes, teacher. I just hurt my big finger.” I limped toward an empty chair and sat on it, feeling proud of myself for answering him in his own language.

“Your big finger?” he asked. All the students were looking at me weird. “Oh, you mean your big toe!” he said and laughed. Everyone else laughed with him.

“You don’t have fingers on your feet,” he gently explained. “You have toes.”

I wanted to slap myself because I should have known that. I had learned body parts at Aldama. It was just that sometimes I would still forget things like that. In Spanish there is only one word for finger or toe, and that is “dedo,” so you don’t have to worry about whether your “dedo” is on your feet or hands. Why did English have to be so complicated?

When the teacher, whose name was Mr. Adams, asked me what
instrument I wanted to play, I didn’t know what to say. He pointed to the closets, where I saw rows upon rows of black cases. He opened several cases to reveal beautiful golden and silver instruments whose names I did not know.

“So, which one do you want to play?” he asked again.

“How much it costs?” I asked, wondering if Papi would even have any money to buy me one of those instruments. They looked expensive.

Mr. Adams laughed. “They won’t cost you a thing,” he said. “They belong to the school, but you can borrow them and take them home with you.”

I found that completely unbelievable. In Mexico, nothing was free in school. Not even a pencil. He asked me again what I wanted to play. I didn’t know much about instruments. Mr. Adams told me their names as he pointed to them: clarinet, trumpet, trombone, piccolo, flute, saxophone, French horn. So many instruments that I could take home!

“Here, try this,” he said. “You need a small instrument.” He handed me a clarinet.

Just then, my eyes fell on the shiny golden beauty in one of the cases. I said, “That’s the one I want.”

Mr. Adams turned to look at where I was pointing. He said, “It’s an alto sax. You sure that’s the one you want?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“But you’re so small,” he said. I put out my hand and he handed me the case.

Once all the students had their instruments, Mr. Adams showed us how to play them and taught us some musical notes. The saxophone was heavy and the neck strap dug into my skin. I got dizzy as I blew through the mouthpiece, and at first I couldn’t make any sounds. By the end of class, I had managed to create something that sounded like music. I loved playing an instrument because I knew that it didn’t matter whether I spoke perfect English or not. It didn’t matter that I had a “wetback” accent. Reading music didn’t require me to be fluent in any spoken language. And I didn’t need to speak, just play.

I went home with my alto sax, and as soon as Papi got home, I showed it to him. Mago had never come home with an instrument, so finally I had found something I was first at! Papi held the alto sax in his hand and turned it this way and that. “Are you sure you don’t have to pay for this?” he asked.

“No, Papi, the school lets students borrow them for free.”

Papi was amazed. He asked me to play something. Mago rolled her eyes at me and left us alone. I took the sax from him and played the scale Mr. Adams had taught me, except I didn’t remember it that well. But Papi didn’t criticize me for messing up. Instead he said, “You know, when I was in third grade, my teacher brought some drums to class and started to teach us how to play them. We couldn’t take them home, but still, it was nice coming to school and having the chance to learn to play an instrument. I hoped to join the color guard when I got to sixth grade. But a few weeks later, when I turned nine, your grandfather said I was old enough to join him at the fields, and he pulled me out of school. I never got to play the drum again. And I’ve been working ever since.”

Papi got up and headed to the refrigerator where he took out a Budweiser. Then he went into his room. I sat in the living room to practice my sax, but Mago and Carlos complained about the noise and sent me outside. I went to the yard and continued to practice, and I played with all my heart, for myself and for my papi, who never got another chance to play anything.

12

J
UST LIKE
A
BUELA
Evila, Papi did not allow us to go out into the neighborhood to play. He would say, “I want you here, at home, where I can see what you’re doing. I won’t have you hanging out with the wrong kids and becoming cholos.”

We weren’t interested in becoming gang members, but it was hard not to come across them. Highland Park was home to one of the biggest gangs in Los Angeles—the Avenues. There was a family of Avenues living next to us, in fact. Although we tried to stay away from them, they wouldn’t stay away from us. One of the boys, Tino, would sneak into our yard every few nights to fill up his buckets with
water from the garden hose. Their utilities were always getting shut off when they didn’t pay their bills on time. The father was in jail for taking the blame for a crime his oldest son had committed, and the mother was usually doing drugs instead of taking care of her children.

Papi would never say anything to them. He’d say, “I’m not going to put our lives in danger for a bucket of water.” But one night, when Papi was coming home from the liquor store with a six-pack of beer, a thug came out from the shadows with a knife and told Papi to hand over his wallet. In the dim light of the streetlamp, Papi caught a glimpse of the cholo’s face and said, “I let you take water from me and now you’re threatening me with a knife?”

Papi later told us that Tino had actually apologized to him and put his knife away. “Good thing I’ve never said anything about the water,” Papi said. “He would have stabbed me right then and there because I wasn’t about to hand over my wallet that easily.”

The firing of gunshots was a regular occurrence in our neighborhood. Almost every night we would hear popping noises in the distance. But one night, what we heard was louder than pops. Mago and I were in the living room watching our favorite soap opera,
Quinceañera,
and we were so engrossed in the TV we didn’t pay much attention to the noises. But then Papi and Carlos were running into the house and Papi was yelling, “Get down. Get down!” We immediately dropped to the floor.

“What’s happening, Natalio?” Mila asked as she came out of her room. It was now quiet outside except for the barking of a dog and a car alarm going off.

Papi had been outside finishing some repairs he was doing on the plumbing, and Carlos had been practicing his soccer moves in the parking lot. Papi said that a car had driven by and the men inside shot at three cholos that were walking by. The bullets shattered the windshields of the car that belonged to one of their tenants. Carlos was playing just a few inches away from that car.

“One of the cholos got hit,” Papi said. “He’s still out there, but the others took off running.”

When we were sure no more gunshots would follow, we went outside and saw the man who was crawling on the sidewalk. “Help me,” he said, groaning. “Help me.”

Papi stood in front of Mago, Carlos, Mila, and me and put his arms out, keeping us back. The young man’s head was shaved close to his scalp and he was wearing a plaid long-sleeve shirt. He grabbed hold of the front gate and tried to pull himself up. “Help me,” he said again.

I looked at Papi.
Why isn’t he helping him?
“Do something,” I said, pulling on his sleeve.

“Let’s go inside,” Papi said. He grabbed me by my shoulders and turned me around.

“But he’ll die,” Mago said.

“Go inside,” Papi said again. Mila went straight to the phone and called 911.

“We have to help him!” I said.

“We’ve done all we can for him,” Papi said. “If I go out there and help him, tomorrow I will be the one who gets shot. Or you kids. Those stupid cholos will come seeking revenge, believe me. I don’t want to come home and find you kids clinging to the gate with a bullet hole in your chest!” I recognized the terror in my father’s face. I had seen it once before, at the border, during our third crossing as we were running from the helicopter. It was the look of an animal that can sense danger and is ready to protect its young.