We Were Here (36 page)

“Be lookin’ for it in the mail.”

“Of course—”

I hung up the phone and crossed the street to where Rondell was. I waited for him to finish asking these three guys in suits to help our basketball team. After they waved him off, I told Rondell we could be done for the night.

“What we gonna eat?” he said.

I looked at him, shaking my head, said: “I don’t even know, man.”

After standing there a few seconds, staring at his clipboard, I realized I wasn’t even sure what he’d just asked. I was too busy thinking about what Jaden said about Lester putting us to work, how that was probably bullshit, something to get us back there and send us to real jail.

“I don’t know” was pretty much gonna be my answer to anything Rondell asked.

September 4

This morning we were walking north up the beach, like every other day, when all of a sudden we came up on a blue beach house that looked exactly like Mong’s. I stopped cold and stared at it. No way it could be the same one, I thought. But then this weird feeling came into my stomach. And my hand automatically reached up to touch his tooth necklace, and I thought how it totally could be. I forgot how Malibu was right next to Santa Monica.

Rondell stopped too. He looked at me.

I scanned all around us to see if anything looked familiar and it did, especially across the street where all the stores were. Then I looked down at the sand and actually found what was left of the little makeshift barbecue Mong had made. I couldn’t believe it was still kind of there. I walked over to it and squatted. Rondell followed me.

We both set down our bags, and I picked up one of the few rocks still in the circle we’d made weeks ago and held it up for Rondell, said: “You know where we are, right?”

He nodded.

I tossed it back in the sand, picturing Mong sitting there with his shaved head, drinking his bottle of whiskey, talking all crazy about true love. Then I looked up, checked the line of big rocks between the sand and his blue beach house. I could still see him kneeling there, carving something into one of ’em with a smaller rock. I realized I never checked to see what it was.

“This where Mong was, right, Mexico?” Rondell said.

I nodded.

“And we made a barbecue and ate hot dogs?” he said.

I nodded and walked over to the big rocks, started scanning the surfaces of them all, looking for what Mong could’ve put.

Rondell caught up with me, said: “We got food in that store right across there, right?”

“That’s right,” I said.

He leaned against one of the bigger rocks and looked out toward the ocean, said: “And that’s where he went out in the water.”

I looked all around on every rock but couldn’t find anything. I checked again. I totally wanted to see what he put, ’cause it was the last thing he did, but it wasn’t anywhere. I touched his tooth necklace again, thinking. Maybe the weather wore it away. Or maybe the rock he used didn’t scrape that deep. Or maybe I was just looking in the wrong spot or this wasn’t even where we were. Other people probably made barbecue pits like that.

But when I looked back up at the blue house I knew this had to be the spot.

Rondell picked up a smaller rock and stared at it.

“Yo, lemme get that,” I said, taking it out of his hand. I spun it around and studied it. The tip was all worn down. I looked all over the surfaces of the rocks again but there was still nothing.

I thought for a sec.

And then it hit me. I told Rondell to get up, and when he did there was Mong’s message, written in big block letters:

I kneeled in front of it. Touched the letters with my fingers. I thought how weird it was that this Chinese kid I knew, who said I was his best friend, sat in this exact spot with this
exact rock in his hand and made this exact message. And now he was gone. Forever. I’d never see him again.

But his words. They were still on the rock.

MONG WAS HERE
.

I looked up at Rondell, said: “You know what that says?”

He stared at me for a long time, looking all confused. Then he nodded and said: “I could read it.”

But I knew he was lying, so I read it out loud anyways. “Says ‘Mong was here.’”

“I know that,” he said.

“I’m just sayin’,” I told him.

He looked at the message, then back at me, then at the message again. “Mong put it?” he said.

I nodded.

He stared at the words on the rock and then a fat tear came down his cheek and he quickly turned so I couldn’t see.

We both stood there for a while, me looking at Mong’s last words and Rondell looking at the ocean. Straight down from the blue house Mong’s dad used to take him to every summer, just the two of them. I tried to picture little Mong running around on this sand. Before what happened with his parents and the cheek scars and him getting sent to a group home and breaking a kid’s arm and all his health problems. A little-kid Mong. Just innocent and smiling and playing with his dad.

Rondell turned back to the rock and he kneeled too, put his hand on the words. He didn’t have any tears now, but his eyes were mad glassy.

I patted his shoulder, and he looked at me.

And then this crazy thought came in my head. I stood up and yanked off my sweatshirt and shirt. I ripped off both my beat-up shoes and peeled off my filthy-ass socks.

Rondell stood up too, said: “Wha’chu doin’, Mexico?”

“Goin’ swimmin’,” I told him.

I pulled off my jeans, wadded up all my clothes and set ’em on one of the rocks and then I just stood there a sec, completely naked except my boxers. And Mong’s necklace around my neck. My chest going in and out and in and out.

Rondell’s face got mad concerned and he said: “Nah, Mexico. Don’t do it.”

But I took off running toward the water.

Right before I reached it, though, I got hit from behind so hard it felt like I was run over by a car. I ended up with my face buried halfway in the sand. When I looked up Rondell was sitting on top of me and full-on crying.

“I can’t let you, Mexico!” he screamed. “You can’t!”

I spit sand from my mouth and yelled back: “What the hell you talkin’ about, Rondell! I’m just going swimmin’!”

“I can’t let you, Mexico,” he said again, this time in a slightly quieter voice. He wiped his face and said: “I’s supposed to make sure you okay.”

I was about to yell at him again, but then I realized he thought me going swimming meant I wasn’t coming back. Like with Mong.

“Nah, Rondell,” I said, spitting out more sand. “I’m just gonna go in there for a little bit. Then I’m coming right back out and we can keep walkin’.”

He wiped his face again and looked at me. “You comin’ back?”

“I promise.” I tried to push him off me but he was too damn heavy to even budge.

“You promise, Mexico?”

“I promise,” I told him again. “Why don’t you just come with me?”

He wiped his face again and looked at me for a couple seconds. Then he said: “I ain’t know how to swim.”

“Just go in a little. You don’t gotta go in that deep.” He looked out at the water and then back at me. “You promise you comin’ back?”

“I promise,” I said. “Now get the hell off me, man.” He got off me, and I stood up, brushing sand off my boxers and spitting.

“Why you goin’ in there?” he said. “I don’t even know,” I said.

The Best
Swim of My Entire Life:

I turned away from Rondell and jogged the rest of the way to the beach. I hopped through the cold ankle-deep water, then leaped over the small knee-high whitewash, splashing everywhere with my hands and breathing in the salty air. I didn’t have to have no talk with my stuff this time ’cause instead of easing in I dove my ass under the first swell I saw. Under the water I kept my eyes shut and touched the sandy bottom with my hands and feet and felt a couple slimy seaweed limbs brush over my back and legs. I stayed down as long as I possibly could in that other ocean world, until my lungs started burning, and then I shot back into the air and took the biggest breath my lungs could do. I never felt so awake, man. Or alive. I don’t even know why, but it felt like I could run a damn marathon without even getting tired.

I looked back to the shore and there was Rondell’s big ass inching into the ocean too, in just a pair of bun-huggers. He was huge, bigger than most grown men, even though he was only sixteen. He stopped when he was knee-deep and wrapped his big arms around his black body like he was freezing cold.

“Come on!” I called out.

He unwrapped his arms from his body and started stepping in a little deeper.

I put my head down and swam all the way out there with the bigger swells, where I couldn’t touch anymore. I was a little scared but I didn’t even care. The waves weren’t that big or strong, and when they rolled toward me I’d dive under as far as I could, wouldn’t come back up until everything quit jostling around like the inside of a washing machine. Then I treaded water and looked all around the ocean and out at some boats and back at Rondell. There wasn’t another person in sight, just us. The sun was hidden behind a giant puffy white cloud. Seagulls were flying over the ocean’s surface together crying out their seagull cries and flapping their wings every few seconds. And my heart got so it was racing so hard you’d have thought it was hyperventilating. But it wasn’t ’cause I was scared about being so deep or nothing. It was ’cause at that exact moment I felt so damn happy to be alive and breathing and free. Like I was the luckiest kid in the whole damn world, man. Including rich people and famous people. Just being able to swim around in Mong’s ocean. Getting moved around every once in a while by a thick swell rolling past. Rondell doggy-paddling out to where I was. I was so happy and alive that every time I took a breath it felt like I was gonna breathe in the entire world.

When Rondell finally made it out to where I was, he shouted: “I ain’t know how to swim!”

“Me neither!” I shouted back.

Both of us stayed out there anyway, dog-paddling and diving under swells and splashing water at each other and laughing. And then after a while the ocean got calm and both of us went quiet and Rondell drifted back to where he could touch and I just floated around in the deep part, staring out over the water, past where the waves started, where I’d last seen Mong’s shaved head bobbing up and down and up and down over the surface of the ocean and then disappearing.

I just looked out there for a long time. Not thinking anything anymore. Just floating and breathing. Living in the moment.

After we finally came back in we dried off with our sweatshirts and got dressed and made our way up to Mong’s rocks again. I took the smaller rock and scraped in a message of my own, right under Mong’s. I scraped and scraped to make sure it would last.

When I was done I handed the rock to Rondell, and he looked at me, confused.

“Go on, man,” I said. “It’s your turn.”

“I ain’t know what to put,” he said.

“Put anything you want,” I told him. “It doesn’t matter.”

He stared at me for a while and then he stared at the rock. After a few minutes he squatted and started carving into the rock, under what I just put.

As he scraped away, I looked all around Mong’s beach, trying to think if I was taking advantage of my life. I thought how even though I didn’t barely have any money or a place to live or a family that wanted me anymore—and even though I could get picked up by a cop at any time and sent back to jail—still, man. This was probably the best day I’d had since my moms dropped me off at Juvi in the first place and they led me down the hall, away from her, and I thought it might be the last time I’d ever see her.

I don’t even know why it was that way, but it was.

And I really think for the first time in forever I was looking forward to the next day instead of feeling depressed about the past. Standing there next to Rondell, my mind didn’t go to anything else, just what we were doing and where we were.

When Rondell was finally done he stood up and handed
back the smaller rock and we both turned to what the three of us had carved into the big boulder. As we stood there staring at it a lump came in my throat: