Rickie Trujillo Read online

  RICKIE

  TRUJILLO

  Copyright © 2017 by Nicholas Bradley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or stored by any means electronic, mechanical, recording, or other without expressed written permission of the author.

  Lines from We Never Stopped Crossing Borders used

  by permission of Luis J. Rodriguez

  For Permissions, contact Upper Hand Press.

  Cover and interior design by Stewart A. Williams

  This book has been typeset in Adobe Minion.

  Upper Hand Press

  P. O. Box 91179

  Bexley, Ohio 43209

  U.S.A.

  https://upperhandpress.com

  Printed by Bookmasters

  ISBN: 978-0-9984906-2-5

  FOR AMBER, AUGUSTINE AND ALEXANDER

  We were invisible people in a city which thrived on glitter,

  big screens and big names, but this glamor contained

  none of our names, none of our faces.

  The refrain “this is not your country” echoed for a lifetime.

  Luis J. Rodriguez

  We Never Stopped Crossing Borders

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7: Saturday Morning I

  Chapter 8: Saturday Morning II

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11: Saturday Afternoon

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14: Sunday Morning

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16: Sunday Afternoon

  Chapter 17: Sunday Evening

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20: Sunday Night

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23: Monday Morning

  Chapter 24

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book has been a long time in the writing, and consequently I owe thanks to a great many people. Ann Starr of Upper Hand Press, has been an unflagging believer, advisor, and champion of this book from her initial reading of the manuscript. Emily Williamson, content editor, worked with great dedication and care on the manuscript, and the result is infinitely better for her efforts, and she has my deepest gratitude. Andy Koppel was the sharp-eyed copy editor for the manuscript and found those little and not so little problems with the text. I am so grateful for his ability to see what I could not. Thanks, as well, to Peg Keller for her friendship, guidance, and advice for more years than either one of us cares to remember.

  I am indebted to my teachers, beginning with Carl Hartman at Michigan State and David Anderson at California State University, Northridge. I am also indebted to Stephen Rivele for reading and critiquing an early version of the manuscript.

  A number of people read drafts of the manuscript and offered insight and advice, for which I am profoundly grateful: Thompson Bradley read each sentence, paragraph and page with great care and offered up suggestions that were invaluable; Robert Oppenheim, Mildene Bradley, and Edward Bradley did the same. Others read the manuscript with an eye for authenticity: I turned often to Diego Duarte, Blanca Guzman, and, early on, Hector Ramirez, to check on the correct Spanish or facts about the neighborhood or the immigrant experience in general. Los Angeles School Police Sergeant Danny Arambulo and Probation Officer Juan Casteñeda offered their knowledge and support as well. With care and compassion each person pointed out areas that needed to be addressed to make the book stronger, and areas of strength, which gave me hope.

  There is a long list of people who offered much needed and appreciated words of encouragement and support: Donald Bradley, Jr., O.T. Bradley, Juliet Radhayrapetian, Shant Amirian, Med Flory, Sherman Ferguson, Anni Wall, Nancy Franyutti, Anjli Kohli, Vern Vaden, Antonio Reveles, among many more. Thank you.

  Thank you to the personnel at North Hollywood High School for being so accommodating: Ricardo Rosales, Principal; Carrie Schwartz, Assistant Principal; Linda Szabo, Aracely Jovel, Ruby Castillo; Maria Lopez; Markuz Velasquez; Kenneth Harris, and Andrew Lepore.

  A special thanks to James Trujillo for his help in guiding me through the world of social media: I am so grateful for your patience and expertise.

  No writer could ask for a finer group of friends and advisors.

  RICKIE

  TRUJILLO

  CHAPTER 1

  Rickie Trujillo stands on the edge of the wide patio and the steps down to the sidewalk at the entrance to the high school. He lets others flow around him as if he were a boulder in a stream. Students gather in groups on the patio, on the steps and on the sidewalk with loud talk and laughter and shouting.

  Friday. The school day is over, the weekend is here and Rickie can finally breathe easy. He looks around for other members of his crew, Alex particularly, but then he remembers that Alex had to take his mom to the clinic.

  Tony? Dennis? They’re both in Special Education classes. Rickie doesn’t have class with either of them. They spend a lot of time in the Deans’ Office because they fool around in class and ditch often. He wonders if they’re with one of the deans now. Rickie looks around for Wagner or his partner; he knows Wagner is going to be pissed that Rickie left the office earlier without his permission, but so what? Rickie doesn’t find him or the female dean in the crowd of people at the entrance.

  Oscar? Rickie doesn’t know where he is, and he doesn’t care. Oscar’s a new student from Pacoima. Rickie said it was okay for Oscar to join their crew before he knew anything about him, but now he regrets it. Oscar’s a braggart and a liar, and worst of all, a bully. He says he and some friends almost kicked a kid to death and took part in a gang rape. He’s probably full of shit, but he’s going to be a problem for Rickie because Rickie feels challenged by him. Rickie will have to do something to prove himself again to the others if he doesn’t want Oscar to take over the crew.

  He looks around for Claudia but doesn’t find her, either; her mom has probably already picked her up. They have been boyfriend and girlfriend for a few months, but her parents keep a close watch on her; she doesn’t leave the house except for school or in the company of her mother. She has a woman’s body, but is still a little kid sometimes; she laughs loudly about silly shit and cries easily. Rickie doesn’t really know what he feels about her. They have never done much of anything. He goes to her house sometimes and sits on the sofa with her to watch TV, and they make out quietly. Her mother stays in the kitchen and listens, but she doesn’t come unannounced into the living room; she keeps Claudia’s younger sisters out, too.

  Rickie enjoys the shade of the overhanging oaks at the top of the steps. He listens to groups of students make plans for the weekend or tell a parent on a cellphone where to pick them up, but he himself has no place to go in a hurry. He looks over the people standing on the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps and catches the eye of the principal, Jim Garcia. Rickie has not had to deal with him, has never even spoken to him, but he sees the man appraising him now. He notices Rickie’s Taz shirt and tries to read his face and his stance. Is he a troublemaker or a reformed troublemaker? Is the man supposed to be wary of the boy, keep an eye on him? It is clear he doesn’t know the answers to these questions. But on Monday, when the principal hears from Maltrey and Wagner, he’ll know who Rickie is.

  Rickie was late getting up this morning. Very late. He wakes up in a sweat. He sleeps with the window locked and the shade and the curtains drawn, and the room heats up quickly on these late spring mornings. In this neighborhood, people don’t leave ground floor windows open, even with wrought iron
bars at the windows. An open window is an invitation, and Rickie’s grandmother doesn’t have the money to secure the windows. They do have a heavy black security door at the front, installed by Rickie’s brother and his friends. They say they got it at the swap meet.

  Rickie takes a long hot shower in an attempt to clear his head, but it still feels achy and thick with sleep. He debates not going to school at all, but being home inside would be worse than boring. Instead, he decides to take his time getting to school. He doesn’t catch the bus, opting to walk the distance. By the time he gets near the school, lunch is over and the fifth period of the day is underway. When the school cops approach, Rickie is standing outside the 7-Eleven wishing he had some money for something to eat. The cops pull into the 7-Eleven parking lot, give the siren a short whoop, and command Rickie to raise his hands and turn to put them on the hood of the car. They recognize him as truant and as a tagger, and they put him in handcuffs to take him to school.

  The school police officers park in front and escort Rickie into the school. The school is old and ignored, and there are no metal detectors at the entrance, so the officers sign him in at a small table by the front door, manned by an older parent volunteer who proudly wears an orange shirt identifying him as security. One of the officers has Rickie by the elbow.

  “We’re taking him to the Deans’ Office,” he says. The parent volunteer nods; these two officers are at the school often.

  Rickie has dark eyes and a shaved head. He is slight, wiry, and shorter than the men on either side of him. He has a wary, hunted expression about the eyes. This is not Rickie’s first time being escorted into the school in handcuffs, standard procedure for truants when they’re brought into the school.

  Wagner, the dean with blond hair and freckles, comes out from his office down the corridor at that moment and sees them coming.

  “Rickie, Rickie, Rickie,” he calls from the hallway, shaking his head in exaggerated disappointment; Rickie knows the man doesn’t really care.

  Rickie eyes Wagner disdainfully, tilting his head to the side, then dropping his eyes slowly. He dislikes Wagner and his sarcastic attitude, but he says nothing.

  “Truant?” Wagner asks the cops.

  “He was hanging out in front of the 7-Eleven.”

  Wagner turns back to Rickie. “Where were you for periods one through four?”

  Rickie doesn’t look up. “Home,” he says. “I got up late.”

  “Well, gentlemen,” Wagner says, addressing the officers, “Take him to Ruby Lopez, his P.O. Remember? He and his buddy Alex Hernandez got caught joyriding in a ‘borrowed’ car up in the canyon. You owe Ms. Ramirez and me, Rickie my man; we didn’t give you up to the homie who came looking for you. You’re still in one piece, so I guess he hasn’t found you yet.”

  Wagner pauses and peers at Rickie, shaking his head back and forth, almost imperceptibly; the man has given up on him. “You’re not making life any easier for yourself, bud. Time to grow up.” Rickie continues to look down. “I just remembered,” Wagner says, turning to the police officers, “Lopez isn’t here today. Sit him in here. I wish someone else, anyone else, had decided to come to work today!”

  They take the handcuffs off and hand the paperwork to the dean before they leave. Rickie sits at a student desk against the wall, his arms folded, watching. Wagner goes into his inner office but in a minute comes out again.

  “Did you sign in? No? Sign in on the clipboard. I’ll be right back. Sit here until the end of fifth period.”

  Rickie says nothing and makes no move to sign in. He listens to the dean cross the hall, unlock the faculty men’s room door, and lock it behind him. Rickie stands and goes to the office doorway, checks left and right, and walks quietly across the deserted corridor and up the staircase. Maltrey’s room is on the second floor; he doesn’t teach this period, but he’s probably in the room. Claudia goes there during her free period to work at one of the computers. Rickie knows Wagner won’t come looking for him.

  “I’ve been teaching for thirty years, and you students have finally worn me out,” Maltrey told Rickie’s class a few weeks back. Rickie thinks he said it to every class. “You don’t do your homework, you’re not prepared, you’re disrespectful, and you don’t care.” Rickie almost feels sorry for the old man with his shiny bald head and his thin strands of hair greased in place across the top. Rickie himself is good at math; he doesn’t do his homework, but he doesn’t usually cause problems for Maltrey or any teacher.

  Everybody knows that Maltrey has more than coffee in the thermos he brings to school each day and locks in a filing cabinet. He used to love to teach, he tells the students, but he’s grown tired of teaching basic Algebra year after year and has grown exasperated by students giving the same wrong answers and asking the same dumb questions that reveal ignorance of basic arithmetic. But he’s particularly worn down by their disruptive behavior. Whatever he puts in that thermos eases him through the day.

  “What are you doing here, Rickie?” Maltrey says when Rickie opens the door and walks into the room without asking.

  “I want to work on my math,” he says as he enters. He doesn’t look at Maltrey.

  “You aren’t having any problems with math.”

  Rickie doesn’t respond. Rather than go to a computer station, he goes right to Claudia, who is staring hard at the screen. He perches on a table in back of her.

  “What are you doing?” he asks her.

  “Algebra, what else? I don’t get this one,” she says, pointing at the screen.

  Rickie leans in. “Okay. You have to add negative twenty-two to both sides and solve for X. The answer is negative fifteen.” As he leans in, he lets his hand rest on her shoulder and then finger walk down toward her breast.

  “Rickie!” she says and laughs, louder than she intended. Maltrey comes to stand next to him.

  “Rickie, if you’re going to be here, take a seat. Don’t bother Claudia.”

  “He’s helping…”

  Rickie ignores Maltrey.

  “Rickie! Do you hear me?”

  Rickie continues to ignore the teacher. He sits motionlessly, staring at Claudia’s back. He’s still angry about Wagner’s dismissive attitude toward him. “Shut the hell up,” he says quietly, but Maltrey doesn’t hear him.

  “You can’t come in here and bother students who are working. It’s time for you to go to your fifth period class.” Rickie doesn’t move.

  “Rickie, look at me. Time to leave.” When Rickie makes no move to get up, Maltrey reaches over to turn Rickie’s head to face him.

  Everyone knows teachers can’t put their hands on a kid. Students know it as well as teachers; Rickie knows it. He has seen teachers and students, their faces inches apart, yelling, spit flying, rage suffusing the teacher’s face in a violet bloom as he or she holds back a hand longing to strike. If the teacher follows through, he’ll get pulled from the classroom and be forced to sit for months in an empty office away from the school. Sometimes parents file charges.

  Maltrey disregards what he knows not to do and puts his large hand on the top of Rickie’s head to turn it to face him. He no longer has the patience to be ignored.

  It surprises Rickie. He turns and catches a glimpse of the teacher’s face before his own rage takes over. He sees anger there, but something else as well in the heavy eyes and sagging jow—sadness, a loss of hope, the inevitability of failure. Rickie experiences a flash of pity for the old man that instantaneously disappears.

  “Hey, motherfucker, don’t! Don’t touch my head!” He turns to duck out of Maltrey’s grasp.

  The teacher adjusts his grip, but does not let go. His hand is big and strong. “Turn! Look at me!”

  “Fuck you! That hurts!” He howls loudly for the dramatic effect; other students have turned to watch.

  Rickie stands and sharply jerks his head out of Maltrey’s grip. The teacher puts his arm out to stop the boy from leaving the classroom, but he pushes by it.

  “Rickie!
Come back here! Come back here right now!”

  At the doorway, Rickie turns to face the teacher. “You hurt me,” he says. “Watch! You’re going to pay… I’m going to fuck you up,” he yells and then slams the door open. The bell rings at that moment, loud and insistent. The boy immediately blends in with the crowd of students emptying out of classrooms into the corridor and heading for their last class of the day. He hesitates: leave campus or go to Phelan’s English class? He knows that even though Maltrey put his hands on him, he will get in trouble for threatening the old man; Maltrey will report what happened, and Rickie will be moved out of the school at least. Since he’s on probation, it might even be worse. But it won’t happen today; he smelled the alcohol on Maltrey’s breath. Maltrey will wait until early Monday morning. And who cares anyway if security comes and takes him out of Phelan’s class? Rickie will just take off, and they won’t follow.

  Rickie enters quietly by the back door and takes his seat in Bill Phelan’s sixth period English class; he’s the only student in a last row of three desks. He doesn’t have anyone to talk with because Phelan moved the one kid who used to sit back there with him. It doesn’t bother Rickie; he sits quietly and doesn’t do anything. Phelan encourages Rickie, but he doesn’t harp on him. Only once, early on, Phelan called Rickie’s grandmother because he wasn’t doing his work.

  “My grandma doesn’t really understand English,” Rickie said the next day. “She didn’t understand your Spanish, either, but she thought you sounded nice.”

  The classroom is dark and cool. A sentence correction warm-up is on the screen at the front of the room. Rickie actually gets up and borrows a piece of paper and makes a half-hearted attempt to do the work, but he is preoccupied by his confrontation with Maltrey; he glances at the doorway every time someone enters. Rickie turns his paper over and practices his tag, “Grt Whyt.” Phelan moves around the classroom checking the students’ work. He approaches Rickie, who turns the paper over to the front.