“Whoa.” Ganke refolded the letter and handed it back to Miles. “You gon’ tell your father?”
“I don’t know,” Miles said, sliding the letter back into the envelope. He folded it in half and slipped it into the small pouch in the front of his backpack. When he lifted his eyes back to Ganke, a look of stress had smeared across his face. He shook his head. “Anyway, what you come here for? You need something?”
“Do I need something? Really, Miles?” Ganke teased, each word soaked in sarcasm. “I actually came to tell you that I was going to the open mic. I’m hoping the extra credit will offset me not getting my sijo done, in case the family thing, y’know, stumps me.” A flash of pain struck Ganke’s face, but it left as quickly as it came. “And I wanted to make sure you knew I was also gonna put in a word for you. Get it? Put in a word for you? A word? With Alicia? At the poetry open mic? Word?”
“I get it.”
“Got it.”
“Please leave.”
“I’ll take that as a thank-you. And you’re welcome.” Ganke threw the words at Miles like a no-look pass as he left the store.
Leaving Miles alone.
Miles leaned onto the counter, using his elbows to prop himself up, still trying to wrap his mind around the whole Austin thing. He wondered if he should tell his father. Or if he should write back. Or maybe just ignore it. Besides, how could he prove it was true, that this was his actual cousin? He could go see him. That was an option. But not really. That wasn’t an option. He’d need one of his parents to take him to the jail, and telling his father—though another option—wasn’t really a good one either. His father wanted nothing to do with Aaron and insisted Miles also have nothing to do with Aaron, so there was a good chance Miles’s dad would want that embargo to remain intact. But Miles couldn’t help but think about it. About what Austin looked like. About how he ended up behind bars. About what Austin knew of his father’s death.
Guilt crashed into him, shaking every bone in his body as a saxophone solo blared through the speakers. But there was nothing to do, nowhere to put the guilt except—and he couldn’t believe he was even thinking this—his homework. The poetry assignment. For once, the store being empty and boring seemed like a good thing.
Miles yanked his notebook from his backpack, flipped it open, stared at what he had already written in the dorm. Then ripped that out, crumpled it into a ball, and did a stiff hook shot to the garbage can. Missed. Basketball just wasn’t his sport.
He started again. Actually, he stared at the paper and thought about starting again, waiting for the words in his head to somehow pop onto the page. He hadn’t even pulled out a pen yet.
Austin. Aaron. Dad.
Family. That was Ms. Blaufuss’s new prompt. Write two sijo poems about your family, something you love and something you don’t. Miles kept eyeing the page, the saxophone crooning, making it hard for him to think about a family whose soundtrack wouldn’t be anything as soft as this.
Finally, he reached in his bag for a pen.
WHAT I LOVE
WHAT I HATE
smooth jazz
I hate my father’s face when he tells me my block is my burden
like my job is to carry a family I didn’t create
to somehow erase the blood he left in the street like cursive
like my life is for fixing something I didn’t even break
WHAT I LOVE
The way my mother says, “Mijo. Sunday dinner is ready”
and kisses my father gently while I set the table
If only we were more like her
If only everyone were as gentle and loving
The way she looks at us like we’re perfect, though we’re not
Miles scribbled and scratched out, scribbled and scratched out, over and over again trying to find the right words, the right count. And what he landed on, what he finally came up with, he hated. Ugh. A poet would have a better grasp on language. A better understanding of how to put words together to at least communicate a coherent idea. Exhibit A: Austin, if we are in fact family, I wish I would’ve known you a long time ago. Being an only child means you fight every battle alone. Plus, I always wanted bunk beds. Or Exhibit B: Alicia, I like you. I like the way you think, the way you look, the way the hair curls on the back of your neck, and I’d like to invite you to split an order of chicken fingers in the dining hall, as a precursor to my mother’s chicharrón de pollo on a Sunday in the near future. But instead, all Miles had was C-grade poetry and a near-puke situation.
More kids walked by. And Miles imagined what else he would say to Alicia if he could just get the courage. It frustrated him that he could wrestle with monsters ten times his size, but not get his mouth to cooperate whenever he was in her presence. So, at the risk of embarrassing himself only in his own mind, he scribbled another sijo, this one not a part of any assignment.
UNTITLED
I’m not even sure that people write love letters anymore
and if this is one, I’m sorry for using it to tell you
that I’ve always known, from the beginning, it’s sandalwood
Another group—baseball caps, school hoodies—traipsed by. And another. It seemed like the whole school was going to the open mic. Ganke was probably already there. And he’d probably already talked to Alicia for Miles, which should’ve been a comforting thought. But Miles knew that the likelihood of Ganke just walking up to Alicia and saying Hey, Alicia, Miles wanted me to tell you that he’s sorry about what happened today was basically at a negative number Mr. Borem had yet to teach.
That, along with the fact that Miles had written what he thought were two terrible poems (though the one about Alicia was decent) and would surely need the extra credit, was all he needed to push him over the top. He had to get to the open mic. He had to make sure he was accounted for, and he had to get this poem to Alicia. He could just slip it to her without having to make a big fuss about everything. She could read it when she got back to her room, and tomorrow, they could at least have a human conversation. Maybe. Probably. Hopefully.
But how? How was he going to get out of work? It’s not like he could call someone to cover for him. Well, he could, but then he’d have to lie about being sick and all that, and he wasn’t up for the theatrics. The only other way he could think of was to just step out for a few minutes, run to the quad, make sure Ms. Blaufuss knew he was there, say what he needed to say to Alicia, and then head back to the store before anyone came in. He’d already been there over an hour without one single customer. Odds were, no one would ever know.
But first, he had to figure out how to deal with the camera.