I told Sam we should change it up, so we decided to run to the Santa Fe Bridge.
It was actually great running through the mostly empty streets of downtown El Paso. I liked that you could see and smell the border in the air and on the streets and in the talk of the few people we passed who spoke the special kind of language that wasn’t really Spanish and wasn’t really English. My dad said he moved back because he knew he belonged here. Here. I wondered if I would ever know that kind of certainty.
Sam shouted at me as we ran, “Great idea, Sally. I love this route.”
When we got to the bridge, we took a rest. And Sam said, “We should run across the bridge and then just cross back.”
“No quarters,” I said. “And no passport.”
“Crap. I hate that passport thing.” And she got that Sam look in her eyes. “Let’s get passports.”
I smiled. “Yeah. We should have passports.” And we took off running back home. We got into this race. I was a faster runner—?but Sam held her own. If I slowed down just a little, she was right on my heels. And she was laughing and I was laughing too, and it was hard to run and laugh and breathe.
By the time we got to the library, we’d tired ourselves out, and we slowed to a jog. There were always homeless guys sleeping on the benches and stuff. We passed one of them, and I stopped and turned around.
“What?” Sam said.
“Isn’t that Fito?”
We walked up to the sleeping homeless guy who was not a sleeping homeless guy. It was Fito.
I shook him by the shoulder. “Hey,” I said, “Fito.”
He leaped up with his fists out.
I jumped back. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.”
Fito got this really sad look on his face and slumped down and hung his head. “Sorry,” he said.
“What are you doing here, Fito?”
“What the shit does it look like I’m doing here, Sam? I’m sleeping.”
We both eyed the backpack. “What’s going on?”
Fito just looked at us. “I’m handling it.”
Sam took a seat next to him on the bench. “Right.”
“Look, my mom threw me out of the house.” And then he explained the whole thing, how his mom was high when he got home late and how she started in on him and how she’d found his checkbook in one of his drawers and demanded that he give her all his money as rent. “‘You wanna live here, you little shit? Start paying!’ She had this demonic look on her face, and then she just starts hitting me and saying all sorts of shit and calling me a faggot, and I won’t get into the descriptive parts that went along with faggot, and so I just packed my things and got the hell out. And as I’m walking out the door, she’s in my face and telling me never to come back again and all kinds of shit like that, and well, here I am.”
“How come you didn’t come to my house?” I asked.
“Really, Sal? I was gonna do that? No, man, I got my pride.” He kept talking and saying that he’d find a way to get by, and that nothing was gonna stop him from going to college, and it made me feel like an idiot because college was this gift I had, like a present under a Christmas tree, and I didn’t want to open it.
Sam and I sat there listening to him. As he was talking, Sam and I were thinking. Thinking and listening. And when he was done, he shrugged and said, “Well, there it all is. That’s how my life rolls.”
So I said, “What are you gonna do, Fito?”
“Well, I’ve been saving my money to go to college. And I’ve been working two jobs, so I guess I’m gonna use that money to find me a place to live. The thing about it is that I won’t be eighteen until December and shit, which is, like, less than three weeks away. And who the hell is gonna rent to a minor? What? Like I’m gonna be on the streets for three weeks? And I’m not even gonna go near a social worker. Not goin’ there. And hell, you think a guy like me is into adult supervision? I mean, I’ve lived without that all my fuckin’ life. Shit, I don’t have a clue as to what I’m gonna do. Does it look like I have a plan? This bench, that’s my plan. I’m like one of those dogs that jump the fence. They go, like, Ahh, freedom, and then they look around all confused and shit because they don’t have a plan.”
Samantha Diaz had a look on her face. I knew that look.
She leaned into Fito and gave him a shove with her shoulder. “I have an idea,” she said. “You and that dog may not have a plan, Fito. But I do . . .”
God, I loved her smile. She hadn’t smiled like that in a while.
Sam. Awesome.
“OKAY, WE CAN’T tell your dad.”
“I don’t like keeping secrets from him.” Not that I wasn’t keeping secrets.
“Well, we’re not doing anything wrong.”
“That’s true. We’re just not telling him what we’re up to.”
“We’re not really up to anything. We’re just helping our friend. Like that’s a bad thing. I mean, adults always want us to be good people and do nice things for others and all that, right?”
“Yeah—?well, yeah.”
We were walking back toward the library after we’d eaten breakfast, and Sam and I had packed a lunch for Fito. Sam had made him promise to wait for us. He’d shrugged and said, “Like I got somewhere to go.”
I looked at Sam as we walked. “You sure this is okay?”
“You are the most risk-averse person I have ever fucking met. No bueno.”
“No bueno, what?”
“You’re a worrier. You’re seventeen years old and you’re a worrier.”
“So what? It means I care.”
“I care too. And look at me. Do I look worried?”
The discussion was so not fruitful. I shook my head.
“Look,” she said, “just don’t tell your dad. That’s all you have to do. Just do not tell. That’s not exactly trigonometry.” She rolled her eyes.
I rolled mine.
“Look,” she said. “Fito’s our friend, right? So we can help him on our own. We don’t always need permission to do the right thing. Or do we?”
Fito was sitting on his bench, reading a book in front of the library—?kind of a normal sight. But it wasn’t really normal, not if you knew the story. Maybe everything looked normal on the outside. On the inside, well, there was always some kind of hurricane spinning around.
So there was Fito, sitting on a bench and reading a book, looking all normal. He waved as he saw us walking toward him. Yeah, normal. “I went into the library and checked out a book. I also brushed my teeth and washed up in the bathroom.” He didn’t seem as upset as before. I guess he’d had lots of experience in dealing with bad things happening to him.
“You’re sure it’s okay that I stay in your old house?” he asked Sam after she told him her plan.
“Absolutely. No one lives there. We’re going to put it up for sale. But my Aunt Lina said it needs some work. The house is just sitting there. All alone. Like you.”
That made Fito smile. He didn’t do a lot of smiling. Nope, not a smiler. Not that he’d ever had much to smile about.
I handed Fito a lunch bag with a couple of sandwiches in it. “Hungry?”
He took the bag. “I’m always hungry.” And he wolfed it down. That guy did not eat. That’s not what he did. He wolfed.