I don’t know how long we were in the ER waiting room. They let Dad go in with Fito, and Sam and I sat there waiting. She went into the women’s room and came out with some wet paper towels and wiped the blood off my lip. “Your mouth is swollen,” she said.
“That’ll teach me,” I said.
“You were just trying to help a friend.”
I shook my head. “It’s not like that.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s not as if there was any thinking involved. I mean, it was all reflex. It’s not as if I said to myself, I gotta help Fito. I just jumped in. It just happened.”
“Maybe your reflexes are telling you something.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’d do anything to protect the people you love.” She nudged me. “But you know, you gotta find a better way to help them.”
“You’re sounding like Dad.”
“Am I? I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“Shit,” I said. “I’m screwing everything up.”
“Stop it,” Sam said. “Stop doing that. Maybe you’re beating up on yourself a little too much lately too. No bueno. That’s not who you are.”
“How do you know?”
“I know,” she said firmly. “I know.”
I nodded.
“I wish I had a cigarette,” she said.
“You don’t smoke.”
“I used to—?sometimes.”
“Solve any of your problems?”
Our laughter was soft and wounded.
I looked up and saw Marcos standing there. “So how’s the home team?”
“We took a beating.”
“So I hear.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “But you should see the other guys.”
That made Marcos smile. Sam stood up and hugged him. Then she leaned into him. “Why is the world so mean, Marcos?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I just don’t know.”
I looked up at Sam and Marcos. It seemed to me that Sam had learned how to deal. She hadn’t known how to deal with anything for such a long time, and she’d always leaned on me. And even though she gave Marcos a hard time, she’d already learned to be his friend.
I said to myself, No more, Salvador. No more. Though I wasn’t sure what no more meant. But it felt like I was taking a step. A step away from stasis.
Figure it out, Salvador. Figure it out.
Aftermath
THE GOOD NEWS: Fito’s ribs weren’t broken. But his left hand, well, that was broken. He missed school for a few days—?but he seemed okay. He kept staring at his arm in a sling, and I wondered what he was thinking.
On the outside, he was back to his old self. Only, I knew there was a wound living inside him, and that wound wasn’t going away anytime soon. There had always been something a little sad about Fito, and that made sense to me. He’d had a really sad life. But he’d always been so tough. And really determined. It wasn’t just that he had a broken arm now. Something else was broken too.
Fito moved into my room and slept on my bed. I slept on the floor in a sleeping bag. Fito had bad dreams one night; he was yelling and I had to wake him. “Hey,” I said, “it’s just a dream.”
“Yeah, I get them,” he said.
“Want some hot chocolate?”
“That sounds good,” he said.
So we walked into the kitchen and Maggie followed us. She’d sort of adopted Fito. That dog, I swear she was the most empathetic dog in the world. “You wanna talk?” I said.
“I guess. Only I don’t know what to say. I mean, it’s like, it’s just too sad, Sal. It’s just too fucking sad.”
“Sam says you have to grieve.”
“I lost my mom a long time ago. So this grief thing, hell, I don’t get it.”
“You loved her.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“That’s a beautiful thing, Fito.”
“Is it?”
“Absolutely.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Mima’s dying, and that’s something I have to deal with. She was the only real mother I’ve ever known. Only it was better because she was my grandmother. I love her, Fito. And she’ll be gone.”
Fito nodded. “Why the fuck does it have to hurt so much?”
“I don’t know. It just does. You’re asking the wrong guy.”
The first day Fito went back to school, Sam stayed home with a bad cold. Fito and I didn’t say much as we walked. Finally I said, “Fito, it’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
He shrugged. “Maybe some people aren’t meant to have, you know, a great life. I guess that’s that way it rolls.”
“Don’t you ever talk that talk around me. You hear that, Fito? YOU. ARE. GOING. TO. HAVE. A. GREAT. LIFE.”
“Never had no friends like you,” he said. “Never had that.” And then he started bawling like a baby, fell to his knees and bowed his head, and just bawled. I picked him up gently, not wanting to hurt his broken hand. He leaned on my shoulder and after a while stopped crying.
“Hey,” I whispered, “people are gonna think I’m gay.”
He laughed. I’m glad he laughed.
Me. Dad.
DAD WAS SITTING across from me at the kitchen table reading the morning paper. He put it down and looked over at me. I knew what was coming. “About the incident in the funeral home—”
“Incident,” I said. “Yeah. Not my finest moment.”
“You’re good in a fight.”
I nodded.
“Do you need a lecture?”
I shook my head. “I’m no expert on what I need, Dad.”
“You know how I feel about solving things with your fists.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t think I jumped in because I was doing problem solving—” I looked at my father’s dark, soft eyes. “I don’t know, Dad. I have this reflex thing going on.”
“I think I understand what happened at the funeral home. You reacted to a situation that you had no control over. I’m not going to make excuses for the way Fito’s brothers behaved. I’m sorry he grew up in that family. None of us have any control over that. Look, I’m not going to beat you up about this. And I sure as hell hope you don’t beat yourself up over it, either. The real question is: Where do we move from here?”
I nodded. “You mean, where do I move from here?”
“Exactly. Can I ask you another question?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “How many fights have you gotten into this year?”
“A couple, three or so.”
He nodded. “‘A couple, three or so.’ There’s something going on inside you, son. And you need to figure it out. It’s not something I can do for you. I can ground you. I can punish you. I can give you a lecture. I don’t think that’s going to solve what’s going on with you.”
“I’m trying,” I said.
“Good.”
“It’s hard,” I said.
“Whoever said growing up was easy? But using your fists doesn’t make you a man. You already know that. I guess I just had to say it.”
“I know, Dad!” God, I was almost yelling. And I was shaking. “But I get so angry. I get really angry.”
“Anger isn’t a feeling,” Dad said.
“That’s crazy,” I said.
“Okay, maybe I can get this right. Anger is an emotion. But there’s always something behind anger. Something stronger. You know what that is?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“It comes from fear, son. That’s where it comes from. All you have to do is figure out what you’re afraid of.”
Oh, I thought. Is that all?