American Road Trip Read online

  T: U

  T: Playing the tuba

  Wendy: Aww. You are sweet. I have to

  run.

  T: Me too gotta hit those

  books

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2008

  I collapse in my bus seat, pissed. I zip open my pack and yank out my chemistry notebook.

  Amu.

  It’s not a hard concept. An atomic mass unit is one and a half times the mass of a carbon atom that contains six protons and six neutrons. No big deal. But the reason I didn’t know that when Mr. Clegg asked is I can’t possibly study everything every night. So I pick and choose and hope the things I don’t study get covered during tutorial in AVID class. Two weeks in and I’m still trying to catch up. So studying is like putting out brush fires or playing Whac-A-Mole.

  Last night I whacked the wrong mole. So today, when Clegg asks me the question, I tell him I don’t know. Yeah, it hurts my pride a bit. I’ll admit that. But it doesn’t kill me.

  What kills me is Clegg’s I told you so headshake as he ticks a mark in his grade book.

  And those kids. The ones who rolled their eyes when they saw me walking into their exclusive, smart-kid classes on my first day. I know what they’re thinking. And I can’t let it go.

  I try, but I can’t.

  The bus rolls past shabby Pac Highway used-car lots and junkyards and a voice from deep inside me says, Don’t let it go, T. Do. Not. Let. It. Go. Channel it. Focus your anger and show those snobs what you can do.

  There’s a chemistry quiz in two days. I’m studying with Caleb for it. I’m studying till I know the material backward, forward, and upside down.

  The bus stops. I hop off and there’s a buzz in my pocket.

  WED OCT 01 3:13 P.M.

  Wendy: How’s school going?

  T: Chuggin away

  Wendy: What are you reading?

  T: Dante’s inferno

  Wendy: I’ve never read it.

  Wendy: But I’ve heard it’s hell.

  T: Wah wah nice try but

  please leave the comedy to …

  T: The divine

  T: See what I did there?

  Wendy: Wah, wah, right back

  atcha.

  Wendy: What else?

  T: Chem quiz Friday

  Wendy: Gonna ace it?

  T: U-Dub, Wendy. U-Dub

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2008

  Mr. Clegg’s quiz sits before me.

  I travel toward that place in my brain where I got polyatomic ion formulas, binary compounds, metals, and nonmetals categorized and formulas memorized.

  I know this stuff.

  Those answers are in my head.

  Someplace in my head.

  I close my eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. Searching my brain.

  But all I can find in there is a pack of arms-crossed, eyes-rolling kids standing in the way of those answers.

  And one of the kids … he looks just like me. He’s got his gamer headset on, controller in hand. He’s jumping up and down, shaking his head, wagging a finger, growing angry till tears and spit fly as he shouts, Impostor! Fraud! Clown!

  The bell rings. I smack my test onto Clegg’s desk.

  And I run.

  * * *

  Caleb gives me a ride in his beat-up Civic.

  I tell him about the quiz. I tell him I can’t do this anymore. Because I’m too dumb. “Sorry, Caleb,” I say. “I’m out.”

  Caleb pounds the steering wheel. Says my attitude sucks and my thinkin’ is stinkin’.

  I tell Caleb I do not care.

  He explains our new plan for success. “We will study together. My place. Every weekday afternoon. I’ll help you in math and science. You’ll help me in history and English.”

  “I won’t.”

  “U-Dub, T. Wendy. Your future. You can do this.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I believe in you, Teodoro Avila, and that better mean something.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Then I’m sorry I have to do this.” Caleb looks at me sad, like what’s coming is gonna hurt him more than it’s gonna hurt me.…

  AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. I have lost the D. I no longer have that. But it turns out I do have a best friend who FREEEEAKING thigh-punches like a damn cannonball.

  Caleb pulls the car into his driveway and yanks the brake. “You with me?”

  I’m bent over trying to breathe through the pain. “Yeah, Caleb.” I grab my pack and reach for the door.

  Caleb stops me. “That sucked, T. First and last time I punch you.”

  “Forget it, Caleb.”

  “Huh-uh. If you wanna give up and I can’t talk you out of it with words…”

  “What?”

  “You can quit. It’s all right. I won’t judge.”

  “Damn, Caleb. Let’s just study.”

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2008

  Xochitl shakes me awake bright and early on a Saturday. Paint day.

  As rough as school has been, life in the rental is a lot better. My parents are actually talking to each other. Xochitl’s around more, and that’s okay because she dropped her bossy act. She’s her old self even though she’s working hard to get us ready for Manny.

  Today that means spreading color on walls.

  And that means I can take my mind off school for a while.

  “Don’t tell Mami and Papi,” Xochitl says. “Let’s just get to work and see what they say.”

  We cover our crappy furniture with plastic. Tape up stuff we don’t want to paint. And we crack open a can of sea-foam blue.

  When Mami and Papi walk in, their eyes get big but they barely say a word. They just pick up brushes and get to it.

  In the afternoon, Xochitl and I take off in a borrowed truck. I fake hitting the radio power button and she busts out a spot-on Jonas Brothers. I know it’s a joke, but I don’t turn the dial, and Xochitl keeps singing bubblegum love songs like she means it. I can’t stop laughing. And singing right along with her.

  Xochitl rolls the window down. Lights up a cigarette.

  “You have to quit that,” I say. “It’s gonna kill your voice, Xoch … then kill you.”

  “It’s not a black-and-white deal, T. There’s a continuum,” she says.

  It turns out, on one end of the continuum there’s Dangerous levels of smoke. And on the other end there’s No smoke. And somewhere in the middle is Just enough smoke to get your voice rich and cracky but not enough to do serious damage to your health.

  “I keep it in that sweet spot,” she says, “and not one cigarette more.”

  “You know how dumb that sounds, right?”

  She reaches over and pretends to turn up the radio. And she sings way dramatic in Alejandra Guzmán’s smoky, cracky, power-ballad voice.

  Tengo un pobre corazón

  Que a veces se rompió

  You can feel all the pain of a breaking heart. My sister’s Alejandra is almost worth smoking for.

  I reach over and turn down Radio Xochitl, cuz I gotta ask. “Why’d you nag Mami and Papi so hard? Why’d you lecture me like that?”

  She stares at the road for a bit. “That night I told you Manny was coming home, I had just read his e-mail.”

  She makes me promise I won’t say anything to Mami and Papi.

  “Manny’s worried about coming home,” she says. “He’s worried his head isn’t right. He doesn’t want them to know. He doesn’t want you to know.” Xochitl stops at a light. She drags on her cigarette and lets the idea sink in.

  The light turns green. She blows smoke out the window. “I was a little messed up about it. That’s why I came at you guys. Sorry.”

  “No worries, Xoch.”

  “I just figure if we’re doing better—if we’re more like we used to be—that’ll make it easier for Manny.”

  The part I get stuck on is why it was okay for him to tell Xochitl but not me. I ask her.

  “You know how Manny always was with you,”
she says.

  “What do you mean? He was Manny.”

  “T, Mami and Papi were good before. Really good. And Manny was a great big brother. But you have this fantasy that everything was perfect. And it’s because Manny spoiled you. You were his little brother, and he only wanted you to see the best of him … the best of us.”

  I watch the road go by. Office parks. Trees. Gas stations. And I think about my brother. “He might not have been perfect,” I say, “but he’s the most solid person I know. And when he finally gets here, he’s gonna be good. And being home has to be way better than war.”

  “That’s true,” Xochitl says.

  “He’s going to be the same old Manny.”

  “I think so, too,” she says. “But we should be prepared.”

  “He’s gonna be great, Xoch.”

  We grab stuff from our storage up north on Pac Highway. Our old table and chairs. The painting of the Last Supper that used to hang in our dining room. A box of family pictures.

  We drive to a house in Normandy Park for a Craigslist deal. Xochitl hands over the cash and we carry out a recliner that looks like Papi’s chair from way back.

  We haul the load into the rental. Papi helps get the table through the door. We all know it’s too big for the space, but that doesn’t stop us.

  Mami goes through a box of old pictures. She goes out for a while and comes back with some Dollar Store frames. Every now and then, she holds up a little-kid photo of one of us and we all say awww and laugh. She tacks up this black-and-white family portrait of us dressed up in cowboy stuff. It’s from Disneyland. We stopped there on a trip down the coast when I was a toddler. In the photo everyone is looking old-school serious, but I’ve got this huge Kool-Aid smile beaming out from under my cowboy hat. It’s hilarious.

  Mami even hangs up a portrait of her and Papi. It’s them on their wedding day. If they weren’t my parents, I’d say they look kinda hot. I do not say that. What I wanna say out loud is how happy they looked back then.

  Before dinner, Xochitl leaves for a gig with some new band.

  I dine with Rosario and Daniel. We’re at our real table. Surrounded by those photos. And Jesus supping with his disciples. There are smiles. Mami and Papi might not look hot-young-couple happy. But like they’re on the road to some new kind of happy.

  Mami asks me about school.

  I lie and say it’s going all right.

  “I notice things, Teodoro.”

  “It’s nothing, Mami.”

  “That’s not true. You’re working hard. I’m proud of you.”

  She’s hoping.

  “Nah, Mami. Don’t,” I say. Because hope hurts when it goes.

  Maybe it’s gone already. Maybe that chemistry quiz was it. Maybe that was the end. Maybe it should have been the end.

  I get up from the table and carry some dishes to the sink.

  “Ándale, mijo,” Papi says. “We got the dishes tonight. You get to work.”

  Mami smiles at him. Then at me. “Go on,” she says.

  So I head to my room.

  SAT OCT 11 8:23 P.M.

  T: Looks like Manny might be

  coming home in feb

  Wendy: I got you all in my heart.

  T: X and I painted. Wanna brighten

  things up for him

  Wendy: You are awesome, Teodoro.

  T: Thanks for recognizing my

  awesomeness. Hold on. Taking

  a moment to recognize urs

  T: There. I took a moment

  Wendy: A moment of silence in

  recognition of my awesomeness?

  T: A moment of loudness. I opened

  up a window and yelled WENDY

  MARTINEZ IS AWESOME!!! Thought

  the world should know

  Wendy: I just opened the window and

  yelled, TEODORO AVILA IS A

  NUT! Thought the world should

  know.

  T: Happy ur the one to spread the

  news

  Wendy: ☺

  Wendy: Time to hit those books!

  I toss the phone on my bed and stare at my pile of work.

  All right, Wendy.

  I drop and crank out a bunch of half-assed push-ups. Hop to my feet. Jump some jacks.

  Then I crack open my chemistry notes.

  Read chapters from The Crucible.

  Study colonial response to the British victory in the French and Indian War.

  Get messed up graphing quadratic functions.

  I fight to grab the merry-go-round and slow that mother down.

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2008

  The whole day, I keep telling myself this is not going to happen. Because a dude who looks like that and has a name like his can never, ever become president.

  After school, the Avilas and I settle in for a long, nervous night of TV news, web updates, way too many chips, and too much popcorn.

  Then, finally, it happens.

  TUE NOV 04 11:01 P.M.

  Wendy: You watching this????

  Wendy: NBC just called it!!!!!!!

  This country has turned a

  corner. We’ve changed.

  We’re better. Everything

  feels different.

  T: I hope so, Wendy.

  T: Maybe this means Manny will

  come home sooner

  Wendy: I hope so.

  Wendy: I can’t stop crying.

  T: My mom and Xochitl

  are crying

  Wendy: I can’t believe the first time

  I vote, I’ll be voting for a

  sitting African-American

  president.

  T: That’s what I said and my

  dad was like if he’s still

  alive in four years. Ugh

  Wendy: For tonight, I’m going to

  celebrate. This country did

  it. Woo-hoo!!!

  T: Woo-hoo!!!!

  I get in bed. Pull up my covers and close my eyes. And I can’t stop thinking about this thing.

  One day Ms. Bradley stopped me in the hall and said, “I believe in you, Teodoro Avila. I believe you can make it to college.”

  In my head I was like, That’s really nice. But I think there’s a possibility that you are lying to me.

  I wonder if, when Obama was a teenager, some teacher walked up to him and said, I believe in you, Barack Hussein Obama. I believe you can be president.

  If a teacher did say that, they were definitely, absolutely lying.

  But look what happened. Barack worked his ass off and managed to turn some dreamy do-gooder’s easy lie into the most outrageous, unimaginable truth ever.

  I throw the covers back. Get my ass up.

  I reach into my pack and pull out my textbook and get cracking.

  Algebra sucks.

  And I’m this close to quitting.

  But I can’t.

  Not after tonight.

  Thanks a lot, Obama.

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2008

  I stand in the wet and dark, cued up at the end of a line wrapping its way around the Tukwila Best Buy. I’m about to blow my life savings because, although change has come to America, change has not come to Teodoro Avila.

  I studied alone. I studied with Caleb. I was the annoying guy in tutorial, asking question after question. It got so bad I started dreaming about elements, compounds, reactions, graphs, equations, functions … but none of that studying did me any good.

  I got a D in algebra and I failed chemistry.

  Bradley let me know how she felt about it. She told me Clegg cornered her in the packed staff room and he publicly asked her why she enrolled me in his class.

  She told Clegg she believes in my potential.

  He told her—and everybody else—that I failed my midterm … and I had C-3PO, R2D2, Han Solo, and Chewbacca as answers.

  I don’t know how to dig myself out of that one.

  I’m pretty sure I got a C on my Language Arts and US History midterms. Cs would b
e good enough to keep me in AVID, but those are my strong classes, and my grades are still nowhere near good enough for U-Dub.

  The Best Buy doors fling open. I get pushed from behind. There’s impatient shouting. Then it’s like the mob lifts me off my feet and carries me inside.

  Minimobs scatter this way and that, toward cheap laptops, flat screens, and cell phones. I battle my way toward the games.

  A few Xboxes lie scattered on the floor. I swoop in and bear-hug a box and the old twitch kicks in. I wanna get home. I wanna bust this thing open, plug in the cable. Get back in touch with Splazer, Spartan, Plasma … and blast the crap out of each other.

  But before I get five steps, I see it. Halo 3 on display. I don’t have to wait.

  I set my box down. Squeeze it hard between my heels. Pick up the controller. Flick it to the menu. And get my thumbs shooting.

  I haven’t lost a thing. I’ve got this world inside me. In my muscles. In my blood. I’m back where I belong.

  I’ll call Caleb later and tell him it’s over.

  On Monday, I’ll go into Bradley’s office and let her know.

  Then, eventually, I’ll tell Wendy the ugly truth about me and this will all be over.

  Right now, I got Covenant ground forces on my ass, so I’m blasting fast but …

  There’s a buzz in my pocket.

  Might be home.

  Could be Caleb.

  I know it’s not.

  But I can’t pick up because I’m fast approaching this Ark and I gotta disable it before Halos activate and put an end to all sentient life.

  Another buzz.

  I’m not gonna look. Because looking means facing up to my lies. Facing up to my failure.

  Buzz, buzz

  Looking means facing up to where I am and what I’m doing right now.

  Buzz, buzz

  Aw, hell …

  FRI NOV 28 5:18 A.M.

  Wendy: Hi!

  FRI NOV 28 5:20 A.M.

  Wendy: Good morning!

  FRI NOV 28 5:22 A.M.

  Wendy: Anybody home?

  FRI NOV 28 5:25 A.M.

  Wendy: I missed you yesterday.

  FRI NOV 28 5:30 A.M.

  Wendy: Fine. Don’t answer me

  at 5 in the morning.

  Wendy: Just wanted to let you know that

  there are a few things for which

  I am especially thankful this

  holiday season.

  Wendy: You made my list, Teodoro