Joy Ride, by Brad Shurmantine

The fight started in the quad at lunch, when most fights started—two girls, slapping and pulling each other’s hair. Like a single organism, the quad full of students erupted in cheers and laughter and whipped out their cell phones.

One of the girls pulled back and her friends surrounded her and hurried her away, across the bridge towards the gym. The other girl, thinking they weren’t finished, followed her, with her own pack of friends close behind. Every student in the quad, three hundred of them, whooped and followed. God they were bored.

Cowboy Bob, the campus supervisor, was standing next to his golf cart, chatting it up with a group of Filipinos. He immediately broke it off and started following the huge mob of students bubbling across the bridge.  The principal and the two assistant principals followed as well, and began pushing their way through the crowd of happy rowdy students.

In just a few seconds the quad was nearly empty except for Pablo and his buddies. No way were they going to join a crowd of giggling gringos. Then they noticed that Cowboy Bob’s golf cart was sitting there with the key in it. They had often joked about jacking his golf cart and driving it around campus, but they’d get in big trouble for doing that.

Pablo didn’t think twice. He got in the cart and took off.

Until then it had been another shitty, fucked up day. This saved it.  Pablo pressed hard on the accelerator. Enrique was jogging behind, trying to jump on beside him, but this was Pablo’s ride. He left Enrique behind and wheeled around the quad as fast as he could.

Pablo was just another Latino kid, quiet and anonymous, who had thus far managed to fly low and stay mostly out of trouble during the few months he’d been in high school. His teachers disliked him; he was sneaky and stubborn, did no work, was always whispering and wandering around the classroom—one of those kids they had to constantly ride. He had low test scores so they stuck him in an “English Support” class. Of all his classes he hated English the most, so of course they gave him two of those classes.

That’s how he started every damn day, in a room with a teacher who tried to put him in a headlock and force him to read and write. That teacher, Mrs. Burns, didn’t know what to do with her English Support class. It wasn’t what she signed up for. She wanted to teach The Great Gatsby to college prep students, but she was stuck an hour every day in a room full of angry, misbehaving boys who hated reading and writing, hated everything. She wanted to instill a love of literature in young people and help them become better human beings. Her college prep kids ate that stuff up, but these kids were impervious to her kindness and wisdom.

Pablo pulled her chain whenever he could. “What page are we on?” he’d suddenly ask, right when she began explaining something. He knew what page they were on; he just liked dicking with her.

That morning it had been the same as ever.

 “Can I go to the bathroom?”

 “We just started class, Pablo. Be still. Do your work.”

 “But I gotta pee. I gotta condition.”

 “Be quiet. Get to work. You had plenty of time to use the restroom before the bell rang.”

 “I gotta pee! I really gotta pee! I can’t hold it!” What he really got was everyone in the class hooting and laughing.

“For God’s sake, go if you must. Be right back.”

 “Yes ma’am.”And he was out the door on yet another campus tour. He texted Enrique who was in Algebra but got no reply.

Enrique was doing pretty well in school. Pablo was not. He was passing English Support—if you picked your nose you got 10 points in that class—but he was failing a bunch of classes. English. Geography. Pre-Algebra. In English he had 22%. 22%! There were still nine weeks left in the semester but Pablo knew he wouldn’t pass.

Just to be honest he swung past the restrooms out by the portables. He met Stephanie Allen coming out of the girl’s restroom in her little cheerleader’s uniform. He kind of liked Stephanie.

 “Hi Pedro!” she said, eyes all bright and sunny.

 “Pablo,”Pablo answered.

 “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I get you mixed up with Pedro all the time.” Who the hell was Pedro?

Stephanie was always peppy as hell. She was one of the few gringos who would come up to Pablo and his friends in the quad and try to be friendly. She was probably running for something, Pablo thought. He turned and checked out her butt and legs as she headed briskly back to class.

Two weeks ago he and Enrique had taken turns shitting on the floor out there, because Deb had pissed them off. Deb was the other campus supervisor. She was always bugging kids about getting to class on time, always showing up at the nearby park when they snuck off to have a cigarette or smoke some dope. She tried to be friendly, like a big mom, but she was a pain in the ass. She’d been riding Pablo and Enrique especially hard about pulling up their pants.

 “Pull up your pants! I can see your underwear. You’re nice-looking boys but you look like little hoodlums. Girls don’t like that–you think they do, but they don’t. Pull them up.”

Finally she gave both boys referrals (for dress code violation!) and this pissed them off so badly they took dumps on the restroom floor for a few days, then stopped when the assistant principal called Pablo in for a little chat. Just Pablo, not Enrique, which figured.

The AP, Daniels, looked up and smiled when Pablo appeared at the door. Pablo took a seat right next to the AP’s desk. Unless they had cameras (Goddamn. Could they have cameras?) there was no way they could figure out who did it. Pablo had timed his bowel movements perfectly for the middle of lunch when Deb and Cowboy Bob were tied up in the parking lot and quad. But Pablo was still nervous. He automatically locked down and composed his face into the stone mask he habitually wore.

Daniels quickly got all serious. “Pablo, you’re on a list the campus supervisors gave me. We’re having a problem out in the portables’ restroom. Do you know anything about that?”

 “No,” he said, trying to look as completely mystified as his stone face allowed.

 “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

 “No.”

Daniels sat back and studied him. The AP didn’t seem to want to talk about turds on the floor. He sighed, then said, “You’re in our English Support class, aren’t you? How’s that going for you?”

 “OK.”

 “Are you getting the help you need?”

Pablo weighed his response. Could he get out of that class if he pissed and moaned, said it wasn’t helping him at all? No, they’d never move him. Maybe if he sucked up a little they wouldn’t suspect him so much.

 “Yeah, it’s helping,” he said. “Mrs. Burns is nice. We read good books and stuff.”

 “You’re reading books? You’re supposed to be working on skills.”

Pablo backed up. “Not books, just stuff. Yeah, we’re working on skills.”

Daniels’s eyes remained on Pablo, but they were relaxed and kind. He smiled slightly but Pablo couldn’t tell if he had swallowed the lie or suspected it was bullshit. “I know the class isn’t much fun,” he finally said. “I mean, I hope it’s fun, but it’s hard. We’re trying to help you. If you do well in that class the rest of high school will be much easier. And college.”

 “I am doing well. It’s the only class I’m passing.”

“I know that.” The smile slipped from his face. He leaned forward. “Look, Pablo. Hang in there. Lots of kids get off to rocky starts in high school. Things will get easier.”

Pablo nodded. As if.

 “But you have to try, OK?” Daniels continued. “You have to put the effort in. And tell your teachers when you need help. They will help you.”

 “OK,” Pablo said. “I will.” Can I please get out of here?

 “One more thing.” Daniels had gotten all excited, talking about the good days ahead for Pablo. He relaxed back in his chair and locked eyes with the boy. “I want you to think about how your actions impact other people. Think about the campus supervisors, how friendly they are, how they’re just trying to keep everyone safe, but now they have to spend time making sure no one’s making a mess in the boys’ restroom. And think of Ray, and his crew, and how they have to clean up that mess. Think of these people, Pablo. They’re good people. They don’t deserve this treatment.”

 “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pablo said, icily.

 “You know what I’m talking about. Just think about others.” He held Pablo’s eyes for several seconds. “You can go now.”

*

He had been driving in circles for a couple minutes now, like a madman. His buddies chased him and tried to hop in but he wheeled away. It was like playing tag. The girl fight must have become a gang fight. A girl gang fight—that was funny. No telling when Cowboy Bob would notice someone had jacked his steed.

A few students trickled back from the big fight at the gym and were laughing and pointing at him. Stephanie Allen was one of them, but she wasn’t laughing. She had a look of disbelief on her face, like she was seeing a ghost in a golf cart.

Stephanie was the kind of person Pablo’s parents wanted him to be, if he was a girl. Well-adjusted. Good in school. His parents were Americans; they went to college. His mom was a nurse; his dad did something important in the sanitation district. They were successful white people, and they wanted Pablo to be successful. They adopted Pablo when he was seven.

School was full of Stephanie Allens and Jon Gallaghers. Jon had been a friend in middle school but he dumped Pablo as soon as they got to high school. They used to skateboard and play soccer and video games together but Jon was just another gringo who would slum around with Pablo for a while in the afternoon and then go home to his pretty little house and his friendly parents. Pablo liked to roam around at night; his parents were in bed by nine and he could slip in and out of his window, no problem. He would text Jon and get no response. “Dude, I can’t just go out at night,” he would tell Pablo the next day, but Pablo kept trying. What Pablo hated most was that Jon ghosted him. If you’re not coming just say so, you little gabacho bitch.

Thinking of Jon, he punched the accelerator and nearly slammed into a stone bench, but swerved in time and screamed with laughter. He felt free and happy, up in the clouds, looking down on his life, where he usually felt so mired. He would be suspended for this, no doubt. A week at home to watch TV and eat ice cream for breakfast.

Pablo started playing around with the kids in the quad. He’d zoom right at them and when they started to dodge he’d hit the brakes and skid to a stop, then put it in reverse and zoom away. Stephanie stood there watching. He was really putting that cart through its paces, and pissing off a lot of kids. A few tried to intercept him. One kid even managed to get a butt-cheek on the cart before Pablo turned sharply and threw him off. The dude took a bad fall on the asphalt, and Pablo decided to get out of there.

He whizzed down the path that led past the theater to the tennis courts. Bunches of kids jumped aside and shouted their surprise and joy at witnessing such outlaw behavior. He was in deep shit now, so he might as well make it count, ride until they ran him down.

He came up on the tennis courts, where the nerds hung out at lunch. He could see them through the fence, sitting on the court in their nerdy little circles, eating their stupid fucking sandwiches, and he thought about that girl in middle school, Molly, and how a bunch of them went to the park one Saturday to play tennis. None of them knew how to play so Molly tried to teach them. Pablo liked Molly. He teased and flirted with her. She was quiet like Pablo; no one else flirted with her, and she liked it. He thought maybe she could be his girlfriend. 

She tried to teach him how to hold the racket, how to swing nice and easy, and he did try, but he kept missing the balls she served up to him, or smacking them into the net, and pretty soon he and Enrique were messing around, swinging their rackets like baseball bats and hitting the balls as hard as they could. Outta the park! They went pretty far. Molly got mad and soon they all gave up and went home. He couldn’t flirt with her after that. She had yelled at him and seen him fuck up.

Middle school basically sucked, except for Enrique. He would sometimes join Pablo on his nighttime excursions. Enrique’s dad worked for a vineyard. They lived in a run-down apartment building with other vineyard workers near the river. Enrique didn’t have to sneak out; he just walked out the front door. His mom and dad would be sunk in their worn-out couch watching Spanish TV, usually asleep. He’d just walk out the door and join Pablo waiting for him in the street. They’d walk around town, not doing anything wrong. They weren’t vandals or taggers. They’d talk a little, about nothing, about school, their teachers, the gringos at school who were nice enough but seemed afraid of them. Afraid of Pablo. They felt like ninjas in the night, the town at their mercy.

The walks ended when they got trapped between two buildings by two cop cars. They thought they were being careful and always hid when they saw headlights approaching but somehow the cops outfoxed them and scooped them up, took them home. The cops were dicks, searched them, accused them of tagging and breaking into cars.

 “Ma’am, if we find him out walking again like this he’ll spend some time in Juvie Hall. He has no business being out late at night. Cars are being broken into. I think he could be doing that stuff.”

 “Officer, it won’t happen again. We’re so sorry.”

After the cops left, Pablo spent a half-hour in the kitchen in lock-down mode, listening to his parents scold him and watching his mom cry. He tried not to look at his father.

 “Why are you doing this, Pablo?” his mother pleaded. No answer. “How long have you been doing this?” No answer. “Pablo, honey, what is wrong? Can you tell us what is wrong? We know you’re not happy. Can you tell us why? Is there something we should be doing?” No answer

 “Pablo,” his father jumped in. “Don’t just sit there and stare at us. I’m sick and tired of your laziness. All you do is play those goddamn video games. That stops now. I’m putting the XBox away, for a month. And I want your phone.”

 “I need my phone.”

 “He needs his phone,” his mom said. “Let’s think about that.”

 “Give me your phone.” Pablo dug in his pocket and handed it over. 

His father looked at him hard. “You’re going to be in high school in August. You have to start thinking about your life.”

Ha. All he ever did was think about his life.

 “It makes me crazy to watch you lounge around, doing nothing. We love you, we’ve given you everything. Don’t you remember how you were living before we came along?”

 “Yes! I remember.”

 “Then how can you be so lazy? You have a great life ahead of you. But you have to work, you have to think ahead. We’ll send you to college, you know that, but you have to be ready for college. You can’t just waltz in there. You have to earn it.”

There was more of this, a lot more. His dad was on a roll. But Pablo was not listening. He knew enough to make occasional eye contact and not argue, let the words roll over him like the warm rain water used to rush over him when he lay in the gutter back in San Salvador. Just let it cleanse him. This was the price he had to pay for letting them down, for not being what they wanted him to be. These showers of disappointment.

The next day, his dad screwed in his bedroom window screen from the outside, just to be sure.

*

Beyond the tennis courts was the baseball field, but it was padlocked. Damn. He would have loved driving across that immaculate outfield and tearing it up a little. His English teacher was the baseball coach and was obsessed with that fucking field. Mr. Briggs didn’t like Pablo and Pablo didn’t like him. Everybody else loved the guy. They loved listening to Coach Briggs talk about that mice and men book and how you should live life. Briggs thought he had all the answers. He said Lennie was like a home run hitter in a terrible slump, and George was like a manager who had been a good utility player once but never a star, someone you’d want on your team. And now he was Lennie’s manager and working hard to get some production out of him because if Lennie could just connect on some of his big swings they’d have it made, they’d be champions instead of being mired in the bottom. Everybody listened to this shit, even the girls who knew nothing about baseball, but now they all understood the book. It was about life.

But it was shit. Look what Lennie got in the end. Mr. Briggs never had much to say about Lennie; he was just a big dumb guy who swung and missed, but Pablo knew all about Lennie. Pablo would have talked about Lennie if it ever came up.  Nah, he wouldn’t have talked because he didn’t read the book, but he listened and he thought about Lennie. He knew what it was like to crush the things you reach for. To be invisible. To have girls smile at you and jerk away.

It had only been five minutes since he had stolen the cart but he knew they would be looking for him—Deb in her cart and Officer Calhoun in his patrol car. But Deb was stationed way on the other side of campus, in the parking lot, trying to prevent freshmen from sneaking out at lunch, which they did anyway, hiding in the trunks of seniors’ cars. It was Cowboy Bob who roamed the campus at lunch, and Pablo had his cart, so he knew he had a little time. If he stayed off the streets Calhoun wouldn’t find him. So Pablo headed back behind the baseball field, where there was a food garden and a greenhouse no one ever visited. He’d go there for a while.

He parked beside the greenhouse and stared at the neglected garden. His heart was thumping in his chest and he wanted to calm down. He was going to be in big trouble, he knew that, but when was the last time he hadn’t been in some kind of trouble? He thought of Mrs. Orsinger, in 2nd grade. His grade school teachers had been pretty good to him, but they all gave up eventually, defeated by his stony, unreachable heart. They just let him be. Mrs. Orsinger never gave up. He hugged her hard at the end of the year and didn’t want to let go.

She took the class out to the garden nearly every day, and she would usually find Pablo and take his hand and together they would lead the class down the sunny corridor out past the redwood trees and into the school garden.

 “What shall we do today, Pablo?” she would whisper. “Shall we pull the weeds? Shall we water the carrots? See what I have in my hand? These are sunflower seeds. They grow big and tall and splendid. Shall we plant these sunflower seeds here in the dirt, next to the carrots?” She always talked that way to Pablo, smooth and easy and loving, carefully enunciating each word, slowly building longer and longer sentences, because she knew Pablo was struggling to learn English and make sense of this new place. By the time he got to the States he had missed kindergarten; his life was overwhelming. Everything was so different, the food, the empty streets, the little wooden houses. He’d lie alone in his room and lock himself down, lock himself in, not to be swept away by it all

 “We are all friends, aren’t we?” Mrs. Orsinger would say to the class at story time. “We all help each other because that’s what friends do. We all need different things. Sarah is not tall and needs help reaching things from high places. Jon needs help keeping his cubby clean, doesn’t he, Jon? We all need help. Pablo needs help learning English. Think if you were in a new country, where they didn’t speak English. What are some of the countries you could be in? France? Yes! Italy? Good! What country did you grow up in, Pablo? El Salvador. Yes. They don’t speak English in El Salvador, do they, Pablo? Pablo has to learn a whole new language. How can we be friends to Pablo and help him learn English? Think of ways we can help Pablo. Tina?”

 “We can tell him the names of things!”

 “Yes! Wallace?”

 “We can talk r-e-a-l slo-o-o-o-w.”

All the children shouted out ways they could help Pablo.

Every morning Pablo would come in and go to his seat and lock himself down, and every morning Mrs. Orsinger would come over and unlock him.

 “Good morning, Pablo. I’m so glad you’re here. Did you read the book I gave you yesterday? You did? Can you tell me about it?”

Every morning.

Oh, that was so long ago. He had such a happy heart that year, settled down, stretched out. But it never stopped being hard, reading books, writing sentences. He always felt he was lumbering along while the other kids were leaping ahead like gazelles. Every year he drifted further and further behind. His parents talked to him, read to him, took him places. They never scolded him when his report cards showed all those skills still to be learned. But school was so hard. Pablo hated it. He could only endure it if he locked himself in each day. And that is what he did.

*

He heard the bell ending lunch. Deb would be herding all the kids to class. That new AP Daniels was probably out looking for him too, but he was on foot. Calhoun, that lazy fat fuck, was undoubtedly in his patrol car cruising the neighborhood, as if there was some chance Pablo might drive up and down the street, in full view. Soon Deb would find him. She knew this campus like he knew the streets of San Salvador—she knew where everyone would go. He might as well drive back and turn himself in. But there was time for one last glorious cruise. He could loop around the track a couple times, before Deb got on the hunt. Then drive around the gym and through the parking lot, and head on home. And keep that pedal to the metal.

His mom, his real mom, was Juanita. He was her Pablito. Just the two of them. His American parents told him she was a drug addict, died of an overdose, and the nuns found him and took him in. He remembered her long black hair and her thin face, her black eyes, how she would hug and hold him when he wandered back to the little tin hut and found her awake. She’d see the hunger in his eyes.

 “¿Tienes hambre, mi amor, mi Pablito?”

“Sí, mamá.”

“Toma la tortilla. Voy a buscar más comida.”

Soon she would bring back a little pot of beans and rice and more tortillas. She got the food from Tía Dolores, or Tía Maria, or Tía Teresa. He ran wild during the day while his mother was sleeping—all the kids ran wild, but the adults knew him and were friendly and he never felt frightened or alone. He would wake up and eat a tortilla and head over to Ricci’s hut. Everyone lived in those tin huts with curtains for doors stacked on top of each other. You just walked in if you heard someone moving around. Ricci was usually sitting on the step, waiting for kids to show up. Ricci was older, nine or ten. Ricci decided what they would do each day. Usually they would go down to the market and filch a mango or two. They were sneaky but the frutero knew what they were doing and yelled at them and chased them away, but not until they had a banana or two. Everyone had to eat. And there was a letrina where they all went each morning to shit. And usually they went down to the river and played around in the water. And if someone had a ball they’d go to the playground and play futbol all afternoon. Tía Teresa would give him rice and beans in the afternoon. He would sit in the shade and listen to the old people talk. Then he would go home.

Sometimes his mama wasn’t there so he would go to Tía Dolores and eat something and wait for his mama to find him. When she came, Tía Dolores would give her some food and they would argue. No one was nice to his mama; everyone made her angry and sad and he would go and sit on her lap and hug her.

Then his mama did not come. He went home and slept on his mat and she was not there in the morning. He found Ricci and they played all day and he came home and she was not there. He never saw his mama again.

He can’t remember how long that went on, sleeping alone in the hut, playing all day, not seeing his mama. One day there were two women at Tía Dolores’s hut, waiting for him. Two nuns.

 “Pablito, se ha ido tu madre. Hemos venido para cuidarte.”

He didn’t want to go with them. He didn’t need anyone to take care of him, so he ran away, down the street to the river, where he could hide. The next morning when he went to the market place the nuns were there with a policeman, who chased him down, and after that he lived in the orphanage.

He had clean clothes and a bed and hot food. The nuns were strict—sometimes mean. He was not unhappy in the orphanage but he was bored and restless. He missed his mama. He wanted to go out, find Ricci, play. But they wouldn’t let him.

Then one day Hermana Rita took him out of class and brought him to the vestibule of the school.  Two tall gringos were standing there. One of them was a lady. She got down on her knees as Pablito and Hermana Rita approached and smiled and said something to him in English. There were tears in her eyes and they fell out of her eyes and she was crying. But she stopped and she said something kind to Pablo, and the man knelt down and said, “Hola, Pablo. Somos tus padres nuevos. Hemos venido para llevarte a la casa con nosotros.” His Spanish was strange and there wasn’t much of it but Pablo understood what he was saying and what was happening. The nuns had told them something like this might happen. Probably wouldn’t, but might.

Pablo remembered all this as he raced around the track. Sometimes he would hit the brakes and skid to a stop, hoping to leave some skid marks. He did! Then he got off the track and drove along the path that led to the parking lot. No sign of Deb.

They saved him, but he did not feel saved. They were good to him, they were good parents, better than any of his friends’, but he kept letting them down. He knew just how his mother would look when she came to Daniels’s office today. Angry and sad. Desperate. He was not, he would never be, what they wanted him to be.

He circled the pool and as he came around he saw Deb in her cart, racing through the parking lot to cut him off, but she didn’t have the right angle and he easily slipped in front of her. He had the golf cart floored and was zooming down the path that led past the gym and into the quad. Deb was right behind him, screaming “Stop! Stop!”

He braked and pulled sharply onto the bridge that linked the gym with the quad, fishtailing, almost hitting the wall of the bridge, then floored it again and raced into the quad. He saw Cowboy Bob running over to cut him off.

Right there, right in the middle of the quad, he saw Daniels waving his arms, trying to get his attention, then just standing there with his arms spread wide, like Christ on the cross. Pablo screamed, tried to push the pedal through the floorboard, and headed right for him.

–

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Brad Shurmantine lives in Napa, Ca., where he writes, reads, and tends three gardens (sand, water, vegetable), five chickens, two cats, and two bee hives. His fiction and personal essays have appeared in Monday Night, Flint Hills Review, and Catamaran; his poetry in Third Wednesday, Cacti Fur, and Blue Lake Review. He backpacks in the Sierras, travels when he can, and prefers George Eliot to Charles Dickens, or almost anyone. Website: bradshurmantine.com

© 2023, Brad Shurmantine