The Children of Juan Tabo (ii)
Chapter 2
Sebastian met Jimmy in their third period history class at Del Norte High School, before they tore down the double octagons and replaced them with the sleek and modern building that still stands there today. Seb spent his sophomore year getting lost in those strange hallways, all the even classes on the inside and the odds on the out, all the bathrooms in the center with entrances on either side, walk in one way, out another and into a completely different world.
He was a transfer student. This was his third high school of six. But this one was different from the rest. The entire perimeter of the school was surrounded by this black, wrought iron fence about eight feet tall and each bar was tipped like a spear. Rando narcs would circle the perimeter on the daily, cameras everywhere, a graffitied sniper lay in wait at the top of the gym.
Students had sex in the middle of the hallway. Guys with their backs to their lockers would reach up skirts and you’d be hard pressed not to see someone’s ass or brightly colored lingerie walking to class during passing period. And there was Sebastian with his hair stuffed into his Not of this World hoodie scribbled in scripture, carrying a pocket Bible around in his back pocket. There he was with his heavy glasses and white tee tucked into his true-blue blue jeans, his fraying PF Flyers, covered in salty sweat stains and waiting for their chance at flight.
Sebastian’s first school was Christian. Everyone wore a strict dress code down to the color and style of sock. He had transferred credits in Bible study that now read on his transcripts as Living World Literature. One semester Seb had to memorize an entire book of the Bible. Those passages still buzz around in his head, The heart of sons of men is full of evil and madness while they live, and after that they go to the dead, Ecclesiastes 9:3.
The worst thing he saw at the Christian school was students swapping brightly colored pills and tabs that would dissolve on the tongue. He tried once. Seb gave Mel five dollars and Mel gently placed a Garfield sticker on Seb’s tongue and Seb soon saw that worshiping God wasn’t the only way to see bright lights. His short trip terrified him. He rushed to the chapel after school and talked to all the dancing panes of stained glass. He stood at the crucifix with his back to Jesus, arms out, waiting for his turn. He sat in the pews and asked for God. He became more or less a straight edge after his one acid trip, only picking up smoking Camels after spending so much time with Jimmy.
They spent their third period playing footsie under their desk while learning about American colonialism. Sometimes Seb would kick off his shoes and toe up the cuffs of Jimmy’s jeans. But when Jimmy did the same, his feet set off the whole classroom in a rank of sulfur and freshly poured asphalt. The other students would cough and whine at the smell until the teacher would promptly dismiss class and dial-in a gas leak. She discovered the smell was Jimmy’s feet and was horrified. Before class, she started tying his shoes down and wrapping them in plastic bags. She started keeping a close eye on their feet.
Sebastian brought Initial D manga to school. In history class Seb shared the next racing adventure with Jimmy under the sly protection of their desk. And then one day they found Jimmy’s dad with his face crushed into the concrete after the jack holding the Porsche had failed. Sebastian tried to give Jimmy random manga to cheer him up. But Jimmy didn’t need cheering up after scrubbing the stains of his father’s brain from the driveway, not really. He needed a new life. Jimmy said he needed a new car jack that was worth a damn.
Jimmy still isn’t sure if what happened to his father was an accident, the fault of lazy manufacturing, or something else. He swiped the car jack from the police scene and kept it around the garage like a cursed trophy. He talked to it. On his worst days he imagined using the jack that killed his father; he imagined jacking up the car and laying his neck beneath the guillotine of the brakes and waiting for his decapitation. But he might live and what then? but find proof that his father kicked the jack out from under the Porsche on purpose and crushed himself.
After the accident Jimmy stopped coming to school, dropped out, and got a job at AutoZone. His mom got a boatload of cash from the insurance settlement. She bought this house out behind the golf course. Sebastian would ditch school some days and go visit Jimmy at his new home or his new job. They’d sit on the curb and smoke Camel Menthols. They’d share a can of Dr. Pepper and read manga on Jimmy’s lunch breaks. And Seb would fill Jimmy in on the life he left behind. Things like Seb being the biggest kid in P.E. and winning the class ultimate frisbee competition. And the old basketball shirt the coach gave Seb—it was black and had a white “D” in the center for Del Norte. He wore it every day. But Jimmy was not bothered by the life of a child anymore. Soon he’d be 18. He had other things to do and worry about now. He stayed sweaty in his burgundy AutoZone polo. No one checked to see if his shoes were tied.
On Sebastian’s last day at Del Norte, he was sitting in Spanish class, minding his own business, quietly reading Bless Me, Ultima and bothering no one around him when his Spanish teacher, Mrs. Alvarez, slapped the book out of his hands and said, “¿Qué estás leyendo?”
“What am I reading?” Seb replied.
“Sí, pero en Español, por favor,” she said, “vamános.”
“Es nombre es Bless Me, Ultima,” labored Seb.
“En Español?”
“Is the book Spanish?” Seb said, “I mean, some of it is.”
She sent Seb to the principal's office to explain to him that he was kicked out for reading a book in her class. Imagine the principle’s surprise when he found Seb sitting quietly in his office, just reading his book, waiting for his punishment for reading in class. The principal confiscated the book and locked it away in his desk, unsure of what else to do, the book could have been about anything he supposed. The principle escorted Seb back to class, but Mrs. Alvarez wanted to see some punishment for ignoring the number one rule of Spanish, Spanish only, and the principle and Mrs. Alvarez stood in the hallway arguing in a mess of Spanglish. Sebastian just booked it.
He was fast, always had been, growing up running track for the Christian Eagles, running anchor, pulling up all the dead weight in front of him. He wasn’t the athlete, but he knew he was good and put up with the names and never understood why the other kids weren’t as fast as him; he just ran as hard as he could, nothing to it, not really. The only thing that slowed him down that day was his hair, all curls, in full fro.
He ran out the nearest entrance and was gone before the principal or any teacher could do much to stop him. On his way out he passed the Culinary Arts trailers, where he learned to cook from Mr. Scott. “Bye Scott!” Seb yelled hoping someone would hear him, hoping Mr. Scott would come out and try and stop him or say anything. But someone must of walkied the narcs. All Seb could see was the flashing lights and a small minimum waged military unit forming near the only opening in the fence, a plain pedestrian bridge that crossed over Montgomery Street.
It was too late for Sebastian. He had already committed to running. He was a criminal now. Stopping became unthinkable. He couldn’t stand the embarrassment. He never figured he could just go back and face the reality of a world where he wasn’t allowed to read in class. Maybe he should just finally learn to speak Spanish like the rest of his family. Or he could just keep running at the narcs, he was already running anyway, and so he really dug in and decided that his decision had been made; it was made the second he ran out the school. Now it was time for the randos guarding his way to decide. He felt a peace that came with continuing doing exactly what he was already doing. He waited for the sniper on the roof.
Seb wasn’t sure the narcs carried loaded weapons. He heard rumors about students getting tazed, and on the daily everyone witnessed three or more guards take down a student in a full tackle. But the narcs never shot live rounds at the students, he thought, could they? They weren’t the police, were they? The narcs might not even be sure what they had hanging from their hips, the firepower necessary to stop a kid running in full sprint.
People that saw him that day would say I swear, one minute he was just reading in class and the next he just kept running like nothing. No one would say that he chickened out at the last minute and walked back and apologized, pobrecito; no one would call him a pussy.
They shouted at Seb to stop now! and don’t do it, son! and get on the ground, now! And the lead narc, head rando, was talking to the walkie on his shoulder. But Seb kept coming. He wished Jimmy saw him, running at the narcs and all that. He imagined Jimmy running just behind him, could even hear his footsteps in the gravel. He heard Jimmy whisper in his ear runners run. But Jimmy wasn’t there and Seb thought about what Jimmy might do if he was alone in this situation. Jimmy wouldn’t need to run at all or even cause a scene. He’d be clever. He’d sneak out, or he’d pay the guards to look the other way. Or he’d just casually walk past the guard, have a nice day, no questions asked, no nothing. Who’s going to stop Jimmy?
When Seb passed the point of no return he skipped and turned his body sideways like he does on the track to get by another runner. He thought for sure they would trip him; he put his wrists up to his face to block his sorry fall. But he ran through the blockade without conflict. He crossed the bridge and ran out into the day, not bothering to look back. He won. And from then on he wasn’t sure if he actually died that day, head shot, and was now some spirit of a kid, his brain just refusing to believe in death and maybe his mind told Sebastian this continued lie of him surviving that run and being free to live the rest of his life like a memory as long as there was any electricity left in his skull.
Sebastian ran straight to AutoZone, of course, but the Porsche, inherited by Jimmy, was missing. Seb sat on their usual curb to catch his breath. He saw their cigarette butts bent in gnarly shapes soaking in the filth of car maintenance. He tasted the staleness of burning a fresh bogey, the mint and hint of earth. He threw up, got up, reached to his back pocket for his paperback but remembered the principle locking it away in his desk and walked home.