The Benevolent Lords of Sometimes Island Page 3

  “She just hates us cause we’re not Catholic,” Randy said. “She’s a Protestant-hater.”

  “Yeah,” Miguel agreed. “That, too.”

  “Don’t worry, Miguel,” I said, swallowing the last of the cake, remnants of icing coating my lips. “I’ll call her and convince her. Or Randy will. Your parents always listen to him.”

  Randy nodded. “No problemo, dude.”

  “I don’t know,” Miguel said. He slowly bit into his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “She’s wicked serious about church.”

  “I’m serious, too,” I said, patting him on the back. After Miguel meekly smiled, I turned to Randy. “Your mom is cool with it, right?”

  “Yeah, she’s cool with it. Anything to give her some alone time. She’s still pretty sore at my dad.”

  Randy’s mom finally kicked Randy’s dad out, his abusive ways cracking fissures through their marriage that made their rocky relationship untenable. He moved into a tiny, studio apartment in Universal City (the next tiny town just west of Converse) and she changed the locks to the house as soon as she could, filing a restraining order with the Bexar County family court soon after. Although Randy didn’t see his dad much, his lurking presence hung over the house like a dark thundering cloud. Any chance for a respite from parenting was good news for Randy’s mother.

  “Great! My folks are cool with it, so it looks like we’re all in.”

  “B-I-N-G-O and camping was our game-O!” Randy belted out in his best high-pitched Michael Jackson imitation, which of course made us all laugh, prompting him to jump up and rhythmically thrust his hips back and forth like the King of Pop would have if he was dancing in a dark alley somewhere on a Hollywood set. Randy loved the attention from us so much, it was ridiculous. And when we were done laughing, Randy leaned over to me, cupping his hand to his mouth.

  “Hey, what did you do with the backpack?”

  Yes—the backpack. It was so easy to forget once it was out of sight and hidden in the wall in my bedroom closet, like a carefully buried treasure on a remote beach in the Caribbean. But before I could answer, Miguel started waving his hands all over the place and shushed us. The color drained from his face and it looked like he had seen a ghost, or even something worse.

  “My brother is coming over,” he said, terrified.

  “Damn!” I said, refusing to look, as if ignoring Miguel’s older brother Rogelio would simply make him disappear.

  The lunch table shook when he plopped in the spot next to Miguel, putting his younger brother in a headlock so fast that Miguel couldn’t defend himself. He tried to wriggle from Rogelio’s firm arm clamp, but couldn’t. Miguel also tried to yell, but his voice was muffled and sounded like his protestations were coming from under smothering pillows. Rogelio dug into his little brother’s scalp with the knuckles of his right hand, dispensing a vicious noogie.

  “Leave him alone!” Randy demanded, almost standing, which made Rogelio dig deeper into Miguel’s skull. The pain poor Miguel felt was audible through squeaks and pants.

  “You can’t tell me what to do with my own little brother,” Rogelio said, squeezing Miguel’s head tighter, then releasing him. Miguel’s hair stood on end as if statically shocked and his face flared bright red. He was mortified.

  “What was that for?!” Miguel said. His brother laughed.

  “I know you have Billy’s backpack, turd breath,” Rogelio said. He shot a penetrating stare. Miguel looked away.

  “I don’t have it,” Miguel said. “None of my friends do.”

  “Mmm hmm,” Rogelio said. He slowly rose to his feet. “If you give it back to me by the end of the day, then nothing will happen to you or your so-called friends.”

  He swatted his little brother’s sack lunch to the floor, the remainder of his lunch sliding across the tile. He stepped on a bag of Fritos when he walked away, leaving quickly before any of F. D. R.’s faculty or security staff noticed his presence, all of whom did their best to keep the Thousand Oaks Gang off campus, even if it was practically impossible. I felt bad for Miguel. I could never figure out how two completely different boys—opposite in every shape, way, and form—could come from the same womb. Miguel was the nicest guy and his brother was—to put it bluntly—a real dick.

  “I was finished with lunch anyway,” Miguel cracked, then smirked. We all snickered.

  “Yeah!” we all chimed in, and as a sign of solidarity, the rest of us tossed our sack lunches on the floor, too.

  “He’s gonna get his someday,” I told Miguel, but he returned a look like that premonition would never come to fruition.

  “Doubt it,” he said. “As much as we go to church, you’d think God would’ve punished him by now.”

  I couldn’t argue with that logic.

  After school, we rode our bikes over to Brian’s house, a little worried that we might get accosted by Bloody Billy, Rogelio, and the rest of the Thousand Oaks Gang on the way, but we didn’t see them. But that didn’t make the bike ride any less tense. Once we got to The Mansion and went inside, I demanded that Miguel call his mother, so I could talk to her.

  “She’s just gonna say no,” he said, reluctantly dialing his home number into the phone mounted on the wall in the kitchen, then handing the phone receiver over. It had a ridiculously long phone cord that coiled to the floor, an added feature that Mrs. Johnson insisted her husband install. You’d think with all their money that she’d want a newfangled cordless phone, but she feared the wireless devices would give her family brain tumors, and opted for a ten-foot, old-fashioned cord instead. Even though her husband was an oncologist and insisted the cordless phones wouldn’t cause brain tumors, she still preferred a corded phone.

  “She won’t say no to me,” I said slyly, a smirk sliding across my face. “I know how to talk to the ladies.”

  Miguel cackled at the notion that his mother would fall for my supposed cool demeanor, but as soon as she answered the phone, I laid it on thick. She eventually said yes, to Miguel’s utter surprise. When I hung up the phone, Miguel’s jaw practically hit the floor.

  “Told ya,” I said, wiping my hands together as if ridding them of the dust of his dubiousness.

  “Amazing!”

  As we milled about in the kitchen, raiding the refrigerator and pantries, Mr. Johnson shuffled in with a large Igloo cooler in hand, knocking kids out of the way as he approached the refrigerator.

  “You boys take your backpacks outside to the camper while I fill this cooler with sodas and ice. Throw your stuff in the back. Go on! Get!” He set the cooler on the floor in front of the fridge, popped the top, and tossed soda cans inside from the refrigerator. He then pulled the ice bin from the freezer and dumped all the ice in there. “T-minus 20! I want to get to the campground before dark!”

  We scurried outside.

  All of us packed our backpacks the night before. (Although he claimed his mother would still say no, Miguel even had his backpack. Sometimes he spoke like a pessimist, but his actions usually screamed optimism.) We had the few necessities we’d need for the weekend: a pair of shorts (which we would practically spend the entire weekend wearing), a ball cap, a spare pair of underwear, a spare t-shirt, sandals, a tooth brush, and a towel that we could use as both a pillow and to dry ourselves. Brian’s parents were providing the rest.

  Mr. Johnson soon came outside to find us all standing around the camper, but instead of throwing our backpacks in the back like he demanded, we stood in the driveway with our backpacks in our hands, facing the street, staring at something quite unexpected.

  “What the heck are you boys doing?” he said, setting the cooler on the ground. When he stood back up, he discovered what we were all looking at, standing at the end of the driveway in the street: The Thousand Oaks Gang. Bloody Billy and a few of his stooges leaned against a white `82 Camaro parked at the curb closest to the driveway. Rogelio and a few others stood around a black `84 Mustang across the street. Both cars idled, their engines gurgling. Mr. Johnson pushed thro
ugh our petrified group, then stood at front. He turned to examine our faces, then turned back to the gang in the street.

  “What the heck?” he said, then called out. “What do you—”

  Billy raised his arm in the air, lassoed a circle with his index finger, then hopped in his Camaro, the rest of his stooges following. The two muscle cars screeched across the asphalt street, then were out of sight. Mr. Johnson turned to us, a sour look on his face.

  “Are you boys causing trouble?” he snapped.

  “Us?!” Brian said. “Why do you think we’re the ones causing trouble?”

  “‘Cause you look guilty, that’s why. Come on, now! Let’s get the camper loaded up. It’ll be dark soon.” Mr. Johnson squatted to lift the cooler, then struggled to pick it up. Randy and I helped him lift it while he bemoaned his back troubles. “Sucks getting old,” he said.

  We put the cooler in the back of the camper, then he went inside to retrieve his wife. We placed our backpacks in the camper, a 1986 Volkswagen Westfalia model, the one where the roof would prop up at a 45-degree angle when released, a deeper color of lollipop blue I hadn’t seen on any vehicle. Brian’s dad was very proud of that camper—buying it new from the Volkswagen dealer earlier that spring—although it didn’t have enough seats for all of us. His parents would occupy the two front seats, while three of us took the back-bench seat, which left Brian free-range on the floor. He didn’t seem to mind, though. In fact, I think he preferred the precarious place, an element of danger in being the one sitting loose while the camper delivered us to the lake.

  “Does anyone have to whiz before we go? Miguel?” Brian said, giving Miguel the stink eye.

  “Why me?” Miguel replied, a look of surprise on his face.

  “Because you always need to whiz!”

  “I already went,” he replied, satisfied with his attentiveness, adjusting the neck hole in his t-shirt as if straightening a tie.

  “Mmm hmm,” Brian hummed, still skeptical.

  We jumped in the camper and continued to wait for Brian’s parents. Randy looked distressed as he turned to look at the street, the smell of burnt tires and car exhaust still in the air.

  “I don’t think they’re ever gonna leave us alone until they get that backpack back. Are they?”

  A quiet profundity consumed the group, as if Randy’s observation had a dismal answer we all didn’t want to confess was true.

  “Probably,” I said.

  “So why don’t we just give it back to them?” Randy said.

  “You think we should?”

  “Better than being hunted like dogs.”

  “But they really don’t know I have it. And if they do think I have it, they don’t know where I hid it.”

  It was a quandary, for sure, one without an immediate answer, certainly one that wouldn’t be answered at that moment as Brian’s parents approached.

  “Let’s call a meeting tonight at the campground,” Brian said. “When my folks want alone time.”

  He leaned to the side door to slide it closed. Brian’s parents hopped in the front and his dad turned around to face us.

  “Everybody ready?” he said.

  “Yeah!” we cheered.

  “Then we’re off!”

  He pressed the button to the garage door remote control clipped to the visor above his head, then turned the key to crank the engine. And soon we were off, heading to the campground on the shore of Canyon Lake, about a thirty-minute drive. As we pulled away from the neighborhood, I turned and watched the road retreat behind us through the rear window, hoping Bloody Billy’s white `82 Camaro would not appear unexpectedly and follow us to the lake.

  4.

  Before we go on, I must admit that I forgot to mention something. Earlier, I said that middle school was the time in my life when I first experienced real danger, but I failed to recall a time in my life during elementary school when, in fact, I also experienced something quite dangerous. Sorry I didn’t mention it earlier, but that’s how it goes with memories sometimes. They can appear and disappear in your mind like fireflies dancing across your front lawn on a warm spring night. But as I was telling you this story about me and my friends in middle school and the danger we would get ourselves into, I remembered something important. It might shed a little light on why I was so tight with my friends.

  You see, Randy Moss and I weren’t always friends. There was a time when he was my sworn enemy. In the third grade, Randy was the school bully. He pushed, shoved, punched, and menaced most everyone at Crestridge Elementary School, boys and girls alike. He was pretty angry and I didn’t know why. Nobody did. Everyone knew to just stay away from him or else you’d get thrashed. In the third grade, he was a mean son of a bitch. There’s really no nicer way to put it.

  But one day, I grew tired of his bullying and decided to do something about it. I hawked a gun from my mother’s nightstand—a 25-caliber American Derringer pistol—and stashed it in my Star Wars lunchbox before school. When it was time for recess, I moved the gun to my pants pocket and meant to teach Randy a lesson real good on the playground. Instead, Randy knocked me to the ground, then he was sent to the principal’s office by my teacher, Ms. Brookshire. Dejected, I went home after school and retreated to the treehouse in my backyard. To my surprise, Randy appeared in the wooded area behind my house. He waved a wilted gesture of surrender, then climbed up in the treehouse. Turns out, Randy’s dad was his bully, evident by his bruised jaw. He confessed that he really wanted to be friends and was sorry for being a jerk to me. We’ve been best friends ever since.

  That is not all. There is more to this story. While our rivalry did turn to friendship that day in the treehouse, I forgot that the gun was still in my pants pocket while we abdicated our rivalry. When my mother called us to come to dinner, we cavalierly jumped to the ground from the treehouse. When my feet hit the earth, the gun discharged, sending a bullet through my thigh. My mother was shocked, as was Randy. Neither of them knew I had a gun in my pocket and I had forgotten all about it, as young kids are prone to do about important matters. Nor would either of them have suspected that a quiet boy like me was capable of the amount of rage required to sneak a gun to school and shoot a classmate as revenge for daily bullying. Thankfully, everything turned out all right. Obviously, I didn’t die since I’m telling you this story now. But from that point on, once I healed, I walked with a limp, the bullet having torn through my thigh muscles and nicking the iliotibial band in such a way that it shriveled. Isn’t it funny how a poor decision can alter your life in such a way? It could’ve been much worse. I could’ve died, or Randy could’ve been hurt, too.

  A friendship grew from a dangerous situation, yet Randy always felt guilty about it. I think he felt that his bullying was the reason my leg got hurt from the gunshot. He always marveled that the bullet that went through my leg was really meant for him. I think as we grew older, Randy became more and more protective, like he was trying to make up not only for bullying me in the third grade, but for mistreating me so badly that I wanted to bring a gun to school and shoot him. Pretty crazy, huh? Threats of violence like that change a person, even a blockhead bully in elementary school. He must have realized that his life could have been over, quickly extinguished by a bullet from a 25-caliber American Derringer pistol that was originally intended for my mother to use to protect our home. But this incident in the third grade, as scary as it sounds, was nothing compared to what was going to happen to us in middle school. Real danger was waiting for us across the placid waters of Canyon Lake. I’ll get to that soon enough.

  You may also be wondering, if I met Randy in the third grade, then when did we become friends with Miguel Gonzalez and Brian Johnson and add them to our tight-knit group? Randy and I met Miguel in the fifth grade. Turns out, Miguel’s father was in the military—the Air Force to be exact—and stationed at Randolph Air Force Base, just right outside of Converse, relocating there in the middle of the school year from Edwards Air Force Base in California. Mig
uel’s family moved into a small, three-bedroom house in Thousand Oaks, not too far from Randy’s house and mine. Our teacher, Mr. Head, introduced Miguel to Randy and me after class one day because Miguel told him that he liked Marvel Comics (The Amazing Spider-Man, The Uncanny X-Men, The Fantastic Four) which—of course—Randy and I did, too. Mr. Head had confiscated dozens upon dozens of our comic books and knew our devotion to them. He thought we’d all make good friends, which made us skeptical of each other. A grownup putting kids together—a despised teacher even—wasn’t how kids became friends! But the funny thing was, once the three of us started talking about comic books—particularly when Miguel went on and on about how much he loved the malevolent ruler and super villain Dr. Doom and how his metal suit was superior to Iron Man’s—our friendship was sealed. Weird how that happens. Plus, once Miguel learned about our love of all things Star Wars, then the three of us became inseparable. We loved everything about Miguel except his older brother, Rogelio, who was a royal douche bag, even back then. We could never figure out how two brothers who were so different in every way came out of the same mother.

  We met Brian a year later in the sixth grade during P. E. Since he lived in Hidden Oaks and Randy, Miguel, and I lived in Thousand Oaks, Brian was from a different elementary school: Dwight D. Eisenhower Elementary School. Both elementary schools fed into F. D. R. Middle School. When our P. E. teacher seemed less than thrilled to monitor our activities (a bad attitude I would realize years later was engendered by constant hangovers and low self-esteem), he made the class play Dodge Ball. And the sixth graders hated playing Dodge Ball because the eighth graders would absolutely destroy them. One day during a particularly vicious game, I got pegged in the face by an overenthusiastic eighth grader who was gleefully performing his school-sanctioned bullying. I hit the parquet floor like a sack of potatoes. Lights out. But once I opened my eyes, I discovered I was being taken care of by Brian who, I learned while he sat with me at the side of the gym, was an expert in C. P. R., the Heimlich Maneuver, and a number of other medical procedures he offered to perform on me, valuable lessons he learned while in the Boy Scouts, in hopes of being a doctor one day like his father. After Randy and Miguel were demolished during the game, they crawled over to where I lay with Brian. As all middle schoolers learn while sitting with each other for brief periods of time, we had a lot more in common than we thought. Turns out, Brian loved Marvel Comics, too. His favorite character was Doctor Strange, who served as the sorcerer supreme in the Marvel Universe, but was also a doctor—a surgeon more precisely—just like his namesake. Of course, we became fast friends. Turns out, Brian didn’t like Star Wars, though. He preferred silly movies like Real Genius starring Val Kilmer to sci-fi movies. What a weirdo.