Ma Journal

• 2009-12-04

  Six

  “Invisble! Iiiiiiinvisible! Abra-kadabra-bazaam-kazaam invisible!” I shouted in the mirror, noticing my wrinkly fingers. I had always wanted to be invisible. I tried to discover a way to make this happen for a long time. Too long. I tried spells said by me and spells said by others. I tried drinking water everytime I got hungry thinking I would turn, well, clear like it. I even tried closing my eyes an entire day thinking I would just vanish if I didn’t open them. Nothing worked. But oh how I loved to have wrinkly fingers after a bath…

  “Are you trying to turn invisible again, Michael?” my mom asked with her scolding tone of voice.

  “Nooo.”

  “You better not! I told you about how much trouble you’d be in if I wasn’t able to see you anymore.”

  “I know…”

  “Why do you want to turn invisible anyway? Nobody would be able to see how cute you are.”

  “I’m not cute!”

  “Yes you are…” mom said as she began to chase me around the apartment. “So cute I’m gonna get you and tickle you and kiss you and hug you until I turn invisible.” I loved moments like this with her. It allowed me to temporarily escape other realities that were difficult to deal with, other realities that required invisibility to prevent. “Now get back in there and brush your teeth.”

  “Invisible!”

  “That’s it, I’m gonna get my stick,” she threatened. The stick. It was my arch-nemesis, my sworn enemy, the hated wooden stick that enforced the law of her land. She made many threats, most empty, but it was always too risky to test which ones were fake and which ones were real.

  “Mom!”

  “Where is it? Did you hide it again…”

  “Invisible, 1-2-3, invisible, 1-2-3 ar-kah-kie…” I said as the phone rang.

  “Brush your teeth right now or I’m gonna use something else, and it won’t be any nicer.”

  Defeated, I walked to the restroom where I began to recite some of my invisibility spells in my head. We were going to attend a family function. It was someone’s birthday and, traditionally, we always celebrated birthdays at grandma’s house due to the largeness of her backyard. We had an enormous family. Every aunt and uncle had three or four children, which means I had approximately 24 cousins with seven sets of aunts and uncles. Grandma loved us all the same. Or so she said.

  “Sure, mom. I’ll bring it. Yes, he’s brushing his teeth right now. No, mom, it’s alright. I’ll just bring the bottle. He’s fine, he won’t need it. Mmhmm, ok mom, I’m gonna finish getting him ready we’ll see you in a bit,” she said walking away.

  “Was that grandma?” I asked in the middle of realizing I had tied my shoe on the wrong foot.

  “Yes, she’s feeling sick. We’re gonna take her some medicine. You can give her a big hug and a kiss. I’m sure that will help make her feel better.”

  “Yes! Let me get my magic lips so I can fix her!” My mother told me countless times that my kisses were magic when I applied lip balm. It was her solution to preventing me from getting chapt-lips during the colder days. This reminds me of another time where my mother, as usual, lead me astray from reality. I was maybe four years old when she had been cutting some fruit for me to eat with my lunch. There was the orange melon, which we simply called “melon,” and the green melon, which, deceivingly, she told me was called, “nevermind.” From that day on, till I was about nine, I had actually referred to it as nevermind. I was never told its actual name. Just as I had learned when I was eight, from a teacher, that my magic lips didn’t make my kisses magic.

  “Are you ready yet, Michael?” my mother called.

  “Yesss,” I said walking to her.

  “Michael? Where are you?”

  “Right here, mom!”

  “Where? I don’t see you…”

  “Here!” I shouted running to her legs.

  “I can’t see you, Michael! What did you do?!” she said in a panic. “Michael, stop it!”

  “Mom!” I said with tears beginning to build in my eyes.

  “Just kidding. Let’s go.”

  And with that, just like magic lips, my efforts practicing invisibility spells greatly decreased.

  “Michael!” my grandmother yelled as she pulled me in from the doorway for a hug and a kiss.

  “Hi, mother.” my mom greeted.

  “Yes, yes, hi. Michael! I missed you so much! I have somethi-“

  “Grandma, grandma, wait. Can you see me?” I asked, still paranoid from being spooked earlier by my very loving mother.

  “What? Of course I can see you. Did you try to turn invisible again…”

  We arrived at my grandmothers house before everybody else. This was common as my mother enjoyed alone time with grandma before it got crazy. I usually hung out with Joel and Jaime in the meantime, though this time they were out-of-town visiting some family friends with their parents. Knowing that my mom and grandma would end up sitting at the coffee table talking instead of doing all the preparations they promised each other they would do, I decided to explore on my own. I always seemed to find some new hiding spot for hide-and-seek or some old toys that had been lost, but not forgotten. As much as I liked exploring I never got to do it often because people were always around, and when people were around we usually ended up doing things that didn’t involve discovery expeditions.

  My adventure began in the backyard where I had recently burried a G.I. Joe to see what would happen to him after being under for so long. Not surprisingly, I forgot where I buried him. From there I gave myself two options: one was going through the back alley, which my mom told me never to do. The second was going to the basement, a place that was very disturbing but mysterious to me. I went with the basement.

  The basement entrance was located outside of the house. I walked to it and stared. The doors were very inviting, tempting me, greeting me, pushing me. The door was wooden and had a lock, though it was always unlocked, that you opened in order to enter. One deep breath and I began to walk towards the door which, after looking around for a few moments, I opened. Before me lied a set of stairs you had to walk down to enter. A few steps down and darkness with dust exposed by unwelcomed sunlight covered everything. There was only one light switch and it provided very poor lighting. I made my way around squinting and picking things up to the light. Grandma used the basement for storage, which meant that I had old picture albums, toys, boxes, and other older things in store for me. The actual basement was pretty large and was about the size of the base of the house.

  I could hear my mother and grandma talking above me, which meant that I was ok. As soon as I heard walking I had planned to run out just incase being in the basement got me in trouble. I started going through boxes and found pictures of my mom when she was a little girl, pictures of my aunts and uncles, my mom with uncle Henry, old child clothes, old wooden toys, some comic books, and, my favorite, an old baseball glove. I put it on and pretended like I was actually playing.

  “He looks at the catcher and-” I hear the door make a squeeking sound. Startled I turn around and scan, as best I can, through the darkness and dim lighting to see if I spot anybody. Silence. Darkness. Stillness. Nothing. I go back to the bottom of the ninth inning, two outs, last game of the world series, and just as I get the clear, see-through baseball, I notice a mirror that has a medal hanging on it. I reach between two boxes to get it. I can’t reach. I stretch between two boxes to get it. I can’t stretch. I kneel to the floor to push the boxes a little. I push, and push, and push, till finally, success - they budge ever-so-slightly. I get back up and reach for the medal, not noticing the mirror.

  The mirror.

  There is someone in the darkness.

  “Hi, Michael.” he says.

  “hi… uncle Ted.”

• 2009-10-22

  Five

  There’s a faceless shadow in this room. It patiently sits, waiting for God.

  Dust floats carelessly in hallway light stuck between a narrowly open door and its other half. The light provides a curiously dim glimpse of this room. It has no windows. It makes no noise. A drawer’s lip is open, showing its ugly black teeth that hold video recordings of sinful trials. Labels with its victims names on it mark each tooth - Maribelle, Carol, Vincent, Cheryl… Before it towers its accomplice. With three legs and one eye, it exists only to degrade you, to humiliate you, to keep you. This room is the epicenter for so many, but its sanctuary provides deadly-addictive pleasure to only one. Its brick walls swallow anything that attempts to escape. It’s futile and it’s just a glimpse.

  God lives in this room and his hands are merciless. He judges. He punishes. He damns. Every faceless shadow has sat just as this one, awaiting their judgement, screaming and shouting for a mercy that yields to a deaf ear. One by one, the children he makes his own have fallen to this ruthless tyrant disguised as a glimmer of goodness. I stand in a corner watching everything as I hear the crescendo in his mighty footsteps. A look of hopelessness falls on this faceless shadow.

  He is coming.

  Chains begin to talk when this poor soul tries to free himself. Muffled whimpers are consumed by this room. The door begins to open as a light switch is flipped. A misguided fluorescence unveils the doom that inevitably awaits. This God is a blacksmith of evil, with walls nicely decorated with dozens of instruments and knives. It is in this room that God passes judgement. He slowly circles around his child, whispering amended gospel and listing committed sins. He is subject to God’s wrath, and thou has what he shalt not.

  This room bears no witness. It reveals no secrets.

  A terrible shriek escapes the lips of the faceless, suffering from tremors and aftershocks, begging for its life. Its life. Sheer terror bathes itself on the faceless, as God pauses and begins to smell for sin. Closer to his child he goes, sniffing, smelling, pouring his mighty hands over their body, searching, seeking, finding…

  “This belongs to me,” God says with a thunderous voice, pointing to its heart.

  It is in this room that God punishes.

  He securely patrols his decorations. This blacksmith is innovative. I stay, standing in my corner, as he walks right by me, yet I am not able to see who God is. Broken, reflected light partly shines all over the room, making this evil dungeon appear like a palace of crystals. How misleading. The decorations all scream to God, pleading that he pick them. One by one God passes them as they strutt their stuff and show what they’ve got, what they can do. Yet today, today God goes to his most reliable, his oldest friend, his most trustworthy companion. A scalpel.

  Slowly walking back to the faceless, he breathes heavy on him, touching the faceless’ chest… mapping… plotting… picking… He has made his decision, and in this room God’s decision is unwritten, unquestionable, irreverseable law. It has been done. And God is pleased with his sentence.

  “You have sinned, yet I will forgive you. I will make it so you cannot sin against me again.”

  A careful slice of the faceless’ shirt makes God’s knees shake with pleasure. He can see what he hath created and which he will now destroy. A precise incision is made into their chest, as screaming and crying fill the mountains’ clouded air, its decorations shaking from vocal vibrations. He continues, the circle now nearly complete, as you see the child’s soul begin to leave its body, clinging to itself, desperate, not yet ready to leave. I cry, and walk closer to comfort this poor, faceless soul in his dark, lost moment. I open my mouth to speak but cannot be heard. Holding with all its strength, its grip begins to weaken, as it grows tired. With the completion of the cricle, God enters his mighty hand. And as soon as this happens, the child slips. This child of his is free. This child of his, I want to see.

  It is in this room that God damns.

  God walks with the fruits he harvested to a tray where he lays its heart, playing with his hands in excitement. My walk to the front of the faceless is as long and strenuous as my grandfathers to Henry. Upon arrival, I cannot believe my eyes.

  Oh my God.

  “It’s…”

  I wake up.

• Four

  “I’m bored,” whined Joel.

  We had to stay after school to wait for Jamie to walk home with us. He got out about two hours later than us because he was older. Our school was midsized - not too big and not too small. We had some basketball courts, which was my favorite to play during lunch at that age, a soccer field, and anything you could make up on your own, as long as it didn’t involve any of the usual offenses like biting, scratching, or putting me in a trashcan. I mean putting other kids in a trashcan. Multiple times. We had usually waited by the lunch tables so we could watch kids getting picked up by their parents and laugh at the ones who got kissed by their mothers.

  “Eww! That was a wet one. I could see her drool stick to Jason’s face!” Joel was really good at updating. If you had missed something, he was sure to bring it to your attention in painful detail. Maybe this is why he was so good at hide-and-seek… he paid such good attention to microscopic detail.

  “Really? No way,” I said humoring him.

  “Yeah! I hate it when my grandma gives me those,” Joel said covering his cheeks in nostalgic terror. “It takes me a long time to clean my face and sometimes she has lipstick on and then stupid Jamie makes fun of me. Then she pinches my cheeks and says, ‘Oh, you’re so so so cute cute Joele my rolley-polley.’ and then stupid Jamie makes fun of me again.” I could actually see her reflection in his eyes, puckering her big red lips with the Sunday hat she wore every day except Sunday. Joel was a very shy kid.

  “At least your mom doesn’t call you Mikey Wikey…” I muttered.

  “Hehe.”

  Across the street a mother wearing a red sweater got out of the car to pick up one of the kids. You could tell by the way that this mother acted and looked that this child had no chance. We both watched and waited… and, ah, success. Poor child suffered. That was a “Let me hold you so you can’t escape me” kiss. You actually feel like you’re being punished with those. Although my heart went out to that child whom is probably now suffering from publicly displayed affection trauma, it was not the thing I was thinking about. Her outfit had reminded of that night at my grandmothers house. That night with the strange person wearing the red. Red… Jamie’s class ends.

  “Hey, Joel,” I called. He looks at me, his face tells me he’s still thinking about his grandmother. “You know the other night when we played seeker at my grandmas?”

  “Yeah. I got in trouble that night cause you left me. I waited a long time and even my brother punched me in the arm cause he said he couldn’t find me. Damn it you-“

  “Yeah well, that night I noticed something weird.”

  “What? Weird? What’s weird?”

  “There was this, I don’t know, this person that was wearing a red shirt or something that I kept seeing bits and pieces of. But it wasn’t like they were just walking by the house or anything because I kept seeing them, and they would actually move around. I saw them a couple of different times at different parts of the house. I haven’t told my mom yet.”

  “You saw this and you let me stay there all night by myself!?” Joel said surprised.

  “Well, I didn’t think about it. And when I did leave you he was outside the front walking up the street so he couldn’t get you.”

  “What if he went back?”

  “Oh, uh,” I deseperately searched for something that would save me, “My, uh, my grandma was doing dishes and she would’ve seen if anything happened, so I wasn’t worried…” I said, relieved.

  “But she didn’t see him the first time…”

  Silence.

  “Cabbagepatch kids!” Jamie yelled. The three year age advantage was his one true love throughout adolescence. Any chance he got he threw it in our face.

  We began walking home. I was still thinking about this person. Nobody had gone over to visit my grandma that night we were there, at least not that I knew of. I thought maybe it was a cousin or an uncle stopping by, but my mom didn’t call me to greet them so it couldn’t be that. I struggled with this thought and it troubled me. I didn’t like the feeling that I couldn’t be safe outside of my grandmas house. The basement is one thing that already made me hate visiting, but now this. I could already hear the things my mom would say. “You’re crazy,” “It’s nothing,” “Stop making things up,” “You’re just making a big deal out of nothing” echoed in my head. I thought of maybe asking some of the neighbor kids if they had seen anybody out of the ordinary.

  “Hey Jamie, if somebody was trying to get me would you help me?” asked Joel.

  “Are you kidding? I would kick their ass!” he said with anxiousness.

  “What if they were like, really big and strong and a lot bigger than you and had muscles that could lift you right over his head and hands so big he could wrap his fingers around you almost?”

  “I’m not scared. Besides, I know something you don’t…”

  “What?” Joel and I both asked, interested.

  “I can’t really tell you. I shouldn’t! Then you’ll know and you’ll tell the rest of the smurfs about me… and it’ll be the end of me and my legacy.”

  “What’s a legacy?” I asked.

  “A legacy is something that you get from having a good name for doing a lot of good things that people remember you for.”

  “You have a legacy?”

  “Duhhh. I save people from really big guys that are really strong with muscles that could lift me right over their head and hands so big they could wrap their fingers around me almost. I will always save someone that is in trouble because I’m…” Jamie drifted off. He looked ahead, alarmed.

  “Jamie?” Joel asks.

  “I think…” he put his hand on his forehead, covering the sunlight from hitting his eyes, looking far off in a distance. He began to slowly, very slowly take off his backpack. I was beginning to think something was going on, something was going to happen. I wasn’t even thinking about red anymore.

  “Jamie, what the hell you’re acting weird stop.” Joel complained.

  “Wait, Joel, I think that someone…” Jamie’s backpack is now on the floor, and he begins to walk towards what he’s looking at, confident yet slowly. Joel and I are both scared by now. We watch, in anticipation, waiting to see what happens, what he sees. Cause we don’t see anything. Yet he continues, his long, slow stride. His arms grow busy and we can’t see what he’s doing because his back is to us. Then he stops.

  “Guys, someone is in trouble!” he yells, “Someone is in serious trouble! I need to go help them!”

  “Jamie, no, wait, let’s go home. I’m gonna tell mom,” Joel said.

  “I can’t. I must save them. I must because I’m…” Jamie turns his head so that his chin is touching his shoulder, looking back at us. All five feet of him, appearing glorious. His legacy… he must maintain his legacy. He quickly turns and opens his button-up shirt, bare-chested, saying:

  “I’m superman!”

  “Oh god, stupid Jamie! You scared me. I’m telling.” Joel promised.

  It was hard to hear the rest of what Joel was complaining about because Jamie was laughing so hard. We fell for it. Again. He was really good at bullshitting us. Or maybe it was because we were so young and gullable. Nah, he was good.

  We continued walking without regard for Jamie. He was lying on the ground holding his stomach swirling in circles by now, just trying to make us feel dumb.

  “He got us pretty good,” I said.

  “Nuh-uh. I knew the whole time. It’s annoying and he’s retarded.” Joel said. I could see his hands still shaking from nervousness. ‘Liiiiaaaarrrr’ I thought to myself.

  “Haha,” Jamie said bumping our shoulders as he collected himself. “But seriously kids, I would kick some major ass if someone tried to mess with you. I gotta protect you… if something happened to one of you who would I have to blame things on?” Good point.

  “Shut up,” said Joel.

  “You shut up,” Jamie said as he punched Joel in the arm. As they begin to fight and argue I thought about the red again. I had to find out who this red was, what they were doing, why they were sneaking around, and why nobody noticed someone strange just walking around the house—and did nothing about it. Paranoid, I look around, half expecting to see the same red I saw that night. Nothing.

  Maybe it was time to tell my mom some things.

• 2009-10-15

  Three

  “And Michael? How is he?” my grandma asked.

  “Oh, he’s fine. Just having some trouble with him at school,” replied my mother, with a tone of frustration and concern.

  “Trouble? He’s not getting bullied is he? Cause you know I’ll go down there first thing tomorrow morning and kick the…” My grandma was a very tough, old-fashioned woman. She believed very much in the nuclear family and was overly protective of her “rubies,” her grandchildren. Like most Mexican wives, she had endured a lot of the cultural gender role assignments. In other words, her life had been very “turbulent,” to say the least.

  “No, no, no, it’s nothing like that mother. He’s just been having strange dreams about David and Rose. I know, it’s really weird. Well, he’s also had dreams about…” my mother began to whisper as she walked into another room.

  My grandmother and I had a very special relationship. She had seven children, a total that is actually pretty common amongst Mexican households. My grandfrather worked two jobs and still struggled to provide for his family, all because he didn’t want my grandmother to work - “A woman should be in the house raising her children.” This bothered her because she always felt a part of her wasn’t fulfilled, like she hadn’t really accomplished anything with herself. Seven wonderful, beautiful babies… until one day, a day that changed everyone.

  The fact that I was always so reluctant to go to my grandmas house always troubled my mother. She could never really understand what had bothered me enough to make me not want to go and, seeing how we were there often, I had done a lot of complaining about it. It was never really about visiting my grandmother, though. As I said, my grandmother had a very special relationship with me. I loved her so. I reminded her of a lost someone. I could never do any wrong. This of course benefited me greatly whenever I would do something that would usually land me in a world of trouble yet always escape with a, “Oh, he’s just a baby” or, “Michael didn’t do what. He wouldn’t. I don’t believe you. No, no…” You see, my grandmother had been a victim of thievery.

  My mother and aunts and uncles grew up during the “old days,” where parents let their children roam freely without much worry about the things parents today have to think about. There wasn’t much violence or kidnappings or anything of that sort. I mean sure, things happened, and when they did it made headline news pretty much everywhere, but for the most part it was pretty quiet growing up. At least externally.

  Everyone had been out that day. Children from up and down the street meeting and playing, the atmosphere filled with innocent laughter only a happy child could provide. In and out of the house my grandmothers kids went, chit-chat, chit-chat, chit-chat. One of my uncles, Albert, jumped down the stairs, shirt flailing in the air as he did and when he landed, you could see terrible bruises on his back. Auntie Carmen, too. This part of the day was very productive for most mothers since they didn’t have to worry about their children. Chores were done, dinner was started, and, if they were good about it, even got some time to themselves. I had heard my mother say that at the time it happened, my grandmother was preparing dinner. She’ll never forget how the kitchen looked when she got back inside. Carrots had fallen, a knife dangled on the edge of the counter, blood on it dripping to the tile of the floor. The water had been boiling and steam was filling the vent. Vegetables laid out, full of neglect, with dishes piled across from them, waiting to be set on the table.

  You could usually hear the children laughing the day away or, when the fun stops, crying. She had been cutting carrots, getting her famous soup ready as my grandfather napped on the couch. He usually dosed off because he was always tired and stressed from working so much. Everything was happening just as a typical day would.

  “Go, Henry, go!” my mother cheered as my youngest uncle, Henry, was racing a neighbor of theirs. Henry was the youngest of the seven. Definitely my grandmothers baby, her pride and joy. With pale skin, short light brown hair, and a funny smile capable of breaking my grandmother, she loved to hug him and hug him she did, as he would tease, “Mommy I can’t breaaaaathe!” He was a jokester. Always had something to say. He loved to make people laugh even though it usually meant he was going to bust with laughter as well. A perfect example of a child’s innocence.

  “Go, Henry!” they raced as a car turned the corner. Huffing and puffing, Henry had his arms in the air, smiling as bright as the summer’s day. My mother, who was very close to him, was still cheering when she went to go hug him. Henry’s arms in the air like an olympic champion, walking towards my mother now, smiling, laughing. Smiling, laughing. Smiling. He had won.

  Just two more carrots to cut before she goes onto the onions. She could overhear the broadcast of Henry’s famous race and smiled as she shook her head. Just as she’s about to finish her cutting stride, she heard it, followed by a deafening silence. For a split second, you could see in my grandmothers eyes the horror of a thousand scenarios playing out in her mind. A thousand images being shown to her at once. Reliving memories with each of her children. She ceases to exist in this moment, standing there, just standing and listening in desperation. The weakest moment any parent begs on their knees to never experience handcuffs her, as she feels her legs wobble with worry and nervousness, not even noticing she had sliced her finger. Deep red blood leaves her body. The same mineral of life that all her children had shared with her, the same that had given them life.

  Screams fill the air, as my grandfather jumps off the couch and runs as fast as he could outside. Not fast enough. God, not fast enough. Running what seems to be miles and miles yet is only a few steps away from the porch, he sees my mother standing in terror. Sheer terror. Kids hiding and crying. Screaming, my uncles and aunts look for each other in desperation, calling each others names. My grandfather sees a child lying on the ground, identity blocked by my mother’s lifeless stance. He moves her and falls to his knees in disbelief.

  “Oh, God, God, God. No. God, Henry. Henry! No, God, No. Henry, please, no, God,” as he picks up his body. He tries to carry this young child, this boy that weighs as much as all the Heavens, back to the house to fix him, blood everywhere. The deep red mineral. It’s too much. He’s too heavy. He falls with Henry in his arms. He shrinks to a child the age of his own son. Vulnerable, scared, lost. Crying and staring at his son’s face, once full of life, now absent of that pure innocence. It was stolen.

  My grandmother’s first sight is this. Her husband and her youngest child, her baby, lying lifelessly in his arms. The weakest moment any parent begs on their knees to never experience. A merciless blow brings her tumbling to the ground as she lies speechless. Faintly, sirens can be heard in the background, but nothing is really functioning or processing. She’s not there. She’s with Henry. She remembers waking him up with kisses all over his face and tickling him until he offers to help her clean the house. Her little helper. Laughing as she chases his feet with the broom trying to clean him cause she says he’s stinky. Laughing and smiling as they go grocery shopping. Laughing and smiling as she plays Uno with him. Laughing and smiling as he runs to her and wraps his arms around her body. Smiling as he says, “I love you, mom.” Dying, as she whispers to him, “I love you too.”

  Uncle Henry left that day. In his father’s arms. As his mother watched. Everyone had been different after that. My grandfather treated their now six children differently, none of my aunts or uncles had bruises anymore. Great tragedy can make anyone see the foolishness in their ways. My grandparents suffered greatly and eventually ended up separated because they could no longer work together. Henry’s death changed every single parent. They no longer let their children play freely. They no longer let them be without supervision. They no longer allowed them to cross the street or be too far from the house. Everything changed. My mother was never the same, she said. My grandmother, bless her soul, had been tortured by loving memories of her son, someone she could not let go.

  My grandmother had been a victim of thievery, and I was the living, walking, talking, loving reminder of what her Henry used to be. He was eleven years old.

  It wasn’t my grandma I didn’t want to see. I loved her so. It was the house.

  Tragedy sometimes knocks twice.

• 2009-10-14

  Two

  “I’m coming to get you,” I heard over and over as I ran as far as I could to find a hiding spot. In panic, I decided to hide behind a lonely, obvious bush. Deeply out of breath, I crouched and began to quietly dig so that I could burrow a little more to avoid being caught. My heart was racing, I didn’t want to be found. I could hear his walk slow as his feet crushed dirt and twigs. I was terrified.

  “I hear you, Michael. Come out.”

  I started to sweat and shiver with anticipation. I thought that the darkness the black night provided me was going to be enough to protect me from being captured. I could hear him hip tip-toe closer and closer. Branches moving, bushes brushing. I could hear him breathing heavily after chasing me for so long. My heart began to race faster and faster as I heard him inch his way towards my direction, slowly, cautiously. The walking stops and a complete silence fell. I could sense him staring over everything, scrutinizing every single detail to find me.

  I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, drenched with sweat from nervousness. I started to recall better moments to help ease my fear. I remembered one morning my mom went to work late so she could have a donut with me and ask me about the book I had gotten from the library. It was about a boy that kept saying he was going to move to Australia whenever he was troubled. I just wanted to be invisible to escape mine. Then footsteps towards me. Step by step by step… I could feel his eyes staring at me through the bush. I began to hope in my mind that I wouldn’t get caught, not this time, please. I don’t want to be…

  “Tag. You’re it!”

  “You push so hard!” I complained crawling out of the bush. Joel had been considered by most of the kids as the expert spotter in hide and seek. He’s one of my best friends. We met at Tiny Tots Day Care and actually went to the same school as me without even knowing. His brown, shaggy hair really covered some of the freckles he had on his face. His mom was obsessed with overalls.

  “Do not weenie,” Joel said running away. “I got Michael, I got Michael!”

  “Again!?” yelled his brother Jamie. Jamie was 3 years older than us, and, as a result of being around Joel so much, was my other best friend. He was definitely bigger than Joel and I, which meant that he usually called the shots or was the first to do something. Jamie possessed a bold personality that often got him into trouble with his parents and bullies. He never stood down no matter how bad he was gonna get his ass kicked if he thought he was right. He too had been victimized by his mother’s overalls obsession.

  “K Michael, you gotta go count to ten. And no peeking, cheater!”

  “I’m not a cheater!” I yelled, even though I did usually steal little looks here and there… in the spirit of fairness of course. “1…2…3…ar-kah-kie…” I began to count as I leaned against the side of the house. “4…5…” and as I got closer to ten, I began to feel uneasy. So I opened my eyes and saw someone walking into the backyard. Couldn’t see who exactly, but I did see red.

  My mother’s apartment had ended up being a few blocks away from my grandmother’s house. This enabled my mother to keep an eye on her as much as she could. So, naturally, we were over fairly often. She lived in an old part of Whittier where the houses were fairly lit by old styled street lamps and nestled in large trees that ran parallel up and down the streets. It was an older neighborhood that saw a lot of grandchildren, which was really fun during holidays when the streets were filled with careless children chasing and laughing between houses and parked cars. Joel and Jamie lived a few houses south of her. My grandmas house had always been our sorta ground zero, where we would meet and play with toys or play hide and seek, though we usually played hide and seek at night because Jamie felt it was more “dangerous” then.

  “Okay ready or not here I come!”

  I was decent at hide and seek. I was better at finding hiding spots. My life had sorta forced me to be good at hiding. I got caught this last time because Joel counted super fast and robbed me of a few seconds. It’s the looking part that I didn’t like. I hated feeling that they were watching you, like spying on you while you walked around trying to find them. Even now, as I walk past these trashcans by a dark part of the house, I could imagine someone jumping out and scaring the shit out of me. The hunter feeling like the hunted.

  My hunch had lead me to the back of the house, where I had stupidly forgotten I saw someone walking a bit earlier during my countdown. I didn’t really mind since my mother always told me my grandmas house was a safe place and to just avoid talking to strangers. This was her response everytime I told her I did not like visiting my grandmas house, though I never told her why.

  Walking down towards the the avocado tree planted near the right side of the back, I notice a shoe, which is probably Joel’s. Joel had a lot of talents. Hiding wasn’t one of them. He was never good at realizing just how much space he actually took. As I began to stalk my prey, I decided to have a little fun with him. I began breathing heavily like a monster and making a lot of noise against the leaves, then stopped to leave him in anticipation. This is when he finally moved his foot into the split that partially hid him between a tree and a fence. As I crept slowly, softly, I again felt uneasy. I looked behind me and saw some red moving around again.

  I stared, squinting my eyes in attempt to see better and took a few steps towards the backyard to try to see the side of the house. My head monitoring back and fourth, I was a watchtower on the look out for the inmate that busted out. Whenever I concentrated on looking for someone so hard, it always reminded me of how my mother and I would lose my grandmother whenever we went shopping at Target. “Uh oh,” my mother would say, “We lost grandma!”

  “Oh no, Mom!”

  “We gotta find her.” So we looked and looked as my little head turned and turned in the passengers seat of the shopping cart, and I would occassionally yell, “Graaaaaannnndddmaaaa” hoping she would hear me so that she could find us, though she never did.

  Suddenly, red. I saw red for a second, walking from the grass on the front yard up the street, where I lost him because of the trees by the side. Red. Who had been there that I knew, or, rather, didn’t know? And why were they creeping around that way?

  “Michael,” my mother called, “Time to go. It’s almost seven.”

  I looked back at Joel’s hiding spot and, from where I was standing, could still see his shoe a little. I wanted to go bust him just to say that I did but thought better of it and decided to say, “Who is this I found?” hoping he’d stay hiding thinking he wouldn’t get caught. Then I left him.

  To this day I don’t know how long I tricked him into waiting before he came out on his own.