I See I Like

The first days of school always seem to last for ever for kids that have been on vacation for two months, they get used to not waking up early and they stay up until the three of the morning the next day playing video games or talking on the phone. You can say I go to sleep late too and sleep in the next day, but my story is different.

This semester was when he came to my school. The school I got to is mostly populated by Hispanic and African American kids … and one Asian I would say. My mom says I’m Japanese, but I consider myself Mexican because I have no idea of where I come from.

Well that semester was the first time a white kid went to our school. He had the classes I had but at different periods of the day. He had been there since the first day of school, but I hadn’t noticed until I ran into him in the morning when it was passing period. I was going into my English class when he was coming out. We didn’t look at each other or even speak, but I noticed him because he had forgotten a paper and the teacher called him back. I had taken my seat when he walked back in through the door and took the paper from the teacher and then left.

Another reason I noticed him was because that same day after school I had just gotten off the bus and I was walking into my little sister’s elementary school class room when I noticed something strange.

Every day after school I would pick up my little sister Donnie because my mom worked long and late hours to support me and my sister, so she couldn’t pick her up.

I stood there leaning against the classroom doorway looking at my sister leaning over a paper coloring. I smiled to myself when her long black wavy hair fell in front of her face and she couldn’t see where to color. Just when she had tucked her hair behind her ears another little girl came over and laid herself next to Donnie and asked for the green crayon.

I was surprised at first. Usually Donnie is the only one in the classroom when I come to pick her up. When she started kinder garden I had spoken with her teacher and asked her if Donnie could stay in the classroom until I picked her up. Without hesitation she had said yes.

Donnie’s teacher had been the same teacher I had when I was in kinder garden so she knew everything that had happened to our family since I attended that school.

I would have thought that she had felt pity for our family when I asked her for that favor, but because I had kept in contact with her ever since I met her and ever since the first incident; she was like my best friend.

Yeah it sounds weird, a teenager having an old elementary teacher as a best friend … I actually had a best friend up until the fifth grade. His name was Eduardo, but sadly after a while we just stopped talking and we grew apart, but the reason why we stopped talking was mostly my fault.

“Look who’s here Donnie,” Ms. Woods walked over and whispered in Donnie’s little ear.

Donnie dropped her crayon, ran to me smiling and wrapped her arms around my neck tightly. “Why did you take so long?” She asked walking over to put her stuff away.

I walked into the classroom and leaned against the teacher’s desk, right next to where Ms. Woods had been standing. “You were timing me?” I asked pretending to be in shock.

Donnie pulled her back pack over her shoulders and looked up at me. “Yes. I don’t want you to leave for work without picking me up first,” She answered with a serious face.

Most of the times I get tutoring jobs that pay me at my high school but when I find a job that pays even better I quite the tutoring job. When I have to tutor someone Donnie knows she has to stay in school until a later time but because we had just started school two weeks previously, she either assumed that I wasn’t working or I had one of those otherjobs.

When I have one of those other jobs I pick up Donnie from school, drop her off home. Sometimes the job comes to me or sometimes I have to go to it, but those other jobs usually take longer than tutoring that’s why I pick my sister up first and then go to work.

I placed my hand over her head and messed her hair up. When ever she mentions something like work, she activates the guilt button inside of me and I can’t help but lie to her. “Don’t worry I wont work today.” Those words always put a mile on her face.

Donnie took my hand in hers and walked me over to where she had been coloring and introduced me to the other little girl, “Look Max this is my best friend Samantha, but I call her Sam.”

“Hi Max.” Sam said to me waving her little hand as she stood up off the floor. As she balanced herself, I took her in my arms. She weighed almost nothing just like Donnie.

“And how old would you be Sam?” I asked her. With one hand wrapped around my shoulders, she held her other hand’s open palm in font of my face. “Five.”

She stared at me for about three seconds then turned away, “I like your hair,” she said starting to blush.

“Why thank you,” I replied placing on the firm ground, “I like your hair too.” I think that was when I noticed there was something different. Sam had shoulder length sandy blond hair pulled up into a pony tail that brought out her green eyes. I on the other hand had black hair. It went half way down my back but because it wasn’t straight it went up about two inches because of it being wavy.

I always wondered why I didn’t have straight hair. I don’t mean to say this in a bad way, but most Asian people have straight hair so why don’t I. Maybe my real mom or dad had wavy hair … I try not to give it much thought because I really don’t care how my parents look like.

Sam, just like my sister smiled at me. Her smile turned even bigger when he walked in through the door with his backpack over one shoulder.

“Danny!” Sam shouted and ran to get her backpack. Danny … the strange new white boy walked over to Ms. Woods. “Hi, I’m here to pick up Sam.”

Ms. Woods smiled politely at him and walked over to me. “Max, make sure Donnie finished her homework ok.” Then she walked over to Sam who was trying to reach her backpack which had been on the second shelve where all the kids pile up their sweaters and backpack so they wont get lost during the day and handed it to her.

As me and Donnie walked down the hall I could hear the footsteps of Sam and her big brother walking about 12 feet behind us.

“Bye Donnie, Bye Max.” Sam’s voice echoed down the hall.

Two seconds later when I and Donnie had turned to wave goodbye at Sam was when I and he had made eye contact for the first time. The eye contact didn’t last very long and at the time it didn’t mean anything so as I recall it now it seems like a blur but I do remember that he was the one that looked away first. Maybe it was because he had heard the rumors that have been going around the school.

I haven’t heard all the rumors that are going around about me at school, so I don’t know if all of them are true, but I know most of them are. Sometimes I wonder if it was my old best friend who goes around spilling out the secrets that I had told him. Does he go around and saying those things because he’s still angry at me? … after a while I get those thoughts out of my head, because even though I hurt him a lot, he would never do something like that. I trusted Eduardo back then and I still do.

Every once in a while I would run into him in the school quad or in the halls but we would never speak to each other. It’s hard going to the same middle school and high school with someone you see practically every day but yet there is no word spoken.

When we were in the bus that afternoon on our way home, Donnie kept tugging on my shit, “Shoooooo I have to go peeeeeeee.” She whined over and over again until we go off the bus.

Donnie knows that my name, the first name I had before I became Max is Sho and she knows that I only let certain people call me that. So when she and I are in public she knows not to call me Sho, because then people won’t know who she’s talking about.

As we walked down the block from where the bus stop was located at I gave her the apartment key and I watched as she ran home trying to hold it in. “Make sure to close the door when you unlock the door!” I shouted to her. Usually when she’s in a hurry or distracted she leaves our front door open and whoever is walking up the stairs to the second floor can see everything inside our house because our apartment is the one located at the end of the hall facing the stairs.

Just as I reached our building I was receiving a phone call from one of my employers to my cell phone. At first I hesitated to answer knowing that I would have to give him an explanation. “I know, I know I said at six thirty, but I had a change of plans so it has to be at later this time today ok…” at that time I didn’t want to loose any of my employers, because having money was a critical and y mom was already a month late with the rent money, so even getting a less amount was better than nothing. “Tell you want. Since I’m the one that changed the time, I’ll only charge you half of what I usually do if you still want to come over, ok?”

I should have just told Donnie I was going to work today.

Just like any other day there was a light knock on the door at around nine. By then Donnie had fallen asleep watching TV. I took her in my arms, took her to our room and tucked her in, in her bed. Our apartment had two rooms, so she and I shared one and our mom had her own room.

The boy I had been talking to on the phone earlier was waiting anxiously as I opened the door. With one hand on the door, I placed my other hand lightly over the boys chest as he stepped foot inside the apartment. “Not here today ok.” I whispered to him.

Knowing that Donnie was going to be in the room right next to us after I had promised her I wouldn’t work gave me the creeps. I stepped outside the apartment and locked the door. Donnie’s safety is part of my top priorities. Ever since mom left our dad, I have felt responsible for her not having a father … Of course I don’t take care of her just because I have to, I take care of her because I love her. She’s my little sister and because of that I have always been honest to her like my parents were to me. Donnie is well aware that biologically we are not related, but legally she is my sister.

As I turned to face the boy he took my hand in his and smiled, “Where to then?”

That was the second time I had met up with this boy so I didn’t know much about him, only that he was 22. I knew that because when we had talked on the phone for the first time he asked me how old I was and when I told him, I guess he felt the need to tell me how old he was. I guess the seven year gap between our ages made him a little uneasy.

That night when I got home mom was sitting on the sofa watching the eleven o’clock new. She didn’t ask where I had been … she never did.

A couple of years back I had started working as a newspaper sales person, but I didn’t last very long, maybe about a week or so. My manager at the time had her fill out some work sheets where she gave me permission to work since I was a still a minor. I never told my mom I had quite that job, so every time I came home late she thought I had been selling newspaper. My newspaper manage had given my mom his cell phone in case she had a question, but she lost it.

When I started tutoring kids as my job I told her I had put my selling newspaper days on pause. When I would stop tutoring and start coming home late, my mom just figured I had gone back to selling newspaper. I would lie to her and tell her that I would alternate jobs because I would get bored easily and she believed me.

I sat down next down my mom on the sofa and asked my mom if she was tied like I always did every day. And like always she gave me the same answer, “Mijo, con solo mirar tus ojor azules y tu sonrisa, lo cansado se me quita. (Honey, with just looking at your blue eyes and your smile the tiredness goes away.)”

After saying that she would always get up off the sofa, hug me, kiss me on the forehead and smile at me before saying goodnight and heading to my room to kiss Donnie goodnight too and finally head into her room.

I love my mom a lot and even though I’ve been through a lot all these year, I’m just glad that she didn’t send me to an orphanage or to another family when she wound out that she was going to have Donnie.

Just before heading to bead that night I went into my moms room and under her alarm clock I placed three fourths of the money I had made that night.

*

The next week of school had its downs, its ups and now I was having another one of those down moments.

That day after running into Danny at Donnie’s elementary I started thinking; maybe I should go talk to him first. His sister Sam was Donnie’s best friend so that means I might run into him more often and I wouldn’t want those encounters to feel awkward …so maybe introducing myself to him might help…

Three days later at lunch when I was headed to the restroom, which was located all the way across the school yard, I saw him again. He was walking towards me and suddenly I started to panic. The distance between us grew shorter and shorter and I tried to keep my eyes away from his gaze but in the end as our paths crossed ours eyes met again. Instead or continuing on my way to the restroom, my whole body turned around and I faced his back. I reached to tap his shoulder, but my hand stopped half way to its destination and the only thing that came out from my mouth was a murmur, “Um…”

I retrieved my hand and lowered my gaze to the floor, thinking what now.

I thought he might have not heard me and it would have been a relieve because I didn’t know what to say next, but sadly he had heard me and when I looked up, thinking I was going to find myself standing there alone in the hall, he was facing me, his left brow arched.

“Uh,” I inhaled worriedly, thought racing through my minds. The only time my body had acted the way it was acting at that moment, was when I had confessed my love feeling to my first crush.

My heart started pounding faster when he said, “You’re Donnie’s brother, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” I found myself extending my hand out to him, “Max.”

That was my first Down in the week. He looked at my hand and shook his head, “I’m …” He inspected me starting at my feet until finally his eyes meet with mines again. “I’m Danny …”

With that said he shook his head two more times and turned around. As he walked out the building I felt so stupid and rejecter. After three years of loneliness in Jr. High, getting rejected on my first attempt to make a friend really hurt… I won’t lie, if at that moment I would have know that the reason I had pulled my hand away when I was reaching for him was because I was developing a crush for him and I didn’t want to make a bad first impression, I would have cried when he rejected my friendship, but I was used to feeling lonely so I just continued to the restroom; Who needs friends like him anyways.

The only good thing that had happened this week was when Ms. Woods told me that she had sent the story I had been writing to one of her friends who worked for a publishing company.

You can say that nothing special is expected from a depressed tenth grader who has sex for money, but I have always been pretty good at English. I had mentioned I was a tutor so I thought that might have given you a hint in the beginning.

Ms. Woods also told me that she couldn’t promise anything, that maybe my story might not even get read, but just knowing that she actually thought my writing was good enough to at least be sent in for a revision by a publisher made me feel … happy … proud of myself.

I had received that good news just yesterday and today like I had mentioned earlier I was about to receive my second bad news of the week.

When my English class was over Ms. Pilon had asked me if I could come by right after school. I didn’t think much of it at first. When I would write a new part to my story I would ask Ms. Pilon to read over it before I handed the final draft to Ms. Woods who would keep the story in folder for me in her class room. To me my writing was my most precious possession and having it in a school locked in a small closet made me feel safe.

“Max!” Ms. Pilon exclaimed when I arrived to her classroom. “You arrived at the perfect moment.”

“Really…” I asked smiling at her. As soon as I stepped into the classroom I knew this conversation was going to have nothing to do with my writing.

“Yeah,” she waved him over from his seat to her desk. “What do you think about tutoring Danny, huh,” She stud up and wrapped one arm around my shoulders, “ He needs tutoring at least three times a week and you have good experience in tutoring students with his need of help-”I tried to interrupt, “but-” but I failed.

“Come on Max,” She seemed let down when she saw hesitation on my face. She leaned in and whispered in my ear, “It’ll be worth it in the end.”

In other words she was trying to tell me that it was going to be a good pay. If it would have been any other person I’m sure I would have said yes as soon as she shared that information with me, but because I had to tutor someone who gave me the impression that they already hated me, I looked over to him to see if I could tell what he was thinking. To my surprised, he had his head lowered and it sort of looked like he was blushing. I don’t know if he was acting this way because his tutor was about to be someone who he had acted stupidly towards a couple of days prior or because I had just found out that he was so far behind in English that he needed tutoring at least three times a week.

Either way, this was a good opportunity for me so I ended up taking it. From that day forward I was to tutor a guy who I though I was developing a grudge for, on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays after school.

That night, it was one in the morning and I couldn’t go to sleep. I lay there on my bed clutching the bed sheets. I found it irritating not being able to stop thinking about him; his hair, his eyes, his two dimples you cant really see unless u look at him closely when he smiles …

“Ahhh,” I pulled at my hair over and over again I frustration. Why was I suffering over a guy I didn’t even know? He wasn’t that attractive, I mean I had seen cuter guys than him before and even kissed them. I’m not trying to brag but I have fair skin, I’m thin and I have long hair. I would say that I resemble an Asian girl and because of that I can get plenty of guys but the thing was all I want is guy’s money not their love.

I don’t think I want Danny’s love, just his touch, or even his eyes to dart my way and having him look at me without disgust.

Of course hearing that someone you know sells their body can seem disgusting. You would think, Aren’t they afraid of catching a disease?Of course I was that’s why I always used protection. If he didn’t use protection I would refuse my services.

Now you may ask yourself why I only provide my services to guys. It’s not that I don’t like women, I have nothing against them and I guess you would assume that after my mother left my father I would have grown fearful of other men, paranoid that they would want to hurt me like he did, but I wasn’t

I would like to say that because I wasn’t as traumatized as I should have been, is a good thing, but what if it means that there’s something wrong with me.

Ha, ha, ha. I have to laugh at that comment. How could I think that there’s nothing wrong with me when I sell my body for money.

I didn’t sleep much last night and the sensation I have of wanting to be with him still hasn’t gone away and the worst thing was that today I was going to help him with his English.

Early in the morning when I went to drop Donnie off at school, I took out my wallet and handed and handed her a dollar, but she just looked at my hand and shook her head. “Why don’t you want it?” I asked her, but she wouldn’t respond to me.

When I crouched down to meet her eye level, tear were welling up in the corners of her eyes. “You keep it,” she said pushing my own hand in which I had been holding the dollar in towards me.

“Don’t you want to buy a cookie in recess?” This time I folded the dollar bill and placed it in the pal of her hand and closed her and into a fist. I kept my own hand around her little first so the wouldn’t try to return it to me.

I explained to her my plan about the tutoring and tried my best to get her to understand that refusing to take the money I made wasn’t going to stop me from working, but everything I said went in through one ear and came out the other. At least once a week I had to give her that same talk.