This must be how people end up in straitjackets.
Video games! Yep, that will take my mind off things.
I click open Call of Duty on my computer. Slouch in my chair and try to loosen up. I shoot down enemy combatants with skill and avoid bullets. But it gets boring after a few minutes.
So I give Mortal Kombat a try. The character chart loads. There they are, twelve muscled fighters to choose from. Even Cassie Cage is crazy buff, her arms thicker than my legs.
I select my guy, Kano with that fierce red eye, and start kicking ass. But I can’t get into this game either. This alternate world isn’t shutting out the real one or soothing my reeling brain.
Although I’m winning, it’s like I’m not even playing. It’s like I’m watching somebody else kick ass.
I thumb the joystick and press the right combination of buttons for the finishing move. Watch as Kano kills off Trooper with a fatality.
Kano won, not me.
I was watching somebody else kick ass. That realization hits me harder than the slap from earlier. In video games I pretend to be all big and tough. That’s how I spend my time. Pretending.
Fuck this. I turn off the monitor and push myself up from the desk in a hot rage. It’s sizzling in my blood, making me pace around my small-ass room, hating myself and wondering what to do about my shit life.
When there’s a knock at the door, I damn near jump outta my skin.
“Come on, mijo,” Dad says, louder than the last two times. “Open up.”
Maybe Dad will know what to do. He is older and wiser. He does live for giving advice. Over an hour after getting home, I’m no less scared or confused than before. I have nothing to lose.
“I know what happened,” he calls in softly.
Yeah, right. He probably figures it was everyday teasing or something. My dad doesn’t go on the internet, doesn’t have a computer or tablet or smartphone. His dumb phone might be older than me.
He gives the door two more light taps. “Your aunt called and said she saw it on the bookface thing.”
Shit. I wonder which asshole cousin discovered and shared it.
I open the door.
There’s a sad worry showing in Dad’s eyes as he steps inside and sits on my bed. He’s wearing sleeping clothes—old shorts over thick calves and a faded gray T-shirt covering up a bit of belly. The rest of his body is muscle even though he’s never set foot in a gym.
“Who hit you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I start from the beginning, when I walked into the locker room carrying the soccer balls. Every word I speak makes my face burn with more shame, as if I’m living it all over again.
“Basically,” I explain, “the slap was recorded and posted on YouTube. They were watching it at the party. By now, the whole world has seen it.”
He doesn’t understand and will keep insisting so I let him watch the video. I open it on YouTube and turn away.
When the horrible fifteen seconds are over, Dad spins back around at me, his brow creased.
“Pinches malcriados,” he says, breaking his own no-cursing rule. But Ricky is so much worse than a fucking brat.
After shaking his head he says, “You should’ve told your coach or principal what happened.”
I say nothing. I’m waiting for him to get to the point.
“Why don’t you change with everybody else so you aren’t alone?”
What the hell is Dad talking about? I need some help here. A fix-it for my life or at least some clarity. Instead he tells me I should’ve done things differently. I should’ve changed around more people. I should’ve told somebody what happened.
There should be a rule about should’ve. Anyone who says that needs to lend you a time machine so you can zoom into the past to take their advice.
I’m done with Dad.
“I’m tired,” I say, though I’ve never been more awake. “I need to sleep.”
“We’ll talk to the school.” Dad gets up carefully and straightens his back with a groan. “That Ricky kid is going to get kicked out.”
At the doorway he turns back to look at me. His expression has gone sad.
“Listen, mijo,” he says, fixing his gaze on me. “It’s not a big deal.”
He doesn’t say it in that cheering-me-on way. He says it like it truly is not a big deal. Nothing to overcome.
The last bit of hope I had shrivels to nothing.
Why am I surprised? Dad thinks I have everything so easy just because my life is different than his was. He married my mom almost twenty years ago, so his papers are all in order and everything, but he sure had it rough for a while.
At my age he dropped outta high school to cross into this country. He survived the Rio Grande, then the sweltering Texas desert before hitchhiking to Florida. Here he worked construction in the middle of the summer. At night he slept under an I-275 overpass. All so he could support my sick grandmother and his two younger brothers.
And me at seventeen? I’m barely surviving high school.
But I also have struggles I didn’t ask for. He doesn’t know what it’s like to slink through the halls, eyes on the floor, nervous about being spotted by one of the cruel kids. When has he ever been shoved or kicked or slapped in the face?
When it comes to bullies, he’s the one who’s always had it easy.
“You don’t know how lucky you are to be big,” I say.
Dad studies my face. “What do you mean?”
“Remember when the new neighbors moved in last year?”
The burly man next door parked his truck half on our lawn, so his wife’s entire car could fit next to it on their driveway. Dad sent me over to ask the neighbor to move it so it wouldn’t damage our grass, just as it was getting green.
The man’s eyes swept me up and down and then he closed the door in my face. The truck stayed put.
So Dad went himself. From the porch I heard Dad say the words I did minutes before and saw him come back. A moment later the man walked out to park the truck along the curb.
“Remember that?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Dad says slowly, not getting it. I guess some people really don’t know how good they have it.
“You’re lucky that guys never mess with you.”
“You’re smart,” he says. “Your dedication will take you to college and far in life. That’s better than being strong or anything else.”
He’s trying to make me feel better with words because he can’t actually help me.
I sigh. “Whatever.”
He gives me a weak smile. “You’ll be fine, mijo. You’ll see.”
When Dad leaves and I close the door, Van Nelson is staring at me from the back of it. Another lucky man that bullies would never mess with.
On second thought, luck had nothing to do with it. Enzo mentioned earlier that Van Nelson wasn’t even muscular in the movie before Nightchaser. I guess he put in hours at the gym to make it happen.
Why didn’t I start lifting weights long ago? I could be the biggest guy in school. Getting respect instead of getting bullied.
I sit at my desk to find out how Van Nelson did it and luck out—there’s a short video online of his six-month transformation.
Holy shit! I can’t believe my eyes! He really was a regular guy. Without these before and after pics side by side like this, how would you know they’re the same person?