Mexican WhiteBoy Read Free Page A

ball in and out of his glove a couple times as he follows Sofia with his eyes as she walks off the playing field.
    “Ready, Biscuit?” Uno shouts, turning back to Raul.
    Raul nods.
    2
    Uno tosses the first pitch.
    Raul doesn’t move his bat off his shoulder, lets the tennis ball cross the plate unharmed.
    “Wha’chu want?” Uno shouts. “Why you always scared to swing the bat?”
    “Nah, I just needed one to get my timing,” Raul says.
    “That’s really gonna matter, Biscuit? You never hit more than two in a Saturday. I got six right now. Do a little math, baby.”
    “You ever think maybe today’s my day?”
    Uno scoffs, looks back at Chico, who shrugs.
    Sofia shakes her head, says to Danny, “Uno talks so much shit. I can’t even handle it sometimes.” She pulls her cell out of her bag, flips it open to check a text. Closes it back up. “He’s got all these other
vatos
talkin’ shit, too. They all think they’re black now.”
    They watch Raul swing at the next pitch, hit a little dribbler a few feet in front of his Timberlands. Uno rushes the tennis ball, scoops it and fires it at Raul as he’s rumbling toward the garage door. The ball smacks him right in the ass. Raul trips and falls to the ground, clutching the back of his jeans.
    Everybody on the lawn falls over laughing.
    Danny and Sofia laugh, too.
    “You’re outta there!” Manuel shouts from the tailgate.
    Raul rolls over, cringing. “Damn, Uno. Why you gotta throw it so hard?”
    “I thought you was gonna make it.”
    Raul struggles to his feet, shaking his head. He makes his way back to the plate. Picks up the bat and wipes his sweaty forehead on his shirtsleeve. He reaches around and rubs the back of his jeans a little, then flips Uno off.
    Uno and Chico slap hands, laughing.
    Sofia turns back to Danny, still grinning. “Rules are like this,” she says. “Each guy gets only one time hitting. And only two outs. You make an out when somebody either catches it on the fly or pegs you—like Uno just did Raul. If you make it to the garage door before they hit you, though, it’s not an out. Whoever hits the most over the roof wins.”
    Danny nods.
    Sofia links arms with her cousin again as Raul steps back up to the trash can lid. He spits in the direction of Uno because Uno’s still bent over laughing. But all that does is make Uno laugh even harder.
    Danny peeks back over his shoulder at the Mexican girl with the little boy. She’s reading a magazine now. Her legs crossed, hair pulled back in a rubber band.
    He feels the knot again. And for the first time he wonders if maybe it’s because she’s so pretty. There was only a couple Mexican girls at Leucadia Prep, and none of them looked like this.
    He turns back to the lawn as Raul pops one in the air. The ball doesn’t get much lift, and Skinny Pedro brings it in easy.
    Uno immediately aims a finger at Danny, barks: “You up, GQ.”
    3
    Pulling a couple fresh tennis balls from the mailbox, Uno shouts over his shoulder at Danny, “Where you want these, first-timer?”
    Danny grips the bat, shrugs.
    “Come on, dawg. You want ’em low? A little inside so you could pull it? Right down the middle? Talk to me.”
    “Just throw it already,” Sofia pipes up from the sideline.
    “It don’t gotta be all technical like that.”
    “I’m tryin’ to hook your boy up, Sofe. Tryin’ to be nice for once,
damn
.” Uno turns back to Danny, says, “What’s it gonna be, homey?”
    Danny loosens his grip on the bat and forces a smile. He shrugs again, stares at the duct tape and wonders how he’s gonna pull this silent thing off down here. Back in Leucadia, he made a pact with himself. No more words. Or as few as he could possibly get away with. When his dad spoke at all, he mostly spoke Spanish, but Danny never learned. All he had was his mom’s English. And he didn’t want that anymore. Up in Leucadia it was easy. Nobody paid him any attention anyway because he was Mexican. He roamed the