Donnie wasn’t knocked out, only down. He stayed down for a few moments, but stood before Mr. Bollars got to him. Mr. Bollars told Rubin to call formation as he took Donnie to his office to clean off his face. During formation, I stood in the front row.
“You still got the drawing?” Rubin asked after formation.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t let it get found. That thing’s got my name on it.”
His name? I hadn’t seen Rubin’s name on it.
Dad and Mr. Lopez were speaking when Rubin and I walked up. “You did good, son.”
“You straightened out those punches,” Mr. Lopez said.
Dad leaned over to me and whispered: “Ask Rubin if he wants to come over tomorrow.”
“Rubin, you want to come over tomorrow?” He didn’t answer and neither did his father. I decided to go for the hard sales pitch. “We can jump on the trampoline and swim in the pool.”
Rubin smiled and looked to his father, who said, “What time should I drop him off?”
We decided on eleven in the morning. We’d spend the day together.
That night, after my parents were asleep, I shut my bedroom door part of the way, just enough so that Dad or Mom couldn’t see the glow from my closet light. I opened the Monopoly box and held the drawing in front of me. In the lower right corner was Rubin’s name written in tiny cursive letters. Without Rubin telling me, I might have never seen his name.
Rubin was the first friend I was having over since James and Roger had pinned me on the trampoline. At ten that morning I began checking for the Lopez car. I didn’t see it, but I peeked out front every ten minutes or so, hoping they’d arrive a little early. On my last look for them, I saw James and Roger across the street in their grandparents’ front yard, throwing a baseball.
Rubin didn’t arrive early; in fact, he made it closer to noon. Mrs. Lopez didn’t make the trip with them, and I think that disappointed Mom. She had dusted and vacuumed that morning and was prepared to show Mrs. Lopez a spotless house without plastic on the furniture. Mom spoke to Mr. Lopez and Rubin for a few minutes before going to the greenhouse.
“Call me when you’re ready for me to come pick him up,” Mr. Lopez said.
“I might decide to keep him,” Dad said, laughing. A man afraid of his own son being kidnapped, but he joked about doing it to someone else’s son.
Rubin and I went straight to the trampoline. I wanted to put off the pool as long as possible. I only had to take off my shoes for the trampoline. But for the pool, I’d have to take my shirt off, and with my chest, I was in no hurry. He jumped high and performed flying kicks like Bruce Lee. Rubin was too good to believe.
I heard Pal and Mountie barking at the front gate, where James and Roger were. Pal was on his hind legs and Mountie was poking his head in the space where the two sides of the gate met.
“Can we jump on the trampoline with y’all?” Roger asked.
“Did you call and ask Dad?”
“We were going to, but we saw you outside on the trampoline and decided to come on over,” Roger said.
Roger and James knew how Dad was, so they understood the importance of Rubin, a face they hadn’t seen before, at the house, and they came over to see who was threatening their privileged position as my only friends. I held the dogs while Roger and James met Rubin at the trampoline. Rubin and Roger were about the same age and I was afraid they would hit it off and leave me having to entertain James. Rubin eyed Roger and James as if he didn’t trust them.
“Rubin and I take tae kwon do together,” I said.
“When’d you start taking tae kwon do?” Roger asked.
“A while back.” I didn’t tell them that they were the reason. That was when it hit me: aside from my parents and the people at the dojo, Roger and James were the first people to know I was taking tae kwon do.
We all jumped on the trampoline, minus the fancy kicks, in silence. Since no one was talking, and I was the host, I decided we should play a game, a game in which I could get back at Roger and James for embarrassing me in front of Dad. He was in the house now, but I knew he was watching us and I was going to show him that his investment was paying off.
“Y’all want to wrestle?” I asked. “Me and Rubin against you two.”
“Why do you get Rubin?” Roger said.
“Because that’ll even out the ages,” I said. “One older, one younger.”
“But what about size?”
“James is the smallest,” I said, “so no matter what, there’s going to be one pair that has two big people.”
“I don’t wanna wrestle,” James said, breaking his silence. “Let’s play baseball, two-on-two.”
“What’s the matter, you scared?”
Without uttering a word, he dove and caught me around the neck; he strained and struggled and cursed a few times, but I didn’t fall. While he held on to my neck, I lifted him above my head and dropped him behind me. With all of us standing on the trampoline, the surface was taut and rigid, and I heard James grunt as he landed on his back.
Roger, paying attention to us, was caught off guard by a leg sweep from Rubin.
“That ain’t wrestling!” Roger yelled. “Play by the rules.”
“Ain’t no rules in wrestling,” Rubin said. And to prove his point, Rubin, before Roger could get up, jumped on him, rolled him on to his belly, and made a half-cross with Roger’s legs.
I was in awe of Rubin’s skill—he definitely beat Roger to the fuck. But while I was gaping in amazement at Rubin, James grabbed my legs from the back and rolled me over, holding me with my feet up and my shoulders pinned. To make matters worse, he rose to his knees and applied extra pressure on me. It was difficult to breathe and I didn’t know how I was going to get out of the fix. I feared that this would be the moment when Dad would emerge from the house, the moment when I was on my back and twisted like a cheap pretzel.
Rubin left Roger and pulled James off me and hip tossed him onto his older brother, where they lay one on top of the other in a human X.
“I’m gonna tell your daddy,” James said.
“Tell him what?” I said.
“How y’all are being mean to us.”
“We’re only wrestling,” I said.
“You guys can’t take it, so you’re gonna go tell?” Rubin said.
“We can take it,” Roger replied, “but can you?” He pointed at me. Roger the big brother was taking charge and taking back their respect. “Come on, rich boy.”
Roger knew that calling me “rich boy” would make me fight him. I jabbed, caught him right on the nose, which I felt between my first two knuckles, and snapped his head back. The punch startled Roger, and I knew I had broken the wrestling rule: no punches. Now all bets were off and it was truly a free-for-all. Roger punched back, a wide looping cross that took forever to get to me, and when it did, I simply blocked it with my forearm and countered with a punch to the ribs that dropped Roger.
James rolled his brother off the trampoline and helped him put on his shoes. “You buy your friends,” James said. “You damn little rich boy.”
I started jumping on the trampoline, going higher and higher, until, with a final bounce, I sprang over their heads and landed in front of them. Roger was standing and holding his side, and James sat on the ground tying his shoes.
“What’d you call me?” I said.
“Damn little rich boy,” James said. “You’re spoiled too.Trampoline, swimming pool....”
His knees were up, his legs spread; his crotch was an open target and I stomped it. James let out a scream that made me think all the life had left his body.