The three Lost Boys mounted an abandoned train dock and climbed through a half-fallen brick wall into one of the factories. Up and down Sangamon Street, the kids of Providence looked on in wonder, except for Rogelio, who walked with tunnel vision a half block ahead of us, and Gustavo Rivera, who reached for the head of another unsuspecting first-grader.
At Eighteenth Place, we crossed over the tracks, walked one more block in total silence, then went our separate ways, Marcitos and Jorge to their fifth-grade classroom, Sergio and I to the sixth, and Rogelio to the sacristy of Providence of God Church, where he took prayer sessions before the beginning of every school day.
There had been a time before the Revelation readings, before Ms. Ramirez led processions, before the briefcase, when Rogelio was one of us. Back then his father was still around, and on our way home from school we would see him on the corner sometimes, talking with his partners. Rogelio would run up to him like a good son and his father would pick him up and whirl him around like a good father. Then he’d give Rogelio money and we’d cross the street to Paul’s Drug Store, where we’d buy Slim Jims and Cokes, which we then consumed on the broken concrete steps of the Dvorak Park public pool, pretending we were rich, smoking thin cigars, downing dark champagne.
We only ever knew his father from these scenes and the few things Rogelio had told us — how his father was rich, owned oil wells in Texas, had stock in Shell Oil. We all lied about our families. Sergio said his father was a millionaire cattle breeder in Mexico. I said my family had houses in California, that we could see the Hollywood sign from our backyards, some with better views of the sign than others. After hearing Rogelio’s lie, Sergio began telling kids at school that his father had stock in Shell Oil too. In the court-yard, when the girls asked me or Rogelio if what Sergio said was true, we always said it was, that all three of our fathers had stock in Shell Oil, that our families were part owners and that we all split profits. When asked why we weren’t living in the mansions we claimed to have, we pounded our chests the way the gangbangers did and claimed it was the neighborhood. That we had family here, even the people we didn’t like. And those listening always nodded in understanding.
Those days were full of talk. Talk about our favorite team, the Chicago White Sox, and the hated Chicago Cubs. Talk about where we wanted to visit when we got older: Alaska, Yellowstone Park, places we had researched in our school’s only set of encyclopedias, which were guarded by our school’s secretary, Ms. Margaret, in the main office. We talked about running away. Rogelio had mentioned his aunt who lived in Aurora. Aurora sounded like a nice place and I told Rogelio if he wanted to go I would go with him. Sergio laughed at us for thinking we would ever run away, and when we thought about it more, we knew he was right, and became embarrassed for thinking so childishly.
But Rogelio changed after his father left. In the beginning it was just the Revelation readings, which were fun because for a while we thought Rogelio was joking, the way he wrinkled his brow, the way he moved his arm stiff and strong. But then he started going to church even on Saturdays, our baseball days, our football days. He had become an altar boy and had to stay after school for practice. In the mornings he stopped going straight to class and instead showed up somewhere around third period, having missed most of the morning praying back in the sacristy. And finally, when we did talk to him, Rogelio talked about things we didn’t care about, religious things: You know that Brother Adam went to Providence when it was all Polish? Little by little Rogelio became someone else, someone we didn’t know except for what we remembered.
We continued listening to Rogelio’s mother. I showed up at my usual time two days later and found Marcitos there. Sergio had obviously passed word. We divided up the half hour between the four of us, Jorge keeping time on his father’s silver watch. At one point, Ms. Ramirez said, “I love you.” Marcitos was listening.
“She just said, ‘I-love-you,’” Marcitos said, inflecting the couple’s rhythm.
“Let-me-hear,” Sergio said. And they talked like that the rest of the morning. Even to Rogelio, who had become remarkably more distant in the past few days, walking even farther ahead of us, sometimes leaving us altogether.
“Your-mo-ther-still-lea-ving-ear-ly?” Sergio asked as we walked to school.
Rogelio said nothing.
“Hey,” I called out to Rogelio. “Remember they used to call you the Pope? Remember we were going to run away?”
Rogelio didn’t answer. When he passed the doors of Saint Procopius, he blessed himself. In routine, though we were a full city block behind him, we all did the same.
A week later I showed up at Sergio and Jorge’s building and found the front door open. Upstairs, their apartment door was open as well. I stepped in and tiptoed through the creaky living room, past the dripping kitchen. I opened the door to Sergio and Jorge’s room and saw the usuals, Jorge with the watch, Marcitos sitting on the bed, and Sergio with his stack of magazines. But there were three new kids there as well, one with the tube, now bent and velvety, to his ear, and the others on either side of him, watching Sergio flash his Penthouse scenes. I recognized one of the new kids from Morgan Street, a side street we often used on our way home from school. I hadn’t seen him since months before, but his face, especially his eyebrows, which were upturned in a perpetual scowl, had stuck with me as a mark of a person to avoid.
Sergio continued turning pages. “This is Carlos,” he whispered to me, nodding toward the kid with the tube. “And Joseph and Tony.” He took a breath. “I think I’m going to start charging.” He whispered this even quieter. He smiled and gave me a nod like I should agree with him.
“Jesse,” I said, introducing myself to Joseph and Tony. I skipped over the kid with the tube. Tony, the kid I remembered, pounded his fist to his chest two times as I shook his hand. It was Amor, insider gangbanger stuff, done to represent a Nation. Rowdy pounded his chest when he said what’s up to people. He was an old Racine-Boy. But Tony did it obviously, because he was a Morgan-Boy, or if he wasn’t, an older brother was.
“Are they doing it doggie-style?” I asked Carlos.
Carlos opened his eyes, his head still sideways. “How should I know?” he said. And those in the room began laughing.
We took turns. Two minutes each. Jorge keeping track on his father’s Timex.
We went through the order and the tube finally came to me. Ms. Ramirez and Rowdy were talking. I was trying to pick up their whispers, searching for the words I thought people in love might say—love, babies, marriage—but in the crowded bedroom, concentration was difficult. I breathed, put my hand over my open ear, closed my eyes. Still, I heard only the heavy rush of silence, and an occasional echo too distorted to be understood.
“Se fue la Virgen!” somebody cried in Sergio’s gangway. “Dios mio!” A door slammed. The sound of footsteps could be heard between buildings. Sergio stepped to the side window, saving with a finger his place in the Penthouse he was working on. I handed the tube to Tony and went to the window as well. Jorge and Marcitos followed.