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time. They forgot all that stuff as soon as the newspapers said there were drugs involved when the incident went down. The teachers all made little speeches about how much everybody would miss Bobby, but you could see it in their eyes that they believed all those lies in the paper and what they really wanted to say was, “See what happens to you when you waste your potential and take drugs?” And even though a bunch of kids tried to tell them that Bobby wasn’t buying, nobody paid any attention to them. The police and the newspapers and the television reporters all commentated and speculated that Bobby got caught buying a little recreational cocaine and
tsk tsk tsk
what a shame because he had so much potential. Even that Latina reporter from the TV station down in El Paso sat there in her sharp suit with her hair that doesn’t move and pretended like she knew what she was talking about.
    That’s when I stopped reading newspapers and watching the TV news because those guys are supposed to be investigative reporters but even an idiot like T.J. Ritchie could have made a better investigation than they did. All theywould have had to do was go to my neighborhood and stand on the corner and watch. And they’d see that black pickup with the black-tinted windows sitting right behind the bus stop. They’d see the bus pull up and all the kids start piling out the door and when the last couple of kids got off the bus, the door of that pickup would open and a real big guy in a black sweat suit with a black watch cap would get out and start walking behind those last kids. And the kids would walk a little bit faster and the blood in their ears would pound like that sound track from
Jaws
when the shark is circling the boat, getting ready to chomp their arms and legs off. And they’d see this one kid who was walking alone, like I made the mistake of doing a couple weeks after Bobby got popped. Then they’d see that big guy in the sweat suit grab that all-alone kid and put a gun up to his head and say, “Here’s the package. Here’s the address. Here’s the money. Deliver it or you’re dead.” And the kid would deliver the package because he wasn’t stupid enough to Just Say No. And the next day, that kid would get the message that if he didn’t show up on the corner and do another delivery, the cops would be knocking on his door to bust him for dealing drugs and they wouldn’t believe him if he told them about the black pickup and the gun because he’s a poor Mexican kid from a bad neighborhood, so the cops figure he’s theirs sooner or later and it might as well be sooner. And the kid would know that black truck would be waiting by the bus stop the next day, and he couldn’t say no to drugs, so that kid and his cousins would make a gang and he would never have to walk alone again.

CHAPTER 5
ME AND HARVEY CASTRO
    O KAY, HERE’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ME AND H ARVEY Castro who lives next door to me except it’s like we live on different planets. Harvey’s friendly and everything but we don’t hang together because he’s a senior at the regular school and I’m only a junior at the alt school. Plus, Harvey is from Nicaragua which doesn’t really matter except all the Anglo teachers think he’s Mexican because he has black hair and speaks Spanish. Most Anglos are like that but it isn’t their fault because they don’t get a very good education about us. In elementary school they probably learn the Mexican hat dance and color in the geography maps for South America and Central America and memorize where the coffee beans come from, but by the time they get to high school they don’tknow the difference between El Salvador and Ecuador. They read about two pages in the history books and then they forget all about south of the border except for the tequila and the drugs and the mariachi dancers and the coffee. This one time, Beecher told us she bought this special fair-trade coffee that was picked by people in Ecuador