ask.
âYeah,â Luis says. âIn my momâs room. She lets me use it whenever I want.â
âWhy donât we use that?â
âI canât explain it.â He points at the typewriter. âYou just gotta hit a key.â
He waits for me, so I do it. Thwack. An i snaps onto the paper.
âFeel that pop ?â Luis asks.
âYeah.â
âPretty cool, huh?â
âYeah.â
âYou ever feel a computer do that?â
âNo.â
âThatâs why weâre using the typewriter.â
He pokes the machine one finger at a time, searches for the next letter, then pokes again. He squints, concentrating on the searching and poking.
The only sound is the metal arms of the typewriter smacking the letters of our poem onto the paper.
I go use the bathroom.
Come back and watch Luis type for a while.
Get another root beer.
Return to more typing.
Finish the root beer.
Go to the living room and watch Pat and Vanna. Then Alex Trebek all the way to Final Jeopardy.
I head back to Luisâs room and wait until finallyâ finally âhe whips the paper out of the machine. And studies it.
âCheck this out,â he says handing me a page. âDoes it look done?â
I donât know what the hell done would look like. But I check it out and tell him it looks pretty cool.
âReally? You think itâs done?â
âYeah. I think so.â
âI think so too. I think itâs done ⦠for now.â
Â
BOUNCE
W EâRE FINISHED FOR THE DAY . I put my jacket on to go.
âWhat are you doing?â he asks.
âI thought we were done.â
âDone writing . Now we got to be able to speak the thing backwards and forwards. If we arenât one hundred percent confident, itâs gonna blow. No matter how good the poem is.â
I take my jacket off.
We start reading the poem out loud together. Itâs hard.
But I try my best. I stumble along.
Suddenly Luis waves his hands in the air and shouts, âStop. Hold the phone! This is slam poetry , Sam. This ainât old folksâ theater.â He smiles and says, âYouâre gonna put a guy to sleep with that kind of slop. Those words gotta BOUNCE , man! We gotta mean what we say and say it like we mean it. We gotta be rock stars! MCs, busting a funky flow with these lines. You dig?â
I do not dig. And I donât know whether to laugh or to run.
I look at Luis, and itâs clear he wants me to do this.
So I decide to laugh.
And to try.
âI dig,â I say. âIâll bounce.â
We practice reading the poem until itâs time for me to go home for real.
Luis makes me promise Iâll work on the bouncing.
I promise.
He says, âGood.â Then he grabs a pen and napkin off the kitchen table and starts making a little calendar.
âWhatâs that for?â
âWhen slackers are feeling fine, thatâs when they sit on their useless asses and stop working. And, yes, Iâm talking about you.â
The calendar is thirteen boxes, one for each day until the March 8 slam. In each box, he writes the hours Iâll be coming over to his place to work and the hours I need to practice alone at home.
âWhoâs the real Luis?â I ask him. âThe tough guy I see at school? Or the royal dork scheduling my poetry practice on a dirty napkin?â
Heâs immediately serious. âWhattaya mean?â
âI mean, uh, you just seem really different than at school.â
âHow do I seem at school?â he says, sounding pissed.
âNothing. Forget what I said.â
âHow do I seem, Sam? At school?â
âYou seem ⦠kinda toughââ
âTough and â¦â
âAnd, uhâyou knowânot like ⦠like a guy who would work on a project like this.â
âOkay. Let me get this straight.â He grips his hand tight on my shoulder and glares like he
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley