Free Mexican WhiteBoy by Matt de la Pena Page B

their horses move forward. He sees Sofia and Carmen and Flaca laughing with some security guard. But there’s no sign of Liberty.
    During his three or four hours at the fair, Danny’s drunk so much juice his stomach feels bloated and his head feels numb. He looks down, finds the Pepsi can still in hand. He goes to take another sip, but it’s empty.
    Sofia walks over, stands right in front of him with her hands on her hips. “You okay, cuz?”
    Danny looks up at her and smiles. “Yeah.”
    “You gonna be sick?”
    Danny shakes his head.
    “You wanna join us? We’re talking to the guy who’s sneaking us into the concert.”
    Danny shakes his head. “I like it here.”
    “You’re drunk as hell,” Sofia says. She calls out to Carmen: “Get over here, Carm. My cuz is blasted.”
    Carmen walks over and picks up Danny’s head, looks into his eyes. “Hello? Anybody home?”
    Danny reaches for her hand and kisses it.
    The girls laugh, and Sofia takes the can from Danny. “I think I better cut you off, cuz.”
    Danny laughs, too. Because when he thinks about the fact that he just kissed Carmen’s hand it’s hilarious. And the fact that she said “Hello? Anybody home?” is hilarious, too.
Everything
is hilarious. Sofia and her friend Carmen and the cotton candy being spun in front of them and the fact that he’s leaning against a fence in the middle of a fair, drunk.
    And when the girls walk back up to the security guard, Danny looks at the tops of all the rides in the distance, especially the frog ride. The one for little kids. And this time he actually laughs out loud. Because that frog ride is
hilarious
.
    He watches Raul, Lolo, Chico and Rene pimp up to the pitching booth, pulling dollar bills from their pockets.
His game!
He decides to get up and join them. He hasn’t pitched since he was back in Leucadia, the longest he’s gone without throwing a baseball since he was ten. He’ll just get up and join Sofia’s friends.
    But instead, Danny leans his head against the chain-link and closes his eyes. And for whatever reason, his mind goes right to the dream he’s been having for the past three years. The one about the hawk family.
    He’s running through the canyon by his old apartment, all by himself, and he comes up on a big tree. Two beautiful hawks are perched on one of the thick branches. He’s tired from running so he decides to sit down and watch the hawks for a while. Then he spots a little baby hawk, sees that the adult hawks are feeding it. They’re a family. It makes him feel incredibly happy for some reason and he just watches them for hours. But eventually he leans his head back against the tree and closes his eyes for a second so he can rest. But he must’ve been really tired because he doesn’t wake up until the next morning. He rubs his eyes and looks up into the tree but the hawks are gone. The whole family. He stands up and looks for them harder. Searches all through the branches. Even runs out into the field and scans the sky. But it’s no use. They’re gone. And he feels so sad, he goes back to the tree and gets in the same position he was in the night before. He tries to fall back to sleep. Thinks maybe if he can wake up all over again they’ll magically reappear.
    But he isn’t tired anymore. He tries taking long drawn-out breaths and counting sheep, but nothing happens. He’s still wide awake. And the hawks are still gone.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
    1
    Uno nudges Raul toward the carney, says: “Go on, big boy. Show ’em what you got.” He watches his boy pull two bucks from his pocket, derby money, and hand it over. Watches him get three baseballs in return and set them on the stand.
    The rest of the guys gather behind Raul and urge him on.
    Chico claps, says: “Show me the heat, Rah-rah.”
    “Put your weight behind it,” Rene says, turning to Uno for reinforcement.
    “Go ’head,
bola de pan
!” Lolo shouts.
    As Raul steps to the makeshift mound, Uno