Free Seeing Off the Johns by Rene S Perez II Page A

that she hadn’t cried, that she hadn’t done something foolish like making an angry scene.
    Riding back into town on the night before the start of the school year, Araceliremembered what hurt her most that day: the realization—as the Johns drove off with their police escort and the whole town cheering them on—that with Greenton’s king leaving town, she was no longer its queen. She was just a girl. Maybe she was more beautiful than the girls around her, but she was no longer any more special or remarkable than all of the prettiest girls in school who had come before her—girls who only ever seemed to get married and pregnant and fat, left with picture books and school annuals to show kids who don’t really care that their mothers were young once too, that they used to be beautiful.

School started on a Wednesday. Chon woke up early, not as tired as he should have been. Sammy Alba was taking advantage of the last days of Chon’s daytime availability and had scheduled him to work open to three on both Monday and Tuesday. Rocha was taking advantage of Chon working that shift on Tuesday too because he didn’t show up the night before. He called Sammy, and even Art in San Antonio, he claimed, but neither answered. Chon tried getting hold of Ana, but she didn’t answer, as had become her practice on her days off, especially now since Chon had stopped coming over. Chon did some half-hearted sulking and moaning to himself during his second shift at The Pachanga, but couldn’t get into it as, in the dead minutes and hours between customers, his mind wandered constantly to Araceli and the excitement of seeing her the next day.
    After the floors were swept and mopped, the cash in the register dropped into the one-way slot in the floor safe, his paperwork slid under the office door, Chon turned off the lights and locked the store up for the night. At home, his sleep was uneasy, restless.
    When he woke up the next morning, though he had already done so the night before, Chon showered. This was unlike him, and his parents noted it.
    â€œPito’s not even this excited about his first day of school,” his mother said.
    Chon ignored her, hoping that the real reason he was so excited wouldn’t beapparent to his parents or his brother—and certainly not to his classmates. Because what would that make him in their eyes? A predator? An opportunist? Chon wasn’t ready to recognize that in himself, much less in the angry, judging eyes of everybody within the walls of Greenton High—from its students to its teachers and administrators, to even its two janitors and three lunch ladies.
    He put on the new clothes his parents bought him and the Polo boots and Seiko watch, plus a dab of the cologne he had bought on a trip the family took to the mall in Laredo. He looked at himself in the mirror. The pricey acne medication he had also bought on that trip was working. His face was clearing, pockmarked and scarred, but no longer oily and red. The bedroom push-ups, backyard weight lifting, and daily glasses of chalky whey protein shakes he’d been drinking were bulking him up, little by little. On a good day, like this one, Chon could see the image before him in the shiny glass and let himself believe that he wasn’t too bad looking.
    Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance.
    Chon left the bathroom and made three tacos of the chorizo and egg his mother had woken up early to make. She didn’t do this often. Chon usually got breakfast on the way to school with his own money. Usually Pito was planted sleepily on a chair at the family dining table with a bowl of cereal in front of him and the morning’s news playing on the TV. This was a big day however. It was Chon’s first day of his senior year of high school and Pito’s first day at Greenton Junior High.
    Chon wrapped the tacos in a paper towel and walked to the door. Pito though was only halfway through his