their cigarettes out in the overflowing ashtray. Raul steers slowly up the side drive toward the front doors, scanning the parking lot.
Fucking midnight, he thinks, and look at this. Too busy. Too many cars. People.
"Just relax," Jesus says. "Just drive."
It's always been like this. Jesus was born first, ten minutes, and their mother says he came out breech, his arms thrown over his head like he was reaching up for Raul. Ever since, it's as if he's decided never to let go again. When it comes to his twin, Jesus refuses to miss out on anything, even a thought. He hears them all.
Strange as it is, Raul doesn't mention Jesus' hold on him, not to his younger brother, Eduardo. Not to the gringos he sweats with six days a week, hunched beneath the sun tying iron, lacing and weaving rebar up on that half-finished bridge so the mixers can pour the concrete. His day job. The one that pays rent, buys groceries. The restâthe stereo and the new blue paint for the LeMans, the two-tone roach-killer shoes like the old Pachucos used to wearâit's all from these rides with Jesus. Jesus who knows everything. Everything. What he's thinking, man.
About this, he tells only Monica. Because she licks her lips when she listens. Because she shines, brown like new pennies. Because she keeps her fingernails long and red and runs them together like a rake through his pubic hair when he's finished. For her, he'll tell, and one night he does. He gives her ear a little bite, leans in close to whisper it. "He hears what's between my ears, baby. Motherfucker always knows. Always."
"When you think about me?" she says. "Even then?"
He runs his tongue down the outer ridge of her ear. "And when would that be, baby?"
Now Jesus points, says, "Quit thinking 'bout your little split-tail, man. Business before putas, vato. Look here, what we got."
And there they are, easy pickings, coming up on Raul's side of the car. It's luck of the draw, he knows, but twice this month they've been on his side, no time to circle around, so he has to snatch
and
drive.
He takes his foot off the gas, lets the Pontiac ride the idle. "You crazy? They got a baby, man."
"
She
don't. All she gots is a purse."
Â
Years later, Tim Tilden will teach his boy to drive. He'll rush home from a hot day spent cooped up in his mail Jeep and watch his son's fluid fadeaway move beneath the basketball hoop he'd mounted on the garage for the kid's twelfth birthday, when Timmy insisted he be called Tim, just Tim, like his father who now, fifteen years after Natalie's death, will stand there in the driveway jingling his truck keys in his hand, wondering how many times she would have confused them both by calling their shared name, how many times they both would have answered from the living room when she piped up from the kitchen, "Tim, could you give me a hand in here?"
After the boy shoots his final jump shot, rimming it in, he'll turn to his father, wink, and grab his shirt from beside the old metal garbage cans where he'd thrown it an hour before. Tim will look at his son, at the man he's become, at the hard muscles of his shoulders and the confidence of his long strides. He'll smile at the idea that, way back when, he'd questioned a newborn's masculinity.
Father and son, they'll carry the cans out to the street, pace off ten steps and set the cans next to the curb, thirty feet apart. In the truck, Tim Tilden will show the boy the basics of parallel parking. He'll explain that this is where the SOBs get you, that this is the part of the driving test where most people lose their cool, that it's all confidence and finesse, and that any man worth his weight can do it with his eyes closed. The boy will line the truck up, stretch his arm across the seat top as he looks back, angling between the cans, and when he begins to straighten up, he'll wink once more at his father. He'll be in, first try, no problem, but when he moves his foot for the brake, something will go wrong. He'll
Fucking midnight, he thinks, and look at this. Too busy. Too many cars. People.
"Just relax," Jesus says. "Just drive."
It's always been like this. Jesus was born first, ten minutes, and their mother says he came out breech, his arms thrown over his head like he was reaching up for Raul. Ever since, it's as if he's decided never to let go again. When it comes to his twin, Jesus refuses to miss out on anything, even a thought. He hears them all.
Strange as it is, Raul doesn't mention Jesus' hold on him, not to his younger brother, Eduardo. Not to the gringos he sweats with six days a week, hunched beneath the sun tying iron, lacing and weaving rebar up on that half-finished bridge so the mixers can pour the concrete. His day job. The one that pays rent, buys groceries. The restâthe stereo and the new blue paint for the LeMans, the two-tone roach-killer shoes like the old Pachucos used to wearâit's all from these rides with Jesus. Jesus who knows everything. Everything. What he's thinking, man.
About this, he tells only Monica. Because she licks her lips when she listens. Because she shines, brown like new pennies. Because she keeps her fingernails long and red and runs them together like a rake through his pubic hair when he's finished. For her, he'll tell, and one night he does. He gives her ear a little bite, leans in close to whisper it. "He hears what's between my ears, baby. Motherfucker always knows. Always."
"When you think about me?" she says. "Even then?"
He runs his tongue down the outer ridge of her ear. "And when would that be, baby?"
Now Jesus points, says, "Quit thinking 'bout your little split-tail, man. Business before putas, vato. Look here, what we got."
And there they are, easy pickings, coming up on Raul's side of the car. It's luck of the draw, he knows, but twice this month they've been on his side, no time to circle around, so he has to snatch
and
drive.
He takes his foot off the gas, lets the Pontiac ride the idle. "You crazy? They got a baby, man."
"
She
don't. All she gots is a purse."
Â
Years later, Tim Tilden will teach his boy to drive. He'll rush home from a hot day spent cooped up in his mail Jeep and watch his son's fluid fadeaway move beneath the basketball hoop he'd mounted on the garage for the kid's twelfth birthday, when Timmy insisted he be called Tim, just Tim, like his father who now, fifteen years after Natalie's death, will stand there in the driveway jingling his truck keys in his hand, wondering how many times she would have confused them both by calling their shared name, how many times they both would have answered from the living room when she piped up from the kitchen, "Tim, could you give me a hand in here?"
After the boy shoots his final jump shot, rimming it in, he'll turn to his father, wink, and grab his shirt from beside the old metal garbage cans where he'd thrown it an hour before. Tim will look at his son, at the man he's become, at the hard muscles of his shoulders and the confidence of his long strides. He'll smile at the idea that, way back when, he'd questioned a newborn's masculinity.
Father and son, they'll carry the cans out to the street, pace off ten steps and set the cans next to the curb, thirty feet apart. In the truck, Tim Tilden will show the boy the basics of parallel parking. He'll explain that this is where the SOBs get you, that this is the part of the driving test where most people lose their cool, that it's all confidence and finesse, and that any man worth his weight can do it with his eyes closed. The boy will line the truck up, stretch his arm across the seat top as he looks back, angling between the cans, and when he begins to straighten up, he'll wink once more at his father. He'll be in, first try, no problem, but when he moves his foot for the brake, something will go wrong. He'll
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