Everybody Wants To Be A Gangster

Chapter 7

“What have you been doing lately?” I said.

“Just studying, talking to friends, and hanging out with you”, she said.

“Did you get in trouble last time you hung out with me?” I said.

“No”, she said quickly.

I saw her panic a little. She clearly didn’t want to talk about it. I wonder what’s wrong.

“Do you want anything?” I said changing the subject.

“Sure. An ice cream would be good”, she said smiling gratefully.

I went through my backpack to find some money. When I was done I went to the ice cream stand not bothering to close my backpack. When I came back Natasha had the drawing I made of her in her hands. Hijo de tu madre. Shit. What am I going to do now? She looked up with a smile on her face.

“Is this drawing of me?” she asked.

“Yeah. It was a project”, I lied.

“It’s great. I love it. What was the project about?” she said curious.

“We had to draw a friend” I lied again.

I didn’t feel good lying to her.

“Oh”, she said.

For a minute it looked like she was disappointed that I said friend. I’m probably imagining it though.

“Can I keep it?” she said.

“Yeah”, I said.

“Can you sign it for me too?” she said looking at me hopefully.

“Sure”, I said getting a pen out and signing it.

“You should become an artist”, Natasha said.

“Gracias”, I said looking away.

After a while it became less awkward and we chilled out. Every time I’m with her I have a great time. Then we had a comfortable silence. She looked at my face closely.

“Did someone hit you?” she asked.

“Yeah I got into a fight because this guy started it”, I said and flinched when she touched me where my bruise is.

“You shouldn’t be fighting Gustavo. You’ll just get in trouble and get hurt”, she said worried.

“I’m okay. He provoked me by hitting me by hitting me first”, I said.

I felt a little ashamed because for her I probably want to become a better person.

“Promise me that you’ll try to stay out of trouble”, Natasha said.

“Lo prometo”, I said smiling.

We talked aimlessly about things. It was an hour later when I told her I had to go. I walked her to her house. When we got there for some reason she didn’t want me really close to her.

“Adios Gustavo”, she said.

“Adios”, I said.

As I was walking to my place I wondered why she acted so weird when we are around her house. When I entered the house I saw Antonio watching TV.

“Was up”, I said.

“Hey”, he said not looking away from the TV.

“I feel so loved”, I said sarcastically.

“Yeah, do you have homework?” Antonio said.

“Surprisingly, today I have none”, I said.

“Good because we’re going to see the gang today. They won’t shut up about you, kid. They miss you”, Antonio said ruffling my hair.

“Bato, déjà my pelo en pas”, I said smacking his hands away.

He just chuckled at me. I left my stuff and we headed to our spot. When we got there everybody started giving me hugs and saying hey. As soon as everything calmed down we started chilling. I went to Jose. We did a man hug.

“Hey bato”, Jose said.

“Hey man. I missed being here”, I said.

“We missed you too. Who else would be the clown?” Jose joked.

“Shut up”, I said trying to hold back a smile.

Jose saw right through me. We started laughing and joking around. Antonio started talking and everyone shut up.

“We’re gonna do a little art around the city”, Antonio said.

Everyone was excited. We love to do graffiti. I almost forgot. Alonzo’s gang is after us. I have to tell Antonio. I went to Antonio and got him alone.

“What’s wrong?” Antonio said.

“There is this guy in my school named Alonzo and his gang is after us”, I said.

“Don’t worry. I’m going to warn our familia to watch each other’s backs. If we have to then we’ll prepare and fight them”, Antonio said fiercely.

Antonio cares a lot about us. We don’t know much about his past but he only has us for a family. He gathered us together again and he made the announcement. When everyone got warned we grouped up in separate groups and went our own ways to find walls to paint.

Finally uploaded again. I’m kind of busy with my other book too and school so I’ll try to upload as much as I can. Here are some translations:

Gracias-thank you, lo prometo-I promise, bato-dude, adios-bye,  Bato, déjà my pelo en pas-dude, leave my hair alone, Hijo de tu madre- son of your mother (it’s pretty much used as a cuss phrase in Spanish)