They called him Flaco.  "Hey Flaco, play us in pogo buey.  You're out Flaco!  You can't cruz the line!"

On his first day of third grade he had looked up at the teacher, Mrs. Mars, and told her what his name was.

"Daniel Morgan," she had called, scanning the room.

"You can call me Flaco."

She gave him a narrow look.  "Your name is Daniel," she said amidst a few chortles from the class.

"Yes ma'am, but you told us to tell you if we had a nickname, or if we went by another name."

"I know what I said, Daniel.  But I was talking about like if you wanted to me to call you Dan for short."

"Everyone here calls me Flaco."

"That is a Spanish word, Daniel.  It means skinny."  More muffled laughs.  Daniel looked around him without moving his neck.  
He looked down at his empty notebook.  He had written Flaco on the front cover.  He took his grainy graphite pencil and pressed 
it to the stiff paperboard.  Skinny.

Flaco wasn't skinny at all.  He was a broad little man, just like his father.  Not fat, but spacious.  Eddi and Carlos were his two
best friends.  They were brothers.  Eddi was older by about a year but they were all in the same grade.  Carlos and Daniel were 
in the same class with Mrs. Mars.

Their first meeting had been in first grade. Two months after Daniel's family moved into the little white house on 12th Avenue 
with the huge backyard, Carlos and Eddi had ridden by on their bikes.  Daniel was playing water Barbies with his friend Wendy 
in the dirt lot next to his house.  Wendy lived across the street.  Her parents were always tired, so they bought her a Barbie Splash 
and Sun Water Park and sent her outside with the hose.  Carlos and Eddi were on their way to Circle K to buy their dad a pack of
cigarettes when they saw Daniel wallowing in the mud with a totally nude Ken doll.  At six years old, he was pretty sure he had
been caught.

"Hey Carlos, look at this marica.  Hola chica."

Daniel froze, trying to look at them with his eyeballs.  Then he walked over to Wendy and dropped Ken in the Barbie fun 
pool as if he was totally bored with the whole situation.  Not knowing quite what to do next, he stooped down and started scraping
the mud out from in between his toes, never looking up at his new audience.

"Hey you.  Hey!  Hey!  Bueno, see you later, have fun with your girlfriend.  Vamos Carlos."
Daniel waited until they were at the corner before he looked up, watching them as they crossed the street and disappeared into a 
dusty alleyway.

After that, Daniel pretended not to notice when Eddi and Carlos rode by--until a summer day before second grade.  He was playing
baseball in the dirt lot with his little brother and a couple of kids from church.  Eddi and Carlos pedaled right onto the field and 
stopped.  Daniel waited for something horrible.  But nothing happened.  

"Can we play?" Eddi asked without showing the least bit of emotion.

Daniel just stared.

"Hey, can we play?  You know, baseball?"

Daniel shrugged his shoulders and nodded. 
 
"Yes?"  Eddi moved closer and bent down to look up into DanielŐs eyes, which were pointed at the ground.  "Yes?"

There was only one answer.  "Yes," Daniel said softly.  

"Yes?  Ok, yes.  We'll go get our gloves."

When they left, Daniel thought about going inside before they got back.  He knew that would only cause a bigger problem though.

It was awkward, but in the end they all played baseball.  And for the next year year they played almost every day.  Soon there 
were about twenty kids showing up regularly at the dirt lot.  And everyone knew that Eddi, Carlos and Flaco always played on the
same team.

Third grade was a pretty good year for Daniel.  He was always one of the first picks for kickball during recess.  He was quiet 
but respected for his athletic abilities and generally escaped teasing and torment by keeping a low profile.  Eddi and Carlos were 
good friends to have on the playground.  And their friends were even better.  It was rumored that their cousin, Cesar Lagos, had 
done it with Priscilla Fernandez, and broken her brother's nose with a beer bottle.

Baseball at the dirt lot had slowed down a bit, but the games became more competitive.  Daniel was a moderate hitter but an 
ace pitcher.  Eddi and Carlos were occasionally entertained by Daniel's mother who gave them Kool-aid and let them watch 
TV in the family room.  The three boys climbed the giant tree in the backyard, threw moonberries at cars, and punished the 
neighbor's cat for leaving turds in the sandbox.

But Daniel never went to Eddi and Carlos's house.  And one day, it began to fill his mind.  He didnŐt know what their parents 
or their sisters looked like, what they ate for dinner, or even where their house was.  He knew it was only five or six blocks away,
somewhere over by the canal where a first grader drowned last year, close to the old park.  He had been invited there several 
times by Carlos, but those were always the days when Daniel's mom needed him around the house to take care of his little brother.

During Christmas break that year, Daniel asked his mom why he could never go to Eddi and Carlos's house.  She was mysteriously
vague, and Daniel's curiosity turned into a tidal desire.

On a Saturday in early April, his mother asked him to go to Ace hardware and get a bucket of white paint.  She was painting the 
bathroom and was going to run out before long, so she gave him a five-dollar bill and sent him on his bike.  The store was only 
three blocks away, but it was in the direction of Eddi and Carlos's house.  He ran outside to the dirt lot where a handful of kids 
were playing baseball.  Carlos agreed to go with him, but said he didn't want to go in the store.  On the way there, Daniel asked 
him if they could go over and see his house.  Carlos shrugged.

When they got to Ace, Daniel went in and got the paint.  While inside, he happened on his favorite part of the store, the pet section.
He wanted to spend a few minutes browsing the small rodents and fish, so he ran outside and tried to get Carlos to come in and look.

"No, you go.  I'll stay here."

"But Cacho, we'll just be there for a minute.  I want you to see the rats.  And they usually have an iguana with a huge tail.  Come on."

Carlos was silent.  He wanted to go.  He followed Daniel into the store with his hands in his pockets and his head down.

In the pet section it smelled like Wendy's house.  Daniel had been begging for a pet for months.  He wanted a dog, but would probably
have to settle for something smaller.  As they stood watching a nest of pink hamsters cram in for their mother's teats, Carlos stepped
away and headed towards the aquariums.

A loud voice shot in from the door.

"Get your hands out of your pockets!"

A skinny, brown-haired man with tiny eyes was standing at the threshold to the plumbing section, glaring at them.  Daniel looked 
down and saw his own hands hanging at his side.

"Hey!  Listen to me beaner.  Stand still and take your hands out of your pockets!"

Carlos stood stiff, hands in his pockets, his brown face dull and loose.  The man blew air out of his nose and stepped forward,
grabbed Carlos's arms and yanked them out of his pants.  His hands grasped Carlos's thighs as he felt his pockets with his thumbs.

"Get out, the man said.  Back to your hole."  He raised a long bony arm and pointed to the automatic door.

Carlos didn't move.  Daniel could read nothing on his face.  The only movement was coming from his chest heaving beneath 
his ragged red t-shirt.  Daniel couldnŐt tell if he were about to cry or slam the skinny manŐs nose right off his face.  Suddenly 
he jerked forward, his right leg leading the way with the rest of him following right past the man and out the door.  He never
looked back.

Daniel watched the man grunt and retreat back into the main part of the store, disappearing into a maze of pvc pipe and sprinkler 
heads. He never even glanced at Daniel.

Carlos was gone.  Daniel got on his bike, hung the paint can on his handlebars, and rode home.

In April, the sun began to really burn and the wind left.  Sometimes at lunch Daniel sat with Wendy under the eaves of the cafeteria
and ate peanut butter and jelly with his back against the wall.  Carlos and Eddi never seemed to be around at lunch anymore.  They
still played pogo and baseball and kickball sometimes, but not always on the same team.  Daniel often thought about the hardware 
store.

One day Daniel was reaching into his brown bag to pull out his lunch when he felt something land on his shoulder.  He reached up 
and pulled down a sticky brown banana peel.  He could smell the moldy sweet odor lingering on his clothes and hands.  His heart 
began to pound.

"Hey pendejo, you know I banged your girlfriend."

Daniel didn't need to know what that word meant to know what they were talking about.  He sat still as Bari Salgado and some 
of his friends continued to laugh and yell from the corner of the building.  Daniel stood up, and as soon as he did, Bari began to 
walk towards him.  His heart began to stomp.  Bari was a fifth grader.  He was friends with Cesar Lagos and hung out under the 
pine trees at the far end of the field.  Sometimes Eddi and Carlos hung out there too.

Bari stopped right in front of Daniel and breathed into his face.  Then he grinned and looked past him to Wendy who was still
sitting with her sandwich in her hands.  He stepped around Daniel and stood in front of Wendy.

"Hola mi amor."  He reached down and picked up Wendy's skirt and threw it in her face, briefly exposing her splotchy, pudgy
legs and white cotton panties.  He laughed loud and hard as he stumbled backwards, his friends wide-eyed and snickering a 
few yards away.

Daniel looked hard at Bari and made a tight ball with his lips. He knew he should say something, but he really didn't want to.
He was hoping the whole situation would somehow disappear.  Then a word came into his mind, one he had heard his dad use
before.

"Stop it, you faggot."  The words were awkward for Daniel and everyone could tell.

"What?  What did you say, little hueco?  I don't think you should have said anything.  You're the faggot, cabron.  I'm the
one with your girlfriend, remember?"

Daniel had seen this same scenario played out before on the blacktop with other kids, and he began to brace himself for 
what would come next.  But then something happened that was even worse than Bari's clumsy punch coming down on the
side of his head, something that emptied him out completely.  As he went down, Daniel saw Carlos. He was leaning against 
the wall near Bari's friends.  He wasn't laughing or shouting, or even looking at Daniel.  His face was calm like it was in the 
hardware store, his gaze fixed on something farther away behind Daniel.  Something Daniel couldn't see.

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Copyright © 2005 by Calaveras Station and the CSUS English Department.