Ch. 20 – Rico
“ C an I have an eleventh worst character trait for Rico?” his cameraman, Chuck, asked as we pulled up in front of the San Diego Zoo. I was happy to allow it.
“He never carries any of the equipment,” Chuck stated as we watched Torres swagger toward the front of the zoo, leaving us behind.
Rico sank further into his mother’s couch as shame burned down his throat like a gallon of sriracha sauce. This was, roughly speaking, his twentieth read-through of Jax’s profile piece, and it wasn’t getting any sweeter with age.
The article was a straight-up character assassination. The woman should be brought up on murder charges immediately. And the worst part of it all? Jax was actually a damn good writer. Hilarious in parts, uncomfortably probing in others, the article was all-around compelling.
She’d been more than fair in her coverage of his confrontation with Jeff Turnbill, which she’d evidently witnessed against his clear instructions. For a few brief paragraphs in the middle of the article, she’d painted him as something other than a self-obsessed buffoon. Through her eyes, he’d almost seemed heroic .
And then the tide of the article had turned back to salacious roasting, culminating in her receipt of the tennis dress. Rico clicked out of the article and dropped his phone onto the couch next to him. A green plastic ball rolled at a leisurely pace just past the tips of his socked feet. Sancho paused within the ball, looked at Rico for a moment, then continued his journey to the other side of the room. Through the window into the backyard, Rico could see his mother hanging a load of laundry from a line. He’d bought her a dryer two years ago, but she never used it. The clothesline had always been good enough before, and it was evidently still good enough now.
Emotions sloshed inside him. Anger and humiliation battled for dominance, with resentment wading into the fight. On the sidelines, hurt oversaw the struggle, orchestrating every punch and kick.
Is this how Jax really saw him? As just some pompous blowhard who viewed her as a good lay instead of a real person? Anger sucker punched humiliation. He was nothing like the silly, narcissistic caricature she’d painted.
Or was he?
Rico’s gaze swung to the horrendous family photo on the wall. His father’s eyes, cold and judgmental, carved into him.
You’d agree with her, wouldn’t you, Padre? Rico thought.
Silly. Vain. Weak. Hadn’t those been the words his father threw at him so often? It’d all added up to a singular conclusion. Not good enough.
And you were? Rico argued with his father’s ghost. You were always working but we could still barely get by. Elena and I had holes in our shoes. Mamá had to put things back at the grocery store. You never owned anything of value in your whole life.
Even this tiny house had been a rental until he and Elena had scrounged enough money to make an offer to the owner. Speaking of the diabla, the front door swung open, and Elena tromped inside, reusable grocery bags swinging from her arms.
“Oh, you’re here.” She paused for just a moment before continuing through the living room into the kitchen.
Rico craned his neck. “Hey,” he called to his sister. “You didn’t happen to read some dumb article about me in the East County Caller , did you? I mean, probably not. Who even reads that rag, right?”
Elena popped her head into the room. She grinned.
Shit.
“Oh my GOD, of course I read it! It was amazing. I sent it to everyone I know.” She laughed while stepping around the green plastic ball. “That writer got you spot on. She’s my hero.” Elena crossed the room and opened the front door. “Do you know if she has a fan club? ’Cause I want to join.”
“Are you kidding me?” Rico jumped up from the couch and followed Elena outside. “She makes me seem like a complete bastard.”
“And?” His sister hauled more grocery bags from the trunk of her small hatchback. Her frizzy hair stuck to the back of her neck in the heat of the day.
“And it’s not true!”
“So you didn’t send her a pink frilly tennis dress?” Elena shuffled several grocery bags in her arms.
“It wasn’t that frilly!”
“Mm-hmm.” Elena closed her trunk awkwardly with her elbow.
Rico stomped after his sister as she re-entered the house. They both stepped over the rolling plastic ball.
“I’m a good person,” Rico insisted, following Elena into the kitchen. “I do important work. My stories make a difference. ”
Elena set the grocery bags on the kitchen countertop and whirled to face him. “This. Right here.” She pointed at the grocery bags. “This is why you’re a bastard.”
What the hell was she talking about? He couldn’t have guessed her point if she’d given him a hundred tries.
Elena adjusted her glasses. “Did it even once cross your self-absorbed brain to help me carry these grocery bags?”
Oh. Rico took a step back and shoved his hands into the pocket of his jeans. “I mean . . .you looked like you had the situation well in hand.”
Elena rolled her eyes. “You are a good reporter. Your stories do make a difference. No one is refuting that. But that doesn’t make you a good person. You’re selfish, Rico. You’ve always been selfish.”
Usually, he was Teflon to Elena’s criticisms, but today her words stung. Had the entire female species decided to turn on him? Wait, no, his very male friends had also been happy to throw him under the bus this morning . . . and back it up over his shattered corpse several times.
“You’ve always wanted more, more, more,” Elena continued as she pulled yogurt cups and coffee grounds from the first bag. “You’ve never been grateful for everything you had.”
“That’s because we never had anything!” he exploded, then quickly looked over his shoulder, afraid his mother had heard him. She was still in the backyard, humming to herself.
“Bullshit.” Elena hip-checked him hard as she moved toward the fridge. “We always had a roof over our heads. Food on the table. Love. Do you know how hard Mom and Dad worked for that?” His sister’s eyes burned into him. “They could hardly speak English and couldn’t get a legal job in this country. They always had to work under the table and accept whatever pay they could get. And all you ever did was fucking complain. ”
Elena shoved a carton of eggs into the fridge, possibly cracking more than a few. “You! The golden child with citizenship. You had it the easiest of us all, but it still wasn’t good enough.”
“That’s . . . that’s . . .” Rico’s tongue was a Gordian knot. “That’s not fair,” he finally managed.
“You could go to any college you wanted. Get any job you wanted. You don’t have to fill out paperwork with the government every few years and then wonder if it’ll be used to deport you.” Elena slammed the door of the fridge so hard the glasses rattled in the cabinets. “You can walk into any bank and get a loan. You never have to worry about being arrested and sent to live in a country you hardly know!”
Elena’s brown eyes swam with tears. Rico couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his sister cry. She’d always been the strong one in their family, even-keeled and stoic, like their father.
“I’m sorry.” It was the only thing he could think to say. All his anger was gone, replaced by an anvil of guilt sitting on his rib cage. “I never really thought about what you were going through.”
“And that’s the entire point.” Elena’s voice quavered. She shook her head once, then shoved past him and stormed down the hall to her room.
After a few beats of silence, Rico stepped to the counter and started unpacking the half-empty grocery bags. He made helpless guesses as he shoved packages of tortillas, boxes of pasta, and cans of diced tomatoes into the pantry. Perhaps it was telling that his mother’s kitchen felt like an alien world to him. He’d always let her do the cooking.
Did that mean Elena was right? He’d always seen his childhood through the lens of poverty, but was he actually spoiled in his own way? But then why had the kids at school been so cruel to him? Surely it was because he was poor, scrawny, and brown.
Then again, some of his biggest tormentors, Hector Chavez included, were Hispanic. Could he have been as much of a little shit as Elena seemed to think? And if his sister was right . . . Rico struggled with the implications. Did that mean Jax was right, too?
No! Rico’s ego rebelled. They were both wrong! All the cruel words from Jax’s article played through his head again. He had to show them all the truth, that he was a good person. That he cared. That he was worth something other than derision.
He would start with Jax.
She owed him a story retraction, and Rico wouldn’t rest until he got it.