Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly Read online

  The highway bends like a hunter’s bow and starts to dip. For a stretch, we’re blind to oncoming traffic. I make my move—my leap around the semi. It’s an extremely stupid and dangerous move—for anybody else. Today it feels exactly right.

  Wouldn’t you know, here comes another semi rushing at me. An alarm explodes in my head. Cam fades back.

  I jam off the alarm. Shove everything out of my mind—fear, worries, Dad, Siouxsie—and enter the Drone Zone.

  Now I’m Leif Ericson standing at the prow of my Viking ship.

  I’m Neil Armstrong bouncing on the moon.

  In the Drone Zone, speed and adrenaline morph into . . .

  Peace.

  And eternity.

  The space between the trucks at the passing point is tight. I duck my head, hunch my shoulders. The oncoming semi blasts its horn.

  Blasts!

  Blasts!

  BLASTS!

  The driver looms large in the window, drops his jaw, rises in his seat until he’s almost standing. I can practically see the beads of sweat on his forehead.

  Now I’m at the center of the Zone. Everything’s a blur. Everything is clear.

  Yea, though I fly through the valley of the shadow . . .

  I shoot like an arrow down the line, between flashing silver sidings. Taste the warm, diesel-ly air rushing up from the swirling underbellies. Feel the calm that lives in pure speed.

  It’s over in an instant. I whip out ahead, the semis screaming at me from both directions, and bomb up the highway. Go more than two miles on sheer adrenaline. I’m truly blazed on speed. At the shortcut, I veer off the highway.

  As I grind down and brake to a stop, all the alarms I turned off jump back on and ring like crazy. My heart is pounding.

  Cam pulls up. Lifts off his helmet. Glares at me. He looks like an Old West Apache with his bandanna rolled across his forehead, and his long hair flowing. He spits. Wipes an arm across his mouth.

  “Very uncool, dude!” he says. “Even for you. A new low. Don’t ever do that again. Not if you want to ride with me.”

  Lobo pulls up. “Hombre! You scared the shiz out of me. Seriously, what was that! You just about died.”

  Fact is, I’m feeling more alive than ever. The hair on my arms springs for joy. But I hide it. Make humble. “Sorry, dudes,” I say. “I went temporarily insane.”

  Cam aims a finger between my eyes. “Insanity will kill you,” he says, pulling the trigger.

  I don’t say what they can’t understand. I don’t tell them that I had to do it.

  I wasn’t at risk; everybody else was. Maybe I regret putting those drivers in a tight place, for a second or two, but that’s all. As for me, I was in the Drone Zone.

  Flying fat.

  Invincible.

  Cam might’ve made it, with luck, but not Lobo. He would’ve freaked out. If you ride too cautiously, or your nerves get in the way, or you think too much, you’re dead.

  Cam, on the other hand, is willing to ride the edge, but he lacks the reflexes. Split-second timing is not good enough. A second before split-second is what you need. It’s the speed of a fly versus the speed of a bee.

  “Aighhht!” Lobo says. “Let’s ride.”

  We grind throttle. Shred sand.

  The shortcut takes us up and over Little Piñon Mesa. It’s scarred with a thousand bike grooves—the whoriest-looking mesa in all northeast New Mexico. That’s why every dirt rider comes here. Because it’s all humps, jumps, gullies, falloffs, and loose sand.

  Plus two little wooden crosses.

  On Little Piñon, we earn our air miles. I take flight on my favorite jump, Davy, named in memory of Lobo’s older brother, Army Specialist David Focazio, who shot himself after getting back from Afghanistan.

  Even Lobo catches some decent air.

  We land in the school parking lot at 7:27 a.m., a whole two minutes before the bell. We’re sitting at our homeroom desks, studiously, at 7:29 a.m.

  Just as the bell rings, a new girl walks in.

  Everything twitches and stops, including the clock.

  Chapter 3

  “HOLD UP, LEE,” MR. MARTINEZ SAYS. “I want to introduce you.”

  The new girl is torqued lanky like a runway model, but she hides under a loose T-shirt, untucked flannel, and slightly baggy “guy” jeans—a sure sign that she’s not from Orphan County. But it works. It definitely works.

  She steps beside Mr. Martinez and thrusts back her shoulders. Her eyes spark.

  “Class,” Mr. Martinez says, “this is Lee Fields. She comes to us from Seattle, Washington. All the way from the Great Northwest to the Great Southwest. Class, what do we know about Seattle?”

  “Rain,” Michelle Pappas says.

  “Bill Gates,” Vonz Trujillo says.

  “Sasquatch country,” Lobo says.

  “Right,” Mr. Martinez says. “Though the jury is still out on the Sasquatches.” He turns to the new girl. “Lee, we here in Clay Allison don’t get much rain, and sometimes we get too much sun—”

  “We got adobe brains,” Vonz blurts out.

  Mr. Martinez frowns. He’s been teaching eleventh-grade history and language arts for thirty-nine years. He taught Dad. Five years later he taught Mom. He’s taught one NASA astronaut, two governors of New Mexico, three psychopathic killers, and ten thousand truckers, wranglers, keno girls, fry cooks, and motel desk assistants. We can mess with him only so much.

  “Lee,” he says, steepling his fingers, “forgive us our occasional lapses and minor trespasses. We more than compensate with our pieties and niceties.”

  Lee smiles. “I forgive you.”

  Some of us laugh. Some of us snicker. Pure oxygen fizzes into my brain.

  What stops the clock is her hair. It plunges like Niagara Falls, a cascade of red-gold. Clay Allison is a poor town. There’s a played-out, hope-burned shabbiness here. A long-past-its-prime-ness. But we’re used to it. And when you’re used to it, you don’t notice the shabbiness anymore—until somebody new shows up. A new person is like a mirror of reality, somebody who opens your eyes and shames you at the same time.

  Just looking at Lee Fields makes me wish I were from anyplace else. In my mind, I’m already telling her where I’m from.

  “L.A.,” I say. “I’m just here for the semester. Then it’s back to L.A.”

  I can’t take my eyes off her hair.

  Homeroom consists of twelve girls and eleven boys. The closest to honest-to-god gold hair is Latoya Solaño’s drugstore lemon with candy-pink highlights and original black roots. We’re about one-third Hispanic, one-third Caucasian, and one-third hyphenated. Lots of Catholic, too.

  Me, I’m authentic, pure-grade New Mexican salsa: Hispanic (through Dad); Caucasian (through Mom); lapsed Catholic (through Dad); daredevil (through Mom).

  Add onions, tomatoes, and a teaspoon of salt.

  Plus a few drops of Navajo (through Dad) for extra zest.

  Blend and puree.

  When I look in the mirror, I see it all—curly black hair, blue outcast eyes, guilty-white eyeballs.

  Lee’s hair is brushed and proper—except for one glaring fact, of which she seems completely oblivious: the ends curl like wicked fingers and tickle her ass. I glance over at Cam and Lobo. They’re staring too. Already, like me, they’re wishing they were those wicked fingers.

  Lobo catches my eye. Bangs his head against an imaginary light pole. Swack!

  “Alfalfa, dude,” he whispers.

  Peach, plum, alfalfa—the three degrees of kiss-worthiness. Peach—peck softly; plum—taste the polished insides of her mouth; alfalfa—probe deep as an alfalfa stalk is long.

  “Lee is staying with her aunt, Lupita Fields, up in Chicorica Canyon,” Mr. Martinez tells us.

  Lupita Fields! She was Mom’s oldest friend. Back in their high school days, they rode the canyon together. On horses, not dirt bikes. Chicorica Canyon is prime dirt-bike country, full of arroyo washes, mazes, and old mining towns. It was prime ranch cou
ntry too, until the Town of Clay Allison dammed Chicorica Creek and built a pipeline.

  I ponder the name Lee. New Mexico is a land of Tanyas, Donnas, and Jamie Lynns. Lee is often part of a name—like Brenda Lee or Sammi Lee—but usually not a name by itself. To my ear, Lee sounds unfinished and masculine. She needs more dip for her chip. Hmm. Rocky Lee, Wynona Lee—those would work.

  I lean back to see if she’s wearing Northwest hiking boots. Uh-uh, she’s wearing pink athletic shoes. Pumas. City-girl spotless. New Mexico will dust her up, that’s for sure.

  Mr. Martinez points to the class motto framed above the door: CHARACTER IS FOREVER.

  It’s one of dozens of quotes posted on the walls—the sacred words of Aristotle, Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Seuss, Pink Floyd, Anonymous. On and on.

  He calls them his “wall sages.”

  “Character Is Forever”—his own contribution—hangs above the door so we can ponder it every time we leave the room.

  “Lee, I ask all my students to embrace this principle,” Mr. Martinez says. “Not merely for the academic year but for a lifetime. I’d like you to embrace it as well, because—”

  “Oh, I totally embrace it,” Lee shoots back.

  “Well, then . . . ahem!” Mr. Martinez scowls at the rest of us. “Most of your classmates think James Bond got it right—diamonds are forever.”

  “James Bond can go jump off a mesa,” Lee Fields says.

  Mr. Martinez beams. “Class, we have a visionary in our midst. Do you have any questions for Lee?”

  Michelle Pappas flaps a hand. “Why are you here?” she asks in a pissy tone.

  “Michelle!” Mr. Martinez snaps. “Rewind. Respect.”

  Michelle pastes on a smile. “Why are you here?” she asks again.

  “My dad’s stationed overseas,” Lee says.

  Nothing shy in those eyes. Nothing shaky in those hands. Not like some first-day students.

  “Like, deployed stationed?” Michelle asks.

  “Yup,” Lee says. “He’s a Sergeant First Class in Arapaho Company, Second Platoon, Pakistan. This is his fifth combat tour.”

  We are silent. Five tours is a lot. We all know this. In Clay Allison, people are always shipping out. Lobo’s brother, Davy, shipped out on three tours.

  Vonz jacks up a hand. “What’s he do out there? You know, his MO and all that.”

  “Explosive ordnance disposal,” Lee says.

  “What’s that mean, exactly?” Sharon Blossburg asks.

  Lee hooks a corn-silk strand behind an ear. “It means he sweeps for roadside bombs and IEDs—you know, improvised explosive devices—and deactivates them. But what it really means is, he’s helping all the guys over there, even the locals, stay safe.”

  “The locals! What’s the point of that?” Sharon asks.

  Lee bristles. “The point is to stay alive. In one piece. And for our guys to come back home. And get on with their lives. Obviously.”

  Mr. Martinez clears his throat. “Yes, well . . . Just to add to that, the main mission of our military intervention in that part of the world is to stifle the threat of terror,” he says. “Also to expand the footprint of democracy. But to those with their boots on the ground, like Lee’s father, the mission can be as basic as survive today so you can return home safely tomorrow. And, Lee, that is our sincerest hope for your father.”

  “Thank you,” Lee says.

  “How ’bout your mom?” Leah Castenado asks.

  “She’s out in California with her new husband and baby.”

  My hand shoots up. “Where in Pakistan? I mean, where’s your dad stationed?”

  “The North-West Frontier.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know that country.”

  It just slips out. Everybody stares at me like I’m an idiot. Lee looks at me funny too. I sink into my chair.

  The fact is, I’ve flown over the North-West Frontier a thousand times. When you cross the last river and hurtle out of the valley, the mountains leap up. You’d swear they were the Front Range of the Rockies. Same dog-jaw silhouette. It looks and feels like home.

  “What’re your interests?” Latoya Solaño asks.

  “I’m sort of obsessed with the war these days,” Lee says. “The BBC does the best job at covering things, like the day-to-day fighting and the search for terrorists.”

  “The search for Caracal, you mean,” Vonz mumbles. “He’s the father of all terrorists.”

  “Yeah, him,” Lee says.

  Latoya raises her hand. “When my uncle was stationed over there, we did that too,” she says. “We kept the news on all the time. I used to have a thing for that British reporter guy. I forget his name.”

  Lee smiles. “Ethan Shackleton.”

  “Yeah, Ethan, that’s him,” Latoya says. “I could watch him all day. That boy needs motherin’ and lovin’ like nobody else.”

  “Back in Seattle I had a motorcycle,” Lee says.

  Lobo snickers. “Like a Vespa?”

  “Harley,” Lee says.

  Cam, Lobo, and I twitch respectfully. Harleys are like grandfathers—you honor their legacy despite their limitations.

  “What model?” Cam asks.

  “SS 350,” Lee says.

  I picture her on an SS 350 bombing up the road, hair flying. She should be wearing a helmet, but I leave that out.

  “Hey,” Lobo says. “It’s a good thing you left that guzzie behind. ’Cuz hogs break down out here. This ain’t street-scramble country. It’s dirt-ridin’ country. We’re iron butts. And proud of it.”

  “What shampoo do you use?” Dolores de la Cruz asks.

  “That’s enough,” Mr. Martinez says. “Let’s give Lee a warm Clay Allison High School welcome.”

  We all clap, smile, and say “Yeah, welcome—welcome.” But it’s a honeymoon moment. It won’t last. If she were fat and ugly, it might.

  But she ain’t.

  Chapter 4

  FOR LUNCH, WE MOUNT UP and peel for the Sonic drive-in. Cam invites Michelle Pappas to ride double. Lobo invites Latoya Solaño. There’s something about bikes and breasts. They just go together, like strawberries and shortcake.

  I ponder inviting Lee Fields. Looking at her makes me ache. But I have to wonder the eternal question—the one that always stops me:

  If you wore your heart on your face, what would you really look like?

  Then there’s the pecking order.

  In Clay Allison, you have your first string, second string, and third string, all suited up and dripping gonad juice. Then you have your fourth string—those who do not play football.

  I am fourth string.

  If the United States were drawn in the form of a naked man, then Clay Allison would be located in the moist crotch. The sign coming into town reads WELCOME TO CLAY ALLISON, HOME OF THE OUTLAWS, STATE HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL CHAMPIONS, and seven of the past ten years are listed.

  Not that I couldn’t play football—I’m fast and nimble enough. Probably a natural wide receiver.

  It’s just that I’m not into collisions, or anything that slams into you, slows you, or is too gravity based. Football basically boils down to gravity and contact, and I’m into antigravity—flight and freedom.

  Yeah, I am definitely fourth string.

  Being so much in the minority can be hard in a town like Clay. People look at you funny, like your nose is upside down on your face.

  Who am I to even think of asking Lee Fields to get on my bike?

  Vonz swaggers up to her. He’s the spittin’ image of a llama in wraparound shades. Lee gives him a cautionary smile, part stop, part go.

  I slide on my helmet, slam down on the starter, grind the throttle till all 250 ccs are screaming. Lee Fields glances my way and flips her red-gold hair. This time when she smiles at Vonz, it’s green light—go!

  Didn’t they write about this in the book of Genesis? “In the beginning was the football player and the beautiful girl.”

  Hey, Lee Fields, is that all you go
t?

  ’Cuz it ain’t enough for me.

  “Go forth and multiply, dudes,” I say.

  And I’m gone.

  THE SONIC HAS A couple advantages over the other pit stops vying for our lunch money. First, three dollars goes a long way here—it buys me a burger and small fries. Second, it’s just a few steps away from TunzaFunza.

  TunzaFunza—or the TunzaFunza (Plus Caffeine) Cyber Café—started life as a gas station about the time Bonnie and Clyde were robbing banks. When I was a little kid, it was a Christian thrift store, which nobody I know ever, ever went to. Then it became the TunzaFunza Arcade, which included a mini bowling alley, a basketball shoot, and some video games.

  I was a TunzaFunza kid. It’s where I discovered the Drone Zone.

  A few years ago, Lobo’s Uncle Sal bought the arcade and turned it into a cyber café. In those days, not many cowboys cared what a latte was. Today—thanks to Uncle Sal—every bony-assed wrangler who can barely speak a full sentence gets finicky about his caffeine: “Er . . . make it a semi-wet cappuccino, partner.”

  Uncle Sal installed Wi-Fi and a game box, making TunzaFunza the heart of “cyber” in Orphan County. It’s only a frog-size heart, but it beats.

  I bum some quarters from the others, scoop up my burger, fries, and helmet, and mosey on over.

  I’m walking away, but I’m also walking toward.

  Few people understand this concept. They walk away from something, but they don’t walk toward something else. They don’t feel their destination. They don’t shed a world as they walk away and gain a world as they walk toward.

  I do.

  Because I am walking toward the best place of all.

  The Drone Zone.

  Not even sex feels as good. But, hey, I shouldn’t be talking because I’m still a virgin. Unless you count Orphan County Tonsil Hockey, which is how some girls thank you for a little high flying on a dirt bike.