Wow, Aristotle and Faulkner--
I'll take it.
Thank you, everybody, for coming tonight.
And I'm counting students of my own.
I didn't bring my grade book.
But really, in all honesty, it's really nice
to be here because--
I'll admit to being nervous.
And I'm not usually nervous about reading,
but I was nervous about taking this job.
I've been here for-- as some of you know,
I've only been here for three months.
And it was a big decision for me to enter teaching and to come.
And I think what has helped, and I can't speak for Ander,
but I think both of us have felt very welcome here.
And it's nice to have such a warm reception as soon as you
step foot on campus, because that
makes it so much easier to feel as if you
know what you're talking about.
In any case, I'm gonna read just a little bit.
I'm a very slow reader.
And I'm also a quiet reader.
So I'm going to keep my eye on the back.
If you feel that you can't hear me, just raise your hand.
And I'll notice, believe me, and I'll try to perk up.
But I'm gonna read two little sections--
but they're gonna blend together--
from a story called "Señor X" or "Señor X,"
if that makes you uncomfortable.
I started this collection when I hadn't published my first one.
And I started it, I remember, September of '02.
And I was mopping the kitchen floor.
And I had-- I was just on the verge of giving up, saying,
it's too hard.
No one's gonna be interested in my work.
I don't know why I'm doing this.
And then I decided just to start another collection.
And I decided that I was gonna write
about a group of triplets.
And it evolved into this book about a whole neighborhood,
as Bob was saying.
And so this is one of the first stories
that came from the collection.
It's about one of the triplets.
The others are Claudio and Carlos.
And this one's about Cristián.
But you'll hear his name as Chris.
One other place name that you'll hear here
is Avenal, which is a correctional facility
near where I grew up in the Central Valley, in Dinuba.
And the little section I'm wanting to read to you
is Chris telling you his real story.
He gets arrested for forgery, but he
was involved in something a lot more nefarious.
Oh, I'm nervous.
When I picked up that water, I felt like Madonna,
you know when she [INAUDIBLE] the microphone.
[LAUGHTER]
Here we go.
"Where we grew up, Kyle and me, you travel along Avenue 416
for 15 miles over to Selma, straight West,
to get to Highway 99.
And just before you get on the on ramp,
there's a gas station with a towering lighted sign.
I've driven there a million times all those years
I've lived here in the Valley.
And it's hard to forget the station lights'
fluorescent gleam, the hard edge it
gives to the great vineyards all around.
Months and months after he robbed the men's clothing
store, we didn't hang out.
The news about the robbery was all
over the front page of the paper,
but nothing ever happening to Kyle.
All the stuff was at my house, but no one ever came looking.
When the news got old, we started drinking out
in the orchards again.
And that night, I thought the plan
was to go out over to Caruthers and maybe smoke some pot.
At the gas station, I sat in the car
waiting while Kyle went in there,
his baseball cap lowered.
I didn't know if he was going to steal the beer
or just pay for it.
But then I saw him walk up to the counter with a case of beer
and pull that gun on the clerk, a Mexican kid--
so young, his hands straight up and confused.
When had Kyle hidden that gun?
How did it happen, this kid lowering one hand
to open the register, Kyle in his mad frenzy
to yank out as much money as he could?
My heart raced hearing the slow rumble
of an approaching diesel truck just off a long haul on 99.
I could see the diesel truck approaching
with its barrel of a trailer like a shiny silver bullet.
It was easy to think that, hearing when I heard--
my head jerking back to the station
in horror and disbelief, and Kyle racing back
to the car yelling go, go, go.
He lugged the beer like a treasure chest, the plastic bag
of money in his other hand.
I did not see the Mexican kid go down,
but I heard what had collapsed him.
And I knew even then that all of Kyle's want
for change and escape and excitement
was impossible to reach.
I knew even before Kyle counted the money that there
wasn't enough in the bag.
We were 18, and we were sloppy.
Don't go on the highway, he told me.
And so we headed back to town.
My hands were shaking, and so were my knees.
I felt I was tapping on the gas pedal
because I was shaking so much.
Don't speed, he told me.
My eyes were on the rearview mirror.
We drove back to his house and I waited for him to go inside.
The front door was open to let in the night air.
And I could see the shape of his mother sitting in her armchair
watching television.
But Kyle only came and went, his mother never making a move--
a paper sack of clothes and the plastic bag
of money on the floorboard, and the gun tucked under the seat.
Why Las Vegas seemed like a good idea, I don't remember.
But we pulled down Gold Street and out of our neighborhood
very slowly.
I looked at my house as if I'd never see it again.
We took the back roads, heading South
through Visalia, Tulare, then the scattering of little towns
before Bakersfield.
And it was remarkably easy.
There was never a cop car.
Strangely, my panic began to ease.
We headed East up into the Tehachapi Mountains
on Highway 58 through darkness, leaving the valley behind.
And even in the night, I knew my life had changed
without my wanting it to.
The fruit trees were gone, the vineyards.
In the dark was the dry rustle of the mountains at the burst
of fire season--
in the dark, with the edge of the desert
and its frightening jaws, the long road
leading to Las Vegas, the headlines,
the ominous signs pointing to Edwards Air Force Base,
both of us quiet the whole way.
The hours were going by.
And at home, I knew my mother would never notice.
We pretended our silence was caused
by the stark awe of the land stretching
on all sides, how it wanted to swallow us in Kyle's beat
up Mercury.
But that wasn't it.
He had done something beyond terrible, and we knew it.
Kyle wanted to stop at a hotel with a hallway, a door that
didn't open to the parking lot.
But that would have been too expensive,
and I knew there was not enough money in the bag.
We would have to stop before Las Vegas,
on the edge of the city, where the highway still laced
through the desert and the gas stations
appeared almost holy in their glow.
That's how dark it was.
We found a room in a motel just off the road,
maybe 10 miles from Las Vegas.
But we could tell it was near, a hazy amber glow
stretching across the horizon.
The woman at the counter gave us a room on the second floor,
as Kyle had asked.
And then, without Kyle asking, she
told us the nearest casino was only a mile farther down
the road.
I was tired but unable to sleep.
Across the road was a diner.
And we walked over.
Both of us ate huge cheap plates of omelets and hashbrowns,
the food making us drowsy.
Kyle said this is how it was in Las Vegas, the cheap buffets
and how easy it would be to live there.
But I wasn't convinced.
It wasn't going to work, and I knew it.
Still, Kyle flooded me with promises.
We could wait tables in the casinos, man, he said.
His eyes sunk into the sharp lighting of the diner.
They looked almost bruised [INAUDIBLE] construction.
They're building all kinds of stuff in Vegas now.
It'll be easy.
We'll find work like that, and he snapped his fingers.
The waitress had given us decaf and I sipped at it,
staring out the big plate windows
at the glow that was Las Vegas.
The city appeared to send out heat,
rising over the dark desert.
And I pictured the Strip, all the people there--
rowdy, drinks in hand, counting chips, wishing hard,
the city never quiet.
I tried to picture someplace where Las Vegas would be quiet,
where the lights turned out and buildings went dark.
I needed to get out of there, Kyle
said, looking out the window with me.
Then, after I didn't respond, he said, don't bail on me, man.
I'll rat on you.
He spoke quietly, the way he had that night in the orchard when
everyone laughed at him.
I couldn't turn to look him in the eye.
We paid the bill and left the waitress a big tip.
Cars slowed to pull off the road and into the diner's parking
lot, though it was very late by then.
We waited to cross the road, and the wind whipped around.
It had been like that since Barstow,
when we had pulled into a gas station
and I had found myself unable to go into the little store
to get sodas.
I had just stood there, afraid, with my hands in my pockets
and the desert wind racing.
Kyle had gone in and bought them instead,
paying for the gas in cash.
And I stood watching him the, the wind
so constant that I wondered why sand wasn't picked up
and scattered.
When Kyle left, he smiled at the clerk.
Get to sleep, Kyle said, when we got back to the room.
You're driving first in the morning,
he said in defeat, because he knew that there
was no easy solution.
I had been standing at the window, my hands
on the curtains, looking out at the glow of Las Vegas
and wondering how I had gotten myself into such a mess.
When I turned around, Kyle was getting into one of the beds.
He had stripped down to his underwear
and I caught a glimpse of him before he went under.
He was the skinniest, whitest person
I'd ever seen in my life, his chest caved hollow.
And I found it incredible to think how somebody like that
could have fired a gun.
Shut the curtains, Kyle said.
And I did.
But I left them open a crack so I could see outside.
I took off my clothes and slipped into the second bed,
my eyes still focused on the lights of the horizon,
how they kept shining as the hours passed.
From the other bed, I could hear Kyle tossing around.
But then he finally settled.
He started snoring.
I stared out to the glint of the horizon
and drifted into sleep, refusing to dream
of the Mexican kid falling, falling, falling in the gas
station way back there.
I closed my eyes to him and shut him out,
made myself dream of driving into Las Vegas.
Except, it would be nighttime, not morning.
It would be the flash of neon bulbs
and electric arrows and the tourist traffic,
and people sticking their heads out of car windows
to snap pictures of the shimmer.
I was dreaming of being like that waitress across the road
at the diner.
I was dreaming of the motel room being
my home for a little while, opening
the windows to let in the morning light then walking
across the road for work.
I was heavy into dream when I felt the edge of my bed
sink some, the covers shifting.
And there was Kyle, not saying anything, just
getting into the bed.
I could feel the warmth of his skin
even though he wasn't touching me,
and I was awake again, wondering if I should speak or not.
He didn't move for a while.
And since I was silent, he must have
thought I had gone on dreaming undisturbed.
But I had my eyes open the whole time, watching
the lights of Las Vegas.
And I felt Kyle push himself over,
felt him hard against the small of my back.
In the same gesture, he wrapped one of his arms over my stomach
and started spreading his fingers downward,
but I grabbed his hand.
No, man, I'm not into that, I said, confused.
Kyle didn't say anything, and I didn't want
to turn around to face him.
But he stayed in bed, and I kept staring out
at the glint of the Las Vegas lights wanting to drift back
to the safety of sleep.
It's cool, Chris, he said, slapping me on the shoulder.
Then he rose from the bed.
I barely heard him get back into his own.
How long he laid there awake, I don't know, at least as long
as me.
The hours kept ticking by, and I was too bewildered
by the turn my life had taken.
By the way, none of this made sense,
how I hadn't the courage to ask Kyle what
he had been thinking all along.
But somehow, I did get to sleep.
And I never heard Kyle get up in the early morning,
never heard him start the car that allowed him to get away--
just the knock at the door, then the rattle of the keys,
my eyes opening to the harsh stream of desert light
coming through the slit in the curtains in Las Vegas,
nowhere to be seen on the horizon.
I had slept through it.
Sometime in the middle of the night,
Kyle had gathered his things and left without me--
a floor creak, the rustle of the bag,
keys, the door click, even the faint turn
of the car's engine outside.
My mother had always peeked out from behind the curtains every
chance she got.
But me, nothing.
I slept through everything.
Sometimes, in my first days in Avenal,
I thought everything I had seen in the movies about prison
was fated to bring me down--
the territorial gangs, the drugs, the threats.
I couldn't sleep at night because I thought
I'd be vulnerable to anything.
But I wasn't in prison.
I was in a correctional facility.
And the people there were just waiting out bad mistakes.
Still, in those first days at Avenal,
sometimes I dreamed I was sleeping
in a motel outside of Las Vegas, my mattress caving
a little from Kyle behind me.
And in the dream, I opened my eyes
when I felt the hard cold ring of a gun barrel
at the side of my head.
And I would open my eyes for real, and I was in Avenal.
I have dreamed that dream more often
than I have the one about the Mexican kid at the gas station.
It has been surprisingly easy to not think
about him, to forget about him.
I don't even see his face anymore when I remember.
I see mine.
I see Kyle in the gas station.
And I see my hands raised to ward him off.
I see myself falling.
I'm in the car too, waiting to drive Kyle away.
But the other me is in that gas station,
hands raised, falling and falling."
[APPLAUSE]