Response Team

Chapter 19

That fall our broadcast tower was painted, we were off the air for one night during that project. We also had guy wire inspection/testing re-done and the tuning re-checked. It was interesting to watch them paint the tower wearing elbow length gloves that had sponges built into the glove. They slowly lowered down the side of our tower in a small steel basket hung on a steel cable from a pulley they fastened at the top of the tower.

The day before the crew arrived one of their team arrived in a truck. He climbed the tower lifting a rope with him to the top where he attached a heavy steel pulley to the tower. He pulled the rope through the pulley then climbed down, which pulled the rope all the way down.

Since the rope was non-conductive we returned to the air at lower power to wait for the arrival of the painting crew. Once they arrived two guys got in the basket with two paint buckets. They were hoisted with the steel cable on the winch to the top of the tower and painted their way back down to the bottom.

Since we were going to be off the air for a day or two we also scheduled guy wire maintenance. When a tower was erected they strung steel `guy-wires' to hold it perfectly vertical, over time those wires stretched. We had to have them checked twice a year to make sure they were in-spec so they'd last longer and keep the tower perfectly vertical so the weight was evenly distributed over the three lower legs and down to the insulated base.

Due to the soil composition the base of the tower was actually six feet above ground, it ended at a large glass insulator to keep the tower from making electrical contact with the base. And the guy wires had insulators every fifty feet so they didn't alter the signal pattern, which was supposed to be nearly circular.

Now that we'd been at full power for four months we'd a much better idea of our coverage area, which included all of North America, northern South America, all of the Caribbean and the Gulf and way out into the islands on the Atlantic. But we never got any emails from Hawaii or Japan. It seemed weird that we could be heard easily in southern Columbia and Iceland but not in Honolulu.

By mid-October we were finally done unpacking, all the U-Haul boxes were gone, and we all had proper furniture and mattresses in our rooms. We had one treadmill in the small bedroom but the other one was still in the front corner of the living room covered by a large bed sheet. We'd also purchased some nice outdoor furniture and made a small patio outside the back door which gave it afternoon shade. We also got a kid size swimming pool, about fifteen feet wide and three feet deep to use until we decided if we wanted a new hot tub. With our body sizes we had to be very careful and slow moving in the pool so we didn't break the frame or rip the liner. We mostly just floated on rafts or soaked under water. It was big enough to swim laps in circles underwater. Rudy showed no interest in getting in the tiny pool, which was a little disappointing because his body was fantastic to look at, especially when wet. We discussed different ways to get him in the pool: making a bet, luring him with cold beer, or just a physical struggle that ended with him being pushed over the side.

We noticed outdoor hot tubs in this area were not popular. It's very hot and humid down here for five months of the year, which sort of made the hot tub less attractive. Plus, with all the rain and wind we felt keeping it clean and covered might be difficult. Even backyard pools were not common down here due to the maintenance hassles from the coastal storms. We even discussed a pool inside the barn but decided to hold off and go with the kiddie pool for now.

Very few of the hotels in the area had outdoor pools, the schools were all indoors. Due to the weather here, even the public schools had covered walkways that connected the buildings on campus.

For his first few months with us we never mentioned KYAZ but it became difficult to manage the station and not discuss it in front of Rudy so one day we decided to tell him. We'd had a portable stereo (softly) playing KYAZ in the kitchen 24 hours a day but he never asked why or even what station it was. David had me handle explaining KYAZ to him.

Eventually we took him inside the third bedroom, which was next to his. He had seen the room many times but never went inside. All there was in it were two folding tables and chairs, with a desktop computer on each one and USB deck microphones with wind screens.

He never paid attention to the little bedroom, he thought it was a home office and the microphone was for internet calls over Skype! He had an external microphone on his laptop computer too for online classes. The third bedroom door stood open frequently during the day. When Rudy was home with me doing English homework I asked him if he could stop and take a break. He walked out to the kitchen in bare feet, shorts, and a tank top.

"Four miles down the street across the border in Louisiana is a radio station called KYAZ, it's on 670am. The station plays music and most of the listeners were born in the 1950s to the 1980s." I reached over and turned up the portable stereo, a song had just started playing.

"You know this song?" I asked.

"No sir." He shook his head and looked at the radio as if searching his brain for that song, but just shrugged his shoulders and smiled at me.

"This is called: Driver's Seat, it's late nineteen seventies, British, I forget the band but it's a weird name. It was popular in countries like Germany and France 25 years before you were born."

He just shrugged his shoulders and said it had a nice guitar, but he'd never heard it before. I told him briefly about Billboard Magazine and how they came up with their music rating charts.

"You listen to the radio in your room, right?"

"Yep, but I keep the volume low." He said and I thanked him for being polite when we were home.

"Do you ever listen to AM radio?"

"Sometimes, there's Catholic Church on Sunday I like but most of the music I play is what you call Mexican folk music."

"I actually like that music and the lyrics are funny sometimes. Getting drunk, getting in trouble with the wife."

He chuckled and said so many of them were about bad news and broken hearts, getting drunk and in trouble.

"Do you ever listen to 670am? That's what we play on this radio."

"I don't know, what is it?" He asked.

"It plays oldies from the 1960s to maybe 1995, pop music and country too." He grinned at me when I said that.

"I don't know, maybe." Rudy replied.

"Remember when we brought you home from Houston? That was the station we listened to in the truck. And at the store, it's all we play on the radio there too."

"Oh yeah, every day at the store. It's the iPod station with no commercials or DJs. School kids call it F-Digital, it plays good music at night."

While Driver's Seat was still playing I unplugged the portable radio and carried it in the small bedroom and gestured for him to join me. He sat him in the chair in front of the computer, I pointed to the name of the song playing and the next two. He read the screen, next up was 38 Special, Caught Up in You, with a very short MP3 called SHORT ID6.

I showed him the digital VU meters then slid the portable radio closer to see if he made the connection between what he was hearing and seeing on the monitor. The delay between the computer and the radio was only about half a second.

He leaned forward to look closer at the screen and then said, "The same song." I told him to watch what happened when the song ended and the next one started. The next MP3 to play was a station ID, just three seconds long, then 38 Special.

"That dude sounds like David." He said once the song started.

"That was him. He recorded it on his laptop."

"So what is all this, isn't it for online meetings."

"No little brother, this is 670am, it comes from this computer."

"Huh?" He said as he looked up at me with scrunched eyebrows. I noticed when he turned his head (I was standing directly behind him) to look me in the eyes his right eye became crossed and looked at the side of his nose but I don't think he noticed.

"This computer runs 670am, it's down the street from here." I said pointing to the east. Rudy just smiled and nodded no, he didn't understand. So I leaned over and gently took his hand and lightly pulled him up to his bare feet.

I walked him behind the table so we could see the back of the desktop computer and pointed to the red audio cable, then together we traced it to a Harris compressor/limiter box, then to an old RCA STL transmitter box, I showed him the black coax cable that went out the bedroom window.

Still holding his hand I lead him out the front door and around the house, past his bedroom windows to the next ones over and showed him the black cable that went up and over the roof. Still holding his hand we walked around the back end of the house and saw the coax wire run over the peak of the roof and down to the chimney where it ended at a weird looking round thing mounted to the red brick chimney. Then I pointed across the yard towards the eastern Texas border barely two miles away.

With both now hands on his shoulders I walked him to my car, opened the door and sat him inside. I went inside to get my keys, his flip flops, and then we drove down Highway-12 with the radio playing 38 Special, across the river and into Louisiana, two more miles to a narrow gravel driveway that disappeared in the trees. We drove about 80 feet and stopped at a large gate. Just inside the gate was a large shipping container on steel legs and way behind that stood a brightly painted 500 foot tall tower.

We got out of the car, the radio shut off when I pulled the key. I unlocked the gate and walked him around the west side of the building and showed him an identical round antenna that was pointed back at our house. We climbed the stairs, I unlocked the door and we traced the coax to a box on a rack, it looked identical to the one on the table in our small bedroom. Two wires came out of it and ran into a box marked Motorola C-Quam Exciter. Then I pointed out the very thick black pipe that left the transmitter and passed through the outer wall.

We went back outside and I showed him that black pipe that ran to the tower and told him 670am comes from that tower, David and I owned it. Rudy spun around with a huge smile on his face and said, "Dude! This is the coolest thing I ever seen."

"Are we in Louisiana now?"He suddenly asked.

"Yep, your first time?"

"Yes sir, never been here before. So you guys own 670 too?" He asked with an odd expression on his face, like he was somewhat skeptical.

When he asked why I told him we both loved music and wanted to share it with the world. Rudy said he loved music too and listening to the radio, it was the biggest thing he did in prison, for his years in prison he listened to the radio every day and every hour he was awake and he read the bible cover to cover five times. We left after I locked up.

He seemed so excited and looked so adorable when we were ready to leave I walked him to the car with my hand on his shoulder, his body pulled into mine. He seemed so happy and excited it was hard for him to speak English sentences properly. He looked like he wanted to clench his fists and scream!

That evening at dinner he told us he had no idea you could run a radio station with a computer and a weird antenna on the chimney! We all laughed, David patted him on the shoulder and said, "Welcome to 2021," and we all laughed again. He said he'd like to DJ on it sometime. I told him he needed to improve his English first, he agreed to the challenge.

Rudy was not always the easiest guy to understand, we thought he subconsciously blended Spanish and English together in his brain without realizing it, we had to ask him to repeat himself several times a day.

After dinner I had Rudy record two station IDs for us so we could hear how he sounded, and sort of a carrot to help motivate him. We practice recorded him several times so we could play it back and he could hear himself and understand the problem.

Rudy also figured out that neither of us knew how to speak Spanish in past or future tense, he said our Español was like a baby! So he found one thing he could do much better than us and teased us about it. We challenged him to teach us as much as we taught him.

For his first few months one of us was with him nearly 24 hours a day and he sort of slipped into a role of young family member. Sometimes he acted more mature like a serious college student, but was always respectful and cooperative. Still, sometimes we wondered if this was an act or the real Rudy. We tried to devise a way to stress him to see what he turned into when he got mad. And we had people go to the store when he was alone to test him, but he passed every challenge. We also had the town cop test him a couple times while he was at work.

Soon after he moved in with us David met with the Vidor town cop (Chief of Police) at a diner in town and introduced himself, he explained our situation with Rudy, including his brief acting career. David asked for his help keeping an eye on Rudy but we stressed that so far we've had no problems. He said he loved to see young people succeed and was happy to contribute to Rudy's success.

David said the cop went to the store about once a week for a short visit, he looked through our used vinyl records, and asked some questions to see how Rudy acted. The town cop also said that Deweyville and Vidor were not big meth towns. He said pot was plentiful but not illegal. Lots of elderly people grew it in their yard. The climate around here was ideal for growing at home which killed the selling business. He said the biggest consumers of pot locally were elderly people with chronic arthritis pain that improved with THC use.

The cop also explained he was updated by the County Recorder when someone new moved into town, and about us when we bought the farm. He looked for our social media postings and knew about us working for the DOD. David told him we mostly did secret ops, some of them were very well known national headlines but we couldn't discuss them. David told him again there have been several big news stories over the past two years he certainly saw in the news, that we resolved them through direct intervention.

Franco, the Vidor chief-cop stood there thinking and said, "I could probably guess one or two. What about the cruise ship thing in San Diego? That suddenly disappeared from the news with no follow-up. And what about the capture of the terrorist dude nobody heard of since 1986 that suddenly entered the United States, made headlines, then vanished?" He paused staring into David's eyes watching for him to blink. Then he added, "That one paid a huge reward, like way more than enough to buy a farm and a bankrupt radio station and pay cash. Everyone in town says you guys pay cash for everything."

"The point is," David replied, "We've also invested in Rudy and would like to see him succeed and become a successful American, and help bring more credit to his race. We appreciate your help keeping him aimed down the right path in life, he seems to be very steerable and trusting." David added that we believed he was genetically Indian more than Spanish or Portuguese descended. They shook hands and parted.

So it seemed our big secret wasn't such a secret after all.

On weekends when he didn't have homework we used our sound editing program called Audacity to record Rudy talking into the microphone and played it back so he could hear his accent then worked on single phrases and things he struggled to say more clearly. That method worked well for him and it was something we did together. We sat on opposite sides of the table, face to face, with the microphone between us. I'd read a sentence from a newspaper then he'd do the same, then we'd play it back and work on him saying it without an accent.

We were physically very close during these sessions, our knees and feet tangled together and our hands sometimes touching too. It was rather intimate and personal. We'd take turns speaking for nearly an hour and it was interesting to hear his speech improve. I always had music store promos printed he could read to make new commercials for us. Slowly, more and more of his recordings appeared on 670am, which made him very happy. I also worked on getting him to talk with energy in his voice so he didn't sound like he was reading a script.

I tried to convince him that he needed to exaggerate emotion in his voice when reading into a recorder because it lost nearly half the energy during playback, but that was difficult for him to understand. We also took time recording and listening to professional readers in radio commercials and examine their voices too. Slowly, he started to catch on how voice actors worked, we carefully examined voices and speaking. Eventually he started to recognize poorly done narrations. We commented on almost every commercial we heard when listening to other radio stations.

Vowels in Spanish were spoken differently than English but we treated that as if it was his accent and not language. We also discovered he could do a decent vocal imitation of Fred Flintstone and it sounded good recorded too, so we watched several of those cartoons. I recoded them onto our DVR so we always had episodes available at home. I thought this could become his radio voice since it didn't stress his vocal chords, just his imagination.

We thought there was a point in the history of the Flintstones when Fred's voice changed to another actor, something he never noticed before.

I also got the impression he really liked physical contact with us. While I was reading a 30 second music store promo he'd set his hand on the paper which forced me to move it, the end result was I had to hold his hand to stop him from covering the text.

I think his other big challenge was not rolling his Rs in English. We wrote nonsense sentences for him to practice where almost every word started with R. And we put a small mirror (on a stand) in the studio so he could watch his mouth while he spoke words he was working on changing. We had him say the call sign letters one at time to learn how to pronounce them without an accent. One letter at a time, David sat across the table from him and the said K over and over until he could do it without an accent, then they went onto the next letter and so on. Finally, we got a really good recording of him saying "KYAZ Do-ville," with a little fake southern accent. I told him to think of it as voice acting lessons, which was exactly what we were doing. I told him this was how actors learned to speak with certain accents for shooting movies.

I must confess, sitting close beside Rudy in our production studio hours on end working on his diction was tough, having such an attractive young man near me was hard sometimes to keep my hands to myself, especially when he wore baggy/droopy and revealing clothes. We both believed he was flirting when he did that, but I don't think he meant it literally. Our speech practices more than anything helped him learn to speak without his `Mexico City Metrosexual' accent.

But, one day at the dinner table we had the radio playing (another music station on AM) and he started imitating the voice in a commercial for a car dealer in Lake Charles. Suddenly he spoke in a deeper voice in a perfect U.S. dialect, it was surprising coming from him it was also very funny. We both applauded him and he had a wide smile on his face. He clearly wanted to be on the radio, enough that he practiced imitating voices. He never considered his ability to mimic voices was exactly what we needed to put him on the air.

We were spending dozens of hours a month coaching his speech when all we had to do was give him a radio and ask him imitate a voice on a commercial and he could do it immediately with the same accent! And when he did his imitations his Mexican accent totally disappeared, but when he tried to talk normally he could barely do it! I thought it was like famous country singer Mel Tillis who spoke with a stutter but sung perfectly.

What we eventually created was a young man that sounded American but his voice was somewhat high pitched so when he was recorded he usually sounded like an American teenager, we were all pleased with that outcome. But it would be weird hearing a high school age kid announcing on an oldies station. And our test phrase for him went like this: Red Rover, Red Rover, let Rudy run right over. If he could say that without rolling his tongue then we'd say he was cured!

Every time he said it correctly we'd applaud, pat his shoulders, and mess up his hair, but he'd roll his eyes and try to look amused. I'm sure he thought we were idiots but he went along with it and learned to speak like a true `Merican.

One of the voices we exposed him to was Edward Murrow, famous TV/radio reporter from the 1940s and 50s. There were tons of recordings of him and we built a collection for Rudy to listen to and eventually he tried to do him, with some success. But the good part was it taught him a different speaking cadence and a serious tone. That voice, coupled with his vocal chords was a decent combination so we recorded him doing a number of IDs for the radio station.

We recorded ten different four second long MP3s of him doing the legal ID for the station and added them to the automation computer. They were very short but it put his voice on the radio and was a huge thrill for him, not to mention a big incentive to stay focused on his primary tasks in life: finish high school and improve his English.

After mastering his version of Edward Murrow we started teaching him how to speak better so he didn't sound like he was a 3rd grader reading from a sheet of paper. He also had to learn what things had to be said each time he spoke into the mic.

David made a small poster for the wall in the studio that said:

Elements of a Minimal Liner: (Liner=what a DJ says between songs or before a commercial break)

1. That was.

2. We are.

3. I am.

4. Add dialog if desired. (watch the countdown timer)

5. Up next or tease.

What that translated into was something like this sample DJ liner:

`Three Dog Night and Celebrate from 1969, here on Stereo 670. Good afternoon! I'm Rudy playing your music till 7pm. This request was texted by Clare and Ellen relaxin' by the cool pool in Houston. The band name ABBA comes from the first letters of the four original band member's first names. This was their only number one Billboard Top-40 hit in the US, here's Dancing Queen from 1976, on KYAZ.'

By Christmas he was progressing quickly in school and working five days a week at our store, running the walk-in business and keeping an eye on the growing number of teens hanging out. David spent most of his day on the computer handing online sales, incoming trade CDs and records, phone calls, and doing the books. Our collection of used CDs and records swelled to over 29,510 titles, and slowly our business became 60% online, ordered online and mailed out as soon as payment cleared. Rudy spent most of his time on a computer behind the counter doing online classes, he paused it every time someone walked in the store. One thing he told us that turned out to be very true, he learned our music inventory and business quickly. When the store was quiet he was back on the computer doing his online classes. He made handwritten notes and was handling three classes at a time: English, Algebra, and World History. He tested out of basic math two weeks into the class, and maintained an A in algebra. I maintained an A in algebra at UT-Austin but that was with tutoring.

We scheduled him to re-take his first placement tests to get a better idea of his mental capacity now that language was not as much of an issue and he was up to speed with basic math and algebra. Those tests would happen in January. We also paid for him to take a practice GED test to see how far he was and in what areas he needed the most help.

Between Christmas and New Years we were all at the store working, I had two meetings with sales people for the radio biz, David was on one computer manually entering information about ten CDs we took in yesterday and Rudy decided to mop the floor since it had been rainy and the tiles looked dirty near the door.

That evening at dinner we were talking about math and Rudy said algebra made perfect sense, follow the rules; remove all the one over ones and always do the same thing on both sides of the equals. He looked at me like I was an idiot for not understanding that. I shook my head 'no' and told him to 'fuck off,' then David and Rudy laughed at me, so I did my dramatic `drop the fork on the plate' routine. So both of them did the same thing and laughed even more.

After a few minutes with glances across the table Rudy used his spoon to catapult peas at me. After he hit my face the second time I got up and casually walked around the table. "Oh that was so funny, shooting peas, so funny I forgot to laugh!" I stepped behind him (like I was going to hug him) and slowly put my arm around his neck, my fist and knuckles shoved into his back and stood him up, pulled him away from the table and dumped him on the carpet and pinned him to the floor. He laughed loudly while I pretended to be mad, "So funny!"

David sat at the table and finished his roast beef in gravy and his peas, then turned around to watch our wrestling match in front of the sofa.

I discovered that even though he weighed more and was three inches taller than me Rudy (with his flawless twink body) wasn't very strong. He was on his back while I sat on his hips and he laid there acting defeated but still smiled and laughed. His shirt slid up so I let go of one wrist and pushed my finger into his belly button (and wiggled it around) but he just laid there smiling like it felt good. Just before I got up I slid my hand up under his shirt to his chest and slowly side to side (over his two marshmallow lumps), then I got to my feet and pulled him up too. The rest of that evening he stayed physically close to me, like wrestling and touching him changed something in his brain. David reminded him to pick up the peas off the floor too.

After dinner he wanted to watch Golden Gloves boxing on the local TV channel. These boxers were all between 18 and 25, all wore shorts and most were very well built. My new puppy sat on the floor between my legs and leaned back against the sofa while we watched the matches. He was really getting into the show, boxing was very popular in Mexico.

That evening in a private whispered conversation David and I decided he'd never had anyone to play wrestle with, at age 22 that was his first time, and he really liked it. We decided to be a bit more hands-on with him from then on.

Since he'd been raped in prison we were reluctant to touch him, but after tonight we realized how wrong we were. He hungered for loving touch (from us).

That night we all went to bed after boxing but David and I left our door open, with the lights off we stretched out on top of the bed spread and just talked. Rudy's bedroom door was close to ours and the kitchen ceiling light was still on. Rudy silently appeared in our doorway listening, I think it made him jealous that we were talking without him, so he strolled in only wearing his gym shorts, scratching his belly and asking if he could join the party.

We'd had the lights off but lay on top of the bed spread, Rudy was by our feet like the family dog. Some evenings he'd lie between us far enough up that I could reach down and gently smack his shoulder for rolling an R. The best part was he seemed totally without barriers between us and we were convinced this was the real Rudolpho Acosta.

During a private conversation David said he thought when Rudy was a small boy he must have been a real joy to have in their family, he was very affectionate, we were convinced he'd make a great father some day.

He stayed in our room listening to us talk for half an hour and started to yawn and left for his bed. But that was the night we started what turned into once a week all-family gathering on our bed, in our underwear, in the dark. We seldom discussed business or money but we did talk about home and plans. Rudy was surprised that he was included as part of the decision making process about things at home.

Once in a while during our family chats instead of lying across the foot of the bed he got on his back between us but further down the bed, often with his knees bent and his feet almost on the floor. Physical contact became a big part of our underwear meetings.

One of the things I always wanted to do to his body was to insert my fingers into his thick black hair, during our bed meetings I did it and he never objected so I kept doing it. His thick black hair felt wonderful between my fingers and against my palm.

He completed his ninety day monitoring agreement with probation, we drove to Houston and had his tracking device removed and was upgraded to one phone call a month to an automated service for the next 21 months. He passed the piss test for drugs too. We celebrated that evening with pizza and beers.

At work David seldom had to explain things to him except when vocabulary was a problem. David closed the store early one day and drove with him to take his driver's license test, which he passed 100% correct then took the behind the wheel portion and aced it too. That day he purchased a used Toyota Tacoma and registered it to the store and handed Rudy the keys. The moment the keys hit his palm he was so happy he hugged and kissed David (on the mouth) twice inside the dealership. Slowly but surely more and more of the tremendous weight of sorrow he carried fell away in big chunks, which always made him emotional.

At home Rudy was polite and fun to have around. We explained our stupid Merican customs (like April Fools, Halloween, and Thanksgiving) and phrases (like Watergate) too. We never tried to erase his Mexican culture but if he wanted to be on the radio he needed to understand Merica and our Boomer audience, then we had to explain what a Baby Boomer was, how we identified the generations and how they got their names.

Rudy bought cheap decorations to hang inside our house for the most popular Mexican holidays, most of them were Indian or Spanish in origin. My favorite was Day(s) of the Dead in early November. In our house the holidays we celebrated were Christmas, our birthdays, Texas Independence Day (March), and US Independence Day (July).

On Sundays our store was closed, Rudy drove around exploring the area in the truck and reported that he found a Catholic Church (in Beaumont) he wanted to attend, and invited us to join him. He said services were bi-lingual and it was like a rural Mexican Catholic Church with about 15% pagan content, mostly statues and holidays that weren't strictly Catholic, like Day of the Dead, Feast of Our Lady, and Cry of Dolores, and of course Mexican Independence Day. I told him privately I'd go with him. Because of his parents David expressed a desire to avoid churches for the rest of his life. When I explained his family history to Rudy and he said he understood but thought David was lucky he didn't grow up with his father who was strict, drunk, and violent.

One evening at dinner we discussed Rudy's body. At age 22 he rarely shaved above his lip or his chin, his upper body was hairless except for a few this hairs in his arm pits. We discussed getting him DNA swabbed to learn his history but suspected he was mostly Native American, he said he had no clue but seemed to recall his grandfather was Mayan. I told him David was Indian too, but Rudy thought David looked too white. I promised him that David's mother looked very Indian, and had their accent too.

One weekend at dinner Rudy asked about a vehicle of his own and we explained that with his felony convictions his insurance would be so high he couldn't afford it, he'd be working every day just to pay the insurance, which was foolish. He said he understood but didn't know why the two were connected. I told him I'd look into the situation for him, but we priced insurance in his name with our agent and that's what he said, after he said most of the big name companies refused to insure him for anything at any price. The only companies that would write a policy for Rudy were the ones that covered people with repeat DWIs or prison time. I reminded him his convictions would also limit his job prospects, but a GED, college degree, and years as a law abiding citizen would counter most of it.

In Mid-January he re-took his high school placement tests and scored much better than he did when he first started, they showed us his score report included his estimated IQ which was 79 last time he tested but now was 112. Knowing him much better now we felt this was a more accurate number than then older one. He also took a practice GED test and did not pass. He needed work in reading comprehension, history, and English grammar.

Rudy asked me what IQ meant so I tried to explain it without confusing him. "IQ is a mathematical expression, a quotient, or ratio of something to something. In the IQ score parts of the expression are hidden. A ratio is always expressed as something to something, or X:X. In IQ scores the X: is left off. An IQ score of 100 actually means one point zero zero. In a ratio the first one represents what someone thinks someone of your status should know at your age, the second number is what the tests say you actually know. If you could know everything the test thinks you should as a 22 year old Hispanic male your score would be 1:1 which it expressed as 100. They dropped the decimal point in the 100, which is actually 1.00 and not really 100. An IQ score of 128 actually means 1.28, or a ratio of 1:1.28. Lots of people thought IQ tests were culturally biased and inaccurate, some felt it was still a valid measure but only told part of the story of what a person knows or can do. The short answer is IQ is a measure of what you should know versus what you actually know."

I used a piece of paper to show how the numbers were shortened to give a simple numerical answer.

At the end of his second semester (after his report card arrived with scores of: A,A,B) we got him something he really liked: a (slightly used) black and white two piece suit to wear to church, with dress black shoes, a narrow black tie, clip, and Pomade for his hair. We had to wait two days before we could get his suit and Rudy was thrilled, almost more than the truck. That Sunday I went to church with him and was surprised by how well he was known in the Parish where everyone spoke Spanish, and everyone was very well dressed and the place was full of kids and food. He wanted everyone to see his new threads, it was a very big deal to him, which came as a surprise to me. I wore a nice polo shirt and tan slacks, he sat beside me with our elbows and thighs touching like I was his parent, which I took as a huge compliment.

When I stood to grab the collection plate and pass it along, I sat down not touching him, Rudy immediately scooted closer so we were in contact again, but never said anything. It felt weird standing to sing hymns beside him in church. Last year we were enemies and he was in a federal prison but today we were in church singing Holy Spirit, Come Guide Me with our elbows touching.

When I was 22 if you handed me a suit my first words would be: who died? But he acted like I just handed him a magic carpet! And then he needed shoe polish stuff, a clothes iron, two nice wood hangars, and spray starch. I also got us a wall mounted ironing board and screwed it to the wall in his room. The day I mounted the board the only thing he had on the wall in his room was a large crucifix.

While we were in the reception hall on the side of the church after services he introduced me to a young man, a high school age boy, rather cute and slender. This kid had a gay accent and stood beside Rudy and was constantly touching him, obviously that kid had a major crush on Rudy. The bad part of the suit he wore was it really hid the shape of his body, but his rear did stick out a little.

After he'd been with us for five months one Saturday evening we were in the living room watching a DVD on the TV with the sound coming out the small stereo, David and I sat side by side on the sofa holding hands and Rudy walked in and asked if he could have' a joint, where's the lighter?' He went out the back door and came back fifteen minutes later with bloodshot eyes, his mood was totally different and his smile much wider.

While he was outside we discussed the store and David told me their inventory was now 61,342 CDs and records. The point he was making was more money was going out the door than in the door, then Rudy came back inside and was still coughing a little.

David asked him where it came from and Rudy said a customer gave it to him. He assumed the kid was making a pass, it was something that happened regularly at the store. He explained there were several (high school age) Hispanic gays living nearby but they had to stay hidden. He said the word was out at Deweyville High School that the music store was cool for young gays. He suggested we find a way to quietly welcome them, then he added that school age kids had no clue how adult gays flirted.

I asked how many gays were in the high school, he said Vidor had 368 students and nineteen in the club, boys and girls, it also meant the actual number was probably triple that because most gays never announced it.

Then he said that as word spread we should expect to see some uniquely dressed young people in the store because they had nowhere else to go. David said that was an extremely valuable piece of marketing information. Rudy said many of them liked to dress-up a little but then had no place to go, except our store. For some all they would risk was wearing a tiny rainbow pin on their collar away from family, school, or where they might be recognized.

Rudy explained that the diners and burger joints in town all enforced no loitering so they needed a safe place to hang out and be together. Even though our store was on the outskirts of Vidor it was becoming popular on Saturdays. He said if we stayed open until 10pm on Saturdays the place would be full of high school age kids. He also suggested we use the back end of the building as a teen dance hall once in a while.

He said, "Put up a basketball backboard, chairs around the room, sound system, lights, and some vending machines and the parking lot would be totally full, with a line of kids waiting to get in."

I noticed the strong odor of pot smoke in the air, I haven't smelled that since college, but it was unmistakable in our living room.

After a moment of quiet he asked if either of us knew how to dance, we both said yes, but probably not like clubs in Mexico City. "Yeah, you white guys got your hips welded, no?" And we all laughed at his comment, he used the bottom of his shirt to wipe sweat off his forehead. Every time he flashed his belly button at me it always caught my attention, I wasn't sure if he noticed or not. Sometimes I thought when he did that while facing us it was deliberate flirting, he could have just as easily done that outside instead of inches from our eyes and hands.

It was obvious Rudy was really high (and trying to look like he wasn't) but it was sort of fun watching him work on speaking better English. Sometimes it sounded like he was still deciding what to say in his head in Spanish then translating to English before she said it out loud. His English was usually okay and we respectfully corrected him when he spoke poorly.

Back in the 1990s most computers had lights on front when the drives were being accessed. We considered his upward eye movements to be the same as the drive light.' Lots of people of all ages and races did the up and to the side glance' when searching their brain for an answer.

It was obvious Rudy now had stuff on his mind and wanted to talk so we stopped the movie, turned off the TV, and turned down the lights, he got on his knees in front of the sofa between our legs and started to ramble on, just being himself. We were slouched low on the sofa so the three of us were pretty close. He rested his arms between our legs on the cushions, with a smile he started talking.

Rudy switched between English and Spanish without noticing, which made us chuckle. When we snickered at him he stopped and looked at us funny because he didn't like being laughed at. We pointed it out, then his cheeks and ears turned red and he laughed too and admitted he was pretty high and very hungry again.

I interrupted him and said, "Let's talk on our bed, so you're not on your knees." A big smile appeared on his face and he popped up to his feet and practically ran to his room, which meant he liked the idea. We got off the sofa and changed into gym shorts and got on our bed and made room for one more down by our feet. I went to his door and told him to grab an apple from the refrigerator for his munchies.

Rudy walked-in and stood by the bed then laid on his side across the foot of the bed, I tossed him a thick pillow, we bent our legs and lay on our sides too so we all faced each other. Our room was dark, but we could still see his bare chest and face so it wasn't like three voices in the dark. There was light coming in from the kitchen, our door was wide open. The time when we climbed into bed was 8:04pm.

At first he told us about customers in the store, how they acted, especially the high school kids that were poor but wanted a specific CD album. Rudy was known to make deals: you bring your friends and I'll give you half off one used CD. We noticed that as the weed kicked-in his gay accent also emerged.

To me Rudy sounded like a high school kid repeating gossip he heard on the bus. It was actually nice to see, like he reverted to his teens and was finally experiencing some authentic high school stuff.

"Rudy, when was the last time you got high on pot?" I asked him.

"Ahhh, let me see, este es 2021, I'd say that last time was 2017 in `Las Begas.'" David and I glanced at each other, we've done this exact same look before, and Rudy was clearly a novice.

Since David's feet were the closest thing to his face he reached over and started to feel the contours of his ankle bones and stared at his feet then started to talk. He even stroked the hairs on his leg just above his ankle bones! We ignored that because he was high and David's foot probably looked really three dimensional to him and was very compelling!

After his high school rand was over he told us about growing up, his family, and getting kicked out at age fourteen when his father found out he was queer, that was four months after his cancer surgery. He said they threw his few possessions out in the yard and locked the doors.

Rudy said on his first homeless night he begged for water and found a place to sleep and learned there were a bunch of other teens in the town square in the same situation. A local priest told him his best bet was to go to the States to find a job. He said he hitchhiked to Mexicali by giving blow jobs to truckers all the way across Mexico. For three weeks he lived on nothing but crappy coffee and semen. David glanced at me the moment he said that.

Rudy said that because he looked like a boy he attracted bad people, they forced him to steal from stores for rides or shelter. He said he got caught a couple times. He told us he was fully aware he was very beautiful in the face and was blessed with a great body and a big dick too, he said he'd give it all away for a life like ours and a family. David told him he had a life like ours, but Rudy said he didn't want to depend on anyone but himself, he decided after his father kicked him out that the only person he fully trusted was himself, everything else was temporary. "Faith in God and cover your ass," was his new slogan. One time after he said that he reached behind and smacked himself on the butt then laughed.

Then David interrupted him again and told him, `you have a family now, we love you and care about you, nosotros somos tu familia, Rudolpho.'

When David said that Rudy got very quiet and we heard him sniffle, then he sighed. I moved so my foot rested on his thigh and gently rubbed his leg.

"You guys are the best thing that ever happened to me," he said with his head down on the pillow. Then he wiped his eyes and told us more of his story. When he made his `you guys are the best thing' comment I heard in his voice he was very emotional again.

He also got very emotional as he talked about his first year without a family. In Mexicali he asked how to cross the border and was told about a few places to crawl under the fence and then walk to town and where to get food and water. He met other kids his age and hung out with them and got fed a few times, they slept in barns and cars and he was hungry and dirty all the time. He started to think the only reason the priest in his home town told him to go to the states was so he wouldn't be a burden on their church. Basically, the priest lied to him to get him to go away. Rudy suspected the priest knew about his sexual activities, he probably learned it in confession.

He said he got busted riding in the back seat of a stolen car with someone he thought was a friend and got sent back to Mexicali but crossed the border the next day and got caught hours later. Rudy described wiggling through gaps in the fence because he was so skinny.

One time he was captured by a group of Coyotes, smugglers that controlled the border crossing business east of Mexicali that were angry he was crossing without paying them. They took him to their own jail and told him they were going to kill him. He was in there for three days with no food, no sunlight and only one cup of water a day. He pissed and shit himself and was certain they'd torture him like he'd heard others screaming around the jail. He said he was so scared he could barely answer their questions.

Rudy started to cry like a ten year old and couldn't stop. It was like he became paralyzed with sadness and fear. I felt so bad I got out of bed and sat beside him and rubbed his stomach and chest. Maybe this was his single biggest mental ouchie.

He really let loose and let his emotions run free and cried and cried. I held his arm and gently rubbed him with my other hand. He rolled onto his back and let all his stored-up sadness out. I think he cried for a few minutes like a child with his high pitched voice. I started to get emotional and wanted to help ease his pain so I reached over and pulled him up and put my arms around him and held him tightly against my body. Rudy rested his head on my shoulder and held me like a hurt child holding his mom. That's when I cried too. I held him with our flesh pressed together. His tears dripped down my chest.

We sat on the end of my bed for almost fifteen minutes. He melted against me like a child in his mother's embrace. His face was pressed into my neck and shoulder, his hands on my shoulders, his tears on my chest, his hair in my face. I kissed his forehead several times while his crying quieted down to sniffles and short moans of emotional agony. I whispered to him that we loved him, all that crap was over and he was safe now. It's all just a bad dream now.

Almost twenty minutes later he raised his head and pressed his mouth against the side of my face like he wanted to kiss me but he never did so I went to the kitchen for paper towels and a box of tissues to blow his nose. David had scooted up to sit against the headboard and watched.

I came right back and handed the stuff to him, and he blew his nose and dried off his face. I sat beside him and tried to straighten out his thick black hair that felt wonderful to me. I dried the tears off my chest and stomach, and his front side too.

When he seemed fully recovered I got back in my spot on the bed and story hour resumed. I think we sort of bonded that night, I sort of became his primary adult, maybe a mommy, maybe an older brother. I don't think he was sophisticated enough to understand what changed between us that night, but I could definitely feel it and see it in his eyes.

It was forty minutes until our conversation started again. He resumed his recall of his early years on the run in California, Arizona, and Nevada.

The very first thing Rudy said nobody cared about him since he was fourteen and that was what he missed most of all. David had the sniffles but remained mostly silent, I saw him wipe his eyes.

Rudy told us about living in Los Angeles (in 2018) when he made the first three movies and how he went to a theater that played gay porn every day (to beg for money) and he saw one of his plumber films was playing so he bought a ticket and went inside to watch himself on the big screen. Someone recognized him and after talking they offered him a place to live for free, so he moved in with them but it turned out to be trade and he had to take off his clothes and be a sex toy whenever one of them wanted him or when one of their friends wanted him.

He said almost everything he owned except his clothes and his flip phone were stolen and again he swallowed a lot of semen and walked around the apartment naked for days at a time, he was basically a human sex toy during the time he made those films. He said looking back it was a really bad time, but when it was happening he felt sometimes like a god because everyone wanted his body, he had a lot of cash, and he was always the center of attention, but it didn't last long, maybe 15 months.

Rudy recalled things during his childhood too, his first communion, when his sister died after she was trampled by a horse at age seven, and how that messed up his father's mind and he started drinking every day. He told us about his grandparents and his mother making food by hand all day, every day. He said they were poor but never hungry.

His father was a vaquero and was very strict and beat him for little things, he learned to hate him. He got caught twice letting men in town fuck him for cash, sometimes he blew guys for money too but always considered himself straight even though his success with women was limited. Eventually his father the cowboy found out about his nighttime activities and that's when things at home became dangerous.

He described the home he was born in with mud brick walls and a tin roof, it had three rooms, dirt floors, an outhouse, an outdoor kitchen, and a hand-dug well. He said he bathed outside by the goats with a bucket and a bar of soap fully on display to his family and the neighbors, but that's all he ever knew so it didn't bother him. The entire town lived that way. Sometimes it was a group of teens washing each other in full view of everyone walking by. When he started puberty the entire town knew the same day he found out.

He said they lived outside of town in a cluster of farms close to the mountains, the entire area was farms and cattle. The men in town were either farmers, mechanics, or cowboys, there were no other jobs. Women and kids worked the fields and cared for the animals. When you finished school they expected you to move away and start a life somewhere. Many of them went to Mexico City but it was even worse. Twenty million people, many without running water.

He talked about working for the film studio in Los Angeles, he said he'd been standing on a street corner in tight shorts trying to make some money selling himself when a movie guy stopped and took him for a ride and they talked about modeling and acting in front of a camera.

He said his first three DVDs sold so well they shot seven more and he earned good money but most of it was stolen. After his 10th film he got busted selling meth and deported to Mexicali for the fifth time, but crossed right back again. He teamed up with a guy he met named Marcello (the bellboy) at the hotel in San Diego robbing rich people they met in the rooftop pool. That time he got busted with outstanding warrants and went to federal prison in Colorado and thought he'd spend the rest of his life there getting butt raped by fat old white men.

Rudy got quiet again and started to sniffle softly while he lay across the foot of the bed.

David said, "I remember that bellboy, I wanted to shoot him, but he was kind of cute in the face. Was he gay?"

"Si, muy. He loved being fucked and he had a huge dick for such a small guy." David stared at him briefly, hoping he'd finish the thought but when he didn't David asked, "Did you guys fuck?"

Rudy smiled and said, "Yes, he was the only boy that could swallow my entire dick, and my semen, without chokes."

David started talking about his troubles at home with his strict father and how he tried to avoid him just long enough to escape to college, which was his entire focus in life until the very last day of high school. David told us about being beat by his dad, a story he never told me before. He described a bruised rib, a black eye, and how his Dad hated him for not being a `normal boy.' Then he loudly added, "I'll never forgive them. I don't see how that two faced mother fucker can sit there in church and act like he's without sin after what he did to me. They kicked him out for not taking action against his gay son, but if he admitted what he actually did to me they'd kick him out for that too, it's called child abuse now."

I think David's story really clicked in Rudy's brain, I think he was surprised to hear it come from David's mouth, like he thought all Americans were rich and spoiled. Then he did something that looked weird, Rudy got up on his hands and knees and crawled up between us, he bent over towards David and set his left palm flat on the center of David's chest and stared as if he was trying to read his soul.

He stayed in that position for almost five minutes not speaking or moving, he had his eyes closed too, his head hung down just silently feeling his chest move up and down.

Then he scooted over and did the same thing to me, palm flat near the center of my chest, eyes closed, and no talking. After he did that to both of us he got back in his spot at the foot of the bed like nothing happened. We played along but I wanted to ask why he did that.

Rudy then explained how he hated his mom for not sticking up for him, he felt betrayed and taught him to distrust women, he had yet to meet one he could trust. He said guys were easy to read but most of them just wanted their dicks sucked. He learned that the most trustworthy men were the really old ones that couldn't fuck any more. Those guys he usually trusted right away, like the main priest at Saint Cecilia in Beaumont.

When he finished I told them how I came out to my mom in my senior year of high school. But it didn't go well and still hasn't with them which was why I haven't seen them in five years, but I mailed them Christmas cards, but never a Mother's Day or Father's Day card anymore, because as far as I was concerned all they were now were sperm donors. Then I had to teach that phrase to Rudy. After I explained it to him he said we were more like parents to him than his parents ever were, except when he was a little boy it was nice. He said everything stopped the day his sister died.

Rudy told us about his transfer by airplane in chains and orange suits to Houston. How they had to shuffle their feet and how the clamps hurt and were humiliating. He said the move was scary because he knew the dangers in his unit in Colorado, but after he moved he had all new gangs and boundaries to learn. He said he got shoved around several times but was mostly left alone because he kept his mouth shut, his eyes on the floor, and went to church as much as possible.

He said he really respected two of the guards in the transition center, it was the only time in his life he got useful advice on starting a legal life and earning a living in the USA and what worked and how to get started being legal. Those guards were black women but were some of the best Americans and best Christians he ever met.

Our conversation on the bed in shorts went on all night and was one of the best nights of my life. I learned a lot about myself and a lot about my husband too. I also saw illegal immigration from a totally new perspective, which changed my feelings.

And tonight was the first time I really got to look closely at Rudy's face. His head was rather narrow but like I said before his skull looked small and his face was very innocent-boyish, he looked like a thirteen year old boy's skull on the body of a tall twenty five year old. And just like in San Diego he was extremely attractive, his flesh was close to flawless, his teeth were perfect but his voice was somewhat high pitched and he had a tiny bit of a hissy accent. Rudy told us he had a Mexico City Metrosexual accent. I noticed his lips were rather thick and wondered if that was part of why he hissed some words. Sometimes just watching him talk it looked like it was a struggle to talk with such full lips, and he licked and chewed on them a lot too.

Sometime that evening Rudy moved up to between us on his back, but our conversation continued all night until the sun came up the next morning. I think we really fell in love with Rudy that evening and both of us opened our hearts to him too.

Late in the morning Rudy cooked breakfast for us. He actually made a great meal, I had no idea he knew how to cook.

He hand shredded an Idaho potato and pan fried it, then made toast, and fried eggs and sausages with bacon. He served us fried potatoes with one egg sitting on a slice of toast with two strips of bacon and three sausage links each. We had orange juice but not coffee since we'd all be going back to bed soon. When he started to wash dishes I stopped him.

We shut off the lights again and went to bed together but instead of much overdue sleep we started talking again.

Contact the author: borischenaz gmail

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Reminder to readers, this is a rough-draft version of this book. You are now at page 285.