Full of Heart: My Story of Survival, Strength, and Spirit Page 4

  So with visions of college and the NFL motivating me, I spent those broiling months during the summer before my junior year working out nearly every day, pumping iron and panting through wind sprints. My mother bought me a parachute to use as a training aid. I would strap it to my waist so that when I ran it caught the wind, providing resistance.

  I also got my learner’s permit that summer, although I’d actually had my first turn behind the wheel when I was twelve: There was a Piggly Wiggly grocery store down the street from our place, and one Sunday evening my mom needed something—an onion, maybe—as she was cooking dinner. She let me take the Dodge Caravan to the store, and I successfully maneuvered there and back. So now that I was almost a legal driver, my mom and I brokered an agreement that when she came home from work every morning, I could take her car to the high school, where I would use the gym and run the track or up and down the bleachers. Even though I was supposed to have another person in the car, a licensed driver who was over eighteen, my mom trusted me enough to ignore that rule.

  On weekends my mom went with me to the high school so I could run the track as she walked it. She used a stopwatch at her job at the plant, so she’d bring it to time me as I ran, checking my progress.

  I grew stronger and faster. I was doing everything I could to become the athlete I wanted to be.

  That summer, I got the idea that I wanted to meet my father. I’d had moments growing up when I’d thought of him, but it was almost always in abstract, as in wouldn’t it be nice to have a father to play catch with me, to teach me how to drive, to talk to me about girls? I wondered why he’d left and why he never sought me out.

  One day when I was about five years old, I found the photo of my mom holding me as an infant with my father beside her. I pointed at him.

  “Who’s that guy?” I asked.

  “That’s your daddy,” she told me.

  “Can I talk to my daddy?” I asked.

  My mom knew how to reach my dad’s mother in Houston. She could call her and track down Jose.

  “You want to?” my mom asked. “I’ll dial for you.”

  I stopped her hand as it reached for the phone. I was suddenly anxious and confused. What would I say to this man, my daddy?

  “No, never mind,” I said. “I don’t want to talk to him. I love you, Mama.”

  But now I wanted to make it happen. I didn’t want to upset my mom, so I tried to find him myself. I called directory assistance in Houston, which was where I thought he might still live.

  “You’re looking for a Jose Martinez?” the operator asked me.

  “Yes,” I told her.

  She laughed. “Which one do you want?”

  I was willing to make ten or twenty calls to find the right one. “I’ll take all of them,” I said.

  She laughed again. “Well, there are a couple thousand,” she said.

  Discouraged, I thanked her and hung up.

  Over the years, my mom didn’t hesitate to tell me stories about my dad when I’d ask her. She told me that he would hold me and I’d stop crying and fall asleep in his arms. When he ate, he’d go back for seconds and then remain standing so the food could go straight down and he wouldn’t get a gut.

  So I ended up asking my mom for help tracking him down after all. She wasn’t happy about it, but she remembered where Jose’s mother lived and agreed to make the six-hour drive to Houston with me.

  When we pulled up to the door of the Houston house, my mom said, “Go knock on the door, mijo.”

  I felt jittery as I got out of the car. What would I say to this stranger, my father? I walked up to the door, took a deep breath, and knocked. Nothing. Nobody answered. I knocked again. An elderly woman slowly pulled open the door and her eyes rested on my face.

  “Rene!” she said. I turned back to the car and waved to my mom before folding into my grandmother’s arms. She motioned at my mom to come in.

  I walked into the dark house and sat on the couch, and my mom followed. My grandmother asked me how I’d been. She and my mom talked a bit about the old days.

  I finally interrupted them. “Abuela,” I said, then switching to English. “I came here to meet my father. Do you know where he is?”

  We’d missed him by a day. He had just gone, and she offered no explanation.

  I felt disappointment rake my heart and I sat, numb, while my mom and grandmother chattered on.

  The telephone rang and my grandmother answered it. I heard a woman’s voice blare out.

  “Guess who’s here!” my grandmother told the caller. “Maria and Rene!”

  My mom took the phone and spoke to whoever was on the other end. When she finished, she told my grandmother that we were going to head out. My grandmother left the room for a minute and when she came back she pressed a worn hundred-dollar bill into my hand. I refused—from the looks of her home, I didn’t think she could spare it—but she insisted. I used that money to buy lunch for me and my mom and to put gas in the car for the drive back home, where football and my life were.

  I never did meet my father.

  In preseason practice one hot August afternoon, I was trying to block a senior who seemed to weigh more than two-thirds of the team. I stood before him, believing that he wasn’t coming at me full force. When someone is that big, it seems unimaginable that he could travel very fast. I stepped in front of him, confident in my ability to block him. He rolled right over me like an earthmover. It was a scene right out of a Spanish bullfight—he was the rampaging bull, and I was the fluttering cape.

  I was bent over backward by the force of the blow. My ankle twisted and I heard a snap. If a dying dream could make a sound, that was it.

  I fell to the ground, twisting in pain. A couple of my teammates helped me off the field. I sat on the sidelines until practice was over, my ankle swelling to the size of a tangerine.

  Hobbling into the locker room, I found Coach Stamp. I explained what had happened and showed him my inflated ankle.

  “You shouldn’t have stepped in front of the big man,” he boomed.

  Yeah, thanks, I thought, realizing that there would be no sympathy from him.

  My mom took me to see an orthopedist, who told us that the tendons and ligaments were damaged; he recommended surgery. I knew surgery would mean I’d be out for weeks and I’d miss the season. All that hard work wasted. I decided to defer the operation until spring.

  So I rubbed on Icy Hot gel, soaked the ankle in Epsom salts, and iced it. Again and again. My mother took me to see an acquaintance of hers who massaged my ankle to help the swelling. The massage felt good, but it didn’t do a thing for the injury.

  And I continued to play. As I grimaced through practices, it was clear my former speed was gone. I could barely keep up with the slowest guys out there.

  The first game of the season rolled around and expectations were high for the Hope Bobcats. I was sidelined because of the injury, so I channeled my energy into pumping up the crowds. I would throw my hands in the air and flap my towel, encouraging everyone in the stands to leap up, yell louder.

  Over the course of the season, I got back on the field from time to time, but the constant pain kept me from gaining much ground. The coach would roar at me: “Martinez!” and I would race over to him. “Go get the quarterback!” he’d yell. “Use your speed to rush past the blocker!” Hearing the confidence in his voice often gave me the boost I needed to run through the pain, to justify his decision to put me in. My mother was always in the stands, screaming loudly enough for me to hear her.

  Invested in helping me heal in any way she could, my mom called on some folklore. In some Hispanic cultures—in Spain, Mexico, and the southwestern United States—there’s a popular devotional figure known as Santo Niño de Atocha, or the Christ-child of Atocha. He is always portrayed wearing flowing robes and sandals. “This Niño travels around the world helping people and making miracles,” my mother explained. Wherever they find his image, people leave sandals as an offering in the belie
f that he needs the footwear so he can walk about and tend to the devoted. My mom got me a Niño de Atocha candle. She told me to light it and say a prayer. We bought a pair of black baby Nike sandals and put them beneath the candle, and we asked the Niño to be with my football team through the season.

  It became a ritual for me to light the candle and pray after school on Fridays before I had to report to the football facility. My belief in the Niño took root and sprouted as Hope High School continued to win, plowing over teams on our journey toward the state championship. The buzz around school intensified as the season wore on and our prospects got better and better. We idolized the University of Arkansas Razorbacks, so we were elated when our team reached the state finals, which meant we would be playing on their home field—War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, more than one hundred miles north of Hope.

  Before the big game, my teammates and I did a walk-through at the Little Rock stadium, which seats more than fifty thousand fans. Butterflies whirled in my stomach. Emotions—pride, exhilaration, apprehension—burned through me as we filed in. I’d never set foot in such an enormous facility, and it was mind-blowing to think of all the amazing players who’d stepped on the same turf—the Razor-backs have contributed more than 250 players to the NFL over the years—not to mention the music legends, such as Elton John, George Strait, the Eagles, and the Rolling Stones, who had performed there.

  In the locker room our team laced up cleats, lashed on pads, and made sure we were focused on the task at hand. The anticipation was sky-high as we trotted onto the field. I stood behind the banner the cheerleaders had prepared; it was probably the only time in my life I didn’t care about the girls and wanted them to move out of the way.

  Our opponents were from Greenville. On one punt return our guy was running with the ball and I saw someone about to tackle him. I ran toward the defender and put my best hit on this kid, completely blindsiding him so my teammate could gain a few more yards. I jumped around as if I had just won the game for us.

  Unfortunately, we didn’t have very many of those moments. The game got away from us, and our opponents began to feel the weight of the trophy in their hands. It was heartbreaking to look up at the scoreboard and see the lopsided numbers as the final seconds ticked down.

  It was brutal having to walk over to the other side of the stadium to congratulate the winners. I stayed on the field and watched them celebrate before finally returning to the locker room to change. With a couple of teammates, I decided to go over to our opponents’ locker room and offer our compliments.

  “You were the better team,” I said.

  They applauded us for our efforts and thanked us for being gracious. Somehow, that gesture made our loss less painful.

  Still, we drove back to Hope with our heads down. Some players cried. Some just stared at the country road unraveling like a spool of ribbon toward home. The season was over.

  And for me, so was Hope.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Running Out of Hope

  My mom had been seeing a man named Celestino for a while. Finally, she had landed a good guy, although he was very, very young—there was a twenty-three-year age difference between the two of them. My mom first met him one day when she was sitting in the break room at work, and the attraction was instantaneous—but she thought, Oh, no. He was closer to my age than to hers. All the African-American women at work teased her, calling her Stella, from How Stella Got Her Groove Back, the popular film based on the semiautobiographical Terry McMillan novel in which an older woman falls for a younger man.

  Like Stella, my mom decided to take a chance, and Celestino became a mainstay in our lives. I was in early high school. Cele was a caring, calm man who absolutely cherished my mom. He thought of her as a little girl who needed to be taken care of. He always put her first, whether he was doing favors for her like cleaning up the house before she got home from work, or giving her little presents. He once brought her an artificial flower with a little doll inside because it reminded him of her.

  It took me a while to warm up to him. I was still very leery of my mother’s suitors after Hector. It was also a little embarrassing to deal with the remarks and questions I got from my friends about Cele’s age. But once he won me over, the issues melted away. I never really looked at him like a father, though; he was more like a brother, but that worked fine. We had a lot of common interests, like basketball and video games, so when the weather was good we often went to the park to shoot hoops, and when it wasn’t we’d stay inside and play NFL games on the Xbox.

  On Memorial Day weekend 2001 the three of us decided to take a road trip to visit my mom’s good friend Irma, who had moved to Dalton, Georgia, from Hope a few years earlier. My mom was godmother, or madrina, to Irma’s daughter Carmen. My mom and I didn’t get the chance to travel much, so we were looking forward to the trip. We planned to leave on Friday evening. It was a long drive, about six hundred miles due east across Arkansas through Tennessee, to Irma’s small town in northeast Georgia. The drive would take us about ten hours, so we planned to travel through the night.

  On Friday afternoon I left a football meeting at school and headed home, itching with excitement. My mom had our red Mitsubishi Galant packed and ready to go. Celestino settled into the backseat. My mom got into the front passenger seat, and I hopped behind the wheel.

  I hadn’t gotten around to taking the driving test for a license so was still driving with a learner’s permit, but I prided myself on being an excellent driver. But as I steered the Mitsubishi slowly out of the apartment complex, my mom stopped me.

  “Put on your seat belt, Rene,” she ordered.

  As an invincible teenager, about to turn seventeen, I viewed seat belts as an unnecessary restriction. I never wore one. But this day I didn’t argue with my mom and buckled up—anything to get on our way.

  We said a quick prayer for the Lord to keep us safe and get us to Georgia in one piece. I made a left turn onto the main road and was almost immediately greeted by flashing red, white, and blue lights. Ahead was a roadblock, a checkpoint for police to check cars for alcohol and drunk drivers.

  I hadn’t been drinking, and we were in a hurry, so over my mother’s objections I made a quick U-turn to avoid the checkpoint.

  “They’re going to chase you!” my mom yelled.

  I knew better. “No, Mom, it’s fine. They won’t even see me!”

  But lights and sirens signaled that my mom was right. (Again.)

  I pulled over into the only place I could, which happened to be right back into the driveway of our apartment building. The officer approached my window. “Why did you turn around before the checkpoint?” he asked.

  “We’re on our way to Georgia. We’ve got a tight schedule,” I answered. “I thought the checkpoint would slow us down.” I’m sure that impressed him.

  The officer asked for my driver’s license. Since I only had a permit, I told him that my mom, a licensed driver, was in the car. The officer took my information and I relaxed, telling myself we’d be on the road again soon. The officer checked my mother’s license, but that only made things worse: She still had her Louisiana license, even though we’d lived in Arkansas for something like nine years now. (She was a bit nostalgic; it was her first license and she wanted to keep it.)

  Then the officer told me to step out. I did as I was told and walked to the rear of the car as he indicated. He handcuffed me and explained why I was being arrested. An outstanding warrant, he said. I felt light-headed as all the blood rushed out of my face. I could not believe this was happening.

  The previous spring, my mom had wanted to go to the casino in Shreveport, about a two-hour drive from Hope. We occasionally made the trip so my mom could scratch her itch for the slots. Frequently she was pretty lucky—on some nights she could pull in about a thousand dollars, which was a lot of money for us. While she did her thing in the casino I’d spend that time waiting for her in the car, listening to music, napping, playing on my Game Boy. S
ometimes I wandered into the lobby to buy a soda and people-watch. The groups of cute older girls particularly got my attention.

  On this trip I was driving the three of us back home to Hope, my mom resting in the backseat after a long night of gambling, Cele dozing in the front. As the miles spiraled past on the lonely, rural two-lane road, my mom asleep, I started to wonder, How fast can I get this Mitsubishi to go? What can I say, I was sixteen. About twenty minutes from home, I got pulled over. I didn’t have my permit yet, so my mom had to drive the rest of the way back, and I got a big, fat ticket.

  A few months later, my mom, Celestino, and I were planning to bring in the new year at church. We’d bought a bunch of fireworks but had forgotten to take them with us for the celebration. My mom asked me and Celestino to go back to the apartment to get them.

  On the way back to the church, I came up with a brilliant idea: “Wouldn’t it be funny to throw some fireworks out the window?”

  Don’t ask me why, but we did it, tossing out a couple of Black Cats. Over our laughter, I heard sirens and saw lights behind me. When the officer asked me why I’d done it, I said, “Being stupid and not thinking at all.” At least I got that part right. I also got another ticket.

  After the new year I called the courthouse to confirm the amount I owed on the tickets. The lady on the phone told me she only saw one ticket—the speeding citation—which I promptly paid. But that unpaid fireworks ticket had apparently morphed into a warrant.

  And now the officer was telling me, “You’re under arrest.”

  As soon as my mom saw the officer cuffing me, she jumped out of the car and began badgering him. “Why are you taking my son? What did he do?”

  “Ma’am, please get back in the car.”

  Everybody knows you never get out of a car during a traffic stop unless a police officer tells you to. Everybody except my mom.

  “You’re supposed to be catching the gangsters and drug dealers, not a boy like him!” she yelled.