Flames burst from the explosion, sending pieces of shrapnel overhead, smoke billowing high into the air. Seconds earlier, instincts kicked in, and Julio kissed the sun-cooked blacktop. Not giving the heat emanating from the ground a second thought, he covered his head and face the best he could. That instinct, seconds earlier, forced him to duck and cover when the other teen boys scattered, like when roaches scatter from bright overhead lights. Gasoline. Smoke. Burning plastic. Melted metal. And bits of glass, cement, blacktop, and random pieces of what was left of a Ford 15-passenger van rained out of the sky. Julio wasn’t sure those boys had anything to do with the explosion. But it wouldn’t surprise him if they did.

Slowly standing up, his head still covered, Julio looked around the corner of what was left of the building. He was in the back corner of the trailer park, away from almost all the mobile homes. The three buildings formed an elongated L shape, one jutting out from the others lengthwise. That building created the small part of the L, where the property manager’s office was. He managed to escape from the boys chasing him by ducking around the corner seconds before the explosion. Dirt from bits of drywall, fiberglass, and tiny aluminum shards littered his hair. He looked at his reflection in the bit of widow on the ground below him. It looked like snow in his hair, but Julio grew up in southwestern California. Missouri was a new place for him. And being the new kid from Cali brought new challenges. Like not being accepted. When your Madre was from Mexico, and your Dad was a United States citizen? The middle-class kids didn’t accept him. But the poor kids who lived in the trailer parks? They were ten times worse.

Living in the trailer park was a bit like living in a warzone. You had the white trash, racists. These were the ones with Confederate flags flying from either the side of their trailer or the pole in front of it. White trash families were easy enough to spot. A front porch addition was tacked to the trailer, like a patch sewn onto an old pair of well-worn jeans. It looks okay, at least from a distance. But get closer? Then you can see the flaws, like where the wood wasn’t quite level, the nails working themselves out of the deck boards. These families always had company coming over for a cookout. They called it a barbeque in California but not in the South; it was a cookout here. And to call it anything meant you weren’t from the area. And outsiders weren’t welcome. Each white trash trailer was required to have at least one if not two, broken-down vehicles occupying their parking spaces. That’s why the working trucks were sitting alongside the trailers. Trucks were also a requirement for white trash families. No true redneck would dare own a truck with an automatic transmission, much less a car with one! Besides the trucks, the front porch, deck area, you could tell their trailers because at least one burn barrel sat a few feet away from the trailer, filled to the brim with Bud Light cans, some still unfinished on the deck.

The Mexican and Hispanic families were worse than the poor white trash families. Julio wasn’t considered ‘one of them’ because his Dad was an American. Being a mixed-race kid meant more teasing and hostility from those who would be close relatives to him. Even their relatives were a bit unkind to his Father and mother. They felt that Maria shouldn’t have married Victor, being that Victor was about as white as you could get.

Victor, Julio’s Dad, was born to Russian immigrant parents. Being born in the United States automatically gained his citizenship, whereas his parents had to give up their Russian citizenship before they, too, were declared U.S. citizens. Victor didn’t see skin color as a problem, traveling frequently between the United States, Russia, and Mexico. His Father had business ties in all three countries, which made Victor a well-seasoned traveler before he graduated from college with a degree in engineering. During these travel excursions, Victor met Maria in a local market outside Mexico City. She was young and selling flowers and painting with her cousin Rita. Rita was the businesswoman of the pair, haggling with every white person buying something from their roadside stand. But it wasn’t until after Victor was out of college that he even considered dating her.

The only thing Julio could hear was ringing in his ears. A tinny high-pitched sound, probably the same sound only dogs heard when you blew those dog whistles. Julio tried the usual things to clear the ringing. Shaking his head. Attempting to pop his jaw, clenching and unclenching his teeth. He even attempted a yawn, remembering during plane flights that sometimes worked. Not today. The ringing didn’t go away.

Unlike other emergencies, the police and fire departments were at the trail park instantly. Both the fire and police stations were close to the trail park, so that wasn’t a surprise. Their fast response time; that was the incredible part. The police were called, many times throughout the day, to the park. Most calls were domestic disputes, the kind of call every law enforcement officer dreads. These were the drunks who called because their significant other, male or female, it made no difference, was being extremely abusive. Often these calls resolved themselves without involving the officers. But on the off-chance that it escalated, the officers were called. And they did their best to avoid the area, even though the ‘cop shop,’ as the park’s tenants called it, was right around the corner from the office. It must’ve been loud enough and bright enough during the middle of the afternoon to get the police chief’s attention. Or his superior. In any event, they responded faster than usual.

Julio was trying to get his hearing back when the teens returned to where he was thrown. Julio wasn’t sure if they had come back to see a dead body or if they wanted revenge. Neither was why they made their way back to the building. They were looking for destruction, which they saw in abundance! Debris was scattered all over, a few pieces of the metal roofing stuck in the ground close to where Julio landed. The kids scared Julio was dead, came running to check on him, not to fight. But Julio couldn’t hear what they were saying. All he saw was the kids yelling at him, doing their best to give him a once-over before getting the attention of the first responders on the scene. Julio didn’t know sign language, but he’d learn some signs before the day turned to night. Of course, he knew the universal symbol of the middle finger, telling a couple of the older kids what they could do with their so-called sympathy. Some other boys were trying to help, getting his attention by looking right at him and seeing a scared panic in Julio’s eyes. He wasn’t supposed to cry, but he couldn’t help it. The tears came silently, his sobs wracking his body physically without so much as a sound – as far as he could hear. Everyone else listened to his wails, the pain emitted through his mouth that couldn’t identify a single sound.