Read Online Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) by Stephen Andrew Salamon - Free Book Online Page B

loser.” He then punched Pete in the
gut, with a smile of relief and stress being released engraved on
his face. Jack looked at Mr. Rodrigo and also added, “Your son is a
loser, too.”
    The fight began. Pete and Mr. Rodrigo began
to fight with Jack, physically. They punched him, slapped him,
kicked him, beat him, smashed his head against the ground, causing
him to fall face-first on the green grass. That’s when they began
kicking him some more, the anger that they felt, from losing their
sons, shined through at that moment, and showed itself to Maria,
and her parents. Maria’s tears were revealed as she stared at this
tasteless fight, this bloody war between their fathers. She started
to feel anger toward this fight, so she looked up at her porch and
stared at her own dad, and how he was doing nothing to stop it, to
kill it, and talk man-to-man about this escape of the boys. She
suddenly let go of her fears, her terror of the dads, and said in a
screaming tone, “You’re all wrong.”
    The fighting came to a halt, stopped by
Maria’s courage shining through. Maria walked off the porch and up
to the fathers. Damen’s father, Jack, got up from the ground, with
pain to his body, blood to his face, and asked, “What are you
talking about?” The men were too busy trying to find out which son
was the cause of this, which son did the brainwashing on the
others, when the whole time, all of their sons were guilty
equally.
    They waited for Maria to speak the truth,
tell them which son was the bad guy, was the culprit in this
secretive escape. “Damen,” she began before Pete spoke over
her.
    “You see, I told you, it was Damen’s idea,”
shouted Pete.
    Maria then yelled out, “Let me finish. Damen,
Jose, and Darell wanted this. It was all of their idea. The letter
is telling the truth.” She paused, thinking of the words she was
going to say next, and then smiled, feeling pity that these men
would fight over such a thing. “You know, at first I felt sorry
that they’d left, because I knew you’d be worried about them, would
be terrified about them running away. But now I’m glad they left.
At least now I know they won’t end up like this,” continued Maria,
seeing the men standing there with blood on their faces. She spoke
the truth, causing the dads to look down at the ground in a sort of
disgrace.
    Her mother gave her a smile; she was proud of
her daughter speaking the truth. The mother grabbed onto Maria’s
hand and said, “Come on, Maria, come in the house.” Her father then
grabbed her other arm and began pulling it also, and guiding her
toward the front door.
    She walked up to her door and followed her
parents into the house. Maria’s dad stood behind her and allowed
her to go in the house after her mother, but that’s when she
stopped and turned around. Before she closed the door, Maria stared
at Jack, she stared at Mr. Rodrigo, and finally looked deeply at
Pete’s eyes. She spoke defensively, “Oh ... and another thing,
they’re not losers. I think you should take a good look in the
mirror and decide which one’s the loser now.” She walked in and
slammed the door.
    The echoing sensation pounded at the fathers’
heads, ears, it allowed their minds to be transfixed by what Maria
spoke. They all gazed up toward the sky and saw the sun reflecting
its body toward them. Thinking and wondering that maybe, somewhere,
their sons were staring at the same sun and thinking how much they
missed their hometown, all of them closed their eyes and looked at
each other; it was a look of puzzlement, of turmoil.

Chapter Five
    The sun pounded its heat down on the train,
causing it to turn into something like an oven, cooking at a high
temperature, sautéing its prey with malice to its motive. “Wake up,
wake up,” said Jose. The train came to a stop, and his sweaty face
turned to the doorway, staring out at the new setting, the new
surroundings that weren’t familiar to him. The sweat slowly dripped
off his