Always Running (10 page)

This didn’t happen too often. Although L.A. hugged the Pacific coastline, the beaches were still many miles away for neighborhood people to get to. There were families then, in and around L.A., who never visited the beach. Most of the time the barrio people from around the San Gabriel Valley went to an area along the Río Hondo in Whittier Narrows. We called it
Marrano Beach.

In the summer time, Marrano Beach got jam-packed with people and song.
Vatos locos
pulled their pant legs up and waded in the water. Children howled with laughter as they jumped in to play, surrounded by bamboo trees and swamp growth. There were concrete bridges, covered with scrawl, beneath which teenagers drank, got loaded, fought and often times made love. At night, people in various states of undress could be seen splashing around in the dark. And sometimes, a body would be found wedged in stones near the swamps or floating face down. The place stunk, which was why we called it what we did. But it belonged to the Chicanos and Mexicanos. It was the barrio beach. Ours.

This one time, to celebrate Clavo’s coming back, we decided to go instead to what we recognized then as the
Gabacho
beaches, or white people’s beaches. Why not? It was an important occasion.

Chicharrón, Wilo and I were in on this trip. We invited a few of the “homeys,” including Black Dog, who was called that because he was so dark. We had qualms about inviting Black Dog as he was known to be trouble, but he had just bought a “bomb,” a 1950s car cut low and sleek, and we needed the ride.

And we invited
rucas.
There were the Acuña sisters, Herminia and Santita—pretty and shapely girls who lived just below the Hills. We invited Canica and La Smiley. And they brought Elaine Palacios and Corina Fuentes. We gathered at Garvey Park, two carloads full. We scored on cases of beer and some
grifa.
A few
colies.
Everything was ready—but no Clavo.

“Where’s the dude, man,” I asked.

“Wilo went to get him. They’ll be here soon,” Chicharrón said. But it was a lie. Clavo wasn’t ready. I knew, somehow, he never would be.

As soon as Wilo came with his
jaina
Rita, sans Clavo, we decided to go.

We caravaned to Huntington Beach in Orange County—“whitebread” country—which was a straight drag south on the San Gabriel River Freeway, the 605, then a spell on Pacific Coast Highway. The sun bore down on our rides; we opened windows and drank and toked and laughed. Already the dudes without girls were scoping out who they would be with. I always did terribly when it came to this kind of thing. I liked Hermie Acuña, but I never let on. Yet I couldn’t help but sneak a look at her cute face as she gazed out the window at the sights off the freeway. Hermie had lips like car bumpers, wide and swollen, but perfectly shaped, with thin creases. Looking at them conjured up a daydream of lips licking my mouth, whispering into my ear, becoming her lips. I fell into a dream of me and her, embracing, our mouths joined. She opened them slightly and my lips slowly mimicked hers—but suddenly a tractor trailer rumbled by and I careened to backseat reality.

Crowds filled the beach area. Chicharrón knew of a place called “the coves,” further down, less peopled and scenic, and he suggested we go there.

To get to it we had to park away from the beach and walk down several rocks and boulders. The water came up to the rocks, a sandy area nearby. Chicharrón buried several six-packs in shallow water to keep them cold. Black Dog began to roll reefer and pass it around. Wilo and Rita placed a blanket in the sand and lay down, beer and chips nearby. The rest of us decided to play a loose game of beach football.

The girls and guys split up into teams. We threw the ball around. A few of us got tackled. Then we threw the girls around, mostly into the water. None of us had bathing suits or trunks. We were just too cool. We had cutoffs, T-shirts, overalls, sandals and such. Some of the guys removed their shirts to reveal teen muscle, and maybe show off a tattoo or two. Chicharrón and Black Dog moved from one girl to the other, except Rita who adhered to Wilo like skin. They picked up the girls as if they were sacks of
masa harina
and threw them into the bursting waves.

Hermie got thrown in last, mainly because she kept running away and hiding in the rocks. I just watched. Chicharrón, Black Dog and this dude from Mexico named Félix crept up behind her, several-sized hands reached for her arms, her legs—I saw one hand hold up her butt. They took her to the ocean’s frothy edge and threw her in, squealing and kicking. Hermie rose quickly—rivulets of water falling from her once-teased hair, her face a flood. Hermie’s blouse clung to her body, revealing hard nipples through soaked bra and top. She feigned anger, while the others laughed and laughed. Her sister Santita, who had already been dunked, looked pleased.

Strangely, we were all alone there on that short stretch of beach. Black Dog got bold and brought out some mescaline. Félix took a hit and before long he was tripping, falling all over the sand and bumping his head on rocks and shit. Canica and Smiley took some hits too. Before long Black Dog maneuvered Canica over to a cave section of the coves and I knew what he was doing, copping feels and such.

Wilo and Rita lay back on the blanket and enjoyed the sun. The rest of the pairing happened by mid-day. Félix stood beside Santita, or I should say she held him up a lot. Chicharrón and Elaine were together, holding hands and sloppy kissing on top of some rocks. Corina and Hermie sat apart from everybody, as I did. Black Dog, however, left the cave area and took Smiley back there with him. I only guessed what was happening there with all that reefer, mescaline and partying with Canica and Smiley.

Corina sat down near me and started a conversation. She was the least good-looking of the girls who came that day, but she was good to talk to.

It was Hermie who I kept eyeing, whether I was alone or with Corina, as she tried to stay dry. The brownness of her nipples which had shown through her blouse earlier was lost from view as it dried.

By the afternoon, we spied a van of white dudes, looking like surfers, parked above the coves near our rides. They stared in our direction, dressed in sunny beach wear, noticeable by their blonde hair and eye shades. Chicharrón stood up to see them better.

“What’s with the paddies, man?” he yelled out to me.

“¿Qué sé yo?”
I responded. “Maybe waiting for a ‘bitchin’ wave’.”

This was a tiny dig into the beach culture that Anglos had created in California. There were constant battles between the barrio people and the beach people, who were mostly whites or
engabachados—
Mexicans trying to pass as white, even when some were dark as night. As far as anyone could remember, it was “surfers” against “beaners.”

The van didn’t move, nor its occupants. Then after a few minutes, we heard shouting from the parking area.

“Fuck you, beaners!”

“Mexicans suck!”

Black Dog emerged from the cave, shirt off, muscles wet and rippling on mahogany-tinged skin. He looked at the white dudes, and then yelled back.

“Putos …
come get some of this,” as he squeezed his crotch. Félix livened up all of a sudden, and in accented speech he yelled out “modder fockers.”

Chicharrón also got into it, shouting out “Animal Tribe” and
“¡Qué Viva South San Gabriel!”

The white guys challenged us to come up there. It didn’t take much to get us going. Chicharrón took off his belt, Black Dog picked up a bottle. Soon everyone followed behind them, even the girls.

“I don’t like this,” Corina said. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Híjole,
we can’t go anywhere without some
pleito,”
Hermie responded in disgust.

There were about six white dudes, and as we got closer, we saw they weren’t teens but grown men.

“Come on greasers,” one tall dude said. “Who wants to go first?”

“Fuck you,” Black Dog shouted and then charged at them. But what should have been a good old ass-stomping, to talk about later, turned out to be something completely different.

The white dudes pulled out guns. Then one of them flashed a badge.

“Everyone line up. This is the Huntington Beach Police Department.”

They were
chota!

“Puta madre,”
Chicharrón said, as the cops turned him around and had him place his hands against the side of the van. Then the rest of us, even the girls, were forced to kneel and keep our hands on our heads. Corina started to sob, but I could tell she tried not to. Hermie looked scared as did Santita. Canica and Smiley swaggered and acted cool, but I knew the mescaline had a lot to do with it.

They separated the guys from the girls. After a quick search, the girls were allowed to stand by the side. But the guys were told to squat on the asphalt and not move. One of the cops radioed in some information. Another proceeded to harass us.

“Tough guys, eh? Gonna take us on. You don’t look so tough now.”

I went to move my leg over to another, more comfortable, position. But the cop yelled at me, his hand still palming a .38 revolver.

“Don’t fuckin’ move,” he said, coming up to my face, eyeball to eyeball. “Did I give you permission to move? Don’t do anything unless I say—you fuckin’ greaser asshole!”

They had us squatting there for five, ten, then fifteen minutes. We couldn’t stand up, kneel or sit. The circulation in my legs felt blocked. The muscles cramped and ached. But we weren’t supposed to do anything but squat. After several long minutes more, one of the cops started throwing sand in our faces.

“Hey!” we all yelled at once.

“Don’t move, I said,” the cop continued. “Don’t understand English or what? I don’t want to hear anything, don’t want to see anyone lift a finger.”

They were getting us to do something stupid in anger, an excuse to knock us around. One of the cops came up to the parking area with Wilo and Rita, who had been down below trying to keep quiet. They brought the beer cans.

“This is a violation,” a cop said.

Then another cop turned around smiling. He had Black Dog’s jacket and had found caps of mescaline and some joints.

“All right, now we got some felonies.”

The cops were ecstatic. They had something good to book us for.

They dragged us handcuffed to the local jail, and took us into a small interrogation room. By now Corina cried. Black Dog talked back, acting up even as the cops poked blackjacks into his ribs. They separated him from the rest of us and took him first.

The police called our parents. Chicharrón’s father said he’d take me home. After several hours, they finally released us. Only Black Dog didn’t go home. The officers transported him to a juvenile facility. Besides the drugs they found, Black Dog had several prior arrests. It didn’t look good for Black Dog.

I said goodby to Corina, and nodded a goodby to Hermie and Santita whose mother came in ranting about us troublemakers and how she’d never let the sisters go anywhere with us again. For a second, in the midst of her mother’s squabbling and hands flying, I thought Hermie smiled at me.

“You have to work, to help us out here,” Mama said. “You’re a big man now. There’s got to be something you can do.”

We had just moved to South San Gabriel. I was nine years old—a good working age, as far as my mother was concerned; she had picked cotton at the age of nine in South Texas. But looking for work at nine is not easy in a city. We weren’t fruit pickers, which were often children as young as three. In a city, a child had to find people to work for—cleaning up for them, doing deliveries or tending lawns. I did a little bit of everything. Mowing lawns with Rano, picking up boxes and cleaning out people’s garages. I even did housework like my mother had done when we were younger. I vacuumed, wiped windows, scrubbed floors on my knees and used tooth brushes to clean the edges. The homes I went to were in Alhambra, a mostly white area then with some homes sporting swimming pools. I learned how to vacuum the bottom of the pools, and how to use the pumps and the chemicals to keep them clean.

My brother also worked, finally landing a job as a newspaper boy. In those days, it meant delivering papers door-to-door on bikes. At the age of 12, I started working a paper route too. I found an old beat-up ten-speed and delivered around our neighborhood, tossing a local daily called The Post-Advocate. Every day after school, our crew manager dropped off bundles of unfolded newspapers and bags of rubber-bands. On rainy days we used plastic covers.

We had to fold all the papers, place the rubber bands or plastic over them and then stuff them into double cloth bags we draped over the handle bars. Our hands and faces got blackened with newsprint. We had a list of subscribers and we had to make sure they received their newspapers in or around their porches. This was the trick of the trade.

Fíjese:
I got good at it. It was the first important accomplishment I remember as a child. I couldn’t exactly talk with any coherency, or do sports, or show any talent for anything. But, man, I could deliver newspapers! I got so good, I built up a route system which at its peak included four different routes. I received awards. I won recognition in the Copley Newspaper magazine (Copley owned the Post-Advocate then). The routes wound around city blocks for several miles and often took until after midnight to complete. On that old ten-speed, I pedaled through street, alley, boulevard and back road, past vicious dogs and hobo nests, past the
vatos
who chased me for my bike or change. But I made my deliveries, always on time. On the mark.

Selling the newspaper was the other trick. On weekends, the crew manager would take his den of newspaper boys and drop us off in various neighborhoods to sell subscriptions, what we called “starts.” Mainly he had us cover the well-groomed suburban streets because he figured they were more likely to buy subscriptions. Man, I was lousy at it. Door after door slammed in my face. We had free gifts—pot holders, TV trays, things to hang on the wall. But where people had money, this had little effect. They usually received the bigger papers like the Los Angeles Times or the Herald-Examiner. The Herald-Examiner deliverers, in fact, often sneered at us because they took in more pay and the better clientele.