Always Running (8 page)

“God damn it!” he yelled, “God damn it!” as his face wrinkled with every throb of pain.

An ambulance came and rushed Mr. Stone away. School officials shoved everyone else into another classroom until they could hold meetings to determine who to blame. But Elías and I sneaked out and returned to the wood shop bungalow. The door was still open. We foraged through the piles of sawdust and wood pieces and found Mr. Stone’s finger. It looked purplish with dried blood and bone chips on one end. Elías carefully placed it inside an empty cigar box.

For weeks we kept the finger in Elías’ locker. He’d bring it out to scare some of the girls and to show it off to incoming students until it shriveled away, like a dried sliver of old fruit.

“You can’t be in a fire and not get burned.”

This was my father’s response when he heard of the trouble I was getting into at school. He was a philosopher. He didn’t get angry or hit me. That he left to my mother. He had these lines, these cuts of wisdom, phrases and syllables, which swept through me, sometimes even making sense. I had to deal with him at that level, with my brains. I had to justify in words, with ideas, all my actions—no matter how insane. Most of the time I couldn’t.

Mama was heat. Mama was turned-around leather belts and wailing choruses of Mary-Mother-of-Jesus. She was the penetrating emotion that came at you through her eyes, the mother-guilt, the one who birthed me, who suffered through the contractions and diaper changes and all my small hurts and fears. For her, dealing with school trouble or risking my life was nothing for discourse, nothing to debate. She went through all this hell and more to have me—I’d better do what she said!

Mama hated the
cholos.
They reminded her of the rowdies on the border who fought all the time, talked that
caló
slang, drank mescal, smoked marijuana and left scores of women with babies bursting out of their bodies.

To see me become like them made her sick, made her cringe and cry and curse. Mama reminded us how she’d seen so much alcoholism, so much weed-madness, and she prohibited anything with alcohol in the house, even beer. I later learned this rage came from how Mama’s father treated her siblings and her mother, how in drunken rages he’d hit her mom and drag her through the house by the hair.

The school informed my parents I had been wreaking havoc with a number of other young boys. I was to be part of a special class of troublemakers. We would be isolated from the rest of the school population and forced to pick up trash and clean graffiti during the rest of the school year.

“Mrs. Rodríguez, your son is too smart for this,” the vice-principal told Mama. “We think he’s got a lot of potential. But his behavior is atrocious. There’s no excuse. We’re sad to inform you of our decision.”

They also told her the next time I cut class or even made a feint toward trouble, I’d be expelled. After the phone call, my mom lay on her bed, shaking her head while sobbing in between bursts of how God had cursed her for some sin, how I was the devil incarnate, a plague, testing her in this brief tenure on earth.

My dad’s solution was to keep me home after school. Grounded. Yeah, sure. I was 13 years old already. Already tattooed. Already sexually involved. Already into drugs. In the middle of the night I snuck out through the window and worked my way to the Hills.

At 16 years old, Rano turned out much better than me, much better than anyone could have envisioned during the time he was a foul-faced boy in Watts.

When we moved to South San Gabriel, a Mrs. Snelling took a liking to Rano. The teacher helped him skip grades to make up for the times he was pushed back in those classes with the retarded children.

Mrs. Snelling saw talent in Rano, a spark of actor during the school’s thespian activities. She even had him play the lead in a class play. He also showed some facility with music. And he was good in sports.

He picked up the bass guitar and played for a number of garage bands. He was getting trophies in track-and-field events, in gymnastic meets and later in karate tournaments.

So when I was at Garvey, he was in high school being the good kid, the Mexican exception, the barrio success story—my supposed model. Soon he stopped being Rano or even José. One day he became Joe.

My brother and I were moving away from each other. Our tastes, our friends, our interests, were miles apart. Yet there were a few outstanding incidents I fondly remember in relationship to my brother, incidents which despite their displays of closeness failed to breach the distance which would later lie between us.

When I was nine, for example, my brother was my protector. He took on all the big dudes, the bullies on corners, the ones who believed themselves better than us. Being a good fighter transformed him overnight. He was somebody who some feared, some looked up to. Then he developed skills for racing and high-jumping. This led to running track and he did well, dusting all the competition.

I didn’t own any talents. I was lousy in sports. I couldn’t catch baseballs or footballs. And I constantly tripped when I ran or jumped. When kids picked players for basketball games, I was the last one they chose. The one time I inadvertently hit a home run during a game at school—I didn’t mean to do it—I ended up crying while running around the bases because I didn’t know how else to react to the cheers, the excitement, directed at something I did. It just couldn’t be me.

But Rano had enemies too. There were two Mexican kids who were jealous of him. They were his age, three years older than me. One was named Eddie Gómez, the other Ricky Corral. One time they cornered me outside the school.

“You José’s brother,” Eddie said.

I didn’t say anything.

“Wha’s the matter? Can’t talk?”

“Oh, he can talk all right,” Ricky chimed in. “He acting the
pendejo
because his brother thinks he so bad. Well, he ain’t shit. He can’t even run.”

“Yea, José’s just a
lambiche,
a kiss ass,” Eddie responded. “They give him those ribbons and stuff because he cheats.”

“That’s not true,” I finally answered. “My brother can beat anybody.”

“Oh, you saying he can beat me,” Eddie countered.

“Sure sounds like he said that,” Ricky added.

“I’m only saying that when he wins those ribbons,
está derecho,”
I said.

“It sounds to me like you saying he better than me,” Eddie said.

“Is that what you saying, man?” Ricky demanded. “Com’ on—is that what you saying?”

I turned around, and beneath my breath, mumbled something about how I didn’t have time to argue with them. I shouldn’t have done that.

“What’d you say?” Eddie said.

“I think he called you a punk,” Ricky agitated.

“You call me a punk, man?” Eddie turned me around. I denied it.

“I heard him, dude. He say you are a punk-ass
puto,”
Ricky continued to exhort.

The fist came at me so fast, I don’t even recall how Eddie looked when he threw it. I found myself on the ground. Others in the school had gathered around by then. When a few saw it was me, they knew it was going to be a slaughter.

I rose to my feet—my cheek had turned swollen and blue. I tried to hit Eddie, but he backed up real smooth and hit me again. Ricky egged him on, I could hear the excitement in his voice.

I lay on the ground, defeated. Teachers came and chased the boys out. But before Eddie and Ricky left they yelled back: “José ain’t nothing, man. You ain’t nothing.”

Anger flowed through me, but also humiliation. It hurt so deep I didn’t even feel the fracture in my jaw, the displacement which would later give me a disjointed, lopsided and protruding chin. It became my mark.

Later when I told Rano what happened, he looked at me and shook his head.

“You didn’t have to defend me to those dudes,” he said. “They’re assholes. They ain’t worth it.”

I looked at him and told him something I never, ever told him again.

“I did it because I love you.”

Along the spine of the night, through the shrubbery, on the coarse roads, past the peeling shacks, past the walls filled with the stylized writing that proclaimed our existence, past La India’s shed where boys discovered the secret of thighs, in the din of whispers, past Berta’s garden of herbs and midnight incantations, past the Japo’s liquor store, past the empty lots scattered around the barrio we called “the fields,” overlooking Nina’s house, pretty Nina, who lavished our dreams, there you’d find the newest and strongest clique. There you’d find the Animal Tribe.

We lingered in the dust: Clavo, Wilo, Chicharrón and I. We walked through these streets in pairs with a rhythm, slow, like a
bolero.
I had on a T-shirt, cut off at the shoulders, with “The Animal Tribe” in old English lettering on the back written in shoe polish and a long pair of county-jail pants, called “counties,” over a couple of black Tijuana sandals.

Clavo, Wilo, Chicharrón and I. We picked up cigarettes at
la marqueta.
We strutted, like soldiers, and stopped for a while to look into the small, store-front church where Spanish-speaking holy rollers squirmed and shouted in their seats.

Clavo, Wilo, Chicharrón and I. We were
los cuatro del barrio,
the younger dudes, 13 and 14, who got swept up in the fast, tumultuous changes between the cliques and clubs in the area. The Animal Tribe was taking over everything: It did it through war, through a reputation, through the strong leadership of two key families: the López brothers and the Domínguezes.

The five López brothers got hooked up with the two Domínguez brothers and their four sisters. Lydia Domínguez ended up marrying Joaquín López, the Tribe’s president, and this continued to pull the various groups into one, huge clique.

Thee Illusions and Mystics were gone. The other clubs also disappeared as The Animal Tribe consolidated them in as well. Even Thee Impersonations vanished; Miguel Robles joined the Tribe and later became one of its generals.

The Tribe, although based in the Hills, pulled in dudes from all over South San Gabriel, even from areas east of the Hills like Muscatel Street, Bartlett Street and Earle Avenue which had long-running feuds with Las Lomas.

Joaquín López was the leader,
el mero chingón,
as we’d say. Clavo, Wilo, Chicharrón and I were the peewees, the youngest set, who stood outside the Tribe meetings held in the fields or in the baseball diamond of Garvey Park, looking in until we could collect more experience and participate wholly with the others. Sometimes we were allowed to witness “the line.” This is where new initiates were forced to run through two rows of Tribe members, absorbing a storm of fists and kicks. Inevitably, somebody used brass knuckles and some dude would end up with cracked ribs.

We tried being “the Southside Boys” for a short time while we were in Garvey school, getting brown-and-gold jackets and crashing parties and dances. But we got into trouble with dudes from Sangra who objected to us embroidering the term “South Sangra” on the jackets.

“There’s only one Sangra,” Chava from the Sangra Diablos told us one night at a
quinceñera.
He had a small brim hat and leaned on a silver-inlaid, porcelain-tipped mahogany cane. He looked Asian, like Fuji in the movies.

Next to him were Tutti, Negro and Worm, with scars and tattoos on their arms and faces, and extra-baggy pants and muscled torsos. Then they chased us down a number of streets and alleys. It was the death of the Southside Boys.

Miguel got us banging with The Tribe. It was during a dance at Garvey Park. The gym was opened one weekend for the local teenagers. Lowrider cars filled the front parking lot and side streets. Girls from barrios all over converged on the bungalow-type gym. That night I noticed there weren’t the usual knots here and there of different club members with their own unique jackets and colors. Only a few still carried proud their old club insignias, including the few of us in the Southside Boys.

“¿Qué hubo, ése?”
Miguel greeted as he walked up to me. It had been about two years since we were partners in Thee Impersonations. But this time he had on a black jacket with gold lettering on the back that read: The Animal Tribe.

I introduced him to the remaining Southside Boys. Miguel was kind, courteous, and invited us into the dance for free: This was a Tribe party; we were his guests.

Inside, the place was almost pitch black and reeked of cigarette and marijuana smoke. Although no alcoholic beverages were allowed, I could see outlines of dudes and their girlfriends drinking from bottles of cheap wine they had sneaked in.

A local band played some mean sounds, one of a number of street bands which were popping up all over the valley and east side of the county.

“I heard about what happened to you guys at Lola’s
quinceñera,”
Miguel said. “The old
veteranos
from Sangra, you see, are forcing all the cliques over there to claim their barrio. There’s no more Regents or Chancellors or Little Gents. They in Sangra or they dead.”

“So why they messing with us?” Wilo asked. “We ain’t in their barrio.”

“You ain’t in Lomas either, man,” Miguel said. “That’s the problem. You guys live in between the two largest ’hoods. You got to figure out which one to claim or you’re going to get fucked by both of them.”

“What do you say we do, Miguel?” Chicharrón asked.

“There’s the Tribe, man. It’s the one that’s taking over all the south side cliques.”

“I don’t know, I mean, we still don’t live in the Hills,” I replied. “We could still get jumped.”

“I’m telling you there’s no choice,” Miguel continued. “You wanta live, you wanta breathe air, you got to be in the Tribe man.
De verotas, ése.”

That night, we took off our “Southside Boys” jackets and met with Joaquín, his brothers Ernie and Gregorio, and a few other dudes and
rucas
from the Tribe. They were in the darkest part of the park, beyond the gym dance area. Some of them had containers with pills they called
colies
or
blancas
(
colies
was short for
coloradas,
which meant “reds” or downers;
blancas
stood for “whites,” uppers).