Help Wanted (19 page)

"See how nice people are," Ramiro remarked to his son.

Adan had to agree. "Yeah, they look like crooks, but maybe I'm wrong, Dad."

"Of course you are, Adan." He clenched his fist and yelled out the window, "
¡Vivan Los
Raiders!"

"
¡Órale! ¡Los
Raiders!" Adan shouted timidly.

Ramiro smiled at his son. He adjusted his eye patch, a habit of his. He glanced in the rearview mirror and admired the skull on the backseat. It was vibrating from the car's motion.

They parked at the Coliseum and walked among fans who were dressed in costumes that made his single skull seem childish. These boisterous fans had skulls that were twice as large, and some of them wore gladiator-like helmets. They had breastplates and shin guards, and faces painted silver and black. Bike chains hung from their thick chests like necklaces.

Ramiro was also amazed by the barbecues. He had expected hamburgers and weenies and bowls of potato chips, but the fans had cooked up feasts. He eyed tritip steaks,
came asada,
and chicken on grills, and pots of soup and soupy beans boiling away. There were lakes of guacamole, colorful salsas, salads, cakes,
pan dulce,
and sodas and beers in chests and plastic tubs like glaciers piled high with ice. Music—rap, soul, and
rancheras
—played from boom boxes.

Ramiro walked among the tailgaters until he heard a voice call, "Hey, come over here with us!" A burly man with a Raiders jersey beckoned him. The man was holding a spatula.

"You mean us?" Ramiro asked.

"Yeah, you two!" the man hollered kindly. "Eat with us."

Ramiro approached the man and they shook hands. The man introduced himself as Chuy. Ramiro then introduced his son, Adan, and Chuy introduced his wife, Gloria.

"Hey, my wife's name is Gloria
también!
" Ramiro said.

Chuy's Gloria was a little heavy, but her heaviness was mostly hidden by her jersey. The jersey nearly reached her knees.

"Where you from?" Chuy asked as he handed Ramiro a soda.

"From Del Rey."

"
¿De veras?
" His eyes got big with exaggerated excitement. "We're from Reedley."

"No way," Ramiro said. He calculated that Reedley was only thirteen miles from Del Rey, and it took an event such as the Raiders versus the Broncos to bring together people who lived within shouting distance. And they would get to know each other over
taquitos
and beans because both parties had seats in the Black Hole.

"This is a trip," Ramiro crowed. He had never used the word
trip
that way before, but, then again, he had never been to a game, either. He brought a chicken
taquito
to his mouth.

"What grade are you in,
mi'jo?
" Gloria asked Adan.

"Seventh," he answered shyly. He was filling a flimsy paper plate with food.

Gloria smiled. "My kids are grown, and so are Chuy's."

Ramiro understood that they had had children with other people, but that was okay by him.
These are modern times,
he thought.
Plus, I don't want to be a conservative.
He took another bite of
taquito.
Lettuce hung from his mouth like hay.

They ate and talked about work, but then blasted themselves.

"
Pues,
what are we doing talkin' about work,
hombre!
" Chuy scolded.

Ramiro agreed. He turned his attention to his son, "My son plays ball."

"Is that right?" Chuy said. He slipped a tortilla chip into his mouth and clamped down on it.

"I play wide receiver," Adan remarked. "I'm not that good."

"Don't say that,
mi'jo,
" Gloria corrected sweetly. She was sitting on the tailgate of their Ford Explorer. She was swinging her small, pudgy legs.

"But it's true."

Gloria argued that it wasn't true. She jumped from the tailgate, a motion that rocked their vehicle, and told Adan to go out for a pass.

Adan put down his plate. He took a few slow steps, looking over his shoulder. Gloria, arm cocked awkwardly, threw an orange, which Adan caught neatly. He tossed it underhand back to Gloria.

"See, he's good," Ramiro said with pride.

"Shoot, if the Raiders are down, they might bring you in, son," Chuy said. He chuckled, and his gut wobbled beneath his jersey.

Ramiro smiled. He liked that Chuy referred to his son as
son.
Gloria had called him
mi'jo.
They were good people. They said that they would like to see Adan play, and they exchanged telephone numbers with Ramiro.

While Chuy and Gloria cleaned up, Ramiro hurried back to the car to get his skull. He returned with it mounted on his shoulder.

"I hope it's nothing that you ate,
hombre,
" Chuy joked. "But you got a head growing out of your shoulder. Looks like my ex-brother-in-law." Chuy chuckled with one hand on his belly and remarked, "You look real good with that eye patch. Where did you get it?"

Ramiro explained that it was for his injured eye, and a solemn Chuy said, "Me and my big mouth. I thought it was part of your getup." He patted Ramiro's shoulder and cursed the rosebush that had injured him.

They entered the Coliseum and were jostled by fans yelling, "Raiders! Raiders! Raiders!" Ramiro joined the chant and bumped along the tide until they found their seats. He and Adan were in a different row from Chuy and Gloria. But when Ramiro looked up, he could see his new friends.

Chuy waved and asked, "Nice seats, huh?"

"The best,
compa!
" Ramiro marveled at the effortless use of the word "
compa,
" a word that implied best friend. He realized that he had no best friend and that, if God allowed, he was going to make Chuy his best friend. Ramiro pictured them enjoying a barbecue in his own backyard. Adan would take digital pictures of them arm in arm, and pictures of the two Glorias—his own much taller, much thinner Gloria and Chuy's Gloria in her Raider jersey. If he could get his Gloria to wear even a Raiders cap, then everything would be ... picture perfect.

The game started with a Raiders fumble, but it was soon three and out for the Broncos. Then it was three
and out for the Raiders, and on the next possession, the Broncos scored.

"
Ay,
" Ramiro moaned, and looked up at Chuy, who snapped his fingers and yelled, "
¡Qué lástima!
"

"But it's still early!" Ramiro yelled.

The game was a defensive struggle, and by halftime it was 10–3, Broncos. But at the start of the third quarter, the Raiders had tied the game on a kick return. Then the Raiders went up by another touchdown: 17–10. By then the Black Hole had gotten more packed, as fans pushed toward the first three rows of seats. That occurred when the Raiders scored a touchdown and their wide receiver jumped into the crowd in the Black Hole. The crowd pawed him, and the wide receiver pointed a finger skyward.

Ramiro, unable to contain himself, moved to the lower seats, where Chuy was then pressed between two other fans chanting, "Raiders! Raiders! Raiders!" Ramiro didn't care that his skull had been crushed or that someone had splashed soda on him. He didn't care that Adan remained in his seat. He had to be where the bodies were crushing against one another.

"Go, Raiders!" he yelled until his throat was sore. He smiled as he remembered that he had asked his wife to watch the game and to keep her eyes on the television. There was a chance that she might see him He had also asked that she record the game.
Chihua
hua,
he thought.
If only I can be on TV
... He prayed that his wife had clicked the
RECORD
button.

Then he got his chance to be on the six o'clock news. It was during the fourth quarter, when the Broncos scored a controversial touchdown. A few rowdy fans from the Black Hole spilled onto the field behind the goalpost. They had begun to throw wadded-up bags of food and cups filled with ice. The security guards yelled and prodded the fans back into the bleachers. But the fans began to push back, and a fan took a security guard to the ground in a headlock. By then the cops had come lumbering toward the commotion and were starting to handcuff the unruly fans.

"
Mira, la chota.
They're acting all bad!" Chuy yelled.

"
¡Estúpidos!
" Ramiro found himself shouting. He realized that it was an unfair remark, but he couldn't help himself. "We should help." Ramiro was even further amazed by his bravado.

"You're right." Chuy jumped down onto the field. He walked toward one of the cops. "This is America, man! These dudes are just having fun!"

"No," Ramiro muttered. He wished he hadn't said what he had said, and that his friend hadn't jumped down into the fracas. "¡Chuy!
¡Ven!
Get back over here."

A fuming Chuy waved Ramiro off.

Ramiro looked over his shoulder in the direction of his son. But he could see only arms and fists raised, and
the Black Hole fans began to jump the rail to help the handcuffed fans bellied out on the ground. The crazed tide suddenly had him falling over the rail and onto the field. He got up unhurt, though dazed. He quickly got into action after a cop began to whack Chuy behind the legs.

"You can't do that to my
compa!
" Ramiro yelled. He then remembered what Chuy had said: "This is America, dude!" Ramiro had never used the word
dude
before. In the melee, he realized that he was nothing like someone born on a quiet Sunday. No, he was like a man born on a boisterous Friday. He looked back into the bleachers. He couldn't locate his son among the fans who were beginning to throw things onto the field.

"
¡Mi'jo!
" he called. "Stay where you are! I'm going to get my
compa!
"

Hundreds of fans from the Black Hole were on the field, and the security guards and the few cops were in retreat. The hundreds, Ramiro among them, were chanting, "Raiders! Raiders! Raiders!"

The football players on the field had stopped to watch the commotion. The Raiders and Broncos were breathing hard, their steamy breaths blowing out of their helmets. They waited with hands propped on their hips.

"Adan!" Ramiro yelled. "Come on down!" Ramiro scanned the bleachers but couldn't find his son. "Adan!"
he yelled again, and would have continued to yell except a cop as big as a defensive back had tackled him in the end zone. He felt like a player with grass in his face and air being pushed from his lungs.

The next morning Ramiro woke up in jail, with his elbows bloody from having fallen during the stampede. Or maybe it was from when the police had marched them roughly to the idling vans outside the Coliseum. They had been driven to the county jail chanting, "Raiders! Raiders! Raiders!"

Raiders Nation.
It was its own country inside the United States of America. It had raised a silver and black flag. And if ever there was red on the flag, it was because of blood spilled for a good cause.

Chuy was in the same cell, a hand over his eyes, half asleep. Ramiro lay back on his cot with a sigh. He thought of home and his wife and son—of how, over dinners, he would replay the day for them. Oh, he felt blessed to share a cell with a captured nation of Black Hole fans. He felt the damaged skull on his shoulder and pulled it up to his face. One of the eyes had been poked out.

"Hey,
compa,
" Ramiro whispered from the bunk above his new friend.

"What?" a groggy Chuy asked, then smacked his dry lips.

"Do you know if we won?"

ándale:
come on

apúrate:
hurry up

bigote:
mustache

cállate:
shut up

casi:
almost

¡chihuahua¡:
an expression of surprise

chismosa:
gossipy girl or woman

chorizo con huevos:
pork sausage with eggs

como:
as

cómo:
how

cómo estás:
how are you?

cómo friegan:
you are so bothersome

compa:
buddy

cuídate:
be careful; take care

de veras:
really; truly

Dios mío:
my God

Doña:
madam

dos:
two

doscientos:
two hundred

el joven es magnífico:
the young man is magnificent

ese:
that; that one

está:
(it, he, she) is

están en la casa:
they are in the house

estúpido:
stupid

fuego:
fire

hace frío:
it's cold

hombre:
man

huevos con:
eggs with

la chota:
the police

la mesa:
the table

la salsa y pimienta:
the sauce and pepper

listo:
ready

mami:
mommy

me voy:
I leave; I go

mi cielo:
my dearest

mi'jo/mi'ja:
my son/my daughter

mira:
look

mis llaves:
my keys

mocos:
snot

no tengo mis llaves:
I don't have my keys

oí nada:
I heard nothing

órale:
okay; right

pan dulce:
sweet bread

papas:
potatoes

papi:
daddy

pues:
then; well then

qué cochino:
how filthy

qué lástima, muchacha:
what a pity, girl

qué linda chica:
what a pretty girl

qué no:
isn't that so

qué pasó/pasa:
what happened/happens

quién sabe:
who knows

rancheras:
popular Mexican songs

ruca:
girl

también:
too

taquito:
small taco

tenemos que comer:
we have to eat