The Wine of Youth (23 page)

“We can't beat them,” Wang said. “That guy's too old. He's got a wife and four kids.”

We lined up to receive. Irish kicked off. The ball sailed end over end, seventy-five yards in the air, over our goal posts, out of the end zone and past the cars parked beyond the end zone. The girls screamed with joy. Irish bowed from the waist like an actor.

With the ball on our twenty, we went into a huddle.

I called, “Rattlesnake Twister. Number Twenty-three.”

Irish was playing defensive center, spitting on his hands and standing there poised like a wrestler. On 82 Nunez let me have the ball. Before I could pivot and shovel it to Smitty in the flat, Irish crashed through the line, picked me up and threw me ten yards in the air. Then he dumped down our entire backfield. I landed on my back. We had lost twelve yards on the play. In the huddle again, we were bruised and plenty scared.

“Let's punt it,” I said. “Let's play it safe and try to keep the score down.”

We went into punt formation. As soon as Irish saw it, he rushed back to safety position. Smitty kicked. The ball went over Hagaromo's head and rolled to their forty-yard line. Irish picked it up on a dead run, stopped, waved to the girls, tucked his head down and charged into us. We were smashed right and left and he went all the way for a touchdown. Standing between the goal posts, he did a jig for the girls. They loved it, shrieking and laughing.

After that we didn't care much. He had us scared and it made us tire fast. The first quarter ended 28 to 0. Five minutes before the end of the half, with the score 49 to 0, Irish took himself out of the game. He was so tired he tossed himself on the ground and didn't bother to wave at the applause.

With Irish out, our tricks worked. It was our chance to score, and we made the most of it. In five minutes we piled up three touchdowns and kicked goal twice. The half ended 49 to 20. At half time we felt better. We knew we could win if Irish was out of it.

Lying on our stomachs in the end zone, we listened to Jake, “You're a great team. This half you'll stop that big stiff. You'll stop him so hard he'll be carried off the field.”

“That's nice to know,” Nunez said, holding his head. “What'll we use, a truck?”

Oscar Lewis crossed the field from a line of parked cars. We didn't know he had come to watch the game. We were ashamed as he stood looking down at us.

“I guess that Hagaromo's too heavy for you punks,” he said. “You ought to complain to the referee. It ain't right.”

We didn't say anything.

“He must weigh as much as me,” Oscar said.

“How much do you weigh?” Jake asked.

“Me? About 250.”

“Then you got to play for us. Irish weighs 225.”

“I'm no football player. I'm an old man of fifty.”

“Mr. Lewis, the team needs you. This is your game too. You can't just sit on the side lines—big fellow like you, all that weight. You got to get in there and use it on Hagaromo.”

“Sorry, kid. I'm an old man.”

Jake shook his head. “It's amazing. I can't believe it.” He turned to us. “Hey, team. We got a traitor. Yes, sir. Great big powerful traitor. It's hard to believe.”

Oscar turned white, but he didn't say a word. He looked hard at Jake, bit his lower lip, and walked back to the cars. The starting whistle blew and we got to our feet.

It was our turn to receive. We spread ourselves out and watched Irish come forward on the kickoff. His foot punched the ball and
it soared lazily toward our goal line. Tasi Morimoto took it and started upfield. We blocked all opposition except Irish Hagaromo. He and Tasi met head-on at the twenty-yard line.

Irish got up, grinning. But Tasi didn't get up. He was knocked cold. We carried him off the field and laid him on a patch of side-line grass. He moaned when we sponged his greenish face. It was warm in the sun. Suddenly a big shadow covered us. It was Oscar Lewis.

“How is he?”

“Wind knocked out. He'll be okay in a minute.”

Oscar unbuckled his gun. “Gimme a helmet,” he said. “Traitor, am I? Ain't nobody can point the finger of scorn at Oscar Lewis.”

He reported to Mr. Slade and came back to our huddle about the fifteen-yard line. He was so mad he kept working his fists open and shut.

“Let me call this one, boys,” he said. “Just gimme that ball and get the hell out of the way.”

We broke huddle, Oscar in the tailback spot. Swinging his arms and spitting on his hands, Irish Hagaromo was grinning and ready for anything. Nunez centered gently. Oscar took the ball, fumbled a moment, clutched it to his belly and boomed through center, his head down, keys and coins jingling in his pockets. There was an awful thud. He and Irish Hagaromo met head on. Both went down. Both lay still. We had not gained a yard. But it was Oscar Lewis who got to his feet, reeling and staggering. Irish Hagaromo did not get up. They poured a bucket of water on his face, but even that didn't wash away the grin, and he slept cheerfully.

They stretched him out on the side lines before all the sad girls, and a substitute took his place. Oscar staggered around, holding his head in his hands. He was sick, his face bluish, his mouth open. He called for time, pulled off his helmet and left the game. He had lasted one play, but it was enough. Tasi Morimoto had got his wind back and was ready to play again.

After that, it was murder. On two plays we scored a touchdown and kicked goal. Two minutes later Wang recovered a fumble. We worked our Rattlesnake Twister and scored again. At the end of the third period we were one point behind, 49 to 48. Irish Hagaromo had regained consciousness, but he was still groggy
and lying on the grass. In the fourth quarter we pulled all our fancy stuff and scored two more touchdowns in five minutes.

With seven minutes to play, we were ahead 62 to 49. Then Irish Hagaromo got to his feet and began warming up along the side lines. The girls screamed with new hope. But Irish was too mad to bow and clown around. He looked dangerous as we watched him trot up and down, his knees going high.

Five minutes before the end of the game he reported for action. It was a time-out period, and we looked to the side lines for Oscar Lewis. He was standing with Jake, and we waved for him to hurry back into the game. But Oscar made no move. Jake shook his head.

“Get in there and fight!” he yelled. “Show 'em that All-American spirit!”

With the ball on Japanese Settlement thirty, we took our defensive positions. Irish wasn't smiling any more. All at once, seeing him standing there so serious, ready to take that ball and bash our line, we weren't afraid of him. This man could be stopped. We had seen it done. It could be done again. Something had happened to us. We weren't afraid. We all felt it, because we seemed to look at one another and say it with our eyes.

The ball was snapped. Irish drove through tackle. Wang hit him low and Rube hit him high; they were both knocked down, but Irish had lost his balance. When he got to the line of scrimmage, Blucher socked him at the knees and Tasi Morimoto dived at his neck. Smitty and I just rolled in front of him. Down he went, the whole team smothering him. The gain was three yards. We got up and looked at one another. He had been stopped again. Now we knew we had him.

And we did. With tears in his eyes, Hagaromo went back to the tailback spot. He looked at us with murder jumping out of his eyes. But we weren't afraid, and on the next play he only gained one yard. And we kept dropping him. Sometimes he went ten yards, sometimes fifteen, with all of us riding on his back and hugging his legs, and though Japanese Settlement kept the ball most of the time, with Irish piling our whole team to the one-yard line, the final whistle blew and he didn't score.

We took an awful beating. When we staggered off the field Hagaromo threw himself on the grass and beat it with his fists and tore up the turf with his teeth, crying and groaning. We gathered our stuff and looked around for Oscar Lewis. But he was gone. For a winning team, we were a pretty sad bunch.

“He had to go to work,” Jake said.

“He won the game for us,” Tasi said.

“No, you all won it,” Jake said.

“Yeah,” Blucher said. “But it took outside help. Oscar wasn't a member of the team.”

“Is that so?” Jake smiled.

He opened his notebook to a page with writing on it. And this is what we read:

 

From this day forward, having paid my dues in the amount of 25 cents, I hereby serve notice that I am a member of the All-American Team, and said team may call upon me at any time in the performance of my duties
.

(
signed
) Oscar Lewis.

(
Witnessed by
) Jacob Rabinowitz.

 

That made all the difference in the world. We got aboard the ferry and sang songs all the way home.

A
POLICEMAN TOLD
me about the room. He said it was up on Bunker Hill, a big gray stucco place. I went up there. Thirty-five years ago Bunker Hill used to be a fashionable neighborhood, but not today. Those twenty-room mansions are shabby now.

A big gray stucco place. There it was. I rang the doorbell. A Mexican woman opened the door. She was strong and erect.

Her hair had the shining black glitter of baked enamel. So dark, so shiny it gave her face an orange tint. This was Mrs. Flores.

The rent was ten a week. I gave her forty.

“Better see the room first,” she said.

But I was tired of looking for rooms. I wanted anything, merely four walls. I wanted to be alone with my typewriter. There was work to do. I didn't care what the room was like. Mrs. Flores led me upstairs to the second floor. A very old house. Thick high doors. Brass fittings.

Seeing the room, I hesitated. It was so stark. Only four pieces of furniture: bed, dresser, chair and table. No rug. No curtains. No pictures on the wall.

“It's a lot for this place, Mrs. Flores.”

“I told you to look at it first.”

She wasn't angry. She merely didn't care. When she spoke I saw her white teeth. They were exquisitely flawless. She dressed in the fashion of her people—a peasant skirt and blouse, silver earrings, a matching silver trinket at her throat. Her small feet were shod in huaraches. They looked strong, comfortable.

She went after soap and towels. I opened my grip and took out the few things I owned. A few shirts, shorts, neckties, socks.
A whole ream of clear white paper. It was a lean time for me. But I had much to write. It fairly ached inside me.

I opened my portable and put it on the table under the window. I saw myself writing furiously, pounding night and day here in this room, the great sprawling city down below. Outside the window was the tip of an aged palm tree. It would inspire me, break the monotony of four walls.

Mrs. Flores was back with soap and towels. Her dark eyes widened when she saw the typewriter. I explained how it was with me—this was how I made my living, writing stuff.

“You'll have to leave,” she said.

“Leave? Why?”

She took the forty dollars from her skirt pocket and laid it on the dresser. “It's the noise of the typewriter,” she said. “The man next door needs his sleep.”

The door separating my room and the next was thick walnut. The walls were thick. And my machine was quiet. I showed her, rattling a few keys. I promised there would be no noise. But her mind was firm. She shook her head slowly, persistently. I began to throw things back into my grip. I thought how unreasonable she was. And I hated the man next door, whoever he was; I cursed him.

There were footsteps in the hall. He appeared, this man who lived next door.

“Cristo!” the woman said.

He stood there looking at me and I saw the peculiar animation of love come into the face of Mrs. Flores, the dark eyes adoring him.

“Hallo,” he said.

It was mechanical, cold. He could feel her animation. He did not want it. He was guarding himself from it. He was tall, intense, handsome, a Filipino of probably thirty-five. He was beautifully dressed, specially his yellow necktie shining like a little sun from his neck.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“He writes with the typewriter,” Mrs. Flores said. “You won't sleep if he stays. You need your rest. You don't sleep well.”

“I sleep good,” he said. “How you know this—how I sleep? You peek?”

He wanted an answer. His eyes opened in indignation. Mrs. Flores lowered her face.

“Is bad for woman to look at sleeping man,” he admonished. “I do not like this.”

She took it quietly, stoically. Cristo smiled at me. “Please to stay, my friend,” he said. “Is good to have educated man for neighbor, with typewriter.”

I thanked him and we shook hands.

“Name of Sierra. Cristo Sierra.”

“John Lane,” I told him.

But I watched Mrs. Flores. She showed no emotion. I wanted to hear her say, in so many words, that the room was mine. As she backed out, Cristo holding the door, she gave me a quick inscrutable look. Then I was alone in my room. I sat down and tried to work. Through my mind flashed that passion in the eyes of Mrs. Flores, the way she looked at Cristo, but it would not go down on paper.

 

No, it wouldn't go down. After three days, all I had to show for the ferment of my brain was wads of crushed paper. I walked the creaking floor. I pounded my head, rolled on the bed, stared at the ceiling. Alert, I listened to the sounds coming from the house. Every morning I heard Cristo leave. He was gone until late at night, sometimes after midnight. Two other roomers lived on the second floor. Old Mr. Ashley had heart trouble and was seldom heard. I never knew or saw the other man. But now I found myself forever listening for the feline swish of Mrs. Flores' huaraches. Her name disturbed me. I told myself that with her youth and beauty she should be known as Dolores or Maria, or some such name to fit the dark loveliness of her face.

Every morning after he was gone I heard her in Cristo's room. She would be in there dusting and making his bed. Her sobs would emerge like the fluttering of a trapped dove.

I learned a few things about her from old Ashley. He had lived in this house for twenty years. He remembered when Mrs. Flores had bought it three years before. She was a war widow. Her husband had left her enough to buy this house. If Ashley suspected that she loved Cristo, he didn't say it. But it was
significant that he began immediately to talk of the Filipino. Cristo worked for a fruit company, where he was foreman of the warehouse.

 

I talked to Cristo a week later. That was the first time I saw his room. It was after dark of another sterile day, with nothing on paper. He knocked on the door separating our rooms. When I answered, the key turned and he opened the door.

“Hallo,” he said. “You like little drink?” He frowned at the condition of my room.

“Mrs. Flores promised me a wastebasket,” I said.

“Is hard work, yes?” he asked, nodding at the typewriter.

I liked this Cristo. Here was at least one person who understood my problems. He stepped aside and bowed toward his room.

“Welcome.”

His room was breath-taking. I had almost forgotten such places existed. There were the lamps: three soft-glowing floor lamps spilling light on a room so richly furnished I stared in unbelief. In one corner was a fireplace. Before it stood two luxurious red leather chairs, a low table between them, and on the table in elegant simplicity were decanters of liquor, a bowl of ice cubes and a tray of glasses.

I spun around in awe. On the walls were Currier and Ives reprints mounted in expensive frames. It was a corner room, two sides redecorated in knotty pine and stained with bright shellac. I touched the draperies hanging from the double windows. They were gold-figured chintz against a blue background. And all the time Cristo watched me, pleased. Standing before the fireplace, he fixed highballs, his lips turned in a quiet smile. He seemed to invite me to browse around. I prowled everywhere, opening doors. Here was his clothes closet. It was as one might expect, his suits hanging neatly, like headless figures of himself. And there were his ties—not as many as I imagined, a dozen or so—but each a stunning eye-catcher. I closed the door and paused before the one next to it.

“Do you mind?” I asked. “I might as well see it all.”

“Halp youself.”

It was the bathroom. The absolutely private bathroom of Cristo
Sierra. When I saw the stall shower behind panels of opaque glass I envied Cristo for the first time.

“You're lucky,” I told him.

His dismissal was a shrug. He handed me a highball. I crossed the room to a bowl of fruit and a display of flowers on the table beside his studio couch.

“So you like flowers too,” I said.

“No.”

“You like Mrs. Flores?”

“Is fine woman,” he said, taking in the room with a wave of his hand. “She give me all this. Rent, five a week. I wish to pay more. She will not take.”

“She has good taste.”

“Fine woman. But not for Cristo Sierra.”

“I hear her in here every day. She cries.”

“I know. Cannot halp. Is not my type.”

I wondered about his type but I didn't ask.

We sprawled in the leather chairs, smoking and sipping our drinks. We seemed to know there was serious talk ahead. We drained our glasses and he filled them again.

“Mr. Lane,” he said. “I have big dream. Big. You are writer. You will understand.”

 

His dream was a return in triumph to his native village of Villazon, seventy miles north of Manila. Twenty years ago, when he was fifteen, Cristo had come to the United States. Somehow he had escaped the poverty and desolation of Villazon only to find himself trapped by the glittering poverty of California. But that was in the past. Somehow he had survived. He had picked grapes in Modesto, cotton in Bakersfield, asparagus in Sacramento, celery in Venice, cantaloupes in the Imperial Valley. He had canned tuna at San Pedro. He had been hungry in Oxnard, Lompoc and San Diego. Once he had nearly died of pneumonia in the Sutter County Hospital. Once he lived a whole month in the Union Station at Berkeley.

But not once in all those years had he fallen in love, nor met the dream of his soul. Now he was glad he had not found her during that bitter time. He might have lost her out of his inability
to keep her gowned and fed. But good times finally came to Cristo. He had saved his money for years. Because he had learned the ways of workmen, he was well paid for his knowledge. Now he was a foreman, a boss.

“Look. I show you.”

He drew out a small book that recorded his bank deposits. I read the figure. It was nearly seven thousand.

“Soon I go back to Villazon,” he said. “I buy tobacco plantation.”

For he knew exactly what he wanted. A hundred acres in the hills above his native village. As a boy he had played in those hills with his dog. Soon he would return like a hero and bring prosperity to his family.

“Soon?”

“Soon as I find wife. That is my dream.”

“Maybe you won't find her. It may take years.”

He shook his head. Now he was ready to find her. He had money now. That was the difference.

“Mrs. Flores would make a wonderful wife.”

“Is not my type.”

“What is your type?”

“Is not the type of Mrs. Flores. Is different.”

“Where do you look for her?”

“All over Los Angeles. Every night. All day Saturday and Sunday. I walk in the street, in the stores, I keep looking. In the show, in the cafe. On Sunday in the church. All over Southern California I look. Sometimes I go to Long Beach, San Bernardino. Pretty soon I find her.”

“And you want an American girl.”

“Must be American. Typical American girl. Was time was prejudice for Filipino. Is no more. Must be American, for children. To get pioneers, for plantation.”

“Mrs. Flores is American.”

“Is not my type,” he snapped.

After that, conditions improved for me in the Bunker Hill house. Cristo left his door open and I was free to use his shower. He insisted I help myself to the fruit bowl. Usually he returned from work around six in the evening. Every night he came to
the door and glanced at the new wastebasket Mrs. Flores had supplied. It was usually full of crumpled paper, crushed evidence of another futile day. After a while, showered and dressed, a gala necktie at his throat, Cristo left and I knew he was off to prowl the streets and cafes, searching for his dream woman.

One day he stayed in his room because of a cold. He wasn't seriously ill, merely fretful. Mrs. Flores tried to come in to make his bed but I heard him chase her away crossly.

“You're sick,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“No. Is only cold. I wish to be alone.”

In a moment Mrs. Flores came to my room. Her face was worried, her eyes gleamed with concern. She held a hot-water bottle and a small package.

“Please,” she said. “Will you give him these?”

The package contained mustard plasters and nose drops. I took the stuff to Cristo. He examined everything with a look of horror, sneezed and turned his face away.

“Is crazy, that woman. Here is best thing for cold.”

He poured himself a jigger of whisky and swallowed it laboriously.

The next morning he was on his feet again. I heard him bounce out of bed and leave for work. On my way to breakfast I met Mrs. Flores. She couldn't hide her concern.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Cured,” I said. “He went to work.”

“Then the medicine helped?”

“Just the thing.”

She smiled with vast satisfaction. She was happy.

When I came back from breakfast there were some pleasant improvements in my room. The window was hung with fresh white curtains, there was a small hooked rug before my bed, and another chair—a rocking chair.

 

Cristo Sierra found his dream girl four weeks after I arrived at Mrs. Flores' rooming house. I am sure of the date because my rent was due and I didn't have it.

Somewhere around midnight Saturday Cristo came to my room. I sat in the rocker, reading a stack of futile manuscripts,
trying to salvage a few sentences. Cristo was not jubilant over his discovery. He was rather like the buyer of a car who had finally found what he wanted.

“I see her tonight,” he said. “Is wonderful. Just what I want.”

“What's she like?”

“Is typical American girl.”

“Did you talk to her?”

No, he hadn't even met her. He had only seen her at a night club.

“I wish your opinion,” he said. “Tomorrow I take you to look at her.”

We left the house Sunday night and walked down Angel's Flight to downtown Los Angeles. Cristo was magnificent in a blue gabardine double-breasted suit over a black shirt, and a purple necktie. I felt lowly and threadbare beside him, my shapeless slacks drooping miserably. But I was glad to be away from the house. I couldn't write there. I was thinking of moving.