A Glass of Water

by Jimmy Santiago Baca

  46

  Vito didn’t sleep that night, or the next. Circles darkened his eyes. His entire life now narrowed to this sharp hour, this target: Buffalo Nickel man. Memories rippled out from the source of all pain. Vito felt like a child again. His eyes widened as large as the black sky, filling his soul with a tormenting rain of sadness that never stopped. He wept, pacing back and forth in his room, crying for the four-year-old crawling on the floor as his brother chased him under tables and around the legs of patrons who watched Nopal’s two kids invent silly games. That’s where he was when he saw the nickel boot tips and heels, heard the click-click sound they made on the hardwood floor as they passed him—and since then, passing a thousand times in his sleep.

  Driving the southern route from Cruces to Tucson, the beauty of the moon cooled Lorenzo’s rage. Leaving Yuma, the sun rising over the desert took his breath away. He pulled over and parked and something felt like it snapped in him and he sat on the ground, leaning against the right rear fender and again, he wept.

  He drove on with a fierce willfulness, his mind fixed on the business ahead.

  He arrived in East L.A. the next day, late in the afternoon, went directly to Vito’s apartment, pulled up, and found Vito sitting outside on the steps. He looked bad. Vito walked up the walkway and opened the truck door and hugged Lorenzo and Lorenzo embraced him back.

  “Take me up to your place. You gotta wash, you stink. I’ll make some coffee.”

  Vito paused at the entrance.

  “Come on, it’ll be okay,” Lorenzo assured him.

  That night they hung out at the bar until closing and just as Vito said, the man appeared. Lorenzo saw the man’s nickel-tipped boots and nickel-plated heels and they were the same ones he’d seen as a kid at the bar where his mother sang.

  Lorenzo told Vito to stay put and nurse his beer while he took a stool at the counter next to the man. He started up a casual conversation, about how coming in late was a good time to pick up women because that was when they were drunk and ready for bedding, but the man knocked back his tequila shot and headed for the back exit.

  Lorenzo followed and Vito came up after him.

  The man was out back smoking, leaning against the wall, one leg crooked. He turned to the brothers and his eyes squinted at them and he reached for the bowie knife at his belt.

  Vito sprang and kicked the knife away, punching him repeatedly and without mercy. Jaw bone cracked. Ribs broke. Nose was smashed. Cheek bones shattered. And then there was his brother coming at the man from behind, wielding the bowie knife in his hand. As if in a slow-motion nightmare, Lorenzo slid the blade across the man’s Adam’s apple and whispered, “This is for our mother!”

  Vito staggered in horror as the man slumped to the ground, blood squirting from his neck. Lorenzo knelt beside the man, shook the man’s head, and yelled, “Understand me? You had this coming. Tonight is the night of understanding, muthafucker!”

  The man gave a muffled groan as Lorenzo shoved the man’s face into the pool of blood until he quit breathing.

  Sirens closed in from a distance and Lorenzo ordered Vito to run but he refused.

  “I’m with you.”

  Lorenzo grabbed his brother and threw him against the wall and cried out, “You leave! Now! You get you ass in gear and train hard, win that title, for our mom and dad! You understand me? You understand …”

  “Yes.”

  “Go. Everything will be fine, champ. And get Rafael down here to train you again.”

  The cops arrived and arrested Lorenzo. Vito walked on the sidewalk, an anonymous pedestrian in the crowd. Lorenzo spent the drive to the police station in the backseat, handcuffed and bloody. Vito glanced at him as he passed and they both nodded, knowing they had done what had to be done.

  47

  March 2009

  The big title fight was a week away and Rafa was pushing Vito hard. He wanted him to be in top condition. They were now coming back from a fifteen-mile run in the steep hills near Santa Barbara.

  Rafa drove and Vito was sitting shotgun in the truck, half dozing and half remembering his earlier days fighting in small village rodeos on New Mexico ranches where a couple of cowboys flagged you in between two tall pine trees with a sign nailed to the bark that read THE FIGHT.

  Rafa asked, “You hear who’s back? Harold’s little brother, Cobra, ranked top ten now. He’ll be gunning for you soon.”

  Vito stirred awake, selected songs on his iPod, and slipped his earphones on. He unwrapped a candy bar and munched, nodding to the music. Rafael reached over and unplugged the wire. He repeated the information and then said, “Hope you’re ready.”

  “Hope so, too.” Vito liked to irritate Rafael with modest affection. “When he’s not fighting, he’s chained to his daddy’s tractor hitch, plowing up field boulders.”

  “I think he lives around here, one of these little towns.”

  “And you think I’m all goose down and swan fluff?” Vito continued trying to provoke him, but Rafael didn’t fall for it.

  “All I said was he’s ranked and tough.”

  And as the truck jumbled down the dirt road to the farm house, Ignacio, who was sleeping in the middle between them, woke up and yawned. “We here?” he asked, and rubbed his eyes.

  Vito opened the truck door and stood on the running board. He jumped off and yelled back to Rafa, “I’ll meet you there.” They still had two hours of sparring to do in the barn, which they had outfitted with a ring and body and speed bags.

  Months ago, when Vito had visited his brother in the L.A. county jail, Lorenzo told him to rent a farm outside of Santa Barbara and set up a training facility. And since the place had lush acres of rolling sweet grass, Lorenzo had Vito buying livestock to start herds back home someday—cows, bulls, horses, and sheep.

  Now, Vito walked over to a holding pen to check out a new batch of Texas longhorns fresh from the auction. “Boy, you got balls big as a trucker’s ass,” he spit at the steer’s head, hitting it right between the eyes on its big bony forehead. “And you,” he said, walking over to a white-faced cow, “are as cute as a girlfriend I once had.”

  The fight was to be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and promoters had billed it as the biggest clash between two heavyweight titans since the thriller from Manila, with Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Bobby “Warlock” Malone, the undefeated world champion from England, against Vito “Fieldworker” Lucero, also known as the man with the magic carpet ride because he had ascended the ranks so fast.

  That evening a sell-out crowd squeezed into the arena, more people than Vito had ever imagined might come to see him fight—millionaires and Hollywood stars thirty deep at ringside, and all the way up near the rafters were the rag-footed, scrub-jean workers.

  Snapping his jabs and storming pure destruction through his punches, Vito warmed up in the locker room, smashing the body bag until he was sweating and in the humming trance of a warrior on a religious mission.

  He didn’t see anyone anymore, didn’t notice the girls flirting with him or the men that wanted him beat down like a dog, nor did he think about the money—Warlock, his opponent, filled him with rage, a blistering rage, a blinding hot-flash rage, he was the emissary of all landowners, the representative of all evil.

  He put on the kid’s gloves, which he hadn’t worn for a long time, the ones he had found in the trunk of the car long ago, and after Rafael laced them up, he kissed them, knelt, and prayed. Then he rose, uncharacteristically quiet and somber, thinking of his family, the fields, his father and brother and mother, and the life he used to have.

  “It’s worse than I thought,” Rafael said, worry etched in his face. Vito said nothing. “You’re fighting the dirtiest fighter there is.”

  Vito spit, “Good, good.” Vito was in a zone that Rafael had never seen him in before a fight. It was the first fight where Vito didn’t take the mic and cajole the crowd. He looked at Rafa and asked, “Is tonight Good Friday?”

  “I don�
�t think so, is it?” He looked at Ignacio, who didn’t know—he hadn’t attended church in twenty years.

  “Someone’s got to pay for Christ’s suffering on the cross.”

  They all smiled.

  They entered the arena, mariachi music blaring until Vito was in the ring. A cheer went up; the Chicanos and Mexicans were expecting Vito to say something but he remained quiet and that disturbed them, especially after the announcer introduced Warlock and a riotous clamor went up. “War-lock! War-lock! War-Lock!”

  Vito studied his beefy opponent and muttered, “A clubhouse prince I am going demote down to backdoor toss, to dog’s butcher scraps.” Warlock’s mashed nose looked like the end of a drill bit. He sported a mustache and sideburns, and his trunks bore the image of a Warlock with mountain goat horns and a sword. The flesh around his eyes was permanently swollen from too many punches. The gauzy illumination of the rafter lights cut at his features, making him appear shadowy and menacing.

  The bell rang and Vito sprinted out, dancing on his toes, smacking Warlock with quick jabs, slicing at him, kidneys, ribs, arms, mocking as Warlock counterpunched but hit only air.

  Vito snapped quick stinging rights at Warlock’s face and midsection at will but Warlock managed to land a punch on Vito’s face, causing his eyes to burn and tear up, blurring his vision. After a while there was nothing Vito could do but tie him up and battle inside, close up.

  And that was what Warlock wanted.

  He bit Vito on the shoulder. In another bear hug he slugged Vito’s crotch and made him double over in pain while he beat Vito from behind. Vito was losing, and the more he pounded inside, retaliating for every blow given, the more Warlock devastated him with crushing blows to the back, head, and ribs.

  Round after round, Warlock was too big, pounding Vito with his enormous arms and legs, the layers of muscle under inches of skin and thick-boned joints were impervious. Vito’s blows hardly fazed or slowed Warlock’s pounding until Vito whispered something about how he knew Warlock’s mother and the reason he couldn’t hit him hard was because Warlock might be his own son—his mother worked the corner, giving it up for a suck on the crack pipe.

  That was it.

  Warlock went berserk, he tried to kick Vito, then lowered his head and shoulders and rammed Vito down to the canvas and bludgeoned him mercilessly with his fist and elbows, cracking his forehead against Vito’s and opening a gash along the hairline.

  The ref could do nothing and the fans screamed for blood. It was no longer a heavyweight title fight, but a barroom brawl.

  Mumbled whispers of defeat rippled through the crowd and Chicanos grumbled louder and louder about Warlock cheating. The casino owners and rich mobsters ringside were smiling, content that justice was being meted out in good old-fashion white-boy ways. Warlock was going to win in any way at any cost.

  Fans shouted to stop the fight. Others made their way through the crowd, got as close to ringside as they could, and cried for Vito to respond.

  Rafa slapped his hands together yelling at Vito to get up. Between Warlock’s flurry of blows, Vito glimpsed Rafa’s face. He looked around and other faces reflected the fight’s outcome—the expressions were disappointed and sullen, all thinking he was another wannabe champ who had raised their expectations but was now proving he didn’t have the heart.

  The crowd roared, “Dale en la madre cabrón! Put the son of a bitch down.”

  There were no more rounds or ref or judges, it was blood and sheer violence.

  Warlock lunged with all his weight behind the punch into Vito’s ribs and Vito buckled, cringed in agony, his heels kicking the floor he was in so much pain.

  Shaking it off, Vito squirmed free of Warlock’s armlock. Breathing and coughing, gasping for air, he danced and hopped and backpedaled around until he recovered his balance and the dizziness left his head.

  Blood poured from the cuts on his head and mouth but it didn’t stop him from mouthing off again.

  “You be lucky if you’re riding rims when I get done. You ever walk into L.A. traffic at rush hour? You’re about to be under the wheels buddy.” Vito smiled, puffing, teeth red, blood oozing from his grin.

  Lefts and rights, cuts and chops. Warlock panted, his face looked like a twenty-car pileup and Vito was the tornado that swirled around him. Warlock was spent, couldn’t hold his arms up, tried swinging but flailed haplessly. He had expended all his energy trying for a quick knockout.

  The momentum shifted and the crowd booed as Vito slapped, played, then obliterated Warlock with fierce roundhouse punches. Warlock’s face went into Vito’s gloves whole and came out crushed, diced, and juiced. Then, as one of the grand symbolic moves of the fight that was to be remembered for a long time, to punctuate his dominance, Vito pushed Warlock through the ropes, leaped over, and shoved him into the crowd, where Warlock collapsed, blood bubbling from his nose and mouth and every part of his face. Suddenly, Vito yelled at the audience, “My brother is innocent!”

  The fight was over. Warlock was slumped over and Vito was in another world, even as the cops were called in and the fans roared. Vito stared at the spectators and then rushed back to the ring, grabbed the mic from the judge’s table, and jumped up to address the crowd.

  “My brother is innocent,” he repeated and, even as fans were fighting the riot police near the entrances, he continued. “He’s in jail now, accused of murder, and he didn’t do it. I did! In self-defense, and now they’re trying to pin it on my brother. The man attacked me with a knife.”

  The crowd quieted. “I defended myself. Don’t let injustice rule this land. This is America, where justice can prevail.”

  The giant crowd of Chicanos reeled as the flashy fight fans at ringside started making their way out, shouldering through the masses.

  Vito ordered, “No, no, don’t leave. We’re in this together and we will make this country live up to its dream, the American dream!”

  The crowd started chanting, “American dream! American dream!”

  “I promise you, we will get there!”

  In the roar of the crowd, even the judges and society’s most upstanding members, sitting together in one section, gave almost imperceptible nods of assent and turned to leave.

  “Thank you, thank you.” Vito turned to the crowd. He slapped Ignacio’s arm and delighted the crowd with fancy footwork dancing.

  Mariachis followed him and swung into a vibrant polka song. People clapped and danced, doors swung open and the smoggy but beautiful air of Los Angeles filled the coliseum. Rafael shook his head in astonishment. He knew the heavyweight title had just gone out the window and that Vito would be put on a minimum one-year suspension and probably five years probation. But in a way, Rafael was okay with it—the world knew Vito was the champion, whether he wore the belt or not, and that suited Rafael just fine. He grabbed Vito to get him out before the cops put him in jail for inciting a riot.

  48

  Lorenzo watched the whole thing from his jail cell with mixed feelings. He wanted his little brother to win right, win clean, but he was glad he had defended himself and didn’t let Warlock brutalize him. He knew Vito had the public behind him now. Vito was smart, and Lorenzo knew that was why he had done it. Public opinion counted a lot when it came to high-profile trials.

  Three months later, when the trial began, such a large crowd arrived that reserve police were called in to monitor the mob. It was almost like a holiday—thousands and thousands of boxing fans showed up for Lorenzo’s day in court. They barbecued on tailgates, brandished Mexican flags, and blasted ranchera music, gathering to still talk about the fight. Vito was their hero and to sweeten their adoration and loyalty to him, the day Lorenzo was declared innocent by virtue of self-defense, it seemed every single Mexican and Chicano in the world descended on Los Angeles. Freeways were packed, Los Angeles cantinas and restaurants were congested, the beach swarmed with kids and families and picnickers, and every hour radio stations announced the verdict and played celebratory music.<
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  On a warm January morning, in 2009, Vito and Lorenzo left Los Angles and when they arrived back at the camp, Miller was true to his word and sold them the acreage next to his fields. On May 14, 2009, after they had finished building two houses on opposite ends of the farm, they signed the papers to start their own agricultural chili business.

  It was a Monday morning and Vito and Lorenzo were in the fields, working alongside the other field-workers, when Carmen came outside, holding her cell phone out to Vito and motioning that it was a call for him. Vito took the phone and walked away to talk in private.

  She also had a bottle filled with ice-cold water that she handed to Lorenzo. He uncapped it and gulped heartily. Carmen unhitched the straps of her baby pack, set it on the ground, and lifted out their three-month-old daughter, Liliana.

  Lorenzo took the baby in his arms and sat on the ground cradling her. He set her down in the dirt and sifted soil over her tiny hands. She cooed with pleasure.

  Vito finished his call, knelt down next to Liliana, and looked up at Lorenzo, who said, “I know brother, I know. Isn’t she beautiful?” He looked around the fields and at his house and his eyes settled on Carmen, then his brother.

  Vito wondered what his brother meant by, “I know, brother, I know,” but instead of asking he said, “That was the doctor, about my checkup last week.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “You remember that arrowhead Mom put into my chest? When I was a baby?”

  Lorenzo nodded and handed him the bottle of water.

  Vito drank and said, “I got two choices. The doctor says if I want to box, he has to take it out. It’s moved in, and he says if I got hit hard, it could puncture one of my vital organs. I think he meant my heart. Take it out and box or leave it in and never box again.”

  “What’d you decide?”

  “It’s part of mom. She stays with me.”