Always Running

by Luis J. Rodriguez

  “I think it’s going to backfire on them.”

  “I hope so,” Roger said.

  Defense attorneys called me to the witness stand, and I related how I obtained the gun, how I got Darío to drive to the gray house—how there were already people shot when we got there. The bikers got on the stand and flubbed their testimony: There was one car—there were two cars; Mexicans were involved—there were no Mexicans. Most of the arguments made the shootings appear as something only between bikers. I couldn’t figure out why. Maybe Puppet had a reason for not wanting us to go back to the gray house the night of the party.

  A jury found Roger not guilty. Soon after, Roger and Margarita drove to Las Vegas and were married; I went along as their best man.

  Staff members and volunteers from the area’s community centers met to discuss how to end the barrio violence. They stepped into dangerous, shifting ground. Police, city officials, even businesses had a stake in this endeavor.

  “We should organize a meeting in which the various groups could agree to a truce,” proposed Sal Basuto from La Casa.

  “I don’t know if we should condone their existence by doing this,” a woman from the Zapopan Community Center countered. “We need more police protection—we need to stand up to these hoodlums and put them behind bars.”

  “That sounds like cops talking,” Chente said. “These aren’t criminals without faces. They are our children! What you propose only pits the community against itself—and the police would like nothing better than that.”

  “I think we should treat these youth as adults would treat warring nations,” Sal continued. “They have to negotiate. They have to draw up treaties. They have to sign them and abide by them. These young people might as well be prepared for the world they’re entering.”

  “This sounds fine—I don’t oppose it offhand,” Chente said. “But we also must consider how to provide something real and sustainable. Role-playing and game-playing won’t make it. These young people need a strong economic foundation, a viable future—if you’re not addressing this, then you’re not serious about solving anything.”

  I’d been asked to sit in on the meeting, but I didn’t say anything at first. I listened. It became important for me to find a way for the barrios to unite.

  “What do you think, young man?” one of the staff members asked me during a low point in the talks.

  “I don’t know about stopping violence. But it wouldn’t hurt if we had jobs.”

  The group decided to have a barrio unity meeting at La Casa. I had to convince my homeboys to show up. Not an easy task. Chicharrón agreed to attend. I even tried inviting him to a study session, but he refused, although in jest he began calling me the “Chinmunist,” a combination of Chin and communist.

  I walked up and down the Hills talking to dudes about the meeting. The younger guys seemed interested. I got most of the Dukes to say they’d come. But I needed some of the locos. My break came with Cuervo.

  “I’m sick of this shit,” he confided one day. “I’ve seen too many people killed.”

  “Great, I need you to help get others.”

  “Orale, Chin—count me in.”

  One evening, a homeless man tripped over a bundle laid out among bushes at Smith Park in Sangra. He looked closer; a woman’s soiled foot stuck out of one end. It was Cokie’s body, wrapped in bloody blankets.

  The coroner’s office reported she had been pumped full of pills and brutally raped. They had no suspects. But as always there was talk; somehow people knew who did what even when the authorities didn’t.

  The street talk said dudes from Lomas did the job. Cokie had long been a thorn in the side of the Hills. But it was a crime which scared a lot of us. What were people willing to do? It’s true Cokie was behind a lot of hurting, but who knows if she deserved the kind of hurting she went through before she died.

  Chava, just released from Camp Gonzales, a youth detention facility, declared that anybody in Sangra who participated in the barrio unity meeting would answer to him. Sal said he needed time to work everything out. He canceled the meeting.

  ToHMAS membership leapt off the rolls. I recruited students by going to the lawn and telling them about our activities. A large number of them were there passing the time, scoping each other out, not going to classes. ToHMAS provided some of them the incentive to break out, to do something, even to stay in school. We had “Brotherhood” dances to unite the Chicanos throughout the area. We also sponsored a Queen contest to raise funds. Beauty was not a criterion; the winner was the person who could raise more money in a designated period of time. The first year’s queen was Amelia, who was short, chubby, not-good-looking but full of spirit and drive. What mattered to us were actions, contributions—essential things. The Anglos still selected their queens on looks and status (most Homecoming Queens came from money).

  When the football season came, Esme and I attended every game as the school’s mascots. I remembered a couple years back when “the tradition” exploded during a football game and I pulled dudes off bleachers to beat on them. This time, I stood on the sidelines in Aztec apparel, performing solemn rituals. Change is a mother!

  Even the varsity team opened up. Ricardo Reyes from the Hills became the school’s best running back. Soccer became a school-sponsored sport and the newly-arrived Mexican immigrants were competing in L.A.-area and state-wide leagues. The Spanish-speaking students had their own club called ALAS (Association of Latin American Students), which in Spanish means “wings.”

  Mrs. Baez was instrumental in creating the soccer team. Although they had no uniforms, no pep rallies or any school support, the first year they competed, they took the regional championships!

  One day pretty Delfina Cortez, the boxer Hector’s old girlfriend, came to a ToHMAS meeting. She looked fine—14 years old but shaped like a full-grown woman. She wore skirts and dresses which seemed to come off the pages of fashion magazines.

  “You’re popular around here,” she told me.

  “I don’t know about that. You’re the one who’s popular.”

  “I mean, ToHMAS is big right now; people say you had a lot to do with it.”

  “Not any more than Esme, Flora and the others. Will you join us?”

  “Sure, as long as you’re in it.”

  She smiled and walked away. There must be something to being popular—where somebody like Delfina would have anything to do with a big-jawed, awkward and long-haired dude like me.

  The Brotherhood Dance involved students from the three local high schools. We brought in a popular East L.A. band. Weapons weren’t allowed in the gym where the dance was held. We wanted to have a dance in which no one had to fear for their safety. Esme, as president of the club, introduced the members and winners of our contests. Then it was party time.

  Delfina arrived alone. She stood around with the rest of the ToHMAS members. I went back and forth between the dance floor and back stage making sure everything went smoothly. I stopped for a minute and Delfina was still there, still smiling.

  I asked Darío, who became a friend after our arrests, for a favor.

  “Let me borrow your Riviera, man. I’d like to take Delfina to the Boulevard tonight—with class.”

  “No way, dude,” Darío said. “But I’ll tell you what. Let me drive you guys over there. And, if you’d like, I’ll leave you alone while I go to a late show or something.”

  “¡De aquellas! I go for that.”

  I asked Delfina if she’d hang out with me after the dance. I didn’t notice Esme was within earshot of our conversation.

  “I’d love to,” Delfina said.

  Esme came by and bumped into me. She gave me a hurt-crossed-with-anger look, then walked away. She didn’t talk to me the rest of the evening.

  Darío drove Delfina and me through the Boulevard a few times. Fancy “shorts” danced on the asphalt with only the eyes and beany caps of the drivers visible through the windshield. Music blared out of a multitude of speakers as a
river of headlights streamed toward the silhouette of downtown skyscrapers and back.

  Darío parked his thin-striped, white Riviera with chrome rims and chain steering wheel behind the Boulevard Theater. A gold plaque with “Imperials” faced out the back window.

  “I’ll be back about an hour and a half. Don’t go anywhere, all right?” Darío said.

  Delfina and I lay in the back seat, talking, then smooching, then talking.

  “If you don’t mind, I’m taking this off,” Delfina said as she removed her bra from beneath her silk blouse. Her nipples made impressions through the blouse as she put the bra in her purse.

  Before long my hand traveled through her skirt toward her crotch. I felt something. She quickly reached under the skirt and pulled her legs through the underwear, which had a sanitary napkin stuck on the inside. I could see a tinge of blood.

  “This is not a good idea—maybe we should walk around,” I said.

  “Why? It’s only blood—my blood—there’s nothing wrong with it!” Delfina shouted.

  “Hey, Delfina, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just never went all the way with a girl on her period before.”

  “You’re just like everybody else!” she yelled. She grabbed my hand and slipped my fingers through her vaginal lips. Then she showed me the soft red liquid which leisurely smeared the fingers.

  “See, it’s nothing terrible!” Then she cried and I didn’t know what to do. I hugged her, trying to keep my fingers from touching the silk blouse.

  “I’m sorry. Believe me, I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh, Louie, I think I love you.”

  Love is a word which so easily skims across our lips. Girls cut their wrists for it. Dudes try to kill for it. Notes professing devotion are passed in the hallways, dropped on desktops or placed discreetly inside school folders. It doesn’t take much: a woman brushing her hair, the sniff of a dude’s cologne, an after-school walk—and we’re in love.

  Babies are easy too. Many homegirls become mothers, although they are unfinished children. Whatever comfort and warmth they lack at home is also withheld from their babies. Girls drop out of school. Homeboys become fathers even in their early teens. But there’s nothing at stake for them; at the most, having a baby is a source of power, for rep, like trophies on a mantel.

  Daddio, before he died at 16 years old, had children from girls in Lomas, El Hoyo Maravilla and La Puente.

  Some babies end up without fathers. Like Daddio’s offspring. Like John Fabela’s daughter. Some cry for milk as a mama presses a needle through a withered vein on her arm. The babies wail for feeding, for touch and the internal knowledge of being special, wanted. If it doesn’t come, as soon as they commence the bleeding, they ache for what they never had, with an emptiness which is never filled.

  Sheila told me I was somebody she could relate to, who wouldn’t turn away. She told me she was pregnant. I took her to the teen clinic. A few days later, it was confirmed.

  “It’s Eight Ball’s baby,” Sheila said. “But he doesn’t want anything to do with it. What should I do?”

  “Why don’t you tell your parents?” I suggested.

  “I can’t—they’ll kill me.”

  “They won’t kill you. Maybe they’ll get mad,” I said. “They might even help you. Try it. If it don’t work, we’ll see if Mrs. Baez can do something.”

  The next day, I asked around for Sheila. Nobody knew where she was at. I entered the Chicano Student Center.

  “Hey Blanca, have you heard from Sheila?”

  “You mean you don’t know?” Blanca said.

  “What?”

  “She told her father she’s having a baby,” Blanca replied. “He got so mad, he broke all her fingers.”

  Chente’s face twisted and snarled as he examined the murals inside my garage room. It looked like he hated them. I never took art lessons; I drew, Chicano-style, freehand, mostly barrio images. I didn’t realize that Chente could see the spirit behind my work was more promising than any actual technical ability.

  “I have a job for you,” he finally said. “This summer, we’re doing a mural project. The City of Rosemead is footing the bill. We’ll cover the costs of a coordinator and some Youth Corps slots. The city will pay for the paints, brushes and equipment. How does this sound to you?”

  “Listen, Chente, I really don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “If you can do what you did here, you’ll do fine,” he said. “Besides, I’ll hook you up with some muralists in East L.A. who can help you.”

  Then Chente reached into a bag he brought and passed me a box.

  “This is for you.”

  I opened the box. Within it was the most beautiful book I had ever seen: a hard-bound, almost three-inch-thick coffee-table edition about the murals of Mexico with several hundred color and black & white photos. The book included the works of Siqueiros, Orozco and Rivera, Mexico’s renowned masters.

  “Look this over,” Chente said. “It’ll show you what public art’s all about.”

  I became the mural project supervisor. The center provided me with 13 young gang members, about half of them girls. We drove around looking for walls to paint. The good ones already had tons of graffiti. We approached the building owners and provided them sketches of what we intended to do. Most owners declined to participate, even though they weren’t paying out of their pockets. Finally a few consented, especially if it meant an improvement over the anarchy of scrawl.

  I took the mural team to the Goez Art Studio on First Street in East L.A. The leading artists behind the Estrada Courts Housing Projects mural program were based there, and they showed us how to prepare the walls, whether masonry, stucco or wood. They taught us to do miniatures of the mural on paper to the proportion of the area we were working on, then how to square every section of the miniatures which we would replicate on the wall with a chalk line. We learned about the kind of acryllic, all-weather type paints to use, where to get them at discount and how to choose brushes. The Goez Studio also assisted us with human figures, perspective and color schemes.

  The first wall I worked on was at the John Fabela Youth Center with a local muralist, Alicia Venegas. After this, the mural team obtained permission to do a large mural at a bar down the street. We were ready.

  My sketches dealt with pre-Columbian structures and street images such as hypodermic needles, cholos and coffins. On one wall of a hardware store, I ventured into surrealism with floating objects and distorted faces. The team also painted an Aztec warrior at the concession stand in Garvey Park—one of the places I broke into when I was younger.

  I soon met a few of L.A.’s best known muralists such as Willie Herrón, Judith Baca and Gronk.

  And another world opened up to me.

  One night, a couple of Temple City sheriff’s deputies stopped a group of young men drinking in front of the Southside home of Miguel Robles, my old buddy from the days of Thee Impersonations, and later, the Animal Tribe.

  Over the years, Miguel completely removed himself from violent activities. He devoted himself to sports—becoming a prize-winning track runner and baseball player. His leadership qualities stayed with him as he participated in San Gabriel High School’s MASO club at the same time I was embroiled in ToHMAS. In fact, he had the respect from both barrios as someone who could transcend the obstacles and amount to something. He even talked about being a police officer.

  This particular night, the deputies ordered Miguel and his friends to line up and be searched. Miguel’s older brother Mooney emerged from the house to investigate. One of the deputies recognized Mooney from an outstanding warrant. Mooney ran back into the house. As a deputy held a gun on the guys spread-eagled against the squad car, the other one pursued Mooney.

  The pursuing deputy tackled Mooney in the living room. Miguel’s mother and sister, both in the kitchen cooking, rushed out when they heard the noise. His father was resting in the bedroom with his legs in casts from a work injury.

  Miguel broke awa
y from the others and ran to the house to help Mooney. By then the deputy had pulled his gun and fired at Mooney’s head, clipping his ear. Their mother screamed. The father fell out of the bed and crawled into the living room. Miguel then jumped on the officer, who pulled Miguel off his back and threw him toward the sofa. Without warning, the officer fired another shot, this time striking Miguel. His mother fainted. His sister froze in terror. Miguel’s father crept in just as his son fell back onto the sofa, blood oozing through fingers stretched across the abdomen.

  Sheriff’s deputies arrested everyone—Miguel’s father, despite his casts, his mother and his friends—and hauled them to the station.

  Mooney survived, but was then re-jailed on the warrant. Miguel remained in critical condition. Meetings were held in which the witnesses testified about what happened. The community demanded that Deputy Fred J. Coates, a 14-year veteran, be brought to justice. The sheriff’s office transferred Coates to another subdivision of the county while they investigated.

  Meanwhile, the Brown Berets organized a march which went through various San Gabriel Valley barrios to protest the shootings.

  Sal Basuto reset a date for the barrio unity meeting at La Casa. Bienvenidos people held mini-conferences around the police shooting in anticipation of the meeting. We now had a rationale and a cause: Justice for Miguel Robles!

  La Casa’s meeting hall overflowed with people. Sal had volunteers pass out brown arm bands to remind everyone of Miguel’s condition. Sangra Diablos had their representatives sitting on one side of a round table in the middle of the hall; community members sat behind the table in a circle. Lomas representatives included Santos, Cuervo, Toots, Pokie, Chicharrón and me.

  At the table were Viviana’s brothers Negro and Shark, also Turtleman, Boy, Hapo and Night Owl. I gave Night Owl a wink as I sat down and he smirked like he did when we were in jail together. Chava did not attend, but this time he didn’t oppose anyone else being there; Sal said he did this to save face.