Always Running

by Luis J. Rodriguez

  Sal had drawn up an agreement which declared a truce between Lomas and Sangra. Violators would be reprimanded by the barrios involved. Joint events were planned to keep the peace. At the bottom of the agreement it said: End Barrio Warfare! Justice for the Robles Brothers! We all signed and then the hall broke out in hand claps, slowly at first, then progressing into a thunderous roar in the style of the Chicano movement.

  Afterwards, we celebrated under the ramada. Everybody acted tentative. A truce between our barrios had never happened before. Later, Chava arrived with a few other Diablos like Coyote, Danilo and Gato. He kept cool at first. But Santos felt uneasy, coming up to me, trying to stay cool but feeling his blood boil. I tried to calm him down.

  Sure enough, Chava walked up to Santos and stared him down. Santos stared back, his arms out in a ready-to-fight stance. Suddenly, Chava came at him, bare-fisted. Santos and Chava threw blows, back and forth. Others tried to get involved but people from La Casa and Bienvenidos called for calm, pulling others away from the fighting.

  The two ended up in the middle of the street; Chava had Santos by the throat, Santos grabbed Chava’s gut and squeezed. Neither would let go. Sal tried to break them up, but couldn’t disengage them.

  “Párenle—we don’t want to give the police an excuse to shut us down,” Sal implored.

  At that point, somebody pushed through the crowd.

  “Miguel is dead! … Miguel is dead!”

  Everybody stood still and listened.

  “We just got a call. Miguel died earlier tonight.”

  Santos and Chava let go of each other. Chava then turned around and walked away, a few of his homeboys at his heels. I felt the heat within me again, and I wanted to cry but no tears would come: Miguel, oh, Miguel, you were the best of us!

  Deputy Coates now faced a murder charge. It was an opportunity to put away, for the first time ever, a “peace” officer for killing an unarmed citizen in Los Angeles County.

  Soon the Brown Berets organized openly in the area. I became acquainted with a couple of their San Gabriel Valley representatives. They had goatees, long hair, looking like Che Guevara, with berets covered in buttons and slogans. A branch of the Movimiento Bookstore opened in South San Gabriel, an offshoot from the original one on Brooklyn Avenue in Maravilla. A former prison activist, Al “Pache” Alvarez, ran the store, and I often came in to glance at his books, posters and magazines about Chicanos and other groups waging the struggle, such as the American Indian Movement, the Black Panthers and the Puerto Rican resistance group, The Young Lords.

  A deputy squad car drove through the unilluminated roads in the Hills. Unseen voices cried out “Lomas” from the bushes; the trees and darkened homes followed the squad car’s journey up the winding streets as the voices echoed against the shadows of collapsed fences, shacks and branches.

  From somewhere in the foliage, gunfire riddled the side of the vehicle.

  “Code 999! … Code 999!” a deputy radioed in. “Officer under fire. … Bailey and Marsh Avenues.”

  The deputy sped out of there as fast as possible; he made it without injury. Later for weeks, sheriff’s deputies blocked off entrances and exits to the barrio, checking license plates and marking down numbers and names.

  Then on a moonless evening, the sheriff’s helicopter crisscrossed the neighborhood as usual, forcing everyone to stay inside their homes. It hovered across the path of an empty shed on the highest hill in the barrio while covering a patch of ground with its spotlight. A loud crack resounded nearby as a powerful projectile struck the side of the helicopter, causing it to sputter and twirl as it descended toward earth.

  The pilot kept the helicopter in the air while he maneuvered it out of the path of trees and homes, finally striking soil and landing in an empty field.

  The media declared the greater South San Gabriel/San Gabriel area a hotbed of unrest. The helicopter incident had been duplicated in other neighborhoods as well, the most famous being in the Casa Blanca barrio of Riverside, some 60 miles east of us. In East L.A., a group calling itself the Chicano Liberation Front had allegedly planted bombs in power stations and government buildings. Whole sections of the city and county were placed on alert.

  One warm, summer afternoon, Santos casually walked up Graves Avenue to see Indio, a homeboy who lived with his wife and two children in the flat area below the Hills. Indio sat on the front steps with his three-year-old boy by his feet. Santos crossed the yellowed yard as Indio stood up to greet him. At that moment, an unmarked car speeding down Graves Avenue slowed in front of Indio’s house. Two bullets burst out from inside the vehicle before it sped off, never stopping. No barrio was claimed. The bodies of Santos and Indio lay across the lawn, killed instantly, as a small boy wailed for his mother. Another drive-by?

  The funerals for Indio and Santos were massive. Hundreds of cars lined up on Portrero Grande Drive for miles from the church, where the bodies had lain in state, to the Resurrection Cemetery where most of the barrio dead were buried. In school, everybody wore brown arm bands again, reminiscent of Miguel’s death, John Fabela’s and others’.

  Rumor had it Sangra shot Santos and Indio. Those trying to maintain peace knew this violated the truce and could mean warfare again. Leaflets issued by Bienvenidos and La Casa tried to cool the rising tempers. But there were those on both sides who didn’t want peace.

  As many of the locos as possible were to assemble in the basement of an old Victorian brick house—one of the few remaining in the barrio—where Puppet lived.

  Groups first gathered in the various vacant lots: the one on Toll Drive, the Bailey Street fields and the ravine where Berne Street dead-ended. I went up Toll Drive towards a battalion of dudes with Pendleton shirts, buttoned from the top only, vato-style, and starched khaki or juvenile hall-issued pants we called “counties.” They had an assortment of bandannas, hats and gloves: battle gear, even on a hot day.

  When I reached the others, somebody passed me a bottle of muscatel wine. Others talked about the women they had been with, the rampaging they had done: smart, slick talk—out totacho.

  “Caiga, ése, how’s the ruca I saw you with last night?

  “Más firmota, ése, but she talk too much.”

  “Orale, what you do—talk back?”

  They were about locura, the spirit of existence which meant the difference between living life to the fullest or wandering aimlessly upon the earth, taking up space, getting in the way. The vatos hated those without daring, those who failed to meet the challenge, the fear and exhilaration of this presence.

  We moved toward Puppet’s cantón and trickled down into the basement, out of view from the street. Outside, Puppet’s sister Rachel walked Eight Ball around, who had overdosed on smack, so he wouldn’t pass out.

  I climbed into the basement. Yesca smoke infiltrated my eyes and nose. I barely saw the flicker of gazes through the haze. Whispers and the sleepy drawl of some hyped-up dude surrounded me. Fluorescent posters, crosses and the spray-painted names of homeboys covered the basement’s walls and ceiling.

  My eyes scanned around and then stopped. There before me lay the largest collection of weapons I had ever seen: shotguns, in different gauges; handguns from .22s to 9 millimeters; semi-automatic rifles with scopes, thirty-thirty and thirty-ought-sixes; and the automatics—16s and all sort of subs. In a corner were several wood boxes piled up with hand grenades. Here was an inventory of the barrio arsenal, most of it stolen from military armories.

  Dizzy from the scene—the laughter, the weaponry and blurred faces—I squeezed in between Enano and Bone.

  Soon Puppet came down the steps with Fuzzy, confidence in their stride. Puppet and Fuzzy were the self-appointed lieutenants in the coming battles. They were accepted by an unspoken respect. Even Peaches, Ragman, Natividad or the maniac Valdez brothers accepted this.

  Puppet looked around and spotted Chepo, a younger dude from the Dukes.

  “No Dukes,” Puppet declared.

  “Hey,
man, I just came to …”

  “I said no Dukes,” Puppet repeated.

  Nobody disagreed. Chepo got up and left.

  Puppet, dark and broad-shouldered in a short-sleeve knit shirt, squatted in the middle of the room. On his forearm was a tattoo of a peacock. On the inside of his other arm, a spider poised near a Mexican girl in a sombrero, caught in a web.

  Next to him stood Fuzzy, a light-skinned dude with a rugged face, goatee, and short, almost nappy, hair on his head. He had his shirt off and “Las Lomas” tattooed in large old-English lettering across the wide of his back.

  “Orale, homeboys, what are we going to do about Sangra?” Fuzzy asked the vatos. They responded with yelps and gritos.

  “Fine, let’s work out some tactics,” Puppet said.

  Everything became quiet; I could hear my heartbeat.

  “We know the chota is expecting us to move. So we have to do it quick. Sangra won’t know what hit ’em.”

  “They’ll know it was the Hills, ése,” Bone interjected.

  “They’ll know it’s us. But they won’t know exactly who,” Puppet said. “The chota will come down hard, but we’re going to make sure nobody gets popped. This means we got to take care of each other. And we have to be trucha for dedos.”

  Dedos meant fingers and is used to describe snitches. They were also called ratas—rats.

  “Guacha, Toots and Ragman will carry the cuetes,” Puppet explained. “I want Fuzzy and Nat to …”

  “I have something to say,” I called out.

  Everybody turned to my direction.

  “Have you thought about what Sangra is doing right now?” I said. “They’re probably getting ready to hit us too. And we hit them and they hit us—when does it stop?”

  Puppet gave me a look which signaled something unpleasant.

  “Nobody says you have to do anything. Go on out there with Chepo then.”

  “We can’t pretend a war with Sangra won’t mean others won’t die,” I responded, knowing I couldn’t back off. “That our brothers and sisters, or even our moms, won’t get hurt.”

  “We’re doing it for Santos and Indio,” Fuzzy said. “Besides, you the dude painting murals over our placas. That’s dead! We were talking about dedos. Where do you stand, ése?”

  “You all know I’ll take on anybody,” I countered as I stood up. “They were my homeboys too. But think about it: They were killed by a speeding car, both of them shot right through the heart. Nobody yelled out nothing. Who’s trained to do this? Not Sangra. I say the cops did this. I say they want us to go after Sangra when we were so close to coming together.”

  “We have to use our brains,” I continued, talking to everyone. “We have to think about who’s our real enemy. The dudes in Sangra are just like us, man.”

  Treacherous talk.

  Then Puppet stood up.

  “Only pinche putos would tell us to back off on Sangra, talking bullshit about uniting barrios.”

  “Listen, don’t misunderstand …”

  Just then a fist slammed against my mouth; a warm wet trickle slowly wound its way down my chin.

  Puppet appeared ready to swing again but he looked surprised; he gave me one of his best blows, yet I didn’t fall.

  My measured reasoning turned to anger. I felt like throwing a blow of my own. But I looked around at the faces of my homeboys—at Chicharrón—and realized I was alone. Fuzzy gave me a large grin.

  “Look, puto, you messin’ with the Hills,” Fuzzy said. “And nobody messes with us. Understand?”

  No direct threats. All threats had to be carried out. This served as a warning. The uneasiness in the place could be cut with a blunt knife.

  “All right! We got better things to do than waste our time with this pedo,” Puppet declared. “So if it’s all right with Chin over here, we move on Sangra tonight.”

  Puppet looked at everybody and there was approval. He looked at me and there was silence.

  *Here I stand / in the street without money. / Nobody knows my name / and nobody cares.

  I go to my woman’s house / but she stands there just staring. / I speak to her with my soul / but the door is closing.

  **In the county jail / with all my crazy passion, / I place your name on a cell wall / and with this thought / I suffer my disgrace.

  Chapter Nine

  “You don’t have solo rights to anything anymore, not even your crazy life.”—Letter to me from a Jewish teenager after a youth conference in 1972

  A LOW, PRIMERED 1968 Impala idled in front of a beige-white, Spanish-style stucco house in a cleanly-lit section of San Gabriel. Music spilled out of open windows along with laughter and the talk of young people. A party! The car pulled into a spot near the house. Yo Yo and Hapo jumped out the front seat while Coyote clambered out of the back and looked around. The swirl of Santa Ana winds cooled the summer heat, clearing away the eye-burning smog which has smothered the valley for days. Chava stepped out from behind Coyote.

  “Let’s check out the borlote,” he declared, and the four marched toward the pulsing beat.

  They entered the front door without invitation and surveyed the scene. A row of girls sat around with beer cans and cigarettes in their hands. The intruders could not make out the handful of guys scattered among them; they looked cool, but not barrio.

  Coyote eyed a pretty ruca by a coffee table topped with bowls of chips, salsa and onion dip. Yo Yo indicated he had to go to the head. Chava and Hapo shuffled through the kitchen and out the back door; outside, a few people danced near a carport lined with trash cans brimming with ice and beer.

  “¡Sangra Rifa!” Hapo yelled, by impulse really, perhaps thinking it will keep the dudes at a distance. Chava looked annoyed at him, but it was too late.

  Eight dudes stepped out of the darkness beneath the carport. Chava immediately recognized them: Eight Ball, Fuzzy, Enano, Topo, Lencho, Toots, Bone and Puppet—from the Hills!

  Hapo backed into the house. Coyote and Yo Yo sensed something was wrong. Hapo looked at them, terrified.

  “Trucha—run!”

  “What?”

  “I said run—it’s Lomas!”

  Coyote, Yo Yo and Hapo flew out the door toward the Impala. But Chava did not run, could not run; he stood alone in the back yard as the legion of shadows approached, yelling back, shadows which surrounded their prey and pounced in a deadly pantomime, steel blades penetrating flesh. Chava did not cry out.

  He toppled to the ground, touched the wet sweet-smelling blades of grass, and it was these simple, slight odors, sensations and sounds which gripped his attention: the peal of chimes near the back door, moths colliding into a light bulb—a treble pressing out of woofers and tweeters from dual stereo speakers. Eight dudes, eight punctures into sides, the abdomen, the ribs. No more, no more!

  But there was more.

  Somebody picked up a rusted tire rim from the cluttered driveway, raised it high, and thrust it down on Chava’s head.

  “No more, please, no more!”

  But this was not Chava’s voice. Somehow his voice sounded only as an echo in a canyon inside his body. This was a woman’s voice, Rita’s voice, as she jumped over Chava’s prone figure and pleaded with the shadows standing over him to stop.

  The shadows backed off. Rita turned Chava’s barely-breathing body onto its side and somebody nearby screamed, like the wailing inside a black dream, into all the screams ever screamed, as the grass blended into crimson from wounds in his body and his head, a soaked mass of hair, eyes and jawbone.

  Chicharrón pulled up in front of Mark Keppel High School. “Hey, Chin—want to hear a joke?” he asked.

  “Only if it’s a good one.”

  “Knock, knock …”

  “I said a good one.” With him was a year-old baby. Chicharrón and Shoshi weren’t together anymore, but he held the legacy of their brief relationship in his arms. They named him Junior. Having a baby didn’t seem to fit Chicharrón, but he looked proud as Junior took in the su
rroundings, full of unknowing.

  I stood in front of the gnarled tree among students sitting in the grass, talking and relaxing in the sun. Chicharrón, as usual, started in on me.

  “I see you still got them potato shoes.”

  Chicharrón poked fun at my brown shoes which I wore until the leather withered, looking like a spud. He also made fun of the fact I peed a lot, especially when I drank. He once handed me a picture he drew of me with a tiny piss sac and potato shoes—underneath he wrote: The Chinmunist.

  In my senior year, I became ToHMAS president. The club had succeeded in obtaining a Chicano Studies class with a powerful and engaging teacher, Mr. Sosa. I also became the student council’s Speaker of the House and a columnist for the school’s newspaper, which the journalism teacher offered after he liked my response to an anti-Chicano editorial. I called the column “Pensamientos.”

  In one column I wrote: “It’s important that Chicanos feel this is their school too. It’s about time we became part of America.” And once I did an article about how Lomas Dukes held a car wash to benefit an elementary school where the children had no money to buy milk or lunch. Somebody on the newspaper staff asked why the Dukes didn’t use the money to clean the graffiti off the school walls. I told him: “It’s a lot better to feed some hungry kids than to clean up your fuckin’ walls, that’s why!”

  As we sat around, making the baby laugh, Cha Cha, a leading member of ToHMAS, came up behind me, a tremor in her voice.

  “Louie, I need to talk with you.”

  “What’s going on Cha Cha?”

  “You know Mr. Humes, the history teacher, he just threw me out of his class for being late—but not before he called me a chola whore!”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. I told him I had to take my little brother to the babysitter’s because my moms is sick. But he got real mad and cursed me out—in front of the whole class!”

  “Who does he think he is? Let’s see about this.”

  I went into the school. A few of the students on the lawn, including Chicharrón and the baby, walked in behind me. I ran up the stairs to the second floor. Cha Cha pointed across the hallway to a classroom in session.