Last Summer of the Death Warriors

by Francesco X Stork

  “What’s not to get?”

  “I’ll spell it out for you just to make sure, since you’re my appointed helper. The Panda and I have reached an understanding. At the point that it’s evident that more treatment is not going to do anything besides weaken my body and mind, at that point, I’m coming home. We’ll get one of those hospital beds that crank up and down and a nice soft chair and this is where I’ll be. The Panda wanted to give me a room at the other end, closer to where he and the Brothers live. He thought it would be too noisy here, next to the door with the kids coming in and out. But I want it to be noisy.”

  Pancho looked around the room. If you placed a chair beside the second window, you could look at the pecan trees. “You got it all worked out.”

  “It’s all falling into place. Now that you’re here, we can proceed with the plan.”

  “I have my own plans,” Pancho protested.

  D.Q. ignored him. “Right now, this body plans to take a nap,” he said.

  CHAPTER 5

  He wheeled D.Q. to his “room” and watched him lift himself up from the chair in slow motion and stretch out on the bed. It was a quarter past twelve. “Margarita puts out some bread and cold cuts for lunch,” D.Q. said, his eyes already closed.

  Pancho walked past the room they’d been working in and out the side door. On one of his trips to the Dumpster, he had noticed some bikes on a stand. They weren’t locked. He took one out, the worst-looking one, the one he figured no one would even miss. It was small and bright green, but the paint had begun to peel in places.

  He went down some side streets and got on North Valley Drive heading south. He biked in the direction of the traffic, cars whizzing by on his left. It took him an hour to get to the Green Café. He went to the back door, the entrance to the kitchen, and leaned the bike against the wall. He asked one of the cooks if Julieta was there.

  “Hi, Pancho,” she shrieked when she saw him. She headed toward him as if ready to envelop him in a hug, but the serious look on his face stopped her a few feet away.

  “Can we talk someplace?”

  “Come on. No one’s in the bar right now.”

  He followed her through the kitchen and past the eating area into a room that smelled like spilled beer. The room had red stools against the oak bar and four green Formica-top tables against a wall. She pulled out two chairs, sat on one, and waited for him to sit.

  “You’re looking good,” she said. “Are you still living with that lady?”

  He wondered how she knew about Mrs. Duggan, and then he remembered that he saw Julieta at his sister’s burial after he’d been placed in the foster home. “I’m at an orphanage now. A place called St. Anthony’s.”

  Julieta was twenty-one years old, one year older than Rosa. He knew because one time Julieta came home with Rosa after work and, after Rosa fell asleep, he and Julieta ended up alone. They were watching a movie when she asked if she could stretch out on the sofa and put her head in his lap. It turned out to be the first time he had physical relations with a girl. It was also an event he regretted the next day. She wasn’t the kind of girl he wanted to get involved with. He made it a point to avoid being alone with her after that. But she was kind to Rosa and so he tried to be friendly. She and Mrs. Ruiz, the owner of the Green Café, alternated bringing Rosa home after work.

  “Oh. They treating you okay?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Good.” She crossed her legs and tugged at her skirt. Pancho waited. “Oh, before I forget. Manuel, Mrs. Ruiz, all the people at work, we got together and wanted to give you something.” She went behind the bar and came back with a large white purse. She opened it and took out an envelope. He could tell there was money in it.

  “I don’t want any money.”

  “It’s not much. It’s just that people wanted to give you something.” She held it toward him, but he didn’t reach for it. She put it on the table. “I’ll leave it here, okay?” She took a pack of Salems out of the purse and then searched around the room for an ashtray. “You mind?”

  “No,” he said.

  She stretched out her arm until she could grab the ashtray on the next table. “This orphanage place you’re at, you got an air conditioner in your room or anything?”

  “We got fans.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Not like home, huh?”

  “No.”

  She uncrossed her right leg and then crossed her left. This time she didn’t tug at her skirt. Her legs were smooth and her scent had begun to affect him slightly. She had shoulder-length black hair that swung when she moved her head. Pancho thought that if you erased the green eye shadow, washed the rose cheeks, and wiped off the orange lipstick, she could almost make it to pretty.

  “What will happen to the trailer?” she asked, blowing out a stream of smoke.

  “They’re going to sell it.”

  “You get to keep the money?”

  “Someday, maybe. I need to ask you something.”

  “What is it?” She looked alarmed. She shifted in her chair, placed the purse on the table, and then grabbed it again. “Want to go outside? It stinks in here.”

  “I gotta go back,” he said. He fixed his eyes on her. “Was Rosa seeing someone?”

  He could see her swallow. She licked her lips. Her teeth were smudged with lipstick. She spoke without looking at him. “Why do you ask?”

  “She was found in a motel room. Someone was with her. Whoever was with her, killed her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.” He didn’t want to tell her how he knew.

  “I know in many ways she was a child, you know, mentally, but she was an adult too. A woman. She had a right to her private life.”

  “I need to know who she was with that night. Did you ever see her with anyone?”

  “I thought the police said there was no crime committed.”

  “Rosa’s not important to the police. Did the police ever ask you anything? Did they even come talk to you or anyone here where she worked? Did they even try to find out who she was with?”

  “No.”

  “I’m asking now.”

  She put both feet on the ground and leaned forward. “I asked her. One day she came up to me and said she didn’t need a ride. Someone was taking her home. I said, ‘Who’s taking you home, Rosa?’ and she said, ‘My boyfriend.’ I asked her who it was, but she didn’t say. She used to walk out at eleven and meet him down the block. I mean, I don’t know, you have to respect a girl’s privacy…if that’s what she wants.”

  “You never saw him?”

  “Not really saw him. One time I was going home and I saw her getting into a red truck with a man. I never saw his face because he was leaning to open the door for her. He didn’t have much hair, just some around the sides. He looked like an older guy. An Anglo—I could tell by the top of his head. That’s all I saw, Rosa getting into a red truck with some old guy.” She thought about it for a minute. “There was something written on the door of the truck—something or other ‘and Sons.’ Oh, and the truck had a silver toolbox. It looked like he worked in construction or something.”

  “‘And Sons’?”

  “Yeah. I wish I could remember the first part, but I know it ended with ‘and Sons.’”

  “Did Rosa ever mention a name?”

  “A couple of times she started to tell me. She seemed happy and you could tell she wanted to girl-talk about him, but then she’d hold back, like all of a sudden she’d remember she wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

  “She must have met him here. Where else would she meet him? Did you ever see her talking to anyone?”

  “She talked to everyone. Everyone loved Rosa.” She reached over and touched his knee. He pulled his leg away from her. “She was special, delicate, you know. It was like she didn’t belong in this world, like any day she’d leave us and go back to heaven.”

  Pancho chuckled. Julieta’s words remind
ed him of what his father used to say about Rosa. Es una angelita que nos presto Dios. She’s a little angel on loan to us from God.

  “Want some ice tea?”

  “I got to go back,” he said. Then he thought of something else he wanted to ask. He deliberated for a moment. “There was a boy in the foster home where I got kicked out. His name was Reynolds.” He paused. “He said some things about Rosa. At first I thought he was just saying them to piss me off. But he knew who she was and where she worked.”

  “Ohh.” She covered her mouth with her hand.

  “You know a kid called Reynolds?”

  “No. It’s just that…I’m afraid of what you’re going to say.”

  “Is it true then? What he said about Rosa?” He could feel the blood rush to his face.

  “I don’t know.”

  He took a deep breath. “He said she did things for money. What did he mean?”

  She covered her eyes with the palms of her hands and then brought her hands together as if she were praying. “Pancho, there’s no need to go into this.”

  “Tell me. I want to know.”

  She squirmed in her chair. “This was a while back, when she first started working here. She’d go outside during her breaks. Boys, you know, high school kids, would sometimes wait for her out back, by the kitchen. It was just kid stuff. She didn’t know any better. It wasn’t like it was dirty to her or that it meant anything. She was getting some attention. It was just touching, you know, necking, petting.”

  He remembered what Reynolds had told him, just before he broke his jaw. I knew your sister. She’s one of them ten-dollar sluts at the Green Café.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “You didn’t do anything?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. He had his elbows on his legs and was resting his head on his hands. She touched his head as if to bless him. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I really am.”

  “Yeah, me too.” He stood up and headed for the door.

  “Pancho, wait. Take the money.”

  “Keep it,” he told her.

  CHAPTER 6

  He left the bike outside of St. Anthony’s where he had found it, drank from a faucet sticking out of the ground, and went into the building. D.Q. was in the storage room, holding a thin black book in his lap. “There you are,” he said without looking up. Pancho waited to be asked where he had been, but D.Q. was absorbed in the book. He grinned and shook his head. “Look at this.” He handed the book to Pancho. “That little kid in the bottom picture. That’s me the first year I got here.” The picture showed a smiling, wide-eyed boy in a white shirt and skinny black tie. Pancho looked from the picture to D.Q.’s face. It took some effort to see the resemblance. “St. Tony’s has a rule that you have to be at least fourteen to live here. I was the first exception. That’s because even at ten, I was old and wise beyond my years.”

  Pancho ignored D.Q.’s wink and gave the book back to him. His T-shirt was sticking against his skin and his head was still burning from the bike ride. He sat on the upturned bucket. “What now?” he asked.

  “We move these boxes to Lupita’s office and let her go through them. She’s the ultimate arbiter of what is kept and what is tossed. You never did see the library, did you? After we move the boxes, I’ll take you there and show you what we got.”

  “I don’t read.”

  “Not even comic books? We have the best collection of comics anywhere. Imagine kids saving all their comic books since this place opened in the 1950s.”

  “I don’t read comic books either.”

  “But you can read, right?”

  “I can read.”

  “Good, because later, when we become friends, I want to show you something I’ve been writing.”

  D.Q. kept flipping through the pages of the yearbook, apparently unaware of what he had said. Pancho stared at him. He had never heard anyone speak the way D.Q. spoke. And what made this Anglo kid think the two of them would ever be friends? D.Q. closed the book and laid it on his lap. He went on, “This book I’m writing, I call it the Death Warrior Manifesto. You know what a manifesto is, right?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a declaration of intention. In the case of the Death Warrior, it is a public declaration of how the Death Warrior is going to live his life.”

  Pancho took a deep breath. He thought about the thirty bucks a day he was going to be paid and knew it was way too little if you took into account the effort of trying to understand D.Q. On the other hand, he had been fortunate in getting those clues about Rosa’s boyfriend, and nothing could lessen his sense of good luck. He decided to let D.Q. speak. It was possible that he would speak himself out.

  “I’m not crazy about the name ‘Death Warrior,’ because it has all kinds of negative implications. ‘Life Warrior’ is probably more accurate because the manifesto is about life, but ‘Death Warrior’ is more mysterious-sounding.”

  An older man. An Anglo. A red truck. A silver toolbox. A company name that ended in “and Sons.” He repeated the words to himself so he wouldn’t forget.

  “Do you want to know the first rule of the Death Warrior Manifesto?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you, but only because I know you to be the kind of person who would understand. The first rule is: No whining. No whining of any kind under any circumstances.”

  “I don’t whine.” For a moment he thought D.Q. was criticizing him.

  “Yeah, you do. You’re a whiner. You just don’t hear yourself whine. It takes training to hear one’s internal whine.”

  “I’m no whiner!” Pancho felt a rush of anger.

  “You know what whining is? Whining is that little voice inside of us that always complains about whatever happens. The voice doesn’t have to be heard by others for it to be whining.”

  Pancho turned sideways and looked out the window. Kids were beginning to assemble on the basketball court. He faced D.Q. “Are you a whiner?” he asked.

  “Yes. Like you, I don’t whine out loud all that much, and I’m getting better about the inner whining, but I still whine. It’s the hardest thing, not to whine. It means you accept whatever is happening to you. I’m not quite there yet. That’s why I’m writing the manifesto, as a reminder. ‘Rule number one: A Death Warrior does not whine aloud or in silence under any circumstances.’ You want to know rule number two?”

  “No.”

  “All right, one rule per day. If you ever hear me whine, feel free to whack me in the head.”

  Pancho stared at D.Q.’s head.

  “Okay, maybe not on the head.” D.Q. lifted his cap for a second and rubbed the top of his skull. Underneath the soft thin hair, the skin was fragile and shiny like an eggshell. Pancho looked away. D.Q. placed the cap back on his head, and the cap sank down to his ears. “There’s something I need to ask you.” D.Q.’s voice was serious.

  Pancho stood up. “I’ll take these boxes out,” he said.

  “The boxes can wait. Sit down. I need to ask you something.”

  Pancho was about to walk out, but he stopped, put the box down, and said, “Look. I’m not much of a talker. I’ll push you around and clean rooms until the Panda gets me another job, but that’s as far as it’s going to go.” He pointed at the open window. “Why don’t you get one of those kids out there to talk to you?”

  “I’ll answer your question in a moment. Sit down. This is important.” D.Q. motioned to a stool by the door.

  Pancho deliberated for a few moments and then sat down. He did it in a way that conveyed he was doing it voluntarily and not in obedience to a command.

  “Thank you,” D.Q. said. His voice was soft. He rolled the wheelchair closer to Pancho and fixed his bloodshot eyes on him. “You have to understand that if I seem pushy, it’s because I’m living in a different time zone than you are. You perceive time as open-ended. I don’t. It makes me want to get to the point.”

  Pancho nodded. Somewhere in what D.Q. said, there was some kind of an apology be
ing offered. He glanced at D.Q.’s face. It was hard to imagine that the person speaking was his same age. The words, the voice, they all seemed to come from someone not just older, but ageless, if such a thing were possible.

  D.Q. continued, “Your question is a good one. Why don’t I ask one of the other kids to help me out? There are kids at St. Tony’s I’ve known for years. We’re a close-knit group here, a family. Something happens to a kid when he comes here. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re pretty much on our own. The rules we follow are the ones we all agree on. Or maybe it’s the fact that we know the Panda will send us back to where we came from the first time we mess up, and there’s no one here who hasn’t been a lot worse off. It’s an unusual place, you’ll see. I hope you stick around long enough to find out.”

  D.Q. paused, narrowed his eyebrows, and licked the thin, cracked lips. He reached into something like a diaper bag hanging from the side of the wheelchair and took out a plastic bottle with a built-in straw. He squirted water into his mouth. It took a few seconds for the water to make it down his throat. Then he went on, “So, why you, Mr. Pancho? Mmm. Let me see. What’s the best way to phrase this so you don’t get scared?”

  “Scared of what? You?”

  “No. Not scared of me. Of what I say.”

  “What people say doesn’t scare me.”

  “If I told you I was waiting for you to come, does that scare you?”

  “I told you words don’t scare me.”

  “Well, that’s good, because I don’t have energy or time to pussyfoot around the truth. I like the phrase ‘pussyfoot around,’ don’t you?”

  “Go ahead then. Say what you have to say.”

  “Okay. The answer to the question ‘Why you?’ has no answer at this time. I don’t know exactly why you. We’ll find out soon, I’m sure. But I do know that you’re the one. I knew you were the one when I saw you drive in yesterday. The hard part to explain is how I knew. Let’s just say that one of the benefits of this illness is the increased power to recognize a gut feeling and take it seriously. I knew someone would come to help me. It had to be the right person. You are it.”