All Involved

by Ryan Gattis

  I work my jaw and it pops. Ernesto was taller than that, I think. Stupid, I know, what with everything else I see but you can’t help that shit. The thoughts just come, unoriginal shit just bubbling up, and my skin’s prickling. That’s when I realize I’m sweating hard.

  He’s still wearing his uniform, my big brother. He’s wrapped up in dark and dirt and still-drying blood. On this whole busted-up excuse for an alley, there’s only one tree tall enough to put its shadows on him, and it’s swaying back and forth, pulling this dark outline up and down his legs like a blanket, like it’s trying to tuck him in or something.

  Worse than that, he’s wearing the cowboy boots I got him for Christmas two years ago. Black leather and an elm-colored heel and sole. Real classy shit. He never wore ’em at work, only to walk to and from. For some reason, that hits me deepest. I remember his crooked smile when he opened that box, how his eyes got wide, and I gotta take a minute.

  I walk away with my fists clenched up tighter than double knots. Staring at the field lights till I blink blue copies onto the nearby garages doesn’t do much for me, but it’s something. When I look back to the asphalt and start walking it, I’m careful not to step on the tire marks that lead away from Ernesto like black railroad tracks. I understand the dragged thing now.

  He must’ve gone fifty, sixty feet on the asphalt after they beat him.

  Fuck that pinche shit! I understand too good.

  First, they beat him. They put their fists through his face, prolly the butts of their guns too, if they had ’em. They did this to a guy that never did nothing to them. They crossed a line when they did that, and only one thing about it made sense. They were trying to get at us instead, at Lil Mosco’s stupid ass most obviously and most likely. This was them sending a message. They just didn’t think I’d be the first to get it.

  I’m so mad I’m shaking. All that anger I had for Ernesto, the same dude that raised me when mi padre died, that made sure I always ate up my chilaquiles and had a lunch for school every day, changes over.

  I actually feel the click. I feel that shit deep inside me, like a light switch flicking on. How all the anger I had for my brother walking home the wrong way just goes away, and how, at the exact same moment, it blazes up at the fools that did this. And I need to know who did it worse than I ever needed anything. Seeing his face like that—shit. Seeing his face like that.

  I know I can never go back to who I was before I saw.

  These cowards made a new me when they did what they did to my big brother, my Ernesto. I’m standing here all reborn and shit cuz of them. Right now, I’m like starving and thirsting and burning all rolled into one. I look at his face again, and I need to know who I need to do that to. I need to know whose hearts need holes to match the ones in mine. And I need that shit like five minutes ago.

  Out in public like this, Fate calls shots. I force my hands to unclench. I force myself to walk back to him.

  It don’t matter how much I’m feeling this. I can’t be running my mouth out here, can’t ever be undercutting machismo. It doesn’t work like that. I’m not even really a full foot soldier yet, just related to one. And besides, women got no say-so. I can cry about it or work with it. I do that latter shit.

  But Fate already knows what I want. It’s like he’s reading my mind.

  “If you’re good to, Payasa, go talk at some people. And keep doing what you’re doing, Clever.” Fate nods at us both, then turns to the boy. “The fuck were you doing out here, lil homie?”

  I don’t hear his answer, don’t really care.

  I’m already ten steps closer to that nurse I seen before. She’s standing right in the alley like she’s expecting somebody to ask her questions.

  4

  This nurse, she’s maybe five three, still in her hospital blues and whiter-than-white, chunky shoes. She’s got a scar on her chin, short hair like black nail polish shining under a streetlamp, and blood on her, all down her front. What I think is, she tried to save him, and my brother’s blood looks like purple on her smock, like not even real.

  “You Sleepy’s sister? Gloria?”

  She nods. She knows I mean Sleepy Rubio, not Sleepy Argueta. There’s a big difference. Sixty pounds, give or take.

  “I’m so sorry,” Gloria says.

  I put on the calmest voice I can because she looks shaken up. It feels fake as fuck, but I got to. “Tell me what you know.”

  She hugs herself like she’s cold and points at the nearest garage, some box that looks navy in the dark. “I pulled in, was just going through my mail, you know. I don’t pick it up enough and . . .”

  Gloria sees my got-no-time glare and speeds up.

  “This car, it looked like a little truck with a bed and everything, went by fast. In the rearview, I saw it, and I saw something being dragged behind it and I got out and looked and when I saw it was a person, I just couldn’t believe it. It was like something out of the movies. They stopped, like, four houses up and two guys get out.”

  I’m counting in my head. “Out the driver’s side too?”

  “No. Out the bed and the passenger door.”

  “So there was a driver who didn’t get out?”

  “I guess.”

  My eyes must’ve flashed at that cuz she backs up a little. I say, “What’d the other two look like?”

  “I dunno. One was normal tall.”

  I roll my eyes at that shit. Seems like the majority of people on earth pay less attention than rocks. For us, though, you gotta pay attention in this crazy life. If you don’t, you don’t deserve breathing.

  “But the other,” Gloria says, “he was taller than me. Six foot maybe?”

  I say, “Okay, that’s good,” but it isn’t good, not really. It’s something though. I try encouraging her cuz it’s what Fate would do. He’s better at it than I ever was. I nod up at her. “Did you see their faces? Any marks or like anything out of the ordinary?”

  “No. It was dark. They wore sunglasses though. I thought that was weird at night.”

  “What were they built like? What’d they wear?”

  “Built like normal, I guess, but the tall one was muscular, like he lifts a lot. They both wore black. Hats and everything. I couldn’t see anything.”

  That figures. When I do some evil shit to get some back for Ernesto, I’ll prolly be wearing black too.

  “What make of car was it?”

  “I dunno. Like, a Cadillac or Ford, one of those long, boxy cars from the seventies or something, but did I say it had a bed to it? One of those half-car, half-truck things.”

  “It have anything different about it? Bumper stickers or a smashed taillight or whatever?”

  Gloria squints her eyes for a second before saying, “No.”

  I shake my head and give up on that shit. “Tell me what they did when they got out.”

  She gasps a little, won’t look me in the eyes. “They stabbed him, like, a lot. Again and again. I never saw anything like that before. It makes a sound.”

  Gloria shivers and chews her lip. She doesn’t need to explain.

  It makes a sound all right, and it depends on how loud if you’re bouncing off ribs or if somebody’s holding their breath when you sink in. Don’t even ask about cartilage. Truth: it ain’t easy to stab somebody to death. It takes time. Sometimes it takes luck. It’s way easier if they don’t struggle, and maybe Ernesto was too hurt to do that.

  I bite the insides of my cheeks so hard I taste blood like burnt copper in my mouth. I’m shaking again, balling my fists up. “How many times they stab him?”

  “I dunno,” Gloria says.

  I nod and swallow, trying to push my feelings down as low as they’ll go. Past my feet even. Down into the ground. “And then they just took off, right?”

  It’s what I would’ve done. In and out. Nothing left behind. Clean. I notice I got my fists balled up, so I force my fingers straight. I already know the answer to this question is a yes.

  “No,” Gloria says.<
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  My ears are ringing when I pounce on that shit. “What do you mean?”

  “The tall one, he wiped off his knife and tucked it in the pouch of his sweatshirt and then he took out some gum, put it in his mouth, and threw the wrapper. Or maybe he got the gum first?”

  “Wait.” Hair on the back of my neck stands up. “Where?”

  She doesn’t hear my question at first, she’s still talking, her eyes far off and remembering. “And then they all got in the car and—”

  “Hold up.” I put a hand on her shoulder. Maybe it’s too hard cuz she whimpers a little. Ask me if I fucking care. “Where did he throw it?”

  Gloria starts and looks down at me. “What?”

  “The gum wrapper.”

  She points up the alley, to the right of where Fate is standing with the Serrato kid. I start moving that way, fast. She’s trailing behind me, still talking. “I tried to save him. I want you to know. But it was just too much.”

  I shoot a look over my shoulder to see Gloria waving her hand at her nurse smock, at the blood marks. At Ernesto’s . . .

  I should thank her. I can’t.

  I’m too busy searching through weed clumps and kicking up pebbles till I find a white little ball of paper wadded up in a divot. It looks new. Brand new.

  My heart pounds up in my chest when I see how clean it is, only a little wet on the bottom, like it was recently chucked. This shit’s definitely it.

  I turn, about to call for Clever, but he’s right beside me, holding out a baggie. Shit, he’s good. On top of everything. I drop the thing in there.

  He’s got a pair of long tweezers he uses to hold an edge and then presses his fingers through the plastic like a makeshift glove and unwraps it. The other side is blue. We both look close.

  There’s some weird writing on it, like calligraphy or some shit. Fate’s beside us too then, pressing his face in.

  I say, “Is that Oriental style? Like Korean writing?”

  “Nah. Not Korean.” Clever holds it up to the light. “Looks Japanese. These letters are all sharp. Korean is the one with circles.”

  I don’t know but I nod anyway. “What’s it say?”

  Clever unrolls it before tapping his tweezers on a picture of fruit in the middle. He narrows his eyes at it. “Not sure, but doesn’t that look like blueberries?”

  “Who the fuck chews blueberry Japanese gum around here?”

  “Put the word out,” Big Fate growls. He takes off toward the soldiers. “We’re about to find out. Everybody tell everybody.”

  I walk back slow to Ernesto and look at the baggies Clever has lined up on the chipped asphalt. Six of ’em. One holds Ernie’s wallet. I open it and check if there’s still money in it.

  There is. This just makes my burning worse. When they didn’t even bother faking a robbery, that’s when you know that shit was a message. Not like you can fake anything when you beat somebody, drag them, and then stab them all cold-blooded. Shit.

  I pull his card and pictures of me, Ray, and Ernie when we were little, a picture of Mamá too. I put the wallet back in his pocket and leave the money so the sheriffs’ll know it wasn’t a robbery, only twenty-three bucks anyway, but I got to make them work for an ID.

  Buys us more time. Just in case.

  By now, somebody’s called 911. No telling how long it’ll take for someone to come pick him up though. My stomach actually convulses at the thought of him lying here for god-knows-how-long. One hour? Two? I take my flannel off and cover his face with it. I lift his head up a little and put the sleeves underneath like a pillow. My hands come back bloody.

  After that it’s just Clever grabbing baggies and me standing dumb right beside him, working up the courage to say what I got to. I lean down next to Ernesto, close enough to touch him.

  I close my eyes and I say, “We’ll get you buried good and right, big bro. I promise. But we can’t just now, okay? So please forgive me just this one thing.”

  I blink and close my eyes again, but only after I latch on to the only clean part left of his uniform, a seam on the shoulder, near the collar. I squeeze it hard between my thumb and index finger.

  “We need the time a little more right now is all.”

  5

  Back at the house, the place’s thick with homies wondering what the fuck we’re going to do, how we’re going to come back on them for what they did to Ernesto. That’s the talk. Soldiers want guns and cars, a caravan even. They want blood and they don’t even know whose. And it’s good to hear and all that, but Ernesto wasn’t theirs, you know? He’s mine. His death’s on me.

  Fate’s smart as fuck though. He gives them just enough time to get the steam off before sending everybody but Apache home to wait for orders. Reason why Apache got to stay is cuz he recognizes the gum wrapper, he just can’t remember where from, so we’re all just hanging on it cuz Clever’s still laying his shit out and it’s tense as fuck.

  The walls feel closer, the ceiling way too low. Even my skin feels all thin and stretched out over my bones. It hurts worse every time I look at the kitchen clock and feel Ray’s guaranteed chaos getting closer and my chance at justice getting farther away.

  If anybody feels much about Ernesto, they ain’t showing it. Ain’t crying or nothing. Even if they wanted to they can’t, cuz that’s bitch shit. Pure weakness.

  “Wait.” Apache holds the baggie with the wrapper up and finally says, “The Cork’n Bottle! That’s where I seen it!”

  It gets real quiet then. We need to know he’s sure, like sure-sure.

  “For real,” Apache says. “They got all that kind of crazy shit there. Even, like, black licorice gum. Shit’s nasty.”

  Fate makes a face like he doesn’t doubt that, but he needs to know something else too. “How you know?”

  “Well, me and Lil Creeper were out this one time . . .”

  Fate is already waving his hand at the name like it’s a bad smell. It means it’s okay, he gets it, so stop, you don’t need to keep talking. All Apache had to say was Lil Creeper and it’s done. Dude’s name is a conversation ender. It means you don’t need to explain cuz we believe you. How that dude hasn’t been killed a hundred times or locked up for life I’ll never know. It’s like he’s high all the time. Always in the wrong place. Always guaranteed doing dumb shit. And yet, miraculously, he’s always wriggling out of tight spots. He’s a real wormy motherfucker, but he’s our wormy motherfucker.

  One time when we were little, Ray wanted a bike, a Dyno. It was a BMX bike, the hottest shit on the street. This was back when Creeper was first using. Heroin, coke, whatever, it never mattered to him. If it could go in his body, it was going in. So Ray tells him he wants a Dyno, tells him the colors and everything.

  That’s how it works with junkies, you know. You don’t gotta tell them to do shit. You just tell them what you want and drop it. It works better than aiming them. Cuz two days later Creeper comes up to the house with a bike, white and red just like Ray asked, but there’s a problem. See, it wasn’t a Dyno he stole from J.C. Pennies, it was a Rhino—some cheap-ass fucking rip-off bike with that dumb brand name written in the same type of lettering. Man, we laughed so hard at that, and Ray couldn’t help but pay anyway. Ernesto laughed harder than anybody, his whole body shaking.

  Remembering this hurts my ribs. I say, “Hey, Fate, shouldn’t we prolly page him up though?”

  “Who? Creeper?”

  “For why?” Clever wants to know.

  I make a gun with my right hand, index and middle for the barrel, and point at it with my left.

  Guns aren’t easy to get. Not one that traces to somebody else, or one that’s unregistered or filed down. And no disrespect to Ray’s arsenal, but a .38 ain’t gonna do it. A .22 rifle ain’t gonna do it. Biggest piece we got in the house is a .357 revolver that needs cleaning. That’s still only six shots though.

  I need like seventeen if I’m gonna do what needs to be done.

  Fate’s way ahead of me, as usual.

/>   “Already did,” he says.

  I nod at him and head into my room. I cut a look at my Lorraine sitting on the bed. She’s done with her toes now. They look blue and small in the dimness, like shiny gumdrops. Her eyes are wide, and I can tell there’s a lot of words dammed up behind her mouth but she won’t say shit. She’ll wait till I do. As she should.

  I look at the clock by my bed, and my stomach balls up. It says I got an hour. Sixty fucking minutes. And that’s bad. Cuz, see, there’s a problem with that Cork’n Bottle Apache knows.

  It’s over the line.

  It’s not technically our neighborhood and since we don’t own that shit, we can’t go there unless we’re stealth as fuck. And we don’t got time to round up everybody, go over there, get it, come back, and then do something.

  I get an idea then, a stupid one. Fast as I can, I’m out of my chucks, my khakis, my undershirt . . .

  Lorraine cocks her head at me like she knows I’m about to do something crazy but is way too scared to ask what. I’m pulling one of her dresses out of my closet, grabbing some eyeliner off the dresser and handing it to her.

  “Do it good and fast,” I say.

  She looks at it, then at me, and smiles real wicked. Before I know it, I got cat-eyes, penciled-in eyebrows, and my hair’s getting feathered. I look like a bad copy of her in a gold sparkly dress, whoreish as fuck.

  When Lorraine checks her finishing touches, somebody finally says it in the next room: “Wait, Cork’n Bottle on Imperial?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one,” Apache replies.

  “Shit,” Clever says.

  Fate’s already thinking his way around it. He’s been doing it. He knew when I knew that it was over the line. “We roll deep over there. Grab the tapes. See if we can’t get a face on the fucker that chews this.”

  “Or we do something unexpected,” I say, stepping out from my room. The wedge heels are a new thing. They feel like stilts.

  “Damn,” Apache says and leaves his mouth hanging open. He’s about to say something about how I look, but Clever nudges him quiet.

  “Lemme go over there and grab them tapes,” I say. “It’ll be in and out. Fast as hell.”