The Flowers

by Dagoberto Gilb

  First I went to the corner and pulled it up and counted what I had. Even after I been putting more bucks in, almost all gone, too much. I was going through it. All I needed to do was lie about my age and maybe I could get a job. I reached for the scout book and pulled it off the shelf, and I fanned out the hundreds and counted them. I never looked at them before, not really. I counted because I wanted to touch them, even if it made them more like paper and not money and not worth what I did. But money was a paper that made colors even in the dark. It was like a mota high that passed straight in through my eyes and into the brain. But then also what it could do, what it was gonna do if I got popped for taking it. That was a poison. That part was getting me a little sick. Then I would go like, Fuck getting popped! Fuck getting sick about it! Fuck him, fuck them, I got it, I’m not gonna be fucked up.

  It was more cash than I ever saw before, in my hands or anybody’s or spread out in front of me anywhere, maybe even on TV. I liked playing with these bills because I wanted them to be mine and because I wished I knew what to do with them next. I kept staring like I would see something, or say when you’re listening to the radio and waiting for nothing and for something at the same time and all you’re really doing is listening and thinking outside the music.

  Then I got an idea and looked it up. Argent. L’argent. It worked, like it did every time, and I smiled!

  It was dumb to have the bills out on the bed. It was dumb to be touching them as much as I did. I stacked them and unstacked them and fanned them out. I wanted to talk to them like they had ears and talk about them in French. I moved them around and poked at them on the checkered bedspread. And it was what I was doing when I thought I heard someone close to the other side of the door. I wasn’t moving fast and that was stupid. I wasn’t even high and I was leaving the money there so long and I was even telling myself I wasn’t messing up, I didn’t want to mess up. I don’t know how come I didn’t get caught right then. I couldn’t even trust myself. Still, I guess I was quick enough because I dropped the French book over it all.

  “I’m sorry I have to bother you,” said Cloyd. His hair was sweat-frazzled from being inside his work cap, flat here, stuck out there, but he did take it off to talk to me. He was drunk, but no glass in his hand. “I’m sorry. Can I come in? Are you busy?” He looked at the French book.

  He was already in and I wanted him to leave fast. He was standing over the bed and I was afraid he would want to sit. I had my hand on the French book, and under it my hands clutched the bills except I also wasn’t sure I had them all.

  “I heard what happened. I heard and it wasn’t right.”

  I nodded. “It’s okay. I’m over it.” Of course it wasn’t and I wasn’t over it either. All I could think of was how to bust that man up.

  “Shouldn’t of happened, shouldn’t of.” He shook his head and then shook his head more.

  But I swear he was wanting to pick up my French book. I wanted to see what he saw but I would not turn my head. I was feeling panicked, like one of the hundreds was flapping out.

  “Is that that French?”

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t shake his head, but he spent time wanting to.

  “Can I talk to you?” he said.

  “Yes sir.”

  “We gotta talk. You don’t have to call me sir.”

  “Sure, okay.”

  “It’s about what’s going on. Not just Bud. That was wrong. I’m sorry that happened.”

  “Like I said, I’ll get over it,” I said.

  “Good. It’s good you say that.”

  As he came closer to me, I got tighter. Though he wasn’t looking at the French book, he was too close to it.

  “That was bad, what happened. It was. He shouldn’t of pushed you or hit you.”

  “He never hit me.”

  “Or threw you, because he could of really hurt you. You’re all right, aren’t you?”

  I nodded, meaning, Hurry the fuck up. I wanted to stand up so bad. It was taking so long it ached.

  “So you know what’s going on out there, right? Outside? That’s been a lot of it, for Bud. Not saying it excuses him. We’re all just a little jumpy around here is all. And here’s the thing. I don’t want no trouble at my building. If it comes, I won’t accept it. You understand, don’t you?”

  I nodded yes yes yes, every muscle in my body begging that this end. And now he was seeing the book again and he was going to say something but he stalled.

  “Look, we gotta talk about protection. How we gotta protect our property.” He started moving the other way.

  I didn’t jump up.

  “You coming? Come with me. You can get back to that later, right? Can’t you?”

  “I’m coming.” I checked out below with a glance faster than a fly’s. No bills were showing. If the bed didn’t move, I was okay. Much as I wanted to, I was more afraid to grab the money than leave it.

  In the kitchen he got his glass of whiskey, and he swirled that cube. “We’re in some dangerous times,” he said out loud. I heard him say it from behind him. He pointed at the back door where a shotgun was leaning. It was not the one at the front door. I looked. That one was still over there too.

  “Any of them come in, we’re protected. You understand?” He gulped a swallow. He didn’t look me in the eyes until he did. “You know how this weapon is?”

  I didn’t.

  He picked it up. He made a couple moves and cracked it open and showed me red cartridges that slid in the barrels. “It’s loaded. You get two shots. This here is the safety.” He flicked it back and forth. “It’s off now. This is on, this is off. I got one a these at each door. Probably we don’t gotta use them. Probably we don’t. If we do, I’ll be here too.”

  I couldn’t not take it when he gave it to me, and I was still feeling the money on my fingertips and seeing it in my mind, and all this weight was more like in somebody else’s arms.

  We both could hear police sirens—wasn’t two, or three, or four passing on the boulevard, it was so many—and, after I gave it back, Cloyd leaned the shotgun back against the wall, close to the doorknob. It made us not want to talk anymore. It made me fidget. He downed the rest of the whiskey.

  “I guess you don’t know where your mom is either, do you?”

  I didn’t.

  * * *

  When I knew it was Mary’s voice in the office I thought I could get out of there, no talking, no seeing me. I opened the bedroom door so it was easier for me to hear. She was in there crying that Bud something, and that she was scared, and that the riot out there, and money was missing. Which got me to hear worse, you know? Cloyd was wasted by now ’cause he was already fucked up before she got there—he wasn’t even talking to her really, just like voice clearing. Once I heard him say he didn’t know where Sil was either. Mary was both in tears and kind of screaming when a line of police cars made the glass of the front window shake, and that killed those worries. They were burning rubber down the street outside, making for the boulevard like shit was starting to blow out right on the nearest corner. Cloyd screamed at me to get over there and turn on the TV like he saw me standing and listening to them but he didn’t, and neither did she, so she went over and turned it on and then it was TV news voices in the room too. I know he didn’t see me. He was all whiskeyed up. So right then I went to the back door while he was there cuddling that shotgun and watching through the front window, and she went back to crying into her hands and sat saggy on his favorite couch.

  I picked up my rock. The streets weren’t wild, there was nothing to see, but then there was the nothing, not even cars cruising the boulevard, or just a few I could see going the other way, and the police ones weren’t there no more. A few people were hanging at the World Motel, more like waiting, eyes making loops looking, and more outside Copa de Oro, and then I saw more people once I really looked around, leaning into the shade of buildings, and then there were voices I could hear that weren’t nobody’s I could see. Some voices
were almost yelling and like coming out of windows, and then I saw whites of eyes squinting in shadows and like white teeth grinning at doors, and when I got to Alley Cats—another window had been broken out, the glass with lines of surprise and pain—and the front door was locked with some yellowed lights on, dim and sad as Mr. Zúniga might be, in there near where the bar was and where Mrs. Zúniga should be cooking, but probably neither of them were around and I took off faster. It was a little run at first, on the wider sidewalk alongside the boulevard because there were no cars parked either. I was running okay, just running with an easy breathing, when the police car skidded and braked hard in front of me and the front wheels hopped up over the sidewalk. One of the police came on me so fast I couldn’t see it happening yet, and when one policeman was going to take me down, I decided not to let him but my rock flew out of my hand right over there, I could see it. The other policeman was coming around the front end of their cruiser but behind him I saw people coming. He saw them in front of him too and he started screaming at them or maybe it was only to his partner, I couldn’t say, I didn’t hear really, because I was with this one who was pulling hard at my left arm and trying to kick my legs out from me to take me to the ground. I punched him hard in the face with my right hand, and then we dropped and were rolling at the curb, on the sidewalk and the street, and I saw that more people got around us now, mostly black people, and they weren’t afraid and they were screaming at the policeman I was fighting and I felt the other one panting near me and they were both being loud but I didn’t really hear nothing. In my eyes it was purple like in the morning sometimes when it’s too early to be awake and too slow and I was mad fuck you man fucking let me fucking go fuck off. I was so not going to quit, and then some dude who to me was only black pants and a brown shoe that came inches to my face kicked the policeman hard in the neck and then there were more kicks and the police let up on me and as I jumped back up and everybody was cheering, I saw the sticks and pipes too and they were drumming on the police car and I let myself see over them too and I heard yelling but it wasn’t in any language, though it probably was, but I couldn’t hear any words and I felt slow but went quick and I got my rock and I ran.

  “Ay, que puta madre, güey,” said Joe.

  “Man,” Mike said. “Man.”

  I wasn’t saying nothing else, just that I got away. I didn’t tell them that much in the first place. What I told them made them not want to talk. I knew them enough to know how they got. They weren’t asking yet, though they really wanted to know, and they’d ask non-stop later, like when, say, we were walking home from school.

  “It’s fucking crazy here,” said Joe, making conversation out of the uncomfortable.

  “I don’t know what we’re doing here,” said Mike. “I’m scared like a … I dunno, like—”

  “Like a girl,” said Joe. “Like a girl in pink.”

  “Well at least I’m not a girl,” Mike said.

  “Well at least I’m not pink,” Joe said.

  “You calling me a Commie?”

  “You’re the one thinking this is good.”

  “What are you guys doing here, man?” I asked.

  “Mom said we shouldn’t,” said Joe.

  “Our dad was like, if we don’t go, we’re more older than him.”

  “And we’d be maricones, don’t forget.”

  “He says like, get out and see if you daisies can pick some daisies for your mom.”

  “Can you believe that, Sonny? Our own dad, vato.”

  “I didn’t wanna go out, but yeah, it was like—well, it was like having to get a job during summer.”

  “Like having to play football,” said Joe. “He was like, are my sons male? If they don’t want to go do any street violence, shouldn’t they want to see it?”

  “He thinks it’s because of the glasses we wear, because of books and reading.”

  “I wanted to do what Mom wanted, myself.”

  “So we had to come,” said Mike.

  “Had to witness history,” said Joe. “And now, que bueno que we can talk about getting our glasses all dirty.”

  “Yeah, reading can get you into tough, dangerous shit too, you know?”

  “Viva la revolución!” Joe said.

  “I dunno,” Mike said. “So far only a few locos cussed out police cars.”

  “Revolt,” Joe said to the two of us. “Fuck Whitey.”

  Mike shushed Joe and that started making a laugh.

  “Mostly it’s the black dudes we saw throwing bricks and bottles down the road, but we saw la chota chasing some brown vatos,” said Mike. That made them both look at me for approval, wait a few seconds.

  “Es buena onda, like a party, dude.”

  “You throwing any?” I asked.

  “Cómo que no?” Mike said.

  “Cómo que sí,” Joe said. “We’re too scared to throw a fart.

  I’m figuring we only gotta be here ten or fifteen minutes more so we can go back home and not get our butts kicked by our pops.”

  “Then we finally get to watch some TV.”

  “Watch this better on TV, verdad?”

  “O mejor watch a sit-com.”

  “Revolt!”

  “Yeah, tonight let’s not even study, ’cause there’s not gonna be any school tomorrow, right?”

  They both cracked up over this.

  * * *

  I didn’t see Pink hanging there across the street from Los Flores until I almost crashed into him. I was going over to what was the only car of his around, the Bel Air which he said was mine, so he couldn’t have been there for it unless he changed his mind.

  “My little brother. You doing any good?”

  “I thought you moved out and … left your roommate in the suit to live there.”

  “Gotta be here, gotta wait.” He rolled his head, frustrated.

  “Gotta goddamn wait.”

  We were both away from any streetlamps, close to the Bel Air. I was there to look into the picture window of #1 and Pink was too. The street was bigger than before, the building was smaller than before, so it was harder. We could see the TV set flicking on inside over at the right, and a stick of light, back there on the left, which was Cloyd’s office, the door mostly closed, but we couldn’t make out bodies inside.

  “I don’t want nobody to see me,” I told him.

  “They in there,” he said. “They in there, little brother.”

  “Who?”

  “They are. Your stepdaddy, he in there, don’t you think?”

  “Probably. You don’t know?” I wanted him to tell me this so much I forgot I wondered what he was doing. “My mom? Did you see her?”

  But he’d gone off into grumbling sounds, like he was fucked up. Not drunk messed up. High fucked up. And not mota either. And not only pissed-off messed up.

  “You didn’t see my mom in there?” I was seeing him but I don’t think he was seeing me. He was saying something to himself. “You been here for a while, Pink?” I asked.

  Like he’d been listening all along. “I been here, little brother. I good goddamn been here and wanting not to. Motherfucker got me here waiting.” He caught up with what he was saying and grabbed my shoulder, his big hand sweaty hot, making the blood rush up to it. “But it all be good, it’s all good, we don’t got nothing to worry, you know what I mean? It be all good, all of it gonna go good eventually.”

  I thought I saw someone in #1 at the window.

  “You think they can see us? I don’t want Cloyd to see me.”

  “They can’t see us here,” he said.

  I backed up deeper anyways, toward a big tree with lots of leaves, and he did too.

  “You see my mom in there?” I asked again.

  “Can’t see us,” he said following me. “They don’t see us.”

  When a light burst out from behind us and then against the glass across the street, we both dropped flat—it was flames jumping into the sky, maybe blocks away but so tall they hit up into the ni
ght above them and even reflected bright against the panes of #1. Voices went louder on the boulevard.

  “Ain’t this something? This is some fucking shit going on.”

  The door opened from #1 and we crouched more, stayed lower than the Bel Air’s windows. By the time I let myself up to peek, the door was closed.

  “Who was it?” I asked. “You see?”

  Pink was talking to himself but not out loud.

  “Cloyd’s got shotguns in there next to the doors,” I told him. “Took down his hunting rifles.”

  “That’s just right,” he whispered, shaking his head. “’Cause they just might wanna shoot at some black meat, like that.”

  I wanted to take off. Noisy as the street over there was, we seemed to be in a safe and quiet unseen darkness.

  “Blue-eyed devil wanna kill him some niggerboys. Now you listen to me, you listen. He gonna use them guns. You understand? Might not be today or even next week. But he gonna. Now you listen to me. You be careful. You understand?”

  Sirens were curling around from several directions, voices seemed to be dropping down onto us from the tree.

  “I gotta get in there another way,” I told him.

  “You go on now. If I’m still here … well, goddamn, I better not still be here.”

  I probably wasn’t making much sense either, so there was that. “Probably see you then.”

  “You keep them ears listening for me,” he said. “You do that for me. Ears, brother, and you tell what they hear. We doing right, me and you. Ain’t that right, little brother?”

  When I saw I had the rock in my hand and that I’d been holding onto it like it was my doll, the words ma chère popped out of my head and, well, I started to smile and I wanted to laugh. And because of that, was that why I wanted to feel like it would all be good, like Pink was saying? That maybe he was right, whatever it was? Peut-être. Peut-être I understood what he said, peut-être non. Vive la différence. I was smiling so loud I should have been laughing with the twins.