This was a moment I might not have again with my son. It was a moment that required fearlessness, courage, the kind my father said he brought to take down those 18th Street punks. Why aren’t you more like your old man, they’d say, even if he was a faggot who died of AIDS. He wasn’t a jota (so he said), but they didn’t know he was a baby killer. My old man told me tons of stories, but only one rang true. It came out one night while we were playing bones. I was on a hot streak and gloating.
“I’m killin’ you, Pops, killin’ you!” I said. “Time for you to go deep in the boneyard!”
“Don’t disrespect your jefe.”
“You’re not my jefe.” I laughed and slammed down a double six. “You ain’t in the Locos no more.”
He leaned over with a palmful of dominoes and slapped me across the face. “Talk back again,” he said, “and I’ll bury you myself.”
“You never killed nobody!” I shouted, tasting blood on my lip. “They’re stories, they’re all just stories.”
“I shot a baby girl,” he said and carefully stacked up the dominoes into a wooden box shaped like a coffin. “Three years old. Dancing on a street corner. ‘Baby Madonna.’ In the wrong place at the wrong time. If that puto I was chasing hadn’t cheated me out of a case of Bud, she’d be a young woman now. You might even be fucking her if you weren’t a maricón.” He chuckled. “If I could shoot a little girl, I could shoot my own son.” He placed the domino box in the center of the table. “Put them away. We’re done.”
I tried to recapture his “courage” when I was in the gang, but I kept seeing that dead little girl lying out on the sidewalk—in my head, on that big-ass mural near the 101. I found out everyone in the Locos knew he’d done it but nobody turned him in. Why? We were supposed to have a code, rules to follow—don’t hurt dogs, don’t rape old women, don’t kill kids. What kind of man shoots a girl, even if by accident, then doesn’t turn himself in? And what kind of men protect that man? Whenever I went out on the streets, the image of a little girl bleeding to death froze me up, made me play things safer than my carnals, many of whom earned their Loco nicknames through fighting, stealing, dealing, or shooting. We were called locos for a reason; me, they called El Pesado, the “boring man.”
When I “retired” a veterano at thirty-three, the Locos let me drift out of the life, nice and easy. It was like losing a factory job I’d had for years and not knowing what to do with the rest of my life because I didn’t know how to do anything else. This moment with Juan, then, must have been the reason I outlived my gang, my wife, mi barrio—to keep my son from making a fatal mistake. The words would come now—they had to—in a way they never came for my dad.
“Are you done with that, sir?” The girl with pink hair motioned to my half-eaten sandwich.
In my mind, I was apologizing. That’s all a grown son really wants from his old man. “I’m sorry”—and I was sorry, for being such a worthless father, for not loving Ofelia with the proper amount of respect, the drug scores, the anonymous dick-sucking tricks in men’s rooms for money, the untold number of late nights I stumbled home drunk and punched Juan in bed at three in the morning to teach him to always be prepared to be attacked—here was my plea for forgiveness, for him not to leave me here alone in a neighborhood that was being stripped away one memory at a time and replaced with something foreign, cancerous, and final.
“Well, Dad?” Juan asked, rising to leave a tip on the table. He looked at me with a warm, peaceful gaze. “I think he’s finished,”
he said.
6
The Hustler
The best sunrise you’ll ever see is your first as a free man. That big gassy light that creaks out of God’s cellar, wrestling the night away from a sky holding on to it with every star and streetlight, shining on a man who can rise when he wants, not when a 120-decibel buzzer tells him to— that is a sunrise. I should know. I’ve seen that sunrise over a dozen times, each one a promise that this will be the one that changes my life, this dawn will be witness to a new set of priorities, a new sense of hope. Of course I end up right back in the joint on a technicality (the technicality being that I get caught), and it’s another stretch before I see that sunrise again.
You don’t think about things like sunrises until you’ve gone without them, those unappreciated everyday moments you leave behind on the outside. You’d be amazed at the things people leave behind: being able to see your woman’s hairy muff rise like dough when she comes out of the shower in the morning; your mother’s huevos rancheros; the chance to give your son his first taste of beer on a summer’s night. Hell, I know one guy who misses Kentucky Fried Chicken as much as some guys miss pucha. And then there are all the things out there changing, things you don’t know about that you’d miss if you did. All you’ve got is faith that things change slow enough out there for you to catch up to them when you get out of here.
For me, this time out is different. I’ve changed. This sunrise here, the pale gray promise of one I can see hovering behind that line of palm trees on a faraway hill, is different. It’s a sunrise that says: Welcome home.
I’m Freddy Blas, forty-two years old. Born in Mexico, raised in East L.A., and 100 percent American. I spent nineteen of those forty-two years locked up—juvie, youth camps, youth authority, Solano, Tracy, Soledad, Tehachapi, Chino—including my last stint up at Lancaster for aggravated battery (I had some trouble parking a car and got sent away for almost twelve years; can you believe that shit?).
I grew up over in Boyle Heights, where we caught the Night Stalker on East Hubbard Street, near Whittier Boulevard. I say “we” because I was in that mob that ran down and captured that loco serial killer during the summer of 1985. You wouldn’t know this unless I told you, but I was the reason they caught that fucker, the first chingón (I need Spanish here because, for many of the best cusswords, there’s no English equivalent) to start punching the shit out of him. Before I started throwing chingasos, people were flailing at him and missing, trying to catch a goldfish on hot sand. Everybody was afraid to touch him, intimidated by the indestructible bogeyman with supernatural powers they’d heard about on TV for months. They didn’t see that thrashing underneath them was a skinny spic with a limp Jheri curl who tried to steal some vato’s broke-ass car in broad daylight. He’d have gotten away, too, if I hadn’t thought, Fuck, he’d stop squirming if he got punched in the kidneys a few times.
I’m big for a Mexican and have these massive lobster-claw hands that made it easy for me to land the first punch. Once I hit him, my neighbors came to their senses and it was a kick-the-spic bonanza. Too bad the cops got him when they did. We would have torn him limb from limb. Can you imagine, a pinche Mexican serial killer? Fucking gabachos in L.A. hated Mexicans enough as it was. First we took the whites’ jobs; now we had taken the white man’s claim on freaky serial killers, too. The city didn’t seem to mind, though. People from across L.A. drove by the spot where he was caught, honking their horns in celebration and unity. That night was a real block party. Mayor Tom Bradley said it was “a spontaneous outpouring of goodwill from the City of Angels,” but he was always saying that kind of shit. The neighborhood thought this was the beginning of a renaissance. The potholes would get filled, the streetlights repaired, and the cops would keep the people safer. There were rumors of movie deals, keys to the city, seats behind the dugout at Dodger Stadium. But nothing happened. I sure never saw any reward money from catching that fucking Mexican—and wasn’t it just like a Mexican to be caught, on foot, running. Fucking maricón.
Before I go on, I want to make it clear to you that I speak inglés. Entiendes, mendes? This is America and I speak America’s language. No translation needed. See, I never had a problem speaking English. My old man told me that, to make it in America, all you need to do is keep talking. Hablar hasta que las palabras no tienen sentido. Don’t ever shut up. The louder you are the better—that’s the American way. Look at how much more respect Americans have for blacks instead of Mexicans.
Rich black ballplayers, black movie stars, black comedians, a black president! That’s because blacks tell you (they tell everyone) what they want to change. How can you do that if you can’t speak the language? That’s why I can’t stand Mexicans who come to this country and keep their mouths shut because they never bothered to learn English. You say learning English is tough? I say sleeping on the floor of a room with fourteen people in it is tougher. Learn English and become your own boss. Stay speaking Spanish and you inherit a fucking crimp in your neck from nodding “sí, sí” all day long. I could make a killing selling neck braces to Mexicans who nod their heads instead of opening their mouths and saying “cut your own goddamn lawn.” Can’t let people push you around. You gotta be hard. Like Steve McQueen, or Kennedy. When that prick Khrushchev fucked with us over Cuba, Kennedy said, “If you don’t remove those missiles on Wednesday, by Friday we’ll turn this atmosphere to flames.” That’s what it means to be ciento por ciento Americano, tú sabes?
Capitalism is the best revenge against a gringo. And gringos love that “opportunity on every corner” bullshit. Mexicans don’t understand that because they’re too busy thinking about everything they don’t have. Did you know the Mayans invented the number zero? Who else but Mexicans would know what it means to have nothing? Thing is, the gringos are right. You never know what you’re gonna hear walking down the street. Did you know that one out of ten conversations you overhear walking on your block is about something illegal? Fuck, more than that if you live in Echo Park. Easy as sin to break into a conversation, too. Walk down the street with a twelve-pack, chat someone up, give ’em a few beers, smoke some weed, and boom, you got the score. You telling me that ain’t easy? Easier than a day-to-day job bending your back or your knees twelve hours a day.
I’ve done those jobs, believe me. My first “straight” job was as a short-order cook at a twenty-four-hour taco stand. Graveyard shifters and rich, drunk club kids waited in the same line while I grilled ten pounds of shredded pork a night for eight months. It was here I saw how you could hustle to get something for free. Someone would place an order while a homeless person, some black guy, would amble back and forth in front of the counter where I laid out the tacos conveyor belt style. Black guy would pick up the tacos someone else paid for and score a free meal before anybody realized their order was gone. I didn’t catch it the first few times because I was cooking the food and not working the register. Jimmy, the pinche gringo who owned the dump, saw what happened, took a spatula off the hot grill, and branded it on my forearm. The pain was like being in a dark room and someone turned on all the lights real high, blinding you. From then on, I never took my eyes off the counter. I gave people numbers and shouted them out when their orders were ready. If they didn’t respond fast enough, I’d point my tongs at them saying, “Didn’t you hear me call your number three times?”
One night, a guy forgot that he put a couple of loose dollars on the counter. I palmed the bills and told him they’d blown onto the ground. I tried it again and again that night, improving my technique. More like inventing my technique. Most of these kids were too drunk to register me as a person (they wouldn’t have sober, either), didn’t see how awkward I was when I snatched their money up with my lobster claws for hands. But I got better, got faster, and soon I could serve a basket of tacos and swipe a two-and-a-half-inch-thick wallet with the same hand in one single motion. Wasn’t long before Jimmy wanted a cut. Lend me your van, I said, so I can get rid of the wallets. He gave me the keys, and I never drove back. No point in negotiating with a thief.
I never drove home, either. I didn’t leave for any sinister reasons. My mom didn’t beat me; my dad didn’t try to suck my dick. I was crazy back then, never stopping to think things through past tomorrow. I ran away with the clothes on my back. Same reason I dropped out of high school. I was smart, never failed a class I showed up to, got suspended dozens of times for mouthing off at the teacher because I was bored (I’d throw shit up front to encourage them to pick up the pace), but the education I wanted came from hustling, an education that continues every day you’re on the streets. You don’t get it living the straight life. That’s what I love about it. There is no direct line to becoming the perfect con man, no end of your apprenticeship, no place where you can look down from a comfortable perch and take a breather. Instead, there are a series of shortfalls, switchbacks, missteps, and flubbed cues, navigating a world of mazes. The one sure thing is that a straight line will take you right back to the beginning, and the beginning is not in the place where you remember but some-where further away and harder to reach and darker to see into than you thought it was. Sometimes when living the life threatened to get too dark, I’d get this overwhelming desire to change, to do . . . right. Get a wife, couple of kids calling me Dad, and for fuck’s sake, a minivan. It was a terrifying vision, worse than any jail cell, and I’ve been in a lot of jail cells. I’ve never been able to channel those fleeting, euphoric intentions into doing good. Good is too much work.
I’m not trying to make this life sound like a woman, all depressing and deceptive. Like a woman, this life has its perks—you get the best out of both if you treat each as a job and not a hobby. People don’t know when they see me in a bar or a back room and I trick them up for some pool or a card game that I’m a professional gambler. Hustler sells short what I can do. Could a “hustler” run any pool table in the city like I can? I made eight thousand dollars in one night when some movie execs went slumming in the Eastside and made the mistake of challenging me in my local. I’ve stolen cars in front of post offices and video stores when someone dashes out with the keys in the ignition, TVs by picking up display models at electronics stores and walking right out the front door with them, money from bank drawers and kids’ piggy banks. I’ve run drugs for the Mexican mafia, who wanted to recruit me, except I had to take a blood oath and put a bunch of damn tattoos and shit on my body.
I didn’t need to be part of a gang to have respect. I’ve got contacts from here to Laredo, Texas, have my pick of any town to set up shop, but I chose Echo Park because mi barrio never sold me out, even when half the LAPD was looking for me. The shit I pulled here, man. People still talk about it, still write me letters in the joint about it. I got papers by the boxful from all the homeboys here asking, When are you coming back to the ’hood, Freddy? That’s respect, see? None of us knew it’d be twelve years, but experience tells me time doesn’t change shit. Every con knows that. My woman Cristina knows that.
We met at Pilgrim’s Supermarket, where she was a checker. She was a dyed blonde who’d spilled an ink bottle in her roots, and had long fake eyelashes, luminous green eyes, and these perky, upstanding titties that made me howl like un lobo. I was trying to sneak out four bottles of Tanqueray under my shirt, but she caught me. Keep the bottles, she said, but come back when I’m off shift. I thought it was some kind of setup with the cops, but she shook her head. As long as you come back, she said, you can have me. I’d finished the second bottle by the time her shift was over. At her house, her teenage daughter, Angie, plugged into her Walkman without being asked while Cristina led me to her bedroom and showed me that pert, dimpled curve of a woman’s ass that gets me excited. I moved in her like the rhythm in a seventies rock song—all bang, no shuffle, baby—and then I moved into her house. We were married in an “alternative” religious ceremony by a group that’s considered a “cult” in the state of California, and I stayed with her and Angie off and on (I always came back) for almost five years.
Funny enough, my one attempt at a straight job while I was married was what got me sent to Lancaster. This is the parking problem I was talking about. I was working as a valet at a new club in West Hollywood called Reflection. It was a short application process. Could I speak English? Could I drive a stick shift? Could I run (running, it was understood, was always preferred) for short periods of time? And could I work any day, any shift, day or night?
They paired me up with this guy, Javier, from Hig
hland Park. We weren’t friends, but we had enough to bitch about in common—the low pay, erratic hours, cheap tippers—that always gave us something to discuss. We swapped shirts, several changes of which we needed to keep in a nearby chest, along with fresh vests, white towels, and lots of deodorant (all this came out of our paycheck). Running in the warm, muggy Los Angeles summer nights drenched us in minutes, and customers would complain if any of our sweat was on their leather seats or steering wheels.
Javier didn’t talk much, which was fine with me, because parking these rich assholes’ cars gave me a new perspective on things. I ran these opinions by Javier whenever we had a free moment. Seeing the way these restaurant types fell all over themselves whenever a black Laker or a black Dodger came by, I realized Mexicans’ status would change overnight if soccer became a popular sport in America. And the white girls these black guys ran with! Ay, Dios mío. These black guys had it all figured out. The first time I saw a black guy kiss a fine white girl, I thought, Holy shit, can we do that? This was the real path to being American—find a white girl and fuck her real good.
Javier didn’t have many thoughts on these subjects. He was always angry. His anger rose off him like a fever I didn’t want to catch, one that swelled with the length of our shifts and the size of the crowds. That’s what happened that night. There was a movie premiere party, the two of us trying to park a line of cars a mile deep. Javier was parking one of those black basketball player’s cars while I was in the car behind them, a Mercedes with an open wallet with several one-hundred-dollar bills sticking out of a compartment next to the gearshift. I’d been working on the level for three weeks and gotten screwed in my wallet and blisters on my feet. Wasn’t it time for a little bonus? And who better to give it to me than someone who wouldn’t miss it anyway?
The Madonnas of Echo Park Page 13