by Manuel Ramos
César said, “Any minute now the rest of my crew will start showin’ up. Don’t make any noise. Even if you hear them at the door. Except for Angel, they don’t have keys. Fred and Oscar always expect me or Angel to let them in. Watch that this pendejo don’t come to.” He pointed at an aluminum baseball bat lying on the floor. “Use that if you have to. If he starts movin’ hit him hard, right on top of the head.”
I picked up the bat. It felt heavy and awkward in my hand but I gripped it solidly and was ready to do what César wanted.
With his left hand César flipped open a cell phone and punched in numbers. His right hand held the gun.
After a few seconds he said, “Angel? . . . Yeah. Rudy showed up. . . . I took care of it. You on your way? . . . Yeah. . . . Okay, okay. . . . No, nothin’. . . . Yeah. . . . Look, I know. What can I do? I told you he was up to somethin’ stupid. He had to be. . . . No, I’ll finish it. Call Fred and Oscar. Now. Tell them we’re closed today—there’s a gas leak or somethin’ like that. I’ll get back to you.”
Then it was his turn to listen to her. Several times he started and stopped what he wanted to say. When he finally could say it completely, it came out as, “I said I will take care of it. That means I will take care of it. All of it.” His eyes focused on me. “You handle Fred and Oscar.”
He closed his phone, jammed it in his shirt pocket.
The blood in my brain finally started to flow again. I said, “What the hell is going on? Who is this guy? What are you into?”
César shrugged his shoulders. He stared at me. He shrugged again. The man on the floor groaned, turned on his side. César kicked him in the jaw. The man quivered, then was still. Blood and drool dripped from his lips. I dropped the bat.
“Take it easy,” I said. “You’re gonna kill this guy. What was it? A holdup, a burglary? You catch him in the act? Whatever, it isn’t worth killing him.” Then I had a brilliant flash of wisdom. “We should call the cops.”
César made a sound that I guess was supposed to be a laugh. It came out too horrible for that, though.
“You been a good customer, Michael. You’re solid—I can see that. The way you handled Abel’s trouble showed me that. You’re not like some of the geeks who parade through here. For a lawyer your head’s screwed on tight, your heart’s in the right place, most of the time. Your roots are strong, same as mine. You never ask too many questions, you show respect, you don’t talk down.” He paused, examined the gun. “For all that, you deserve a break. You walk out of here and forget anythin’ you saw and the next time you come in for your regular, we don’t bring this up. Like it never happened. You hear me, Michael? Nothin’ happened. You shouldn’t even be here anyways. So, maybe you were never here today? I think that’s the way we do this.” He paused again. “I’ll take care of this guy.”
My tongue ran over the words I wanted to say but I pushed them out.
“I can’t believe it, you talking like that. I have to go to the police. You know that. I saw the whole thing going down. He was trying to hold you up. He had the gun, he threatened you, me. He would have shot us if you hadn’t jumped him. You have nothing to worry about, César. No D.A. will file charges, no jury would convict you of anything. Colorado has the Make-My-Day law—what you did fits right in with that. I’m your witness, I’m . . . ”
He waved the gun in my face and I shut up.
“Michael, you don’t understand. I’m givin’ you an option. Take it, while you can. You don’t have to be involved. Maybe you shouldn’t, right? You’re a partner in the firm now. Right? You need this kind of publicity? You want to be interviewed by the cops, the D.A.? Have to do depositions, subpoenas, maybe lie detector tests if the defense attorney really gets into it. Testify at a trial? I don’t think you need all that. ”
It was gibberish. He was trying to eliminate me from the scene and he was saying anything that popped in his head that he thought might sway me. He was saying everything except the truth.
I asked, “Why you doing this? What’s your connection to this guy?”
César snapped open the gun, looked through the chamber, shut it, then stuck it in the waistband of his pants.
He said, “I know Rudy for a long time. We used to be . . . uh . . . roommates. We have a partnership, an ongoin’ arrangement from years ago. He thought I didn’t treat him right—maybe not accountin’ for all the profits, from his point of view. Guys like him are like that. Don’t trust nobody because they can’t be trusted, and they know it. He showed up today in that dumbass mask and wanted to collect what he thought was his, and what I know he ain’t earned. You saw how it played out. Now, I have to clean it up. Like I said, you don’t want to be involved with this. You walk out now, never mention it to no one and it’s like it ain’t never happened. For what it’s worth, you can take my word on that. I got no beef with you. Angel will do what I say. You really are an innocent bystander. But you have to cooperate.”
He let all that sink in.
The barber opened a narrow door in the corner of the office. He pulled out a mop, bucket and a box of trash bags.
“I’m asking for some leeway from you,” he said as he shut the broom closet door. He picked up a pair of scissors, shook his head and put them back on his desk. “Maybe ’cause you been comin’ in here for so long.” He stared at me and I had to look away. “Maybe ’cause we know each other on the side of my life that shouldn’t mix with this side of my life.”
I looked back at him. He pointed his chin at Rudy’s bloody face.
We were interrupted by a knock on the front door. I started to say something, stopped myself, walked away from César and the unconscious man. Behind me César grunted as he moved Rudy’s body. I heard the thunk of Rudy’s head bumping the bucket.
Dan Riley, a young assistant district attorney who wanted a position in my firm, waited at the outer door. I quickly opened it, eased out and shut it behind me.
Riley looked surprised. “Hey, Michael,” he said. “How are you? Is César open or . . . ?”
He glanced at the closed sign hanging on the door then came back to me with the unfinished question in his eyes.
I said, “Uh, he has to . . . to take off, probably won’t be back today. Some kind of emergency, a gas leak or something, somewhere. Not sure. I was just trying to change my appointment. You might want to call him tomorrow, see what’s up.”
Riley nodded, muttered, “Damn.” He said the things that he thought were necessary to keep his name on the list of potential future associates in my firm. I participated in the charade, did my part, until finally he went on with his business. I ran back to my office.
I had to spend a few hours on the phone and I ended up indebted to a jerk Texas lawyer but I managed to postpone the Dallas arbitration. I needed to keep my regular appointment with César. I did not want him to think that I had moved on to another barber. A good barber is hard to find.
BACKUP
It’s not that I thought Dad was a creep just because he was a cop. It was weird, that’s all. He’d be out busting the bad guys, getting worked up behind the stuff he had to see every day like women all bruised and black-eyed, and burned kids and old men pistol-whipped. And the dead people. He saw plenty of those. He did that for years, and he started drinking heavy, a regular booze hound. And I remember him coming home in his uniform and before he hit the bottle he’d take off his gun, unload and wipe it clean, and tell me and my brother Martín that if he ever caught us fooling around with his piece that he would “kick the living hell out of us.” We were like seven and ten so that scared us, of course, and made us want to get our hands on that gun all that much more. We never did, though. He kept it locked up and the key stayed with him. When he eventually took us target shooting and tried to teach us how to deal with a gun, he jammed us with rules. “Never load a gun unless you intend to use it. Never point a gun at anyone unless you intend to hurt them. Never shoot at someone unless you intend to kill that person.” His favorite rule? “Stop.
Look. Be careful. Be aware of where you are and who’s around.” By the time he preached his rules, we had moved on and it was no big deal. And by the time I made it to Cunningham High, no one hardly ever brought up Dad’s cop job.
That was before Dad made detective and before Martín was arrested and sent to the Youth Correctional Facility, or the YCF, as the old man called it. I missed that guy, but truth is, he was a mess-up, big time. Martín never grew up, never figured out what to do with himself, and when he got into drugs, that was it for my big brother. Now, he’s sitting out his sentence. The judge showed no mercy (even though Dad was on the force) and sentenced him to farm work and boredom at the YCF until he turned eighteen. That was the first time I knew that my mother’s heart was broken. Pinche judge, like my Dad said, just loud enough for the asshole to hear him. But Martín will get out later this year. Whether he wants to come home is another question. What’s there to come home to, right?
The second time my mom broke down was when they pressured Dad off the force. Even I did not see that coming. And then they started fighting all the time until he moved out and they filed for divorce. And there I was, trying to finish high school when I didn’t really care about nothing, Dad turned into a stranger, my mom wouldn’t quit crying and life was like one big drag.
But I didn’t mean for this to be a downer. I like to write in my journal and so I just let it rip; whatever pops in my head ends up in my book. Sometimes it comes out all cheery and sappy and sometimes I can’t believe the stuff I put down. I been doing it for years but not even Jamey knows about it. He’d just say that it’s so gay, but I know it’s what I need to chill sometimes, and gay ain’t got nothing to do with it.
Jamey’s real name is Jaime Rodríguez, but no one calls him that. And I’m Miguel Reséndez, but you can call me Mike. Mike and Jamey—we been buds since he moved to El-town (our neighborhood is Elvin Heights, but it’s been known as El-town from the years when the OGs cruised Braxton Avenue in their low-rider Chevys and Mercurys). He sauntered into Mrs. Hyde’s second-grade class looking like a tall, skinny version of George Lopez, all dark and big-headed. Jamey and Mike—Cheech and Chong. That’s what some of the jocks call us, behind our backs, but we don’t care.
Jamey and I are a good team. He’s tough, not afraid to mix it up if he has to. We’ve had to back each other up a few times, usually against the El-town Cutters. They finally left us alone, but there were plenty of times when Jamey and I had to throw down. We been knocked out, cut up, even shot at, but we never gave in. So now there’s a truce between us and the Cutters, and most of the guys who used to hassle us are getting beat up by my brother in the YCF, or cruisin’ in their wheelchairs, or dead. It’s all good now. Except that my life still sucks.
Jamey and I talked one day a few weeks after Dad split.
“You don’t know where he is?” Jamey said, although I think he knew the answer.
“Him and Mom had a big fight. He ran out of the house saying that everyone could shove it. He must have gotten drunk. He came home the next morning, early. I could hear him stumbling around. But he didn’t stay long. He moved out. It’s like he blames us because he screwed up. What I really don’t like is that he won’t talk to us, he won’t explain what’s going on with him.”
Jamey shrugged. We had skipped last period and were sitting around our table in Corey Park, the place where we wasted a lot of time, sometimes with others from school but most often just the two of us.
“What do you think happened? Didn’t your pops say nothing?” Jamey spoke like he was picking his words all careful. I didn’t answer right away. I looked at the carved heart with the initials AB/MR that I had carved into the table months ago, when me and Andrea were still an item. “You got to admit, that was extreme, even for your old man.” I jerked my head and glared at Jamey. Where was he going with this? “I mean, shooting Cold Play when he didn’t have any gun. He’s a clown and all that, but still.”
I pushed Jamey off the table bench.
“Shut up!” I never had been mad at Jamey, but I was pissed right then, real pissed. Me and Dad weren’t exactly Father and Son of the Year, but he was my old man, and no one had a right to talk about him except me.
“Hey, dude. Damn. Cool it.” Jamey picked himself up. He clenched his fists, then let it go. “Catch you later, jerk face.” He walked away. I almost shouted at him to come back. Almost.
The night it all came down, I was alone in the house. Mom’s text said that she was visiting Grandma Herrera over in Clifton; she might stay the night, something about Grandma not feeling well. Dad apparently had stopped by, there was a dirty plate and half-filled coffee pot on the counter, but he hadn’t stayed or left a message.
I felt sick, like the flu or something. I listened to a mix of Dad’s oldies. Too many tear drops for one heart to be crying. You’re gonna cry ninety-six tears. Cry, cry, cry. I had always liked that song even though it made no sense. What was so bad about ninety-six tears? I turned off the CD player and sat in the dark and the silence. I thought about throwing up, or maybe smoking a cigarette, but I didn’t do anything. I just sat there, for a long time.
Finally, I switched on a lamp and picked up a newspaper from the end table where it had gathered dust for weeks. MAN SHOT BY POLICE EXPECTED TO RECOVER. A smaller headline announced: Reséndez on Administrative Leave. I didn’t have to read the story to know what else it said.
Officer Reséndez and his partner, Sandra Moreno, were driving through the alleys in the Horseback Hill area when they saw a man crawl out of a basement window and sneak through a back yard. The police officers waited in the darkness and made their arrest.
Slam-dunk. Dad and his partner Sandra must have been all smiles. They had busted Hank García, the so-called Zebra Burglar because he wore a black-and-white bandanna around his head. The cops wanted that guy, for months. The story was that he and his gang had broken into hundreds of homes and businesses over the past two years, and some people had been hurt, seriously.
But the arrest went bad. They were calling in the details when Fred Jackson showed up. He was a low-life most of us knew as a cheap hood who gave himself the nickname “Cold Play.” According to García, Dad immediately left the car and started waving his gun at Cold Play. I was sitting in the back seat, handcuffed. The cop and this other guy were saying something behind the car, I don’t know what. It sounded like an argument. Then I heard the blast of a gun and it seemed like the whole inside of the car lit up. I twisted around to my left and I could see the cop holding his gun, standing over the guy who was bleeding in the street. The second cop, who had been in the front seat, rushed out. I heard her say, “What did you do, Carlos?” Then they messed around in the dark for a long time. Finally, more cops showed up and they took me away. It didn’t look right, that’s all I know.
There had been an internal investigation by the police department and the district attorney’s office. The newspapers had a great time quoting the criminals, who had no problem slamming Dad and the police in general. Jackson’s story, told from his hospital bed, was that he had been walking home after a night of partying when he stumbled on Dad’s police cruiser. He admitted that he had been drinking but denied that he had done anything to provoke the cops. That one pig, the Mexican, he shot me like I was a sick dog. Any soulful man he saw that night was gonna get shot, and that turned out to be me. I want him to pay. Someone has to pay for what happened to me.
The Elvin Heights Echo had a photograph of Jackson in his hospital bed, a bandage wrapped around his head. The caption read: Fred Jackson, aka Cold Play: Innocent victim of police shooting?
I had to laugh. Cold Play had never been innocent of anything. He was one of those white guys who tried to act ghetto, gangsta bullshit. We thought he was stupid. And his nickname was another joke. The guy probably didn’t know that he had named himself after a white music group—music that he would never listen to. But then I guess a guy who needs to give himself a handle didn’t give a damn about what I
thought.
They put Dad on administrative leave while the investigation dragged on. Dad kept telling us that it would be straightened out, that the investigation would go nowhere, but even he admitted that the Department wanted no more of him. My Dad had a reputation for being an aggressive cop; quick to retaliate and much too likely to draw his weapon. He had been involved in two other shootings, and he was the subject of a half-dozen citizen complaints for excessive force. Each time he had been cleared by the Police Review Board, but the complaints stayed in his personnel file. Dad didn’t know what to do when he wasn’t being a cop, and it showed. One day he told us he was quitting the force. That was when the real trouble started between Dad and Mom.
My cell rang and vibrated.
“What?”
“You cool down?” Jamey asked. We hadn’t talked since I had shoved him off our table.
“I’m okay. You?”
“I’m not the one been screwed up. Your old man home yet?”
“He’s been around but I haven’t seen him. Now Mom’s gone, too.”
“You’re on your own?”
“Nothing new. Look, I’m beat. I need some sleep.”
“Let’s get together tomorrow, okay?”
“If you want.”
“Yeah. Terry told me to act right. Like you’re under pressure or something. ‘Poor baby,’ I said.”
“Screw you.”
“Yeah, right. We’ll hook up tomorrow.”
“Later, dude. Easy.”
Terry was his on-again, off-again girlfriend. She had more common sense in her pudgy little finger than Jamey had in his whole family.
I sat in the dark for a few more minutes. Eventually I shuffled to my room and flopped on the bed.
About an hour later I threw a few clothes and candy bars into a backpack. I picked up my cell, slipped a cap on my head. I locked all the windows and doors. I snared cash from the envelope I had taped under my bed (about $500 saved from my part-time gig as a busboy) and I wrote a note that said, I’ll be back in a few days. I need to get my head together. Don’t worry. I’ll be okay. I signed it “Miguel.” I stepped out the door and walked up the street, and it was as though I saw the houses and lawns and driveways for the first time. I looked back at the house and realized that it looked like every other house on the block. I kept on walking even though I didn’t know where I was going.