Unpaid Dues

by Barbara Seranella

  When they got back to the car at Parker Center, Rico told his kid to climb in the backseat. Munch was relieved, having had an image, and then discarding it, of herself yelling, "Shotgun."

  They drove several miles north on the Hollywood Freeway to Echo Park. The light poles of Dodger Stadium were visible on the right; the towering skyscrapers of downtown L.A. loomed in the yellow-gray sky to their left.

  Echo Park was a hilly neighborhood of thirties-vintage wooden homes with covered porches and burglar bars on the windows. Rico pulled into the driveway of one of the few houses that was stuccoed. Some kind of tropical plant with leaves like elephant ears dominated the small front yard. Security flood-lights were mounted on the roofline. The cement stairs leading to the front door were painted red and matched the trim.

  Rico shut off the engine and they all got out. Rico leaned into the backseat and pulled out a color television still in its carton. Angelica looked at the box and said, "Another one?"

  "This one is better," he said, pointing to the printing on the box. "See? It's cable ready gets fifty-two channels, and you can plug earphones into the side."

  "Daaad," she said, rolling her eyes. "There aren't that many channels in the known universe."

  Can't she see how pleased he is to be doing this for her? Munch thought. How can she resist his little-boy enthusiasm? Rico's countenance darkened; Angelica had ruined the moment for him.

  "When I was your age, I didn't even have electricity" he said.

  "I know, I know," Angelica said wearily "Or running water or glass in your windows."

  Munch looked at Rico. Even though this story was old hat to Angelica, it was the first Munch had heard it. It struck her how little she really knew about this man, how all her images of him were more visceral than visual.

  Rico lifted the television easily

  "C'mon," he told Munch, and the three of them approached the house. Angelica went first with her key Munch walked behind Rico, enjoying the way the muscles of his broad back shifted under his shirt. Angelica's room was at the end of the hallway past a living room full of overstuffed furniture flanked by amphitheater-sized speakers. The couch faced a large console television with a VCR.

  He brought the television into her room and set it down on a dresser in front of a wall covered with a collage of shirtless young men with guitars and pouty looks. Munch looked at the angst-ridden performers and wondered what it was about them that adolescents related to and how the kids could so neatly disregard the fact that most of these boy wonders were making big bucks and had nothing to cry about. In her heart Munch knew that money wasn't everything, but it sure seemed to be everything else.

  Shelves held an astounding array of stereo equipment. Angelica already had a television and Atari. Near her closet was a car stereo still in its box. The car stereo and TV carton were both stamped with the name PASCOE APPLIANCES. It occurred to Munch that Rico was overcompensating.

  He slit the cellophane tape across the top of the carton.

  Munch sneaked a look through Angelica's open bathroom door and was overwhelmed at the variety and number of beauty products amassed on the vanity It was clear that they were well used. Half of the bottles were empty Munch had yet to use up a bottle of nail polish or a can of hair spray and only recently had she had to buy a new tube of lipstick.

  "Look at this mess," Rico said, sweeping his hand to encompass it all. He stared in disgust at the hair in the sink, the spray of toothpaste on the mirror. "Just like her mother," he told Munch, not bothering to whisper.

  Cheap shot, Munch thought, but she also knew something else in that instant. Sylvia, Angelica's mother, had been the one who wanted out of the marriage.

  "You want any help setting this up?" she asked Angelica.

  "No," the girl said. "Thank you." The smile was back in place.

  "Don't put the box out at the curb," Munch said.

  "Either fold it up and stuff it in your trash can or throw it away in a Dumpster. Otherwise you're advertising that you have something brand new to steal."

  Angelica nodded her head and looked at Munch with something dangerously akin to respect. "I never thought about that. Thanks."

  * * *

  As they drove away Rico said, "I hate them living there."

  "Their house seemed nice," she said.

  "It would be nicer in Santa Monica or Palms."

  "Would Sylvia move?"

  "Her business is downtown, but I'm working on her. "

  Munch didn't like the sound of that. It took several minutes for her to get her jealousy under control. She couldn't worry about everyone he ever slept with. What if the reverse were true?

  She turned to him. "You're sweet."

  "What?"

  "Giving the food to that bum guy"

  "Actually" he said, checking the rearview mirror, "it's not as nice as it looks. When I was growing up, even though we lived in a house my mom built herself, a house with dirt floors and cardboard for wallpaper, we knew we were superior to those people who begged at the border. My mom made like a buck a day making tortillas, but she always had change for the beggars. So you see? Not so noble."

  "Where was your dad?"

  "He came to America," he paused and looked at her before adding—"illegally"

  Munch shrugged. He'd get no judgment from her.

  "He was going to send for us when he got set up, but it took a while. I made money too. In Mexico, they have big dumps of trash. I used to go through them looking for copper, and then I'd haul it to this guy who paid me by the pound. That was hard work for a ten-year-old."

  Munch nodded. She knew junkies who used to steal radiators and pipes from work sites and sell them for the copper. She always thought it was a lot of physical labor to go through to steal something.

  "Did you go to school?"

  "Oh, sure. There were two sessions, morning and afternoon. I went in the afternoon. I was too scared of my mother not to go, even though it cost. Nothing is free in Mexico." He switched lanes aggressively. "My dad used to deliver Sparklett's water before he went North. The cops there stopped him once, wanted their mordida, their bribe. My dad said, 'Look, I've got no money' The cop said, 'Okay I'1l catch you tomorrow.' From then on, my dad had to hide from this guy This cop got this attitude that my dad owed him."

  "He felt entitled," Munch said, sitting up straighter. Entitlement was an interesting concept to her.

  "Yeah, it's a mess down there. Fucking bandits. I wouldn't pay it either."

  "When did you come North?"

  "When I was twelve. My dad got an apartment and sent for all of us. I was blown away when I got here. I couldn't believe this place, the paved streets, the inside toilets. I'd never seen a park before. It was beautiful and free. You could play there all day if you wanted."

  "How'd you get from there to being a cop?"

  "I used to watch those shows, Adam-12, Drugnet. I thought cops were great."

  "American cops," she added.

  "Right. When I was in high school, I wasn't in a gang, but I used to dress the part." He paused, then chuckled. "One time I was standing there at the school yard with all my little girlfriends and I see these three blurry images across the street. I needed glasses, but I never wore them. Too uncool, you know?"

  Munch looked at him in surprise. She was so used to seeing him in his Carerras, it never occurred to her that they were prescription.

  "So anyhow, I'm staring and staring, and trying to see who it is. This is something you don't do with gangbangers. If you look at them hard, it's a challenge."

  "Mad dogging," Munch said.

  He nodded. "So these three guys walk over to me and say 'Where you from?' Now I got to declare myself. There's three of them, but I'm on the other side of this big fence."

  "Surrounded by all your girlfriends."

  "Yeah, so I start talking trash, mothers are mentioned, but my machismo is intact. I'm still a big man on my side of the fence. Well, lo and behold, this fence I'm on the oth
er side of has a gate, and this gate isn't locked. Those guys beat me bloody The one was a big guy, a football player. He kept picking me up and throwing me on the concrete. Every time, these flashes of light would go off in my head and I would pass out, only to come to with them still beating me. I just wanted it to be over. I thought they were going to off me, and I'm looking this guy ir1 the eyes, I can't even talk, but with my eyes I'm saying, 'You don't have to kill me.' "

  Munch wondered what all his so-called girlfriends had been doing while this epic ass-kicking was going on.

  "The first guy who punched me said, 'Setenta y Ocho.' Seventy-eight, which was his street corner. He was going to kill me for a street corner. About forty-five minutes into the beating, an L unit rolled up."

  "What's an L unit?"

  "A one-man patrol car. Just his presence made the cholos split. The cop didn't even have to get out. I knew then that's what I wanted to be. Plus I was laid up for two weeks recovering, so I had a lot of time to think. I stopped wearing gang attire, started taking school seriously—"

  "Got some good glasses," Munch added.

  Rico grinned. "You bet your sweet ass."

  Munch smiled at the compliment, thinking how the puzzle of Rico was coming together. Now she understood his interest in boxing, why he had worked at it until he excelled.

  "And then your girlfriend got pregnant."

  He looked at her with an amused smile, perhaps flattered by her chauvinism toward him. "I had a little something to do with that, I think. Anyway it all worked out. I love being a cop. I've never wanted to do anything else."

  She wondered why he looked so sad as he said those words.

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. For a moment she had the paranoid sensation that he was saying good-bye. She had to stop doing that. Hadn't he just taken her to meet his kid?

  "Yeah," she said. "I love working on cars. Every day there's something different. There's also that instant gratification of making something broken work."

  They got on the freeway Rico floored the accelerator and the exhaust rumbled from the blown-out glass packs. At least he had a good stereo system, she thought, adjusting the volume on his Blaupunkt to override the freeway noise.

  She also wished the car had a bench seat so she could snuggle into him. She reached across the console and rubbed the back of his neck. He rolled his head back and sighed with pleasure.

  "I'm sorry about that thing with your dad," he said.

  "Don't be, it wasn't a 1oss."

  "But, still, she was a jerk to put you on the spot like that."

  "She was just being protective, and she's fifteen."

  "Tell me about it. "

  "You never brought me a television," she said playfully.

  "There's a reason for that."

  She stroked his ear.

  "C'mon," she said. "From the look of your kid's room, you must own a share of an electronics store."

  He looked at her warily and said, "You don't want to know where that stuff came from."

  "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies."

  "It's not that."

  "No, it' s okay" she said. "I got it." Something warned her to say no more.

  Chapter 17

  Sunday afternoon, Munch emptied out the pockets of Nathan's jeans before she threw them in the wash. Three round seeds rolled out of the right-hand pocket. She also found the remnants of a joint, recognizing immediately the burnt yellowed paper and the familiar smell.

  She wasn't surprised. Weed was widely smoked up there in Oregon, and although Deb made it a point to shield her son from her snorting of stronger stuff, or at least she had seven and a half years ago, Deb never hid her drinking or smoking from her son and neither did Munch. Looking back, it was a wonder they hadn't killed him—a little bit of Southern Comfort in his bottle when he was teething; the time they got him drunk on beer on his fourth birthday; drinking toasts to him until he got sick and passed out. They'd never heard of alcohol poisoning back then, and even if they had, they would never have understood the risk to themselves. They were going to live forever or to twenty-five, whichever came first.

  She emptied the other pocket and found a disposable Bic lighter. She struck the flint and the flame shot out like a blowtorch. Nathan had the lighter cranked to its highest setting. She knew you didn't use a flame like that to smoke pot, but you did need a lot of heat to smoke crack or boil dope in a spoon.

  Munch set the lighter on top of the washing machine. Part of her was afraid to touch it—as if contamination might spread with prolonged physical contact. She couldn't have someone doing drugs in her house, both for Asia's sake and her own. If she called Rico or St. John, they would confirm this immediately.

  Besides, Rico was already prejudiced against Nathan; this would only cement his opinion.

  She went into the kitchen and called her sponsor. Ruby answered on the first ring.

  "You've got to create a crisis, honey;" Ruby finally said.

  "How do I do that?"

  "Make a scene, yell, throw things. Confront him. React. You want him to link using dope with trouble. Make it unpleasant as you can for him. Can you do that?"

  "Yeah," she said. "I can do disagreeable."

  Nathan arrived home twenty minutes later. Munch was waiting for him, sitting in the armchair opposite the front door. Asia was in her room. Munch warned her there was going to be yelling. She'd cleared the coffee table of magazines and put the lighter there instead, plainly visible.

  After a brief glance around the room, Nathan froze.

  "What' s up?"

  "I found this in your pocket."

  "Yeah, so?" His expression hovered on the verge of outraged protest.

  Munch flicked the lighter on and a six-inch tongue of flame whooshed out. She lifted her finger off the butane lever. The flame died. She threw the lighter against the wall, chipping the paint above the wall socket.

  "Hey" Nathan said, more out of surprise than anything else.

  "Do you want to go to prison?"

  He visibly blanched. "What are you—"

  Munch didn't let him finish. "You want to die? Go crazy? What the fuck's the matter with you?" She kicked the table. It overturned with a cracking noise. She stood with her fists clenched.

  Nathan stared back, openmouthed, obviously unsure how to handle an angry woman who was a foot shorter but didn't seem to care.

  "Are you going to hit me?" he asked, his voice sounding unusually calm. The coldness in it or rather the lack of emotion made her pause.

  "I'm so pissed at you, I might. I thought you wanted to build a life for yourself."

  "You're not my mother. You've got no right—"

  "The fuck I don't," she screamed. "I care, and you're hurting yourself and that hurts me."

  "How am I hurting you?" he screamed back, forgetting to lower his voice.

  She grabbed his left hand and scooted his sleeve up. His arms were cut and scarred, but there were no telltale puncture wounds over his veins. He didn't pull away—

  "I'm not a hype," he said.

  "Not yet."

  "Not ever."

  She looked down at his forearm. He had a homemade tattoo there, the name Walter. His daddy. Deb had one just like it on her shoulder. A deep scratch obscured the letter "t".

  "Your mom mentioned you'd had some trouble. Was it drugs?"

  "Nah. It wasn't about dope. I got in a fight with this guy Cops called it mayhem at first. I was just taking care of business. Some chump didn't know who he was messing with." Nathan pulled his arm back and scooted his sleeve back down.

  "Mayhem?"

  "They switched it to aggravated assault."

  Munch wondered about the distinction. Wasn't assault always a result of aggravation? "So you have a juvenile record?"

  "They ended up dropping all the charges. My mom talked to the DA, got it all cleared up."

  Munch had a quick picture of what Deb must have done for the DA, who was obviously a man.r />
  "So now what?" Nathan wiped his eyes fiercely with the sleeve of his Pendleton. "Do you want me to leave? "

  "No," she said, "I want you to live." Tears filled her eyes and she willed them to flow freely "I want to save you from my mistakes." She raised her voice.

  "Both of you."

  Nathan stood his ground uncertajnly for a moment and then in a gesture reminiscent of his childhood, he hugged his side with one hand and buried his face in the other. His shoulders heaved as he rocked his head side to side. "It's just so hard," he said between sobs. "S0 hard."

  Munch put her arms around him while he cried. She knew it was difficult to be so young and on your own. Asia peeked her head out her door, her eyes wide. Munch gave her a nod of reassurance. Asia ran into the room. Now she cried too as she joined their embrace.

  Munch pulled her in, stroking her soft curls as she spoke to the top of Nathan's bowed head. "You didn't choose this, but this is your life. You've got to be your own parent. Your mom is an alcoholic. She always has been. Your daddy . . ."

  "He's dead."

  "I know and I'm sorry I lost my mom young too and that's just the way it is. Don't you think he would want you happy and alive?"

  Nathan sniffed wetly and straightened his back.

  "I'm not a crackhead. I don't even smoke cigarettes. I used the lighter for something at work."

  "I hope that's true."

  "It is."

  Asia had stuck her thumb in her mouth, something Munch hadn't seen her do in years. She lifted the little girl up and held her in her arms. Asia wrapped her legs around Munch's waist and Munch felt a sudden pang of sadness. Soon Asia would be too big to carry

  "I want to go see your grandma, Nathan."

  "Why?"

  "I'm helping your mom get you Social Security benefits. They'll keep paying if you go back to school. I know you don't think more school is for you, but that option is open. You don't have to decide this minute or this day just don't be quick to say no to a possible good thing."

  "I told my grandma you wanted to meet her."

  "What did she say?"

  He shrugged. "She said, 'Sure, why not?' "