We would walk to the sounds of early traffic and birds, always to his favorite diner. I’d swamp pancakes in syrup—my mother only let me use so much. My father would drink black coffee and stare into his cup.
That first morning after my release and return to Chicago, I woke up with a headache. But my room was colored by the purple sunrise and that made me want to be outside. I sat by the window and spied on the city as it began to stir.
For an hour and a half, I tried to stand, walk, leave the room. Something pressed me down. Not fear, exactly. Discomfort. Unease. The knowledge that the free world was governed by alien rules, and that a long quarantine downstate had converted me into a stranger. It wasn’t my first reintegration into society. I did other bids and came home. But this time it had been so long. The air itself felt different. Charged somehow.
The incident with the cops still stung. The ease with which they’d snuck up on me was a shock. Plus, the fact that trust was now an issue with Tony. And Pelón’s convenient reappearance, the vanished money. It all supported this feeling, as light and formless as fog, that the world was upset with me somehow, out of balance.
My head hurt, but my stomach grumbled. And the sidewalks looked tempting, regardless.
I washed up best I could without touching anything in the moldy bathroom. I changed into new jeans and a never-before-worn World Champion White Sox sweatshirt, courtesy of the Department of Corrections. I dug up half the money Pelón had loaned me from under the carpet. I concealed the wire-hanger shank inside one boot, and tucked most of the stash into the other. I put walking-around money in my front pocket and a little bit in my wallet.
From the window I checked the street one more time, but saw nobody suspicious. Tony had called me “paranoid,” which is better than “easy mark.” But there was no logic in hiding. On my way out I locked and unlocked the door several times, like a caveman discovering fire.
Out on the street I waited for green lights before I crossed. I stayed within the lines, made sure cars came to a complete stop before I stepped off the curb. I kept my distance from other pedestrians, and let my hands hang loose, out of my pockets, in case I had to swing on someone.
The sun felt good on my face as it climbed, though the air was autumn brisk, the way it gets in Chicago. Everywhere you looked, you saw new buildings, all new construction, mostly expensive-looking condos. Lawns looked trimmed and the leaves, which were beginning to come down, had mostly been gathered up and taken to a dump somewhere. The sidewalks were neater than I remembered.
I saw white people everywhere. Not like the hillbillies, Polish, Italians, and Ukrainians that lived around my neighborhoods when I was a kid. These new whites had come from somewhere else. They carried giant cups of coffee, talked on cell phones, and accompanied anxious-looking dogs. I snagged a copy of the Sun-Times out of a newspaper box and headed for my father’s favorite diner.
The place looked and smelled as I remembered. In the future Formica might survive a nuclear war. For a second, when I first entered, I thought I saw the apparition of my father seated at the counter, with his collar up, hunkered over a steaming cup of coffee, the cigarette between his fingers burning slow. My insides tingled and I wanted to run to him, to touch him, to ask what he needed.
But he faded. I sat on a stool next to where I thought I’d seen him. The waitress took my order and poured coffee. I dug into the news.
The coffee was weak, but the pancakes were decent. I slathered them in syrup, though not like when I was a kid. I started with the sports section and laughed out loud when one columnist said that you can usually tell that it is pennant season in Chicago when the Cubs have been out of it for a few months. The Bears were off to another lousy start. The feds investigated corruption at City Hall, again. Celebrities were rumored to be fucking other celebrities. And the weather would remain cloudy and gray.
Finally, one headline made me put my fork down: GANG MEMBER SHOT IN HUMBOLDT RESTROOM. The subhead read: NEW DRUG WAR FEARED. I gathered the details: A Hispanic male, nineteen years of age, a reputed gang member, shot several times while standing at a urinal in Humboldt Park. No casings recovered, but errant pieces of a .38 slug from a metal stall suggested hollow-point bullets. No witnesses came forward. Few leads, but detectives from Gang Crimes emphasized that it was still early. One department source speculated that the shooting was part of an escalating drug war, saying that “all hell’s fixing to break loose.” The article mentioned the victim’s gang, which I knew to be Roach’s set.
I concluded the obvious: Tony’s crew had drawn first blood in the latest heroin war. I looked around to make sure no one watched. Then I ripped the story out, folded it, put it in my wallet, and asked for the check.
I caught the subway at Division and Milwaukee, the Blue Line, and headed downtown. The train announced its arrival with a musty wind that rushed out of the tunnel. Newspapers flipped like tumbleweeds on the tracks. I jumped on. The voice that announced upcoming stops was more computer than conductor, and I wondered if it was friendly, if it had moods, and who, or what, actually drove.
Tony stayed in my mind. His fucked-up schemes. His need to invite society to shove a big black firecracker up its ass. It was obvious from what I’d read in the paper that Tony and Roach were caught in a blood feud. What had once been only a rumor of war was now confirmed. Roach had lost turf. He’d lost customers. Now he’d lost a soldier. He really had no alternative other than to strike back. The air around Tony had become more hazardous.
I got off the train at State Street and walked around. Women were everywhere, in every size, every shape, every color. My eyes were not fast enough to capture them all. They mesmerized with their curves, their soft hair, the waves that rippled through them as they walked. Everywhere there was a calf, a bosom, an exposed knee. Boots and high heels clicked on sidewalks. Lipstick glistened. Earrings jingled, and so many perfumes, you wanted to float. Every once in a while, for one or two seconds, I managed eye contact. And occasionally a smile.
Out on Wabash the elevated trains shrieked and spit sparks. I walked and listened and stared at everything. So much color and motion. Horns and braking cars, bike messengers with whistles, shouts over construction, ringing cell phones, a million snippets of private, mundane conversations.
At Wacker Drive, on the Chicago River, a high-masted sailboat floated regally inland as the bridges rose and bowed after, slowly, gracefully, mechanically, one after the other, ringing their bells. I stared up at the buildings and felt enveloped.
Over on Jackson, the Sears Tower loomed. Enormous, black, and solid, like a figment of science fiction. It surprised me that it still looked brand-new. I tilted my head up from the base. Clouds passed. I walked over to Michigan Avenue and caught the 151 Sheridan bus heading north.
I felt better just to go around the city, and to look at it, to drink it in. The people, the landscape. Chicago looked different, newer, fresher, cleaner, with more trees, less garbage, less graffiti. It was enough sometimes to make me forget, for a moment, about double crosses, street wars, cash flow, prison, and the things that had been lost. But only in moments.
I jumped off the bus at Addison, by the totem pole, and made my way across the park to the water, over by the giant rocks that challenge the water’s edge. Lake Michigan is immense. I once read that it’s just a humongous block of melted ice from a previous age. If you’ve ever jumped in it, you have no problem believing that.
I watched a man fish off the rocks. He didn’t seem to notice the waves crashing in foamy bouquets, threatening to pull him in. He appeared so sure-footed. I envied him.
I sat there for a long time, looking at the vast, undulating body of water, looking to the horizon, thinking of Tony. The way we grew up. Chicago was a different city then. Dirtier. Uglier. Yet somehow more real. Maybe it was just my memory. Or the fact that I had not given myself time to adjust. The modern city retained enough of its former self to remind me constantly of my youth, when Tony was my perfect friend.
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The Lake especially reminded me of him. It was our spot. Especially this one summer, we practically lived there. We were in our early teens. I carried a boom box and played the cassette of Journey’s Frontiers, over and over, convinced I understood the difference between illusion and true love. Sweaty females strode around in cutoff denim shorts, sliced high and tight, and bikini tops, which showed the contours of their stiffening nipples when they came out of the water.
I peeped a really busty one and gave Tony the elbow. “Mira esa.”
Young Tony licked his lips. “Bro, I’d eat ten feet of her shit just to see where it came from.”
I laughed, even though I’d heard that one before. By puberty Tony had a hundred lines to describe how fine he thought a female was. Like, “Damn, she’s so fine, a priest’d spit out Communion just to watch her take a dump,” or, “Fuck, she’s so fine, I’d smash my nuts with a mallet just to sniff her crotch.” Another approach was to imply that he’d already fucked the girl in question. Like, “Dude, she got the whitest teeth I ever come across. Get it? C-U-M? Like, I came across her teeth?”
“I got it, Tony.”
“You understand what I mean, right?”
“Yeah.” I pointed at a woman in her early twenties. “How ’bout that one? I bet an older woman like that really knows what to do. She can buy beer too.”
“No shit. Friggin’ bitch is so hot, I’d—” Tony froze in mid-setup and cocked his head to get a better look. “Wait a minute.” He stood and shaded his eyes.
“Hot stuff, right, Tone?”
“Shut up, Eddie, you fuckin’ pig. That’s my sister!”
I had known Tony since the fifth grade. “Your sister, Tony? From the foster home?”
“My biological sister.”
I was clueless. Tony took off across the hot sand. I followed him, carrying the boom box.
Tony cupped his hands around his mouth. “Yoli!”
The young woman shielded her eyes to look. When she recognized Tony, she screamed and jumped to give her brother a hug.
I looked her up and down. She was thin, but sexy in a black bikini that matched her dark hair. She had a mole near the corner of her mouth and a rose tattoo on her hip that peeked from behind the bikini string on her lean hip.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “Toñito, how long has it been?”
Tony kicked the sand. “Like, five years?”
Yoli smiled. “What a trip. And I just saw Papi the other day.”
Tony’s smile faded. “You saw my father? I thought he was in PR?”
“He’s been back for a while. He lives on Claremont. Right up the street from Clemente.”
I was confused. “Tony, I thought your father died in Vietnam?”
Tony turned toward me, without quite looking, and shrugged. He turned back to his sister. “I ain’t seen him since the sixth grade.”
Yoli tilted her head and raised her hands out to her sides, like, “Oh well, that’s our dad. . .”
Tony said, “How’s he look?”
“The same. Got a few gray hairs coming in. Living off some woman. Lo mismo de siempre.”
Tony nodded.
His sister reached into her purse for a pen and paper. “He ain’t got a phone, though. You want his address?”
Tony and I went that same night. We stood on the sidewalk half a block away and Tony combed himself in the side mirror of a parked van. In those days Tony sported so much hair, he actually considered Gallo as his street name.
He looked at me. “I look OK, Eddie?”
“Dude, you could be in Duran Duran.”
We slapped each other five. Tony had carefully ironed his clothes, but he was overdressed for a humid Chicago night. Sweat pearled and slid down his forehead.
“Here.” In those days I always carried a bandana in our gang’s color. “Keep this in your pocket to wipe your face,” I said.
We moved toward the house.
Tony said, “Thanks for walking with me through enemy turf.”
“This ain’t The Outsiders, motherfuckers, this is The Warriors.” I pulled a butterfly knife from my back pocket and flipped it open, like I practiced all those nights selling nickel bags on the Hot Corner. “Anybody want a slice of life?”
“Good one.”
I put the knife away.
Tony’s father answered the door. He looked a little like Tony, except older, with a black mustache and gray streaks, like Yoli had mentioned. He did not look so much like Tony as Tony had said, and I decided that Tony looked mostly like his natural mother.
Tony’s father seemed surprised, but not stunned. “Ay Dios, mira que milagro.”
He shook hands with Tony, then decided to hug him.
Tony introduced me as his best friend. His old man gave a weak handshake, but invited us in. He introduced us to his girlfriend and her two kids. The kids disappeared into their room, where we could hear them playing Atari. The girlfriend went to the kitchen. Tony and I sat in the living room as his father watered and pruned plants.
“Antonio, you look a little skinny.” He spoke with his back to us. “You don’t play sports?”
Tony shifted in his seat. “A little. I’ve always been thin.”
“You got that from your mother.”
“We like lifting weights,” I said.
Tony’s father did not offer an opinion. He snipped leaves like a barber.
Tony said, “Actually, I’m into bikes. BMX.”
“Bikes cost and are always breaking down. Some desgracia’o always steals it. When I was your age, I played baseball. You don’t like that?”
“It’s all right. You gotta depend on everybody else to win.”
Tony’s old man pruned and spoke without looking at us. I leaned over and gestured for Tony to wipe his forehead.
Tony’s father began to spray the plants. “You got a bike then?”
“They stole it off the back porch.”
“Seguro. Your mother always keeps you in bad neighborhoods.”
“Actually, um. . .” Tony seemed embarrassed. “I’m not living with her right now. I’m in foster care.”
“See what I mean?”
Tony’s father’s girlfriend returned with a tray of champagne cola. His father put down the spray bottle and shared a drink. He sucked soda out of his mustache.
“Entonces, how much one of them BM-whatever bikes cost?”
Tony glanced at me, then looked at his old man. “BMX? A lot. Like two hundred bucks.”
“Two hundred? That’s it? Come back in two weeks, I’ll give you the cash.”
“For real?”
Tony’s old man said, “Hey, what’s a man work for if not to give his kids the best, right?”
We had dinner with the family. White rice, red beans, and fried chicken. For dessert we wolfed down birthday cake left from a party for one of the kids.
When it was time to leave, Tony’s father put his hands on his son’s shoulders. “You got bus fare?”
“We hoofed it.”
Tony’s father smiled. “Independent. You got that from me.”
Tony smiled. “My mother says the same thing whenever we fight.”
Tony’s father chuckled. “Remember then: two weeks, I give you the money. But you can’t spend it on anything but that bike, OK? I’m gonna trust you with it.”
“I promise.”
In Spanish the girlfriend said, “And don’t forget, you have family here. You’re in your house now.” She gave Tony a sincere-looking hug.
For two weeks Tony talked up the bike. How he was gonna hook it up. Learn every trick. We joked about him letting the bike have his bed while he slept on the floor.
The two weeks dragged, but finally it was time to collect. We went to the house.
Immediately, we could see that something was wrong. There were no curtains in the windows. We walked up the steps and leaned over to look inside. The apartment was empty. The only thing left was a small cactus that had apparently been knocked
over on its side, spilling the soil. Tony checked the houses on either side, but there was no mistaking. The mailbox still read: PACHECO.
Tony stared through the curtainless window. “Something must’ve happened.”
“Probably an emergency or something.”
We avoided each other’s eyes, and walked back to the neighborhood in silence. Along the way Tony picked up a stick and started hitting every tree, every parking meter, every hydrant. Not violently, but just enough to let the thing know that he was there. We never again spoke about the bike or his father’s disappearing act.
A couple weeks later, Tony turned up in the neighborhood on the back of a shiny, red aluminum Mongoose, back then a very exotic bike. The boys asked him about it.
“Yeah, you know, my old man had it delivered to my house and shit.”
Every one admired the bike and envied Tony.
When we were alone, Tony said, “Ain’t you gonna ask me how I really got it?”
“I was wondering.”
“I was by the Lake. Fucking white boy comes riding up on it all slow. All of a sudden, I was like, ‘Bam!’ ” Tony acted out a slower, more ferocious punch than any you’ll ever see in real life. “Fuckin’ white boy goes down like a sack of flour, holmes. All dazed and shit. I just jumped on the bike and took off.”
“Ain’t you afraid they’ll catch you?”
“On this thing? I’m too quick.” Tony popped a couple wheelies and bunny hops to show his control. “Wanna take it for a spin?”
I did, but it was time to go. “My mom’s making chuletas.”
“You can borrow it and take it home.”
“I better not.”
Tony nodded. We shook hands, the way you did back then when you were best friends.
I don’t know if Tony ever saw his father again; he never mentioned it. Come to think of it, I can’t recall what ever happened to the Mongoose either. Tony probably just outgrew it.
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