Gunmetal Black

by Daniel Serrano

  I took a real good look at Tony. “Ever think about leaving Chicago?”

  Tony said, “And go where? Miami?”

  “Why not?”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “Not before the heist,” he said.

  “How about before Roach unloads buckshot in your ass, Tone?”

  “Nigga, please.” Tony leaned forward. “But listen, what would we do in Florida? Coca?”

  “Nothing like that. Chiva’s down there. He’s making drums.”

  “Drums of what?”

  “Congas, actual drums. Batá. Chékere. Cajones. Afro-Cuban.”

  “You mean like, to play? Is that a business? You don’t know anything about that.”

  “Chiva’s gonna teach me.”

  “Any money in it?”

  “Enough to live on, I think.” I didn’t feel confident yet to tell Tony about the real venture, the record label.

  Tony dragged on the cigarette and shook his head. “Dude, I can’t go running off to make voodoo drums. I got too much going on in Chi-town right now. And it cost me too much to build my shit up. It’s just about to start rolling.”

  I looked at the ground between my gym shoes.

  Tony pulled up a hocker and spit it into the grass at the edge of the basketball court. “Besides, Eddie, I ain’t too wild about scrounging around for a dollar. Not anymore, I’m not. And I ain’t about to work no bullshit-ass job neither. You know that. I already did that when I came out on parole, and that shit just ended. Niggas had me steam-cleanin’ uniforms from all over and pissin’ into a cup.”

  I got to my feet and picked up the basketball. I dribbled as I talked. “Tony, ain’t you tired of all this shit?”

  “All what shit?”

  “Like you said, never being able to let your guard down.”

  “It goes with the territory. This is the life we chose.”

  “Come off that movie script, Tony. There ain’t nothing glamorous about what you do. Maybe it’s time for something new. Where’s this shit gonna end?”

  Tony killed the cigarette and tightened the laces on his jumpers. “You know what, Eddie? All my foster mother ever says is ‘Grow up. Get a regular job.’ The other day I start thinking, maybe she’s right. Maybe I oughta get myself another regular gig, like working security this time. Delivering pizzas maybe. I like bikes; maybe I’ll be a bike messenger.”

  Tony lit another cigarette and blew smoke, which flew off on a stiff breeze. “Then I get the urge to check my Caddy. I look out the window and there it is, all washed, waxed, and shiny. My mother’s piecea shit’s collecting dust across the street. And I’m like, ‘Punch a clock for this? Fuck that!’ ” Tony twisted his face. “I’ll leave that for some other mope.”

  “It was just a suggestion.”

  I dribbled the ball again, pulled up to the three-point line, where Tony launched his rainbow. I counted off the last seconds of an imaginary championship game, “Three, two, one!” and launched it. I knew from the release that the game was lost. The ball clunked on the rim with an ugly, pointless twang, and bounced away from the net.

  Tony laughed. “Not making the highlight reel with that one. I guess I gotta keep schooling you.”

  Tony jumped up. He pummeled me against the ropes for a few more grueling rounds. It was easier than conversation.

  CHAPTER 07:

  LOVE TUMBLES DOWN

  The following evening was boys’ night out with Pelón. Tony told me to spruce it up, so I bought a black rayon shirt and black dress pants, some shiny black shoes. I took the hair down to sandpaper level by using the clippers without the guard. I shaved, but for fun I left myself the beginning of a goatee. I slid into the passenger seat of Tony’s car.

  He pretended to file his nails on my head. “Damn, Rambo, you sign up for the marines?”

  “I got my game face on. No way to dress up this army jacket, though.”

  Tony smirked. “Don’t worry, you make it look good.”

  Tony sported the leather with the hanging belt over a red dress shirt, black slacks, black shoes. The shirt was open at the neck, but Tony kept his gold necklace inside. He wore small diamond stud earrings and a gold pinky ring shaped like an eagle’s head.

  I touched the beak with my fingertip. “Tony, you punch somebody with that thing, you’ll leave a puncture wound.”

  “That’s the point.”

  We parked in front of a run-down bar on Ashland.

  I put my hand on the dashboard. “Don’t tell me this is the high-class joint Pelón’s taking us?”

  “Don’t trip. Just picking up a little cash for the old man. Wanna wait in the car?”

  I’d learn more if I got closer to Pelón’s circle. “I’ll come in for a drink.”

  We stepped through the door, and it was like we crossed a border. Immediately, you saw the red, white, and green, the eagle and conquered snake of the Mexican flag. There was a set of bull’s horns over the mirror, velvet paintings of Pancho Villa, Montezuma, and the Virgen de Guadalupe. There was also a faded color poster of a middle-aged Vicente Fernández standing next to a horse. The men milled and postured in boots, belt buckles, holstered knives, and hats cocked at varying angles.

  I spoke under my breath. “Órale.”

  “No shit.” Tony did his best John Wayne. “Muchos hombres with grandes cojones.”

  We stepped over to the bar. Everyone took a good look at us and went about their business. The jukebox discharged brass, percussion, accordion, and strings in large rounds. The singer lamented lost love, but especially a longing for his beloved ranch back home.

  Tony addressed the bartender by name. “Chino, dos tequilas por favor.”

  The pudgy bartender poured two shots that burned on the way down. Tony gestured at the curtain behind the bar.

  “¿Tu patrón?”

  Chino’s eyes passed over me for a second. He shook his head.

  Tony waved him off and patted me on the forearm. “No te preocupes. Este es mi carnal.”

  Chino didn’t give a fuck whether Tony vouched for me or not. He reached under the bar so that we couldn’t see his shooting hand.

  Tony half-turned toward me, but did not take his eyes off the bartender. “Looks like I gotta go up alone. Wanna wait in the car?”

  That was the second time Tony asked me to wait outside. “Go handle your business. I’ll hang around down here.”

  Tony threw a twenty on top of the bar and barked at Chino. “Get my man whatever he wants. And buy yourself a mess of enchiladas with the change, you fat fuck.” Tony scooted under the counter and disappeared behind the curtain.

  Chino pulled his hand back in sight and waited for my order. I gestured at the poster of a smiling señorita holding a beer. “Carta Blanca, por favor.”

  Chino opened the beer and slammed it on the counter, making it foam. I took it and spun on my stool to watch the crowd.

  Men gathered in the back around a pool table.

  Near the front there were small round tables next to a small area that served as a dance floor. A man slumped over one table and clutched a near-empty tequila bottle.

  On the dance floor there were two couples. The two women were the only females in the room. They were middle-aged, maybe even past middle age. They had leathery faces caked with makeup and the impression of long years of alcohol. They wore modest dresses and high-heeled shoes. The men who served as their partners were short, in their early twenties, and appeared so drunk that the women were forced to lead.

  The music stopped. One of the women swayed over to the ladies’ room. Her young partner pried the tequila bottle from the passed-out man’s hand and took a swig while he waited for his lady to return from the toilet. The other woman fumbled through her young partner’s wallet. She found money and went to the jukebox to select songs.

  The music kicked in with a gust of passionate yodels. The other woman tottered back from the bathroom. A long piece of toilet tissue stuck to her shoe and dragg
ed behind her like a tattered wedding train.

  I drank and watched the four of them dance. They swayed, and despite their drunken imbalance, they were on time, on beat, and it was clear that they all felt the music. The tequila and the first sips of beer warmed my mood.

  Suddenly, one of the men made eye contact with me. He stopped right on the dance floor.

  “¿Qué miras, güey?”

  I pointed at myself to be clear he meant me. “¿Cómo?”

  “¿Tienes algún problema?” He stepped closer and put his hand on the knife in its holster on his belt.

  My stomach tingled. In Spanish I said, “I’m just sitting here, drinking my beer.”

  In one deft move the little Mexican pulled the knife and flipped it open. “¿Quieres que te corte los pinches huevos, cabrón?”

  I may as well have been a side of beef. I focused on the tip of the weapon, fully conscious of the point as the part that I most had to avoid. It was like the metal emitted a current that locked all joints in place. Maybe I could’ve smashed my beer bottle against the bar for a makeshift weapon—when I was a kid, Italians called that a “nigger knife.” But the way the little man opened that blade, there’d never be enough time. Acid pumped to my throat.

  I did my most soothing, Mexican-sounding Spanish. “Easy, friend. I simply appreciate the way you and your woman dance.”

  The man’s eyes widened. “You want my woman?”

  He raised the blade, but just then, a baseball bat swung and made contact with the little Mexican’s forearm, snapping it. The knife flipped through the air, landed, and stuck upright in the wooden floor, like an exclamation mark.

  Chino, the bartender, vaulted over the bar in a gymnastic move that seemed impossible for a man of his size. He still held the baseball bat.

  The Mexican clutched his mangled forearm. “¡Aaay, ay ay!!!”

  Chino bent over and pulled the knife from the ground. He threw the knife and the baseball bat behind the bar, then grabbed the Mexican by the scruff of his shirt. Chino looked at me like, “You want a piece?”

  I shook my head. Chino led the man to the door and shoveled him out.

  I looked around. Everyone had stopped their action. The song on the jukebox ended and left nothing but awkward silence. Then a new song began. The woman whose dance partner was just bounced was the first to move. Without taking her eyes off me, and with the toilet paper still dragging behind her shoe, she walked over to the vaquero slumped next to the half-empty tequila bottle. Defiant, she pulled on his arm so he regained enough consciousness to stand, put his hat on, and lean against her on the dance floor. Slowly, everyone returned to dancing, cursing, and stumbling their way through another loveless night.

  I went back to my beer, and watched everyone around me without looking anyone in the eye.

  Tony emerged from behind the curtain. He slapped me on the back. “Let’s pull up.”

  Outside, the little Mexican was plopped on the sidewalk. He cried and held his mutilated forearm as he looked up at me.

  “¡Hijo de tu chingada madre! ¡Esta me la vas a pagar!”

  Tony looked at me. “What’s his problem?”

  “He ran into a Hall of Famer.”

  “Not yet he ain’t.” Tony started toward him.

  I grabbed Tony by the crook of his arm. “He’s harmless, bro, c’mon.”

  Tony pointed at the Mexican. “Merry Christmas, nacho.”

  We jumped in the car. I gave Tony the one-sentence synopsis of what went down.

  Tony shook his head. “Damn, Eddie, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes. You a straight-up magnet for trouble.”

  Little Tony, convicted felon, said this with such a complete lack of irony, all I could do was laugh.

  Tony removed an envelope from his jacket pocket and tossed it between us on the seat. “Ten G’s, right there, kid.”

  “Pelón’s?”

  “Minus my ten percent,” he said.

  “You get ten points just for collecting?”

  “Kosher, right?”

  “And Pelón gets paid to do what?”

  “Vigorish. Bar owner’s from Durango. Reefer importer, but also takes bets, then brokers some through our boy. Fuckin’ Pelón got at least twenty accounts like that, that I know of.”

  I nodded. “Pelón must need capital sometimes. Dime bags in bodegas don’t account for this level of movement.”

  “I told you, Eddie, the man’s been lucky in real estate. He was buying two flats in Wicker Park when they were wort’less. With all these yuppies movin’ in? Values’re going through the roof. You seen all the new condos goin’ up.”

  “Yeah, but if Pelón’s pimping like that, why risk a heavy count with this casino job?”

  “They say you can never be too rich or too thin.”

  “You learn that from watching cable?”

  Tony smirked. “Wasn’t it you who said, ‘Careful planning and quick action eliminate risk’?”

  “You remember how that worked out?”

  Tony shook his head. “Listen, Eddie, I ain’t never going back to prison, OK? That ain’t even an option.”

  “What are you gonna do when they corner you, Tony? Go out, guns blazing, like Jimmy Cagney?”

  “Fuck that shit. At least the terms’ll be all mine, I’ll tell you that much. But listen, don’t bring up the casino job tonight. Let Pelón talk about it if he wants.”

  I wiped my mouth. “I just love it when anyone tries to muzzle me.”

  “Seriously, Eddie. Just let Pelón feel you out. Don’t be so pushy.”

  “Pushy, Tony? How about I push my heel through the back of Pelón’s throat?”

  “See? Why you gotta go there?”

  “Let me find out Pelón had a piece in me getting ripped off.”

  “Madon’!” said Tony. “Let’s change the subject.” He put the radio on The Loop FM, but low. After a while he said, “You wanna hear something funny? But you really can’t tell Pelón that I told you.”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  Tony paused. “About a year and a half ago, Pelón goes to PR on business, right? He meets this woman. Young as shit. In her early twenties.”

  I whistled. “Man, that fuckin’ Viagra really is a little miracle.”

  “Quit fucking around and listen. So Pelón comes back. He tells me he got married.”

  “Married? With papers and everything?”

  “That’s what he said. Said she was beautiful. From the hills. Real clean-cut jíbara type. Pentecostal-looking. Don’t speak no English.”

  “I never figured Pelón for the religious type.”

  “Of course not. He probably just figures a church girl ain’t smoked too much cock. Anyway, he tells me all about what a dream it is to meet her at a time when he finally wants to settle down. Said the kicker was how her cooking reminded him of his mom’s. So I go to his crib to meet this goddess, right?”

  “Let me guess: hairy legs. Them Pentecostals don’t believe in shaving.”

  Tony made a face. “Worse.” In Spanish he said, “Uglier than a kick in the balls.”

  I winced.

  “Skinny? Dude, she was all bones. Teeth like a chipmunk. Anyway, we sit to eat. It was like she poured a bucket of salt on each chicken wing. I’m looking at Pelón like, ‘Shit, if this was the way I grew up, I’d be copping amnesia.’ But I don’t say shit. I figure the man’s got a right to whatever curls his toes, right?”

  “Word.”

  “So a few months go by. Pelón’s crazy in love. Every time you see him, he’s like, ‘Ay, que mi negrita pa’aquí. Que mi negrita pa’allá.’ Buying flowers and shit. Wearing cologne. He even got himself a new set of dentures. Then one day I get a call from Cook County.”

  “Jail?”

  “No, hospital. It’s Pelón.”

  “Food poisoning?”

  “Naw, man. Get this: the bitch tried to execute Pelón.”

  “Come again?”

  “She tried to off him, bro.�
��

  “How?”

  “In the bathroom. The way Pelón put it, he was in the tub waiting to get his groove on. Got the bubble bath going. Radio tuned to slow jams. Champagne’s all poured.”

  “Casanova time.”

  “Precisely. So his wife comes in. She’s fully dressed. Except she got a look in her eye like Pelón ain’t never seen before. He’s like, ‘Pero mamita, ¿qué te pasa?’ And she’s like, ‘¿Tú quiere saber lo qué me pasa? Hijo de la gran yegua.’ And without warning, she snatches the radio.”

  “Oh shit. Don’t tell me—”

  “That’s right,” said Tony. “Playa’s in a bathtub full of water.”

  “So what’d he do?”

  “Pelón jumps up and starts wrestling with his bride, trying to stop her from dropping the radio. The guy’s naked, in a foot and halfa water, screaming, ‘What’s wrong, mami? ¿Qué pasó?’ Finally, Pelón slips and slams into the marble outside the tub, just as she tosses the radio into the water.”

  “Goddamn.”

  “Yup. Nigga broke his hip.”

  “So that’s why he needs the cane now.”

  “Exactly. According to Pelón, the radio in the tub actually knocked out all the lights. Now he’s on the floor, in the dark, stunned from the pain, naked.”

  “So what’d she do next? Slice him?”

  “Uh-uh. She grabs Pelón’s nut sac.”

  “Oh fuck.”

  “Squeezes the man’s quenepas until Pelón thought his shit was gonna pop. He’s begging, ‘Mamita, no.’ She leans in and whispers, ‘That’s so that you never forget me.’ She reaches in ole boy’s mouth, pulls out his new dentures, holds ’em up. ‘Te llevo conmigo.’ ”

  “Psycho bitch.”

  “No doubt. Fuckin’ creepy even.”

  “So what’d she do next?”

  “She leaves him on the floor, naked, shivering. With a broken hip and no teeth. Throws his cell phone in the tub. Yanks the house phone outta the wall, so Pelón had to drag himself to the hallway of his condo and wail until one of his neighbors came out and called 911.”

  “Pelón told you all of this?”