I wanted to tell him that it was all a mistake, that Mr. Giddens made me come, and that I wasn’t dying of love anymore, but I knew my brain was just searching for excuses.
Whether Red-Hair sensed what I was thinking, or whether he just thought he’d said enough, he smiled and shook his head at his friends. He put his thick palm on my shoulder, and in an almost friendly way, conked me a couple of times on the head with the large knuckle of his hand. Then, still chewing his gum hard, he turned toward the sliding glass door.
There, standing by the open curtain, was Dorothy. She was delicately biting a cuticle and looking worriedly at us, a crowd of curious girlfriends behind her.
Cocking his head back, Red-Hair walked toward her. He didn’t say anything, but nodded and raised both his hands, first at me, than at her, as if to say, Was this enough?
10
A Test of Courage
The whole disaster with Dorothy Giddens made me realize that I wasn’t anywhere close to being smooth with girls. Not so much because I was ugly, although I was kind of ugly, or that I was a pest, although my sister Magda would argue different. It was because I was too chicken to ever say anything to a girl—chicken with the sourest yellow. Just thinking about telling a girl I liked her clamped the muscles on my chest and made my lungs pull hard to catch a breath.
Not that girls spit on my shadow or anything, but I would never be sweet enough to threaten cavities even to a girl like Imelda Rodriguez, who wore bottle glasses and had teeth going every which way. Imelda wore clodhopper shoes and dragged a heavy shadow. I imagined her love would be a terrible howl of loneliness. But I would have adored her forever if, just once, she’d have tapped me with a shy finger of love.
I told my friend Frankie about this. He lived near the irrigation canal at the far end of our projects, banked with scraggly oak trees and tall, speary grasses. Polliwogs wiggled away from approaching shadows and striped-green garter snakes twined inside the leafy beds of dead stumps. It was a fun place to play, sometimes.
Frankie said he knew what I meant, but that girls nowadays were impossible to talk to, although he knew where I could get to know this girl real good, if I wanted, and easy. I gulped like I’d just swallowed a delicious worm and said, “Really?”
“Yeah, really. Tomorrow—I’ll show you.”
A red blush of sky was giving in to silver patches of moonlight when Frankie and I set out for Mondo’s house in the Callaway Projects. There, we found some guys hanging around a backyard. One was Mondo, another was his half-brother, Eddie. A guy called Gody whose real name was Guillermo was also there. And there were two girls named Rita and Patty inside the house.
Somebody had been using the yard to fix cars; it didn’t have a lick of grass on it, only packed-in dirt stained with oil. Bald tires lay scattered around, and a chinaberry tree near the fence had a pulley chain hanging from a branch. The greasy chinaberries crudded my tennis shoes.
Frankie said if I wanted to sit down I could stand up a tire and crunch it down with my butt. I looked at the streaks of black grime on the rump of one of the tires and decided to stay standing.
Along the backyard was an alley with a gapped-out wooden fence. Broken boards dangled from rusted nails. Frankie told me that Eddie, Mondo’s half-brother, cracked the planks with his foot when he drank too much and got angry about his mom dying of cancer. He warned me not to mention anything about mothers to Eddie. “When he starts going on about how you don’t know shit, just shut your mouth, okay?”
Rita and Patty were inside Mondo’s room, which you could get into from the back porch. I wanted to join the gang because Frankie promised that I could kiss and make out with one of the girls when I passed the initiation. I was anxious about it, and curious about how the girls looked.
That’s when Patty came out. She had beer-color eyes and black hair plowed down the middle, flowing down almost to her hips. I remembered seeing her at school, her hair in the sun glowing like a fiery blue jelly. She wore cowboy boots and high black socks that led up to a miniskirt so tight against her hips that she had to turn her legs a little sideways to walk.
Patty smiled daisies at Frankie and play-tugged on Gody’s sleeve, but her best eyes she saved for Mondo, making flirty winks and talking with a throaty voice. He craned his neck back, rubbed his wrist and smiled with slit eyes. Me, she ignored, and went back into the house.
She was supposed to be Mondo’s girlfriend, but Frankie didn’t know for sure. He searched the clouds whenever I asked about her. That didn’t stop him from making up stories when I got cold about joining the gang. He also said Rita wasn’t as pretty as Patty, but said she’d let anybody kiss her, and that thought clawed at my throat, as did the way he referred to the girls as pollitas, which in Spanish meant “little chicks.” The word sent a current of excitement rushing through my chest.
With the brim of his pachuco hat turned down, Mondo went around collecting dues. The plan was to buy a car. They figured he could drive, him being seventeen and having a beginner’s license. His aunt signed the papers at the DMV because he promised he’d take her to buy groceries when he bought the car. She wasn’t so smart.
In any case, Mondo didn’t want a bunch of guys hogging up the seats, so they figured a few vatos firmes, firm guys, would do the trick.
“Hey, ése, are you a vato firme?” he said holding out the hat. His eyes stared at me from far away.
“Yeah, ése.” I dug into my pocket and took out all my change, about eighteen cents, and dropped it in the hat.
“Did you give him the lowdown?” he asked Frankie.
“Yeah, I told him.”
The lowdown was that I had to pass the Test of Courage to become a member of the Callaway Projects gang. I’d also get to make out with Rita, which, as I found out later, was a rule made up while trying to decide if girls were even going to be in the gang. Rita suggested it, although she added that she wouldn’t let anybody actually lie down with her. She didn’t mind making it seem close, though.
It was one of those evenings when the moon comes out early and looks scarred with a dark rash. Mondo passed around some Lucky Strike cigarettes, shoving them out like tubes and watching to see if we were thankful or greedy. “So,” he said, “Frankie says you been to Juvy.”
“No—I never been to Juvy,” I said. I was embarrassed about having to admit it. Frankie must have told him I’d been in Juvenile Hall to impress him.
“Well, I been to Juvy,” Mondo said, “once.” He nodded slowly, getting everybody’s attention and lit his cigarette. He handed me the match, and when he did, I caught a glimpse of a tattoo in the shape of a C on the fleshy bridge between his thumb and forefinger. “Me and some guys from Holloway Projects got caught stealing this car. We didn’t mean nothing by it. We was jus’ going to cruise around and drink beer, go check out the rucas on Belmont Avenue. We used to do it all the time, you know. We’d take the car and dump it over by Chinatown. The owner’d get it back the next day, sometimes with more gas in the tank than when we got it.”
He winked over at Frankie, his cigarette pinched between his fingers, then took a giant drag, letting the smoke pour out between his lips in a tight blue vapor. “You ever stole a car?” he asked, choking a little.
“No, sorry,” I said, regretting again my mousy admission.
“Never?” Mondo asked, in mock surprise. He turned sideways and raised an eyebrow at the guys. I thought he was going to make fun of me, but then he said, “Ahh, don’t worry about it. It ain’t no big deal, really, it ain’t no big deal.” He spit out a speck of tobacco, then walked over to the fence and flipped his cigarette into the alley. It hit a puddle somewhere and made a sizzle. “Besides, we ain’t stealing any more cars. Ain’t that right, Frankie?”
Frankie was searching for matches. He found a book and began lighting everybody’s cigarettes, all except Eddie’s, who had hooked his behind his ear. I hadn’t smoked my own cigarette either and couldn’t remember what I did with the match Mondo handed
me.
“Chale, those days are gone,” Frankie said, arching his shoulders.
“Simón ése, those days are gone,” Mondo agreed. He puffed his cigarette again, then crooked his fingers in the shape of a claw and circled them around. “We’re going to buy a car, ése—all of us, except, maybe…you.” He shook his fingers out, sweeping them over everybody, then curled them in again, leaving only his thumb out, the one with the tattoo. He pointed it at me. “It depends on whether you pass the test. Right, Frankie?”
“I tell you,” Frankie said, with exaggerated toughness, “he’s Bernardo’s brother. He’ll prob’ly kick all our asses.”
“Not mine. He won’t kick my ass!” Eddie said, stepping out of the dark of the alley. He’d been listening near the fence. There was threat in his voice, and his face was gluey from drinking Night Train. He had long hair, almost as straight as mine, moss thin and blond, and a pale, bedsheet-color face. His eyes were nickel blue, like light flitting off the shank of a sharpened knife.
“Calm down, Eddie,” Frankie said. “I was only kidding.”
Eddie smiled, like he got one over on Frankie, then lit his cigarette.
When Frankie had first told me about the initiation, I pumped my fists in the air with showy bravery. The initiation was to test a guy’s courage. You could either sissy out, or have Mondo think you brave enough to stand the punishment.
Actually, it wasn’t the pain of getting socked and kicked that bothered me, but more the pain of feeling afraid. When chicken feathers choke in your veins, being afraid could be a real knife in the ribs. Then any disgrace is possible. I worried that I’d start begging, maybe even drop to the ground, paralyzed with fear, like in the war movies when the bombs drop, shocking the dirt.
When Mondo announced the beginning of the initiation, a rash of alarm broke over my skin. Patty and Rita came out from the back porch, Patty still wearing her tight skirt, and Rita a rusty leather jacket about three sizes too big. She was giggling one of those long streamer giggles, and looking at her, I felt mushy around my shoulders. She had on those wrinkly short pants that flared like trombones. There was a crease between her legs, like somebody had lightly tapped a finger there.
As they walked slowly down the concrete steps, past the blistered paint on the screen door, the late moonlight shadows stretched lazily across the greasy yard.
Mondo invited the girls to watch. But only if they weren’t squeamish, he said, winking at me. Then, without a word of warning or even a nod signaling a beginning, Mondo and Eddie began circling around me. Frankie and Gody snuck glances at each other, their faces rubbery, like they’d been slapped. I knew they weren’t the serious ones.
Suddenly Eddie dropped to the ground, and before I could lift my leg, he hooked his left ankle behind my heel and shoved at my knee with his right foot. My knee hinge locked and I fell backward on my butt. I whirled around quickly, almost flailing to stand up, but before I did, Mondo clamped his hands on my head and forced me down.
Next came a thud against my ribs as he sunk his knee into me, and a glancing heel burn on my neck from Eddie. The circle shrank in around me. From the corner of my eye, moist and dripping, I saw Gody, Rita and Patty inch closer. Frankie stayed back. Suddenly, I felt a foot press down on my hand. It sprung alive with needles, and jerking my chin sideways, I saw Rita, her mouth scrunched tight, grinding her heel into my hand.
From then on, I only remember a storm of cuffs and chops and kicks hitting me as I thrashed under Mondo’s grip. He crunched his knee against my head, scraping my eyebrow against the oil-crudded dirt. I tried twisting my body around to get up, yet for every strain, Mondo pressed harder, shifting the weight of his knees to counter my thrusts.
I could smell the acidy stink of the dirt, but strangely enough, there was no fear. Nor could I feel the blows, which felt like instead of me, they were hitting a slab of meat on a table. In my mind I kept saying, Okay, you bastards, go ahead. Go ahead! See where it gets you!
I knew that this had to be about the stupidest thing I could think about at the time, but somewhere in the back of my mind I had a thought that, once whatever it was I was being tested for came out, I’d get to go to the back room, where a couch lay against the wall and there I’d kiss Rita, or Patty, just like Frankie had promised—finally, I would hug a girl full in my arms, smell the mustiness of her breath brooding deep inside my nose, feel her lips smashing, like a kick against my mouth.
When they finally let me up, I sat there for the longest time dabbing my lips, swelling fast, flaring alive with throbs. There was also a bruise on my hand, trimmed black around the edges. My muscles felt weak, like mush, and all over my body, my bones echoed little pinpoints of pain.
I was squinching my eyes, trying to squeeze every last shudder of hurt and trembling away, when I heard Patty laughing behind me. She had a snappy laugh, like she expected everybody to crack a rib alongside her.
“Ahh, quit worrying about your lip!” Eddie scolded.
“Shut up, Eddie!” Frankie said, flicking dirt off my hair. “You’ll be okay,” he said, soothingly. He put his arm around my shoulders. “You’ll be okay.”
11
Going Home
The next day I woke up still bruised, but got dressed quick, feeling in my muscles a satisfying ache, like I’d done something really dangerous and survived it. We were going to hang around uptown, under the maple trees near Long’s Drugstore. The guys figured we could steal some flashlight batteries, bottles of lotion or aspirin and then sell them to people looking for a bargain. While I was thinking about it, I remembered that I promised my mother I’d clean my room and rake the yard. Usually, my shoulders got slippery when my mother’s hand came asking to do chores. Mops, brooms, sometimes dishes popped mysteriously out of my hands. But I was trying to help more around the house, and I was anxious to go out with the gang and didn’t want Mom’s eyes to narrow suspiciously.
I swept the floor of my room. I stuffed my dirty clothes in the closet, and fighting against whirlwinds from a coming storm, raked the leaves in the yard. After I was done, I rushed into the bathroom to wash up.
A feather was tickling the back of my throat. I stared into the mirror, imagining myself a brown Cary Grant and thinking about Rita, about how the night before she fluttered her eyelashes against my cheek, and stabbed the inside of my ear with the moist tip of her tongue. When she dropped hints that there’d be more surprises to come, my lungs became heavy as soaked towels.
The lightbulb in the bathroom was blazing a white star in the mirror, and looking at it, I was surprised by how much pleasure and agony could burst from one’s heart at the same time. For once, I understood what my grandma used to say about happiness. She’d say that it came from breathing air that escaped from a tiny hole in heaven. But if you breathed too much of it, you became sick with the desire to go there, and you couldn’t live your life properly.
At the door, I remembered my mom and yelled to her that I was going to play baseball. She was in the kitchen shifting cans around in the storage pantry. She shouted back that I should stay home since she was making chicken soup for lunch, and later planned to go with Dad to negotiate something about Grandma’s house.
I picked up my old baseball mitt. I’d sort of lost the magic for baseball, and it showed in my old glove. The seams along the heel were bursting and the boot-string webbings were loose. The few times I did play, fastballs kept squirting out and popping me in the face. I knew it’d serve as a good excuse for going out, though.
I went down the hall, past Magda’s room. She was in front of her old beaten-up dresser, combing her hair. She hadn’t teased it yet, and her hair was a smooth current of dark, moonless water. When she saw me in the reflection of the mirror, she frowned and clacked the brush down. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
She picked her brush back up and held it poised in front of the mirror. “What do you think if I peroxide my hair?” she asked, gently plucking at her eyebr
ow.
“You’ll look like Conchita Rodriguez.”
“She’s a monster!”
“Well, that’s how you’d look.”
“Who asked you anyway,” Magda said, straightening her face in the mirror.
As I went back into the kitchen I heard the electricity in the refrigerator click on. Chicken soup was bubbling on the stove, its aroma roaming like a spirit throughout the room. I found Mom inside the pantry and waved the baseball mitt in her face. “Mom, this is an important game.”
“They’re all important games, mijo,” she said, putting her cleaning rag down. I followed her around the kitchen as she busied over finding a can opener. She fussed with her hair, unknotting the tangles. “What I need is a hairbrush, not a can opener.”
“But, Mom, this is different. Really.”
“You’re going to play baseball in this weather?” She peered outside the window. The wind was splashing hard on the maple trees. “You quit playing baseball months ago, Manuel. I know that. Don’t try to fool me. Besides, you came home pretty late last night.”
She stopped plucking at her hair and sized me up and down. I guess my face was bruised in spots. I had put on a cotton sweatshirt and a baseball cap with the word BASEBALL knitted in big red letters on the top. I lowered the brim so that she couldn’t see all that much, turned and unpinched the glove from under my arm and began smacking my fist inside it. It made a dry, hollow sound.
“Well, I suppose it’s okay,” she said, finally. “But don’t come back late.”
I knew she believed me about as far as she could throw the refrigerator, but I guess she was sort of surprised I even tried to make an excuse. Nardo wouldn’t have even bothered. She’d made up her mind to leave him alone and hope for the best. I thought at first she was wishing the same for me, but the way she looked at me was different, like she knew I’d do the right thing.
After tossing my glove and baseball cap in some bushes, I ran to Long’s Drugstore. It was far away, and I had to walk sometimes, and when I did I noticed how furious the wind was getting. A storm was darkening the clouds. Telephone wires whirred and papers scorched across the sidewalk. When caught in the bushes, they scrabbled noisily around like castanets before shooting out again stiff as shotgun blasts.
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