“Por Dios, I thought I made enough for twenty,” said Socorro.
“You did, you did, Sukie,” I said, enjoying being the whole show now, and finishing it in three big bites. “I’m just extra hungry tonight, and you made it extra good, and there’s no sense leaving leftovers around to spoil.” With that I ate half a chile relleno and swallowed some beer and looked around at all the eyes, and Nacho burped and groaned. We all busted up, Ralph especially, who fell off his chair onto the floor holding his stomach and laughing so hard I was afraid he’d get sick. It was a hell of a thing when you think of it, entertaining people by being a damn glutton, just to get attention.
After dinner we cleared the table and I got roped into a game of Scrabble with Alice and Marta and Nacho with the others kibitzing, and all the time I was swilling cold beer with an occasional shot of mescal that Cruz brought out in the open now. By nine o’clock when the kids had to go to bed I was pretty well lubricated.
They all kissed me good night except George and Nacho, who shook hands, and there were no arguments about going to bed, and fifteen minutes later it was still and quiet upstairs. I’d never seen Cruz or Socorro spank any of them. Of course the older ones spanked hell out of the younger ones, I’d seen that often enough. After all, everyone in this world needs a thumping once in a while.
We took the leaf out of the table and replaced the lace tablecloth and the three of us went into the living room. Cruz was pretty well bombed out, and after Socorro complained, he decided not to have another beer. I had a cold one in my right hand, and the last of the mescal in my left.
Cruz sat next to Socorro on the couch and he rubbed his face which was probably numb as hell. He gave her a kiss on the neck.
“Get out of here,” she grumbled. “You smell like a stinking wino.”
“How can I smell like a wino. I haven’t had any wine,” said Cruz.
“Remember how we used to sit like this after dinner back in the old days,” I said, realizing how much the mescal affected me, because they were both starting to look a little fuzzy.
“Remember how little and skinny Sukie was,” said Cruz, poking her arm.
“I’m going to let you have it in a minute,” said Socorro, raising her hand which was a raw, worn-out-looking hand for a girl her age. She wasn’t quite forty years old.
“Sukie was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen,” I said.
“I guess she was,” said Cruz with a silly grin.
“And still is,” I added. “And Cruz was the handsomest guy I ever saw outside of Tyrone Power or maybe Clark Gable.”
“You really think Tyrone Power was better looking?” said Cruz, grinning again as Socorro shook her head, and to me he honestly didn’t look a bit different now than he ever had, except for the gray hair. Damn him for staying young, I thought.
“Speaking of pretty girls,” said Socorro, “let’s hear about your new plans with Cassie.”
“Well, like I told you, she was gonna go up north to an apartment and get squared away at school. Then after the end of May when Cruz and me have our twenty years, she’d fly back here and we’d get married. Now I’ve decided to cut it short. I’ll work tomorrow and the next day and run my vacation days and days off together to the end of the month when I officially retire. That way I can leave with Cassie, probably Sunday morning or Monday and we’ll swing through Las Vegas and get married on the way.”
“Oh, Bumper, we wanted to be with you when you get married,” said Socorro, looking disappointed.
“What the hell, at our age getting married ain’t no big thing,” I said.
“We love her, Bumper,” said Socorro. “You’re lucky, very lucky. She’ll be perfect for you.”
“What a looker.” Cruz winked and tried to whistle, but he was too drunk.
Socorro shook her head and said, “sinvergüenza,” and we both laughed at him.
“What’re you going to do Friday?” asked Socorro. “Just go into rollcall and stand up and say you’re retiring and this is your last day?”
“Nope, I’m just gonna fade away. I’m not telling a soul and I hope you haven’t said anything to anyone, Cruz.”
“Nothing,” said Cruz, and he burped.
“I’m just cutting out like for my regular two days off, then I’m sending a registered letter to Personnel Division and one to the captain. I’ll just sign all my retirement papers and mail them in. I can give my badge and I.D. card to Cruz before I leave and have him turn them in for me so I won’t have to go back at all.”
“You’ll have to come back to L.A. for your retirement party,” said Cruz. “We’re sure as hell going to want to throw a retirement party for you.”
“Thanks, Cruz, but I never liked retirement parties anyway. In fact I think they’re miserable. I appreciate the thought but no party for me.”
“Just think,” said Socorro. “To be starting a new life! I wish Cruz could leave the job too.”
“You said it,” said Cruz, his eyes glassy though he sat up straight. “But with all our kids, I’m a thirty-year man. Thirty years, that’s a lifetime. I’ll be an old man when I pull the pin.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m lucky,” I said. “Remember when we were going through the academy, Cruz? We thought we were old men then, running with all those kids twenty-one and twenty-two years old. Here you were thirty-one, the oldest guy in the class, and I was close behind you. Remember Mendez always called us elefante y ratoncito?”
“The elephant and the mouse,” Cruz giggled.
“The two old men of the class. Thirty years old and I thought I knew something then. Hell, you’re still a baby at that age. We were both babies.”
“We were babies, ’mano,” said Cruz. “But only because we hadn’t been out there yet.” Cruz waved his hand toward the streets. “You grow up fast out there and learn too much. It’s no damn good for a man to learn as much as you learn out there. It ruins the way you think about things, and the way you feel. There’re certain things you should believe and if you stay out there for twenty years you can’t believe them anymore. That’s not good.”
“You still believe them, don’t you, Cruz?” I asked, and Socorro looked at us like we were two raving drunks, which we probably were, but we understood, Cruz and me.
“I still believe them, Bumper, because I want to. And I have Sukie and the kids. I can come home, and then the other isn’t real. You’ve had no one to go to. Thank God for Cassie.”
“I’ve got to go fix school lunches. Excuse me, Bumper,” said Socorro, and she gave us that shake of the head which meant, it’s time to leave the drunken cops to their talk. But Cruz hardly ever got drunk, and she didn’t really begrudge him, even though he had trouble with his liver.
“I never could tell you how glad we were when you first brought Cassie here for dinner, Bumper. Socorro and me, we stayed awake in bed that night and talked about it and how God must’ve sent her, even though you don’t believe in God.”
“I believe in the gods, you know that,” I grinned, gulping the beer after I took the last sip of the mescal.
“There’s only one God, goddamnit,” said Cruz.
“Even your God has three faces, goddamnit,” I said, and gave him a glance over the top of my beer bottle, making him laugh,
“Bumper, I’m trying to talk to you seriously.” And his eyes turned down at the corners like always. I couldn’t woof him anymore when his eyes did that.
“Okay.”
“Cassie’s the answer to a prayer.”
“Why did you waste all your prayers on me?”
“Why do you think, pendejo? You’re my brother, mi hermano.”
That made me put the beer down, and I straightened up and looked at his big eyes. Cruz was struggling with the fog of the mescal and beer because he wanted to tell me something. I wondered how in hell he had ever made the Department physical. He was barely five-eight in his bare feet, and he was so damn skinny. He’d never gained a pound, but outside of Esteban, he had the finest
-looking face you would ever see.
“I didn’t know you thought that much about Cassie and me.”
“Of course I did. After all, I prayed her here for you. Don’t you see what you were heading for? You’re fifty years old, Bumper. You and some of the other old beat cops’ve been the machos of the streets all these years, but Lord, I could just see you duking it out with some young stud or chasing somebody out there and all of a sudden just lying down on that street to die. You realize how many of our classmates had heart attacks already?”
“Part of being a policeman,” I shrugged.
“Not to mention some asshole blowing you up,” said Cruz. “You remember Driscoll? He had a heart attack just last month and he’s not nearly as fat as you, and a few years younger, and I’ll bet he never does anything harder than lift a pencil. Like you today, all alone, facing a mob, like a rookie! What the hell, Bumper, you think I want to be a pallbearer for a guy two hundred and eighty pounds?”
“Two seventy-five.”
“When Cassie came, I said, ‘Thank God, now Bumper’s got a chance.’ I worried though. I knew you were smart enough to see how much woman you had, but I was afraid that puta had too strong a grip on you.”
“Was it you that kept getting me assigned to the north end districts all the time? Lieutenant Hilliard kept telling me it was a mistake every time I bitched about it.”
“Yeah, I did it. I tried to get you away from your beat, but I gave up. You just kept coming back down anyway and that meant nobody was patrolling the north end, so I didn’t accomplish anything. I can guess what it was to you, being el campeón out there, having people look at you the way they do on your beat.”
“Yeah, well it isn’t so much,” I said, nervously fidgeting with the empty bottle.
“You know what happens to old cops who stay around the streets too long.”
“What?” I said, and the enchilada caught me and bit into the inside of my gut.
“They get too old to do police work and they become characters. That’s what I’d hate to see. You just becoming an old character, and maybe getting yourself hurt bad out there before you realize you’re too old. Just too old.”
“I’m not that old yet. Damn it, Cruz!”
“No, not for civilian life. You have lots of good years ahead of you. But for a warrior, it’s time to quit, ’mano. I was worried about her going up there and you coming along in a few weeks. I was afraid the puta would get you alone when Cassie wasn’t there. I’m so damn glad you’re leaving with Cassie.”
“So am I, Cruz,” I said, lowering my voice like I was afraid to let myself hear it. “You’re right. I’ve half thought of these things. You’re right. I think I’d blow my brains out if I ever got as lonely as some I’ve seen, like some of those people on my beat, homeless wandering people, that don’t belong anywhere…”
“That’s it, Bumper. There’s no place for a man alone, not really. You can get along without love when you’re young and strong. Some guys can, guys like you. Me, I never could. And nobody can get along without it when he gets old. You shouldn’t be afraid to love, ’mano.”
“Am I, Cruz?” I asked, chewing two tablets because a mailed fist was beating on my guts from the inside. “Is that why I feel so unsure of myself now that I’m leaving? Is that it?”
I could hear Socorro humming as she made lunches for the entire tribe. She would write each one’s name on his lunch sack and put it in the refrigerator.
“Remember when we were together in the old days? You and me and Socorro and the two kids? And how you hardly ever spoke about your previous life even when you were drunk? You only said a little about your brother Clem who was dead, and your wife who’d left you. But you really told us more, much more about your brother. Sometimes you called him in your sleep. But mostly you called someone else.”
I was rocking back now, holding my guts which were throbbing, and all the tablets in my pocket wouldn’t help.
“You never told us about your boy. I always felt bad that you never told me about him, because of how close we are. You only told me about him in your sleep.”
“What did I say?”
“You’d call ‘Billy,’ and you’d say things to him. Sometimes you’d cry, and I’d have to go in and pick up your covers and pillow from the floor and cover you up because you’d throw them clear off the bed.”
“I never dreamed about him, never!”
“How else would I know, ’mano?” he said softly. “We used to talk a lot about it, Socorro and me, and we used to worry about a man who’d loved a brother and a son like you had. We wondered if you’d be afraid to love again. It happens. But when you get old, you’ve got to. You’ve got to.”
“But you’re safe if you don’t, Cruz!” I said, flinching from the pain. Cruz was looking at the floor, not used to talking to me like this, and he didn’t notice my agony.
“You’re safe, Bumper, in one way. But in the way that counts, you’re in danger. Your soul is in danger if you don’t love.”
“Did you believe that when Esteban was killed? Did you?”
Cruz looked up at me, and his eyes got even softer than normal and turned way down at the corners because he was being most serious. His heavy lashes blinked twice and he sighed, “Yes. Even after Esteban, and even though he was the oldest and you always feel a little something extra for the firstborn. Even after Esteban was killed I felt this to be the truth. After the grief, I knew it was God’s truth. I believed it, even then.”
“I think I’ll get a cup of coffee. I have a stomachache. Maybe something warm…”
Cruz smiled, and leaned back in his chair. Socorro was finishing the last of the lunches and I chatted with her while we warmed up the coffee. The stomachache started to fade a little.
I drank the coffee and thought about what Cruz said which made sense, and yet, every time you get tied up to people something happens and that cord is cut, and I mean really cut with a bloody sword.
“Shall we go in and see how the old boy’s doing?”
“Oh sure, Sukie,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulder. Cruz was stretched out on the couch snoring.
“That’s his drinking sleep. We’ll never wake him up,” she said. “Maybe I just better get his pillow and a blanket.”
“He shouldn’t be sleeping on the couch,” I said. “It’s drafty in this big living room.” I went over to him and knelt down.
“What’re you going to do?”
“Put him to bed,” I said, picking him up in my arms.
“Bumper, you’ll rupture yourself.”
“He’s light as a baby,” I said, and he was surprisingly light. “Why the hell don’t you make him eat more?” I said, following Socorro up the stairs.
“You know he doesn’t like to eat. Let me help you, Bumper.”
“Just lead the way, Mama. I can handle him just fine.”
When we got in their bedroom I wasn’t even breathing hard and I laid him on the bed, on the sheets. She had already pulled back the covers. Cruz was rattling and wheezing now and we both laughed.
“He snores awful,” she said as I looked at the little squirt.
“He’s the only real friend I ever made in twenty years. I know millions of people and I see them and eat with them and I’ll miss things about all of them, but it won’t be like something inside is gone, like with Cruz.”
“Now you’ll have Cassie. You’ll be ten times closer with her.” She held my hand then. Both her hands were tough and hard.
“You sound like your old man.”
“We talk about you a lot.”
“Good night,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “Cassie and me are coming by before we leave to say good-bye to all of you.”
“Good night, Bumper.”
“Good night, old shoe,” I said to Cruz in a loud voice and he snorted and blew and I chuckled and descended the stairs. I let myself out after turning out the hall light and locking the door.
When I went to be
d that night I started getting scared and didn’t know why. I wished Cassie was with me. After I went to sleep I slept very well and didn’t dream.
THURSDAY, THE SECOND DAY
NINE
THE NEXT MORNING I worked on my badge for five minutes, and my boondockers were glistening. I was kind of disappointed when Lieutenant Hilliard didn’t have an inspection, I was looking so good. Cruz looked awful. He sat at the front table with Lieutenant Hilliard and did a bad job of reading off the crimes. Once or twice he looked at me and rolled his eyes which were really sad this morning because he was so hung over. After rollcall I got a chance to talk to him for a minute.
“You look a little crudo,” I said, trying not to smile.
“What a bastard you are,” he moaned.
“It wasn’t the mescal. I think you swallowed the worm.”
“A complete bastard.”
“Can you meet me at noon? I wanna buy you lunch.”
“Don’t even talk about it,” he groaned, and I had to laugh.
“Okay, but save me your lunch hour tomorrow. And pick out the best, most expensive place in town. Someplace that doesn’t bounce for bluecoats. That’s where we’re going for my last meal as a cop.”
“You’re actually going to pay for a meal on duty?”
“It’ll be a first,” I grinned, and he smiled but he acted like it hurt to grin.
“Ahí te haucho,” I said, heading for the car.
“Don’t forget you have court this afternoon, ’mano,” he said, always nagging me.
Before getting in my black-and-white I looked it over. It’s always good to pull out the back seat before you leave, in case some innocent rookie on the nightwatch let one of his sneaky prisoners stash his gun down there, or a condom full of heroin, or a goddamn hand grenade. It takes so long to make a policeman out of some of these kids, nothing would surprise me. But then I reminded myself what it was like to be twenty-two. They’re right in the middle of growing up, these babies, and it’s awful tough growing up in that bluecoat as twenty-two-year-old Establishment symbols. Still, it chills my nuts the way they stumble around like civilians for five years or so, and let people flimflam them. Someday, I thought, I’ll probably find a dead midget jammed down there behind the friggin’ seat.
The Blue Knight Page 13