I looked at him with disbelief. “Really?”
He folded his arms over his chest and nodded. “Really.”
I nodded toward him. “Mrs. Kelley says when we cross our arms like that it’s because we’re protecting ourselves. It means we feel vulnerable or insecure. Do you not like it that you’re half-Hispanic?”
Immediately, I realized he could be uncomfortable for many other reasons, including being half-Irish, and felt like an idiot for asking.
“You’re not shy, are you?”
I shot him an innocent look. “Sorry.”
He uncrossed his legs, but it didn’t last. “Who’s Mrs. Kelley?”
“She’s my counselor.”
He looked around the room. “Not particularly.”
“Not particularly, as in you don’t particularly like it that you’re Hispanic?”
“Half-Hispanic.” He reached for the bill of his hat and starting messing with it. “And no, I don’t care for it much.”
“Why not?”
“In school, the whites looked at me as a spic, and the Mexicans looked at me as white. No one really accepted me. That’s part of the reason I ended up fighting so much.”
“But it’s part of you. Without it, you’d be someone else. Can you imagine being someone else? That’d be weird.”
“I can’t imagine it now, no. When I was a kid, I imagined it every day.”
“Well, I like you just the way you are.”
He chuckled. “Thanks.”
I scooted across the couch and grabbed my phone. “What’s your phone number?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve got a phone, right? They let you have a phone, don’t they? You’ve got one, you used it that night to call the tall guy, Pee Bee.”
“Good memory,” he said. “And, yeah. They let me have a phone.”
“What’s your number?”
“Why do you want it?”
He’d backed me into a corner. One of my character flaws was that I said whatever was on my mind. Another was that I always told the truth. The two, combined, often got me into trouble.
“I think about you sometimes, and I haven’t got a way to get ahold of you. The thought of losing touch with you makes me uncomfortable. What’s your number?”
“4-4-7-1-0-5-0.”
“4-4-2?”
He shook his head. “7-6-0.”
I punched the number into my phone, reciting it as I did so. “7-6-0-4-4-7-1-0-5-0?”
“Yep.”
“Adam Cholo Downey.”
“Cholo.”
“I like Adam.”
“Cholo.”
I looked up. “Cholo, then.”
He reached inside his vest and pulled out his phone. “What’s your number?”
I hoped he wouldn’t ask, but I fully expected him to.
I sighed. “I don’t give out my number.”
“What is it?”
“Seriously, I don’t give it out. Ever. Not until I’m comfortable. It’s like a weird quirk or something, but I’m being serious.”
“You’re not comfortable with me?”
I felt embarrassed. “Kind of. I don’t know.”
He nodded and put the phone back inside his vest. I felt bad, but didn’t feel comfortable giving him my number. At least not yet. “Sorry.”
He shrugged. “Not big deal. So, when’s your mother going to be here?”
“She’s on nights this week, her schedule alternates. So, like 7:00 in the morning.”
“Oh. Wow. What’s she do?”
“You don’t know?”
“Wouldn’t have asked if I did.”
“I thought you guys were old friends, or something?”
“When you were little, you lived across the street. That’s the extent of it.”
I hadn’t asked specifically, but to hear the way she talked about him, I suspected they were long lost friends.
“That’s it?” I asked excitedly.
“That’s it.”
“She’s a Nurse.”
“Oh.”
“That’s why I wasn’t worried about getting checked out the night you brought me home. I knew she could do anything they could do at the hospital, because that’s where she works. And, she could do it here, without having to file a police report. You didn’t need the cops digging around trying to figure out who shot those guys.”
“I sure didn’t. Thanks. Appreciate it.”
“Are you hungry? I was getting ready to eat something.”
“Look at me.” He spread his arms wide. “I’m always hungry. Why?”
“Impressive.” I stared at him for longer than I probably should have. “Want a taco?”
He blurted out a laugh. “You think because I’m Mexican I want tacos?”
“Half-Mexican.” I stood and extended my hand. “And, no. I think you might want one because tacos are the most awesome food ever. I’m hungry, and I’m not going to eat something else just because you’re sensitive about your heritage.”
He reached for my hand and acted like I helped him to his feet, although I knew I didn’t offer much to aid his getting up.
“I’ll eat a taco,” he said.
Tacos were a staple in my diet, and I ate them almost every day. I made them out of ham, beef, pork, chicken, tofu, potatoes, and even hot dogs.
“Tacos are the shit,” I said on my way to the kitchen.
“Tacos are pretty good stuff,” he agreed.
I hadn’t eaten since I got off work, and I was starving. He followed me into the kitchen and watched eagerly as I pulled the food from the fridge. I doubted our taco desires were the same and wondered just how he liked his prepared.
After tossing some of the leftover roast in a bowl, I covered it with a paper towel and opened the microwave.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Warming up the meat. It’s gross cold.”
“You’re not going to warm it up in there, are you?”
I turned around. “I was.”
He stepped to my side and reached for the bowl. “Do you mind?”
I released the bowl. “Not at all.”
“Do you have a skillet?”
“Yep.”
“Some oil?”
“Yep.”
“An onion?”
“Sure do.”
“Tomatoes?”
“We’ve got those, too.”
“Chiles?”
“Huh?”
“Any kind of peppers?”
“Hold, please.”
I grabbed all the things he asked for and set them on the counter.
He turned on the stove, put a little oil in the skillet, and while it came to temperature, he chopped the onion, tomato, and jalapenos and mixed them together. After adding salt and pepper to the mix, he tossed the meat in the skillet and added a few of the finely chopped onions.
He was big, muscular, respectful, and quite handsome. As I watched him, none of those things seemed to matter. Seeing him cook, however, wadded me into a ball of sexual tension.
I never knew watching a man cook could be sexy, but after thinking about it, I’d never seen a man cook.
He lifted the skillet from the stove, did a flippity thing with his wrist, and tossed the ingredients into the air. They landed back down in the pan without spilling a drop. He did it again as it were no big deal then set it back on the burner.
“Tortillas?” he asked over his shoulder.
I tried my best to take my eyes off him for a moment, but it wasn’t easy. Eventually, I turned toward the fridge and opened it. “Here’s where it gets kinda weird.”
“How’s that?” he asked.
“I don’t like flour tortillas. I only eat corn,” I said as I pulled the tortillas from the refrigerator.
He let out a low laugh. “I prefer the corn.”
“Really?” I asked excitedly.
“Really. Flour tortillas are for the rich and anyone who wants to get fat. Corn tortillas are for the w
orking man.”
He flipped the skillet again. I noticed the muscles in his arm flex when he did it. As if watching him cook wasn’t enough, he had to be buff and tattooed as well.
“I work for a living.” He glanced at me, and his blue eyes smiled. “And, I’m not trying to get fat.”
He could have scraped me off the floor with the spatula. I’d officially melted. I’d seen too much Adam Cholo Downey for one night.
I handed him the tortillas. “Here.”
He spooned the contents of the skillet into the bowl and then poured some oil in the skillet. After warming the oil, he added a few tortillas and sprinkled them with salt.
“Grab the plates?” he asked.
I was still in awe watching him cook. I grabbed the plates nonetheless, and set them at his side.
He carefully placed the tortillas on the plates, added the meat, and then the vegetable mixture he made.
I grabbed two beers from the fridge. “Here.”
He looked at the beer, and then at me. “Is you mom going to be mad if you--”
“It’s okay. I’m twenty-one now.”
“Oh. Shit, I missed it. When was it?”
“It’s right now.”
His brow wrinkled. “Today?”
I grabbed a plate. “Yeah. Today. C’mon.”
We walked into the living room and sat side-by-side on the couch with our plates in our lap. I looked at the tacos and realized he didn’t add lettuce or cheese.
“There’s no lettuce or cheese.”
“Try it like that,” he said.
I shrugged and reluctantly took a small bite.
“Jesus,” I said after I swallowed. “That’s good.”
He wagged his eyebrows.
I took another bite, and instead of enjoying the time we were spending together, I wondered what his faults were. Everyone had them. I didn’t want him to simply eat and leave. I wanted him to stay for as long as I could convince him too.
Without offering sex, I knew there’d be very little to persuade him to stay, and I wasn’t about to offer sex. I didn’t want him to go, and I needed to come up with something.
I took another bite of the taco and then it came to me. “Do you watch T.V.?”
He looked up from his plate. “Some, yeah.”
“Have you ever watched Californication?”
“Nope.”
“It’s got David Duchovny in it, and it’s pretty good. Want to watch a little of it?”
“Sure.”
I started the series as we ate.
We finished our tacos, had a few beers and sat together on the couch watching the show. Before I knew it, we’d watched the entire first season, and six hours had passed.
“Holy shit,” I said. “It’s almost midnight.”
He raised his arms high in the air and stretched. “That’s a good show. There’s more?”
I nodded. “Seven seasons.”
He looked at his watch. “It’s 11:45. We’ve got 15 minutes before your birthday’s gone. Want to go for a quick ride before it’s over?”
The show we were watching was about an author who was addicted to sex, and even had a fling with a girl two decades younger than he was. During the six hours that we watched, Cholo hadn’t come onto me, flirted with me, or made even a sexually suggestive comment.
“Grab your phone,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Grab your phone.”
He reached into his vest, pulled out his phone, and gave me a look. “What now?”
“4-4-2-4-4-7-1-0-3-5.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s my number,” I said.
He grinned, making the lines on the sides of his eyes wrinkle. “Oh. So, you’re comfortable with me now?”
I nodded. “Very.”
He stood. “Ready for that ride?”
“I’ve got a question first,” I said.
He popped his knuckles. “Okay.”
I locked eyes with him. “Did you come here to see me or my mother.”
He grinned. “You.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m ready.”
Chapter Eighty-Three
Cholo
I looked around the crowd. About 100 people had gathered for the event. In the last thirty minutes, they’d began to grow restless. I took a drink of beer and looked at Pee Bee. “When’s this supposed to start?”
He shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Should have started about half a fuckin’ hour ago,” Crip said.
“Here before long, every wannabe bad-ass in the crowd will be picking a fight to prove how tough he is,” I said.
I wanted to talk to Pee Bee about Alexandra, but didn’t want to do so in Crip’s presence. We were at a warehouse in Vista, which was 10 miles east of Oceanside, to see a fight between a former Marine and a former Navy SEAL.
As were all bare knuckles fights; the fight was illegal. If they didn’t get it underway quickly, the cops would show up for sure. There were far too many cars and bikes parked outside not to draw attention to the fact that something sketchy was going on.
Kelly Duntz, the half-assed promoter of the majority of bare knuckles fights in the area stepped into the makeshift ring. The area wasn’t really a ring, it was a spot on the concrete floor that had been marked by yellow tape as an area to fight in.
Although rules of similar matches varied – depending on the location and the fighters – the fights that we frequented were nothing more than unorganized fist fights.
Kicking, biting, elbowing, and weapons of any kind were prohibited. The fighter’s hands couldn’t be taped, and there were no gloves allowed. Shirtless and barefoot, the fighters went toe-to-toe and fought until someone was either knocked out or gave up.
Typically, with the types of fighters that fought in underground matches, giving up was out of the question.
“Listen up, fellas. I’ve got bad news,” he said. “Our Navy SEAL, John ‘The Hammer’ Le Brock cracked his wrist in training this afternoon, and isn’t going to make it. So, we’ve got--”
“If he cracked his fucking wrist this afternoon, why’d it take you this fucking long to tell us the fight was off?” Someone shouted from the back of the crowd across from us.
“Yeah,” someone else yelled.
“Just hold on,” Duntz said. “I just found out. I just got a call from one of the guys Le Brock trains with. He thought it wasn’t fractured. Up until about an hour ago, he was still going to fight. On the way here, it started bothering him, and--”
“Bullshit!” someone yelled.
“Crowd’s getting’ restless,” Lefty said.
“Just wait,” I said, looking around the crowd of angry drunken men. “Someone will start shoving people here in a minute.”
“Motherfuckers shove anyone in our direction, and I’ll stomp their ass,” Pee Bee said.
Lefty took a drink of beer, looked at Crip, and shook his head. “Fucking shame. That Marine’s undefeated, and I was hoping that Le Brock fucker’d knock him out. Big bastard reminds me of that guy we saw fight in Tijuana back in the day.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. “Which Marine is it?” I asked.
Oceanside had a Marine base, and the city was littered with Marines, both active duty and retired. It was impossible to knew them all, there were thousands of them.
“That big fucker from the Bronx,” Pee Bee said. “The one they call ‘The Butcher’.”
“Oh.”
The Butcher was pretty well-known in the area. 220 pounds of marine muscle, and he was a boxer before he was a Marine. Declared mentally unfit to continue training with the military due to PTSD, he stuck around Oceanside and drank beer with his fellow brethren, and got into bar fights with anyone dumb enough to fight him.
When he wasn’t fighting bare knuckles matches, he was generally spending the weekend in jail on a battery charge that someone would later drop for fear of repercussion.
“I know this is going to
be a big fucking mess,” Duntz shouted, “But unless someone’s willing to step in and fight The Butcher, I’m going to have to set up a table for refunds at the door.”
As the crowd began to boo and hiss at the thought of the night ending early, Pee Bee nudged me. “Fight the fucker, Cholo.”
“Shit,” I said. “I’ve had three beers and a belly full of barbeque. I haven’t got any business fighting anybody.”
“I’ll pay $1,000 to anyone who’ll step up,” Duntz shouted.
“A grand to get your skull busted open,” Lefty said. “Notice none of these beer-bellied pricks are volunteering.”
“Fight his ass, Peeb,” Lefty said.
“Shit,” Pee Bee said. “Maybe in the bar. Not here.”
Pee Bee was as mean as a snake, but there was a big difference between fighting someone who knew how to box, and fighting some random bad-ass in a bar or in an argument. Personally, I wouldn’t want to fight Pee Bee in a bar fight.
Standing in the tape, however, he wouldn’t get a single punch in.
“This is bullshit,” someone screamed. “Fuck you, Duntz!”
A mild shoving match started on the other side of the makeshift ring. As Duntz attempted to calm the men who were arguing, Crip let out a sigh.
“Well, someone’s gonna need to either fight this asshole, or we’re going to have to get out of here. I can see this ending poorly.”
“$2,500,” Duntz shouted. “I’ll give $2,500 to any fighter who’ll step in and--”
I handed Crip my half-full bottle of beer and stepped into the tape. “Make it $5,000.”
“My take’s about $3,000,” he said. “Give or take. I can’t go $5,000. I’ll go $2,750.”
I turned around. “Let’s get outta here.”
“Give the Beaner five grand,” I heard someone shout. “I want to see him get his ass kicked.”
I spun around and glared toward the sound of the voice. Thirty people’s eyes shot to look in another direction.
“Who said that?” I asked.
Silence.
“Which one of you chicken-shit motherfuckers said it?” I asked, spitting the words out as if they tasted like shit. “C’mon. Be a man. Who wants to see him pay the Beaner five grand?”
Nobody said a word.
With boiling blood, I turned toward the fellas. “You see who said that?”
They each shook their head.
“Fuck it,” I said. “Let’s go to Pete’s and get drunk.”
Filthy F*ckers: The Complete Series Box Set Page 42