by Manuel Munoz
“No, man. I’m not into that,” I said, confused. Kyle didn’t say anything and I didn’t want to turn around to face him, but he stayed in the bed and I kept staring out at the glint of the Las Vegas lights, wanting to drift back to the safety of sleep.
“It’s cool, Chris,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder, and he rose from the bed. I barely heard him get back into his own. How long he lay there awake, I don’t know. At least as long as me. The hours kept ticking by, and I was too bewildered by the turn my life had taken, by the way none of this made sense, how I hadn’t had the courage to ask Kyle what he had been thinking all along. But somehow I did get to sleep, and I never heard Kyle get up in the early morning, never heard him start the car that allowed him to get away. Just the knock at the door, then the rattle of the keys, my eyes opening to the harsh stream of desert light coming through the slit in the curtains, and Las Vegas nowhere to be seen on the horizon.
NOW IT WAS LATE and Treviño was drunk, no room to put down an empty can, his lawn chair surrounded by the discards, the half slices of squeezed lime. The grill still glowed a slight orange: Treviño had put on yet more meat, more tortillas. With his belly full, he had stopped speaking, almost abruptly, and then broke the backyard’s silence with a deep, rumbling snore.
“Get up,” I told him. “Levántese.” I shook Treviño’s arm. “Levántate,” I said, forgetting my manners. I could feel the give of his flesh, his head cocked back and mouth open as if his body were ready to give up his soul, right then and there, the devil waiting by the glare of the grill’s coals. I stared at Treviño for a moment, contemplating the struggle. I didn’t know the layout of the rest of the house: the bedroom, the bed itself, the light switch or lamp. Part of me wondered, for a moment, if the old man had to take pills before he went to sleep, and then came a wave of what I now know is the edge of maturity, of growing older. Here was worry, like my mother’s, over something as simple as drinking too much.
“Levántese,” I told Treviño, shaking him a little harder, and he finally opened his eyes. “Can you stand up?”
He made the motion and I lifted him, my hands around his torso and his hands on my shoulders for balance. My own legs swayed from the beer, but I steadied myself. Treviño said nothing, just gently shuffled his way to the back porch, and I stretched as much as I could, extending an arm to hold the door open into the dark house, my other arm steadying him. Treviño never reached for a light, and I didn’t know where to put my hands; suddenly the old man was guiding me, the light from the street coming in through the windows, a weak amber. I bumped into the hard edge of a table in his living room. The carpet, I could tell just by stepping, was thin and cheap, and it gathered in small bumps where it was beginning to lift. We walked down a narrow hallway, the mildewed air of the swamp cooler not able to reach all the way down there, our feet echoing now against a wood floor, and then the old man turned into his bedroom, the smell of talcum powder in the air. It was hot in the room, and I brushed my hand against the wall, searching for a light switch, but found nothing.
Treviño sat wearily on the bed, sighing heavily; then he extended himself without taking off his shoes, his feet still nearly on the floor. His snoring returned and I stood there in the dark, wondering if I should shake him awake again, ask him if he needed anything. Treviño sank further into sleep, deep in dream, his breathing intense. I leaned over and pushed his legs up onto the bed. I untied the old man’s shoes and slipped them off his feet, placing them out of reach of the bed’s edge so he wouldn’t trip over them if he got up to piss in the middle of the night.
Because I was in the dark and because the old man was drunk; because it was late and no one in the neighborhood would be wondering about Treviño’s dark house; because my curiosity got the better of me; and because I was drunk, too, having polished off some of the beer with Treviño, I reached into the pocket of his pants and slid the wallet out carefully, like in the movies, waiting for the old man to suddenly grab my hands and send the bedroom into a flood of accusing light. And just like in the movies, the wait was tremendous and agonizing, as if the wallet were really a long, unending ribbon. But I kept sliding it out as gently as I could, and finally it loosened into my hands, fat and still warm from being so close to Treviño.
By the weak amber light coming through the bedroom window, I tried to count the bills, but I could not see clearly. I felt them, though, bills and bills and bills, a whole sheaf of them stuffed into the fold of the wallet. They could have been ones and fives, for all I knew: I had no idea what Treviño had actually sold. Nor did I know if this was money from other sales, money he had been carrying around. I ran my fingers through it, the envy coming through my hands, the want, and the knowledge, too, of how impossible it was to put that desire behind me. It would never be enough and it wasn’t worth it, the old man waking up in the morning and seeing the wallet empty. If only, years back, Kyle had known the same thing before he drilled into himself the idea of stealing his way out of his life — how ludicrous it was to think it would work, how shameless. But the wanting — I kept my fingers on the bills, just a little bit, and then couldn’t help myself. I took out two bills and stuffed them in my pocket. At most it was forty dollars. I put the wallet down, turned to the darkness of the house to leave through the back door, but it still did not feel like enough. Treviño snored loudly and made no move. So I grabbed the wallet again and lifted two more bills.
I moved back through the hallway and the smell of his house, my hands in front of me, my feet heavy and afraid of cracking against something hard. I could feel the air from the swamp cooler, smell its moldy scent, and it reminded me of the desert outside Las Vegas and the unrelenting wind, the darkness surrounding us, threatening to swallow us up. Nothing back then except our car lights in a little patch ahead of us, and here I was again, in darkness but with no light ahead of me, the hallway impossibly long. But when I hit the living room and could see the light barely coming through the kitchen and the back porch, I moved faster, rushing to get out, and the moment I touched the screen door I started running back to Las Palmas. I tripped over one of the lawn chairs, falling down, scattering beer cans. Somewhere a dog started barking, and in a panic I ran faster, past the house, past the Cadillac, past the empty playground, the parking lot with no cars arriving or departing. I calmed down, climbed the stairs to my apartment as quietly as I could. I reached for my keys and let myself in, shutting the door and stopping right there. I couldn’t turn on the light, just stood there, breathing hard, panicked. I fished in my pockets for the money, and I could feel the bills in there, warm already from my thighs, but I couldn’t look at them.
I was drunk. I went to bed with my clothes on, the room tilting, something that hadn’t happened in years.
I HAD SLEPT THROUGH IT. Sometime in the middle of the night, Kyle had gathered his things and left without me. A floor creak, the rustle of a bag, keys, a door click, even the faint turn of the car’s engine outside. My mother had always peeked out from behind the curtains every chance she got. But me, nothing. I slept through everything.
Sometimes, in my first days at Avenal, I thought everything I had seen in the movies about prison was fated to bring me down: the territorial gangs, the drugs, the threats. I couldn’t sleep at night because I thought I’d be vulnerable to anything. But I wasn’t in prison. I was in a correctional facility, and the people there were just waiting out bad mistakes. Still, in those first days at Avenal, sometimes I dreamed I was sleeping in the motel outside of Las Vegas, my mattress caving a little from Kyle behind me, and in the dream I opened my eyes when I felt the hard, cold ring of the gun barrel at the side of my head, and I would open my eyes for real and I was in Avenal.
I have dreamed that dream more often than I have the one about the Mexican kid at the gas station. It has been surprisingly easy to not think about him, to forget about him. I don’t even see his face anymore when I remember. I see mine. I see Kyle in the gas station, and I see my hands raised to w
ard him off. I see myself falling. I’m in the car, too, waiting to drive Kyle away, but the other me is in that gas station, hands raised, falling and falling.
THE LOUD PANIC OUTSIDE of my own apartment, the neighbors scurrying, doors opening all over Las Palmas, the blare of a fire truck. I opened my eyes and saw, from my window, an orange glow, and I jumped from the bed. Flames shot as high as my second-floor window over at Treviño’s house, and the neighbors on the other side of him sprayed futilely with a garden hose. A group of men in nothing but underwear were pushing Treviño’s Cadillac into the safety of the open street. Neighbors stood out of the way of the firemen, who were now hosing furiously, but it was an old house and it burned ferociously. A weak spray of water splashed on my window, and I realized it was coming from the side of Las Palmas. Someone was down there, trying to protect our roof from the stray embers. The fire illuminated the street, and I could see people either waving their arms to give directions or folding them across themselves, watching in disbelief.
I didn’t move to go and join them. I didn’t go down to find out from rumor if Treviño had been rescued. More sirens blared; another fire truck came, and there was a flash of light from someone taking pictures. The smell of the smoke seeped faintly into my room, even though the window was closed. I stood watching, suddenly sober, and I had the strange feeling of watching a sunrise, a sunset, the inevitable taking its time. The knock would come on the door, I thought for a moment, the cops again. But I knew it wouldn’t happen. After everything that had happened to me, I was beginning to believe I was lucky. I hadn’t paid as much as I should have for my mistakes, but I had paid enough.
I stood at my window, as the neighbors did, watching the fire go out. The house crumbled at the front end, the roof collapsing in showers of embers and sparks. Even from my bedroom, I thought I could hear the neighbors murmur in that finality, that sadness. Tomorrow there would be a lot of sorrow in the neighborhood, a lot of people with faces sagging from a lack of sleep, and mine would be one of them. But I would not go down and find out for myself what had happened. Someone would call Treviño’s daughters. The thick smoke, visible even in the night sky, rose and rose.
Eventually the firemen extinguished the flames, and the neighbors lingered while they continued to water down the ruins. Tomorrow they would come to see the remains for themselves. Tomorrow they would wake to see the cords of yellow tape fencing off the gap of land. The Cadillac would be driven away by one of the daughters. The mourning would begin, and the neighborhood kids would be sternly warned not to poke around in the destruction.
Sleep did not come. I stood at the window until I had to piss away more beer, but I walked right back and watched, even after the firemen left and the neighbors returned home, the ashes dark and quiet. I stood watching for hours, dipping my hands into my pockets and feeling the bills, but not wanting to look at them. The morning light came early, since it was summer, and I witnessed the sky turn pink and light purple over what used to be Treviño’s house. I kept feeling the bills, and when the morning light arrived in all its clarity, I lay down on my bed and forced myself to sleep.
THE COMEUPPANCE OF LUPE RIVERA
I KNOW IT’S HARD to believe, in this day and age, but her name really was Guadalupe. Hard to believe because she was a woman in her late twenties, born right here in the heart of California, with parents who spoke good English. What kind of name is Guadalupe when, these days, it’s Terry and Nicole and Kristen? I know some of those girls from the neighborhood who married farmers' sons and dropped their last names. So now they’re Terry Westmoreland and Nicole Sargavakian and Kristen Young, but still brown as me and Guadalupe Rivera, my neighbor across the street, who doesn’t live there anymore. Lupe Rivera. I know some wouldn’t care to hear about a woman with a name like that, and I would have to set you up somehow different if this were about Terry Westmoreland. Somewhere along the line I would have to tell you that Terry was Mexican. But with a name like Lupe, you already know. And, for the record, it’s Lu-peh, not Loopy, not a butterfly swirling around in the front yard. I’ve heard Lupe correct people all the time, very tartly. “It’s Lu-peh. You speak Spanish,” she’d say to the girl at the ballpark concession stand. “Lu-peh,” she’d say one more time, collecting her change, and then, as she left, she’d mutter under her breath, “Bitch.”
With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder that not many people in town felt bad about what happened to Lupe. There was a lot to be jealous of, if you wanted to be. When you’re smart like Lupe, you can have a job like union arbiter for the city employees, with your own office and a car to drive around in, even if it is a government one, a beige Dodge Aries. I asked my cousin Cecilia what that job required, and Cecilia told me only that Lupe was perfect for it. “You have to have a big mouth but be a good listener, too,” she said. “And a lot of the time you have to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”
Because of that job, Lupe had a little house on the corner of Gold Street, which was all her own because her parents had moved back to Texas. It says a lot about Lupe that she made the side door to the house the front entrance, building a walkway out of brick all the way to the curb, turning on that particular porch light during the dark hours. She liked to say that she lived on Sierra Way and not Gold Street. Not that it matters. Sierra Way is bigger and it has sidewalks and drainage, but it’s just as ugly.
You never saw her out on the lawn working to keep it green, but there was always her latest man tending to it, always someone different. When Tío Nico let me stay here a few months ago, it wasn’t long before I saw Lupe’s latest actually putting up a new fence all by himself. This was early in the morning, about seven, when I was getting in my car to go to work at my retail job in Fresno, and there he was getting out of his pickup truck. You start to know things when you live across the street from Lupe. Even though his truck was rusty and the tires rimmed with dirt, I knew who had paid for all that wood sitting in the truckbed. He didn’t look like just a contractor; he looked like a Lupe type, stepping out of his truck in a plaid shirt, tight Wrangler jeans, boots. I waved over to him as I drove off, just to show I was friendly to Lupe, and I wondered where Lupe ran into such men in the Valley, like they had stepped right out of the advertisements for tejano music, come to life just for her.
That evening, when I drove down Gold Street, I saw the pickup truck still there and heard the hammering even over the music on the radio. Out on the lawn, Lupe’s latest had already put up the posts and leveled and nailed in more than half the fence. He tipped his chin to me as I parked, and I pretended to check out his work, flashing him an okay as I made my way inside Tío’s house, but he had lost the plaid shirt and was wearing his cowboy hat. Just then, I saw Nicole Sargavakian turn the corner slowly off Sierra Way. So word was getting around about Lupe’s latest: handsome and willing to work out in the sun just for her, hairy chest just like Andy Garcia, but better because he was right there on Gold Street for all to see.
I am ten years younger than Lupe and I have to admit that I knew her better when I was a little kid, when I was eight and Lupe was just out of high school and taking classes over at the community college in Reedley. Me and my cousin Cecilia used to tag along over to the Tortilla Flats ballpark by the elementary school, walking with Lupe across the railroad tracks like we were her younger siblings. She would buy both of us sunflower seeds or a cherry soda or a snow cone while she kept the stats for the men’s softball game, one pencil behind her ear just in case the other one broke its lead.
Lupe Rivera was always prepared. I don’t know where she got the money, but we never had to dig into our own pockets when we were with her. She took us straight to the concession stand without asking what we wanted, and then suddenly we had a treat in our hands, balancing it carefully as we made our way up the wooden planks of the spectator stands. On the field, the guys idled around in their uniforms, some of them tipping their chins and waving to Lupe. I don’t know about my cousin Cecilia, but I never kn
ew what I wanted to watch more — the guys who waved over to Lupe or Lupe’s fingers on the pencil once the game started, her hand making Xs and check marks and tabulations that said everything about how fortunate she was, how lucky she was to be so beautiful as well as intelligent. I would watch her make the Xs one after another, and sometimes I would forget about the guys who would wave to her, their tight arms gripping the bat, like they were hitting just for her. I would look at the Xs and get a little dreamy, thinking about how smart and beautiful she was, how I could be like her someday if I kept studying. Not like my Tío Nico. Not like him, how he had been sitting one day in the kitchen, making little marks on a piece of paper. When I asked him what he was writing, he sat me on his lap and told me he was remembering. He asked me to spell out the names he was attempting for himself, his friends long dead who had been reduced to the one or two letters he knew by heart. When we were done, he took my paper like a souvenir and folded it away for himself.
I can admit that I was a sad kid, that I was delicado, as Tía Sara would say when she still lived with Tío Nico. I used to think that meant delicate, but later I realized it meant fragile, dainty, weak, and overly sensitive. How it must have confused Lupe at the ballpark, me staring at the Xs she marked on the paper, my thoughts wandering to the memory of sitting with Tío Nico, and then the tears would start for no reason that Lupe could figure out. I wonder now how she would define delicado, how she would give the word her own nuance. She stopped babying me not long after, one evening when the guys on the field waved as usual and I didn’t tip my chin at them like I was supposed to. I waved right back, and Lupe looked me straight in the eye and said, “Stop acting like a girl.” Her stare narrowed into me like light through a keyhole. After that, she wouldn’t let me hold her hand. It made me even sadder as a kid, after she looked at me like that, because she never spoke to me again after she told me who I was.