by Jadie Jang
“But,” Amoxtli said. “It was because things were going well for them that trouble found them.” Ome and Pilar emigrated in the early 80s, in the middle of a period when the Mission Mob were stepping up their activities. Ome’s leadership in the community painted a target on him. People would come to him for help and he’d go and speak to the shot callers for them, and his prestige in the community was resented. After a few years, some guy on his block got into debt with the Mission Mob and the shot caller, a vindictive man who didn’t last long, made Ome responsible for this man’s debt. When he refused to pay, the shot caller had Mob members invade their house and steal some stuff. So Ome went down to the shot caller’s house and demanded his stuff back. A fight broke out, and then Ome was shot. He died a few days later.
(My eyes were popping off flares throughout this story. Hmm. Clearly there was something nagual-y and secret about the manner of Ome’s death. I also couldn’t help but wonder about a man supposedly so wise and capable, hauling off and confronting a gang leader in front of his people. That practically guarantees you’ll be killed, or that you’ll have to kill somebody.)
That vindictive shot caller tried to make Pilar responsible for the debt. But Pilar, who was not to be messed with, told the head of the nascent 23rd St. exactly who had stolen a drug shipment a few weeks before. It hadn’t, in point of fact, been the vicious Mission Mob shot caller, but he found it hard to prove a negative, especially when the whole neighborhood supported Pilar’s story. A brief gang war later, he was dead and the Mob’s new head had learned: a) not to be so mean that his neighbors rose up against him and b) to leave the Varelas alone. (This conclusion left my eyes flaring as well, a fact I couldn’t account for. It wasn’t the part about Pilar looking like Wonder Woman. He’d told the truth on that one, by his lights.)
Pilar suddenly found herself the sole breadwinner for four children under ten. She was scraping and scrapping and barely making ends meet for years, but the kids always got fed, and she never let Tez get a job during the school year. No, it was college for him, and every penny he made during the summers (and he started babysitting at eleven, house painting around the neighborhood at fifteen) went into a savings account. They were so thrifty he only ever had to work part time when he was in college (although he couch surfed most of his college career, to avoid rent and transportation costs.)
“That’s amazing!” I said. “There’s no way a family of five could get by in the Mission on one income these days.”
“Tez is making more in his one IT job than both of his parents together ever made, with all of their jobs. But it’s only because they have rent control that the boys can go to school, and they still have to work,” Jaime said.
We all paused to marvel at what had become of San Francisco.
Anyway, Amoxtli was certain that it was the stress of four jobs, and scraping and keeping four kids in line that got Pilar sick. She fell ill the fall Tez started college and he insisted on quitting and getting a job.
“That was the one time I saw Pilar strike him. She chased him around the house and out onto the sidewalk with a broomstick yelling, ‘You Go To The College!’”
She plugged on for another three years, but by Tez’s last year of school she was failing visibly and could only work intermittently. Tez was about to quit school again, so Amoxtli—unmarried, childless, apparently perennially itinerant—moved in with them to help out through the end of the school year. Tez had had plans to intern at Google that summer, but he had to give that up. The first few years he had to work two and three jobs to clear her medical and funeral costs, and was still paying down the last of that debt.
Which brought us up to date. We all sat silent, everyone no doubt as dazed as I was by all the information and stories. I felt like I’d been dipped in a bath of the Varela family, and was now in the inner circle. It was great background for the conversation I needed to have now, with Amoxtli, regarding a certain magic stick.
It was a strange moment for Tez to walk into.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Friday, October 21, 2011
Tez’s House, San Francisco
One moment he wasn’t there, and the next, he was standing on the sidewalk directly in front of the house staring at us in open surprise. He was, at least, wearing different clothes than he had on last Tuesday, but his hair was as unkempt as hair that short could get, and his usual facial scruff was turning into a full-fledged beard. He was also clutching the strap of a worn backpack over one shoulder. I had no doubt what was in it.
For a moment, I felt almost as if Tez had turned transparent as a baked onion and I could see through layers and layers of him. I realized that, at this place in time, I was the only person in the world who knew exactly what was going on with him. Even his siblings must’ve been left out of the loop. I could see it in his protective caregiver layer: he wouldn’t want them involved in any vengeance he had planned. If Tez was the center of this whirlwind, I was his anchor. It was precisely because he didn’t know me, and stakes were so low between us, that he could allow me to play this role.
Monkey screeched “run!” at me, and I almost bolted. Baby was right: a healthy, normal person would not get involved in something like this. But I felt the pull: of Tez, of this position, of the story … I didn’t know what.
Tez grinned wide. “Heeeey, look!”
His grin was too goofy. Amoxtli exchanged concerned looks with Jaime and Mike, and even with me. Shit. Tez had had three days to get used to the effects of the stick. If he was still this giddy—
“Just what I need to come home to! A pretty lady and some old farts!” He laughed loudly. I looked at the Padrinos again, wondering what they thought. Probably that he was on drugs. Not that this was much different.
“Heeey! Why so glum everybody? It’s a beautiful evening!”
Amoxtli looked at me meaningfully. Too bad I didn’t know him well enough to know what his looks meant. I assumed he meant: do something.
I grabbed Tez by the arm, unable to suppress a little fizz of excitement at the touch. “Can I talk to you? Inside?” I pulled and started hustling him up the stairs as the older men scooted out of the way.
“Hey, hey, no rush! There’s plenty of me to go around!” Tez laughed again. He was getting loopier by the second. God only knew what he’d been doing out there all day.
This was not going to be fun.
The Varelas’ apartment was on the top floor, and Tez grinned and flirted at me all the way up the stairs. He led me down a long, dark hallway into a bright, bay-windowed living room full of worn eighties furniture, homey tchotchkes, and a younger, skinnier version of Tez, with a dollop of Chucha thrown in. This Varela version—wearing a chocolate brown jumpsuit my inner Rachel Zoe was already taking notes on—looked up with alarm from a battered gaming console, took me in, took Tez’s goofy grin on board, and dropped the game controller like it was on fire. Ze shot down the hall and out of sight. I heard a door shut. Tez showed no indication of having noticed his sibling at all. These were all not good signs.
I sat down and Tez leaned against the entertainment center, ignoring the tattered remains of his sibling’s first-person-shooter game behind him, and the imminent death of an Allied soldier. The breakfront was the only new furniture in the place. He let the backpack slide off his shoulder onto a shelf. Good. Close by, but at least not touching him.
“Tez,” I said, interrupting what was meant to be a sly comment about a fly coming into a spider’s sitting room, “Where have you been the past few days?”
“Why? Did you miss me?” Geez, if I’d met Tez when he was acting like this, I would’ve heartbrokenly written him off as a sleazebag.
“I’ve been very worried. You were a little … murderous … last time I saw you. And I’ve had your car for four days.”
“Oh yeah, thanks for bringing that back! I’m gonna need to go back to work next week.” And yes, I did notice that he picked the most innocuous part of my statement to respond to.
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“Oh, did they give you the rest of the week off?”
“Yeah. I’ve got ’till the …” and his lighthearted mood seemed to catch up with him “… funeral.” He looked blankly at the floor for a moment, then up at me. “It’s tomorrow at four at Sullivan’s, if you want to go.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’d like to.”
“It’ll be an open casket,” he said, neutrally, but with all the signs of social awareness. “Just FYI. In case that sort of thing bothers you.”
“No, I prefer that. My mom had an open casket. It’s better if you see.”
He nodded. I decided to strike fast.
“Did they do an autopsy?” I asked, just as blank as he.
He frowned. I couldn’t tell if he was confused, or annoyed. “Uh … yeah, yeah they did.”
“And?”
“And they couldn’t find anything. They called it ‘heart failure,’ but they might as well have called it ‘brain failure’ or ‘lung failure’ or even ‘skin failure,’ ‘cause all those things fail when you just die.” He stopped being blank on the last word.
“Did Ayo see … her?”
“Yeah.” He shuddered. “Yeah, she did. She said all of Chucha’s essence was completely gone. It was definitely that shadow thing. … That fucking shadow thing …”
“So it wasn’t the 70s.”
His eyes narrowed. “What is your deal with the 70s, Maya? Why are you so anxious to let them off the hook?”
“I’m anxious that you don’t get into a war with a gang ferfuckssake, Tez!”
“Even if they didn’t kill her themselves, they sicced that fucking thing on her!”
“I’m not so sure they did, Tez.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tez, that thing has killed five shapeshifters so far—possibly six. Each one was a different kind: A werewolf, a harimau jadian, a bajang, a vanara, … a nagual dog. And maybe an aswang. The werewolf, the bajang, and the— and Chucha, were all working for the San Antonios, but the weretiger, the vanara, and the aswang were not. Tez, I don’t think this thing is working for the 70s, and I don’t think it’s got stealing on its mind.”
“That doesn’t mean that the 70s didn’t turn it on to the shapeshifters working for the San Antonios.”
“No, it doesn’t mean that, but that wouldn’t really make that much sense, either.” You could almost hear the clicking in my mind as I gave voice to suspicions that had been brimming since last night. “How would the 70s find out about, or get in touch with a shadow creature like that? Only through the meat market: and Ayo and I would have heard if a creature like that came through. We’ve been asking around for over a week now and there hasn’t been a peep. No. It makes a lot more sense to imagine that it was the stick—”
“What about It?” He was, suddenly, aggressive again.
“It enhances your power. Doesn’t it?”
He looked at the floor, jaw set.
“It clearly does. It made Chucha giddy and giggly, and it does the same to you, except when it makes you super aggro. And I don’t know about your strength without the stick, but I’m imagining it isn’t much more than proportional to your animal’s strength.” He shrugged. “Tez, you barely touched that werewolf with the stick and he went flying. The stick enhances your power!” He didn’t respond. “Well, is it that hard to imagine that if it enhances your power, it’ll enhance your supernatural energy … uh, signature? I mean, that the stick makes you easier to spot? If the shadow is running around eating shapeshifter essences, won’t it go to where the shapeshifter energy is the loudest?”
“But it didn’t attack that werewolf the 70s had.”
“Well, god, it barely had a chance before you came along and laid him out.”
“Well … maybe.”
“Not maybe! Tez, it could be coming after you next!”
He scoffed.
“I’m serious, Tez! You’re in a lot of danger, and not just from that shadow thing! The 70s saw you take the stick and they’ll be after you. And I’m sure the San Antonios have heard all about it by now, and they’ll be pretty pissed, too. You need to get rid of that thing! Give it back to the San Antonios. Let them deal with the 70s!”
“No!” He reached behind him and grabbed the backpack.
“Tez! Please! Just put the stick down! I promise I won’t try to take it from you. But you get really irrational when you’re holding—“
“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” He stood, towering over me on the couch, holding the stick through the backpack bunched around it, nearly brandishing it at me. I stood up slowly, I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t have him standing over me like that. He raised the stick.
“What, are you going to hit me?” I asked sarcastically. But underneath I was really disturbed.
That seemed to shake him.
“It’s time for you to leave,” and he grasped my arm, almost exactly the way I had grasped his, and hustled me to the door.
“Tez, you have to listen to me!” I cried, as he dragged me down the stairs. His hand seemed glued to my arm; as if he couldn’t let go until I was properly out.
“No, I don’t,” he said, more to himself than me.
The Padrinos were still on the stairs and jumped up in surprise as we came out. Tez push-pulled me down the front stairs and all the way out to the sidewalk, where he finally released me.
“Go on now,” he said, with a little push. “Go.”
I just stood there, shocked, my confusion echoed in the older men’s faces. Behind me Monkey noted the muscular sound of a souped-up car engine approaching, but I was too involved with looking through the layers on Tez’s face, trying to find some welcome, or friendship, or even rationality, to even notice.
And that’s when they opened fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Friday, October 21, 2011
Tez’s House, San Francisco
Time didn’t slow down, like it does in the movies. Everything happened too fast for my awareness to catch up with my instincts, but Tez and I reacted the same way. Almost before we heard the first gunshots, we had grabbed ahold of each other and yanked/fallen to the ground. After a moment of shock, I looked to see who had shot us, but Tez’s forearm was blocking my face. I was partway underneath him, he was partly behind me (I have no idea how we managed to land that way), and my second thought was that my upper arm and shoulder, which is what I landed on, were going to hurt a lot in a moment.
Don’t let them get away, Monkey said.
I performed a quick comedy of errors disentangling myself from Tez (who’d ever imagine I would want to do that?), getting up, and immediately tripping over the strap of his backpack, but it only slowed me down a few seconds. I left Tez still getting his bearings and hauled ass down the block in the direction of the car—a breathtaking iridescent green ’67 Mustang—which had screeched off like a getaway car should, but then inexplicably stopped in the middle of the next block.
As I neared the car I saw the problem: a sweet lowrider—50s Detroit steel and curves; turquoise, the size of a house—was stopped coming the opposite direction, thus blocking the left hand lane, and both cars were waiting for an unexpectedly enormous Porsche Cayenne SUV to back out of its tiny driveway. The mustang was laying on the horn and the SUV driver was taking the time to lean out his window to yell back. One of the guys in the back seat turned to see if anyone was giving chase, saw me, saw me seeing him, and saluted with his gun. Then he turned around, no doubt certain that that would be enough to stop any thoughtless Asian-girl heroics I’d been contemplating.
Yeah, I was gonna get him first.
But how? Baby’s voice intruded on me: count to ten when you’re angry and then think about what you really want. I wanted to beat them all to shit. I wanted to hurt them for coming into my neighborhood and causing violence on such a beautiful evening. I wanted to kill something I … I wanted … Tez. I wanted them to leave Tez alone. That’s what I really wanted. I wanted Tez to come out of this
nightmare whole and sane and not in jail. Monkey screeched in disapproval. Monkey wanted blood and guts. Too bad.
I needed a hammer … a mallet … a sledgehammer. I plucked out a hair and made it so, just in time to wrench the passenger door open, yank out the passenger and send him flying into a parked car, the thunk of his body against metal satisfying Monkey somewhat. I then dragged my backseat thug into the street behind the car—all with my left hand. I let go the backseater and he struggled to find his feet, apparently forgetting the Ruger he was holding. Still in human form I swung my weight onto the knuckles of the fist holding the sledgehammer and, using my body as an axle, grabbed the backseater’s upper torso between my legs and flipped him to the ground. The gun skittered out of his hand and a few feet down the street.
I stood back up facing the passenger, who was sitting on the hood of the parked car, scrabbling at his lower back for, presumably, another gun. I grinned, took two steps, grabbed him by the ankle with my free hand, and swung him like a dead cat into an air spin over the tail of the beeyootiful ‘stang. He throwing-starred a half turn before landing on the backseater.
As they lay stunned I kicked the passenger, who was on top, over onto his stomach and snagged his weapon, another Ruger; maybe the 70s had gotten a special deal. I retrieved the backseater’s dropped gun, and headed for the driver’s side door.
All of this had taken about ten seconds, just enough time for the driver to get all tangled up in conflicting intentions: putting the car into park, or releasing his seat belt, or getting out of the car, or pulling his gun. He was still strapped in when I yanked his door open. I was holding the two guns in one hand, and the sledgehammer under one arm, which made it impossible for me to fire, but he was too shocked to think this through. He raised his hands in surrender and I got him to unbuckle and get out. I checked him for weapons with the head of my sledgehammer, but all it encountered was flesh and clothes. He must’ve given his gun to one of his companions and forgotten that he’d done it.
