by Gary Soto
The action in the pool brought back memories for Gabe. He would have joined the game, except he didn't have any swim trunks. Instead, he played checkers with a little girl genius because no one could beat her—not even adults. With a lollipop in the corner of her mouth, she beat Gabe not once but three times, and made him laugh when she repeated for the last time, “I win again.”
Gabe suddenly felt out of place. Not until late in the afternoon would kids his own age show up at Romain Playground, and then they would sit on top of the picnic tables and talk stuff. His presence among the little kids made him feel as if he was babysitting. In fact, the rec leader, Jamal Reynolds, asked him to hand out four-square balls, jacks, jump ropes, chess and checkers boards, and pitifully dented Ping-pong balls, plus give Band-Aids to any of the little kids who tripped while running or scraped their knees after parachuting from the swings. There was always a daredevil getting hurt.
“I got to see about the diamond,” Jamal said, fitting a baseball cap at an angle on his head. “Back in a sec.”
The rec room was in a small cinder-block building. Metal mesh on the two windows protected the room against break-ins. Gabe stood guard for nearly an hour, then gave up his position when Jamal returned from clamping down the baseball bases, rechalking the lines, picking up litter, and hosing down the field.
“How's things, homeboy?” Jamal asked. He plunged his hand into an ice chest and pulled out two sodas. He handed one to Gabe—an Orange Crush.
Gabe drank long and hard. He let out a burp into his arm. He debated whether to burden Jamal with the cargo of hurt in his heart. Jamal already listened to the worries of some thirty kids that showed up daily, and maybe he had his own personal problems. So Gabe just said, “OK, I guess.” He crushed his empty soda can and tossed it into the recycling bin in the corner.
Jamal was a starting running back for City College. He had gone to Roosevelt High, where he had set records for rushing touchdowns and was elected vice president of his class.
“Don't sound OK to me,” Jamal said.
At that, Gabe asked, “You got a father?”
The smile on Jamal's face flattened. “Somewhere in this world. My mom and me, we don't talk about the man.” He grabbed a pump, which resembled a small rifle. When he began to pump up a four-square ball, the muscles on his forearms rippled. “Why you ask?”
“I saw mine today,” Gabe disclosed. “I saw him yesterday, too.”
Jamal punched the ball and sent it rolling to the corner of the rec room, where it settled among three worn basketballs. “Let me guess,” Jamal said. “He wasn't around before that, huh?”
Gabe nodded.
“Man, they never around—that's the way it is.” Jamal bent down for another ball to inflate. “Half these kids out there ain't got daddies. You don't, I don't, the little checkers genius girl, she don't.” He bounced the ball, bounced it so hard that it nearly touched the ceiling. “When he split?” Jamal asked.
“When I was nine.” He replayed the scene of his dad backing out of the driveway, none too slowly. He could still see the right back tire running over the flowerbed on the side of the driveway, smashing a row of pretty-faced petunias.
“That's 'bout right,” Jamal said. “That's when they leave. Mine left, came back, but Mama changed the locks and brought in bulldogs to keep him away.”
Gabe wasn't certain if Jamal meant Bulldog gang members, or real dogs with appetites for legs and arms. But either type would keep a deadbeat father from ringing the doorbell.
He set out from the playground with another soda, a gift from Jamal. The holder of high school football records also held the key that opened the soda machine. Gabe drank the root beer, the foam tickling his nose. It was sweet, icy cold, and just what he needed.
Gabe paused to watch two boys—ten-year-olds, he guessed—shaking down a little kid for money. Gabe almost yelled, “Hey, leave him alone, you fools,” but he wisely held his tongue. The little kid, starched with fear as he stood against the fence, was learning a playground lesson: don't carry money in your pocket. Plus, Gabe figured they weren't hurting him, and the kid could always get another quarter, dime, or whatever was in his pocket. But where else would he learn something about life?
Gabe bought a cheeseburger at McDonald's and briefly had the insane idea to cross the street to kick around Dickey's Playground. But that wasn't his playground—he belonged to Romain and Holmes Playgrounds of southeast Fresno. Gabe knew where he could and could not go. No telling if a wannabe gangster might snarl, “What you doing here, fool?”
Gabe drifted to the Fulton Mall, where he killed time at the edge of a dry fountain brimming with litter. Since it was an outdoor mall, there were few shoppers. Allergic to heat, they wisely took their business to the air-conditioned comfort of malls in north Fresno. Why sweat until you had to pay the bills?
“Hey,” a voice called, in a near whisper.
Cautiously, Gabe got to his feet. How many times had the word hey gotten him in trouble? There had been the hey when an Asian brother tried to sell him a stolen iPod and the hey when a man needed him to hold a ladder while he climbed up to the roof of a building. How could he have known that the man was a thief out to extract tubing made of copper, a valuable metal?
Still, Gabe responded when he sized up the vato loco—a veterano of the street, a guy about forty years old—swaggering toward him in baggy pants. A large L on a gold chain sparkled on his chest. His neck looked tortured by a tattoo of Jesus on the cross.
“Hey,” Gabe offered in return. He hitched up his pants. There was no telling if he would have to use his running skills. Something didn't seem right. The vato was cradling a puppy with floppy ears in his arms. Gabe did his best to appear calm, though inside his thirteen-year-old soul, he was trembling. What did this guy want?
“You wanna buy a dog?” the vato asked with a smile. His wrist was tattooed with the name Gloria. Gabe supposed that Gloria was his girlfriend, or possibly his ex-girlfriend, or maybe his wife or … someone else's wife! The dude was wearing cologne, but Gabe realized that beneath the scent, he stank of bad deeds.
“I ain't got no money.” Gabe dug into his pockets and pulled out the linings, letting them hang like flags on the front of his pants.
“You ain't got money?” the vato howled. “But bet you got a cell phone, huh?” His eyes were flecked with anger because Gabe was penniless. “If that's the case, let me use it.” He snapped his fingers to hurry Gabe.
Gabe accepted his fate and reached into his back pocket. He brought the cell phone out and flipped it open.
“Hold him.” The vato handed the pup to Gabe, who took it into his arms and considered rocking it like a baby. The pup's eyes were closed, and sleepy dust clogged the corners of his eyes. Gabe almost let out a doggy whimper. He loved dogs, and dogs loved him. When the dog's eyes opened, his tail began to wag.
The vato called someone named Jesus, and then made a second call to someone named Marcos. The vato scolded Marcos, saying, “If you don't have the money, then you gonna have to wait. I'm in business, dude, I'm a businessman these days! You feel me?” The veins on his throat bulged with each hard word and made the tattoo of Jesus jump.
The vato was preparing to hand back the cell phone when his small eyes brightened with an idea. “Hey, little dude, let's trade.” He pointed the cell phone at the puppy. “You get the dog for your cell.”
Scam artist, Gabe told himself. He debated whether to rip his cell phone from his adversary's hand. After all, he had strong and quick legs. It appeared that he might have to exercise his lower extremities and get that reservoir of liquids pumping to the surface in the form of sweat. But Gabe decided to use his brains.
“You got a nice dog.” Gabe praised the puppy's looks and stroked its head. The stroke pulled open the dog's eyes, and a purplish tongue rolled out of his mouth.
“He's a champ. His daddy was a killer.” The vato flipped open the cell phone when it began to ring. “Yeah,” he greeted roug
hly. His eyes moved in their sockets until his mind pieced together the meaning of the call. He shoved the cell phone at Gabe. “It's some lady.”
Gabe was grateful to take hold of his possession, and was glad his mother was on the other end. He remained cool. He listened to her complain about her boss with bad breath. He nearly stood at attention when she told him to take out a round steak from the freezer. The voice she used meant that he had better not forget!
“Good as done, Mom.” He flipped his cell closed and could see that his time with the vato was coming to an end: the man's eyes were large with what Gabe recognized as fear.
Gabe turned around and understood the vato's sudden decision to depart, and to do so quickly: a squad of homeys was hustling toward them.
“Take my dog,” the vato ordered. “I ain't selling him, either. I was just playing with you.” He pointed a stabbing finger at Gabe. “I'll be back for him. Don't forget.” The vato skipped backwards as if he were dancing, spun around and took off, leaving Gabe with the pup in his arms.
He'd left Gabe in a predicament. Within seconds, the squad of homeys in long white T-shirts had surrounded him.
“You with that fool?” one asked, with a blasting voice. His pants were low on his hips, and his T-shirt so white it hurt Gabe's eyes. If homeys ever made it to heaven by the grace of a merciful God, Gabe figured that their attire would still be white T-shirts, baggies, and bling-bling jewelry swinging on their chests.
“Nah, the dude just gave me this dog,” Gabe explained. He hugged the pup to his chest.
“I know you,” one of the homeys said sourly. He searched Gabe's face, as if deciding which feature to punch first—nose, teeth, cheek, or hairless jaw.
Gabe recognized him, too. He was Tony Torres, big brother of Frankie Torres.
“Yeah, you know me. I'm Gabe,” he volunteered. The sweat was building up in his hair, ready to cascade down his forehead, he was so scared. “I hang at Romain.”
Another of the homeys, who had the word Fresno tattooed on his forehead, returned to the question of the vato loco. “You know Lupe?”
“Who's Lupe?” Gabe asked, as the significance of the L on the imitation gold chain became clear. Gabe had assumed it meant Loser.
“That fool you talkin' to!” the homey barked.
“Nah,” Gabe answered. “I told you. He just gave me this dog.” He petted the pup and considered offering the canine as a sign of friendship.
But he didn't have to. Tony grabbed the pup, raised him like a trophy, inspected the working parts between its legs, and pronounced, “It's a dude. I was looking for one.”
They left with the pup, who was wagging his tail. There was joy in him, no matter whose arms he was in.
Shaken, Gabe sat on the edge of the fountain, now nothing more than a wastebasket for shoppers who walked by sipping sodas and crunching churros. When he was real little, he had tossed coins into the fountain and made a wish. If he'd had any change, even a penny, he would toss it in and wish a quick escape for the pup. Tony was cruel.
The Rescue Mission was located in a part of Fresno once lined with factories where workers boxed fruit, mainly raisins. Now the area was swarming with transients drinking tall beers. Gabe stood a short distance away from the ruckus of two men shouting and pushing each other. Were these two men, with hair stringy as dirty mops, arguing over the large woman hovering over a shopping cart?
“Hey, little dude,” he heard a voice sing.
Gabe spun around and found a shirtless black brother with a sombrero on his head approaching. With each long step, his stomach rippled with muscles. Gabe wondered if the man was starving, or if he still retained his muscle tone from his high school years. He had the body of a hurdler.
“You Mexican, ain't you,” the brother asked.
“Yeah,” Gabe answered.
The man smiled, revealing a space where his front teeth once stood. He ran a hand over the brim of his sombrero. “I bet you like this sporty attire.”
Gabe could tell it was a decorative sombrero pulled off the wall of a Mexican restaurant.
“It's all right.” Gabe pushed his hands into his pockets. A scam was in progress.
“What you mean—‘all right’?” The brother removed the sombrero from his head, displaying a mini-Afro, and claimed loudly, “This here is like an antique. It's like a piece of cultural history.”
Gabe suspected the tag inside the sombrero read, “Hecho in China.”
“I got it off this fellow who said it belonged to his grandfather, who fought in one of your wars down where they speak Mexican.” The brother spun the sombrero on a frighteningly long yellowish fingernail. “I ain't asking much, my young blood, just enough to put a taco and chips in my stomach.” The brother touched his stomach with the hand that wasn't spinning the sombrero.
“I ain't got any money,” Gabe stated.
“You got no money!” the brother roared, the dents on his stomach deepening. He stopped the spinning of the sombrero. “What kind of child are you?”
“A poor one,” Gabe answered.
The brother fumed. “How come I only know poor folk?” He hustled away, with the sombrero back on his head.
With this peddler out of the scene, Gabe scanned the men—and women—ghosting in front of the Rescue Mission. There were dozens of them, some of them shirtless. Most were pushing shopping carts or hauling plastic bags of aluminum cans and plastic bottles over their shoulders. There was no rest for the weary, even on a hot day.
No mistake about it. These were hard times.
There had been times when Gabe had found money in the street—dimes and nickels, and an occasional quarter embedded in asphalt, which he had to dig out with a Popsicle stick. He had found five dollars once and splurged on a Whopper, eating alone, greedily, as his eyes occasionally rose to peer out of the window. He was worried that a big man with a big belly might push open the Burger King door and roar, “Hey, anybody seen five dollars in the street?” and then snatch the burger right out of his hands!
That was two years ago, and it had been the highlight of his found-money experience.
Now, as he was walking down the street, trying to distance himself from the brother with the sombrero, Gabe had a nice bit of luck. On the sidewalk lay a dollar bill. Without a thought, he snatched up the dollar and looked around nervously. There was no one else around to claim that crisp, sun-dried greenback. He stuffed it into his pocket. He embarked on a two-mile trek back to his neighborhood, down one residential street after another. He noticed some houses were tidy and others so littered with junk on the lawn that they looked like crummy yard sales.
It was midday. Swamp coolers in windows and on rooftops were churning as fast as they could. Kids lurked in trees or sat inside their houses, watching television. After a mile, with sweat pouring out of him, he stopped at a house where the sprinklers were going. One was broken, so that it was more like a bubbler. He got down and drank from it. It felt good to quench his thirst.
“I'm like a dog.” He giggled as he got to his feet, his knees dimpled dark from the wet grass. He stood in the middle of the lawn with his arms outspread and let the sprinklers spray his body. Soaking wet, he hurried away when a woman came out onto the porch and propped her hands on her heavy hips. She looked none too happy to find a dripping boy standing on her lawn.
But Gabe felt like something sweeter than water from a broken sprinkler head. Most sodas at 7-Eleven cost a dollar and some change, but Gabe often went to a liquor store where sixteen-ounce sodas cost only eighty-nine cents. Even with tax, he could exit the store with a cold soda and pennies in his pocket.
As he approached the liquor store, his shirt and pants now dry, he was surprised by a horde of people milling in front. He hurried when he saw two television crews. A robbery? Blood spilled from a parking lot fight? Or maybe both!
Gabe found out that the liquor store had sold a winning lotto ticket. At first, he heard a million dollars, but as he listened to the gossip in both
English and Spanish, he learned that it was actually ten thousand dollars.
The amount was disappointing, like a punctured swim toy slowly losing air. With a million dollars, he could live forever in an air-conditioned house. With ten thousand dollars, he might be able to buy a good secondhand car when he got his driver's license and have gas money for about three months.
But still!
The winners were the Ramirez family—the family of Linda Ramirez, whom he'd seen at City Hall! She had been nervously chewing her fingernail in the hallway as she waited in line to get a restraining order. Now she was smiling for the camera, her teeth white as Chiclets. Her mother had a chubby arm around Linda and her little brother.
Gabe entered the liquor store. There was no one behind the cash register. Except for the fan at the counter, fluttering the pages of an open magazine, the place was quiet. Gabe headed to the refrigerated case and opened the glass doors. He let the cool air overwhelm him. He grabbed a soda from the back, where they were the coldest.
But the sound of crinkling cellophane made him freeze and listen. The noise stopped, then started again. When Gabe tiptoed around the corner to the potato chip and candy aisle, he confronted a little kid. The kid was pushing Oreo cookies into his mouth, and the cellophane wrapper lay discarded between his shoes.
The little kid looked up, indifferent to Gabe's presence. His eyes were brown and flat as pennies. He kept chewing, a crumb falling from his lower lip.
“Little thief,” Gabe muttered.
The little kid turned his back to Gabe and continued to fatten himself on stolen Oreos.
With the fan blowing hard, Gabe left the dollar bill under the ashtray on the counter. He figured he would pay what he owed and let the owner keep the two pennies.
At home, Gabe played the message machine. Coach Rodriguez informed him about a practice game that night with a team from Kerman. Practice started at 6:00 p.m.—sharp!
When Gabe phoned his mother at work, he had to leave a message. He ate two bologna sandwiches with a pile of chili-flavored Fritos and watched television. He then remembered the round steak in the freezer. He pulled it out, set it on the kitchen counter to defrost, and went into the backyard to run a garden hose in the tomato plants.
