by Gary Soto
Adan put down his plate. He took a few slow steps, looking over his shoulder. Gloria, arm cocked awkwardly, threw an orange, which Adan caught neatly. He tossed it underhand back to Gloria.
"See, he's good," Ramiro said with pride.
"Shoot, if the Raiders are down, they might bring you in, son," Chuy said. He chuckled, and his gut wobbled beneath his jersey.
Ramiro smiled. He liked that Chuy referred to his son as son. Gloria had called him mi'jo. They were good people. They said that they would like to see Adan play, and they exchanged telephone numbers with Ramiro.
While Chuy and Gloria cleaned up, Ramiro hurried back to the car to get his skull. He returned with it mounted on his shoulder.
"I hope it's nothing that you ate, hombre," Chuy joked. "But you got a head growing out of your shoulder. Looks like my ex-brother-in-law." Chuy chuckled with one hand on his belly and remarked, "You look real good with that eye patch. Where did you get it?"
Ramiro explained that it was for his injured eye, and a solemn Chuy said, "Me and my big mouth. I thought it was part of your getup." He patted Ramiro's shoulder and cursed the rosebush that had injured him.
They entered the Coliseum and were jostled by fans yelling, "Raiders! Raiders! Raiders!" Ramiro joined the chant and bumped along the tide until they found their seats. He and Adan were in a different row from Chuy and Gloria. But when Ramiro looked up, he could see his new friends.
Chuy waved and asked, "Nice seats, huh?"
"The best, compa!" Ramiro marveled at the effortless use of the word "compa," a word that implied best friend. He realized that he had no best friend and that, if God allowed, he was going to make Chuy his best friend. Ramiro pictured them enjoying a barbecue in his own backyard. Adan would take digital pictures of them arm in arm, and pictures of the two Glorias—his own much taller, much thinner Gloria and Chuy's Gloria in her Raider jersey. If he could get his Gloria to wear even a Raiders cap, then everything would be ... picture perfect.
The game started with a Raiders fumble, but it was soon three and out for the Broncos. Then it was three and out for the Raiders, and on the next possession, the Broncos scored.
"Ay," Ramiro moaned, and looked up at Chuy, who snapped his fingers and yelled, "¡Qué lástima!"
"But it's still early!" Ramiro yelled.
The game was a defensive struggle, and by halftime it was 10–3, Broncos. But at the start of the third quarter, the Raiders had tied the game on a kick return. Then the Raiders went up by another touchdown: 17–10. By then the Black Hole had gotten more packed, as fans pushed toward the first three rows of seats. That occurred when the Raiders scored a touchdown and their wide receiver jumped into the crowd in the Black Hole. The crowd pawed him, and the wide receiver pointed a finger skyward.
Ramiro, unable to contain himself, moved to the lower seats, where Chuy was then pressed between two other fans chanting, "Raiders! Raiders! Raiders!" Ramiro didn't care that his skull had been crushed or that someone had splashed soda on him. He didn't care that Adan remained in his seat. He had to be where the bodies were crushing against one another.
"Go, Raiders!" he yelled until his throat was sore. He smiled as he remembered that he had asked his wife to watch the game and to keep her eyes on the television. There was a chance that she might see him He had also asked that she record the game. Chihua hua, he thought. If only I can be on TV... He prayed that his wife had clicked the RECORD button.
Then he got his chance to be on the six o'clock news. It was during the fourth quarter, when the Broncos scored a controversial touchdown. A few rowdy fans from the Black Hole spilled onto the field behind the goalpost. They had begun to throw wadded-up bags of food and cups filled with ice. The security guards yelled and prodded the fans back into the bleachers. But the fans began to push back, and a fan took a security guard to the ground in a headlock. By then the cops had come lumbering toward the commotion and were starting to handcuff the unruly fans.
"Mira, la chota. They're acting all bad!" Chuy yelled.
"¡Estúpidos!" Ramiro found himself shouting. He realized that it was an unfair remark, but he couldn't help himself. "We should help." Ramiro was even further amazed by his bravado.
"You're right." Chuy jumped down onto the field. He walked toward one of the cops. "This is America, man! These dudes are just having fun!"
"No," Ramiro muttered. He wished he hadn't said what he had said, and that his friend hadn't jumped down into the fracas. "¡Chuy! ¡Ven! Get back over here."
A fuming Chuy waved Ramiro off.
Ramiro looked over his shoulder in the direction of his son. But he could see only arms and fists raised, and the Black Hole fans began to jump the rail to help the handcuffed fans bellied out on the ground. The crazed tide suddenly had him falling over the rail and onto the field. He got up unhurt, though dazed. He quickly got into action after a cop began to whack Chuy behind the legs.
"You can't do that to my compa!" Ramiro yelled. He then remembered what Chuy had said: "This is America, dude!" Ramiro had never used the word dude before. In the melee, he realized that he was nothing like someone born on a quiet Sunday. No, he was like a man born on a boisterous Friday. He looked back into the bleachers. He couldn't locate his son among the fans who were beginning to throw things onto the field.
"¡Mi'jo!" he called. "Stay where you are! I'm going to get my compa!"
Hundreds of fans from the Black Hole were on the field, and the security guards and the few cops were in retreat. The hundreds, Ramiro among them, were chanting, "Raiders! Raiders! Raiders!"
The football players on the field had stopped to watch the commotion. The Raiders and Broncos were breathing hard, their steamy breaths blowing out of their helmets. They waited with hands propped on their hips.
"Adan!" Ramiro yelled. "Come on down!" Ramiro scanned the bleachers but couldn't find his son. "Adan!" he yelled again, and would have continued to yell except a cop as big as a defensive back had tackled him in the end zone. He felt like a player with grass in his face and air being pushed from his lungs.
The next morning Ramiro woke up in jail, with his elbows bloody from having fallen during the stampede. Or maybe it was from when the police had marched them roughly to the idling vans outside the Coliseum. They had been driven to the county jail chanting, "Raiders! Raiders! Raiders!"
Raiders Nation. It was its own country inside the United States of America. It had raised a silver and black flag. And if ever there was red on the flag, it was because of blood spilled for a good cause.
Chuy was in the same cell, a hand over his eyes, half asleep. Ramiro lay back on his cot with a sigh. He thought of home and his wife and son—of how, over dinners, he would replay the day for them. Oh, he felt blessed to share a cell with a captured nation of Black Hole fans. He felt the damaged skull on his shoulder and pulled it up to his face. One of the eyes had been poked out.
"Hey, compa," Ramiro whispered from the bunk above his new friend.
"What?" a groggy Chuy asked, then smacked his dry lips.
"Do you know if we won?"
* * *
Selected Spanish Words and Phrases
ándale: come on
apúrate: hurry up
bigote: mustache
cállate: shut up
casi: almost
¡chihuahua¡: an expression of surprise
chismosa: gossipy girl or woman
chorizo con huevos: pork sausage with eggs
como: as
cómo: how
cómo estás: how are you?
cómo friegan: you are so bothersome
compa: buddy
cuídate: be careful; take care
de veras: really; truly
Dios mío: my God
Doña: madam
dos: two
doscientos: two hundred
el joven es magnífico: the young man is magnificent
ese: that; that one
está: (it, he, she) is
e
stán en la casa: they are in the house
estúpido: stupid
fuego: fire
hace frío: it's cold
hombre: man
huevos con: eggs with
la chota: the police
la mesa: the table
la salsa y pimienta: the sauce and pepper
listo: ready
mami: mommy
me voy: I leave; I go
mi cielo: my dearest
mi'jo/mi'ja: my son/my daughter
mira: look
mis llaves: my keys
mocos: snot
no tengo mis llaves: I don't have my keys
oí nada: I heard nothing
órale: okay; right
pan dulce: sweet bread
papas: potatoes
papi: daddy
pues: then; well then
qué cochino: how filthy
qué lástima, muchacha: what a pity, girl
qué linda chica: what a pretty girl
qué no: isn't that so
qué pasó/pasa: what happened/happens
quién sabe: who knows
rancheras: popular Mexican songs
ruca: girl
también: too
taquito: small taco
tenemos que comer: we have to eat
tía: aunt
vato: guy
ven acá: come over here
ven/véngase: come
vivan: that they live
voy: I go
ya: already
y tus padres: and your parents
* * *
