But the school also took in the people from the Hills and surrounding community who somehow made it past junior high. They were mostly Mexican, in the “C” track (what were called the “stupid” classes), and who made up the rosters of the wood, print and auto shops. Only a few of these students participated in school government, in sports, or in the various clubs.
The school had two principal languages. Two skin tones and two cultures. It revolved around class differences. The white and Asian kids (except for “barrio” whites and the handful of Hawaiians, Filipinos and Samoans who ended up with the Mexicans) were from professional, two-car households with watered lawns and trimmed trees. The laboring class, the sons and daughters of service workers, janitors and factory hands, lived in and around the Hills (or a section of Monterey Park called “Poor Side”).
The school separated these two groups by levels of education: The professional-class kids were provided with college-preparatory classes; the blue-collar students were pushed into “industrial arts.”
The Mexicans assembled beneath the big, gnarled tree on the front lawn next to the gym and shop area. The well-off students usually had cars and hung out in the parking lot or the cafeteria. Those who were in between or indifferent couldn’t help but get caught in the crossfire.
By the time I went to Keppel, I had become introspective and quiet. I wanted to be untouchable: Nobody could get to me. I walked the halls facing straight ahead, a saunter in my step, only slightly and consciously glancing to the sides.
Keppel had a rowdy reputation among San Gabriel Valley schools. Fights all the time. I believe it related to the ingrained system of tracking and subdivisions. The teachers and administrators were overwhelmingly Anglo and whether they were aware of it or not, favored the white students.
If you came from the Hills, you were labeled from the start. I’d walk into the counselor’s office for whatever reason and looks of disdain greeted me—one meant for a criminal, alien, to be feared. Already a thug. It was harder to defy this expectation than just accept it and fall into the trappings. It was a jacket I could try to take off, but they kept putting it back on. The first hint of trouble and the preconceptions proved true. So why not be proud? Why not be an outlaw? Why not make it our own?
I often lay back in my garage room, listening to scratchy records of Willie Bobo, Thee Midniters, War, and Miles Davis. Sometimes oldies; the “Eastside Sound” revues, old Stax and Atlantic rhythm & blues: Wilson Pickett, Rufus Thomas, Solomon Burke and The Drifters. And of course, Motown.
For the most part, the Mexicans in and around Los Angeles were economically and socially closest to blacks. As soon as we understood English, it was usually the Black English we first tried to master. Later in the youth authority camps and prisons, blacks used Mexican slang and the cholo style; Mexicans imitated the Southside swagger and style—although this didn’t mean at times we didn’t war with one another, such being the state of affairs at the bottom. For Chicanos this influence lay particularly deep in music: Mexican rhythms syncopated with blues and ghetto beats.
My brother Joe once played bass in a band of mostly black musicians called “Taboos Children.” Although only 17, Joe played with the band in bars and after-hours clubs in South Central Los Angeles. They had one original song, a local club hit called “Young Lovers.” The other Chicano in the band was a San Gabriel guitarist named José Palmas who had these magical fingers and could play anything from Wes Montgomery to Jeff Beck to Delta Blues to raunchy norteñas.
I myself picked up a saxophone, a used brass tenor. I saved the money over the years, dollar by dollar, from whatever Mama would let me keep from the jobs I held. I managed a couple of lessons at a local music shop to learn the fingering, scales and some basic chords. But I tried to learn to play the saxophone by listening to records.
A few times I went with Joe and Palmas to see Taboos Children perform in some bar or dance hall, paying strict attention to the sax player. I got stinking drunk once, throwing up in the car to an eight-track guitar slice of Hendrix, and recall cruising down Hollywood Boulevard and taking a piss in the middle of the block with traffic lined up on both sides of me.
Mama later blamed Joe for making me an alcoholic.
When I finally mastered about two or three saxophone riffs, such as those like “Sad Girl” which the East L.A. band Thee Midniters made popular, I started jamming with a couple of local garage bands.
The Animal Tribe also had a band which went through several changes according to the currents in the music scene. First it was called Thee Occasions which mirrored what Thee Midniters were doing in the early to mid-60s. Then when the music started taking a blues turn, it became the Coyote Blue Hemp Boogie Band and Joaquín López learned to play a mean harmonica, as penetrating as any original blues man. Later still, the band became Agua Caliente (Hot Water) when Latino-rock fusion like Santana, El Chicano and Malo permeated the airwaves in the early ’70s.
The saxophone meant everything to me. When I needed time to myself, I locked the room and played it. I didn’t really know how, but I envisioned myself offering melodies which screeched of back roads and wet sidewalks and Spanish Broadway night stalkers. I felt like I had this brass throat, moaning like Billy Holiday, shrieking like James Brown. Colors swirled around me. Faces. Notes. A rhapsody pressed out from a sultry furnace somewhere inside—a cacophony of crippled cries.
One day, Joe knocked on the door. I stopped bellowing on the sax, put the instrument down and peered out the window. He looked angry. For years, this look would prompt a flow of blood from the pit of my stomach. It meant I would be accused, abused, pushed around, and ordered to do something to make up for some perceived wrong.
But I was 14 already. I had grown stronger. I had been in many fights. I opened the door.
“What you want Joe?”
“You took some of my records, and I want them back.”
“Don’t worry—I was going to return them.”
“Listen, don’t take anything from me unless you ask me. Understand?”
“No you listen, you come and take my things all the time. You’re always picking up my stuff and walking out. You want me to ask you, then you better ask me!”
“Fuck you!”
“No—fuck you!”
I never told Joe this before. His nostrils flared and his face flushed with red. He pushed himself into the room and stared into my eyes as I returned the look without flinching. For a second, he looked like he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t just slap me down like we were kids. But he couldn’t be challenged that way either. He had to do something.
Joe turned toward the saxophone on the bundle of blankets, and in two shakes, stomped on it—his boots crushing in sections of brass.
“Stop!” I yelled. “Stop, or I’ll … !”
Joe stopped.
“You’ll what?”
I looked at the saxophone as it lay beaten, bent. Then this fury quivered through every vein, flamed through the skin, stormed out my eyes. Everything became a flash of lights. I pounced on Joe, swinging away, punching and gouging. Years of rage erupted out of me. Joe fought back, but I kept at him, like a panther. He was getting the better of me, but I wouldn’t let up—flailing away at his head and body.
My sister Ana heard the bodies slammed into the wall, the dull thuds of fists on a face, and rushed to get Mom and Dad.
When our parents came in, Joe was on top of me, mostly trying to protect himself. My dad held Joe by the chest and pulled him off. I jumped to my feet, balled fists ready to continue firing. Joe looked exhausted and shamed. I’m sure he never expected this of me—or perhaps he always wondered about that dreaded day when I would stand up to him.
Dad let go of his grip. Joe shoved him aside, almost knocking him down, and ran out the room. He didn’t return home for three days.
All I could think about was my saxophone; I couldn’t afford to fix or replace it. All I could think about were the lost melodies.
Th
e San Gabriel Mission held an annual “Fiesta Days” celebration to honor the Spanish-Mexican heritage of the area. There were parades, speeches, carnival rides, directed for the most part at the Anglos who commemorated a past they were never a part of, as if the Mexicans were long dead and mummified, while in the present they’d rather spit on a Mexican than give him the time of day.
During the daytime the gabachos put on phony sombreros, rode rhinestone-garished horses, and applauded one Hat Dance after another. But at first hints of nightfall, they skulked back to their walled estates in San Marino or Pasadena, to Spanish-style mansions and the melancholy of manicured lawns.
At night, the fiesta belonged to the Mexicans.
The Sangra barrio surrounded the Mission. But the dudes from Lomas often showed up, prepared for anything. Families also arrived, by the carload.
One summer during the “Fiesta Days,” Chicharrón and I hitchhiked to the edge of the Sangra neighborhood. Instead of crossing through it, we meandered over to the railroad tracks and walked the wood ties to the Mission. We slipped past some Sangra Diablos loitering at the entrance to the carnival by sprinting through the cemetery next to the Mission church and scaling an old stone wall.
Once inside, we strolled among mothers with carriages, lovers holding hands, and children darting past while the colored lights of the Ferris wheel, “the hammer,” and miniature roller coaster flickered across our faces.
Then I met Viviana.
She stood in line for the Ferris wheel, looking like delicate earthenware, glazed in honey. Endless, silky hair framed her face, hair as black as those in velvet paintings people sold at swap meets. Lashes like paint brushes encircled her eyes, which were immense and bursting with brown. I wanted to climb into them.
“Trucha, homes, what do you call them?” Chicharrón remarked after he spotted Viviana and another ruca standing next to her.
“It looks like heaven’s missing a couple of angels,” I declared, echoing a popular song by the Tavares Brothers.
We elbowed our way through the line of people, closer to the girls. Once behind them, Chícharrón turned on his charm and started a conversation.
“Hey babes, what do ya say?”
Well, it wasn’t much, but the girl next to Viviana lit up and pursued it. Viviana appeared distant, subdued. I felt like leaving. I didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her. The thought of her looking at me and saying “Ugh!” was killing me.
“What’s your name, ésa?” Chicharrón asked.
“I’m Eva, and this is Viviana.”
Viviana pushed Eva slightly with her arm when she said this. Eva smiled.
As we waited in line, Chicharrón and Eva talked and talked. I could hear Eva rambling: “Me and this vato, eh, we’ve been seeing each other, eh, but it’s no big thing, you know? He wants to get married and all that, but I don’t want no part of that pedo, eh. I don’t want to be tied down, you know …”
Chicharrón rapidly lost interest. I managed only slices of sentences with Viviana before our turn came to get on the Ferris wheel. So there we were, Viviana and I, stepping onto a carriage and sitting down together. I didn’t know what to say. The carriage moved upward. We remained at the top for a spell and Viviana moved close to me. My heart felt like it had been stuffed into my ears. Then the Ferris wheel spun and Viviana placed her arm around mine and snuggled up, closing her eyes and smiling. I didn’t want to breathe for fear she would let go.
“Híjole … I think I lost my breakfast,” I finally said.
She laughed.
“There goes lunch,” I continued and she squealed with abandon.
I wasn’t funny, but she made me feel like I could’ve said anything and she would consider it brilliantly clever. The carnival noises, the colored tents and streams of light, the faces of the people on the ground, first clear and distinctive, then distant and dull, all this surged toward us. I wanted to rotate there forever, chuckling and clutching with Viviana. I didn’t want the ride to end because on the ground, I didn’t think she would be so generous.
But it did end. We emerged from the carriage and I felt clumsy toward her again. By then Eva’s yapping was long gone, although leaving a trail of “ehs” like a far-off echo in my head. I couldn’t find Chicharrón, so Viviana and I took a walk through the midway where hawkers challenged passersby to try their luck at the coin tosses, rifle shoots and dart throws.
“You want a stuffed animal, ésa?” I asked.
“Orale, whatever,” she said coolly, in a way that suggested she knew exactly what she was doing.
We went through several games, losing a small fortune, before I hit pay dirt at the baseball toss. Viviana selected a panda bear and I wondered if I could have bought a real one with all the money I threw away.
We walked some more, not many words between us, but I sensed Viviana felt safe with me. I think she wanted to hang out. I thrust my hands into my pockets, then let them hang awkwardly, feeling like two-ton steel beams. Soon Viviana pushed her arms around mine—probably in empathy with my plight—and I eased.
By the midnight hour, summer winds slipped softly through the carnival grounds. The odor of tacos, cotton candy and churros saturated the air, along with tension.
Lomas and Sangra soldiers began to congregate in different sections of the enclosed area. Sangra dudes, in particular, moved in large numbers from the entrance area to the other side of the cemetery. A scattering of Lomas dudes pushed through the crowd from the other end, each crew heading toward a collision on the midway. By then papas gathered their small children and mamas yelled out for their older sons and daughters to go home. Police officers, some in uniform and others in plainclothes with walkie talkies, walked two abreast down the aisles of booths. The terror-struck rushed to their cars.
“You know where I’m from?” I asked Viviana.
“Simón,” Viviana said. “I knew all the time. I know all the Sangra dudes—my brothers are Diablos. You and the other vato I’d never seen before. Besides, Lomas dudes look a certain way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the dudes from Sangra look like the old days, you know: small hats, long coats, baggy pants. But you guys from Lomas look like summer—white T-shirts, starched Levis with royal cuffs and bandannas. I kinda like that.”
“I don’t care about this Sangra and Lomas stuff,” she continued. “Why this war? Aren’t we the same? I don’t care about de dónde ères—where you from? My brothers do, they’re all-the-way gangster lean. What I care about is the kind of person you are.”
As we talked, in front of us appeared five girls with blazing red peroxided hair. They were cholas from Sangra. The hair color served as their mark. These girls were known to start many of the fights which their homeboys inevitably had to finish. They were led by Cokie and Dina.
They looked agitated, talked loud—as if they could taste the coming battle, able to sniff the blood in the air.
“Hey Viviana,” one of them said. “¿Qué hubo?”
The others quieted down as we walked past, looking at me hard—knowing I wasn’t from the neighborhood, but not sure where I came from.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said while taking Viviana’s hand and leading her toward the kiddie rides. Already the place swelled with activity; even the carnival hands sensed the impending storm: They gathered their stuffed toys and closed their booths.
“Where we going?” Viviana asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, looking around. “How about up there?”
I pointed to the rooftop on the Mission school building. I also felt something tug at me, the feeling I should be with my homeboys, that I should be marching with them tonight. But I wanted to be with Viviana, away from the war cries, the bloodshed, away from the adrenalin pumping up our speech and walk.
“Be serious, I can’t go up there.”
“Sure you can.”
I moved some trash cans and wood crates beneath a fire escape. I ascended a couple of stee
l rungs and then grabbed Viviana’s hand, her other hand grasping the stuffed bear. Together we climbed three flights to the roof. Jumping over the roof’s edge, I reached down and pulled her over. Long wavy black hair fell across her face. Something warm moved inside me as I fingered the tousled strands.
“Don’t look down,” I said.
“Why not?” Viviana retorted. “I ain’t scared. I’ve worked with my dad and brothers fixing houses. I’m used to it.”
I placed my arm around her waist and directed her toward the roof’s edge.
“Well, we’ve come this far, now what are you going to do with me?” Viviana inquired.
“You mean before or after I suck your blood.”
Again she laughed. And me, the one who can’t tell a joke!
“See all the people,” I said. “I like looking at them this way. You see things about people you wouldn’t see if you were there with them. Like a God?”
“Man, you’re crazy,” Viviana said.
“Yeah, that’s true.”
Soon we spotted a flurry of activity at the far end of the church yard. Several dudes had surrounded a vato whom I recognized as Enano from Lomas. Chava, in a small brim hat and leaning on a cane, led the group. One of them swung a steel-studded belt in his hand. I knew him as Turtleman from Sangra.
“Hey, I gotta go,” I told Viviana.
“No, don’t Louie,” she said while pressing me to her. “Don’t go, stay here with me.”
I felt a tightening of muscle and beads of sweat forming on my forehead, the way I usually got before fights. Viviana dropped the panda bear and stroked my head and back, loosening the tightness, and moved her hands up my chest.
“Don’t go down there. It’s not your fight. They’re always going at it. Don’t be a part of that tonight. I’m from Sangra. You’re from Lomas. So what? ¿Me quieres?”
I saw the dudes from Sangra move closer to Enano, the girls with the red hair laughing nearby.
“I can’t let my homeboy duke it out without me,” I said. “I can’t let him down, man.”
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