Always Running

by Luis J. Rodriguez

  I moved away from Viviana. But from the other side of the carnival, I saw about 15 Lomas dudes—armed with sticks, chains and bumper jacks—rushing to Enano’s aid. Chicharrón was among them, his shirt adorned with blood stains. No doubt, he had already gotten into some guantes with Sangra.

  “It’s started,” I shouted.

  People ran in all directions. Screams pierced the night. Shouts of “Lomas Rifa” and “Sangra Controla” bellowed as vatos clashed in senseless fury.

  “Don’t go prieto,” Viviana repeated as she turned my head toward her. “Stay with me.”

  I felt torn. There I was, a vato from Lomas staring into the eyes of a Sangra girl. This made me a traitor. But at the same time, all I could think about was her touch, her scent—those eyes.

  Viviana stroked my face with a fingertip. Voices heightened below. Footsteps cracked on cement. I nuzzled my face against Viviana’s; her lips parted and the eyes closed. Bottles crashed. Trash cans tumbled over. Viviana breathed into my mouth and I licked her lips lightly with my tongue. Sounds of shooting. Strained shouts. She placed her hand against the back of my head as we kissed, and reached deep inside my mouth as a sweet burning crawled over me. Sirens wailed in the distance. A child cried.

  José Palmas strums at a six-string as fluid fingers move across its neck like a warm wind across one’s brow. Every note sweating. Palmas often practices on his porch, swaying by an old eaten-up tree; sometimes his brother Bobby accompanies him on a conga and Joe on bass. He sits in for local bands who call out his name from the stage. Blues, jazz or a huapango—he can play almost anything. One Christmas, Palmas, Bobby, Joe and I jam in my room, whiskey bottles at our sides, and record it on a hand-held tape recorder. We call it “Latin Christmas ’69.”

  The Palmas brothers are Joe’s best friends, even as Joe continues to do well in high school as a gymnast who practices karate, and turns in homework and thumps a bass on weekends.

  There comes a time, however, when Palmas fails to venture too far beyond his rickety porch. He stops showing up for gigs. Sometimes he sits alone in his room, the guitar on a corner of an unmade bed.

  The last I heard, he plays only when the heroin in his body gives him a booking.

  At Mark Keppel High School there was an annual observance: the battle between the Mexicans and Anglos. We called it “The Tradition.” It usually started soon after the new school year. When I became a sophomore, the spark which set it off occurred during a football game between Mark Keppel’s Aztecs and a predominantly white school called Edgewood. Bus loads of whites from Edgewood came to Aztec Field to see their boys play. A few of us from Lomas decided to crash the game.

  When I arrived at Keppel that evening, the football field was lit up; the bleachers were covered with people on both sides. Almost all of them were white, including those on Keppel’s side. My homeboys were loitering in the parking area. They were Enano, Santos, Midnight (the only black guy in the gang: One night the homeboys found him AWOL from the army, homeless and sleeping in the fields. The next day they initiated him into the ’hood and he’s stayed ever since.), Carlitos, Baba and Lencho; some of the homegirls included Payasa, Trudy and Chata. We shared a bottle of T-Bird.

  Dressed-up, prim students from Edgewood walked past. We called out to them.

  “Hey, got any change lambe?” Santos queried.

  “What’s your name baby?” Lencho asked one of the girls.

  “¡Chúpame!” Baba added.

  They looked scared, walked around us. One guy got huffy: “Hey, can’t you see we came to see a game? I’m sure you have something better to do.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Santos said, “we don’t, so come over here and hand us your money—you butt-on-the-back, paddy motherfucker.”

  They started to run, but we surrounded them and forced them to fork over some bills. As they ran off, Lencho kicked one of them in the ass.

  Nothing would have come of any of this. We were bored. Everyone else soon watched the game, the cheering and roaring—something we weren’t a part of.

  “Let’s squint to the Hills,” Santos suggested.

  We turned and walked down Hellman Avenue. Suddenly a Monterey Park police car drove by and stopped. Two uniformed officers rushed out.

  “Hold it right there,” one of them ordered.

  This became a routine with us. Whenever the people from the Hills made it down to Monterey Park, San Gabriel or Alhambra, the police departments in those communities made it a habit to roust us out.

  We placed our arms on a chain-link fence and spread our legs. One officer searched us while another radioed in. They asked for identification. Where did we just come from? Where were we going? The regular.

  Carlitos questioned why we were being stopped and searched.

  “We didn’t do anything. We just walking, man.”

  One police officer told him to shut up. But Carlitos kept on.

  “Why are we always being harassed?”

  The police didn’t want to hear it. Before long, an officer struck Carlitos with a baton on his knee. He buckled and fell. We turned around but the other officer pulled his gun out on us. Two more cops arrived. One of them put a choke hold on Carlitos as the other struck his legs. Payasa yelled out: “Leave him alone—he ain’t doing nothing, man!”

  Carlitos looked like he lost his breath. His face turned blue as the officer behind him put pressure on his neck.

  “He can’t breathe!” Trudy yelled “You’re killing him!”

  They knocked Carlitos to the ground and held onto his head. He looked bad—slobbering from the mouth, his pupils turned up. More officers came. Carlitos was out cold. The paramedics arrived, but the police refused to let them do anything. They left Carlitos lying in the street. By that time more Lomas people had arrived, including some older ones who had come to watch the game. Anger flowered among the crowd as word spread about what had happened. A bottle struck one of the police cars. Then another. And another.

  Things soon exploded. More cops came but they too were pelted. A major confrontation erupted just above where the two high schools were playing their game, oblivious to what was going on. Soon the police pulled out. The ambulance took Carlitos and sped off, but not before receiving a barrage of rocks, bottles and debris. We assumed more police and firepower were coming. The only path out was toward the football field.

  Santos led the way. A car with a local resident drove by. Santos picked up a trash can and threw it in front of the grill—it rolled beneath the car, slowing it down. Then people threw rocks, smashing windows. Whoever drove the car pulled it out and took off, dragging the trash can bunched up under the car, sparks flying everywhere.

  We pushed our way through the entrance, some tore down part of the fence surrounding the field. We pulled white guys from out of the stands. Some of them tried to fight back. Even older men, probably war vets and construction workers, got into it but we thumped on them as well.

  The game continued for a few more plays before the realization set in a battle was raging out of control in the stands. We rushed into the grandstand, smacking people around. The rage from seeing Carlitos being choked and the cops pushing us around had been building up for years. Spectators tried to flee, a number of cars were smashed. The crowd with us grew larger. More homeboys were involved, ready for pleito.

  I removed my belt and walked down the street with Santos, Lencho and Midnight, who had experience with racial violence among Blacks, Whites, and Latinos from his time in Army boot camp. Skirmishes popped up in the middle of the streets, in alleys and on front lawns. Whites got together and attacked as well. They found isolated groupings of Mexicans and pounced on them.

  At first we avoided jumping on the Asians, even if they were with the Anglos and had lettered jackets and were members of the teams. Maybe the whites didn’t care for them either, but at least they had their money, status and grades. But one Asian guy got into our face. It wasn’t so much he thought he was white. It was more in de
fense of what was “right.” It was wrong to jump on innocent people. It was wrong to focus on the color of skin. It was wrong to throw rocks at cars, police and homes.

  “You can’t do this,” the Asian guy clamored. “We didn’t do anything to you!”

  Five guys jumped on him.

  A group of whites from Edgewood came by our way. We confronted them in the street in front of the school. Everybody started throwing blows. I held on to one guy’s shirt, tight, and punched him repeatedly in the face. He tried to kick and hit and block my hands, but I just held on, pulling him to the ground while hitting.

  Some other guys jumped on me, but I continued clutching this guy’s shirt and watching my fists beat his face, making deep cuts and welts. They tried to pull me off, and I even felt some blows, but I wouldn’t let go.

  Assistance came from various police departments. Streets were blocked off to keep the disturbance from moving to the main business section on Garvey Avenue. One white guy found himself surrounded by a large group of us. I felt sorry for him for some strange reason. I walked up to him.

  “Get the fuck out of here—now!”

  “Fuck you beaner,” he responded and hit me square on the jaw. I fell back onto the asphalt. I looked up and saw a swell of guys on him.

  “Get off him,” I yelled.

  Then I rushed up and struck the guy. He fell back too, but got up and ran through the crowd.

  The Mexicans moved toward Garvey Park, armed with hand-held weapons as we pushed ourselves out of the flat land area toward the Hills. I found myself walking with Payasa, Trudy and Chata to get them home. As we turned down one desolate street, a car pulled up. I swung my belt, ready to strike. It turned out to be Mexicans.

  “¿Qué pues, compa?” one of them greeted.

  “Shit, I almost went after you guys.”

  I didn’t recognize them, but they offered to take the girls home. Just then the white guy who I struck earlier showed up in a car and pulled out a gun.

  “Hey, you fuckin’ spic,” he said. “Come get some of this!”

  I looked at the barrel of the gun. His taut finger encircling the trigger. The flash of his blue eyes and his clenched teeth.

  “Go ahead, puto,” I said. “But make sure you kill me, or I’ll come after you.”

  The white guy looked at me, and then the others, who just stood around not knowing what to expect. The tension lasted for a long minute. But his threat was a bluff; he put the gun down and took off.

  Although I didn’t really know her, Chata gave me a wet, desperate kiss, as if it were our last moment on earth. We had to go in opposite directions. I lived past the tunnel and they were going up into the hills. She wished me luck and went with the dudes in the car. I found myself alone in hostile terrain.

  The night blazed with car fires, and the whirling lamps of police and fire vehicles. The Sheriff’s department blocked off all entrances to the Hills, stopping people and cars before allowing them to go in or out.

  I continued toward home on the other side of the San Bernardino Freeway, where I would be safe.

  Suddenly a jeep came screeching down the road, its headlights blinding me as it approached. It went past me, then stopped. I saw about 10 guys crammed inside. White guys. With baseballs bats. ¡Qué desmadre! I was going to get it good!

  The jeep turned back and came at me. I took off. I heard yelps and hollers, like cowboys do on TV shows, as the vehicle closed in. I propelled my legs through several yards, leapt over fences and hid next to some trash cans in an alley. I heard the peeling of rubber and the yelling as the jeep circled around to locate me. It entered the alley and I ran again. Somehow I made it over to the underground tunnel which led into my neighborhood: Various colored markings located its entrance. The jeep came up to its mouth. I could see the headlights beam through the darkness. After a few moments, it turned around and sped off. This was one Mexican scalp these cowboys wouldn’t get.

  The next Monday at school the fights continued. The Tradition for that year had started. Mexicans roamed the hallways, beating on any white guy they could see. Girls got into it too, ripping the blouses of the prim and proper “society” girls and wreaking havoc in the gym area. Parents came to pull their kids out of school.

  Some whites gathered in the parking lot behind the school and began an offensive. The fighting would last for two or three weeks, tapering off for the rest of the year with only isolated incidents. But during the heat of the Tradition, classes were canceled. Police brought in. Ambulances summoned.

  The whites in school brought in dudes from out of the area. They were tall, wide with long blonde hair. Two carloads cruised by where the Mexicans assembled by the gnarled tree. Santos, Chicharrón and Tiburón were there to challenge them. The white dudes got out of their cars, armed with bats. But it didn’t stop the homeboys from Lomas. I saw them attack the dudes while I looked out the window of a classroom. I rushed out with a few others, even though the class was still in session.

  As one white guy swung his bat to strike Santos, Chicharrón came from behind and hit him over the head with a tire iron. Lencho and Wilo also showed up and went blow to blow with the others. I jumped on one guy. Soon the police came. As usual, they went after the Mexicans. The white dudes got into their cars and split without any trouble. But the rest of us were pulled to the ground, hands forced behind our backs. Guns pointed at our heads.

  School officials had the police take us to the office. The police left after they had resumed some order. Santos and Tiburón, who were drop-outs, were dragged to the police station. Those of us still in school were expelled. This was fine with me. I hated school. And I loved fighting.

  I worked as a bus boy in a Mexican restaurant in San Gabriel when I was 15 years old. My hours were in the evening until closing, which kept me up until 2 a.m. most nights. The father of a former Southside Boy managed the restaurant, which is how I got the job. It was kicking, hard work. Sometimes I’d be practically asleep while walking the dining areas—but we had to keep moving. We carried thick plastic trays heaped with dirty dishes, cleaned up tables, poured water into glasses, provided extra coffee—and took abuse from the well-to-do people who came there.

  “Hey boy, clean up this mess.”

  “Hey boy, how about some more water.”

  “Hey boy, this steak is too well done.”

  Hey Boy became my new name.

  The clientele arrived in suits and evening dresses. They ordered the margaritas, considered the best in “aallll Caliiforniaaa.” They ordered and ordered. Even before dinner arrived, they were already pushed back against the chairs, ties undone and stupefied.

  Before the night finished, white-haired women tried to do Spanish fan dances on the dining floor as businessmen called everyone “pancho,” holding dollar bills in our faces for more service.

  We had our ways of getting back. The usual: putting snot and piss in their food before it got to their tables or “accidentally” spilling ice cold water on their laps or backs.

  “So sorry, señor. How clumsy of me. A thousand pardons.”

  But there were some fringe benefits. These people would order the best steaks, lobsters, and Mexican specialties and leave almost everything when they left. We stuffed the food in bags and later had feasts. Every once in a while I took home cooked lobsters and two-inch thick prime ribs!

  My best friends were the waitresses and waiters. One waiter, a gay dude from Mexico, actually protected us younger guys from the cooks who ordered us around. I always thought it was because he wanted to get to me, but even so I must say he never raised this issue. One time he let us borrow his X-rated 16-millimeter films. After work, the bus boys got together for a marathon viewing of his films while dropping pills and chasing them with tequila.

  The waitresses were cool and understanding, considering they had to endure even more abuse since they were women—dressed in peasant blouses which had been plunged down to reveal their shoulders and short poblana skirts with ruffles. The
y helped make sure I didn’t get cheated on the tips, something the waiters were less inclined to do.

  But the most interesting part of the job involved the raids. Almost everyone who worked in the restaurant was an undocumented immigrant. Every so often, the immigration authorities assaulted the place. They would close doors and pull out badges.

  “This is the United States Border Patrol,” they’d yell. “Nobody move … nadie se mueve.”

  Cooks flew out of kitchen windows.

  They tried to pull me into their detention vans, but I carried a food-stained and slightly torn copy of my birth certificate in my pocket. It saved me from being deported, although there were times I thought it wouldn’t matter and I’d have to call home from Tijuana.

  After about a week, the ones they threw across the border were back at work.

  Not going to school meant a lot of free time. Sniffing became my favorite way to waste it. I stole cans of anything that could give a buzz: carbono, clear plastic, paint or gasoline. Sometimes I’d mix it up in a concoction and pour it on a rag or in a paper bag we sniffed from.

  Behind the school, on the fields, inside the tunnel, at Marrano Beach and alongside the concrete banks of the San Gabriel River: I sniffed. Once I even climbed on top of a back hoe at a construction site, removed the lid off the gas tank and inhaled until somebody checked out the noise and chased me away.

  Spray was dangerous; it literally ate your brain. But it was also a great escape. The world became like jello, like clay, something which could be molded and shaped. Sounds became louder, clearer—pulsating. Bodies removed themselves from bodies, floating with the sun. I sought it so desperately. I didn’t want to be this thing of bone and skin. With spray I became water.

  Once I sniffed with Chicharrón and Yuk Yuk behind the “Boys” Market in San Gabriel. I don’t remember the trip, but they told me I suddenly stood up and proceeded to repeatedly bang my head against a wall. Pieces of hair and skin scraped on the brick. Chicharrón walked me home; refused to give me any more spray.