Always Running

by Luis J. Rodriguez

  Fuentes climbed up with me. The referees gave both fighters the rules. The rounds were three-minutes long. We had on safety helmets and mouthpieces. The judges were officials of the Junior Olympics tournament. The winner of this bout would move up to the next level of tournament, leading to finals at the famous Olympic Auditorium in downtown L.A. As everybody left the ring area but the fighters and referee, I heard Fuentes say: “¡Jaspia!”

  The bell rang. My hands flew up. I rushed to the middle of the ring. Aquí estoy—come and get me! The other warrior came up to me. Despite the crowd’s yelling and the countless faces turned toward us, I never felt more alone with another human being than in a boxing ring.

  We rattled each other with blows. I came at him the way I usually did, throwing fists from all directions. I pushed the dude around the ring. He tried to get out of the way of the onslaught, dipping and pivoting. I followed his movement by looking straight at his chest, to tell which direction his arms were coming from.

  Whenever I entered a boxing ring, I became obsessed. I threw so many blows, most people couldn’t get out of the way. But this dude in front of me proved no sucker. He knew how to get away from many of the punches, gliding and slipping beneath my gloves. He threw only enough at me to keep himself in competition—a clever ruse. I needed to really box him, not just throw blows; otherwise I would find myself punched-out.

  The first round ended. People were on their seats and clamoring for more. Fuentes gave me a smile and said: “You got him. He’s yours.”

  I peeked over to my mother who just sat there, very still. My sisters whooped and hollered. My brother flashed a grin. I felt great. I must win; so many people depended on it.

  The bell rang and I jumped up—ready for my last dance. I jabbed and jabbed.

  “¡Pégale, pégale!” somebody yelled from my corner.

  But halfway through the round, my arms became impediments. The weight of the gloves brought my hands below my waist. I wanted to yell as I used every ounce of strength to keep them up, but this took away from my ability to hit. My opponent’s ruse worked: I tired.

  There is no pain like being exhausted in the ring—except labor pains, but this explains what I mean. Professionals know this feeling in later rounds; it’s as close to dying as one can get while alive. Every blow opens up something inside, tearing at your resolve while tearing up skin.

  The weight of my gloves became intolerable. Amateurs wore heavier gloves than professionals, weighing eight ounces, but in the ring they might as well be anvils. I heard pégale, pégale, but I just couldn’t. The dude in front of me backed up and jitterbugged. He threw clean shots—on my arms, my kidneys, through the safety helmet. I cringed with every blow I returned. When is the bell going to ring? Everything took forever. The hand motions, mouths and voices around me were all in an aggravating slow motion. ¡Jaspia, Jaspia! I ducked and swayed. I backed up and felt a barrier of ropes push me back in. Where the hell is this bell!

  Finally the bell exploded in sound, and the round ended before a merciful knockout. It ended and I wanted to go home. Suddenly regret overcame me. I knew then, the dude had me. I went back to my corner, barely able to sit down. Fuentes showed concern but only said jaspia. I did not look over to my family.

  After a minute’s rest, another bell signaled the coming agony of the last and third round. This is the one where you’re supposed to give it all you’ve got. Lo chingaré. I rushed out as in the first round. I let the excitement of the yells and screams around me pull the strength to give my opponent the best blows I had. I pushed him around the ring again. It looked good for me. In a glimpse, I saw Fuentes and Winky with their arms in the air, shouting in delight. Then out of nowhere, like a hammer, a fist struck me square in the nose. I flew back, and down on one knee. Blood came out in globs from my nose, a sign it was fractured.

  The referee pushed the dude back. I heard my opponent say: “¡Ya estuvo, ése!”

  I made it to my feet. The referee asked me something. I just nodded. Everything looked fuzzy in front of me. The referee looked hard at me and asked me something again. I only remembered an incoherent whisper. Then the referee went over to the other dude and raised up his arm in triumph. Not even an eight count. I stood there, a hero of disgust, a fallen warrior. Fuentes came up to me and untied my gloves.

  “You did good. We’ll get him next time.”

  Winky brought a towel and crammed a section of it up my nose.

  “It’s got to be looked at, Dan,” he said to Fuentes.

  I saw Delfina peering at me from behind Hector, who stood all showered and smug in his clothes. It looked like Delfina tried to tell me something with her eyes, something to ease the loss.

  My eyes crossed over several rows of faces to the direction of my family. They were all on their feet. My sisters had their hands up to their mouths. Joe looked awkward, like he didn’t know whether to congratulate me for trying or to give his condolences. And Mama—I could see Mama had been crying.

  Jorge’s Junk Yard on Garvey Avenue shone like a metal-and-glass city beneath the sun’s afternoon radiance; automobile carcasses piled on top of one another, all symmetrical and sloping as if rusty mountain ranges galloping through a desert plain. We curled our fingers through a section of mesh fence and stared at the steel, paint and rubber wreckage of a 1969 Chevrolet sedan.

  The day before, Yuk Yuk and Daddio had chug-a-lugged several pints of tequila, as in the old country where men of leather tamed the wilds of land and animal only to be enslaved by the maguey’s juice, fueled by the residue of herbs, the ferment of harvests—quenching a deeper thirst.

  Later the sky brought down a stinging rain, and Yuk Yuk and Daddio stole a car and then strolled into a convenience store on San Gabriel Boulevard. But something went wrong. There was shooting. They ran out the glass doors, climbed into the car and took off toward the Pomona Freeway—sheriff’s units and a helicopter gave chase as Yuk Yuk pushed the ranfla some 120 miles per hour on a down slope and failed to make the upturn. According to the medical examiner, the sedan rolled over so many times that Yuk Yuk and Daddio “practically disintegrated” before the car lodged near an abandoned warehouse, across from a hobo’s nest with spiritless bodies loitering by the railroad tracks.

  The next day people visited the wrecking yard, taking turns examining the jagged monument to our homeboys and paying their respects before the car’s remains are removed and crumpled into a rectangular object, to be feed for a blast furnace somewhere; the steam of their being becoming water, becoming what is expelled from our breaths, becoming what keeps us alive.

  I sat among learners and teachers in our fourth or fifth study session—I had already lost track—with a group Chente called “the collective.”

  I came once just to check it out, perhaps to get Chente off my back. But after the first time, I kept coming. The group studied politics, philosophy, economics—the dynamics of social revolution. There was something about the way Chente and the others made sense; the way they made dead things come alive—how they took what seemed obvious and proved the direct opposite. The words were a fascinating revelation for me. Another culture. I had never experienced anything like it. Here all perceptions were challenged. Here knowledge, this elusive dove which had never before found a landing near my grasp, could be gently held—where it would not fly away.

  The sessions also involved Sergio, his wife Ofelia, Octavio and Skin. They were activists and students. They were sons and daughters of factory hands, mechanics and truck drivers who lived in and around East Los Angeles. They met weekly in a house in the Hills where Sergio, who was studying to be a doctor, lived. We kept the location a secret; real names and places could not be uttered over the telephone.

  From one of the readings came a statement which stayed in my mind: “An invitation to abandon illusions about a situation, is an invitation to abandon a situation in need of illusions.”

  But on that particular day everything felt in disarray. I did not participate in
my usual manner. The constant questioning, inquiries which entertained but also had something daring—or foolish—in the asking, failed to materialize. The others were there with me, but I was not with them. They sensed something was wrong.

  The group delved into the social processes governing events in the world and the United States. But I looked strangely at the book in front of me as someone read a passage out loud. I only saw contorted faces on the pages. Between the lines of type, I saw mouths wailing and eyes filled with terror. I saw what I was living. And although I tried to participate, that night I only saw my homeboys and homegirls dying.

  I laid my head back, distracted. The fascinating prose turned ethereal—the profundity lost on an empty field somewhere in the barrio.

  “I think we should call it quits for tonight,” Skin said, her eyes aimed at me. I looked down to a pattern on a rug which covered a section of hardwood floor and appeared to flow with rivers and birds and tropical scents.

  Chairs were pushed back. Coffee cups gathered. Dishes clanged in the kitchen.

  I slowly stood up. Everything around me spun. Voices melted away. I plunged back into the sofa’s softness. Ofelia’s voice broke through a din in my head.

  “Luis, what’s the matter. You messed up or what?”

  Yeah, I’m messed up. Good and messed up, in some cloud, a voyager on a misty ship, floating through the lamp shades, the pots of greenery by the sunlit window—through the forest of a woman’s hair.

  Others gathered around me, staring at me; waiting for me to say something. But my voice stayed in my head. I looked at Sergio’s bearded face, at Ofelia’s concerned eyes, at Chente—good ol’ Chente, calm as ever—and Skin, with a flowery Indian blouse from Mexico which made her look like what I imagined a Mayan princess to be.

  Warriors would die for you, Skin. They would climb steep mountains, swim vast seas and destroy armies for you, deity of sauntering, Goddess of aura and bloom.

  But soon, I felt shame. I couldn’t tell them what I had done. Why I felt like running and running, without ever stopping.

  The others picked up their materials and left. But Chente stayed to walk me out. We went outside; the fresh air slapped me across the face.

  “All right Luis,” Chente demanded. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s nothing, homes.”

  “Then let me tell you,” Chente said, his voice firm. “You’re on something again. I’ve seen it many times. Only now there is no turning back for you.”

  “Listen, I know I did wrong. I didn’t want to do it. But ever since Yuk Yuk and Daddio got killed, the rest of us have needed to get high. And Santos and Lencho came across some good shit—“

  “Where were you?”

  “In the fields, ése—I know, I know, I should never have gone there,” I said. “But, it’s my neighborhood, man. I’m there bulljiving, just passing the time. And they had a little bit of la carga …”

  “¡Hijo!” Chente interrupted. “You said you’d stop taking dope to study with us. You know what it does: dulling your thinking, your actions. What are you going to do when it makes mincemeat out of your brains?”

  “Don’t get escamao,” I replied. “I didn’t take a lot—just took a taste, you know.”

  “Sometimes you need it,” I added, looking into the distance. “Sometimes you can’t always be on top of things, Chente. You ever think about that, ése?”

  “Sure, Luis, I think about it all the time.”

  Chente turned away and walked toward the car parked in the alley. He gazed at the wood fences and brick walls with markings that have been there for 30 or 40 years. Names upon names. Nobody ever erased them. The graffiti stayed and every new generation just put their placa over the old.

  Chente surveyed the walls, tired of what they represented: pain, a mark in this world, often death. He then turned toward me.

  “I’m sure it feels good to get messed up once in a while,” Chente said. “To let it all go. But the fight for a better life won’t stop just because you aren’t ready. What we’re doing is not something you decide to do when you feel like it. Whether you’re ready or not, this struggle will go on. You’re a vato loco. For you the world is one big chingaso after another—and some good dope. But you have to make a choice now. Either the craziness and violence—or here, learning and preparing for a world in which none of this is necessary.”

  Chente reached for the keys in his pocket and opened the car door. Just before stepping inside, he threw me another look; I could see he didn’t want to give up on me yet. But he always told me: People give up on themselves first.

  “Luis, you don’t have to study with us to make me happy or the collective proud of you,” Chente explained. “There are a lot of people involved in your life now. When you win, we win; but when you go down, you go down alone.”

  Chapter Seven

  “When the hanging’s done and the embers at the burning stake are grayed and cold, the conquered bodies of martyrs become the unconquerable ideas.”—Nelson Peery

  AUGUST 29, 1970: TENS of thousands gathered in East L.A.’s Belvedere Park to protest the Viet Nam War. The organizers placed flyers on lampposts and bus stops with the following statistics: 22 percent of the war’s casualties came from Spanish-speaking communities—although this population made up less than six percent of the U.S. total!

  The ensuing march and demonstration—called the Chicano Moratorium Against The War—became the largest anti-war rally ever held in a minority community.

  I jumped on a bumpy bus from South San Gabriel and exited on Beverly Boulevard and Third Street, toward Belvedere Park. When I arrived, people carried signs denouncing the war, including a few which said “Chicano Power.” The Brown Berets, both men and women, in military-style tan, fatigue clothing, marched in cadence on Third Street. A man with a bull horn shouted slogans: “No More War,” “¡Chale! We Won’t Go” and “¡Qué Viva La Raza!”

  The slogans incited the crowd to chants. Signs and fists pierced the sky. Conga drum beats swirled around a grouping of people at one end of the park. I melded among the protesters, dressed in street attire and my favorite blue Pendleton shirt. When the marching started, I threw a fist into the air.

  We advanced down Atlantic Boulevard, past stretches of furniture stores, used car lots and cemeteries. Store owners closed early, pulling across rusty iron enclosures. Young mothers with infants in strollers, factory hands, gang-bangers, a newly-wed couple in wedding dress and tuxedo—young and old alike—strolled beside me.

  We snaked around to Whittier Boulevard where people from the neighborhood joined in the march; some offered us water and food. Battles between police and young dudes flared up in alleys and side streets. Thrown bottles smashed the windshields of squad cars.

  The protesters pulled into Laguna Park in the heart of the largest community of Mexicans outside of Mexico. A stage thundered with speeches, theater and song. Music permeated the air. I spotted Cuervo and Eight Ball from Lomas. They had reds and we dropped a few. There was a liquor store on the corner of Indiana and Whittier where we scored on some brew. But Cuervo and Eight Ball stole a case, forcing the store owner to close up shop. Soon a crowd gathered outside the store demanding to get in. Somebody banged on the glass door. Suddenly a shotgun pressed against my skull.

  “Move or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off,” a sheriff’s deputy ordered. I returned to the park, wandering through feet and bodies, coolers and blankets.

  A line of deputies at the park’s edge—armed with high-powered rifles, billy clubs and tear gas launchers—swaggered toward the crowd. They mowed down anybody in their path. A group of people held arms to stop the rioting police from getting to the families. I turned toward the throng of officers. One guy told me to go back: “We’ll fight tomorrow.”

  But there were no more tomorrows for me. I had had enough at the hands of alien authority.

  Come on, then, you helmeted, wall of state power. Come and try to blacken this grass, this shi
rt of colors, this festive park filled with infants and mothers and old men, surging forth in pride. Come and try to blacken it with your blazing batons, shotguns and tear gas canisters. I’m ready.

  A deputy in a feverish tone shouted for me to move.

  “Chale, this is my park.”

  Before I knew it, officers drove my face into the dirt; there was a throbbing in my head where a black jack had been swung. On the ground, drops of red slid over blades of green. The battle of Laguna Park had started.

  Bodies scurried in all directions. Through the tear gas mist, I saw shadows of children crying, women yelling, and people lying on the grass, kicking and gouging as officers thrust black jacks into ribs and spines. Deputies pursued several people into the yards and living rooms of nearby homes. In a murderous frenzy, they pulled people out of back yards and porches, beating and arresting them.

  A deputy pushed me into the back of a squad car. Somebody lay next to me, his hair oiled in blood. I didn’t want to look in case his brains were coming out. I gave him a piece of my favorite shirt, soon to be soaked.

  The first round of arrestees were crowded into a holding tank for hours in the East L.A. jail—the same jail where in a year’s time, seven prisoners reportedly “committed suicide.”

  Later that night, we were piled into black, caged buses and taken to the Los Angeles County Jail, the largest in the country, then to juvenile hall and again to the county jail. At one point, officers sprayed mace into the windows of the bus while we sat chained to one another. Our eyes and skin burned as we yelled, but no one could hear us.

  There were three other young dudes with me: another 16 year old, a 15 year old and his 13-year-old brother. In the county jail, deputies placed us in with adults—with murder, drug and rape suspects. We weren’t old enough to be incarcerated there, but they didn’t care about this. There was an uprising in East L.A. and we were part of it. One black guy recalled the Watts rebellion and shook our hands. I watched deputies come into the cells and beat up prisoners—breaking the arm of one guy.