Always Running

by Luis J. Rodriguez

  At one point, the four of us juveniles were hauled to the Hall of Justice jail, known as the Glasshouse. The deputies threw us into “murderers row,” where hardcore offenders were awaiting trial or serving time. I had a cell next to Charles Manson.

  They threw me in with a dude who had killed a teacher and another who had shot somebody in the Aliso Village housing projects. One of the dudes pressed a stashed blade to my neck. But I knew, no matter what, never show fear. I stood up to him, staring without blinking. Then he backed off. Soon we played cards, told jokes and stories.

  That night, we heard the “East L.A. riot”—this is what the media was calling it!—had escalated throughout much of Whittier Boulevard. Stores were burned down and looted. Police had killed people. Fires flared in other Chicano communities such as Wilmington and Venice.

  Then a radio reporter announced that sheriff’s deputies had killed Chicano journalist Rubén Salazar. Salazar had been a lone voice in the existing media for the Mexican people in the United States (he was a former Los Angeles Times reporter and KMEX-TV news director). At word of his death, the tier exploded into an uproar. Inmates gave out gritos and cell bars rattled; mattresses were set on fire.

  The next day, Manson, who stayed in an enclosed cell with only a small glass-and-bar opening to see him through, had to attend a hearing. Early that morning, guards woke up everybody and made us face the walls of our cells. Some protested. The dude next to me said it was at Manson’s request.

  “Fuck this,” I said, but we were forced to comply.

  At midday, they allowed us to roam the tier. I talked to inmates from the other cells, most of whom were black or Chicano. For the most part, the four of us young dudes from the unrest were treated with respect. When it was time for Manson to walk the tier, however, the guards made everyone else go back into their cells. Manson emerged from his enclosed box. He ranted and raved about “niggers and spics,” about how whites should kill us all. The other inmates yelled back, threatened his life, but Manson knew the guards wouldn’t let anyone get to him.

  I disappeared in the criminal justice system. I was being held without a hearing. Whenever one was scheduled, my parents would show up and then the courts canceled it. Dad and Mom searched for me everywhere. They checked for my name in court records and arrest sheets. They fell into a maze of paperwork and bureaucrats. At least once, I was being pulled away in chains while my mom and dad sat confused in a hearing room. Days built up on days while they waited word about my release.

  Finally in the middle of the night, a guard awakened me, pulled me out of the cell and led me down brightly-lit corridors. Through a thick-glassed window, I saw my mother’s weary face.

  They brought me out in my old clothes, caked with dirt and blood. Mama forced a smile.

  “I ain’t no criminal, ma,” I reassured her.

  “I know, m’ijo,” she replied. “I know.”

  The Watts Rebellion of 1965 changed forever the civil rights struggle in this country. The fires that swept through my old neighborhood that summer swept through me, cutting deep lines, as it swept through America, turning it toward its greatest fears and hardest questions; demarcating the long-glossed-over class and national differences which have historically divided the country.

  A trajectory from Watts converged with the more-than-century-old fight of the Mexican people for their own freedoms to ripen into the Chicano Movement as manifested in East L.A.

  And what a time it was to be in East L.A.!

  In 1968 several thousand junior and high school students walked out of the Mexican east side schools to demand quality and accountable education. Students in schools throughout Los Angeles followed suit—in South Central, the Harbor, the West Side and San Fernando Valley.

  A handful of us at Garvey School joined with the East L.A. school “Blowouts,” as they were called, when we walked out of the school yard. Led by a girl named Norma and myself, our walkout turned out as a solidarity gesture. The students didn’t have enough cognizance of the issues to carry it to the heights taken by those to the west of us. Still it became my first conscious political act—I was 13 years old—for which I received a day’s suspension from school.

  Around this time, Chicanos formed various defense organizations. The Brown Berets followed the example of the community-based Black Panthers. MEChA, the Chicano student association, had chapters in all the major campuses. La Raza Unida Party, founded in South Texas, became the arm of the movement’s burgeoning political campaigns.

  In prisons, where a disproportionate number of Chicano males ended up, pinto organizations and publications flowered into existence.

  East L.A. also birthed artists, musicians and writers out of the wombs of conflict. Art centers sprouted up such as Mechicano, Goez Studios, Self-Help Graphics and Plaza de La Raza. East L.A. boasted more murals per square mile than any other place in the world. Residents of federally-subsidized housing projects—once designated as havens of crime, drugs and gang warfare—covered up the bland pastel walls with bold-colored, message-laden works of art.

  Over the years, bands like El Chicano, Tierra, Los Lobos, Con Safos, Los Illegals and Califas carried forth the people’s message through Latinized jazz-rock compositions, and later in punk and traditional corrido forms.

  Publications arose such as La Raza which chronicled through photos and prose the ongoing developments in the movement. Also Con Safos, a caló-tinged street-oriented magazine (and a forerunner of later magazines such as Lowrider, Q-Vo, and Firme); Regeneracíon, the rebirth of a publication founded during the Mexican Revolution by the Flores-Magon brothers; and ChismeArte, a literary and art publication.

  A result and impetus of all this activity became the Chicano Moratorium Against the War. It was one of nine major disturbances in the barrio between 1970–72.

  And for a time, for a most productive and wonderful time, gang violence stood at a standstill. For a time it appeared the internal warfare had given way to the struggle for land, language and liberty—when we had something more important to fight for.

  St. Anthony’s Church sponsored a teen dance soon after my ordeal in the Los Angeles County jail system. I came, not knowing what to expect. The place swarmed with perfumed-and-preened young women, and dudes with plastered down hair and oven-heated shined shoes. The women danced with so much verve, so much music. Sometimes, I preferred standing on the sides to observe the stream and tide of their motion, their gyrations, the fusion of feet and fingers with the fever from some dark, tribal, ancestral homeland.

  I noticed one woman with long, luxurious black hair, embracing cinnamon-colored skin, who danced as if she were outside by herself, in the rain or beneath a starry sky, just for me. She closed her eyes and let the band’s beat press through her, fingering her flesh and sprouting in violent plumage across the dance floor.

  Entranced, it took a while before I realized she was Viviana from Sangra.

  Even though we had not seen each other for two years since we met during the Mission’s Fiesta Days carnival, I felt compelled to confront her. Viviana turned slightly in my direction when I tapped her shoulder. Then after a few seconds’ glance, she did a full body turn and looked straight into my face. She remembered. We both remembered—and it was as if no time at all had passed between us.

  “You look and sound so different,” Viviana later said, as we held each other following a couple of slow dances and some kissing.

  “I’ve been through some hard times lately—I was just in jail.”

  “Somehow, I could tell. Something about being in jail changes a dude’s expression, his voice; how he feels to touch.”

  “You’re still nice to talk to,” I said.

  We spent the rest of the evening catching up. Viviana had kept herself pretty much out of trouble. But her brothers were getting crazier and deadly. The three oldest were hardcore members of Los Diablos; one of them, called Coyote, became Chava’s right-hand dude. As she talked, a sparkle from her eye reflected a ligh
t on the dance floor and it appeared to be a warning: I would fall for this woman; I would fall hard.

  I rode a ten-speed bike late at night to visit Viviana. I tried to look nondescript, with an oil-stained coat over un-pressed denim pants. I had to enter Sangra territory to see her. But I wouldn’t let that stop me; Viviana was worth the risk.

  Beneath the porch light of her house, Viviana and I talked, caressed and endured. One time Coyote came up the walkway.

  “What’s up, sis?” Coyote said as he shot me a look that could have cut glass, like a diamond.

  “Nothing,” she replied.

  Coyote stopped at the steps. I didn’t look away from his gaze. With weight and boxing training, I looked like I could hold my own. And I had the look from la torcida. He figured I had to be from somewhere.

  “¿De dónde eres, ése?” he finally asked.

  “Oh Eddie, let him be,” Viviana intervened. “He’s here with me—and I don’t want no hassles from either of you, understand?”

  “¡Aquí para Sangra—y qué!” Coyote/Eddie said before he entered the house. I was safe, for the time being.

  “I hate this shit,” Viviana said. “You’re not the first dude who has to go through my brothers just so I can have a friend. But I’m sick and tired of it.”

  “Thanks for backing me,” I said. “But this can’t go on forever. Someday they’re going to find out I’m from Lomas.”

  “I know,” she said looking away, distressed.

  Viviana taught me poetry. Not the words or forms of it. The feel of it: The soul-touch she gave me, the way her words clutched at some dark and secret place inside of me. She had a way of saying almost nothing but when she did speak, her words radiated with truth and power. I looked forward to the visits. I didn’t even mind the dudes I had to go around or ride past in silence to get there. Or her brothers. For Viviana, I would have done anything.

  One night we kissed and kissed, then found ourselves unable to stop. Until then, we did nothing more than fondle and linger in easy talk, but something snapped between us; this unseen barrier which often kept us at a distance, despite being so close there, appeared to break. Our inhibitions were freed and my hands groped her supple body as her tongue freshened the inside of my ear.

  I gently pushed her down on the porch and she followed willingly, eagerly. Her rising rate of breathing gave way to moans and sighs and woman-sounds that culled forth a measure of something sweet and taut within me. My hand moved to the top of her pants, where a button had been loosened, and I pushed my hand through and found I could go all the way to the stem of her pleasure, to the silkiness of her vagina, while she squirmed and tightened and squeezed as I felt myself swimming, drowning, in the ocean of our lovemaking.

  The moments dripped, then Viviana exploded in a rush of orgasms; I rocked next to her like a baby in a cradle. Suddenly the porch, the trees, the walkway and row of houses became intruders. An uncomfortableness crept around us. Viviana sat up, buttoned her blouse and pants, then placed her hands to her face and sobbed.

  “What’s the matter, baby?” I whispered.

  “You have to leave,” she said between her fingers.

  “Why?”

  “I can’t explain, just leave—please.”

  “I don’t see why. Let’s just sit here and …”

  “Louie, you don’t understand nothing, do you?” she said, her attitude a sharp contrast to the moments before, almost as if those moments were just dust from dreams, which often appeared real, but only dust.

  “All right, baby, all right, I’ll go.”

  I stood up and pulled the bike up from the grass. I felt so dumb, unable to find words, some sentences which could ease the pain. Anything.

  “I’ll be back, Viviana,” I mustered while on my way out. “Don’t ever forget what happened here tonight.”

  She laid her head on her arms, which were on top of her knees, as she sat on the porch steps.

  “Go, please—just go,” were her last words.

  Viviana failed to return my calls. Deep, hoarse voices answered the phone and said: “She’s not here.”

  I wrote Viviana letters, but doubted the wisdom of sending them. At night, I woke up suddenly, after dreaming of her coming to me, embracing me and dancing, and when I sat up I struck the walls, grasped the pillow and cried out her name.

  Some nights, I rode my bike to her house and stared from across the street. Windows darkened. Porch light out. I felt like running up the steps and banging at the screen door and yelling for her to come out, but I could never do this. I hoped she would slide open the curtain, feel me near her. That she would let me in.

  Viviana never looked out that window; she never opened the door.

  A month or so passed and I went to another dance at the El Monte Legion Stadium with my sisters, Shorty and Ana. As usual, the place was jam-packed with vatos and rucas from barrios all over the San Gabriel Valley. Lowriders graced the rows of cars in the parking lot. Different gang members exchanged hand signs and spray-painted the names of all their homeboys on the walls.

  This was a huge hall. I rambled around looking at the people, feeling like shit, but still open to make the most of the evening. Then my heart jumped. Viviana was there, at a seat, by herself. I walked fast to get to her, but before I did some dude came out of nowhere and offered her his hand to dance. She accepted. Chingao: I just missed her. My palms were wet. My tongue dry. I felt like there was an oven in my chest.

  Then Viviana returned and this time I sat down next to her.

  “Baby, how are you doing?” I said.

  She turned her head, looked at me and smiled. God, it felt good. She acted coy, diffident, but alluring. There wasn’t much to say. I leaned over and kissed her and she then placed her hand to the back of my neck and I felt her moan and squirm in her seat, taking me back to that night on her porch. We kissed a long time before she gently pulled me away.

  “Prieto, I need to do something, will you wait here?” Viviana requested with her hands on my chest.

  “Sure, I ain’t going nowhere.”

  She got up from the seat, her hands brushed her dress over the curve of her hips, and then walked out. I felt so much relief. Love leapt out of my ears. Viviana, Viviana—how I prayed to every god known to man for this moment!

  I sat there for an hour. Viviana didn’t show. Others were being coupled already. Slow dance after slow dance caused me great anxiety. Where was Viviana? I looked around, but wouldn’t leave the seat. It took me longer than most, but it finally hit me: She wasn’t coming back.

  I stepped away from that spot, walked through the sweat and cologne, through the stale smoke and wine breath. I made it to the exit. Then Viviana appeared, in a darkened corner, making out with another guy.

  By the time I caught up with Shorty and Ana, I was wound up, bumping strangers, talking loud. Challenging everyone. A dude would give me any kind of look and I pushed myself up on him.

  “What you looking at, puto!”

  “Louie, come on, let’s go,” Shorty said, pulling me away. “Forget it, man.”

  I told my sisters what happened with Viviana. I wanted to kill someone. To help lessen my anger, Shorty and Ana plotted to wait outside of the El Monte Legion for Viviana and jump her.

  “We’ll do it for you, bro’, okay?” Shorty said.

  At first I liked the idea. I stood outside by my sisters as the place closed up and crowds of teenagers streamed to the parking lot. But the sadness and anger which first overwhelmed me soon started to choke me. All I wanted to do was get the hell out of there.

  “Forget it, man,” I told my sisters. “I don’t want anything to happen to Viviana. Let’s go home.”

  It was over. Finally, over.

  Mr. Madison looked tense, sitting there in short-sleeved shirt and casual slacks. In front of him were about 20 teenagers from Lomas, lying around in a circle on the front yard of my homeboy Alex’s house. Mr. Madison had been persuaded to meet with us about how to improv
e the conditions at Mark Keppel High School.

  “As principal of your school, I plan to make this the best learning experience of your lives,” he said. “But no one man or administrator can do anything unless you decide to put everything behind it.”

  He seemed to be open, willing to consider our ideas. Chente told me to give him the benefit of the doubt, but not to let him off the hook either. Chente didn’t want us to be given the runaround or appeased without real educational advances. But he said the students had to play the leading role in insuring those advances were realized.

  “I can’t make any guarantees,” Mr. Madison said to finish the meeting. “The wheels of progress turn slowly. But I will promise to do all I can. If you work with me, I’ll work with you.”

  He got up and shook everybody’s hand. The next school year, I was allowed to come back.

  Chicanos made up almost 40 percent of the student body at Keppel, although it seemed like it was 80 percent. The dark faces under the tree on the lawn, the daily brawls among us, and police coming through the hallways made it seem like nobody but Chicanos attended the school.

  The Anglo students plugged along among their own, isolated in the upper-floor classrooms. They were in the journalism club that put out the school newspaper, ironically called “The Aztec.” They were in school government sessions making decisions about pep rallies, the annual Christmas party and the Prom. They made up the school teams, the cheerleading squads and most ironically, they were the school mascots: Joe and Josephine Aztec.

  The mascots were always Anglo, cloaked in deerskin, Indian-like garb. They usually acted like clowns, tripping over each other during football games, while “rallying” the team to victory. Sometimes they did tumbling acts—nothing whatsoever to do with being Aztec.

  The Chicanos started their own student club called To.H.M.A.S.—To Help Mexican American Students. The other high schools in the district also did the same: San Gabriel High School had M.A.S.O.—Mexican American Student Organization; and Alhambra High School had HUNTOS—which means “together.”