More yelling. More heated responses. It was difficult, but this had to happen. Everything had stayed bottled up for too long. Each group doing their own thing; complaining about the other group, but not reaching out. The tears, the yelling, the talk served as good medicine for all the students.
Even some hard-nosed dudes got up to say something; some of them had never spoken out in public before. Near the end, I stepped on the stage and made a speech.
“Chicanos only want what you want,” I said. “We walk these halls together and yet we don’t know anything about each other. We’re scared of each other, we’re ignorant of each other, and then we’re surprised when people get up like this with so much hatred. It’s for a reason. There’s nothing wrong with us! We’re not just making this up. Something drastic has to change, or there’s going to be even more anger. More than you can imagine.”
The result: Mr. Madison approved a new course, a class on Chicano history and culture, and he offered to provide a Chicano teacher for the class. Finally, he said the school would put some meat behind Project Student; it became a school-backed initiative to present to the school board.
Esme and I hugged again. We had only just begun.
Shorty’s eyes fell; her voice cracked and tears blurred her vision.
“He’s dead, mama,” she said.
“¿Quién?” Mama asked. “¿Quién se murió?”
“Fernando—he killed himself last night!”
14-year-old Fernando Luna had been one of Shorty’s best friends. He was a member of the Lomas Dukes, the younger set the United Sisters usually partied with. He called himself Gallo, which means rooster. His older brother was Lencho, who was more involved in the affairs of the Hills than Fernando would ever be. Fernando was one of those guys who tried hard to belong, to be as crazy and committed as anyone. But none of us were aware how lonely he was in midst of the crowd.
His mother, Toncha, was active in the Bienvenidos Food Coop. But as a single mother, on welfare, with five boys to raise, Toncha’s hands were full—and I’m sure through no fault of her own, Fernando’s needs weren’t always met.
Shorty had been seeing a few of Fernando’s homeys, like Bosco and Conejo. And although she confided with Fernando many of her problems, they never became intimate. She saw him as a good friend; somebody she could talk to. Now it comes out: Fernando liked my sister very much.
The night before, Fernando had phoned late to talk with Shorty. Usually she was full of stories, jokes and concerns. But Shorty was in bed and tired; she gently suggested he call her back the next day.
“Or let’s talk in school,” she said. “We can get together at lunch.”
“Sure, okay,” Fernando responded; there was nothing unusual in his tone.
The next day, Toncha discovered Fernando’s body swinging from a pole in the closet.
“It’s not enough to accuse, to wail and spit on the face of all oppression—this can be ignored,” Skin said. “It takes a scientific approach to uncover the source of exploitation, to unravel society’s delicate and intricate tapestry, stitched with the skin of our mothers, the bones of our ancestors, the blood of all who toil.”
“This is why we can demand—with full moral authority—what has been stolen from us,” Ofelia said.
“And this they cannot ignore,” Skin added.
Another session with the collective, most of it held in an eloquent and educated Spanish I could not speak myself, yet I grasped everything being said.
The group aimed to train a corps of leaders. Unlike others in the Chicano Movement who strove to enter the American capitalist system, it prepared for a fundamental reorganization of society.
“It’s also time you understood whites aren’t the enemy,” Chente said. “Take that ‘tradition,’ all that energy expended against each other—what a waste!”
Others with their own answers also converged on the barrio. Born-again Christians, many of whom were ex-cons and ex-junkies, preached salvation; I attended some of their testimonials. Democrats, Republicans, libertarians and nationalists also plied their wares. Some wanted our minds, some wanted our souls—some wanted warm bodies for polling booths.
But the collective didn’t depend on powers of belief or stale promises. They were social scientists, all the time probing and summarizing.
“You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what’s in front of you,” Chente said. “Yet this is the hardest thing to do precisely because what we see is not always expressing what’s beneath it.”
“But all we know is this life,” I questioned. “You can’t change that!”
“Luis, change is what we’re all about,” Chente offered. “Change is constant, stagnation is relative. But change follows laws of development, a process that, if appreciated, sets the conditions by which people make their own history.”
“What we’re here to do is transform the way people have been accustomed to living,” Sergio said. “The first step is removing the shackles on our minds.”
The collective explained how workers of all colors and nationalities, linked by hunger and the same system of exploitation, have no country; their interests as a class respect no borders. To me, this was an unconquerable idea.
I also learned there was no shame in being a janitor or a garment worker; I never looked at Mama and Dad with disdain again.
So fundamental. So Christian. So American at times. Yet this conflict would be the most intense and prolonged of our lives.
A party below the Hills swung with music, ruquitas de aquellas and anything to get high with. Suddenly, this dude Rudy rushed into the living room, breathing hard and sweating.
“Where’s Santos and Toots?” he demanded.
“What the fuck you want?” Santos yelled from the kitchen.
“The gabachos on Marshall Street tried to jump me, man.”
“Slow down—what happened?”
“I was walking my girl home when the bikers from the old gray house—you know the one before you get to the Church—anyway they come out of the house with chains and bats, call us fuckin’ greasers and chase us down the street.”
“I know who they are—they’re in a bikers’ club, the Sinisters,” Toots said.
“Fuck ’em,” Santos responded. “Let’s get them white boys.”
A caravan of three cars pulled out of the party toward Marshall Street on the other side of the freeway. I piled into a vehicle so packed—two dudes were stuffed into the trunk—I could hardly breathe the whole way up there.
The gray house had been known as a bikers’ hangout for years. The grassless yard filled with automobile and motorcycle parts. Real poverty row.
When we arrived, dudes piled out of the cars and began to attack the white picket fence, tearing off sections of it and yelling out “Here Stand Las Lomas!” A rock smashed a window.
A long-haired, leather-and-denim clad dude stepped onto the porch, cradling a shotgun; he fired and Pokie received some of the pellets in his face, and he dropped to the street. Dudes began to run in all directions. Many jumped back into their cars. I ran off too, and came across Santos with a knife. He started poking me and a couple of others with it.
“You don’t fuckin’ run!” he yelled. “Lomas never runs!”
But in the confusion, there was nothing else to do. Toots and Cuervo picked up Pokie to take him to the hospital. I got into somebody’s else car and we boogied back to the party.
Later at the party, Santos gathered all the dudes together and again shouted about the cowards we were. Puppet had heard what happened and called the house. But Puppet was pissed off we went after the bikers. He said nobody, but nobody, was to go back there.
Santos wasn’t having it.
“Toots, Cuervo and I will go in one car,” he said, displaying a handgun through his pant’s belt.
“Chin, you get a couple of other dudes and come by five minutes after we do. Can you get a cuete?”
“Simón, I think so.”
“O
rale, then do it—and follow us over there.”
I knocked on Roger Nelson’s window. He opened it. Roger was a half-Mexican, half-white guy who I knew had weapons.
“What ya want Chin? It’s 2:30 in the morning.”
“I need a rifle, man, any one you got.”
“What’s going on?”
I explained the situation to him. Roger knew the Sinisters. In fact, they were long-time enemies. The Sinisters hated Mexicans. They also hated Roger because, although he looked white, he decided to cleave closer to his Mexican side and spent a lot of time with dudes from the Hills.
Roger handed me a Ruger Long .22 semi-automatic rifle with scope.
“Bring it back in the morning—I’ll take care of it for you,” he said.
I took a dude from the Imperials Car Club named Darío, who had a sharp, cherried-out Riviera. This was my first mistake. My second mistake was taking Conejo from the Dukes. He was my sister’s ex, a 13 year old who was eager to go with me, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt.
We were supposed to follow the old, beat-up car that Santos and the others were in. But by the time I got everything together, they were long gone. I told Darío to drive slowly down Marshall Street. As we approached the gray house, it looked like a tornado hit the place. The bikers were scrambling about outside; a couple of bodies were on the ground. Darío pulled up and I stuck the rifle out the side window.
“They’re back!” a woman yelled.
The bikers rushed around, some jumped over trash cans and others tripped into the dwelling. I didn’t know what to do. A massive biker dude stood nearby on the yard and looked at me while he tried to figure out his next move. But instead of running, he turned around, wound his arms over his head and bent over. Without thinking, I shot him—right in the ass!
“Take off, man, take off!” I yelled at Darío.
We sped off toward Del Mar Avenue, not far from my house. But we didn’t get too far. Police cars came out of nowhere, from every direction. Darío stopped the car in the driveway of an apartment complex.
“Come out with your hands up!” a cop yelled.
We did as they ordered. I emerged from the car and perhaps ten .38 revolvers were pointed at my head. They told us to lie on the ground with our hands on our heads. I saw a cop reach into the back seat of the car and carefully remove the .22 rifle with his fingertips.
“I got it,” he declared.
Conejo cried the whole time we were hauled to the San Gabriel jail house. I told Darío and Conejo not to say anything. After the booking rituals, we found out what happened.
The first car had come to the house on Marshall Street and opened fire on the bikers who were hanging around. Three bikers went down. Then a few minutes later, we came by in Darío’s ride while the bikers were still figuring out who had gotten injured. Another biker down. The first car escaped.
The second car with three teenage male suspects was apprehended and a fired weapon confiscated.
Darío, Conejo and I were booked for assault with intent to commit murder.
Chapter Eight
“THEY SAY OF THE poet and the madman we all have a little.”—Sandra Cisneros
The cells babbled with the poignant tongues of despair licking the walls. Every now and then the air reverberated with gritos, the Mexican yell of a man who’s drunk and angry, reaching as deep as he can to shout all his pain and glory to the world. Jail in the barrio is only a prelude; for many homeboys the walls would soon taste of San Quentin, Folsom and Soledad, the pathway through The Crazy Life.
From the age of 13 on, I ended up in cells like those of the San Gabriel jail house—places like Pomona, Temple City, East L.A., Monterey Park, East Lake’s juvenile detention hall and the L.A. county jail system following the Moratorium. Sometimes the police just held me over three nights and then let me go at the start of the week to keep me off the street. But this time, at 17 years old, I faced a serious charge of attempted murder. This time Mama didn’t come for me.
“Ese malvado—deje que se pudra,” Mama told the Spanish-speaking youth officer after hearing of my arrest.
The cell walls were filled with the warrior’s art. Most of it declaring Sangra in the beautiful, swirling style of theirs. Smoked outlines of women’s faces were burned onto the painted brick. There were love messages: El Loco Con La Bárbara, P/V (por vida)—and poetry:
Aquí estoy
En la calle sin jando.
Nadie sabe mi placa
Y a nadie le importa
Voy al chante de mi ruca
Pero se queda mirando
Le hablo con mi alma
Pero la puerta se está cerrando.*
and:
En el bote del county
Con toda mi loca pasión
Puse tu placa en la celda
Y con ese pensamiento
Estoy sufriendo mi desgracia.**
Pachuco blues. Somebody in another cell let out a soulified grito with the funk of burnt burritos, debris-strewn alleys and fervent love-making thrown into the mix. The holding blocks were made up of two cells and an area for inmates from the shared block to sit around. I gathered up toilet paper, soaked it in water, and rolled it to the size of handballs. When it hardened, I passed the time by throwing it against the wall.
A Sangra soldier named Night Owl sat in a cell next to me and threw challenges.
“Lomas ain’t shit,” Night Owl said. “I heard your homeboy crying—what are you, babies?”
“Fuck you,” I answered. “You can say that behind thick walls, but I’ll be out and I’ll see you in the street.”
Hours of this opened up into other discussions: about family life, about songs we liked—we even shared a few verses—and about women.
“You know Viviana?” I asked. “Her brothers are Coyote, Negro and Shark.”
“What you mean, do I know her?” Night Owl said. “Everybody knows her. They say she fucked around with some dude on her porch while her brothers were inside watching.”
¡Qué jodida! It’s me they were talking about! Then it struck me as very funny and I laughed.
“What are you laughing about?”
“Nothing, man—whatever happened to her?”
“She got knocked up—she’s living with my homeboy Cyclone.”
A pang of hurt, I shook my head, then changed the subject.
Darío, Conejo and I were scheduled to go to juvenile hall. Our parents refused to get us. It sounded like a conspiracy. Then I received a visitor.
“You messed up, Luis,” Chente said.
“I know—Mama doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Can you blame her?”
“Not really. Did anyone die yet?”
“There was a dude in serious condition, but he’s doing better. One woman lost a couple of fingers. I know why it happened, but why did you have to get involved?”
“I don’t know. Something snapped inside of me. I have nothing against bikers. But these were older dudes, man. About 40 years old. They had no business fucking with us. I just couldn’t let them get away with it.”
“The center is trying to get you guys released. We talked to your parents and they’re willing to work with us. We’re doing all we can to help you. But you’ve got to stay cool. Don’t rattle these bars, okay?”
Chente left. A day later an officer came and opened my cell.
“You’re getting out. There’s people waiting for you.”
I could see my mom and dad with a couple of Bienvenidos staff members in the front desk area. I looked over where Night Owl was still holed up.
“Hey dude, here’s for Sangra,” and I stuck out my hand.
Night Owl looked at me for a second, then smirked, and shook my hand through the bars.
“You ain’t so bad after all,” he said. “Suerte, ése.”
The next weeks were stacked with uncertainty about the case. Meanwhile, the people at ToHMAS welcomed me back at school.
“I don’t know what to
say, Louie,” Esme said. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
Mrs. Baez saw me in the Chicano Student Center lounge talking to Blanca and Carmela as I related to them the incident. A clipping with the headline, “Five Injured In San Gabriel Shootout,” had been tacked onto a bulletin board.
“Luis—our Joe Aztec—a fine example you turned out to be,” she said.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Baez, I let you down.”
“If you wanted notoriety you got it. Unfortunately, the younger guys around here think you’re God.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Nobody ever does,” she responded.
“I have something for you though.”
I dropped a folder with papers on her desk. In it were vignettes, poems and stories. I left as Mrs. Baez picked up the folder and began to peruse it.
The bikers refused to identify Darío, Conejo or me. Instead they pointed to Roger Nelson. He was there, they said. It was his gun. They saw his stringy long hair as he stuck his head out of a car window. For some reason, they wanted Roger.
The police picked up Roger and charged him. Of course, I knew he was in bed the night of the incident. Then another strange thing happened. The authorities let me and the others go. They never did find the first car. They contended only one car was involved and Roger had escaped before the police caught us.
“What’s going on Chente?” I said while at the youth center. “As much as I don’t want to get sent up for this, it’s all lies.”
“I don’t know, but I can tell you this,” Chente said. “The law isn’t always about truth.”
Instead of being the one facing a hearing, I became the key witness for Roger, who was 18 and had to appear in adult court.
A number of the bikers showed up for the trial, including a woman in a cast and the dude I shot in the butt—the bullet had lodged in mounds of flesh so no serious damage had been done.
Roger wore a suit and now sported a close-cropped haircut. His fiancé, Margarita, sat next to him.
“This goes way back, Louie,” Roger explained. “My family had a beef with the Sinisters. Somebody got killed. They always thought my dad did it. He’s in the joint now, but they’ve been after me for years. Since it was my gun, they say I set them up. They want to see me put away—like my dad.”
Always Running Page 20
