by Glenn Trust
“Well, I suppose I’ll be heading out too.” Sole put out a hand to Edgar. “It was good meeting you, Mr. Dupart. Sorry it had to be under these circumstances.”
“Call me Edgar.” He shook Sole’s hand and held it. “I can’t thank you enough for helping me … helping Salvadore.”
“It was nothing. Glad to help.” Sole extricated his hand from Edgar’s grasp. “I should be going now.”
“Do you have to?” Edgar hesitated. “There’s something I could use your help with.”
“What’s that?”
“I need to tell Salvadore’s wife what happened. I …” He shook his head. “I’ve known him for thirty years, but I don’t know what to say. Carmen will be very upset, and I don’t know how to tell her. You have a calm way of saying things, like you did to the police and 911. Please, I could use your help.”
“Sidetracked again,” the voice inside whispered. “What happened to no entanglements?”
Sole nodded. “Alright. I’ll go with you.”
When Was He Going to Learn?
“Carmen, are you there?” Edgar Dupart knocked softly on the screen door.
John Sole stood at his side, hands folded respectfully in front of him. It wasn’t his city or his fight, but Edgar asked for help, and he couldn’t look the old man in the eye and deny him.
Apparently, he still had a conscience. That surprised him, and he wondered if that was a good thing.
The old man, Salvadore Estevez, was still alive, at least he was when they loaded him in the ambulance, but this had the feel of a death notification. He’d done more of those during his police years than he cared to remember. They were never easy, and the reality was there was nothing to do but say what you had to say, get out of the way and let the family begin to grieve.
Sometimes they thanked you for coming by, but Sole always knew it was a lie. How could you really thank someone for stopping by to tell you your son or daughter, father or mother were dead? They were just the words people say when they don’t know what else to say.
He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Edgar Dupart leaned over, peering through the screen into the dim interior. Just do this and get back on the road, he reminded himself.
He caught a glimpse of an old woman shuffling through the small living room, unaware of their presence, muttering to herself. Her movements seemed erratic and confused. They watched her pick up a handbag from a table, then put it down and go to a closet to get a pair of shoes. She sat in a chair to put on the shoes, but stood up again and rushed to the back of the house barefoot.
“The stove,” she said. “I left the burner on.”
A few seconds later, she rushed back into view, muttering. “I told you, Salvadore to be careful when you are out. Give them what they want. I told you, you’re no fighter.” She put a weathered hand to her forehead, shaking her head to clear away the fog. “I have to go …. that’s it I have to go.”
She disappeared out of sight down a hallway.
Edgar knocked again and gave the screen a tug. It rattled in its frame but did not open. The old fashioned safety hook was dropped down in the eye screw.
Sole glanced up and down the street and wondered at the innocence of an elderly couple, sitting in their home in one of the highest crime areas in a major city with nothing more than a safety hook on a screen door to provide security. It would not have deterred even the most incompetent burglar, yet, Salvadore and Carmen Estevez sat comfortably behind their screen door, secure in the knowledge that they had done what they could to keep the devil away. He envied their innocence.
“She doesn’t hear too good,” Edgar said to Sole then called again as Carmen shuffled from the hallway into the living room. “Carmen! Over here, at the door!” He waved a hand.
It was the wave that caught her attention. She hurried to the door and pushed the safety hook out of the eye screw. Edgar pulled the door open. Carmen rushed into his arms, her wrinkled face wet with tears.
“Edgar, they hurt my Salvadore,” she sobbed. “Someone called … they said I should come.” She looked up into his eyes. “But I don’t know where to go! Where do I go, Edgar?”
“That’s why we came, Carmen. We wanted to tell you before the hospital called.” Edgar patted her shoulder.
“What happened, Edgar?” Carmen wiped the tears away with the palm of her hand.
“He was attacked.”
“My God! Who would attack my Salvadore!” She cried, and in the next breath added, “I told him to be careful, to just give them what they want and not fight.” She shook her head. “He’s no fighter, my Salvadore.
“He didn’t fight. Listen to me.” Edgar put his hands on her shoulders, holding her so she would look him in the eyes. “He was attacked by some young people.”
A few more minutes to be polite, and then leave, Sole reminded himself. There was nothing he could do for these people that the hospital and police weren’t already doing.
“Who would do that?” Carmen asked.
“This man saw it. He can tell you better than me.” Edgar turned to Sole.
So much for leaving. Sole fought back the urge to sigh.
Carmen looked at him, puzzled, acknowledging his presence for the first time. “You saw what happened?”
“Part of it.” Sole nodded. “A van with the people who did it inside almost ran into me.”
“But who was it?”
“I don’t know. Gang members maybe. No one I know.” He tried a smile to put her at ease. “I told the police everything. I’m sure they will find the ones who did it.”
“Bah!” Carmen threw her hands in the air. “The police. They aren’t any use around here. This used to be a nice place to live. Now …” She nodded at the screen door and its sad little safety hook. “You have to keep the doors locked in the middle of the day.”
“Well, I’m sure they will try to find out who is responsible, and …” He fumbled for something to say. “I’m sure he is getting the best treatment at the hospital.”
“The hospital!” Her eyes opened wide, remembering what she had been doing when they arrived. “I have to get to the hospital to see about Salvadore.” She shook her head. “But I don’t have any way to get there.” She looked from Sole to Edgar. “Can you take me?”
“Yes, of course,” Edgar said. He looked at Sole. “Is that alright, I mean?”
They had come in Sole’s pickup. It seemed like a good idea at the time. He could help break the news to Carmen Estevez and then take his leave without having to rely on Edgar to get him back.
“Sure. We’ll go together.”
They waited while Carmen put on her shoes. Edgar reminded her to take her handbag.
The University of New Mexico Hospital Emergency Room was ten minutes away. Edgar sat in the back crew cab seat, silent, the worry about his friend plain on his face. Carmen sobbed and muttered softly to herself. John Sole asked himself what he was doing.
He shook his head. When was he going to learn?
I’ll Stay
He hated hospitals. Nothing good happened in hospitals.
Bobby and Samantha were born in a hospital, he reminded himself. That was a good thing, the best thing that had ever happened to him, for him, in spite of him, thanks to Shaye. Alright, some good things happened in hospitals, he admitted, but not this.
John Sole looked around the waiting room. A television mounted in the corner, seven feet up a wall, displayed a fuzzy image of a pride of lions with their heads buried in what looked like the carcass of a zebra. The volume was turned down, making the narration inaudible. It didn’t matter. No one was watching.
A dozen others sat on plastic chairs outside the UNM Hospital emergency room. A few had their heads back, dozing. Some were whispering among themselves. One man had a blood-soaked towel wrapped around his forearm, and another woman held a rag to her swollen cheek. Apparently, neither was injured severely enough to be granted immediate access to a treatment room.
Edg
ar Dupart had disappeared down the hallway with Carmen Estevez thirty minutes earlier. Sole sat on a plastic chair, waiting, annoyed with himself, anxious to be away and back to his game of cat and mouse with the cartel.
Another fifteen minutes passed before Edgar emerged through the double doors into the waiting area. Sole rose to meet him, ready to take him home and move on.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Alright, I suppose,” Edgar replied and shook his head. “She was shocked when she saw Salvadore … almost fainted. He doesn’t look good.”
“That’s understandable. Any prognosis from the doctor?”
“Not really. They gave him some medication, a diuretic to reduce fluid pressure on the brain. If that doesn’t work, the doctor said it would take surgery … can’t remember what he called it, but it is supposed to relieve pressure if the drugs don’t work.”
“Decompressive craniectomy,” Sole said. “Friend of mine in the Corps had it done after he was thrown into a block wall by an incoming mortar round.”
“Right. That’s it.” Edgar nodded. “Did your friend survive?”
“He did,” Sole said, without adding that his friend also, spoke with a slur from that time forward and was partially paralyzed on his left side.
They stood without speaking, Edgar staring at the wall beyond Sole’s shoulder, worry etched into his face. They might have remained like that all night if Sole had not cleared his throat and said, “I suppose I should take you home now.”
“Oh.” Edgar nodded. “Right … home. Sorry. I guess my mind is a little preoccupied.”
“That’s understandable.” Sole waited, ready to go but not wanting to rush the old man
“Well.” Edgar turned toward the exit. “Yes, I suppose we should go. I can come back tomorrow and check on Salvadore.”
They walked side by side under the yellow glow of the parking lot’s sodium lamps. Sole unlocked the pickup door for Edgar then went around to the driver’s side. As he climbed behind the wheel, he noticed Edgar watching him with a disquieting intensity. He ignored the stare, determined to take the man home, wish him well, and get the hell out of Albuquerque.
Sole pulled from the parking lot. Traffic was light around the hospital at this time of night. Edgar’s eyes continued to bore into him. Sole continued to ignore the stare.
They almost made it to the place where they met, the sidewalk in front of Dupart’s Market, when Edgar finally spoke.
“There is something I wanted to talk to you about.” He hesitated and added, “I mean, we barely met, and you’ve already done more than enough, but …”
Here it comes, he thought. Be strong, John-boy. Life is hard for everyone, but you can’t change the world. You’ve got business elsewhere.
“I could use your help with something … with someone.”
Sole remained silent. Should he just say no now, or let the old man finish and then decline?
After several seconds, Edgar nodded. “I don’t have any right to ask … to impose on you … it’s just …”
Sole sighed. “What?”
“It’s my grandson, Benjamin ... Ben his friends call him.”
“What about him?”
“These gang people … the ones who hurt Salvadore … they have their eyes on him, always watching, tempting him to join them, like wolves ready to bring them into their pack.” He shrugged. “I don’t know how else to say it.
“Wolves.” Sole nodded. “Good a description as any. You think he is really interested in joining a gang?”
“It’s not a matter of interest. For some young men, the gang means survival, a way to find their place in the world.” Edgar said, shaking his head. “But it is a bad place, an evil one that changes these young boys. I have seen it happen too many times.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure there is anything that can be done, but I have to try something, anything, and you …” He shrugged. “There’s a strength in the way you handle yourself. I think he might respect that.”
“Sounds like something his father should be doing,” Sole countered, searching for a polite way to say, no, find someone else.
“His father is dead.”
“Oh.” John-boy, you are an ass, he thought. “Sorry, Edgar. I didn’t mean …”
Edgar held up a hand. “No, no. You didn’t know. Besides, he has been dead for many years now, not long after my grandson was born.”
“Still, I’m sorry,” Sole said. “But I don’t think I’m ….”
“His mother, Magdalena, and I raised him,” Edgar interrupted and continued. “He was always a good boy, and then we started to see him being pulled from us.” He shook his head. “I want to save my grandson. I thought maybe another man, someone like his father, might be able to show him another way to live. Someone like you.”
“But I’m not his father,” Sole said shaking his head. “I wouldn’t be comfortable …”
Once again, Edgar interrupted.
“You are even about the same age as his father, Jean Paul, would be.” Edgar spoke rapidly now, trying to get it all out before this man said no. “We have room for you. You could stay. There would be no charge, and it would be a blessing for us.”
“Do you mind if I ask how his father died?”
“In the war … Afghanistan. He said he would be gone for a year” Edgar shrugged, his face a wrinkled mask of sorrow. “He went into the army. I did the same at his age.” Edgar gave a shrug and looked down. “I came home, but he did not.”
Sole sighed again. Seventeen years of war and the casualties kept mounting, on the battlefield and at home. He nodded.
“I’ll stay.”
Blooded
“That’s some classic shit!” Slice bobbed his head in rhythm to the beat coming from an MP3 player pumping out Scarface by the Geto Boys.
“Classic!” Cheech laughed. “That’s just old shit, man.”
“Naw.” Slice smiled benevolently and took a pull off the oversized joint dangling between his fingertips. “I’m tellin’ you, that’s classic. That’s where we come from, bro.”
“Hey, Keet,” Sliced shouted across the empty warehouse they used as a gang meeting place. “What do you say? This shit classic or what?”
“Classic, bro.” Keet nodded and grinned, his head bobbing in time with Slice’s.
“Whatever, man.” Cheech shook his head and ambled away, muttering. “That’s the shit my daddy was listenin’ to in the day.”
Slice leaned back in the lawn chair that served as his throne and surveyed his domain. Demonios de la Muerte gang members were sprawled in various positions around the room. A few were in the dark corners where girls who hung with the gang were giving blow jobs.
They took turns with the girls. In exchange, the girls received protection from the gang and had access to the meth, cocaine, and weed the DMs dealt on street corners around Albuquerque. Most importantly, they had status in the community. No one fucked with DM’s women.
It was time to call the group to order. There was business to conduct.
“Yo!” Slice shouted.
Heads turned around the warehouse. A couple of DM members stumbled from the corners zipping up their pants. Ape moved to stand beside Slice, acting as the sergeant at arms.
“We got a new man today,” Slice called out.
Heads bobbed and nodded. A few reached over to clap Keet on the back. “Yeah, a new man,” they chimed in. “New blood!”
“That’s right, new blood.” Slice nodded. “And tonight, he got to be blooded.”
Keet paled. He knew it was coming, but after his success in the knockout game, somewhere in his cocaine-jacked brain, he had hoped this might be forgotten. He was learning that Slice never forgot anything.
“Stand up!” The DM leader ordered. “Stand in the center.”
Keet rose from the stack of pallets he sat on to stand in the middle of the room.
“You know what gonna ha
ppen?”
Keet nodded, his eyes wide, but determined to see it through. Knocking out the old man was only the initiation that gave him the right to receive the ritual that would make him a full-blooded DM. He was close now to being one of them. Soon, he could sit in this room, not just as the new blood, but respected by the others and feared by those outside the gang.
The first blow was landed by Ape, universally respected as the strongest gang member, and whose personality rivaled even Slice’s viciousness. Keet staggered and went to his knees. The DMs watched. The circle tightened around him. They waited. If he rose to face them, the beating would continue until every DM had a chance to use his fists or feet on him. When it ended, he could stand there, bloodied and battered, but one of them
If at any point, he remained down, the beating would still continue, with even more ferocity, but when it ended, they would drag him from the room, load him in a van and dump him unceremoniously in a ditch somewhere. He might survive the beating, but he would never be a blooded member of the gang.
Keet rose to his feet and turned his now bruised and lopsided face to Ape. Ape nodded and stepped aside. Cheech was next, followed by Poco, then by all the gang members. The last was Slice, who did a flamboyant Bruce Lee imitation that had the others shouting approval and ended with a roundhouse kick to the gut.
Keet doubled over, bleeding from his mouth and nose, his face bruised and ears red from the blows they had dealt out to him. Slowly, he stood up straight. It was over.
Slice stepped forward, took his head between his hands, and looked into his eyes. “You one of us, now, for real. What they do to you, they do to us all. What someone does to one of ours they do to you. Right?”
Keet nodded and managed to whisper through swollen lips, “Right.”
A Good Start
“Come in.” Edgar pushed the door to the upstairs apartment open and stepped aside.
Sole smiled and stepped over the threshold into a world filled with the aromas of something he couldn’t quite put his finger or nose on. Edgar followed him in and closed the door behind, hanging the keys to the store downstairs on a hook mounted on the wall beside the door.
