Instant Winner

by Gary Soto

  “Glad you asked, little homie,” Uncle Mike remarked, patting Jason’s shoulders. “While I was behind bars, I came up with a business plan, one that will rain riches on us.” He chuckled and pulled at his trimmed beard.

  The business plan called for them to walk the three blocks to the outdoor Fulton Mall lined with stores that catered to the Mexican, black, and Hmong population. There, they positioned themselves in front of a closed dress shop. The business plan mandated that they bring happiness and good cheer to people at the beginning of the Christmas season by playing air guitar. Jason was skeptical. But his uncle’s enthusiasm was contagious. Uncle Mike fished a Big Gulp plastic cup from a dry fountain and set it front of them.

  “Here’s the deal, Jason, my boy.” Uncle Mike revealed his strategy: if a passerby looked charitable, they would sing songs like “Feliz Navidad” and “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree.” Or better yet, they could do “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Silent Night,” real tearjerkers.

  “Awesome, Unc,” Jason remarked. His eyes were lit like Christmas lights. He could see the change falling like rain into the cup.

  “Of course it’ll work. People are willing to pay for good music.”

  Jason phoned Blake, asking him to bring his video camera to the Fulton Mall.

  “Why?” Blake asked.

  “Just come, and hurry up.” He hung up, pocketed his phone and scanned the mall, which was shrouded in fog.

  At that early hour, the mall was not exactly bustling with shoppers. In fact, Jason counted more pigeons than people. They practiced humming Christmas songs as they played air guitar. The pigeons, it seemed, were rocking their heads to the rhythm. One pigeon was actually dancing back and forth.

  “Check it out,” Uncle Mike crowed. “The bird be doing the cha-cha-cha.”

  Jason laughed and began to move his own feet. He was feeling the music. He closed his eyes and strummed his air guitar to “Jingle Bells.” The song rocked!

  “Now remember,” Uncle said as they paused. “Hold your air guitar up high.”

  Jason held it up high on his chest.

  “Follow my fingers,” continued his uncle. “We’re going to do easy chords, and then when it’s my turn to play lead, you just step back a little and let me have the spotlight.”

  “Right on, Unc.” Jason calculated their finances. The price tag on Uncle’s guitar was $167. They already had $160. Therefore they only needed to collect seven dollars from playing air guitar in order to claim the real guitar.

  When they began “Winter Wonderland” hip-hop style, a passerby glanced at them. Her look said What is this craziness about? She passed—unmoved and uncharitable. Some mothers pulled their preschool children back as they pointed and tottered toward them. Some holiday shoppers laughed outright, and others looked straight ahead or down at the gum-spotted walk. One child cried, “Santa!”

  They hummed “Winter Wonderland,” “The First Day of Christmas,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” This last song attracted two families, who watched from a safe distance, as uncle and nephew continued with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” When the duo finished, a parent approached with his hands in his jacket and asked, “Is this for the homeless shelter?”

  “Nah, sir,” Uncle Mike laughed. “This is for us! We just need a little help getting over this temporary hump in life.”

  The man dropped two quarters into the Big Gulp cup, and as the songs continued, others began to drop in their nickels and dimes.

  “This is way cool,” Jason said, full of good feelings toward humankind. They had attracted an eager crowd that had shoved the pigeons out of the way. Now he understood why rockers were rockers—live music was awesome! In a groove, you got a chance to play out all of your internal convictions.

  It was while he was singing “This Land Is Your Land,” their one non-Christmassy song, that Jason spied Sylvia What’s-Her-Name clip-clopping in dangerously tall platform heels. She was turning the corner, her steps like hammer strikes. She was followed by a man with a camera on his shoulder. Was there news to report from the downtown mall? A robbery, perhaps? The grand opening of a store selling giant piñatas? Maybe the mayor was explaining why the dry fountains were receptacles for wayward trash?

  “Uncle,” Jason beckoned, and pointed. “Your girlfriend, What’s-Her-Name.”

  Lost in the song, Uncle Mike had his eyes closed. He opened them. “What?”

  “Your girlfriend from high school,” Jason repeated.

  Uncle Mike looked around, confused, before he spotted her. A smile spread across his face. But he didn’t yell, “Hey, Sylvia, it’s me, Mike” as she marched up the mall. She was getting away—again—and his uncle didn’t seem a bit concerned.

  “How come you didn’t call after her?” Jason asked. His arms, tired from playing air guitar, hung at his side.

  “Why, you ask?” Uncle Mike answered. He had stopped playing for the moment, too. “Because my guitar is in hock, and music comes first. I’m sort of over her, anyhow.”

  “Huh?”

  “Jason, it’s true that I like Sylvia, but I LOVE music. Feel me?”

  Sort of, Jason thought. His uncle had priorities—music first, girls second, maybe food third. He was living for his art, which was far more lasting than relationships. He glanced down at their Big Gulp cup. By Jason’s quick assessment, they had earned about three dollars in coins from their fans. Then suddenly, they realized they had garnered the attention of an approaching police officer!

  “Hey, officer, it’s a cold day,” Uncle Mike greeted him cheerfully. He breathed into his cupped hands to make his point.

  The officer, upper lip adorned with a small mustache, studied them. He finally asked, “What are you two knuckleheads doing? What’s with the fishing lures on your jacket?”

  “Doing?” Uncle Mike asked. “Doing music, my man.” He looked down at a lure hanging on his sleeve, but didn’t divulge that he was wearing a borrowed coat.

  The officer didn’t seem to like them, or the air guitar version of “Little Drummer Boy.” The officer had licked his lips and was about to say more when the duo stalled. They could no longer remember the melody. Still, after a long air guitar solo, Uncle Mike asked the officer, “What do you think?”

  “What do I think?” The fire in his eyes died down. “I think you guys can’t sing or play guitar.” Laughter rumpled his jowls as he reached into his pocket. He dropped two quarters into the Big Gulp cup, and Blake arrived just in time to capture the moment.

  “And who’s he?” the officer asked, hooking a thumb at Blake.

  “He’s my buddy,” Jason answered. “We’re going to make a music video.”

  “A music video,” the officer repeated softly. “Man, only in Fresno.”

  “Yeah, my uncle used to play with Los Blue Chones.” Jason asked the officer if he had ever heard of them.

  The officer wagged his head at the gang of three. He smiled. “You should be glad I’m in the Christmas spirit. Otherwise I might haul you guys off to jail for disturbing the peace.”

  “Been there, done that, officer,” Uncle Mike replied.

  The officer walked away without a word. He apparently had seen a lot of scams, but this one was too pitiful to punish.

  By noon, their Big Gulp cup was noisy as a tambourine when they shook it. The counted their take: seven dollars and forty-four cents. They hurried off to the pawnshop, only to discover an empty space in the window.

  “How can it be gone?” Jason cried. “It was just there.”

  Blake positioned himself to film them as they lamented the loss of their beloved musical instrument. He motioned them to move closer together.

  “That’s life,” Uncle Mike reflected. He was playing with one of the fishing lures hooked to his sleeve.

  “But it was just there!” Jason munched on his lower lip and looked at the ground dotted with old gum. They had waited too long.

  Uncle Mike sighed. “Jason, it’s not the wo
rst thing in the world. The way I see it, my guitar is now making someone else happy. And that’s cool. Know what I mean?” He also argued that he was out of the slammer. Freedom itself was invaluable.

  They returned to the Fulton Mall. Uncle spread good cheer by answering the call for donations by the Salvation Army bell ringer. He dropped all the coins into the kettle and then said, “Follow me, boys.”

  They wandered into a shoe store that displayed a large banner that read “HOLIDAY SALE.” A young Asian American clerk in a bowtie approached them. “May I help you?” he asked, the bowtie bobbing up and down as he spoke.

  “Hook us up,” Uncle Mike said. “We’re looking for a deal, maybe shoes popular last year—know what I mean?”

  The clerk said, “I got a great deal for you, sir. How do you feel about gold?”

  “Love it,” Uncle Mike answered.

  Within ten minutes all three were bouncing out of the store, their feet shod in brand new sneakers—metallic gold, perfect-fitting, and, the best part, half-off!

  Chapter Eleven

  Jason helped himself to a little sausage from a waitress carrying a tray. He bit the squeaky sausage, decided that it tasted pretty good, and followed the waitress with the intention of pilfering a few more. He next tried the shrimp in red sauce when it came around on a tray, and the meatballs, and the cheese squares, but passed on the carrot sticks slathered in white dip. He cleared his palate by downing a cup of red punch, and then in honor of his sister—a vegan that week—he ate a mushroom stabbed with a toothpick. It wasn’t horrible at all.

  The pastor brought the lovebirds together. He read from the Bible through small reading glasses, his eyes magnifying hugely when he looked up at the assembled crowd of family and friends.

  “I do,” Aunt Marta promised before she dabbed a tear.

  “I do, I do,” Bill said before he puckered up and gave his bride a peck on the cheek.

  “I do, too,” Uncle Mike had answered much earlier in the day, when Jason and his uncle arrived home from downtown Fresno. Uncle had promised his sister—and his brother-in-law—that he would clean up his act. He began by apologizing for the metallic-colored sneakers. He admitted that he should have known better. Bright as they were, the sneakers could make a bigger splash in spring.

  “Do you see how you’re influencing Jason?” his mother snarled.

  “Yeah, I do,” Uncle Mike answered, glancing at Jason’s feet. A smile crawled across his face. “I know I’m not the best role model, but—”

  “It’s not funny, Mike. You got to grow up!”

  Uncle Mike and Jason’s mom and dad had a heart-to-heart. Jason’s parents devised a payment plan for the money they had spent paying for the outstanding tickets. His father, a math genius when it came to figuring out the costs of roofing, came up with a scheme: Uncle Mike would have to pay the family $200 a month for sixteen months.

  “And we won’t charge interest,” Jason’s father announced proudly from his throne, the La-Z-Boy recliner. “After all, we are family.”

  But Jason wasn’t certain that his uncle could change. He certainly didn’t look like he had changed. At the wedding, held in the banquet room of Rodeo Bar & Grill, his uncle was wearing the suit the nice old lady had given him. Although the suit had been taken in, it still fit large on his body, and it looked as if two or three skinny people could also jump inside. Jason thought his uncle resembled a down-and-out clown. All he needed was a red foam ball on his nose, and maybe a painted frown, plus a flower that squirted water in his lapel.

  But Uncle Mike didn’t possess a frown muscle in his face—this much Jason knew. He saw his uncle joking with the female server with the shrimp tray, slowing her progress as she went around the room. Jason’s image of his uncle as a clown changed to his uncle as a shark: he was after those shrimp! He was trying a joke about a penguin elected as president of a South American country. Unfortunately, just like the penguin, the joke wasn’t flying.

  Jason heard his mother say, “Jason, since you’re the youngest here, perhaps you can make the first toast to your aunt and Bill.”

  “Huh?” Jason asked.

  “A toast, make a toast,” she demanded with a smile that Jason recognized as meaning, “You better do what I say, Buster.”

  Initially, Jason thought he should head off to the kitchen to ask for toast. Then, he remembered: a toast was a cheerful speech in honor of a person—or persons—or something like that.

  “Ah, yeah,” Jason began. He smiled at Aunt Marta and—now—Uncle Bill. Jason was holding a cup of red punch and saw that it was empty. So he plunged it into the punch bowl, scooping up more sugary liquid. He tried to remember a toast from his past. When he was little—seven? eight?—he went to the playground, where they’d promised free food after the dedication of the new slides and swings. At the dedication, a councilmember in a suit and tie—Jason realized that at the moment he himself was wearing a suit and tie—had begun with something like, “As a representative of our great City of Fresno, I dedicate these swings…” Yes, Jason remembered the words of the councilmember, and remembered how he had actually placed his large butt in a swing and kicked pretty high for an old guy.

  So Jason cleared his throat of cracker dust. He raised his mug and proclaimed, “As a representative of the family and someone-who-should-know-better, I say that it’s great that Auntie got married to Bill, who was a barber but is now just one lucky dude. It’s good stuff.” He threw back his punch and wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

  The wedding party clapped, cheered, and threw back their drinks.

  Then Jason’s father made a toast, and Uncle Mike made one too, but first he gave the joke about the penguin one more try—once again, his wit failed to launch. Then a few family members on Bill’s side made toasts, including his oldest daughter, who said, “Dad, you were the greatest barber on the south side of Tulare Street, and the best dad in the world. I am happy that you have found love again.” Bill was a widower of four years.

  After the toasts, the couple thanked everyone for coming. Mother marched over to Jason and whispered, “What was that about ‘someone knowing better’? And what did you mean by ‘good stuff’?” Her face signaled confusion.

  “Nah, Mom, I was referring to the punch, it’s really good,” Jason answered. A tray of buffalo wings passed, and Jason didn’t lose the opportunity to give the poultry a fair shake. He grabbed two wings. About “someone knowing better,” he informed his mother it was like the talk that politicians spout every day. They didn’t know what it meant, but thought it sounded good when it came out of their mouths.

  “Oh,” his mother answered. Her mood sweetened as she stroked his hair. “You look so darling.” She eyed his metallic sneakers, but kept her mouth buttoned.

  Jason felt darling, too. He was beginning to like his brown suit, which he thought matched his metallic shoes in a swell way. He had splashed his father’s cologne on his neck and put a part in his hair. He resembled a choirboy with red cheeks. He felt happy for his aunt. He used to think she was a pest, but now he could see that she had just been lonely. And her happiness showed as she went from guest to guest, thanking them all for coming. The happy moments were captured as Blake, future Hollywood director, poked his camera everywhere. It even went into the restroom, but he was rightly shooed away when he started filming one of the guests at the urinal.

  Jason had tried to ply Blake with some of the goodies from the passing trays, but his buddy wouldn’t take a break.

  “I’m working,” Blake told Jason, and hurried away to capture a scene of two old guys debating whether fishing was better from a bank or from a boat. Their conversation seemed to be heating up.

  Work, Jason thought. Was making a video work, or was it fun—or both? Work was what his father did at the roofing company or what his mother did as an occasional seamstress at a garment company. But was pointing a video camera work? He had more buffalo wings as he debated the issue of work and pleasure.

&nb
sp; While his teeth were tearing the skin off a lovely buffalo wing, his uncle sidled up to him. He shook Jason’s shoulders roughly, sloshing his drink, which he had to put down.

  “Look, little homie!” Uncle Mike cried. He held up a guitar over his head. “It’s mine.”

  “Huh?” Jason licked his fingers and set down his paper plate piled high with chicken bones.

  “My guitar!” Uncle Mike explained. Jason’s mother had gone to the pawnshop while they were they bringing cheer to the Fulton Mall. It was her gift to Uncle Mike for all the birthdays she had missed. “That’s why when we went to get it, it was gone. Sis had it.”

  “Wow,” Jason said. But he wasn’t surprised. His mother had a tough exterior, but her heart was like a ball of chocolate—sweet.

  Blake ran between them with his video camera rolling. He moved from Uncle Mike’s face, to the guitar hanging from a strap on his shoulder, back to the men arguing about fishing. He was trying to get a wide spectrum of human interest at a local wedding.

  “You know what that means?” Uncle Mike asked.

  Jason shook his head no.

  “It means, Jason, that I can teach you how to play guitar. Would you like that?”

  “Cool,” Jason remarked. He licked and wiped his fingers on a napkin and took the guitar when his uncle offered it to him. To Jason, his uncle was passing the torch—in time, he would light the world on fire with guitar riffs. He would be wowing crowds!

  “All you need are five basic chords,” Uncle Mike claimed. “Six would be better, and you might even get away with four. But five is standard.” He made this remark while smiling at the camera.

  “Man, it’s heavy,” Jason said when he pressed the solid body of the guitar against his chest. He strummed and produced a brooding sound from its strings.

  “Retro, my little homie,” Uncle Mike said. “I was into that sound when I was your age—Black Sabbath, Mountain, AC/DC, and Alice Cooper—but I moved on to songs that make people dance.”