by Manuel Ramos
by the neck
twisted him to the curb
you forgot
yesterday was payday
viejo?
you play Humberto?
that’s stupid
viejo
I don’t like stupid
Hummy kicked
wheezing lungs could not explain
a little more time
his check was late
the pendejo mailman
the street light caught a silvery gleam
clean and quick
hey, man, you don’t know
I should be in the Valley
in a field smelling onions
this ain’t the goddamned Valley
this ain’t the Valley
LOVERS
THE SCENT OF TERRIFIED ANIMALS
“I hate the mountains.” Her back rested against a faded, splintered corral fence.
The smell of burning pine clung to the tourist ranch. Smoke floated across the sky, hiding the scenery and corrupting the air.
Irritation slipped into his voice. “How can you say that? You told me you loved the outdoors, hiking. Christ! If I’d known . . . if you had said anything before . . . damn, we could have gone to L.A., Vegas, any place. You hate the mountains? Good God, you hate the mountains!” He stepped back from her and rushed away to their cabin.
She could only stare after him. She should have said something. That was easy to see. She should have told him many things and she wondered when she would. The bank, her friends, the party, the wedding—it all happened so fast and, she had to admit, she had been swept up in the flow of events and the energy of her office romance—the famous affair. She could not resist Philip. And now she was in the mountains, surrounded by smoke and fire, and she had no idea what she was doing.
The ranch’s owner invited them to his cabin for drinks the night they were the last remaining guests. They sat on rickety wooden chairs the old man spread among the weeds and cacti.
“This is a shame, folks, what with you on your honeymoon and all. ’Course, young people like you got a lot of other things to do ’sides hiking around these hills, eh?” He chuckled, amused with his brashness.
Mary and Philip ignored his remark.
He shrugged and poured more drinks. “The forest won’t recover, least not for me to ever see it. Have to pack it in, try to sell. Don’t see how, though, not with the park burned out.”
Philip said, “I had hoped we could come back next year, but I guess there won’t be much to see. Not much point.”
Mary groaned. “Oh, Philip. Don’t be an idiot. Of course there won’t be much around here, the whole damn place is burning down! Can’t you see what’s happening? Can’t you smell it?”
Calhoun clucked his teeth. He waited for the man to respond.
Mary kept at it. “There might be some fish in the ranch pond. They’re put there every year just for the tourists—right, Calhoun? You said you always wanted to catch a fish, Philip. Won’t your man, what’s his name . . . ?”
Calhoun answered, “Montoya.”
“Yes. Montoya. Won’t he stock up your little lake so that Philip can catch his fish? You can do that next year, even without trees, without anything else around here. Just you and your fish, Philip, you and your fish.” She presented her empty glass to Calhoun and he filled it with whiskey.
The smoke carried the scent of terrified animals. The fire’s dull roar served as background for all other sounds. They sat without speaking, drinking, watching the moon appear for a few minutes and then succumb to the smoke. The mountains were dim, weak silhouettes.
The old man stretched. “This is the worst one I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been in mountains and woods and forests most of my sixty years. A stupid tourist did this. What a waste.” He might have been giving a tour of the ranch, pointing out the sights.
Mary tilted her glass to her lips and the liquor rolled down her throat. “Yes, Calhoun, a waste—a lousy, goddamned waste. Good night. I’m going to bed. Philip?”
“Go ahead. Don’t wait up.”
She stood and knocked back her chair, and it lay on its side in the dirt.
“I apologize for my wife, Mr. Calhoun. The fire ruined the trip for us. She needs to do something. She gets bored easily. Women? What can you do? Guess we’ll go on into the city. She’ll be all right as soon as we get away from the smoke.”
Many years earlier Calhoun would have told Philip what he thought. But now he was a good businessman and he offered Philip only more whiskey.
They finished the bottle and started a second one. It was too much for Philip. He passed out and Calhoun left him slumped in his chair. His thin jacket flapped with the night wind. His hair and skin soaked up the smoke. Mary did not come looking for him.
Calhoun sat on the steps to his cabin. The hazy, gray sky had slowed him and he slept later than usual. His throat was parched from the smoky air that surrounded his land. He heard Mary and Philip shouting at each other until one of them slammed against the cabin’s wall.
Philip ran out. For a minute he stood motionless, undecided about his next act, lost as surely as if he had been dropped from the sky into the most desolate area of the park. He saw the crude, hand-painted sign with the word “Fishing” hanging over the shed where Montoya drank coffee and read the newspaper.
“I want to fish. I’ll rent equipment, buy a can of worms. Whatever I need.”
Montoya had been taught by Calhoun to overlook the quirks of the tourists. He needed the job and he learned quickly. He grunted in the direction of Philip. “Any fish you catch will cost you a dollar an inch.”
Mary strode from the cabin a half hour later, her eyes musky and red, her skin as clouded as the smoke-ringed sun. She wore shorts and a halter top in the coolness of the overcast day. She stood near the corral and watched the horses.
The breeze picked up dust from the corral and blew it across her face and into her eyes. She closed her eyes suddenly and hard, to make them water, but the dirt did not flow out. She frantically rubbed her eyes, her face, the skin on her arms. She was caught in the panic of the dust.
A rough hand grabbed her. She smelled the horses. The hand pulled her fingers away from her face.
“Here, let me help. You could scratch an eyeball, rubbing like that.” He held her face and she was locked in his grip. He said, “Open your eyes, slowly. I’ll hold your eyelid open, you move your eye, slowly, up and down, side to side.”
He held her thin eyelid with the tips of his fingers. The delicate touch surprised her. She followed his instructions and the dirt moved then fell out of her eye. Her eyes watered and tears flowed down her face.
“That was horrible. Thanks.” She twisted her face away from him and he dropped his hands, awkwardly, away from her body.
She was almost as tall as him. His black eyes and hair blended with the sunburnt darkness of his skin, and she thought he was nearly as dark as the Puerto Rican teller who helped her close up the bank.
“It’ll be sore for a few minutes. You’ll be okay.”
She heard a difference in his Mexican accent from the teller’s. Slower, she thought.
“I’d like to go for a ride on one of your animals, if you’re letting the horses out.”
“I can give you one of the older ones, but you can’t go far. The horses are spooked by the smoke. They won’t go in the direction of the fire. They smell the smoke, hear it burning. Around the ranch, on the path, that’s fine.”
She nodded agreement.
He climbed the fence and jumped into the corral. He inched his way to the four horses huddled against the far end and talked gently and softly to them. They were unsure. The year was too young for the gray sky. They shied away from Montoya and he had trouble catching one. He lunged at them until he managed to grab a tail. He patted the horse and rubbed her flanks to calm her.
Mary watched him ready the horse. He was steady and deliberate. The horse grudgingly permitted the saddle and bridle
. Montoya led the horse out of the gate.
“Lady will take you around the ranch. She could do it blindfolded. Just let her have her way. Don’t make her run, she’s too old, and she doesn’t like kicks or shouts. You’ll have an easy ride.” He handed the reins to Mary.
“Won’t you ride, too? I could use the company.” She climbed on the saddle.
“No. Calhoun’s rules. When you’re back, find me and I’ll cool her down and put her with the others. I’ll be around.” He slapped the neck of the horse to start her trotting along the deeply rutted path.
Philip had caught more than a dozen fish. The overstocked pond rippled with fish as they struggled for food. His catch lay twisted on the shore, a cord strung through their gills, their bodies half covered with water. The bundle of fish squirmed in the water as they slowly died.
Mary rode by on the plodding horse. She didn’t look at him. He waved at her and pointed at his fish and started to lift them for her to see but she rode over the small rise that separated the pond from the cabins. She kicked the horse to make her run. Philip threw his line back in the water.
Montoya found Lady outside the couple’s cabin, saddled and hot, standing alone, her flanks wet with foam. He led her to the corral where he did his best to cool her. Philip strolled up to him, dragging his line of fish, uncleaned, stiff from death.
“Son of a bitch! Man, you got to gut those fish. And that’s a hundred bucks, easy, maybe one and a half. Haven’t you ever fished?” Before Philip answered, Montoya blurted out, his voice high and tight, “And your wife! She almost killed this horse, running her into the ground, and then leaving her hot. I told her to find me. What’s wrong with you?”
Philip’s eyes turned away. “She knows about horses. She’s been around them. Maybe you better tell her how she screwed up.” His words came slowly, wrenched from him with an effort he had trouble finishing. “I’m going to fish again, try for two hundred dollars.” He walked back to the pond.
Montoya turned to the horse. He brushed and patted her and listened to Philip walking out of sight. The hired hand finished with the horse and then he returned to the cabin. He stood by the door for a few minutes, opened it and walked in.
From the steps, Calhoun saw all that happened. He did not want to have the talk with Montoya but it was not to be avoided. Montoya had to go. The hired hand didn’t understand these people; he had no way of knowing how much trouble she could make for him and what she could do to him in the town where business had swirled into the sky with the smoke from the trees. The only question for Calhoun was whether Montoya would leave the cabin before Philip reappeared.
The smoke billowed over the mountains and rolled into the valley, and Calhoun’s eyes stung from the smell of dead, burning earth.
THE 405 IS LOCKED DOWN
When Alberto Ortiz left a message about speaking on the Cal State campus, Tomás reacted in his usual manner.
Never happen.
A few days later the professor’s second call caught the writer in his office. “I’m sorry I didn’t return your message,” Tomás offered. “You know how it is sometimes.”
“Por favor, no se preocupe. We are all too busy these days. That’s what life is like in the twenty-first century, no? Especially for us Latinos.” The animated professor had the appropriate respectful tone. “I greatly admire your book, and the few stories I’ve found that you’ve published.”
“Thank you,” the writer said.
“You and your multifaceted book,” Ortiz explained as though he was addressing a student, “have been a hot topic in my classes several times. The discourse has been quite lively. Clearly, there were two opposing views about your writing. Finally, the MEChA students suggested that I try to get you on campus to speak. It was their idea but I supported it completely and got the department head to approve.”
The professor summarized the high points of his proposal—class lecture, evening book reading and signing at the local bookstore where students and faculty congregated, maybe an interview for the university radio station.
When he finished Tomás tried to be polite. “I appreciate the attention,” he said. “But the time away from my writing is too valuable. A trip out-of-state to a college campus has no relevance to putting words down on paper. I’ve missed one deadline already and spending two or three days in Los Angeles will do nothing for the next chapter in my follow-up book. I’m up against the wire with my editor.”
But then Ortiz said, “You’re aware that I’m a producer, right? Sure, I teach, have for years. Almost ready to retire. Pero, I, uh, we, have a production company, Sueños Unlimited. Me and my partner, Mónica Suárez, we’ve put together a few projects.”
“Is the cliché true then?” Tomás asked. “Everyone in L.A. is in the movie business, waiters to university professors?”
“There are days it looks that way. But this is not a hobby for me. Maybe you saw the documentary on PBS last fall, A Cultural History of East Los Angeles? We were part of that and now we want to do something more intense, more substantial. We think that project is your book.”
He paused and both men thought about an appropriate reaction to the professor’s words.
“Tomás,” Ortiz carried on when the writer did not speak, “your visit out here would give us the opportunity to talk to you about our ideas, make the pitch for your book. The time is right. There isn’t just a Latin Boom going on—it’s a damn explosion. Music, art, the Internet. J-Lo and Smits still riding high long after they should have burned out. So many Latinos getting attention now. I want to make sure we, the Mexican Americans, get our share. ¿Cómo no? We are taking over. There’s no doubt. A movie can be big now. Your book has great audience potential, and that translates as great market numbers.”
“It’s nice of you to say that about my book. But you actually think there’s a movie in it? I’m not sure it’s all that visual.”
The words came smoothly, as though without effort, but the writer’s guts swirled, his tongue felt thick, his heart pumped ambition. A movie, even a small one, could set him up, he thought. Give him the cushion he needed to devote full time to writing. Screw that deadline.
“That’s what a good producer can do, Tomás.” The professor’s earnestness crackled through the phone. “And we, Sueños Unlimited, are good. We get the experts involved to make sure that the film that comes from your book not only does justice to the book but gives a movie audience what it wants. You should come out here so we can talk about that kind of detail. You interested?”
Yeah, he was interested.
They worked out dates, travel arrangements, book orders. The professor sent the writer a university standard contract, a form for the IRS and a map of the campus with the Chicano Studies building circled in red. Then Tomás waited until the day came for him to begin the adventure that would make his name a household word. And a nice wad of cash.
Outside the terminal the smog and heat greeted Tomás with enthusiasm. He shuddered from LAX chaos and almost immediately a dead weight of doubt settled on his back. He had abandoned the dry, warm, healthier air of Denver and flown into hot Los Angeles for no better reason than the slim chance for some big money. He suspected that too many other people had fled to L.A. for the same reason and that West Coast reality had a lousy way of smashing fantasies and dreams. At least he had a time limit on his hunt for the golden pot at the end of the City of Angels rainbow. Three days and he would be gone.
Ninety minutes later Tomás was on the telephone talking with Professor Ortiz again.
“It’s great you could make it for the students,” Ortiz said with no hint of sarcasm. The professor and the writer both understood that talking to the professor’s Post-Chicano Chicano Literature class served to cover the writer’s expenses and a token honorarium. It was not the reason for the trip.
“Glad to do it, Alberto,” Tomás said. “I owe you for using my book in your classes. Maybe the students can help me with ideas for the next one.”
“Oh yeah. You bet.” Ortiz cleared his throat. “Some of them can’t wait to talk to you.” A slight pause, then he said, “Mónica will meet us for dinner tonight, I’ll pick you up in about twenty minutes. We can talk about the class, and the deal, of course. We are both excited about this.”
The deal.
The food at the restaurant represented at least four different cultures, and the ambience of the place was cool, hip, so Californian. Tomás ate and drank too much and did not worry about it because he was not paying. He watched his hosts get a bit sloppy on wine and then blue margaritas. Long after the dessert plates had been cleared, a full carafe of the vile concoction sat next to a pair of empty carafes. Clumps of soggy salt and twisted lemon rinds littered the tablecloth.
Ortiz dominated the conversation with tales of various actors and actresses whose paths he had crossed, with remembrances of past film and theater projects that had almost broken through, with references to friends in the business who owed him favors. He gravitated to an older generation of actors—Tony Plana, Elizabeth Peña, Cheech Marin. At one point he said, “Tony would be great for this project. And he’s got the smarts to recognize that this is bound to hit big. I’ll see if we can meet with him before you leave town.”
Mónica Suárez was about ten years younger than Ortiz and ten steps ahead of him on everything connected to their business. The writer could not gauge the level of their personal involvement, or even if there was any.
The evening stretched on and Tomás started to worry about the professor’s inebriation.
When Mónica had a chance she turned the conversation to Tomás’ book. “The way it speaks to young Chicanos is so true,” she said, leaving the writer thinking about what a false-speaking book might be. “Your writing’s not about the new surge of undocumenteds or the old Movement heavies or the slick Hispanic politicians of the Nineties. None of that six-hundred-page family saga from Old Mexico to the barrios of urban America. No spiritualism or bruja mythology. Just straight to the hearts and minds of young Latinos, the ones listening to hip-hop and reggaeton. Realism about growing up in this country when your own family is confused about who they are, when you yourself can’t figure it out, you can’t define your own culture, whether it’s that neither the music of José Alfredo Jiménez or Los Lobos relates to you, or that Aztlán sounds quaint and old-fashioned, or that you can’t distinguish between Corky Gonzales and José Angel Gutiérrez and you don’t even care that you can’t.”
