Muckers

by Sandra Neil Wallace

  “Look, I’m trying to help your brother. Why don’t you just shut up?”

  “You watch yourself, black boy. Watch how you talk to me.”

  Angie jumps a bit when the shouting starts and her hand lingers in the popcorn bag that’s on her knees. Maybe it’s because she can’t believe how Ray’s treating that doctor either, blowing smoke in his face and spitting at him when he’s only trying to help.

  I want to ask her if it’s okay for me to come over there, not knowing if her sister’s a tattletale or what, so I toss a popcorn kernel at Angie’s head and it gets stuck in her hair. She brushes it away and hardly even moves. Her sister laughs, though, and turns around and smiles at me like she knows something, although I don’t know what that’s supposed to be. Are you going around with someone if you can’t tell anybody about it?

  I start walking down the aisle to ask Angie face to face, because all this hiding is really stupid—like how Ray’s telling Sidney Poitier, who’s playing the doctor, to keep his black hands away from him—and me not supposed to be with Angie because her skin is brown. As if how you’re born is all wrong just because somebody says it’s not the right color, and all you deserve is to be pinned into a corner without any choices on who to love.

  But then Dell Bruzzi comes running in, and before I can do anything he’s standing in the middle of the aisle yelling, “The dynamite truck’s about to explode!”

  Angie’s sister screams and everybody starts climbing over the seats to get to the exits, dumping buttered popcorn all over the place, not acting neighborly at all, pushing and shoving each other aside even though the theater’s half empty.

  “Angie!” I grab her elbow a few feet from the door.

  “You go ahead, Theresa,” she says to her sister, ushering her outside. “Now go straight home!”

  The beam from Bigsby’s flashlight passes over us as he leads Mrs. Ramsey and her bad knee to the exit. I shove a mess of buttered popcorn aside with my sneaker so she won’t slip on the floor. Then I whisper to Angie, “Stay here with me.”

  “What?” she says. “The whole town’s ready to explode and you want to stay here?”

  “It’s always been that way—the town about to blow,” I say. “This is as safe a place as any.”

  Bigsby swings the exit door shut and there’s nobody left in the theater except Angie and me.

  “Now I know you’re crazy,” she says, “waiting to get blown to high heaven.”

  “You can go if you want to.”

  Angie hesitates, then cracks the door open a few inches.

  “I can’t make you stay, but I’d sure be glad if you did.”

  She keeps looking outside.

  “Anything blown up yet out there?” I ask.

  Angie shakes her head. “The dynamite truck’s on top of the hill, but nobody’s near it. The fire trucks wouldn’t even take a hose to those crates of explosives.”

  “They would’ve gone off by now if they were set to blow,” I say, reaching for her shoulder. “And now the sun’s behind the mountain, so things are bound to cool off.”

  The door swings shut and Angie turns to face me. “Aren’t you afraid of anything?” she asks.

  I don’t even have time to think. She comes closer and takes my hand.

  “I may be on a lucky streak,” I say.

  Then she kisses my hand real soft, as if it could be precious, like gold or something. “Anglos aren’t supposed to be superstitious. Just Mexicans.”

  “Well, now you know. Hey, Bigsby’s left the movie running; it would be a shame not to see how it ends, don’t you think?”

  “Can’t you guess?” Angie says.

  “It might have a happy ending.” I take her hand and we walk over to the concession stand. “I told you I’d get us a private showing.”

  “So it was you who planted that shoddy dynamite on the truck!” she says, throwing me a wry grin.

  “No way. But if that’s what got you here alone with me, I’ll take it.”

  Mrs. Ramsey’s left the popcorn going. It’s crackling and coming up like crazy. “Hey, grab me some paper bags,” I tell Angie. She gets a couple and starts scooping the popcorn.

  “I can’t figure you out,” she says as we make our way to the center row. “I didn’t think you’d be so daring. I mean, you say hardly anything in school, but you’re hopping on trains and holding me hostage in a movie theater. Is this what it’s like to date a gringo?”

  I just smile. Angie told me all I need to know. We’re dating. And I’m feeling hopeful for Sidney up there on the screen, even though the brother didn’t make it and Ray’s steaming, looking for revenge. I’m thinking Sidney’s in the clear because of the autopsy, only Ray’s just knocked out the cop who’s guarding him, stealing his gun. And I have to admit, it looks pretty bad for Sidney.

  Angie covers her eyes as soon as Ray points the gun at Sidney.

  “It’s hard watching a movie like that, isn’t it?” she says, wincing. “It makes me so sad that I want to hurry things up so change can come. But sometimes I wonder if it ever will.”

  “I’m here with you, aren’t I? It’s a start, isn’t it?”

  “That’s because nobody can see us.”

  “Then no more hiding,” I tell her. “I mean it. Next time I’m taking you to the eight o’clock show. On a date. They can gawk all they want to. I don’t care.”

  Somebody opens the front door. It’s Bigsby. “Sorry, Red,” he says, “but I gotta stop the movie. We’re closing up until tonight’s show, since the town didn’t get blown up after all.”

  The streets are empty when we get outside, and the dynamite truck’s gone.

  “I’ll walk you home,” I tell Angie.

  “Just to the top of the hill,” she says, “so Papá won’t see.”

  We’ve lost the heat of the sun. It’s behind the mountain already, acting the way a lightning rod does, splitting open the sky. I can see its jagged pieces of red and gold reaching for the horizon—right next to Angie’s brown eyes.

  We get to the top of the hill and Angie pauses. She looks up at me for a while, staring into my eyes, searching for what I already know: I belong to her. No matter which way she feels. And so I kiss her. Right out in the open. Long and hard. Her lips, telling me she’s hungry for me, too, repeat everything mine do. Then she pulls away, eyeing me like a startled fawn, and before I know it, she’s heading down the path into the Gulch.

  “I mean it about the picture show!” I say, watching her pass one of Carl Purdyman’s cows. “I’ll take you next Saturday night. And I don’t care who sees.”

  Angie turns and signals me to hush. But even though it’s dusk, I can tell there’s a smile behind her fingers.

  I keep watching as she descends deeper into the Gulch, heading for the Barrio, the desert wind toying with her hair like it’s a kite. She’s barely a speck now, but I don’t lose sight of her. Then the Gulch closes in and takes her from me, until there’s nothing left but the night.

  The six o’clock bell sounds and the miners shuffle out, tired and hungry and anxious to get home, the dynamite truck long forgotten. There’s smoke coming from the chimneys dotting the hillsides, carrying with it the smell of supper—meals that take longer to make than something you cut out of a can.

  I keep standing there, taking in the smells. There’s beans and maybe sauerkraut. With kielbasa, I think. Definitely pork.

  I watch the juniper tips cornering Loco Francisco’s little garage give in to the wind as he lights a match to heat up his supper. Then the sound of pure laughter, untouched by sorrow—from those little brothers and sisters—comes to me from the belly of the Barrio, and I know Angie’s home.

  Chapter 19

  CUT OPEN

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3

  3:35 P.M.

  CRUZ GOT HIS STITCHES CUT open in our win over Kingman. His nose is busted, too. There’s a piece of brown tape on his forehead and a white one across the middle of his nose that he keeps running over with h
is thumb, waiting for practice to start. He’s staring up at the sky as if there might be something in the clouds he should know. Then he catches me looking and his expression changes. It puffs out again and gets all proud, the same way it always does before a practice or a game. As if this one’s no different. As if the town’s the same and its very existence isn’t being choked off by this morning’s announcement: the mine is closing.

  But no matter how big Cruz tries to make himself feel, he looks small against the open pit, like a chipmunk clinging to the highest branch of a piñon tree with nowhere to go.

  Pop’s down there in that hole. I can hear him yelling at the crew, and he shouldn’t be doing that. There’s only two weeks until the mine shuts down.

  “What’s the matter?” Cruz says. The football hits me in the head (he knew I wasn’t looking), and I’m pissed because it stings. “Never seen an open pit before?”

  “Not when it’s about to close.” I shoot the ball back, aiming for Cruz’s throat.

  “Ruffner’s just trying to upend us,” he says. “Since all the town cares about is football now that we’re winning.”

  I study Cruz’s face, searching for something that might go against what he’s saying, like the look he kept giving those clouds. But he comes over and glares into the pit, acting all annoyed and shaking his head, as if what’s posted on those signs they hammered into the slag means nothing. Or something temporary, like WET PAINT or DETOUR.

  “You know when the mine closes ahead of schedule, it’s permanent,” I tell him. “It means there’s nothing left.”

  “Bullshit. It means Ruffner’s sore that we’re gonna be champions and he’s got nothing to do with it. You know what I’m gonna do after we win? Lean over and piss right into that pit.”

  “Just be happy you won’t have to be a miner,” I say.

  Cruz lets the ball spill out of his hands and dribble onto the field. “What are you, some kind of gringo idiot all of a sudden?” he says.

  “You could go to college. Get one of those football scholarships.”

  He grabs the neck of my jersey and throws me down.

  “Now who’s the dumb one, huh, Ugly?” He spits it into my ear. “Scholarships don’t go to greasers. They go to you. Don’t you get it? I’m always gonna be a mucker, on the field or in the pit. It doesn’t matter where. And when Rabbit gets home, he’s gonna bake bread. Some of us know where we stand right from the start, but it’s different with you.” He shoves me closer to the ledge. “You can get out of here. And if you don’t I swear I’ll kill you.” Cruz thrusts my cheek into the dirt, forcing me to glimpse the bottom of the pit a thousand feet below. “ ’Cause I couldn’t take becoming my father and watching you be yours, knowing you didn’t have to, only you stayed because you didn’t want to go leaving your dead brother behind.”

  Cruz finally lets go of me. His stitches have popped open again, and blood starts oozing out of the edges.

  “Jesus, how often do I have to get this thing stitched up?” he says, tearing the tape off his forehead and tossing it into the pit.

  The whistle sounds below and you’d think there’d be cheering. There always is at the end of a shift. I can see Pop down there, no bigger than an ant, sitting in the crusher, not moving. And Santiago, who hasn’t let go of the jackhammer yet, the bandanna over his mouth coated with dust as he hangs over the handles. I suppose Bobby would’ve been down there, too, if he’d come back. And that would’ve been a waste.

  “There’s no way I’m ever working in a mine,” I tell Cruz.

  “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t last anyway,” he says, getting his helmet out from the duffel bag. “I’ve seen how many times you get sacked.”

  Coach backs up the school bus, then motions for me to get out the tackling dummy slumped over in the first row. He has that surly, you-think-you-know-what-you’re-in-for-but-you-don’t grimace on his face. The muscles on his neck widen, flaring out beyond the collar of his T-shirt, and I don’t know where he gets it, or where any of us do. He’s been working us harder than ever, but plays right alongside us, spitting out encouragement.

  The only one who gripes about it is Rudy.

  I get on the bus and just about jump two feet, thinking the dummy’s the one who’s talking, but it’s Managlia sitting in the back, his arm in a sling again, though it’s been almost two weeks since the Cottonville fight. Both eyes are ringed the color of a shiny plum, and the black and purple are too fresh to be from the game.

  “I can’t play, Red,” he says, crying through those puffy slits.

  “You just reinjured it against Kingman,” I tell him. “It’ll heal up in time for Flagstaff.”

  “It’s not the arm. It’s my pop. He’s getting transferred to Ajo and taking me with him. Tomorrow. Doc told Coach it’s a dislocated shoulder, but it’s really just a sprain. I tried to reason with my pop, only … it’s just me and him.” Managlia coughs up some phlegm and presses a finger against his bottom lip, which has started bleeding. “If anyone knows what that’s like, it’s you, Red.”

  I look at Managlia’s swollen face, the busted lip trying to form a broken smile. He doesn’t even bother to paw away at his tears or tell me he fell down the stairs or slipped running sprints up the hill, so I know he’s more afraid of his pop than I’ve ever been of mine.

  “We’re gonna win,” I tell him, throwing the dummy over my shoulder.

  Managlia doesn’t say anything.

  “You coming?” I ask. “You’re still a Mucker.”

  He holds the sling tighter against his stomach and looks out the window. “I’ll watch from here,” he whispers.

  Coach blows his whistle and we group around him in the center of the field. He looks at Wallinger and hands him the clipboard, then Coach folds his arms firm around his chest.

  “Rico Verdugo got out of the hospital today,” he says.

  “Is he comin’ here?” Alonzo asks.

  Coach smiles for a split second then shakes his head. “Verdugo’s out for the season. His football days are over and I’m sorry for that. But we still have ours. There’ll be some changes. Managlia’s out, too, with a dislocated shoulder.”

  “I thought it was just a sprain,” Cruz says.

  “Misdiagnosed. Torres moves from end to fullback. Rudy Kovacs moves up from second string. He’ll take over Torres’s position.”

  None of us says anything. Tony keeps wrapping his fingers, then cuts off the end of the tape with his teeth. I never thought one of us would get too hurt to play. Now we only have one sub left. And the person who should’ve never made the team is going to play.

  “Come on now, right side first,” Coach barks as Wallinger divides us up for the drills and Rudy puts on his gloves.

  I strap the dummy onto its hinge for the one sub we have left—Melvin Sneep. I think Tommy, the water boy, could give it a better going-over. But if Rudy’s face was on it, there wouldn’t be anything left of it. The stuffing would be shredded pretty good, since we’d all take a shot. Rudy and his stupid gloves. He wears them on the field so he won’t have to touch any skin that’s darker than his. But there isn’t anybody on the team Rudy likes and the feeling runs both ways.

  He takes his position, but as soon as Coach blows the whistle, Lupe Diaz switches with Cruz, who lunges into Rudy hard, tossing him to the ground.

  “What’s the matter, can’t grip anything with those gloves?” Cruz says.

  “Your days are numbered,” Rudy says. “We just shut down your mine.”

  “Settle down, boys,” Coach tells us. “Practice just started.”

  “Then get those wetbacks to lay off me,” Rudy shouts.

  Cruz sucks in his breath. “What? You’d rather have a bo-hunk mow you down?”

  “I won’t have that kind of talk on my field,” Coach yells. “We’re above all that.” Coach is eyeing Rudy, but Rudy won’t look up. “You’ve all chosen to be on this team, and we have the same goal: to win,” he says. “You can’t buy it or mine it. You have
to earn it. And you can’t win it on your own. We need each other. The Slavs need the Mexicans, and the Mexicans need the Irish and the Italians, so we’re all equal, aren’t we? Now come on, let’s get set to do the drill on the left side.”

  But Rudy won’t get into position. “You’re wrong, Coach,” he says. “We don’t swim with them and we don’t eat with them. And when this is all over, my father won’t let you anywhere near a white player. You’ll be lucky to be coaching at the Indian school up in Flag.”

  We all aim for Rudy, who’s swinging at any of us before Coach gets in between yelling for us to stop. Rudy’s still thrashing and he butts heads with Coach. Both soar into the air like elk bucks sparring during a rut—Rudy’s helmet lashing Coach in the forehead. Coach lunges backward. His head bobs twice as he lands, then his body goes limp as a rag doll, his face moist and pale a few feet away from his cap.

  My stomach freezes but I start to run, not waiting to see if Coach might be okay. The wind slaps my face, drowning out the yelling and screaming behind me as I sprint toward the icehouse to get to a phone. If the door’s locked I’ll smash open the window. I don’t care about my hand. But then Gibby walks out of the icehouse.

  “Ambulance!” I scream.

  He looks at me, puzzled.

  “Call an ambulance!” I shout, louder this time. I run past him and head for the hill, refusing to let the elevation slow me down. When I finally hear the siren up top, I sprint even harder, picking off street after street. I have to get ahead of this day and what it might look like tomorrow. As I round the bend for Company Ridge, the pitch catches my stride, forcing me to push even more. I pump my arms harder, but I’m only punching at the wind. The last incline gnaws into my calves until, finally, it beats me, and I collapse on the side of the road.

  The ambulance passes me, throwing a halo of crimson over the darkening hillside as Hap drives it to the field. And I hope that siren’s still going when they come back up the hill.

  MID-WEEK EDITION

  Mine to Close October 17, Workers Notified by E.C.