by F. X. Toole
Soledad daily served gabacho girls Lupe’s age, observed how the white girls dressed and behaved, heard how dirty and rudely they talked, saw how many were pregnant but without wedding rings. Airheads, the whites had it right, thought Mrs. Ayala. Not her daughter. She didn’t allow Lupe out with boys after nine o’clock, and then only when her deaf younger brother went along as a chaperone. Once word got out in the barrio, Lupe wasn’t asked out much, but it wasn’t because the boys didn’t have their eyes on her. Mrs. Ayala’s rules were unbendable, had to be. Lupe would sometimes sulk, would argue that the other girls got to stay out until midnight, even later.
Mrs. Ayala had lost too much of her family to risk losing her daughter, too. “As long as you live in my house, you will be a lady. You will not be like these little putas who give love away like it was a penny, little tramps who behave like boys between the legs, and have all of the disadvantages and none of the advantages of being real whores. Besides, I have to get up before la madrugada, before dawn, and I’m not losing sleep so you can be just another East Al-Lay chola.”
Lupe would make faces and huff, but underneath she depended on her mother, knew she needed her tough wisdom, loved her for being strict. And Mrs. Ayala knew that she’d better raise the girl right, or her beautiful husband, Jaime, her sweet Jimmy, would be waiting for her in heaven to divorce her, maybe worse, maybe slit her lazy throat. She wouldn’t blame him.
All of Lupe’s kids from the clinic were Chicanos, boys and girls; two were chubby, all but one was short compared to most white kids the same age. All signed quick as the wind because Lupe was their teacher, and they were inspired to learn because Lupe wanted so badly for them to learn. She herself had begun to sign as a child when her younger brother, Jesse, at six, lost his hearing because of a severe case of mumps.
Now twelve, Jesse had started at the CFD four years earlier, when Lupe was almost thirteen. In the process of helping her mother and brother learn to sign, Lupe became deeply involved in the world of the deaf. She took advanced courses in high school, and planned to study audiology and speech pathology in college. She worked part-time at the clinic, and attended seminars at the various facilities throughout the Los Angeles area. Her grades were excellent, and she was sure to get scholarship offers from the various Cal state universities to which she would apply. Her life was good, but it was also hard. When she grew weary, she drew strength from the little children, born forever trapped in silence, who struggled so bravely to learn to speak with their hands, who worked so hard to develop skills that others often squandered.
Aside from loving the horses, Lupe liked the arena because she could show what a good horsewoman she was. She could also flirt. She liked the way some of the older riders looked at her, how some tried to plant a little kiss on her neck. She liked piropos, too, the respectful ones, flirty compliments made in Spanish while a young man might clutch his heart tragically—¡Ay-yai-yai, no me dejes así morenísima de mi alma!—Oh, don’t leave me like this, darkest beauty of my soul!
She would, of course, continue on her way, giving no sign that she’d heard, or that she was flattered, but she’d heard, all right, and was flattered. The piropos were said in fun and mostly by boys and young men who had known her as a little girl—and knew the great sadness that clutched at the heart of Lupe’s family.
Chapter 5
Dan and Tim Pat passed through the heavy downtown traffic, then switched from the Harbor to the Hollywood Freeway. Traffic was still heavy, but the Melrose-Normandie exit wasn’t far.
Tim Pat said, “I sweated up good, didn’t I, Grampa?” “You sure did.”
Lupe and Jesse and Billy Tucker were also in heavy traffic, and Lupe drove extra carefully, not being accustomed to this part of the Hollywood Freeway. Billy had drawn a map, but Lupe checked it against the Thomas Guide, a book of street maps of Los Angeles County.
Billy signed that the Cahuenga exit was just ahead. As Lupe merged right, faster drivers honked at her, made her wish she was closer to home. Once at the exit, Lupe turned right, then headed south on Cahuenga. Dan’s house was located some four miles down the way. Lupe ran into some traffic on Cahuenga, but there was virtually none on the residential side streets.
Lupe had to stop for lights at Hollywood and at Sunset Boulevards, but made it through Santa Monica Boulevard. Billy directed her to keep going south.
Dan and Tim Pat proceeded west from the Melrose-Normandie exit, turned right at the corner of Melrose and Wilcox, then headed north a half block. Dan parked under the splayed old eucalyptus tree in front of the gym. Most of the fighters had already finished up. Tim Pat raced inside and leaped into Earl’s arms.
Earl said, “Lord a mercy, I been attacked by a grizzly fox!” Earl saw Dan’s smile, saw his victory nod. Earl pretended to be a ring announcer, held a water bottle up to his mouth for a mike. “In this cawnah, fightin outta da Hard Knocks Gym in Hollywood, Califahnya; weighin in at two hundred an’ toity-tree an’ tree-quahtah pounds; wit a record of fifty-seven wins an’ no losses, an’ fifty-seven KOs; known troo-out da world as da White Fahx!; ladies’n’gen’lemen, da heavyweight champion of da worl! TimateeeePat-rickMahkey!, Mahkey!”
Earl made the roaring sound of a crowd, then tickled Tim Pat’s ribs; he gave the kid a big kiss on his swollen left eye, and hugged him again. Momolo, who worked in the shop and was being trained as a fighter by Earl, came over to shake Tim Pat’s hand gently and ruffle his hair. Momolo was a young middleweight from Liberia with miniature tribal scars across his shoulders and around his face. The name on the African’s passport was Covenant Buchanan, Momolo his tribal name.
“You are a warrior,” Momolo said.
His teeth were white and perfect, and his body had the incredible muscular definition of many West Africans. Earl liked to use the name Momolo instead of his given Christian name, Covenant, because of the African sound to it. Dan also liked the fact that Momolo had a Scots last name. Once they had seen how dedicated Momolo was in the gym, Earl and Dan gave him a job in the shop, where he’d proved equally conscientious. Besides, Dan liked the way Momolo talked.
“A warrior,” Momolo repeated.
Tim Pat relived the fight. “I set him up, Momolo, made sure my feet were right, and then I went in there and I got ‘im.” He turned to Earl.
“But I missed you in my corner, Earl. I told our waitress about you and me and Grampa.”
Earl said, “I’m proud of you, Tim, and I’ll be in your corner tomorrow when you win that trophy.”
“Last night I fought for you and Grampa, Earl. Today, I fought for my mom and dad. Tomorrow, I’m fighting for Grandma,” Tim Pat told them.
Earl said, “Ain’t nobody better.”
Dan turned away, swallowed hard, and then turned back to the kid. “Show Earl that hook.”
Tim Pat pranced up to a big bag, fired a one-two and came zinging back with the left hook. Bang! Tim Pat threw both hands in the air, did a champion’s skipping jig.
Earl looked at the boy from Liberia. “See that? Now let’s see you do it.”
Earl held the mitts, but Momolo’s hook was an arm punch. It was thrown with his weight on his front foot instead of the back. It was a hard shot because Momolo was so strong, but it was still an arm punch, which meant he was working too hard and would tire before his opponent. The hope was that he would learn, and that once he had it, it would feel so good that he would always have it.
Dan saw it. “He’s not switching his weight.”
Earl said, “That’s what I figured, but I can’t watch his hands and feet at the same time and maybe get hit. You show him.”
Dan took the mitts, lined the African’s feet up.
Billy Tucker directed Lupe past Santa Monica Boulevard. He signed for her to turn right at Willoughby, and signed again for her to go two blocks west, to Wilcox. At the Wilcox intersection, he signed for her to turn left and to park at the second house on the right. As Lupe pulled over, a candy-striped pink-and-white ice-cream truck pas
sed her on the left as it headed south toward Melrose, the truck’s loudspeaker blaring its signature invitation to kids, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” What Lupe couldn’t know was that the ice-cream truck’s usual route was from Melrose north, not south, that it should have passed an hour ago.
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.
Momolo couldn’t get the hook. “It is most difficult, this move. Is it so for all?”
“It is like a Ferrari,” Dan said, mimicking Momolo’s formal way of speaking. “If they were effortless to obtain, everyone would have one.”
Momolo and Earl slapped their thighs and squealed with laughter.
Dan laughed with them. “Now we try it the other way around. Watch me. Instead of movin forward a step, this time I want you to go back. Push off your left toe, like me, see? But you gotta move both feet back the same short step, same as when you move forward. As you take the step, turn your hip like this. As your hip begins to turn, see it? As your hip begins to turn, then let the shot go. Whip!”
Momolo listened, moved slow as a sleepy snake until he felt it. He nodded and smiled that big smile. He executed at the speed of light, and Boom!, it was the best hook Momolo had ever thrown.
Dan said, “Now all we gotta do is get you to do it goin forward.”
“Mr. Cooley, sir, I am indebted to you.”
Momolo practiced moving backward and forward until he no longer had to think about his feet. Now the shots came like a drum out of Africa.
Mary had a little lamb …
The music came faintly into the gym, then grew louder. Tim Pat had heard it hundreds of times—at home on Cahuenga, and here at the gym. He was still thirsty, the fight having drained him of fluid and energy. Dan would feed him soon, and then send him off for a nap.
Tim Pat said, “Grampa, can I get another lemon-lime from the ice-cream man?”
Dan gave Tim Pat a five-dollar bill. “Here. But be careful when you cross the street, and don’t forget the change.”
“I won’t.”
“Then we head for home and some sack time. I want more ice on that eye.”
Lupe delivered Billy Tucker to his mother, checked the van’s rearview mirrors for cars, saw no one, and then edged carefully away from the curb. Down the way, she would pass the parking lot of the Department of Motor Vehicles, on the corner of Waring. Melrose was just a short block farther. She slowed from twenty-five to twenty at Waring, checking both ways for cars, then continued on at twenty. She’d noticed that the pink-and-white ice-cream truck had pulled to the right halfway down to Melrose, but her immediate focus had been on checking Waring for cars. Lupe felt happy. She’d soon be back on the Hollywood Freeway, and into familiar parts of Al-Lay. Her horses were less than an hour away. Thinking of them, she had to smile, could see Bobby and Tessie waving their heads for carrots. Relámpago, Lightning, would be sulking because she’d taken so long to get there. He’d make up once he got his carrot. Lupe smiled again.
As she neared the ice-cream truck, she checked her rearview mirrors again, slowed to fifteen miles per hour, and signaled to anyone who might come from behind that she’d be passing the pink-and-white truck.
Tim Pat held his change in his left hand. He was intent on getting at his juice bar, and tugged at its plastic wrapper with his teeth. The loud music was still playing. A young Hispanic mother with a toddler arrived to place her order with the driver. She noticed Tim Pat almost drop his lemon-lime bar when the wrapper tore loose. She would later testify that she saw Tim Pat bobble the juice bar, drop his change, and then stumble forward from behind the blind side of the truck, directly in front of Lupe’s oncoming van.
Lupe hit him before she could get her foot from the gas to the brake, saw him fly into the air and hit the curb in front of the ice-cream truck. Even though she was driving slowly, it’s one of the laws of physics: F = MV. The inertial force of an object is determined by the mass or weight of the object and the velocity at which the object moves. Lupe’s van had a lot more mass than Tim Pat—and the velocity was just enough. She stopped immediately, placed both hands over her mouth, got out of the car, and ran over to Tim Pat. As she knelt down, the driver of the ice-cream truck turned off the music and sped away.
The lemon-lime bar remained whole, but had started to melt on the hot concrete, the gravel and pebbles of the old street showing through its chinked and sun-bleached cement. Dan’s coins had rolled to one side, the bills were scattering.
Lupe screamed when she saw the impossible, skewed angle of the motionless boy’s neck and the blood spreading in a widening pool from the back of his head. His eyes were wide open, filled with an expression of surprise. She didn’t have to touch his body to feel for a pulse. The child was dead; she had killed him. She sobbed and she lost her breath, but she didn’t feel the skin on her knees begin to tear as she knelt on the gritty street surface, bent over Tim Pat’s body. She bent double, her head almost in the blood. She managed to sign to Jesse, who brought the clinic’s cell phone from the van and kneeled silently down beside his sister.
“Ay, Dios mío,” Lupe said. Oh, my God.
Dan had heard the ice-cream music stop, waited for it to resume. He became curious when it didn’t, then started for the street just in case.
Lupe dialed 911, her fingers stiff as chopsticks. She waited silently, hardly breathed, went more silent still. Neither she nor Jesse knew what else to do. When the operator answered after four rings, Lupe reported the accident and the address and the body. The operator took her information, then instructed her to remain at the scene. Lupe made the sign of the cross. Tears streaming down her face, she began to sign to Jesse what the operator had said.
Dan saw the little body instantly, saw it as if down a tunnel of whitest light. Shock hit him and a crushing weight pushed down on his chest as his heart rate soared. He felt himself go crazy, felt his feet flop on the pavement as he raced to the motionless figure. He slid to his knees, shoved Lupe and Jesse aside. He cradled Tim Pat.
Earl heard Dan’s howl. He ran to the street. Dan was hunched over his grandson. His body was rigid, drops of Tim Pat’s blood on Dan’s lips. Dan looked again at his baby boy.
“I shouldda gone with him! Jesusjesusjesus!” Dan was sobbing.
“Dan, he’s been buyin from the truck by himself for two years,” Earl reminded him.
“I shouldda been with him.”
But Dan hadn’t, and now the last candle in his life had been snuffed out. Like some benumbed mother ape, Dan tried to shake life back into Tim Pat’s little body. But Tim Pat was dead and that was it. Two lifeless eyes looked out at him, the dull film of death already starting to form across them. Dan tried to kiss Tim Pat again. His lips wouldn’t move.
Earl bent down. He tried to get Dan to stand, wanted to get Dan someplace where he couldn’t see what was on the ground. But Dan would always see what was there, would see it in flashes of morning light off of plate-glass windows, would see it in the pale faces of heart and cancer patients waiting to die, would see it in the astonished eyes of stroke victims at the hospital where Brigid had been treated. Tim’s broken and bleeding body was the image he’d see in every red sunset, in every blood moon.
Earl saw Dan’s eyes. Nothing was in there. Earl thought of Brendan, of Terrance, of Mary Cat, of Brigid, and now Tim Pat. He looked into Dan’s eyes again. The brightness of life, the flame of the human pilot light, was burning dangerously low.
Earl said, “C’mon, Dan, c’mon, baby, here, lemme help you up.”
“I’m fine here.”
Earl saw Lupe clutching her cell phone. “You call 911?” he asked.
She nodded, then looked over at Dan. She saw the blood on him. “Is this little boy his?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I was going slowly. I can’t even say how sorry I am. I haven’t words in English or Spanish, but I am dead inside. Please ask him to forgive me.”
One siren fi
rst, then two more, the high sounds coming from two directions. The police units came down Wilcox, the ambulance headed up from Melrose. Jesse’s face had gone gray. He began, soundlessly, to cry again. Lupe hadn’t stopped. She signed to her brother as Dan glanced over.
It was an accident. The police will help.
Dan saw Lupe and Jesse clearly for the first time, saw their dark skin and realized they were Latinos. That didn’t register, neither plus nor minus. But when he saw them signing, he thought they were throwing gang signs, and he went wild.
Dan looked up to Earl and wiggled his fingers. “What’s this all about?”
Earl said, “I don’t know.”
“I do know,” Dan said.
As the paramedics and police officers came up, Dan lowered Tim Pat and got to his feet. An officer said, “Sir?,” but Dan didn’t notice. He shoved past the officer, then swooped in on Lupe and began to choke her, lifted her in the air by her throat before the police could react. Earl pulled Dan off and wrapped his arms around him. Dan didn’t struggle, but his body trembled with rage. He hissed.
“I’ll kill her, Earl, I’ll kill the little spic, and fuck the Fifth Commandment in the ass.”
“Naw, baby,” said Earl. “Don’t be talkin that killin business.” “Christ is Satan, the son of a kike whore.”
Dan gagged, nausea rising, pain flooding his chest. His hand went to his battered eye. He tried to die, but couldn’t.
CHICKY
Chapter 6
Eduardo “Chicky” Garza y Duffy was five-ten, and, by the time he was seventeen, weighed in at 149, two pounds over his fighting weight. He was tall for a welter, and was sure to grow at least into a junior middleweight at 154, maybe even a solid middleweight at 160. Only a few Mexican fighters were that tall, and nearly all of those were raised in the U.S. From his mother, Rafaela, Chicky had inherited a light complexion, so you couldn’t see the Mexican in him straight off.
