Los Angeles Stories

by Ry Cooder

  “May one ask if there is progress in the matter of Alberto Salazar? The musicians were wondering. . . .”

  “We have determined that there was a man seated next to Salazar. He left early. We are very interested in this man, his descrip­tion, his type. We will find him, whoever he is. And now, con permiso, let me introduce my wife.”

  Was I undignified? Undoubtedly. Mute, even? Possibly. “Aquellos Ojos Verdes” . . . the song began to play in my mind. Odd, I thought — I know this face, I’ve seen her somewhere — the green eyes, the somber expression, the lustrous black hair. They returned to their table, and I left the building by the side door. The night was cool. Gradually, I recovered myself. In the alley, Angel was smoking a cigarette and drinking from his flask. I took it.

  “Ay, hombre, qué pasó? You, drinking? Órale!” He laughed. It is not my custom to drink during performances. “Ah, sí, ya comprendo, la muchacha with the green eyes, I saw her! Que chula! But her man is a cop, I know him! Cuidado, mi carnalito!”

  “It’s nothing. The music affected me.” I felt something else. In the darkness, someone was watching. Angel went back inside to look for women. The frenzied beat of a rumba was making the wall of the building beat like a drum. To me, the rumba is primitive and unmusical. I remained outside. Further down the alley, someone began to cough — a harsh, rattling sound.

  “TUBERCULOSIS LOVES MEXICANS,” my grandfather said as he lay dying of the dread disease that was to take him, both my parents, and my sister by the time I reached the age of fifteen. I can recall my mother crying and arguing with an Anglo doctor. Was I four years old? “This child was born with tuberculosis. He will never grow properly. He will always be sickly. He is going to cost the city of Los Angeles a lot of money!” I was in a tuberculosis ward in the children’s wing of General Hospital, on Mission Avenue, but a ward for Mexican and Negro children only. Unforgettable! The long room — a contaminated yellow­-green. The ancient iron beds — so jammed together as to be touching. And the endless coughing, the frightened faces.

  But my mother was brave. One day, she came bursting into the ward, running. She took me in her arms and fled. The Anglo nurses ran after us, screaming for help, for the police. It was after dinnertime and the place was quiet. My uncle was waiting outside in the Ford truck he used for hauling chickens. We escaped. Much later, I learned that the police had tried to find us, to bring me back to the hospital, which was really a prison for the poor and the sick. They were afraid los gabachos would learn of the tubercular Mexican boy running loose on the streets of Los Angeles, resulting in wide­spread panic! Civil unrest! Political upheaval! But we fooled them. My mother took me to the little Mexican Hospital, on Hammel Street, behind the cemetery. She reasoned that the police would never go near the place; they were too afraid of catching the dread incurable Mexican Sickness.

  Dr. Ricardo Chavez treated me for one year. I was allowed to live with my grandparents. The doctor discovered that both my mother and father were infected, my father in the advanced stage. He died within weeks of the diagnosis; my mother, one year later. Somehow, I survived. Dr. Chavez was mystified, but he told my grandmother I would be all right as long as I got enough to eat. This was not a problem since my uncle was a butcher, as I told you. So, we ate chicken! Yes, we ate chicken, and I remained healthy. My growth had nothing to do with tuberculosis. The Anglo doctors believed all Mexicans were born physically and morally tubercular, it explained all their problems. I no longer care to eat chicken, but I still visit the Mexican Hospital out of sentiment for my old doctor. Now, there are three doctors with Hispanic names there. Progress!

  It was my uncle Chuy who gave me music to go with the chicken ­plucking. Everyone listened to the radio program Los Madrugadores — The Early Risers. Music to get­ up ­at 5:00­ a.m. ­and ­hurry­ off­ to ­slave ­the ­day ­away ­by! Local musicians performed the popular Mexican tunes of the day. Uncle Chuy sang along as he singed each plucked chicken over a blue gas flame so as remove the pin feathers. He would say to me, “You have good hands, I will teach you.” But his guitar was too large for me, I couldn’t hold it properly. Uncle Chuy knew a requinto player on Olvera Street who had a second instrument. On my tenth birthday, Tío Chuy traded a dozen pollos for it. The requinto is about one third smaller than the guitar in size and one fifth higher in pitch. It was created specifically for trio arrangements. My future was sealed: “The boy is too small for work. Pero, es possible he could survive as a musician, con la mano de dios.” Yes, I survived. Often, I am in pain. My old doctor says my bones are weak. Often, I walk with difficulty. But I had a neighbor, a nurse, who lived at the Edmund Apartments. She had access to the medicine I needed. Morphine, it is called.

  My nurse was Italian. Rose was her name, she worked at General Hospital. Rose’s husband was killed in the war. Arriving home late, I sometimes heard accordion music coming from her apartment. Passing each other in the hallway one evening, we made introductions.

  “I’m a musician myself, I appreciate the accordion.”

  “My husband played. Those are his records,” she said. We became acquainted, friendly. One day there was a knock at the door. I had been lying on the sofa for days, unable to move. She called out to me: Was I there? Was I all right? I called back that the door was unlocked. She knew what was wrong.

  “Osteoarthritis. In your case, nothing can be done, but there is a painkiller. It’s controlled, you shouldn’t tell anyone. I would lose my job, maybe jail.” Paradiso! Next to music and the cinema, the drug was the most wonderful thing. Life could be beautiful. Rose told me she liked Mexican music. She actually listened to Los Madrugadores before leaving for work in the morning. Later, it was a little while after the assassination of Salazar, she came to my room. I thought she was there to inject me, but it was something else.

  “Arturo, I have a story for you,” she began. “I told you my husband was killed in Germany. He never fought in the war. He was killed by the police, right here in Los Angeles. My husband was a convinced Socialist and a union man, a printer. He worked against Mussolini. He had a comrade, a Filipino, who was trying to educate Filipinos about Fascism in Los Angeles. One night, there was a meeting on Temple Street. Someone informed and the police raided the meeting. They were looking for the leaders, particularly my husband’s friend. The police opened fire, and my husband was shot. No doctor would touch him. I did what I could, but he died in my arms. That was seven years ago. Now the Filipino is a patient in General Hospital. He still leads the group through me. I tell the others and they do the work. He wants to talk to you. I don’t know why, but it must be very important. The police don’t know he’s there, his name was never known outside the group, as far as I know.”

  I was astonished: behind every door, a strange world. “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  “Please come to the hospital tomorrow, in the afternoon. Go to the TB ward and tell them you are a relative of Mr. Bulosan. Carlos Bulosan.”

  “MUY BUENOS DIAS, M’IJO,” said the walls. “You’ve been away so long!”

  “Buenos dias,” I answered back. The same yellow-­green, the same iron beds, the terrible smell.

  “The man you want is right over there. You grew a little, congratulations!”

  The chart had a graph, the graph tended downward. Bulosan, C., seemed to be asleep. Compact, Asiatic face. Hair worn long, slicked back. Small bones, pain lines. He opened his eyes. Cat­like, dreamy. They fooled you a little, I found out later.

  “How do I look?” he asked.

  “I’ve seen worse. My grandfather and my sister died in here.”

  “This room didn’t take you. You’re lucky, so far.” A soft, high-pitched voice, like the top tenor in a trio. He coughed — a harsh rattle.

  “I’m happy to have a little luck once and a while,” I replied. Too much, and fate pays a call. La Visita, my grandmother called it.

  “Rose chose you.”

  “I will do what Rose asks.”

  “You
have a friend with the police. Sergeant Morales. He is investigating the death of Salazar, the newspaper man. What does he know? Whom does he suspect?”

  “He questioned me, he mentioned an unknown man seen leaving the theater. I don’t know what he is doing.”

  “Find out.” Talking was a great strain. Bulosan began to cough with a force that lifted his body off the bed. I felt myself collapsing inside. Many eyes watched me leave the long room. Is he coming to stay with us? — the eyes wondered. “Come back soon, m’ijo, we’ll have a party!” the walls called out.

  I was in terrible pain. My bones hurt, my head hurt. Somehow, I got back to the Edmund. The TB ward had frightened me, it made me sick. La Bamba was out of the question, the thought of the place nau­seated me. Rose had provided enough morphine. I injected myself, the first time without her. The needle hit a vein right away, gracias a dios. Right away. But I remained on edge. Wary. I lay on the sofa, drifting down the devil’s highway of pain. A brutal road with little shrines to the dead everywhere: Aida Manzano, my mother; Mateo Manzano, my father; Ignacio Abrego, my grandfather. Then something called me back. There was a man in my room. Not a man, but a figure made of leaves. He made no sound, he had no outline, no substance, but the light from my reading lamp gave him form. He moved abruptly, gesturing in an anxious, pleading way. What do you want? I’m sick; leave me alone, I begged. He opened the door and turned back to me as if to say, you must follow.

  I walked west on Sixth Street. The Leafman darted ahead, crouching here and there behind trees, appearing and disappearing in the light of the street lamps, leading me on. The Red Car came lumbering along, the “A” line. I climbed aboard and took a window seat. Leafman ran down the sidewalk, in and out of the light, hiding behind trees, watching me. The streetcar lurched and bucked along at a frantic rate of speed. You may say I was terrified. The conductor turned to me. Not a man, but an eggplant! An eggplant, dressed in a motorman’s suit and cap! Faceless, featureless. He barked like a dog. The trolley door swung open directly in front of the Central Police Station. A black sedan pulled up to the curb, tires screeching. Sergeant Morales called out, “Buenas noches, my friend, I have been looking for you!” The rear door opened, unseen hands shoved me inside. The car pulled out onto Grand Avenue. “Where to, Sarge?” the driver turned his head to ask. A potato in an LAPD uniform.

  “I asked for you at La Bamba. They suggested I try your apart­ment. I went there, the door was open. I became alarmed. The Edmund is known to the police. Unsavory, I’m very sorry to say. You should be more careful. By the way, I found a syringe and a drug vial in your room. We will speak of that later. I think you have something important to tell me?”

  I was observing the streetlamps, an old habit. Styles change as one passes from one district to another, one era to another. Very interesting for one who travels by streetcar at night. But Morales was becoming impatient. My bones hurt, my head hurt. Where do old streetlamps go when they are no longer wanted? My eyes filled with tears at the thought.

  “You must pay attention, my romantic friend. Listen to me. You were seen leaving General Hospital.What did you do there?”

  “A sick man, I don’t know him well. A favor.”

  “Who is the sick man? A musician?”

  “A laborer, not a musician.”

  “Where did you get morphine?”

  “I am afflicted with a bone disease, I was born with it.”

  “It is quite illegal to possess morphine. I thought we had an understanding. Need I remind you of the consequences of concealing information? I’m afraid we may have to detain you as a material witness. En El Tambo, no hay boleros, no hay morphine, no hay nada. I want you to tell me if this is the man you saw leaving the Million Dollar Theatre the day Salazar was murdered.” He thrust a photograph in front of me, a picture of Carlos Bulosan.

  My mind was starting to clear a little. “That is impossible. I saw this man, I spoke to him. He can’t walk, let alone walk out of the hospital and get himself to the theater and kill someone. Only a poor fruit­ picker, and he is dying. I know it, I know the signs.”

  “I suggest that you and this fruit ­picker conspired to murder Alberto Salazar!” Morales’s face was now inches from mine. He was enraged. “I further suggest that you were paid for your service in morphine!”

  “You may suggest what you will, but I am sick, I must return home. It is useless to make these accusations.”

  “Of course. You are unwell, I’m very sorry for the inconven­ience. Police work — sometimes, it is distasteful. My wife sends her regards. Buenas noches.”

  We had come to a halt in front of the Edmund Apartments. Morales sat back in the seat, his face composed into a mask. The driver appeared human in form. The police car drove away, leaving me there on the curb. I entered the building and walked up the stairs to my floor. My door was closed and locked. I used my key. I laid down on the sofa, trying to think why Morales wore no left shoe. Was his left foot cloven? With the dawn, I fell asleep.

  MY GRANDFATHER IGNACIO was fond of saying, “If all the Mexicans in Los Angeles fought alongside Pancho Villa as they claim, the revolution would have triumphed on Olvera Street.” There’s a photograph of Villa with his arm around my grandfather, who is dressed as a woman, dated Durango, 1919. Grandfather carried a derringer in his boot and a very large bone-­handled knife in his coat right up until his last days in the hospital. “They got Flores­ Magon, but they’ll never get me,” he declared, referring to the anarchist, whom he claimed to have hidden in the cellar. “The anglos were on the floor above in countless thousands. We fired, Ricardo and I, until our last bullet was gone. They took him then. I escaped — a tunnel underneath Chinatown.” In another version, Flores­ Magon was shot in the back by an informer while straightening a photograph of Trotsky. “Porfiriato revanchist swine! Viva Tierra y Libertad!” The tears came.

  My grandparents had been itinerant comic actors in Mexico before immigrating to Los Angeles in 1930. They made a success in the little provincial theaters of those times as “Mantequilla y Huevos.” My grandfather appeared as a woman, my grandmother as a man. The man makes improper advances to the woman, the woman resists, the man is indefatigable. Aroused, the woman overpowers the man, at which point, the true sex of the actors is revealed in a licentious manner. Very popular with General Villa and his men! Popular, also, among Federal troops, which enabled my grandparents to ferret out strategic information, or so I have understood. “When an officer is así tan borracho, he can’t tell the difference,” Grandmother Beatrice would say, her cigar clamped in her teeth.

  They arrived in Los Angeles with enough money saved to purchase a tiny bungalow on Bernard Street, in the neighborhood behind Chinatown. Mexican family orchestras were the rage in the thirties, so Grandfather Ignacio simply removed the enlarged papier-­mâché genitalia from the theatrical costumes, hired extra musicians, and launched “Los Alegres de Los Angeles” in honor of their new hometown. My mother took over as lead singer when Beatrice retired. After mother died, my sister Encarnacion and I moved in with the abuelos. When my sister died, I moved out.

  I woke up the morning after la noche de terror and realized the Edmund was not a good place for me anymore. The Trio man stands on the stage, in the spotlight, rendering the same bolero songs night after night, but outside the four walls of Club La Bamba? Maybe he knows very little about the world after all. I had a bad feeling about things. I didn’t like being watched by the police, and I didn’t at all like the idea of Leafman dropping by unannounced. I packed my trunk, took down the family pictures, and fled back to Bernard Street. The house of the abuelos had passed to my widowed aunt, Louisa, the only family I have left. She met me at the door. Her eyes grew big. “Pablito, you’ve come at last!” Her only son, Pablito, had been killed in the anti­-Mexican riots — an eighteen-­year-­old pachuco boy, shot down by the LAPD for wearing high-­drape pants.

  “Not Pablito, tía mia. It’s Arturo.”

  “Arturo and Enca
rnación! Gracias a dios!” Louisa still attended mass in the plaza church twice a day.

  “Encarnación is in the convent. She has her habit now.”

  “By the grace of God the Father! I will light candles. You have brought me such good news, we will tell the padre! A blessed day!” Another blessed day of ignorance for her, a day of fear and uncertainty for me, a Trio man on the run. We sat on the little front porch with its sagging roof and peeling paint. Finches peeped in the old rose vine, now grown to epic proportions. Alameda Boulevard hummed along a few blocks away.

  “How are your neighbors?” I asked.

  “Getting older, like me. Los Chinos are good people to live with. They are not of the faith, but they appreciate peace and quiet. We help each other. I give tamales, they bring their strange food. I like it more now since my teeth are gone. I’m so lonely, Arturo. God the Father sent you to me.”

  “Yo tambien, tía Louisa. I have no one, only my job at La Bamba.”

  “You have your guitar, something most people never know. Is La Bamba a place of sin? Should I worry?”

  “Harmless. Our people can forget their problems for a little while.”

  “God gave you a talent for music. Pablito loves music, he will be so pleased to see you!” Evening was coming on. I changed clothes, took the requinto, and walked the four blocks to Alameda. I boarded the “U” car line and rode west on Spring Street. “El Cho Time,” as Grandfather Ignacio had whispered to me in the hospital, the crazy light fading from his yellow eyes at last.

  “ÓRALE, HERMANITO, YOU missed a big night over here!” Angel laughed, shaking his head. He was standing in the alley under the stage ­door light, smoking and drinking from his flask. He offered it to me. “The cop, Morales? He was looking for you. He got into it with the boss! Por eso!”

  “What did he want?”

  “Los ojos verdes wasn’t with him. The boss says, ‘If this is business, take it up with Cobby. You got yours.’ Morales didn’t like that! ‘I’m not vice, I’m homicide,’ he says. Tú sabes que the boss has got muchas problemas with that blond chica of his? Échale! She comes over, very drunk. ‘What’s the beef, what’s with the cops all over the place,’ she goes. Morales says, ‘Tell her to sit down and be quiet.’ She goes to the boss, ‘You gonna let a spic cop come in here and talk to me like that?’ Everybody was watching. The boss turns to her and says, ‘Don’t use that word in here if you’re smart.’ She goes, ‘A spic cop in a spic joint full of spics!’ Big night, hermanito!”