Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  “Shut up,” Pifas said.

  “Sí, mamón, no one’ll go out with you either, Pifas.”

  “Órale, pinche,” Pifas said, “that’s why you’re out with us, cuz you got girls lining up to spread their legs for you.”

  Joaquín laughed. Chugged his beer. “Didn’t feel like gettin’ laid tonight, ¿sábes?”

  “Me neither,” Jaime said.

  “Me neither,” Reyes said.

  And we all lost it. Laughed our asses off. Maybe we would have an alright time. I’d finished my first beer and was thinking about having another when we’re cruising down El Paseo and this guy from Chiva Town, Tony Guerra, yells something at Pifas. Pifas, of course, thinks the worst. The guy could have been yelling “Ese, how you guys doin’?” He could’ve been inviting us to a keg party at the river. No, but right away Pifas takes offense. “Órale, I’m gonna kick your ass,” he says and he’s hanging out the window and trying to drive all at the same time.

  “Órale, chingazos,” Joaquín says. Always ready to throw a few punches, Joaquín. And I’m thinking, shit. Shit. Then all of a sudden we’re all driving toward some abandoned farmhouse right behind Las Cruces High. There’s about four cars and when we get there, everyone leaves their lights on. I guess if there was gonna be some blood, they wanted to get a good look at it. What good was blood if you couldn’t see it spilling out on the ground? And then there’s chingazos everywhere. Pifas and this guy Tony are beating the crap out of each other, and then Joaquín Mesa starts in on one of Tony’s friends, and then Jaime Rede who was probably still mad over the fact that Gigi Carmona dumped him decides he just has to hit someone. So he jumps in, too. And Reyes Espinoza, who just hated to be left out, he jumps in and just starts swinging a lo loco. He didn’t care who he was swinging it, just so long as he got a piece of the action. So there’s about seven or eight guys fighting in front of this abandoned farmhouse, and I’m just sitting there shaking my head and cussing myself out for being there. Who’s the pendejo here? I ask myself.

  And then I see Pifas on the ground, and Tony’s still punching him. Shit. I have to pull Tony off of him and tell him, “¡Órale! Look! He’s down. Ya parale. You win, damnit. What do you say you leave the pobre pendejo alone, ese.”

  And Tony, who doesn’t look too good himself, doesn’t say anything. He looks at me. “What if I don’t want to stop?” He looks down at Pifas who’s lying there. He lights a cigarette. He looks at me.

  I look at him.

  He figures he’s tired. He figures I’m not so tired.

  So he takes a drag from his cigarette and nods. Then he calls his guys off. “Ya cabrones,” he says. And everybody stops fighting just like that. And then everyone is standing around like a bunch of pendejos.

  I help Pifas up. His lip is cut. “You alright, Pifas?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he says. He lights a cigarette, too. Then he decides to get real friendly and says, “Órale, you guys want some beer?”

  And Tony says, “Sure, ese, why not?” So Pifas hands out a Budweiser to everyone, and they’re all hanging out together. Best friends. And there I am, hanging out with them. Who’s the pendejo here?

  And then Jaime Rede, who always hated me, says, “Órale, Sammy, you’re a chicken shit, you know that? Everyone else was fighting, and you’re just sitting there like a vieja, watching us. You should ask Darlene Díaz to lend you her cheerleading skirt. Pinche joto.”

  I wanted to pound him. I lit a cigarette. I blew out the smoke through my nose, real cool. Sometimes, I thought I was so fucking cool. “You know what, Jaime,” I said, “next time you talk to me that way, I’m gonna use your pinche Mexican face for an ashtray.” I took his beer out of his hand and poured it out on the ground. Real slow. Real cool. It was easy to be cool around Jaime. I knew he wouldn’t screw with me.

  “Man, man, man,” Pifas said.

  Man, man, man. I turned around and walked. Just kept walking.

  I was pissed. These guys, what was wrong with them anyway? What was it with all the fighting? So what if they were pissed off? I was pissed off, too. I was pissed off about a lot of things. About my mom. About Juliana. About living in Hollywood. About working all the time, and having to save every dime, every nickel, every penny, just so I could go to college. About having teachers and friends who looked at me like I was wasting my time by working so goddamned hard at being a good student. About being called the Librarian behind my back by every asshole who thought being a man meant ignoring the fact that he was born with a fucking mind. Damnit to hell! I was pissed off, too. But I didn’t go around kicking people’s asses just because I was pissed off. Shit, sometimes, having these conversations with myself only made me madder. I lit a cigarette. Once I calmed down, I just enjoyed the walk. It was a nice night. Hot. And it smelled like rain.

  It was good to be alone. I always liked that, being alone. Maybe it was because Hollywood felt so crowded. It’s funny, how much time I could spend in my head. I had a whole life up there. The people I knew, they put things in that life. Like my Dad and everyone else I ran into and the whole population of Hollywood. I was always telling my little sister, Elena, that every time we did something good, every time—then we got a little closer to the garden. She wanted to know which garden. I told her the garden that was in the Bible—the garden where everything had been perfect. Of course, I got that idea from Mrs. Apodaca—not that I told Elena about where my idea came from. And really, it didn’t matter that it was Mrs. Apodaca’s idea because all the stuff that was in the garden was different for everyone. The stuff that was in my garden was different from the stuff that was in Mrs. Apodaca’s garden. So, really the garden was mine. And I was always making up the garden in my head. And it didn’t have run-down houses and it didn’t have crappy jobs and it didn’t have teachers who looked at you like you were in the wrong place, and it didn’t have guys who liked to take out their fists and, well, I stayed up nights thinking of what the garden did and didn’t have. And I lived there. That’s where I lived. God, I wondered if I wanted guys like Pifas in my garden. But if I wouldn’t have them, who would? Who the hell would?

  After a while, just walking, I got relaxed. And I got to whistling. I was good at that. When I got to Solano, a car passed me real slow. Then the car turned around and I thought, “Shit, what now?” I just kept walking, and then I took a side street, which really wasn’t very smart. Why did people think I was so smart? Because I read books? Books don’t make you smart. I was always doing dumb things. So my heart starts to pound—and then I hear this voice, “Hey, Sammy, what’s up?”

  I knew that voice. I looked up—just who I thought it was. “That you, Gigi?” She was with a car full of girls.

  “What’s up, Sammy? How come you’re walking down the street all by yourself?”

  “There a law against that?”

  “No seas así, Sammy. Can’t you be friendly?”

  “Mr. Friendly, that’s me.” I smiled. “I was just with your friend, Jaime Rede.”

  “He’s a piece of shit.”

  “Be nice, Gigi.”

  “Fuck you, Sammy.”

  “No seas así.”

  She laughed. She had a nice laugh, Gigi did. But she wore tons of make-up, and her hair was always teased and stiff from all that hairspray. She always looked like she was auditioning for the part of a Go-Go Girl on one of those dumbass T.V. shows. “So,” she says, “I didn’t know you and Jaime were friends.”

  “He’s from Hollywood. I’m from Hollywood.”

  “We’re all from Hollywood.”

  “Does that make us friends?”

  “No, Sammy, I think it just means we’re all stuck with each other. For now, anyway.” She played with the crucifix that was hanging from her gold chain. “I’ll tell you one thing, though, I’m not sticking with Jaime Rede. He’s a cabrón and a pinche.”

  “Nice mouth.”

  “Oh, right. Guys can talk how they want. Girls. They just gotta look good.”

 
“Everyone has to look good, Gigi. This is America.”

  She laughed. I liked that she laughed.

  “I didn’t know you could be funny.”

  I nodded. Smiled. I guess I smiled. “Look,” I said. “I gotta go.”

  “We’ll give you a ride if you give us some cigarettes.”

  “If you can’t afford to buy ‘em, don’t smoke ‘em.”

  “Don’t be mean,” she said.

  I tossed her the pack. “Keep ‘em.” I kept walking.

  “Don’t you want a ride?”

  “Nope.”

  “I hate you,” she said. She sounded mad. She threw the cigarettes back at me. Hit me with them. Not that it hurt.

  “Good,” I said. I wondered why she’d said that. I’d given her my pack of cigarettes. So what if I’d turned down a ride?

  I was tired when I got home. I mean tired. I sat on the porch and smoked a cigarette. My dad came out. “You okay, mi’jo?”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  “I didn’t hear a car.”

  “I walked.”

  He didn’t ask. I didn’t tell. It started raining. We sat there—my dad and me—on the porch watching the rain. He asked me for a cigarette. So we sat there and smoked. And right then, it didn’t feel bad to be Sammy Santos. Being with my dad, it always felt right. Maybe I didn’t have a mom anymore. But I had a dad.

  When I went to bed, it was still raining. I liked the thunder, the sound of it. I liked the breeze that was coming through the open window. I kept going over everything in my mind like the soil I turned over at work. I always did that when I went to bed, turned everything over. So I start talking to myself So this is what I get for saying okay to Pifas? I get to watch a bunch of guys beat the crap out of each other. I get to play referee. I get called names by Jaime Rede and then the sonofabitch threatens me. So I resort to threatening him back. Then I get mad and walk home. I get stopped by Gigi Carmona who informs me that she hates me. Fun. A summer night in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Fun.

  Chapter Seven

  The next Friday, Pifas asks me if I want to go out again. “Friday, my man,” he says. “Órale, it’s time to party, ese.” I told him I didn’t like hanging out with Jaime Rede. He said Jaime Rede wasn’t going. I told him I didn’t like hanging out with Reyes Espinoza. He said Reyes Espinoza wasn’t going.

  “C’mon, ese, we’ll have a good time. There’s a party. Some chick named Hatty Garrison, her parents are out of town.”

  I knew Hatty. I couldn’t believe she’d actually invited Pifas to her party. “Are you invited or you just crashing?”

  “No, maaan, she told me to bring my friends. C’mon, ese. Lots of chicks, ese. A lo mejor we’ll get lucky.”

  “Yeah, sure. We have a better chance of getting busted than getting laid.”

  “Don’t be that way, ese.”

  I wondered why Pifas was so optimistic about things.

  “C’mon, Sammy. Last week we had fun.”

  We had fun? “Okay,” I said. I said it again. I said okay. So Pifas picks me up and he’s with René Montoya. René wasn’t an asshole. I liked him. Only thing is, he liked trouble. He couldn’t help himself. I knew he had a record. I’d even seen him in handcuffs before, right there in front of my house. Busted. I never asked what for. None of my business. Trouble. My dad said he was going to die young if he didn’t watch it. “He’ll wind up in the can, just watch, en la mera pinta.” And Mrs. Apodaca, I swear if he came anywhere within a block of her, she’d get out her holy water. But if you were around him, you wouldn’t know any of those things, wouldn’t even guess it. He was clean cut, almost wholesome. Could have done a commercial for Colgate toothpaste—well, except that you could tell he was Mexican, which wasn’t a good thing if you wanted to be in a commercial.

  We went driving around, and we go to this place, a drive-in liquor place called The Welcome Inn that sold beer to René because he looked a lot older. We drive around and have a couple of beers. We talk. Pifas asks René why the cops stick to him like flies on shit. “Why do you think, pendejo? They like picking on Mexicans. We’re like weeds. And they’re the men with hoes.”

  “You think so?” Pifas says.

  “You think they go around busting keg parties the gringos throw? Hell no. Hell no, they don’t. You think they arrest gringos when they get in a fight? Do you, Pifas?”

  He starts getting mad. I can hear it in his voice.

  “Doesn’t matter what cops think,” I said.

  “I like you, Sammy. You’re smart. But you’re full of shit.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You’re full of shit, too.” I tossed him a cigarette.

  “It matters, Sammy.” That’s what René said. “It matters what the cops think. Just like it matters what our fucking teachers think.” He licked the cigarette he was holding. “Toss me a light,” he said. “Sammy, the only thing that doesn’t matter is us.”

  We get to the party around nine o’clock. Nice. Hollywood didn’t have houses like the one Hatty Garrison lived in. Cars everywhere on her street. I knew there’d be trouble. Already the neighbors looked like they were ready to swoop down. So Pifas and René Montoya and me, we go to the door. Hatty’s there with this big smile. “Pifas!” she says. She was nice, Hatty. Always liked her. “Sammy!” she says. And she hugs me. I could smell the beer on her. Well on her way to being drunk. Not a good sign, I thought. I hated that I was such a worrier. Was Pifas worried? Was René worried? Was Hatty worried? No one was worried. We had a house full of Alfred E. Newmans.

  We made our way through the crowd. The music was loud as shit. I never liked that. I mean, I liked rock. I liked the song that was on. I liked the Rolling Stones. But I didn’t like loud. I pushed my way through the crowd and made my way to the backyard. Lots of gringos. Lots of Chicanos, too. Integration. Yeah, yeah. I tried to see if anyone else from Hollywood was there. Didn’t see anyone, mostly people I knew from school. People I’d be ashamed to take to my house. I hated that I was ashamed. Where did that come from?

  Someone handed me a plastic cup. I walked over to the keg and some guy says, “Sammy! Fucking A! Sammy!” He takes my empty cup and fills it up from the keg. There’s always a keg watcher. Afraid everybody will drink all the beer and leave nothing for him.

  “Hey, Michael, how is it?” That’s what I always say. How is it? It was a Sammy Santos thing.

  Michael nodded his head to the music and handed me the cup full of beer. “It’s good, Sammy. Everything’s good.”

  “Good,” I said. “I’m good, too.” That’s when I see Gigi talking to some girl. She was wearing a mini-skirt, and her white go-go boots and really pink lipstick. Pink as Mrs. Apodaca’s house. She had a body, Gigi did. Liked having it. Liked it a lot. I walk over to her. “Gigi. How is it?”

  “It’s you,” she said.

  “Yeah. Me, Gigi. Just me.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing,” I said. I walked away. I didn’t get her. I just didn’t.

  It was an okay party. People were dancing. People were talking. People were drinking. People were making out. That sort of thing. You know the scene. Funny thing, I wasn’t into it. Maybe it was Juliana. Maybe my head was still in another place. With her. At the Aggie Drive-In. I was always a watcher. But now, I was even more of a watcher. I wasn’t a part of anything. Not anything real. Maybe something would happen. If not to me, to someone else. Didn’t matter if it was something good or something bad. Just anything to make me feel like I was alive. Maybe, deep down, I knew why Pifas and Joaquín and René and Reyes liked to fight. They wanted to feel something. Maybe I was just like them. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. So there I was, at a party at Hatty Garrison’s house, a beer in my hand and about to light a cigarette, when Gigi comes up to me and says, “You know, Sammy, you’re a real asshole.”

  “Did I do something to you, Gigi? Did I?”

  “You have your head stuck so far up your ass you can see what you ate for dinner.”

 
; “Nice mouth.”

  “Don’t nice mouth me, Sammy.”

  “You wanna tell me why we’re fighting a war?” I offered her a cigarette. She took it—like she was doing me a favor.

  “Why do you tell everyone my name’s Ramona?”

  “Well, because that’s your name.”

  “I hate that name.”

  “Pick it up with your mom and dad.”

  She really shot me a look. You know. The look. The one that makes you feel like a worm about to be stepped on.

  “Okay. Look, I don’t go around telling everyone your real name’s not Gigi. I don’t know—”

  “You told Jaime Rede.”

  “Big deal.”

  “Now he knows.”

  “He was in the first grade with us, Gigi.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That’s how I know what your name is—from first grade. That’s what the teacher used to call you.”

  “You remember that?”

  “How the hell else would I know what your name is, Gigi?”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have told him. Everyone he knows has started calling me Ramona. And it’s all your fault. I feel like a pendeja.”

  She didn’t smoke a cigarette like a real smoker. She didn’t like it. I think a cigarette just went with the outfit—that’s why she wanted to hold one.

  “That’s why you’re mad at me?”

  “I have other reasons.”

  “You wanna tell me about ‘em?”

  “No.”

  Great. I hated that. “No?”

  “No.” She inhaled the cigarette I’d given her like she was real cool, like she’d been practicing in front of a mirror. “See ya, Sammy.” She disappeared into the house, got swallowed up by the song that was blaring out I’m getting closer to my home. . . I look over and see Jaime Rede talking to this guy that was in my Spanish class, Eric Fry. And the two of them are talking real quiet. I wondered if they were making some kind of dope deal. Someone told me Jaime was into that. And Eric Fry, well, I didn’t know anything about him—except that he spoke perfect Spanish, something pretty odd for a gringo, spoke it better than most Mexicans. But he was a little too proud of himself. He liked to correct people in our Spanish class. I hated that. I didn’t like him much. I don’t care if he did speak Spanish. No. I didn’t like him. Not that he wasn’t nice to me. He was. It wasn’t that. Anyway, whatever they were talking about, they were really into it. I wondered if I shouldn’t walk over there and say “How is it?” but then I thought, what would I say after that?