Iron River

by Daniel Acosta

  Nobody talked on the way home until we got to Alhambra. Then Grandma turned her body toward Dad. She started speaking Spanish fast, but I was able to get most of it. “You should’ve talked to him. He’s your brother. He’ll always be your brother whether you like it or not.”

  Dad reminded me of me when Mom scolds me. He stared straight ahead with his hands on the steering wheel. He didn’t say anything back. Grandma kept on scolding him. “You promised me when your father died you would look after him.” When Dad didn’t answer, Grandma stopped talking and turned her body back to the front. She went the rest of the way home looking out the side window.

  Saturday’s the day my dad washes the car. When I went outside after breakfast, Dad was in the driveway under the ramada with a cigarette in one hand and the hose in the other spraying soap off the hood of the Chevy. I waited on the side porch until he turned off the faucet.

  “Do you hate Rudy?” I’d been wanting to ask him that for a long time.

  He spun around to me, and his eyes were really big. I guess I surprised him. He took a big puff of his Camel. He blew white smoke up at the ramada and picked a piece of tobacco off the tip of his tongue. “What makes you think I hate Rudy?” he asked me.

  “You didn’t talk to him at the hospital. And Grandma was mad at you.”

  He was quiet for a minute. Then he grabbed the chamois and started pushing it around to get the water off the car.

  “I don’t hate him. Your uncle did some bad things. He broke promises to your grandma. He hurt and shamed the family. I’m mad at him, but I don’t hate him.”

  “What did he do?”

  Dad stopped wiping the car. He put the chamois down and turned to lean against the Chevy. He threw his cigarette into the soap bucket. “Manny, what do you know about your uncle?”

  That was easy. “He’s your little brother. He went to high school, but he didn’t graduate. He joined the Marines and was in the war. He killed his buddy and…”

  “What?”

  “Rudy told me he killed his Marine buddy Beans.”

  Dad squatted down so we could be eye to eye.

  “What do you mean he killed his buddy?” His blue eyes were the color of the sky and there were tiny red veins on his nose.

  “We talked about stuff one day. I don’t remember when. He told me their truck got blew up, and Beans got hurt bad and was telling Rudy to kill him, and Rudy shot him in the head.”

  “Beans?”

  “That’s his name. Beans. He was his Marine buddy from Georgia or someplace. Rudy said the truck crushed him, and he was hurt so bad Beans asked Rudy to take away his pain. Rudy didn’t want to, but Beans kept telling him it hurt so bad. And there was no doctors around or nothing. It was just him and Beans. So Rudy shot him in his head and Beans died. Rudy said everything changed after that. He didn’t want to be a Marine any more. He has nightmares about Beans all the time. He said he wishes he died instead of Beans.”

  My dad put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Dad, what’s going to happen to Rudy?”

  “Rudy was using drugs,” he said. “He broke the law and so he has to go back to prison when he gets out of the hospital.”

  “But why is he in the hospital instead of jail?” Dad stood up and started to coil up the hose. He stopped suddenly and looked straight at me.

  “Turkness.” He didn’t have to say no more for me to get it.

  “But Dad, can the Turk do that?”

  “The Turk can do whatever he wants in this neighborhood.”

  “But why do they let him?” I guess Dad didn’t hear me because he started coiling the hose again like I wasn’t even there. When he didn’t answer me, I went back inside.

  20

  Little’s usually my partner when we serve at Thursday night rosary and benediction. Dad drops us off at the Mission and Little’s mom or Big picks us up after. Once in a while when Little doesn’t show up and I serve alone, I walk to Betty’s after so Ted can bring me home.

  This was one of those times. To get to Betty’s, I have to walk down Mission Drive and then back up to Sunset. That’s about eight blocks. Or I can take the shortcut through Smith Park. I did that a few times, and I always hope I don’t run into the tee-cats. They usually hang out by the snack bar on the other side of the swimming pool so I stay away from that part of the park.

  This time the park was empty. The only light on was next to the tennis court gate. All I could see in the light was the old drinking fountain that’s always busted. I walked by the tennis courts and the fountain and then past the handball courts and crossed the street to the old train station.

  Way before I was born, the train used to stop in San Gabriel. That was back when there was the Mission Play which the whole world came to see because it told about the early Spanish mission days in California. But when they stopped showing it, nobody got off the train in San Gabriel anymore so they closed the station.

  So now the San Gabriel station is just two locked buildings—a passenger hall with the windows painted so you can’t see inside and a baggage building with a wood platform and a ramp.

  I was almost past the passenger hall when I heard a sound I’d heard once before. I stopped and listened harder. It was the sound of somebody getting beat up, and it was coming from inside. I hid in the shadows. I was scared and sorry I took the shortcut. It was cold now, and I wanted to close up my jacket, but I knew it would make that zipping noise so I left it open.

  I leaned against the wall and waited for the sound to stop. But this time the beating went on a lot longer than at the Legion when Rudy and Marcel beat up that other tee-cat.

  I heard punches and kicks and the voice of a boy crying. A man’s hard voice told him to shut up and called the boy dirty names and “nigger.”

  The boy cried and cried, and then he started moaning and then he was quiet, but the kicking didn’t stop. I wanted to cry too. I wanted to be home. I wanted to wake up in my pee, and find out I was just dreaming because it was so bad how the boy was getting beat up.

  The punching and kicking stopped. I heard footsteps coming toward me. I pushed myself into the wall where it was the darkest. A shadow passed by me walking fast and breathing hard. Even though it was dark, I could see who it was. The shadow turned to look back, and I thought he saw me, but then he walked into the night and in a minute I heard a car start up and burn rubber and drive away fast. I waited.

  The hall was so quiet I could hear my own heart pounding. I looked around, and then I went to the door. It was open and the chain that kept it locked was hanging from one of the handles like a dead snake.

  I peeked my head inside. I couldn’t see anything at first, but I could smell B.O. and the stink of poop. When my eyes got used to the dark, I could see a body laying on the floor next to a tipped-over bench. There was a round puddle of shiny, black water around his head like those halos on Grandma’s santos. The body was laying on his back like he was just looking at the stars.

  When I got up close to him, he looked bigger than a boy but not a man. He looked like Lawrence Collison, but I wasn’t sure because his face was all puffed up and covered with blood. One eye was swelled shut, and his mouth was a black hole.

  I didn’t want to, but I put my ear next to his mouth. He wasn’t breathing. I put my hand on his chest. It felt bony and warm, but I couldn’t feel his heartbeat. The smell of B.O. and poop and blood was bad, and I ran out of the passenger hall and threw up on the cement, and I didn’t care who heard me. I ran away from that station and didn’t stop running till I got to Betty’s.

  My dad got to Betty’s fast after Ted called him on the phone. I was sitting in the parlor drinking a glass of sugar water Betty gave me for my nerves when he came in. I stood up, but I was still shaking.

  “What the hell were you doing at the station at night?” Dad’s face was red, and his voice sounded hard like it did when he chewed out Rudy on the front porch. He stomped up close to me like he was going to give me a belt whipping.<
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  Betty stood next to me. “Calm down, Manuel. Can’t you see he’s already a nervous wreck?” She put her hand on my shoulder. I looked down at the floor and waited for the sound of him pulling off his belt.

  “How many times have I told you to stay away from there?” Dad’s face was right over me, and his breath was hot on the top of my head. “You don’t have any business going there at night!”

  “I was just taking a short cut,” I whispered to the floor. Dad’s shoes were almost touching mine like Danny’s did in the caboose. “Little didn’t show up to serve with me, and I had to walk here. The park’s a short cut.” I kept talking so I wouldn’t cry.

  Ted came out of the kitchen carrying a cup of coffee.

  I felt Dad back off from me. Betty made me sit down in Ted’s easy chair, but she still stood over me like she was protecting me from Dad. Ted put the cup on the table next to the couch. I guess Dad got the message because he went to the couch and sat down. Ted leaned against the tile fireplace and crossed his arms. When I looked at Dad he was staring hard at me, so I dropped my eyes to the rug in front of me.

  “What do you want to do, Manuel?” Ted asked.

  “Do we call the police?” Dad said.

  “And say what?”

  Dad was quiet a long time. “I see what you mean,” he said finally. “They’re going to want to know what Manny was doing there.”

  Betty’s voice made me jump. “You don’t think the police are going to say Manny did that to the Collison boy?”

  “Can’t I just tell the truth?” I asked.

  Ted answered for Dad. “You don’t know the truth. Not all of it. And they’ll want it all.”

  “But I do know it all!”

  “Unless you know who beat up Lawrence, you don’t.”

  Dad got up off the couch. “Come on, then. It’s late and you have school tomorrow.”

  “You’re not going to make him go to school, are you?” Betty said. “After what he’s just gone through and the state he’s in?”

  “We’ll see,” Dad grunted.

  We didn’t talk in the car on the way home. I sat looking out at the sleeping neighborhood through the side window. We passed Silverman’s and Big’s house. Both of them were dark. When we got home, Grandma didn’t talk about what happened. Neither did Mom. She just made me take a shower and go right to bed.

  I laid under the covers of the couch, but I couldn’t fall asleep, so I waited until Mom and Dad’s bedroom door closed and everybody was in bed. Then I got up and went to the front door and opened it. I stood there listening to the night through the screen door. The neighborhood was quiet except for some barking that was probably Cerberus, Louie Mora’s big, black dog from down the street who always tries to bite anybody that goes by his yard.

  I felt like time was spinning backwards, taking me back to the day when we found the hobo. After my confession to Father Simon, I was good with God, but time and the Turk weren’t going to let me slide with the law. I listened for a siren that would come to take me. Not to jail, but to the shutdown train station. The Turk was going to make me say I killed the hobo. And he was going to keep asking me if I knew who killed Lawrence Collison. He would even beat me up like he beat up Rudy until I told him. But when I told him, he would kill me too.

  I heard the horn of the SP engine coming on an east current. It was probably passing the Mission. In a minute it would be rumbling past my house. I went back to the couch and pulled my blanket over me. I thought about what Rudy told me about drowning himself on the track so he could end the trouble. I wonder what it felt like to drown. I think I fell asleep just before the train came past and the house shook like a baby earthquake.

  21

  I guess Mom and Dad took Betty’s advice because Grandma kept me home from school. I spent Friday sitting in the front room staring out the screen door at the mountains. There was nothing on TV but soap operas and “Queen for a Day,” and Grandma wouldn’t let me go outside. There was nobody to play with either. I watched six trains go by in the morning. Four were on a west current and two were headed east.

  I took a nap after lunch, but I couldn’t really sleep because all I could think of was what I saw last night and what was going to happen. I must’ve fell asleep though because I jumped when I heard meowing at the screen door.

  I flipped the hook off the latch.

  “Are you sick?”

  Danny was still in his school clothes, and his blue school shirt had a dark brown spot next to the pocket.

  I shook my head.

  “Nah, Grandma kept me home. Did I miss Dice Cream day?”

  Dice Cream day is really Gabriel’s Day. St. Gabriel the Archangel is the patron saint of our mission and school and even our city. Once a year on Gabriel’s Day, there’s Mass and schoolwork in the morning. But from lunch time to the end of school is a play day. The cafeteria people give out Hawaiian Punch and those squares of ice cream called Dice Cream. Danny must’ve had a chocolate one.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I was going to bring you one when you weren’t in school, but it would’ve melted. Sorry. So, how come you skipped school?”

  I thought about how I was going to tell him. I said, “Let’s go up to the club.”

  When we were up there laying down and looking at the sky, Danny said, “I haven’t been to the club since school started.” Everything was the way we left it the last time, except the cardboard we put on top of the pallets was crinkly and dark brown from a rain in August.

  “So, how come you stayed home today?” Danny got up and walked to the edge of the roof on top of Yoci’s bathroom and stood there looking down.

  “Hey, get away from there,” I told him. “You want to get me in more trouble?”

  Danny came back to the pallet. He reached up and pulled an avocado off a low branch. It was all shriveled up and black like Tanaka’s finger. He threw it. It smacked down on Grandpa’s driveway. “So?” he asked me again.

  “My dad made me.” Then I told him about Lawrence Collison.

  “Oh, God, Man!” he said. “What are you going to do?”

  I told him my dad was going to talk to some lawyer. I told him I was scared. I told him about drowning on the tracks.

  “You can’t do that,” he said. “Suicide’s a sin. You’ll go straight to hey-yell!”

  I knew I couldn’t drown myself. Hell was bad, but I didn’t want to do that to Dad and Mom and Grandma and Dorothy. I moved, and I felt the cardboard crunch under my back. Danny was sitting next to me now. He had his knees pulled up to his chin, and he was staring straight ahead.

  “Are you sure it was the Turk?” he asked me.

  I lifted up off my back and held myself up on my elbows and didn’t say nothing. There I was on a refrigerator box on top of a wood pallet with my best friend. But it was really like I was on a raft floating on a river of trouble. I couldn’t get off and I couldn’t steer. I just had to go where the current took me like those people on the Sunset Limited. But at least they knew where they were going. I didn’t know where this river was taking me.

  “What are you thinking about, Man?” Danny asked me. I wanted to say something, but all the things in my mind were spinning around, and I couldn’t grab an idea to save my life. I shook my head.

  Danny said, “That Turk is a mean son-of-a-bitch.” He didn’t look at me. He was watching his fingernail peel a scab off his elbow. “That’s what my dad says, anyway. The Turk hates negros and Metsicans.”

  “He made Betty sit on a curb the night we went to the Legion,” I told him. I let myself think: He is a mean son-of-a-bitch, and it felt okay to hear myself say that.

  I wasn’t allowed to go to Lawrence’s funeral either, but Little went. He told me Big picked him up in their dad’s car, and they skipped school and went together. He said the service was real long. Way longer than a Catholic funeral, but it didn’t feel long because the choir sang real good, and the music was happy even though everybody was crying. I wish I could’ve gone to
the funeral because I wanted to tell Melinda I was sorry about her brother. I didn’t know Lawrence, but I said hi to him a couple of times when I walked Melinda home after school.

  Melinda’s house was about two blocks from the Mission. It’s the only one I know besides Betty’s that has a fireplace and the only two-story house in Sangra. One time I asked her if she liked living upstairs. I told her about the club and how much fun it was that everything looked different from up there, and I asked her if living upstairs was fun. She told me that it was a little bit fun but mostly it was a bother going up and down stairs all the time. And she said they never lit the fireplace “but for New Year’s Eve.” I liked how she said, “but for New Year’s Eve.”

  Anyway, Little said the choir sounded like those rhythm and blues singers his sister Marta listens to on the negro radio station. He said the church was packed with negros, but that some Mexican boys who were on the frosh football team with Lawrence were there too. He said Melinda sat in the front row crying real hard, and her dad was hugging her tight. He thought she looked back at him so he waved at her, but he guessed she didn’t see him because she didn’t wave back. After, there was a funeral procession in cars to the graveyard, but Big and him didn’t go because Big’s mom didn’t want them to take his dad’s car to the tinto part of Pasadena.

  It took me two whole weeks staying in at recess and after school to catch up with my work because of all the days I was missing. One of those days was to go with Dad and Grandma to court in downtown L.A. for Rudy’s parole violation hearing. Dad woke me up around 5 am so I could shower the pee off me before we left.

  I fell back asleep when the car started. When Dad woke me up, we were in a parking lot near the placita on L.A.’s Main Street. Grandma told me we were going to go to 6:30 Mass before Rudy’s hearing. After Mass, we had our breakfast tacos on a bench in the placita.

  After City Hall, the Hall of Justice is the biggest building downtown. Inside, white men in wrinkled brown suits walked around carrying brown briefcases. Grandma wore a nice dark dress and dark sweater and her hat and the black gloves she always wears to Mass. Dad was wearing suit pants and a sport shirt and his good sport coat. I was dressed like Dad.