John Sayles - The Anarchist's Convention and Other Stories

"Come out, Amado. They go now."

… come all, to the El Des file Historico, Old Spanish Days historic parade! Better find a place early, you won't want to miss a moment. Viva la Fiesta!

Mrs. Lopert hands the pay slips out. They always fantasize about what she does in her little office alone all day. When Parrando punched the wrong time card and had to spend ten minutes in with her straightening it out, Jesus greeted him back in the kitchen with fire extinguisher in hand.

"We were comin in after you, nano, and use this to get her off. Those old ones, they grab on, sometimes they don't wanna let go."

Amado thinks that she drinks all day and it makes him sad to look at her.

"What you gonna do with your pay, man?"

Amado shrugs. If he says he sends it home they laugh.

"Some I save. Some I spen."

He saves to visit at Christmas. He misses his mother and father, his little sisters. It costs two hundred to be smuggled back through La Migra. It costs nothing but the bus fare to go down.

… MacEvoy, please report to the reviewing stand. Will Donald MacEvoy please report to the reviewing stand, your mother is looking for you. Viva la Fiesta!

They stand in front of the Peaches Bargain Boutique, Rudy, Parrando, Amado, Rafael Torres and Angel from the busboys, stand together on the curb watching the parade, surrounded by Anglos. Anglos in sun hats and sunglasses, with nose cream and Kodaks and folding chairs. They stand apart with their arms folded across their chests, joking in Spanish, running down all the floats, all the tourists and marchers, and no one around them knows, no one understands.

First there are Marines, hard-heeling down the center of State, eyes front, each supporting a flag. Then a little girl in a white linen dress, like for First Communion, tossing flower petals from a basket.

Ladies and gentlemen, our lovely Little Miss Spirit of the Old Spanish Days, Cynthia Louise Bottoms! Viva la Fiesta!

An Old Spanish Days powder wagon, with four outriders in shining black-and-silver charro uniforms. Angel recognizes Mr. Lomax from the liquor store, who called the police about the fight. He looks younger on horseback, bald-patch under a broad, black hat.

Ladies and gentlemen, El Presidente de la Fiesta and his family, Mayor Thomas J. Kelso! Let's have an Old Spanish Days round of applause! Viva la Fiesta!

A group of families comes next on horse and mule, dressed as Anglo pioneers escorting a covered wagon. Then more local ranchers on their horses, leathery husbands and wives in matching spangled outfits.

"Roys Roger!" cries Parrando. "Hopsalong Cossity!"

The marching bands come then, and Rudy leads the hissing and clucking at the baton girls in their sparkling pink tights, leads in teasing Parrando when the littlest ones, with their spit curls and spots of rouge and their mothers trailing on the sidelines, pass by.

"That's your speed, Parrando," they say in Spanish. "You have to start small and work your way up."

"Parrando's stick is taller than the girls," says Angel. "He'd scare them away."

"A gift like that to such a baby," says Rudy, shaking his head sadly. "If I had one like his I'd retire and let the women take care of me."

"How bout two inches for an amigo, Parrando? You got plenty to spare."

Parrando blushes, and Amado envies him a little. He never has to act hard, Parrando, the others accepted him after the first time he changed his pants in the laundry room.

A drum corps of black boys, whaling away in perfect time, marching tight and sharp, and then a float with a flamenco dancer, a Chicana. They cheer.

A colorful member of our Old Spanish Days celebration, Margarita Estrada will appear nightly at the Noches de los Estrellas pageant, under the stars on the Long Pier.

The County Sheriff's posse follows, and the Old Spanish Days Fire-Hose Cart and Engine Crew Bucket Brigade, the German Club float, the Town Assessor dressed as a Chumash Indian chief, the Elks Drum and Bugle Corps, and then, three flatbeds long, hung with paper lanterns, aglow with bougainvillea, camellias and hibiscus, fluttering with black lace fans, rustling with red and orange and yellow petticoats, comes the Native Daughters of the Golden West float and Mounted Honor Guard.

"Chingaol" says Angel.

The women offer bare, white shoulders to the sun, their hair piled high with combs, they smile and wave and click their castanets at the crowds lining State Street -

Old Spanish Days would not be complete without an evocation of the grace and splendor the Castilian Dons and Doilas preserved in their journey to the New World. This foundation of European culture has survived through the years to become our treasured heritage. Viva la Fiesta! Long live the Old Spanish Days!

— across Pedregosa, across Cota and Gutierrez and Sal- sipuedes, across Sabado Tarde Street to slow for pictures in front of the Peaches Bargain Boutique. Amado sees Mrs. Winters, who taught the night-school English class he was too tired to keep up with, dressed in scarlet. Little blond boys in white peon suits hold the trains of the longer dresses, while high-school boys in red sashes and bolero jackets mime playing instruments to a tape of a mariachi band. The women work their fans, click their castanets and wave to the flashing cameras, a beauty mark on every cheek.

At the very end come the low-riders.

After the last Spanish couple, the last pioneer family, the last child in pinned organdy strapped sidesaddle on a burro, come the low-riders.

"Chingao!" cries Angel. "Low-riders!"

The Bronze Eagles rolling down the center of State, four abreast, dozens of them, looking bad. Jacking their front ends up and down, Chevys, Dodges, old shiny Fords, pumping their lifts in violent spurts, whushl whushl whush! flashing axle then letting it drop, nose to the pavement. Amado cheers with the others, whistles, stomps, and they hear their countrymen scattered up and down the street. The Anglos have started to leave, chairs folded, cameras capped — they look back uncertainly, check their parade lists.

The Bronze Eagles rolling slow on State, four abreast, hissing, jerking, followed by a pair of poker-faced motorcycle cops wearing mirror-lensed shades.

"Viva la Fiestal" cries Rudy. "Viva los low-riders!"

Twas there that I met her, my dark Senorita, Black silken hair hanging down to her waist. Her name was Lupita, she danced in a tavern, A flash of her eyes and my youthful heart raced.

They have to pass by the Anglo block parties to get to Murieta Park. Lanterns strung, warm red light, people sit ting or standing to the sides of the dance area, politely clapping time for the fast numbers. At one the old Anglos, the pensioners and retirees, are milling about to "Spanish Eyes." At the next middle-aged Anglos hop to a swing band playing "Rose of San Antone," and at the next, slightly younger Anglos slow-dance to an Italian singing "There is a Rose in Spanish Harlem." Amado, Rudy and Parrando skirt the parties, look for friends beneath the streetlights. They try to keep their bottle out of sight.

"Estoy bombo," grins Parrando. Parrando is weaving, smiling at everything, liquid. Rudy wants to ditch him and find girls but Amado is afraid he'll pass out somewhere and be arrested.

"Take it easy, hijo," he says to Parrando in Spanish. "In this town if you lay down on the walk, there isn't a neighbor to throw a blanket on you."

Parrando weaves.

They hear it way back on Milpitas Street, carrying in the night air, welcoming. When they're a block away they see the banks of field lights beaming over the rooftops. Murieta Park, and everybody is there. The warm-up group for Los Babies is set up on the pitcher's mound, guitars, woodblock, congas throbbing, amplifiers cranked up full letting the whole town know about it. Dancers dance wherever they are, children chase across the infield, groups of boys and groups of girls cluster on opposite foul lines, then break off in twos and threes to cruise by each other. Farmworkers in straw Stetsons, already loaded, wander happily through it all while others huddle around bottles, getting there. People sing along with the music in the key that suits them, while others sing totally different songs, shouting out to the black beyond the field lights. There are booths for food and drink, tables for this cause and that, a blanket spread by home plate for sleepy kids too heavy for their parents' arms.