Denise Hamilton - Los Angeles Noir 2

“All right éses, looks like you done real good,” I start saying, keeping that voice of mine nice and light.

I could tell they was getting weak on me there, that they was gonna curl up the same as that boy on the ground if I didn’t make my move. But it don’t surprise me none they can’t take it. Like I said before, clikas used to have rules. We used to have some religion. Time was, the locos had to leave the pride-and-joy women and babies alone and keep the fighting to themselves. But not no more. Chico broke up my Girl and left her with that tree stump cutting her back open, the white shiny roots stretching down to her loose legs. My homeboys was staring at that C-4 baby like they don’t wanna know what their own monster hands can do, but I can look it straight in the face any damn day then swallow it down and smile. Baby brother there with the eyes beat shut ain’t gonna ruffle my feathers. He had it coming.

All of a sudden the light flickers and it looks like his eyes was gonna open, or that his mouth’s twitching like a smile, and I think he’s gonna sit right up and laugh at me the same as old Lazarus. But it wasn’t nothing but a shadow falling on his bent-up self. It flashed in my head then how Manny and me used to be the same, rock sharp and strong all the way through down to the bones, I remembered that when Manny moved quick by me and I hear his breath close to my ear and he blocks the sun from the baby on the ground. Manny was switching his hands up like he was gonna do something, gonna grab hold of that boy and beat him worse to show me he could still sing for his supper, but when I turn and look at him I see he don’t have his old hot stare or the same steel jaw sticking at me prideful. He’s only some burn-out veterano now, with a skinny face and glassed-out carga eyes, wearing that wool cap pulled low and some ripped-up dumpster pants. He’s not the same vato I used to know. With his mashed arm Manny couldn’t give a good featherweight punch these days even to save his own skin.

“Yah, you vatos done a real nice job here, but we better scoot off, hear me?” I say, pushing Manny soft with my hand, and he gave easy, backing down like a hit dog, and Beto’s vatos close around me again.

I know it for sure then. Nobody, nobody can tough it out like this chica can. I see past Manny how the sheep was looking over at me scandalous and making their tight mouths like I’m this empty-bellied bruja. Some even got muddy crocodile tears running down their faces from crying over the little C-4. Cecilia’s staring at me wicked out of that dirt-colored face of hers, thinking I’m some baby-eating witch who’s stealing up her brother. And my homeboys was circling me, their lips pulling sad like they’re some viejas at a funeral.

“Órale. Looks like he’s hurt bad,” Beto says, bending down and poking the brother with his finger, but the thing down by my shoes wasn’t moving an inch.

“Well fuck him then. Got it?” I start up, steel-tough sounding now and Beto gives me some cold-water eyes, the same as Manny got when he figured me out, but I don’t care. They can see me all they like cause I can tell we’re all gonna be standing around here like lazy brains when the C-4 bigs get here, and they’re gonna give us an eye for an eye cause it looks like we killed one of their babies. “Let’s GO, they’re coming quick, you hear that?” I’m yelling at them now, that llorona bumping up in me big. It feels dark and windy when I watch them walk away from the brother in slow motion, dragging their heels even though this is for my Girl, this is our payback, leaving a half-dead C-4 baby twisted on the ground like my Star Girl on the grass waiting for la chota to bring her back to Kaiser. The Bombers can’t just bang a Lobo woman and get off scot-free. This is the one thing that’s gonna make us equal.

“Come ON,” I say, hitting Beto hard in the arm so that he wakes up, and we scattered on out of there. I ran as fast as the vatos with the air cold on my cheeks, hearing the sheep crying behind me and leaving that busted brother with all the life bleeding out of him for Chico to find. I got this blast of heat that was singing through my arms and legs and making me feel like my old self again, knowing that soon he’d see his pride-and-joy C-4 baby and put his red wet face in his hands cause I hurt him so bad, the same as he hurt me.

I didn’t care about nothing then when I was pounding my way back. I wasn’t thinking about Chique or the Lobos or doing deals or even Star Girl with that dark sky over her face. I only felt cut loose and fire-hot inside, thinking how I’m the only one in this town who can do it. Wáchale, man! I felt that steering wheel tight in my hand and I was gunning my Maverick down the street, laughing loud as a banshee the whole way home cause I knew it. Check it on out. Nothing’s keeping this chola down. I’m the only woman or man in this place, the only one in Echo Park, who can scratch on up to the top and stay there.

“Lucía” is an excerpt from the novel Loca s (Grove Press, 1997).

TALL TALES FROM THE MEKONG DELTA

BY KATE BRAVERMAN

Bel Air

(Originally published in 1990)

It was in the fifth month of her sobriety. It was after the hospital. It was after her divorce. It was autumn. She had even stopped smoking. She was wearing pink aerobic pants, a pink T-shirt with KAUAI written in lilac across the chest, and tennis shoes. She had just come from the gym. She was walking across a parking lot bordering a city park in West Hollywood. She was carrying cookies for the AA meeting. She was in charge of bringing the food for the meeting. He fell into step with her. He was short, fat, pale. He had bad teeth. His hair was dirty. Later, she would freeze his frame in her mind and study it. She would say he seemed frightened and defeated and trapped, “cagey” was the word she used to describe his eyes, how he measured and evaluated something in the air between them. The way he squinted through hazel eyes, it had nothing to do with the sunlight.

“I’m Lenny,” he said, extending his hand. “What’s your name?”

She told him. She was holding a bag with packages of cookies in it. After the meeting, she had an appointment with her psychiatrist, then a manicure. She kept walking.

“You a teacher? You look like a teacher,” he said.

“I’m a writer,” she told him. “I teach creative writing.”

“You look like a teacher,” Lenny said.

“I’m not just a teacher,” she told him. She was annoyed.

“Okay. You’re a writer. And you’re bad. You’re one of those bad girls from Beverly Hills. I’ve had my eye on you,” Lenny said.

She didn’t say anything. He was wearing blue jeans, a black leather jacket zipped to his throat, a long red wool scarf around his neck, and a Dodgers baseball cap. It was too hot a day for the leather jacket and scarf. She didn’t find that detail significant. It caught her attention, she touched it briefly and then let it go. She looked but did not see. They were standing on a curb. The meeting was in a community room across the boulevard. She wasn’t afraid yet.

“You do drugs? What do you do? Drink too much?” he asked.

“I’m a cocaine addict,” she told him.

“Me too. Let’s see your tracks. Show me your tracks.” Lenny reached out for her arm.

“I don’t have any now.” She glanced at her arm. She extended her arm into the yellow air between them. The air was already becoming charged and disturbed. “They’re gone.”

“I see them,” Lenny told her, inspecting her arm, turning it over, holding it in the sunlight. He touched the part of her arm behind her elbow where the vein rose. “They’re beautiful.”