CHAPTER THREE (8)

“You know what you owe me, Dev. Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You know the deal.”

No response.

Ryan stamped hard on the ground with his feet to let Devin know what was his impending doom. He turned stepped past the corner of the building, past the ivy, and without looking at Devin, thrust his hands into his pockets and looked up at the sky. They were standing equally next to each other as Ryan pulled out a joint and stuck it between his thick, wet lips. Pulling out matches, he struck one along his thumbnail and proceeded to hold the flame underneath the end of the joint. As the white paper caught fire, he quickly took the joint out of his mouth and blew repeatedly on the flaming end, the other between his black thumb and middle finger. Satisfied that the joint had been properly lit, he breathed deeply in and proceeded to stare at the sky.

“You got my money?” He said without any eye contact.

“No, man. I told you, I’ll have it after I work on the weekends.”

Squirley finally blew out his hit and took his sunglasses off. He refused to look at Devin, and squinted in the face of the sun.

“You got daddy’s credit card?”

“I mean… uh… I’m only supposed to use that for emergencies,” Devin said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

“Looks like you got yourself an emergency.”

He reached to Devin’s neck and instantly had him in a headlock.

“And this here situation requires yo’ daddy’s credit card.” The joint remained in his mouth as he said this, flopping wildly up and down between clenched lips and even more clenched teeth.

“Alright, alright. Let’s go, then!”

Squirley walked behind Devin as they made their way through campus to Devin’s car. They approached a silver Nissan and Devin pulled out keys, unlocking the doors mechanically from a distance, causing the tiny convertible to respond with two high pitched beeps. He opened the driver’s door and got in. Squirley waited outside of the car with is arms folding across his chest and thought, There ain’t no way in hell…

“Are we going or what?” asked Devin feebly.

“Gimme the damn keys.”

Devin popped out from the car faster than Squirley had expected. This wife-beater really has some charm to it, he thought. But keeping cool, he nodded for Devin to get into the passenger seat.

The brand-new Nissan felt smooth on the road as he used it to full capacity. They were silent in the car as Squirley drove him to the bank, all of this for a measly hundred and thirty dollars. He shifted into third, eyeing Devin peripherally noticing that Devin was somewhat scared. Good. A hundred and thirty big ones is a hundred and thirty big ones, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let a scrawny white boy from California driving his daddy’s attempt as fatherly-connection get away with stealing some pocket money to him. 

CHAPTER THREE (7)

All the burros to him seemed one hundred suburbs looking for a city to call their own to Squirley. He would drive through them, his wake interconnecting each and every suburb (Little Mexico, the University, the City district, the Mile), but he never felt comfortable in any one burro. In the City he felt distant, like an outsider looking in on all the happy businessmen who owned their club memberships to the YMCA and drove home in their Cadillacs (always east so the sun wouldn’t offend their eyes) to their doting wives and perfect children. In Little Mexico he felt immersed in a land whose language was little known to him, but also a black man caught in a world where it wasn’t okay to be white, and its was the norm to be brown. But where did he fit in to that spectrum? Black is darker than brown… In the Mile he felt most security, but realized that things went on around him that he couldn’t comprehend, that women sold their bodies to men like Toddy literally five feet away in the next studio-condo. That he could be blown to pieces by the nearest meth-lab (wherever that might be). He knew none of his neighbors, and their only presence was marked by volatile conversations.

But as he parked his beat-up car and stepped out onto the campus of the University, bearing on the outside his tough-man person, deeply he felt isolated from everyone. True, he had once been part of this burro as well: a humble student advancing his mind in a fertile environment of frat houses and beer bongs, days filled with murky, weathered library books while he reticently played the part of Mr. 4.0/Mr. Hangover, afternoons filled with scalding mocha lattes in pricey coffee houses while he, the English major, crammed for a futile biology midterm. Yes, this was once his forte. Yet, now he planned to offend what little credit the institution clung to with skeletal fingers by selling drugs and making good some debts he was owed.  

Squirley walked along the highly manicured campus, weaving his way through students, like androids, texting on their phones. One girl with frosty blonde hair and downward trodden eyelashes ran into another girl, both of them texting without perceiving the oncoming impact. The collision, as Squirley watched from afar, made him chuckle. Other seemed as though they were walking aimlessly, solely focused on the tiny machines between their thumbs. I’m glad I don’t own one of those, Squirley thought. But then his eyebrows furrowed and he felt pity for himself that he, too, didn’t own a cell phone.

Suddenly, a Ritto walked by. Squirley checked his wrist watch: he’d only been waiting an hour at the stuffy campus. A blonde haired, baby-faced, blue eyed boy with a backpack immense for his body stole through the pedestrian’s walk way. He dashed behind a red-brick building with ivy growing up and around the corner, blocking any view that Squirley had of his debtor. It was now a tactical game, and Squirley’s wife-beater persona built his confidence higher than any sky-scraper in the City district. He rolled his sunglasses perched atop his already-receding hairline, catching shades of oil from his baby-curl hair, and sauntered – but flexing his muscles all the while – towards the blond. He stopped just short of the ivy.

“I think you know what you owe me, Dev.” He said, his voice a hue deeper than normal. Here he was: Mr. Bond, James Bond, that is, praying on the unjust – taking names and kicking ass.

There was no response from around the corner. Rusting was heard as leaves crunched between someone’s shoes and concrete.

CHAPTER THREE (6)

“We have always been part of de land,” said Gato. “Before de revolucíon my mama and papa grew las cebollas – what is de eenglesh word for dees?”

“Onions.”

“Ah yes, onyons. I can remember dair farm, in de hills of Chiuaua. Dey always told me, holms, never to forget las cebollas, for dat is were I come from, ju know?”

“My father always told me to get the hell out of this place.”

Gato shot him a squinted glance.

“And den dey were murdered, ju see, and here I be today,” he said with a spark of revolution in his eyes, “nebair forgetteeng from where I came.”

Squirley uninterestedly cocked his beer upward.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Said Gato wagging his finger in front of Squirley’s face, not allowing him to down his beer. “We make a – uh, what d’ju call eet?”

“A toast?”

“Jes! A toast! Arriba,” he held his own Tecate above his head, motioning for Squirley to do the same, “abajo,” Gato firmly thrust the beer down toward his belly, “al centro,” the beer then went flying to his chin, “Al DENTRO!” he sang, and only then did he take a swig.

After finishing his beer, Squirley itched to get out of this place. The trees were beautiful, yes, but their sublimity was overpowering. It was a dangerous place, so he inched towards the door as Gato ranted on about his Motherland. Noticing that Squirley was about to leave, the Mexican said, “It weel be ready in a month or two months. Alaskan Gold, onlee de best, ju know? Don’t forget from where you came, no?” He grinned showing semi-rotten teeth and serious gum decay. Gato kept his eyes menacingly on Squirley while tilting his head up and keeping the last of his Tecate squarely connected to his mouth.

“I know, man. I know.”

He went back up to Granada and went farther south. The next burro was the City District, where business men all walked along the sidewalks beneath towering buildings full of men who looked just the same. There were coffee cool coffee shops to guard these fully suited men from the harsh heat of the day, and the glare of the sun in the afternoon when it flooded through from the west as if parting the Dead Sea. Only in the afternoon would sun explode through the city District, causing big-business clad men and women to pull down their visors in their buffed and waxed Lincolns and Audis and Cadillacs and curse the fact that it happened – of course! – right at five, when they made their journey across town towards home.

But it was not quite 5 p.m. yet as Squirley made his way through the bustling crosswalks and one-way streets. He was almost to the University now, and the only thing on his mind was Collections. Oh, Collections Day, he sighed but with a smile while he stopped at a red light, one of which he would hit about every 300 feet. He peered up from his vehicle, his eyes rolled to the top and his eyebrows partially covered his view. He sat hunched, with his shoulder bones almost painfully close together. He could not see the top of these buildings, and mused over what exactly went on inside them; their goings-on were quite foreign to him, but  the majestic presence was nothing new. 

CHAPTER THREE (5)

He rolled up to the trailer park, immersed in corrugated steel and mangy dogs that were ridden with god-knows-what. He was glad Toddy was not with him today: not only did Toddy fail at being a he-man (which is an integral characteristic of any collector, weed or taxes or anything else to be collected), but he failed at being a minority. This pained Squirley, but that is the way things work in both southern and northern Little Mexico – if you weren’t dark, you were fucked. A white man dare not show his face in Little Mexico, less he be mugged or even worse.

Squirley stepped out of the car and threw his feet to the ground, creating a miniature dust cloud. He took of his sunglasses and squinted under the sun. A trailer stood before him with an ancient steel frame, an unpainted, verging on dilapidated, box that rattled in even the minutest gust of wind. The entire structure was propped up on concrete slabs displaying the weeds that grew succulent beneath its monstrous shade. It was clearly a double-wide, perhaps even a triple-wide (if they even made those), and its enormity overwhelmed Squirley. He felt like a man at the base of a wide mountain. The windows of the trailer were sealed with cardboard that had been bleached by the sun, and they, too, rattled as he banged on the door.

“Hola, cabrón,” answered an ebullient Gato, in thick Spanish rolling the o for an unusually long syllable.

“Hola, amigo,” foiled Squirley in his horrendous broken-accent.

Gato held out his hand and Ryan noticed the missing left pinky. Trying not to stare, he shook it.

“You got any weed for me today, Gato?”

“Holms, I got notheen. I been dry for dos weeks.” Gato held up two fingers in European fashion, exhibiting a stub and a ring finger.

“Pedro got busted last week,” he continued, “dey sent heem straight back to México man. We all scared shitless ov’r he-ur.”

Squirley looked around as Gato went to the fridge and handed him a Tecate beer. The triple-wide had been gutted, the remnants of past walls seemed pierced through the whitewashed frame. The kitchen was moderately clean, which was to his left, but the rest of the trailer was full, so full that only small pathways could be made between the trees. Fledgling marijuana plants, only three feet high and relatively young, crowed the entire span of the rest of the trailer. They were uniformly potted in opaque, plastic, black containers, each with a drip-system that connected each row. The conspicuous care taken with each plant, the factory-like output, the whole idea seemed a dream to Squirley in this beaten down part of the Burro where nothing was perfect but these, these beautiful creatures.

“You like?” asked Gato, with the same wide-eyed pride. He went over and rubbed one of the leaves between his fingers, then ritualistically put it up to his nose and breathed in deeply. Squirley intensely wished to do the same, but fearing Gato, and the revolver on the kitchen counter, he opted not to go near Gato’s precious orchard.  

CHAPTER THREE (4)

Ah, the old super-mercado, where Toddy brought only the best flautas. They were warm, filled with lard and sodium, but on the first bite all fell away and there remained nothing but the flauta and its reprobate. The thick smell of them hung heavy in the air surrounding the entire corner that housed El Super-Mercado Jose Pancho Velazquez. If one was lucky, who just happened to be passing by, one might catch the very Jose Pancho (called “Panchito” by his friends, though his given name was actually Jose Fransisco Morales Velazques) walking sturdily out of his dumpy but immense superstore, paved with neon green and pink signs that read ¡Ahora: Calabasas 89 centos cada uno! and the like. He wore an extremely fitted suit, though bulgy in girth, and his breath wreaked of brandy – but in a bad economy – vodka. But never, never tequila. “Woudn’t touch that stuff to save my life, ju know? Too many of them Mexicanos drink tequila, and you wouldn’t catch me dead with a bottle of de stuff! Babosos!” he would say, throwing his soft hands in the air and scrunching his perfectly manicured but sweaty moustache. 

Today Ryan had the pleasure of viewing the half-drunken man reach for his keys and begin the search for his car as he stepped from the automatic doors. He first attempted at a Buick, but Panchito, finding that this was indeed the wrong car – or perhaps the wrong keys – screamed some expletive about his wife and tried another. Squirley watched from his beaten, mobile, collections car, amused to say the least. His snaggle tooth peered from his full purple lips as Panchito again failed to unlock the correct car. Green light. Ryan was off.

The buildings began to become more unique as he drove south toward the University. They became colorful and were built without the uniformity of the northern and eastern parts of the city. Some were framed-stucco with hand-carved doors reflecting images of either the Virgin Mary or Jesus himself, little lambs on a pasture being delicately goaded by their master, even particular saints. It was quiet here, though children could be heard screaming for their toys, dogs were barking, sure, but only innocently at cats. A precise tranquility thus ruminated from Little Mexico; Ryan drove through it forgetting his collections, as he always forgot everything in Little Mexico, and was engrossed in the swirl of random colors and enchanting smells.

But as soon as he passed Avenida Mariposa, the iron and metal ran unyielding through out the burro. South Little Mexico (El Sur, as called by the locals – but El Diablito by the Northern Little Mexcio burrowers) was a blot, and ugly black and silver blot in the city. Literal underground tunnels ran untamed underneath the city, trafficking everything from stolen goods to drugs to women. Squirley drove hastily through this sector, but turned left suddenly on La Granada to visit his drug dealer Gato. Perhaps he might be able to sell him a pound or two – after all, there was always time to sell some weed on Campus in between Collections. 

CHAPTER THREE (3)

There were numerous accounts similar to these, each indentifying their own scuff on the car. The cumulate of these produced a spotted black surface. But what was most stirring about the LeBaron was the convertible option. The huge one and a half ton machine exposed its innards after about seven minutes of adjusting and re-adjusting its rasping leather top, revealing torn leather seats and sullied carpet upholstery. Tiny plumes of dust and debris poofed from the unfolding leather as it slowly made its way to the open position, extending the cracked and dry canvas into a taught arrangement, while various elements here and there moaned under duress. Despite the contraption’s pain, Squirley watched with pride.

The University was located at the opposite end of the city from Corrotto’s, which meant that Ryan would have to go through a sketchy part of the city in order to make his collections. Since most of his debts were from people at work, and most of the people at work attended the University, it was easy as they were all rounded-up into one two-by-one mile span. Like a shepherd, Squirley rounded his unfaithful black sheep and would reprimand them according to how much he was owed by each. The merriment of the chase is what Squirley saought with an unprecedented commitment to justice and capitalism, and by-god, he was going to get his money.

He jumped into his car and began the engine. No, no good. He tried again, without despair; this had happened before. The rummm, rummmmm of the engine signaled its distaste for that which had recently mounted it. Defiance rang through the air, but Squirley was wearing his he-man wife beater today, and who in the hell – even a damnable machine – would want to mess with him today? At last the faulty engine started the climb out of the unusually quiet apartment complex, each ride over a speed bump causing it to lose considerable weight as the dusty particles accumulated by under-use fell from the car. Squirley reached for the sunglasses, always finding their way under the passenger seat, without taking his eyes off of the street. Barley missing the sign that read: Welcome to the Monte Vista Apartment Complex: Studio Apartment Blowout!!!!!! with an unconscionable number of exclamation points, he swerved out of the complex hoping to burn a little rubber (he was, after all, in his wife-beater) but failing.

He drove south, hitting no more than the normal amount of red lights. He wasn’t particularly paying attention; there would always be at least one person whom he could track down like a mad-hungry animal and squeeze at the University. Besides, he had nothing to do today – it was Collections day. It was hot, but the air conditioner hadn’t worked for years. Niether did the speedometer, or the AM stations. The black and dusty radio in the center console emitted some incoherent hard-core rap, in Spanish or English. This is what one must play when entering through the little burro Little Mexico.

CHAPTER THREE (2)

As Toddy left, still tying his tie walking out the door, the smell of booze and marijuana invaded Squirley’s nostrils like an offensive from an army. He fought back the stench by breathing through his mouth, but it was too overwhelming. He slid off the bed feeling the crunch of the soiled carpet between his toes, and felt suddenly very alone.

Let’s see, no deals today.

His eyes followed a line straight to the Board and, as his first inclination was to sigh at the amount he owed, a thought poured into his head: Collections Day. Every once and a while, there would be a day when he had not one thing in the world to do – no work, no errands, no laundry. On these days, Suirley might find himself glued to the public access station on television, engulfed in a world of horrible acting and explicit opinions. But of those few and precious days, every once in a while – in a long, long, while – Squirley rampaged the city, all parts of the city, in the name of collecting the small amount of debt he was owed. It wasn’t as though he really wanted the money, because the more money he had, the more he’d have to keep from the prying eyes of the banks, thus the sticky fingers of the government. And they were sticky. But what he really enjoyed was the brute he became; a hard, dangerous man.

Squirley pulled on his jeans and reached for a white T-shirt. No, he thought, a wife-beater, it adds a certain statement to the whole get-up: manly yet casual. But, really, manly was the main thing. So he threw the t-shirt with little aim towards the closet (missing horribly) and put on the wife-beater. He slapped his back pockets for wallet and keys, and was at once out the door.

His feet hit the pavement with a harsh thud, thud. It was sweltering and he felt the pavement would sear right through his rubber soles. Something was missing; it was serenely quiet today. Ah, there was no one fighting on the lawn. Too hot. He dashed towards his 1989 black Chrysler LeBaron in escape from the smoltering sun.

The car had been through a few raumatic events in its life. The taillights were suspect, only admitting their age. They had been yellowed over by years without the shelter of a garage. Though the paint job was still holding strong, it was betrayed by knicks and dings here and there, each one he remembered with vivid detail their birth. Oh yes, 1993, road trip to Alabama with his brother Nate. That was a doosey, quite a fender-bender. There still remained some of the gold paint from the Buick he crashed into at that mysterious red-light in that one hick town –what was it’s name, again? And then the time when Toddy and he were fleeing from a bar downtown after effectively peeing beneath the bar itself and onto the tools, then proceeding to crush salted peanuts into the pools below their innocent feet, all the while the bar man articled some marital issues he’d been having with the wif-ee in the most demoralizing and licentious way. Another employee of course noted the fact within ten seconds of them having relieved themselves, and chased them out of the bar into the street. Squirley remembered Toddy pulling out his wine key (as they had just gotten off a miserable Saturday double-shift) and producing the harmless blunt knife for loosening the wine bottle seals. “Watch out, mistah, I’m armed!” Toddy yelled at the furious employee. The man threw full cans of Bud Light at the duo and yelled expletive after expletive. One of the Bud Light cans hit the passenger door.