All Involved (35 page)

She says, “Where's that?”

“It's better you don't know,” I say, “cuz at some point, someone will ask you if you know, and I don't want to lie to you, and I don't want you to have to lie to them.”

I hear a long breath hit the microphone on the other end, sounds like
krrrgh
.

“Okay,” she finally says.

In the background, I hear tapping and then Gloria gets real quiet as I hear her walk to the door in her slippers and then it gets even quieter so she must be looking out the peephole. Her breath catches up in her throat then and I know something's wrong.

I say, “What?”

“Uh,” she says, “I gotta go.”

“What is it?”

“It's not what, it's
who,
” she says. “Ernesto's little sister's outside my door.”

I hear the knocking again, much closer this time. At first I'm wondering if she's there for me, but that doesn't make any kind of sense.

“Hang on, Jermy,” Gloria says, and I hear clothes getting pressed to the microphone like she put the receiver on her stomach or something.

Real faint, I hear door latches undo and then the door opening with a little creak.

“Hey,” Lupe says, “you said you were a nurse, right?”

My cousin must nod, cuz a second later Lupe says, “You know how to make splints for broken bones?”

Again, my cousin must nod, cuz Lupe says, “What stuff do you need for it?”

My mind's kinda racing and I'm wondering what went down, but my first clear thought is
The Goon Squad must've been up to some shit
.

I don't get a chance to say anything else though, cuz Gloria says, “I gotta go,” real quick and then it's a dial tone in my ear.

I say, “Bye,” to it anyways.

I'm a little sad when I put it back up on the cradle. I have to get out of the way though cuz a black dude behind me needs the phone. He looks like how Martin Luther King Junior would look if he got old and fat.

It's depressing me that there's nothing in Phoenix. No fun, no people, no nothing. Just my aunt and another restaurant job prolly but then it hits me.

There's freedom in Arizona, more than I ever dreamed of.

Out there, I bet nobody gets checked just walking down the street, like,
Hey, this fool looks like he writes and I don't see any tattoos, so hit him up
. I don't have to worry about the gangs out there or the turf, or that people think I'm ranking out, that I'm not living up. And I feel that badger in my stomach calm down a little.

Over the loudspeaker, they call my bus and I go out in the parking lot and give the driver my duffel and he puts it underneath in the compartment that folds up like a DeLorean door in all them
Back to the Future
movies. It even makes that noise when it opens too. Like,
shimp
. I keep my backpack with me when I get up in the bus and sit in the middle. It smells like stale bread in here and dog hair. I start flipping through my latest black book.

I never been, but as far as graffiti is concerned, Phoenix must be like some little kid shit . . .

Hold up, though.

Maybe that's not a bad thing.
Maybe
that means I got possibilities now, and FREER isn't so much dying as evolving into something entirely new and strong.

I mean, I could bring a whole new advanced style out there. I could be the
first
. I'm starting to like that. I mean, like it a lot. I could open up a whole franchise of L.A. style out there. I could be that thing from science class, whatdoyoucallit? A catalyst. Yes. I could be that for the Phoenix scene, pump it up a few notches. And besides, what's FREER than leaving whenever the fuck I want to?

Nothing, that's what.

On the bus, it looks like I'm not the only one getting out. There's lots of Mexicans and Central
Americanos
on here. They've got their kids with them, too. I don't blame them. Shit, if I had kids, I'd have them on the bus out too. It's pretty easy not to want to be in L.A. right about now with all the looting and the shooting.

Fuck, I know I won't miss twelve-year-old little dealer-pimps buying my throwaway from me and then trying to rob me for the money right back.

I won't miss Big Fate giving me ultimatums.

I won't miss getting rolled up on the block by the fucking Goon Squad, getting machine guns stuck in my face.

L.A.'s fucking crazy, man. But I will miss her.

Who knows though? Maybe I'm getting out at the right time. Like, before it all goes boom and slides into the ocean.

I push play on my Walkman, but it doesn't want to go in. It's fussy sometimes. The button's black and as big as my thumb tip. I press it and hold it in a bit before the heads eventually get turning and the music starts up.

Some strings come in as the driver pulls us out, and out the windshield, the sun is setting and it's magical how we pull onto Pacific Coast Highway from Long Beach Boulevard as Nancy Sinatra's voice comes in with the orange light of dusk and sings at me, telling me I only live twice. That cools me out pretty good, so I just sit and watch the buildings passing by out the window as we pull through the city, over what there is of the L.A. River, and down onto the 710 North.

After a little bit, we pass Lynwood and I watch it go and I don't feel bad. I feel like it's a box for everything bothering me, everything heavy, and it all stays there, stays behind, and leaves me light as a feather, free to float somewhere new.

Free to go wherever.

Free to be whatever I want.

MAY 3, 1992

8:17
P
.
M
.

I got this gun and it makes me real now. Makes me ready to do work. I feel good. Everybody knows how dead Momo is. Everybody heard he was laying up in that truck the pigs found on Wright Road. What was left of him anyways. I say serves that motherfucker right for going at Big Fate. Be big or be dead. I want to go to Big Fate and be down with him and his click. So I walk over to that Mini Vegas nobody ever shuts up about and knock on the door and wait to be let in. They let me in and search me and find the gun and hang on to it. That nurse lady is there. She looks at me funny cuz she recognizes me from that night when the brother of Miss Payasa died up in the alley. Miss Payasa is there too. Next to the nurse lady. Miss Payasa tells her she better go and she thanks her for everything. Miss Payasa puts money in the hands of the nurse lady. Some folded hundreds. I eyeball it for a grand. That nurse lady gives me a look like she wants to take me with her. Like maybe she was fixing to save me or something. But Miss Payasa pushes her outside and the door closes in the face of the nurse lady just as she says that everybody she helped out needs the hospital soon. Big Fate has his arm up in one of them giant sling things across the room. Same with a grip of other fools. That Sherlock Homeboy has a bump on his head like a baseball and he has an ice pack on it. Next to him is some fine Chink bitch with her wrist all
wrapped up mummy style. One look and I could tell she was the kind some hypes would pay good money to fuck. I keep that to myself though. Especially cuz I see that Apache motherfucker that scalps people looks fucked up too. He plays a gambling machine with his good hand and it spins and makes noise while he sits in the corner drinking something gold in a big glass bottle. Big Fate sees me looking everywhere at wounds and casts and shit. He calls me over so he can shrug his shoulders and say the beat and release program is still going strong in the city of Los Angeles. He calls me lil homie and says they can knock us down but we always come back and come back stronger. He says
la neta
. So I say
la neta
. Cuz it
is
the truth. Nothing but. They are still here. Every one of them. They took a beating and they keep going. Not like Momo. Not like Trouble. Not like none of them fools. This click is nothing but straight-up killers. Survivors. Tough as fuck. Not even fucking sheriffs can win against them. Out of nowhere Big Fate asks me what I go by cuz he wants to know. I used to have a name I hated that everybody called me. Baby. But I got a new one now. I puff up and tell him I got the name Watcher but I make sure not to tell him where from. He nods at me like I did something good. He says he likes that name. So I say the name of the click then. I say it all proud. Also I say Lynwood
controla
. Cuz obviously they control Lynwood and nobody else. He looks at me funny after that and says he been asking around about me since I helped out. He heard I was slanging for Momo. And I answer that right away. Like yeah. I
was
. And he laughs at that. He asks if maybe I might be ready for something new. I tell him hells yeah cuz I got nothing but respect for how he did what he had to do.
So you ready to be down or something?
Big Fate is asking me. Fuck yes. I say that twice and nod the whole time through it.
¡La clica es mi vida!
Till I fucking die. I say that too. He waits for a little bit. The room gets real quiet. So I remind him how I came straight up and told him about the brother of Miss Payasa. He says I did good on that. And right after that he
says to jump this little motherfucker in then. Fuck yeah. That shit makes me so happy that I just close my eyes before the first punch comes. Or the first kick. Whatever. I could give a fuck what it is or where from. It will hurt. It will hurt bad. But it will be worth it. All of it is worth it to be down.

 

 

MAY 4, 1992

9:00
A
.
M
.

Everything's been burning in Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels. Even people. This camper, somebody lit his ass on fire while he was sleeping and you don't live through that. Sonofabitch, you sure don't. You give up your ghost is what you do. You go to your heavenly rest.

I saw that smoke going up yesterday. A bridge north of me on my same riverbank. Only I didn't know it was
his
smoke yet. It went up after two black trucks drove the riverbed like they owned it. Went right past my pipe. Big and fast but too quiet for their size. When I saw that, I did my sign for heavenly protection and turned around twice.

Normally when I'm all set up in my pipe I pull my curtain. I got a rod for it and everything. I got a chair too. Anyhow, I pull that curtain and the world can't see me, not even trains going by on the far bank. It makes me disappear. But that day I didn't pull it because I saw smoke. I didn't know what it was at first.

Our Lady says to me then:
You knew what it was.

I scream right back at her. I tell her I didn't know what it was till I walked up and saw him a black little skeleton on his bedroll. I smelt gas-soaked dirt too, and what hurt was watching campers divvy up his things. His name was Terry. I don't know no last name. Just Terry. I stared on his bones while these other campers took his last good belongings. They didn't even pay his spirit respects first. Goldarn sons of bitches. They picked him clean.
His dog he tended to, gone. His good pants hung up on his fence, gone. Every last person on earth is trying to steal from you or wanting to beat on you and take and take.

I asked around how Terry died and got it told simple. Puppet did it. I asked how we knew and got told we knew because we knew. Campers know faces. Campers talk. We find out things we want to. And campers know somebody calling himself Puppet walked down into the camp with a gas can and emptied it on old Terry where he slept and then he lit him. Nobody knows why.

When I heard this, I let Our Lady have it. I said to her:
You're a goldarn black city! You're a black city with a black heart and black ash blowing around your black asphalt streets. That's what you've been. What you are today. What you're always going to be. And your river's the only good thing about you.

And she said back:
That's not true
.

I yelled at her more after that. I told her she couldn't tell me how to feel when I stood next to the ashes of a dead man that somebody burnt up for no good reason while campers picked his stuff clean and walked away without one good word for the man.

Campers are meant to be better than bums. I don't like the word
bums,
or
homeless
neither. They don't hardly describe the life. None of them say what we do, except
camper
does, because we camp. We like sky so much we need to see it every night. We don't lock ourselves in anywhere. We're free. And this is the Land of the Free! And we need to feel where we are, the most elemental city on earth.

It's true too. Our Lady gets forest fires. She gets Santa Ana winds. She has ocean too, and her earth's always a step away from quaking. With a makeup like that, you're gonna need to shake the bad out sometimes. You have to, because it builds up.

She interrupts me how she does then, she says:
I do?

And I say back to her:
Yes, you do. It's nature.

She's quiet after that, but just because she's not saying anything doesn't mean she's not with me. She follows me everywhere I go,
always coming into my head with the questions. Like now, when I'm hungry, when I'm walking the street called Imperial that don't have anything magnificent about it.

But there's no better way to know her than with your own two feet. You need Our Lady at your eye level. You need her beneath your soles, feeling her heat. You need to be breathing her in, smelling her. Taking her goldarn atoms in and making them you. No better place to do that than at the river. You can walk for miles in the bed and find everything you need. And I know too.

I've been around rivers my whole life. The Mississippi. The Colorado. The Mekong. Rivers protect me. Keep me safe. I don't feel right if I'm not near one. I lose focus. I lose my center and do bad things like the drink. But not at her river I don't. Her river's ancient. Back when Our Lady was a tiny pueblo on a mound of dirt, the Messican-Indians knew the Arroyo Seco was a sacred well of power with spirit-juice so powerful that one day a goldarn great city with too many people would rise up of it. That's how powerful her river is. It gave birth.

And this thing is teenage now and alive and angry and it's tearing itself apart. I've seen fires just about everywhere and red flashing fire trucks going up and down her black streets. I haven't just seen Terry. I've seen a body with almost no face on it in the street, no ear even. I've seen trucks on fire, buildings, and a house too, one that might've taken the whole neighborhood if neighbors hadn't put hoses on their own roofs to wet them down. Sure shows what they thought of that one house though.

I say to the city people when I see what I see, I say:
I've seen this city taking itself to heaven in pieces.

Because that's what fire does. It takes. It's the prettiest and ugliest mathematical division there ever was. City fire is the worst of its kind though, because it takes more than it should. City fire don't know how to care. It punishes everybody. It gets at the innocent, like at Terry. City fire's greedy that way. But it's just fire
being fire. It has to reset everything as close to zero as it can, so it burns things down into the smallest bits. Bits the winds can carry. Those are the remainders. But we can't hardly see them unless they're stuck together in a stack of smoke. That's how the littlest pieces add up together, you know? It's a big black fact.