The Chinese Jars (6 page)

“Don't say that, son. Sofia has loved you since she was a child.”

“Three years holding her hand secretly at the movies. I can hardly wait until she's my woman,” said Rafael.

Neither of the two families knew that Sofia was three months pregnant.

“Melba says that we can have the reception at the bar. We're going to close for a day so we can have the party. We can invite our families and friends and it won't cost much, only for the food, because Melba will provide the drinks and I've got the music.”

“At the bar? That's fantastic! What are we going to wear, Mama?” asked one of the sisters.

“We'll see. Don't you think we'll be out place, son? Nob Hill is for the rich, not for people like us.”

“We poor people can't choose, Mama.”

“Around here there are others who are poorer than we are. Thanks to you, m'ijo, we have all we need.”

Rafael knew what she was thinking. He squeezed her hand to reassure her. “That's the way it will always be, old thing.”

“Are you going to Sofia's uncle's house in Mexico for your honeymoon?” asked one of the girls.

“No. We're going to get married without asking for a dime from anybody. And since right now we don't have a dime, I'm afraid we won't have a honeymoon.” Rafael finished his beans and wiped the plate clean with a piece of tortilla.

“Where's Juan? Is he out on the street again?”

“Don't pick on him, son. Juan is devilish like all boys his age. I can't have him sewing with the girls. And when he's here, he bothers us, so it's better if he's playing out there with his friends.”

“Lupe, go and find Juan and drag him here by his ear if you have to.”

The girl ran out, followed by the laughter of her sister, who ran to the window to see the show. Rafael was upset as he drank a cup of black coffee, and he checked the clock every so often. Twenty minutes later, when he was supposed to leave, Lupe came in crying, with a defiant Juan right behind her. The boy was dressed in bulky pants with a chain hanging from his waist halfway down his thigh, boots with metal tips and elevated heels, and he had sideburns and a mop of black hair plastered down with pomade. He had a tattoo on one of his arms, and and he said his fondest wish was to save enough money to have a gold tooth. Rafael grabbed him by the shirt collar and lifted him off the ground until they were face-to-face.

“You smell like perfume and cigarettes, you little shit. Where did you get that cholo look? Take down the boxes of blouses and put them in my truck. And while you're at it, take down the garbage, and then you come back here and do your homework. You can't go out until I say so. You understand?”

“You're not my boss. I'm almost fifteen years old. I don't have to take orders from anyone.”

With one slap Rafael sent Juan's hair flying and with the next he left finger marks on his cheek. The boy lost all dignity and started crying, wiping his nose on his sleeve like a child.

“As long as I'm supporting you, you do as I say. You're wasting time, you jerk. I'm going to send you to the army so you can learn to be a man.”

“Ay, Rafael, no diga eso!” said his mother. “Don't you know that President Kennedy is going to send troops to Vietnam? You don't want your brother killed in a war, verdad?”

“He can't send me to the army, Mama. I'm not old enough yet,” interrupted Juan.

“Then you'll go to work so that you aren't just bumming around getting in trouble. Are you trying to kill your mother with worry?”

“Pero, m'ijo, Juanito has to go to school. How can he go to work?” interceded his mother.

“The same way his sisters work,” concluded Rafael with authority. “Okay, now that you finished sewing, it's time to open the fold down beds, so you can rest. Tomorrow I want to see your report cards, especially yours, Juan. And watch out if your grades are down.”

He put on his jacket, kissed his mother and sisters, and left, slamming the door. Juan gave him the finger.

“I'm going to tell,” threatened Lupe, and Juan lifted his arm as if he was going to hit her but restrained himself. He had enough problems for the time being.

* * *

Melba arrived late at Camelot. She saw Rafael's truck in the back alley, and she came into the storeroom just as he was taking off his old leather jacket and hanging it on a peg in the liquor closet. He had on the same blue jeans he always wore and a clean white T-shirt.

“Take that goddamned net off your head, Rafael. I keep telling you if you walk around this part of town looking like a cholo, you're asking for trouble. Why won't you listen to me?”

Rafael blushed and removed it, smoothing out the black knitted squares that had kept his medium-length black hair in place, and stuffed it in one of the pockets of his jacket.

“No, no!” said Melba. “Give me that piece of crap. I want it in the trash.”

Rafael reluctantly handed it to her. “That's no fair, Melba. Maybe it's not cool up here, but I need to be one of the vatos to survive. That's part of the code where I come from.”

“Maybe, but it gets you into more trouble than it's worth. How many times have you been stopped by the cops wearing that thing on your head?”

“Two or three times a week. They already know me,” he laughed.

“Two or three times a week? And what do they do when they stop you?”

“They search me and my truck, but they never find anything. I'm not that stupid, Melba.”

“You've been lucky. I hope you don't have to learn the hard way.”

Excalibur wandered in, happy to see Rafael. With his rear end wagging, he sauntered up and licked Rafael's hands. After Melba, Rafael was his favorite human.

Rafael began his work shift carrying bottles of liquor to the bar and removing the empty ones, putting them in boxes so Melba could keep track and figure out which bartenders were stealing from her. She and Rafael always met before the end of the evening to analyze the drinking habits of the patrons and compare them with the bar receipts. It was usually Rafael who noticed that there were too many empty bottles and not enough cash.

About one in the morning Melba approached Rafael. “There're a couple of guys at the back door asking for you, and they don't look like altar boys. I already told you what I think about the way you dress. I also think you should do something about the company you keep.”

“Thanks, Melba. I'm real sorry they came during working hours. It won't happen again.”

He went out the back door and closed it tightly behind him, making sure no one from the bar followed him. The only light in the alley was a single sixty-watt bulb surrounded by a cone-shaped protector, which pushed the light down and out, giving some illumination to the otherwise dark passageway.

Two Mexican men got out of a black '55 Chevrolet sedan with tinted windows. The rear end was lowered and there was a single stripe of red painted on both sides of the car. The seats were upholstered with fake tiger skin, and there was a large crucifix hanging from the inside mirror.

“Órale pues,” said Rafael, “What are you vatos doing here at the place I work? I told you we do our business down in the Mission.”

“Listen man,” said the bigger of the two. He had a slight paunch and a black mustache. “We got to unload this piece of shit. It's really hot, and the cops are after us,” he said nervously. He pulled a cigarette out of his black leather jacket and lit it by striking a match with his thumbnail and cupping his hands in the shadowy darkness of the alley. Then he looked around furtively to see if he could perceive any movement.

“That's great, pendejo. So you lead them right up here to your old buddy, Rafael. That's real smart. I told you I couldn't get a buyer for that X-ray machine until next week, and I told you not to come up here looking for me. You guys are fucking with my livelihood, man.”

“Calm down, ese,” said the shorter one. “It was my idea. We can't wait more than a day, and we wanted to give you one last chance.”

“I don't know, man,” said Rafael, “I'll have to see if they can get the money by then. Like I said, they told me it wouldn't be until next week. That thing is as big as a house. “

“All right,” said the big one. “Call me before noon tomorrow or we'll unload it to the next in line.”

“You didn't come here because you like me,” said Rafael. “You must like the bread my people are willing to pay.”

Rafael went back inside as the black car crept down the alley with its lights still out. Those fuckers just don't listen, he told himself, as he walked into the office where Melba was counting the day's take with Excalibur lying at her feet.

“Like I've told you a thousand times, son,” Melba blurted out, “you're gonna end up in trouble dealing with people like them.”

“Were you spying on me?”

“I don't like your friends. I don't want to see them around here. Got it?”

Rafael shook his head. He knew she was right, but he also had his own reality to deal with, and the world that he shared with Melba was only a small part of it. Before he left that evening, he went to the wastebasket, retrieved the net, and put it in his jacket pocket.

W
HENEVER
he thought of Blanche, Melba's daughter, Samuel felt romantic. In fact, he thought about her all the time but had to make an effort to suppress his sugary sentiments in public so that his knees wouldn't buckle. He was also aware that his obsession was ridiculous: they were totally different. But in his eyes, Blanche wasn't really a head taller than he was; instead, she was a slender reed whose freckles weren't freckles but rather a golden halo. Her eyes, blue like her mother's, were transparent lakes that he didn't dare dive into for fear of drowning. In her presence he became withdrawn and speechless. For her part, Blanche always walked erectly, not at all ashamed of her height, which would have been a defect in another woman. She was a tomboy and a fanatic about sports. An expert skier, she sometimes spent two or three months of the winter at Squaw Valley as a ski instructor. In the spring and summer, she was into swimming and long-distance running, when she wasn't mountain climbing. In the fall, she found other invigorating activities to help her burn energy.

Melba had lost hope that she would marry, like all the other girls her age, and give her grandchildren. Her daughter made fun of those television programs that portrayed perfect families of neatly groomed children, a hard-working father, and a mother who baked cakes and vacuumed wearing high heels and a string of pearls.

In spite of their differences, mother and daughter were very close. Blanche worked for free as Melba's bookkeeper while she was studying to be a certified public accountant. Even in winter, she came down from Tahoe once a month to straighten out the bar's accounts, pay the Board of Equalization and payroll taxes and, of course, make out the employee checks.

If Samuel learned she was going to be at the bar, he made sure to be there, too, even though she didn't pay any attention to him. She was one of those few women who didn't seem to care about the effect she had on men. Her indifference only aroused more passion in Samuel. He would wait patiently, nursing his Scotch on the rocks at the round table or watching her in the mirror behind the bar, while she pondered the business ledgers and chewed on the end of a pencil, periodically brushing aside a tuft of unruly hair. At times he would try to catch her attention with some banality because he could never come up with anything smart or sexy to say.

That day he thought he'd struck it rich. “Hi, Blanche, haven't seen you in awhile. How're things?”

“Hi, Samuel, you've been sitting there for three hours and you didn't see me?”

“I'm thinking. I've got problems.”

“Don't tell me about them now, I'm really busy.” Then she stopped what she was doing and took a closer look at him. “You're pale. You look like a worm. You need some exercise. How about running with me this weekend?”

Surprised, Samuel weighed the horror of jogging against the possibility that he might never have another opportunity to be alone with her. “I'm not much good at that, but we could take a stroll in Golden Gate Park. How about that?” he stuttered.

“Okay, I'll meet you at the windmill down by the beach at eight this Saturday. I'll run and you can walk. We'll get a bite to eat at Betty's in the Haight. You know, that place right near Kezar Stadium?”

From the round table where she had installed herself with Excalibur, Melba observed the goings-on with curiosity. She had never said a word, but she was clearly amused by the mismatch and her daughter's obliviousness to Samuel's notso-disguised interest in her. As Blanche was leaving for the evening, Samuel followed her, trying to get another whiff of her pheromones. He'd heard on the radio that pheromones were responsible for sexual attraction, and he concluded, naturally, that Blanche's were very powerful. He sighed, resigned to leave also, at the same time counting the hours before he would see her in the park on Saturday.

When he went past the round table, Melba grabbed him by the arm. “What can I do for you?” he said, acting surprised.

“Relax, Buster. Sit down and talk to us,” she said, smiling. “Excalibur was telling me that you two aren't a bad couple,” she said as she motioned for Samuel to light her cigarette.

Samuel plopped down in the empty chair next to her with such a sullen expression that Melba started to laugh.

“Why don't you ask her to do something less physically demanding than running?”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Melba,” he mumbled, examining his fingernails.

“Knock off the shit, Samuel. You're drooling over her.”

Samuel turned red and was silent for a few seconds. “It's that obvious, huh?”

“It's not a bad thing, sweetie. You're just going at it the wrong way.”