The Madonnas of Echo Park (17 page)

“I'm killin' you, Pops, killin' you!” I said. “Time for you to go
deep
in the boneyard!”

“Don't disrespect your
jefe
.”

“You're not my
jefe
.” I laughed and slammed down a double six. “You ain't in the Locos no more.”

He leaned over with a palmful of dominoes and slapped me across the face. “Talk back again,” he said, “and I'll bury you myself.”

“You never killed nobody!” I shouted, tasting blood on my lip. “They're stories, they're all just stories.”

“I shot a baby girl,” he said and carefully stacked up the dominoes into a wooden box shaped like a coffin. “Three years old. Dancing on a street corner. ‘Baby Madonna.' In the wrong place at the wrong time. If that
puto
I was chasing hadn't cheated me out of a case of Bud, she'd be a young woman now. You might even be fucking her if you weren't a
maricón
.” He chuckled. “If I could shoot a little girl, I could shoot my own son.” He placed the domino box in the center of the table. “Put them away. We're done.”

I tried to recapture his “courage” when I was in the gang, but I
kept seeing that dead little girl lying out on the sidewalk—in my head, on that big-ass mural near the 101. I found out everyone in the Locos knew he'd done it but nobody turned him in. Why? We were supposed to have a code, rules to follow—don't hurt dogs, don't rape old women, don't kill kids. What kind of man shoots a girl, even if by accident, then doesn't turn himself in? And what kind of men protect that man? Whenever I went out on the streets, the image of a little girl bleeding to death froze me up, made me play things safer than my
carnals
, many of whom earned their Loco nicknames through fighting, stealing, dealing, or shooting. We were called
locos
for a reason; me, they called
El Pesado,
the “boring man.”

When I “retired” a
veterano
at thirty-three, the Locos let me drift out of the life, nice and easy. It was like losing a factory job I'd had for years and not knowing what to do with the rest of my life because I didn't know how to do anything else. This moment with Juan, then, must have been the reason I outlived my gang, my wife,
mi barrio
—to keep my son from making a fatal mistake. The words would come now—they
had
to—in a way they never came for my dad.

“Are you done with that, sir?” The girl with pink hair motioned to my half-eaten sandwich.

In my mind, I was apologizing. That's all a grown son really wants from his old man. “I'm sorry”—and I
was
sorry, for being such a worthless father, for not loving Ofelia with the proper amount of respect, the drug scores, the anonymous dick-sucking tricks in men's rooms for money, the untold number of late nights I stumbled home drunk and punched Juan in bed at three in the morning to teach him to always be prepared to be attacked—here was my plea for forgiveness, for him not to leave me here alone in a neighborhood that was being stripped away one memory at a time and replaced with something foreign, cancerous, and final.

“Well, Dad?” Juan asked, rising to leave a tip on the table. He looked at me with a warm, peaceful gaze. “I think he's finished,”
he said.

T
he best sunrise you'll ever see is your first as a free man. That big gassy light that creaks out of God's cellar, wrestling the night away from a sky holding on to it with every star and streetlight, shining on a man who can rise when he wants, not when a 120-decibel buzzer tells him to—
that
is a sunrise. I should know. I've seen that sunrise over a dozen times, each one a promise that this will be the one that changes my life, this dawn will be witness to a new set of priorities, a new sense of hope. Of course I end up right back in the joint on a technicality (the technicality being that I get caught), and it's another stretch before I see that sunrise again.

You don't think about things like sunrises until you've gone without them, those unappreciated everyday moments you leave behind on the outside. You'd be amazed at the things people leave behind: being able to see your woman's hairy muff rise like dough when she comes out of the shower in the morning; your mother's
huevos rancheros;
the chance to give your son his first taste of beer on a summer's night. Hell, I know one guy who misses Kentucky Fried Chicken as much as some guys miss
pucha.
And then there are all the things out
there changing, things you don't know about that you'd miss if you did. All you've got is faith that things change slow enough out there for you to catch up to them when you get out of here.

For me, this time out is different. I've changed. This sunrise here, the pale gray promise of one I can see hovering behind that line of palm trees on a faraway hill, is different. It's a sunrise that says: Welcome home.

I'm Freddy Blas, forty-two years old. Born in Mexico, raised in East L.A., and 100 percent American. I spent nineteen of those forty-two years locked up—juvie, youth camps, youth authority, Solano, Tracy, Soledad, Tehachapi, Chino—including my last stint up at Lancaster for aggravated battery (I had some trouble parking a car and got sent away for almost twelve years; can you believe that shit?).

I grew up over in Boyle Heights, where we caught the Night Stalker on East Hubbard Street, near Whittier Boulevard. I say “we” because I was
in
that mob that ran down and captured that
loco
serial killer during the summer of 1985. You wouldn't know this unless I told you, but
I
was the reason they caught that fucker, the first
chingón
(I need Spanish here because, for many of the best cusswords, there's no English equivalent) to start punching the shit out of him. Before I started throwing
chingasos,
people were flailing at him and missing, trying to catch a goldfish on hot sand. Everybody was afraid to touch him, intimidated by the indestructible bogeyman with supernatural powers they'd heard about on TV for months. They didn't see that thrashing underneath them was a skinny spic with a limp Jheri curl who tried to steal some
vato
's broke-ass car in broad daylight. He'd have gotten away, too, if I hadn't thought,
Fuck, he'd stop squirming if he got punched in the kidneys a few times.

I'm big for a Mexican and have these massive lobster-claw hands that made it easy for me to land the first punch. Once I hit him, my neighbors came to their senses and it was a kick-the-spic bonanza.
Too bad the cops got him when they did. We would have torn him limb from limb. Can you imagine, a
pinche
Mexican serial killer? Fucking
gabachos
in L.A. hated Mexicans enough as it was. First we took the whites' jobs; now we had taken the white man's claim on freaky serial killers, too. The city didn't seem to mind, though. People from across L.A. drove by the spot where he was caught, honking their horns in celebration and unity. That night was a real block party. Mayor Tom Bradley said it was “a spontaneous outpouring of goodwill from the City of Angels,” but he was always saying that kind of shit. The neighborhood thought this was the beginning of a renaissance. The potholes would get filled, the streetlights repaired, and the cops would keep the people safer. There were rumors of movie deals, keys to the city, seats behind the dugout at Dodger Stadium. But nothing happened. I sure never saw any reward money from catching that fucking Mexican—and wasn't it just like a Mexican to be caught, on foot, running. Fucking
maricón.

Before I go on, I want to make it clear to you that I speak
inglés. Entiendes, mendes?
This is
America
and I speak
America's
language. No translation needed. See, I never had a problem speaking English. My old man told me that, to make it in America, all you need to do is keep talking.
Hablar hasta que las palabras no tienen sentido.
Don't ever shut up. The louder you are the better—that's the American way. Look at how much more respect Americans have for blacks instead of Mexicans. Rich black ballplayers, black movie stars, black comedians, a black president! That's because blacks tell you (they tell
everyone
) what they want to change. How can you do that if you can't speak the language? That's why I can't
stand
Mexicans who come to this country and keep their mouths shut because they never bothered to learn English. You say learning English is tough? I say sleeping on the floor of a room with fourteen people in it is tougher. Learn English and become your own boss. Stay speaking Spanish and you inherit a fucking crimp in your neck from nodding
“sí, sí”
all day long. I could make a killing selling neck braces to Mexicans who nod their heads
instead of opening their mouths and saying “cut your own goddamn lawn.” Can't let people push you around. You gotta be hard. Like Steve McQueen, or Kennedy. When that prick Khrushchev fucked with us over Cuba, Kennedy said, “If you don't remove those missiles on Wednesday, by Friday we'll turn this atmosphere to flames.” That's what it means to be
ciento por ciento Americano, tú sabes?

Capitalism is the best revenge against a
gringo
. And
gringos
love that “opportunity on every corner” bullshit. Mexicans don't understand that because they're too busy thinking about everything they don't have. Did you know the Mayans invented the number zero? Who else but Mexicans would know what it means to have nothing? Thing is, the
gringos
are
right.
You never know what you're gonna hear walking down the street. Did you know that one out of ten conversations you overhear walking on your block is about something illegal? Fuck, more than that if you live in Echo Park. Easy as sin to break into a conversation, too. Walk down the street with a twelve-pack, chat someone up, give 'em a few beers, smoke some weed, and
boom,
you got the score. You telling me that ain't easy? Easier than a day-to-day job bending your back or your knees twelve hours a day.

I've done those jobs, believe me. My first “straight” job was as a short-order cook at a twenty-four-hour taco stand. Graveyard shifters and rich, drunk club kids waited in the same line while I grilled ten pounds of shredded pork a night for eight months. It was here I saw how you could hustle to get something for free. Someone would place an order while a homeless person, some black guy, would amble back and forth in front of the counter where I laid out the tacos conveyor belt style. Black guy would pick up the tacos someone else paid for and score a free meal before anybody realized their order was gone. I didn't catch it the first few times because I was cooking the food and not working the register. Jimmy, the
pinche gringo
who owned the dump, saw what happened, took a spatula off the hot grill, and branded it on my forearm. The pain was like being in a dark room and someone turned on all the lights
real high, blinding you. From then on, I never took my eyes off the counter. I gave people numbers and shouted them out when their orders were ready. If they didn't respond fast enough, I'd point my tongs at them saying, “Didn't you hear me call your number three times?”

One night, a guy forgot that he put a couple of loose dollars on the counter. I palmed the bills and told him they'd blown onto the ground. I tried it again and again that night, improving my technique. More like
inventing
my technique. Most of these kids were too drunk to register me as a person (they wouldn't have sober, either), didn't see how awkward I was when I snatched their money up with my lobster claws for hands. But I got better, got faster, and soon I could serve a basket of tacos and swipe a two-and-a-half-inch-thick wallet with the same hand in one single motion. Wasn't long before Jimmy wanted a cut. Lend me your van, I said, so I can get rid of the wallets. He gave me the keys, and I never drove back. No point in negotiating with a thief.

I never drove home, either. I didn't leave for any sinister reasons. My mom didn't beat me; my dad didn't try to suck my dick. I was crazy back then, never stopping to think things through past tomorrow. I ran away with the clothes on my back. Same reason I dropped out of high school. I was smart, never failed a class I showed up to, got suspended dozens of times for mouthing off at the teacher because I was bored (I'd throw shit up front to encourage them to pick up the pace), but the education I wanted came from hustling, an education that continues every day you're on the streets. You don't get it living the straight life. That's what I love about it. There is no direct line to becoming the perfect con man, no end of your apprenticeship, no place where you can look down from a comfortable perch and take a breather. Instead, there are a series of shortfalls, switchbacks, missteps, and flubbed cues, navigating a world of mazes. The one sure thing is that a straight line will take you right back to the beginning, and the beginning is not in the place where you remember but some-where
further away and harder to reach and darker to see into than you thought it was. Sometimes when living the life threatened to get too dark, I'd get this overwhelming desire to change, to do . . . right. Get a wife, couple of kids calling me Dad, and for fuck's sake, a minivan. It was a terrifying vision, worse than any jail cell, and I've been in a
lot
of jail cells. I've never been able to channel those fleeting, euphoric intentions into
doing
good. Good is too much work.

I'm not trying to make this life sound like a woman, all depressing and deceptive. Like a woman, this life has its perks—you get the best out of both if you treat each as a job and not a hobby. People don't know when they see me in a bar or a back room and I trick them up for some pool or a card game that I'm a professional gambler.
Hustler
sells short what I can do. Could a “hustler” run any pool table in the city like I can? I made eight thousand dollars in
one night
when some movie execs went slumming in the Eastside and made the mistake of challenging me in my local. I've stolen cars in front of post offices and video stores when someone dashes out with the keys in the ignition, TVs by picking up display models at electronics stores and walking right out the front door with them, money from bank drawers and kids' piggy banks. I've run drugs for the Mexican mafia, who wanted to recruit me, except I had to take a blood oath and put a bunch of damn tattoos and shit on my body.