Mexican WhiteBoy (6 page)

Del Mar Fair

1

A few days later, Danny stands with Sofia on the sidewalk in front of the apartment complex watching Chico clunk down Potomac in his brother’s old Impala. Hubcaps spinning rust, windshield spidered on the passenger side. Sofia finally pulled Danny off his cot by…well, literally pulling him off his cot. “You been in here long enough,” she said, throwing a fresh pair of jeans his way. One of his collar shirts and some socks. His Vans. “You goin’ with me and my girls to the fair. Twenty minutes.”

Danny didn’t ask questions. He got up, changed in the bathroom, threw some water on his face and in his hair. Found her waiting for him in the living room when he stepped out.

Carmen shoots out over the hill behind Chico, whips her beat-up Ford Festiva around Chico as he pulls to the curb, leaves a little rubber on the sidewalk right in front of Danny’s retreating feet.

Raul swings the passenger-side door open, starts free-styling over the syncopated beat Lolo lays down by slapping at Raul’s headrest. Carmen rolls down her window, waves at Sofia and Danny.

Chico leans out of his Impala behind them, shouts: “You gonna have to squeeze in the Matchbox, Sofe. I’m seven deep in here.”

“You know I got my girl,” Carmen yells back at Chico.

Sofia goes to her window and gives Carmen a little hug. Danny stands back, waves when Carmen waves.

“Look at your cuz,” Carmen says. “He look all nice tonight. Girls gonna want to gobble him up.”

Danny smiles, but he knows she’s just trying to make him feel good. He digs his nails into his forearm as he listens to a little more small talk between Sofia and her friends. Then on the sly he peeks down at his collar shirt. His Vans. He looks at Raul and Lolo. T-shirt and jeans. Timberlands. He needs to get new clothes.

The passenger-side door of the Impala swings open and Uno flings an empty Colt 45 bottle onto the lawn of a neighboring house. Danny watches the bottle roll into a dying bush and disappear. His stomach drops when he turns back to Uno and their eyes lock.

Danny looks away, digs nails deeper into skin.

In the middle of Raul’s flow, Lolo mixes into his beat a whack to the back of his boy’s head. Raul stops mid-lyric, spins around rubbing the sting out. “Yo, what’s that about,
flaco
?”

“You got one bug on your head,” Lolo says with a straight face. “I smash for you.”

“Yo, you best watch your back.”

“I kill bug,
gordo
. You no believe me?”

Raul turns to Carmen, points to his head: “There was somethin’ on my head, Carm?”

“I ain’t gettin’ wrapped up in y’all’s games,” she says.

“Was one spider,” Lolo shouts.

Raul turns back to Lolo.
“Aplacate, flaco!”

Before Lolo can respond, Raul and everybody else turns to the road. Danny’s uncle Ray is speeding down the hill in his Bronco. He screeches to a stop in the middle of the street, cranks his parking brake and flings open his door. He jumps out, still dressed in his dirty construction boots and construction pants.

He walks right up on Danny, takes him by the chin and looks over the stitches in his face. “How this really happen, D?” Ray looks into the Festiva, scans faces. “I don’t like what I’m hearin’.”

Danny’s unable to move his face. All he can do is stare back at his uncle. But inside he’s falling apart. The last thing he wants is for his uncle to draw more attention to him.

Ray pulls Danny by his face up to the driver’s side of the Impala. Scans mugs. “You,” he says, pointing over Chico to Uno, “get out the car.”

Uno looks at his boys, confused. He turns back to Ray, “Wha’chu mean, ‘Get out’?”

“
Callate el hocico!
What I just tell you?”

“Yo, I ain’t gotta do nothin’—”

“What I tell you?” Ray shouts. “Get out the car!”

Uno gets out of the car.

Chico makes a move to get out of the car, too, but Uncle Ray points a finger in his face. Shakes his head.

Chico freezes.

Ray pulls Danny around the Impala to Uno’s side. He stares at Uno for a few seconds, then turns to Danny. “How this happen to you, D? I’m not talkin’ ’bout what Sofe and you told Tommy, neither. This
pinche pendejo
raise a hand on you?”

Danny sneaks a sideways glance at Sofia.

Sofia looks down.

He goes back to his uncle.

“Say the word, D. That’s all I need. I’ll handle it from there.”

Sofia clears her throat. “Uncle Ray, you know D ain’t gonna say nothin’—”

“This don’t concern you, Sofe,” Ray says without taking his eyes off Uno. “This between me, D, and this punk-ass
pendejo
.” He spits on the ground, stares at Uno, fire burning in the whites of his eyes.

Uno lowers his gaze.

Danny stares at his uncle. The bulging veins in his forehead are the same veins he used to see in his dad’s forehead. The same crazed eyes.

“Go on, D. Say the word.”

Danny doesn’t say anything. He watches Uno look through the windshield at Chico. Watches Chico shrug.

“Fuck it,” Ray says. “Nod to me, D.”

Danny takes another sideways glance at Uno. Goes back to his uncle.

“Nod to me, D. People need to know what happens when they step to family.”

Danny stares at his uncle.

“Nod, D.”

Danny watches Uno go to get back in the car and Uncle Ray slams his fist on the roof of the Impala, shouting: “Don’t you fucking move!”

Uno freezes.

“This my big brother’s kid right here. He ain’t ’round right now, but
I
am. And I swear to God, they gonna have to take my ass to jail. Nobody raises a hand on my big brother’s kid.” Ray turns his crazy eyes back on Danny. “They gonna have to take my ass to jail, D. Just nod to me.”

“It happened in the game,” Danny blurts out.

Everybody turns to look at him.

Sofia drops her bag. Uno tilts his head to the side, furrows his brow. Raul and Lolo look at each other. Chico lets his hand drop from the steering wheel.

“I was runnin’ for the garage,” Danny says in a loud voice.

“Like Sofe told me I had to do. Those are the rules. And we ran into each other.”

Sofia picks up her bag, touches Danny on the elbow.

Ray wipes his brow, looks at Uno. Goes back to Danny.

“It was my fault,” Danny says.

The girls in the back of the Impala let out a collective deep breath, lean back in their seats. Rene follows their lead. Lolo and Raul continue craning their necks from the Festiva.

Uncle Ray lets go of Danny’s chin and nods. He looks at Uno and nods some more. Then he pulls Danny away from everybody, toward his Bronco. Slaps a hand on his shoulder and smiles. “You did right, D-man. Couple stitches ain’t so bad if you got everybody’s respect now.”

Danny nods.

“Nobody gonna step to you no more. Watch.”

Danny nods.

Ray squeezes Danny’s shoulder, then turns to his Bronco. Everybody watches him climb in, release the brake, flip a quick bitch and speed back up the hill, out of sight.

A buzz quickly starts up in both cars. Sofia smiles at Danny. She walks up, takes him by the hand and leads him toward the Festiva. “Um, what was
that
all about?”

“What?” Danny says quietly.

“
What?
You
talked
. That’s the first time you’ve said more than two words since you got here. What happened?”

Danny shrugs.

She shakes her head, continues smiling at him. “Who cares, right? Point is, you’re gonna be okay now. For real. I don’t know how it is up in Leucadia, but down here it’s better when you deal with stuff on your own.”

Danny nods.

When they reach the Festiva, Raul jumps out of the front seat and folds it back. Danny and Sofia slip past into the back. As Danny climbs in, Raul pats him on the shoulder. Carmen touches his right hand. Lolo gives him a little head nod.

Sofia climbs in behind Danny. She puts her arm around his shoulder as Raul flips the seat back up, sits down and slams the tinny door closed.

Carmen starts the car. As she pulls back onto the street, follows Chico’s Impala, Raul spins around, says: “I ain’t gonna lie, Sofe. Your uncle ’bout the baddest dude in the ’hood.”

“Had Uno shittin’ bricks,” Carmen says, tuning her radio to a hip-hop station, turning up the volume.

“Turned
ese negro totalmente blanco,
” Raul says over the music.

Lolo pops open another forty and pulls a swig. He hands the bottle up to Raul, who takes a swig of his own. Raul hands it to Carmen, who sneaks a quick sip and hands it back to Lolo. Lolo offers the bottle to Sofia, but she waves him off, pulls a big sipper out of her bag, shouting over the music: “I mixed up some juice!”

Lolo nods. He goes to put the bottle back up to his own lips, but at the last second he pauses.

He turns to Danny. Holds out the bottle.

Danny takes it, looks at the label, looks back at Lolo. Lolo nods. Danny tips the fresh bottle back, swallows some of the sour-tasting malt liquor—his first-ever sip of alcohol. He cringes at the aftertaste, feels the cool liquid move through his middle.

He hands the bottle back to Lolo and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Shit!” Carmen shouts as she runs a red to keep pace with Chico’s Impala. She shakes her head, says, “
Pinche
Chico,” and pulls a cigarette from her pack.

Raul takes a lighter from his pocket, flicks it on and lights Carmen up. He shouts: “You see the look in Uno’s eyes, though?” Everybody laughs and he says: “I thought my boy was gonna piss himself.”

Danny listens to everybody replay the Uno–Uncle Ray face-off again. Listens to Carmen talk with her lungs half full of smoke. Listens to Sofia giggling between sips of spiked juice. Listens to Lolo’s broken English and Raul’s booming voice. And at the same time he stares out the window. At National City. He watches the faces of broken-down apartment complexes flash by. Houses with bars on every window. Graffiti on garage doors. A few of them boarded up, weeds as high as mailboxes, like nobody lives there anymore.

Their Festiva clunks down a dark side street and pulls up to a four-way stop. To the right, the last few rays of sun are falling red over an ugly water tower. At the foot of it, a group of Mexican men are sitting around in wife-beaters, smoking and drinking. One of them looks up as the Festiva passes.

Danny scans his face, and for a second he thinks it might be his dad. But the longer he stares the more he realizes how stupid that sounds. His dad’s in Mexico. Still, he and the guy stay looking at each other all the way until Carmen pulls through the intersection and merges onto the freeway on-ramp.

2

Danny learns the home run derby girl’s name while squeezed between Flaca and Sofia on the giant Ferris wheel.

Their car is circling back down to earth one final time when Flaca points toward a small food court crowd, leans over Danny and says: “See ol’ girl over there, Sofe? Brown corduroy skirt and white top? Long black hair?”

“Who?”

“New girl.”

“Liberty?” Sofia says. She takes a sip of juice and passes the bottle to Flaca.

Liberty, Danny thinks.

Flaca adjusts the straw, shrugs. “I guess. I don’t know her name.” She sips, hands to Danny.

Danny takes a long sip and then holds the bottle in his lap, listening.

“What about her?” Sofia says.

“Well, I ain’t tryin’ to talk about nobody. But I heard she be slingin’ booty in the Gaslamp.”

“What?”

“Most weekends, I heard. She’s a trick, Sofe.
Una puta.
”

“Oh, please. Who told you
that
?” Sofia swipes the bottle out of Danny’s lap, gives him a funny look. “Guess you cool with drinkin’ now, eh, cuz?”

Danny smiles, shrugs.

Flaca clears her throat. “I got my sources, Sofe. But can you imagine? Sixteen and already droppin’ her drawers for
billetes
.”

“And here you is seventeen,” Sofia shoots back, “and you droppin’ yours for
free
.”

The girls bend over laughing on either side of Danny as the conductor unhooks their seat belts and holds their car still so they can climb out.

Danny waits for the girls to go first, then jumps out after them. But even on solid ground, he still sort of feels like he’s floating on the Ferris wheel. Feet dangling over the rest of the fair. And there’s a low buzzing moving through his head.

Sofia turns to look at Danny.

He gives her a bigger smile this time. Then he turns his attention to the food court. Looks for the girl in the brown corduroy skirt again. The white top. Liberty.

3

Outside the modernist art exhibition, Danny learns the little boy Liberty was watching the day of the Derby was either (a) her son or (b) her cousin.

The guys are posted on or around the benches outside the makeshift gallery, sipping juice and trying to count on their fingers how many girls in their year have a kid or are currently pregnant.

“It’s hers, Chee,” Uno hollers from an adjacent bench.

“Why you think she always with little big head?”

“Oh, what,” Chico fires back, “you never had to babysit somebody?” He shakes his head, pulls another hit of jungle juice through a straw, hands off to Raul. “Trust me, Uno, that’s her aunt’s kid.”