Mexican WhiteBoy (9 page)

Senior Explains Poverty

1

“All right, lemme put it to you another way,” Senior says, holding an index finger in the air. He snaps. Looks Uno right in the eyes. “Say you ain’t from round here. Say you just some random Jack who got lost on your way to Mexico. You jump the gun, turn off the freeway into National City. That’s the only way you could know how you livin’, son. Your boys from down the block? They can’t tell you nuthin’. Your moms? Nah. But an outsider, Uno. Wouldn’t need to hear no words neither. The answers would be in his eyes.”

On the walk home from the barbecue joint, Uno asked his old man what would happen if he couldn’t raise all the money. The whole five hundred. Would he still be able to move to Oxnard? Uno watched his dad stop cold. Watched him spit into a gutter and turn to him, fire building in the whites of his eyes.

Senior took Uno by the arm, veered him into Sweetwater High’s parking lot. Up the ramp. Into the football bleachers. And that’s where they’ve been for the past forty-five minutes. Senior talking. Uno listening.

“Get too close to somethin’,” Senior says, pointing at his eyes, “it ain’t no longer possible to
see
. An outsider, though, lookin’ in on shit with virgin eyes. That’s the person who could shed a light on your reality. I mean, I done lived here with your mom, a Mexican woman, for years. So I understand the cultural background and historical symbolic stuff. You follow?”

“I think so,” Uno says. In his head he tries to connect the dots. He brought up Oxnard and Senior’s talking about an outsider. But they have to relate somehow.

“But a true outsider,” Senior continues, “he drives past the Lincoln Acres picnic table area, sees old Indian-lookin’ women sittin’ huddled in the shade, crochetin’. Hardly a word passing between them. The outsider sees bus after bus, filled to the capacity with factory workers, faces like the worn-out leather on your baseball mitt. On they way to minimum-wage jobs. He rolls past an alley full of weeds after school, sees a pack of
los ratas
tape firecrackers to the back of a stray cat—then pop! pop! pop! they scatter away in they rags, laughin’. The outsider passes the run-down taquerias and liquor stores that line Highland Ave like old, broken-down Aztec warriors. Standing at the edge of the street with they arms folded.”

Uno nods. He’s no longer sure what these things have to do with Oxnard, but he’s still listening. He’s never thought of his Mexican neighborhood like this. He looks out over his high school. Wonders if he’s gonna go through his entire life without paying attention.

“It’s people who wander into your city, Uno. They the only ones who could see your life for what it is. National City, boy. Ain’t but a forgotten slice of America’s finest city. And you know what’s on the tip of all y’all’s tongues? Each and every one of y’all?”

Uno turns back to his dad. Shrugs.

“Money, baby.”

Uno nods. What his dad’s saying is totally true.

“Ain’t just you, son. It’s every fool down here. If it ain’t money they talkin’ specifically, it’s some pseudonym of money. Some materialization of the concept. Maybe they usin’ a different word. Like
dividends. Dough. Funds. Scratch.
The Mexican cats call it
dinero
. Or
billetes
or
scrilla.
Back in the day we used to call it paper. ‘Yo, you wanna get down with homegirl you gots to have paper, son.’ ‘I got paper.’ ‘Not
that
kind of paper, you don’t.’ Or maybe they talkin’
around
money. They talkin’ food stamps or government cheese. Supplemental housing. Unemployment checks. Disability. Welfare. Or maybe they so beaten down from a lack of funds, they don’t have no talk left in ’em at all. But even these folks, Uno. They
thinkin’
’bout money. Ain’t that right?”

Uno nods, riveted. That’s
exactly
right, he thinks. Even the people who don’t talk about money are thinking about it. Because everybody’s poor. Every one of his friends. Their families.

Senior takes a roll of breath mints out of the pocket of his khakis, unwraps it and pops one in his mouth. He wads the wrapper up and shoves it back in his pocket. “Take a look around you, son. Everywhere—it’s the same goddamn thing. Some old union cat and his wife are sittin’ at the kitchen table right this second, balancin’ they checkbook. Scannin’ overdue bills, highlightin’ dates shit gets turned off.

“Across the way some little Mexican girl’s openin’ up a fashion magazine. The one she keep hidden under the bed. She turnin’ to page a hundred and fifty-one. Pullin’ out a secret stash of cash and countin’: ‘Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight.’ She’s restackin’ them bills over and over, in order of value, but it still ain’t enough to get her hair done. Not like the little white girl in the magazine. The actress. She flippin’ to that dog-eared magazine page again, studyin’ the picture. Lookin’ at herself in the mirror, runnin’ a couple fingers through her nappy-ass hair.

“Your little stepbrother Manny. He at the Arby’s down the street mopping a soda spill near the patio exit. The new owner just enrolled in a program where they send you partially retarded cats to work part time. He gets a tax break from the state. Gets cheap labor and a write-up in the local paper. Looks like a hero. Your little bro’s mopping away until he spots an abandoned quarter, reaches down for it. When some white broad walks by with a pipin’-hot meal deal he holds the quarter out and tells her: ‘Excuse me, miss? Who lost this quarter, miss?’

“But the woman just shakin’ her head, Uno. She hurryin’ past. Know why? ’Cause she scared of this little retarded Mexican with a mop.”

Uno searches his head for connection. His brother doesn’t work at Arby’s. Is he just saying that as a figure of speech?

Senior slaps the bleacher, says: “And here I am with my firstborn. Just gave the boy a ten-spot. So he could go get hisself some lunch tomorrow. ‘Something with vegetables,’ I tell him. ‘Gotta fuel a young mind with the right nutrients. Can’t fly a rocket ship to the moon with the same juice you pump into a lawn mower.’ But he ain’t even hear me. My own son. Shades drawn on his daddy. And why? ’Cause he programmed to hear what rich white folks tell him in the media. And he thinkin’, ‘Nah, Dad, I watch sports and BET and rap videos.’ But who you think program that bullshit, Uno? Ain’t no Miguel from down the block, Jack.”

Uno straightens up a little, says, “The media?”

“The
white
media.”

Uno nods his head.

“Gotta figure out what you is, baby. A jet rocket? Or a lawn mower? You ever heard of a self-fulfillment prophecy, Uno?”

Uno looks to the clouds for a sec, then turns back to his dad and shakes his head.

“It’s when a person thinks of hisself in a certain way until it comes true. You ask me, that’s the same thing as jumpin’ off a bridge, takin’ your own life.”

“I wouldn’t never jump off no bridge, Pop.”

“Better not, boy. Not even in a metaphor way. That’s a deadly sin in
two
books. God’s and
mine
.” Senior breaks a smile, first one of the day.

Uno nods, looks out over his high school football field again. He knows deep down he would never kill himself. He likes being alive. Even if he knows the things that happen to him aren’t always good. It doesn’t matter. He wants to be alive. And not only that, he wants to see who he is. Like somebody from the outside can.

“Look, I set the number high, Uno. Five hundred bones gets your ass to Oxnard. But I did that shit for a reason. Everybody in National City wishes they had more. But wishes don’t pay the bills, do they? You wanna pay the bills, you gotta get out there and work. Who
you
gonna be, son? A wisher? Or a worker?”

“A worker.”

Senior nods. “That’s good, boy. Now get out there and work. Don’t just talk about it,
be
about it.”

Senior grabs Uno’s head, gets him in a playful headlock. “You gonna be all right, boy,” he says. “Watch.”

Uno laughs as he slips his old man’s grip. He looks up at him and nods. How does his pop know all this stuff about life? He didn’t
used
to be like this. Is it ’cause he spends so much time going to church now? Is it the biographies? Or is it living up in Oxnard with his new family? He wishes his moms would take the time to talk to Senior. So she could see it for herself. She doesn’t know anything about who he is
now
.

When Senior gets up, Uno gets up, too. And both set off in the direction of Uno’s apartment.

2

A few days later, Uno’s sitting on the curb outside his place picking at the web of his beat-up mitt. It’s been almost three weeks since his old man told him he needed five hundred bucks, and he
still
doesn’t know how he’s gonna come up with it. At least not before the end of the summer. He
wants
to work, it’s just nobody will hire him.

He looks up, watches a few little Mexican kids huddle around a dead possum a few yards down the sidewalk. Watches the kid without a shirt poke at the little corpse with a stick and his boys back up, laughing.

Uno goes back to his mitt. He put in applications at a mess of places, but nobody’s called him back. Not one restaurant, one clothing store, one shoe shop. Not even the coffee shop outside the mall that always has the “Now Hiring” sign taped to the door. What’s up with that? The pot at last Saturday’s derby was crazy fat, over thirty bones. Kids were coming out of the woodwork with their two bucks. And when it was his turn to pick up the bat he rose to the occasion. Hit ten dongs, his personal record. Too bad Sofe’s cousin hit fifteen. Six that cleared
two
houses.

Uno shakes his head, pulls his hand out of his mitt to scratch the back of his head. What’s
up
with that kid? Uno wonders again.

He stands up, brushes the dirt off the back of his jeans, then spots Sofia wandering out of her apartment complex lugging a bulging backpack.

Uno and his boys can always make out Sofia by her walk. It’s the perfect mix of fading tomboy and budding diva. When they were all kids, she was one of the guys. Talked as much head as anyone, threw down if somebody got in her face. But over the past few years she started hanging out more with the girls. And the less time she’s spent with dudes, the more time dudes have spent noticing her.

3

He breaks into a slight jog to catch up. Halfway up the hill he yells out: “Hey! Yo, Sofe!”

Sofia turns around, waits on him.

“Sofe,” Uno says, a little out of breath. He slows to a walk. “Where you goin’, girl?”

“Me and Carmen are goin’ bladin’,” she says, pointing to her pack. “What’s up with you?”

Uno shakes his head. “Nah, Sofe, I’m tryin’ to figure out how to make some money. My pop got me on some deadline shit, man.”

“Yeah?”

Uno slaps his mitt with his right hand. “But how I’m supposed to get a job if don’t nobody call me back?”

Sofia reaches down to adjust one of her flip-flop straps. She slips her foot out, slips it back in. “I heard Foot Locker’s hiring.”

“Tried ’em already.”

“What about the coffee shop?”

“Ain’t got one call, Sofe. And you know why, right?”

“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

“It’s ’cause my ass is half black. It ain’t right.”

“That’s not true, Uno.”

“Seems like it. I been out droppin’ applications for a week straight. Nothin’.”

Sofia looks up the hill, says: “Wanna walk with me?”

Uno nods and they continue up the hill together. At the top they veer into Las Palmas Park and cut across the empty parking lot to the walking trail. Sofia tosses out a couple more ideas, but nothing sticks. She switches her backpack from one shoulder to the other. Uno tucks his mitt under his arm and picks up a couple of rocks. He lobs one of them into a tree.

As they approach the potholed road that leads to the baseball field, Sofia points and says, “How much you wanna bet my cousin’s down there right now?”

Uno looks at her strangely. “He go to this place?”

“Every day.”

“Stop lyin’. Why?”

“I swear. He works on his pitching. He’s so good for a reason. He’s totally obsessed about baseball.”

“Yeah?”

Sofia nods and then stops walking. “Hey, you wanna go check him out for a sec?”

4

The two of them march down the hill with the broken-up concrete, toward the ice plant bank. When they round a group of bushes near the right-field fence, they find Danny firing a fastball toward home plate. Watch him reach into his bucket for another baseball and go right back into his windup.

They sit on the hill together, behind Danny, out of sight. Uno sets down his last rock, says: “He do this shit every day?”

“Every day.”

“Damn.”

“Right?”

They watch Danny in silence for a few more minutes, then Uno clears his throat. “Yo, Sofe.”

“What’s up?”

“I meant to tell you, man. I apologize, you know. For jumping your boy a few weeks back. I just…you feel me? It messed with my head seeing my brother’s face all bloody like that.”

Sofia nods without taking her eyes off the baseball field. “Especially when my cuz kept hittin’ ’em over the roof, right?”

“Nah, Sofe. That didn’t have nothin’—”

Sofia faces him. “Come on, Uno. You act like I don’t know your dumb ass.”

Uno looks at her for a sec, a blank look in his eyes. Then he picks the rock back up and flips it over in his hand. “Look, the shit didn’t exactly put me in a good mood, all right?”

“That’s what I thought.”

“I’m tryin’ to reach a certain number, man. And I was countin’ on them derby pots. Then along comes Sofe’s damn cousin, out of nowhere. Jackin’ tennis balls out like it wasn’t nothin’. I was like, ‘Who the hell is
this
cat?’”

Sofia puts her hand on Uno’s and then takes it off. “I know, Uno, but he’s
family
.”

Uno nods. “I got you, Sofe. I’m sayin’, for real, I’m sorry.”

Sofia nods. They both watch Danny fire another fastball and then walk toward home plate with his bucket to collect balls.