The Afterlife (3 page)

THE COP WAS
backed up by another cop, a Chicano, who was trim in his waist and all rocks in his shoulders. The guy was huge, nothing to play with, a guy so strong he could lift up a car if it, by chance, had rolled onto your foot. I followed the cops into the apartment where, we learned, the previous night a husband had slapped his wife once and not very hard. His wife then crashed a ceramic planter over his head as he slept off his
cruda,
his hangover. And that was the argument. Who was going to clean up the broken pot that lay on the carpeted floor? The plant in it was wilted, the dirt scattered like ashes.

Dawg,
I thought. A couple arguing over who's going to pick up the pieces of a broken pot? What about their broken marriage? What about the two babies on the couch, neither of them moving? Were they broken, too?

The cops, invited inside the apartment by the wife, strode across the living room. The fat one snapped off the radio and the muscled one turned down the television, though his eyes sized up a basketball layup—it was Saturday morning and the second week of college hoops. Cal Berkeley was getting a big-time whipping from Arizona.

The two cops gave the husband and wife the once-over, then the babies who were sharing a single bottle. A Chihuahua was shivering under the dining table.

"We have a problem, don't we?" the fat cop asked. There wasn't much confidence in his voice. Perhaps he was still concerned about his heart.

The husband shrugged his shoulders. He munched his lower lip.

"He's messing with that
puta
," the wife scolded. She pointed a hand shaped into a gun. If it had been a gun, her husband would be flying across the living room, in midair and already dead.

"Don't call her that," the husband returned. "Her name is Pumpkin."

The wife's eyes got bigger. Her hand was still shaped like a gun. "I see you with her and I hurt you both!"

The two cops let them have their say for ten long minutes. Then the muscular cop instructed his partner to take the wife and babies outside. The Chihuahua followed, its tin bell tinkling on its collar.

The muscled cop quietly closed the door and, turning, hissed, "Pick up the vase." His chest rose, his jaw hardened.

The husband stubbornly sat in his recliner, an obvious mistake. The cop pulled him up by his wrists and squeezed.

"
Ay, dios,
" the husband cried. His mouth made the sorrowful pout of a fish freed from a hook. He did a little dance when the cop squeezed even harder.

"Pick it up—now!" The cop's eyes were wired with an electrical charge called anger. I figured bolts of lightning would soon be zapping out of his eyes. He released the husband and threatened, "I should break your ugly
cara!
"

The husband was quickly on the floor scooping up the pieces as if they were gold nuggets. He let the debris rain onto the open face of a newspaper.

"I don't want to come back—
entiendes?
" the cop warned. He glanced around the apartment and his attention was drawn to the water dripping in the kitchen sink. "And I want you to do the dishes after I leave."

When the husband only sobbed, the cop booted him lightly. "The dishes! You understand,
cabrón?
"

This was better than a
telenovela.
I watched the scene while kicking back in the recliner, feet up. I had to agree he was a
cabrón,
a weak-brained guy making a scene in front of his children. And in the apartment complex, the neighbors were probably dunking
pan dulce
into their coffee and gossiping. Such was the pastime of neighbors—all
chismosos
and
chismosas
—with time on their hands.

The husband set another newspaper on the floor. My attention locked onto the news of my death shown there—a photo of me taken in my freshman year. My ears stuck out, almost stupidly because my head had been shaved at the time. I had always wanted to be mentioned in the newspaper, and finally I was: a three-inch column. I got out of the recliner and was on all fours reading this tidy news of my passing. Three inches was all I got: The story said I was killed at Club Estrella and mentioned that I was a high school long-distance runner.
No más.
Then a single quote from Angel, who lamented, "He just went into the restroom. I'm so angry." Behind that simple pronouncement I could read: He was going to find the guy who did me. Revenge was the flip side of a dirty coin.

Ghosts can't cry. But I learned they can send a chill, and that's what the husband first felt—chills riding down the back of his neck as he stood up, scattering the pieces of the planter funneled in the newspaper. He sensed me. The cop sensed me.

Both took steps away from my cold breath blowing the newspaper. It was fluttering at its edges, actually rising from the floor and scattering the debris.

"Jesus," the cop shouted, his hand reaching for his holster. He unbuckled the leather strap and undid the safety of his gun. The husband backed into the kitchen, scared.

Angel,
I thought.
I've got to see my homie!
I pictured him in his cluttered bedroom studying the dry rivers of his palms. I pictured those rivers filling with tears and his hands closing into fists of anger. I could never use a word like
love
for a homie, but that's the kind of language I had in my heart.

I howled my ghostly breath on the newspaper, and the bits of dirt arranged themselves like a beard on my photo. I was dead, I realized, but I could still have my say. I had influence. For all I cared, the no-good husband was going to get religion. Or at least the dishes were going to get done without his old lady getting on his case.

I cruised through the wall, fists first, and down the balcony littered with toys—one was a rubber knife that could bring down a child in a pretend death. Kids practicing for the future.

FROM THE
Section Eight apartment, I drifted toward Angels house, or
tried
to drift, because the October wind blew me westward to Chinatown, where the bars were now open—Mexican
rancheras
were hollering for attention from jukeboxes. A couple of gold-toothed
borrachos
staggered down the street, slurring in Spanish. The dog I had seen earlier was still in the street, this time sniffing a crushed carton of Chinese food. Times were hard, and going to get harder. Three stray cats were having a powwow on the hood of an abandoned car. They were sharing a meal of a pigeon that was now mostly feathers.

Luckily, the wind shifted and sent me eastward, toward Angel's house, off of Tulare Street. I learned that if I tightened my belly, like I was doing a sit-up, I could ground myself. But even then a wind could come up and direct me where I had no interest in going.

I kicked toward Angels house and found him in the front yard raking leaves. It was Saturday, and death or no death, his
papi,
an ex-Marine who had trooped through the brief Persian Gulf War, expected a clean yard. He expected the car washed, and all the weeds to be yanked from the cracks in the driveway and sidewalk. His family had to set an example for others on the block.

By the movement of the rake, I could tell that Angels own spirit was sadly deflated. I wanted to stop his sadness, to tell him that it wasn't too bad, to tell him not to be stupid and not to go hunting for the guy who killed me.

"Angel," I called.

Angel poked at the leaves gathered under a bush.

"Angel," I called again. "It ain't all that bad."

His dad appeared on the porch. His eyes were wet, and I realized for the first time that his
papi
was tender underneath his muscular arms and chest. He had been crying over me, his son's best friend. He was crying for every young man who goes down by a violent crime.

"Come in,
mi'jo,
" his father cooed softly.

"In a second," Angel answered, not looking up. If he had, he might have seen a V-shaped formation of geese, something I myself hadn't seen in years. I watched the geese and then turned my attention to Angel's dad. He was staring at his son, and I know that he longed to hug him, to bring him into his body and say, "I'm sorry for Chuy." He pulled at a tear in the corner of his eye, and plucked off the dead head of a rose that had climbed onto their porch. He crumbled the petals, and scattered them in the flower bed. He went back inside, an ex-Marine who was still all rock.

I blew my ghostly breath on the leaves, and the leaves danced a polka, rising ankle high. Angel, somewhat confused, raked them up again. I blew once more, this time sending the leaves fluttering shoulder high, like playing cards tossed in the air.

"What the hell?" Angel muttered. He watched a leaf rock in the air, caught it, and examined it. He looked directly at me, and when I squeezed his shoulder, the pressure of my hand entered his flesh. I touched something at the core of his soul.

"Chuy?" he asked the air.

"Angel," I mouthed. I squeezed and let go.

The rake fell from his hand.

I stepped back. I had so much to tell him, my bro since first grade. But I had no voice other than the icy chill of my breath. I had no other way to reach him than the vague feeling of touch. But he was aware that I stood in front of him.

"Chuy," he said. His eyes filled with the gray waters of sadness.

I laughed to myself. I recalled how he and I had liked the same girl in fifth grade. We were desperate for love even then because we understood we were not good-looking. Behind Room 34, he and I threw punches at each other, our noses immediately bloody. We were fighting royally over Maya Ramirez all because that afternoon she had glanced our way as we were eating slices of watermelon over a dented trash can. Flies were coming out of the trash can, plus the sour smells of an old hot dog or something. But we were eating our watermelon down to the rind when she smiled flirtatiously. "
Hijole!
" we yelled, juice running from the corners of our mouths. Later that week, we had a pushing match on the baseball diamond, and Angel jabbed a pencil at me during recess. That brought us to blows after school, and neither of us was the victor. We were fools, in fact, because just as Angel caught me with a roundhouse punch to my temple that sent my head twisting to the side, out of the corner of my eye I made out Maya walking with Gilbert Romo, a guy from sixth grade who was strong enough to put us both into headlocks and trot us gently into a brick wall.

I was thinking of Angel and me, and our past. This was all we had. The past. He was
mi carnal,
the guy I hung with. I was going to miss him and our crazy ways.

Then the wind picked up, and try as I might, I couldn't anchor myself in Angel's yard. The leaves scuttled, and a tree snapped under the wind. I bounced from his yard westward toward downtown. The leaves were releasing themselves in their simple deaths, and, I suppose, I should have been doing the same.

T
HE WIND
deposited me downtown and then weakened to nothing more than a draft. I anchored myself on the Fulton Mall by tightening my stomach and willing myself not to blow away like litter. I meandered among its stores, all Mexican or Hmong-owned, and none of them doing good business at that early hour. The sun rode over a tall building. The few city pigeons and sparrows responded to the bright but cold sun by warbling and chirping. These birds were a natural sanitation crew; they pecked at popcorn and the shells of sunflower seeds. They hauled away hot dogs, burger buns, doughnuts,
churros,
and other food that messy shoppers tossed as they went from one store window to the next. What the shoppers were buying was anyone's guess.

I'm dead,
I thought as I turned and scanned the sights of one sad, ugly mall. I ain't a part of this no more. I ain't a part of a family, either, just a word on my parents' lips—Chuy Chuy, Chuy. I was a sad chant one day after I got killed.

I shrugged. I hitched up my pants and entered a boutique that sold candles, ceramic pots, and plastic flower arrangements. The salesclerk was a girl that I went to elementary school with. I forgot her name and she wouldn't have remembered mine, either. She probably wouldn't even recognize me. "I got nothing to show, anyway," I laughed to myself. I was invisible and touchable as light.

"Hey, girl!" I called.

She turned a page of
People en Español.
There was more intrigue in those pages than in me, the ghost. She licked a finger and turned another page. I blew my cold breath on her and she shuddered, then got up and put on the sweater that hung on a chair, and returned to reading. The girl couldn't keep her eyes off the dudes in those pages!

"You remember me?" I asked.

She turned the page of the magazine.

Speed reader,
I thought. I shrugged my shoulders and swung around to size up the place. It was sorry; business was nonexistent. Even some of the candles were drooping. The plastic flowers were faded. The ceramic pots were ready to crumble back into clay. I
also noticed that there was a rack of cards—birthday, anniversary, wedding announcements. I wondered if there was a Sorry-Your-Son-Was-Stabbed Card. I would have looked except, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the dude with yellow shoes pass by in a hurry. He was dressed in the same pants but he was bundled up in a Raiders jacket that was two sizes too large. Yellow shoes and a black-and-silver jacket? The dude had no sense of color coordination, definitely no Señor GQ.

"
Cabrón,
" I hissed, my hands closing into fists.

It's you.

I flew through the glass door and bounced toward the dude. I sidled up to him—it was him all right, the one with the mean face of a teenage rat. He had sharp front teeth and narrow eyes charged with the red of spilled blood. His hair was slicked back, oily. He was exactly as I remembered, but taller and leaner, as if what he ate went right through him and down the toilet.

"You're the one!" I accused.

He kept walking.

"How come?" I asked.

He slowed to a stop in front of a
panadería
with its oven of bread smells wafting from inside. His eyes locked on the gingerbread pig cookies. His sneaky attention then wheeled to a mother and a boy, cookie in hand, coming out of the bakery. He had the look of a lowlife ready to snag the treat from the child's hand.