The Blue Knight (12 page)

“Are these real big-league cleats?” asked Nacho as I adjusted the batting helmet for him and fixed the chin strap which I knew he’d throw away as soon as the other kids told him big leaguers don’t wear chin straps.

“Look! Hot pants!” María squealed, holding them up against her adolescent body. They were sporty, blue denim with a bib, and patch pockets.

“Hot pants?” Cruz said. “Oh, no!”

“They even wear them to school, Papa. They do. Ask Bumper!”

“Ask Bumper,” Cruz grumbled and drank some more beer.

The big kids were there then too, Linda, George, and Alice, all high school teenagers, and naturally I bought clothes for them. I got George a box of mod-colored long-sleeved shirts and from the look in his eyes I guess I couldn’t have picked anything better.

After all the kids thanked me a dozen times, Socorro ordered them to put everything away and called us to dinner. We sat close together on different kinds of chairs at the huge rectangular oak table that weighed a ton. I know because I helped Cruz carry it in here twelve years ago when there was no telling how many kids were going to be sitting around it.

The youngest always said the prayers aloud. They crossed themselves and Ralph said grace, and they crossed themselves again and I was drooling because the
chiles rellenos
were on a huge platter right in front of me. The big chiles were stuffed with cheese and fried in a light fluffy batter, and before I could help myself, Alice was serving me and my plate was filled before any one of those kids took a thing for themselves. Their mother and father never said anything to them, they just did things like that.

“You
do
have
cilantro
,” I said, salivating with a vengeance now. I knew I smelled that wonderful spice.

Marta, using her fingers, sprinkled a little extra
cilantro
over my
carnitas
when I said that, and I bit into a soft, handmade, flour tortilla crammed with
carnitas
and Socorro’s own
chile
sauce.

“Well, Bumper?” said Cruz after I’d finished half a plateful which took about thirty-five seconds.

I moaned and rolled my eyeballs and everybody laughed because they knew that look so well.

“You see, Marta,” said Socorro. “You wouldn’t hate to cook so much if you could cook for somebody like Bumper who appreciates your work.”

I grinned with a hog happy look, washing down some
chile relleno
and enchilada with three big swigs of cold beer. “Your mother is an artist!”

I finished three helpings of
carnitas
, the tender little chunks of pork which I covered with Socorro’s
chile
and
cilantro
and onion. Then, after everyone was finished and there were nine pairs of brown eyes looking at me in wonder, I heaped the last three
chiles rellenos
on my plate and rolled one up with the last flour tortilla and the last few bites of
carnitas
left in the bowl, and nine pairs of brown eyes got wider and rounder.

“
Por Dios,
I thought I made enough for twenty,” said Socorro.

“You did, you did, Sukie,” I said, enjoying being the whole show now, and finishing it in three big bites. “I’m just extra hungry tonight, and you made it extra good, and there’s no sense leaving leftovers around to spoil.” With that I ate half a
chile relleno
and swallowed some beer and looked around at all the eyes, and Nacho burped and groaned. We all busted up, Ralph especially, who fell off his chair onto the floor holding his stomach and laughing so hard I was afraid he’d get sick. It was a hell of a thing when you think of it, entertaining people by being a damn glutton, just to get attention.

After dinner we cleared the table and I got roped into a game of Scrabble with Alice and Marta and Nacho with the others kibitzing, and all the time I was swilling cold beer with an occasional shot of mescal that Cruz brought out in the open now. By nine o’clock when the kids had to go to bed I was pretty well lubricated.

They all kissed me good night except George and Nacho, who shook hands, and there were no arguments about going to bed, and fifteen minutes later it was still and quiet upstairs. I’d never seen Cruz or Socorro spank any of them. Of course the older ones spanked hell out of the younger ones, I’d seen that often enough. After all, everyone in this world needs a thumping once in a while.

We took the leaf out of the table and replaced the lace tablecloth and the three of us went into the living room. Cruz was pretty well bombed out, and after Socorro complained, he decided not to have another beer. I had a cold one in my right hand, and the last of the mescal in my left.

Cruz sat next to Socorro on the couch and he rubbed his face which was probably numb as hell. He gave her a kiss on the neck.

“Get out of here,” she grumbled. “You smell like a stinking wino.”

“How can I smell like a wino. I haven’t had any wine,” said Cruz.

“Remember how we used to sit like this after dinner back in the old days,” I said, realizing how much the mescal affected me, because they were both starting to look a little fuzzy.

“Remember how little and skinny Sukie was,” said Cruz, poking her arm.

“I’m going to let you have it in a minute,” said Socorro, raising her hand which was a raw, worn-out-looking hand for a girl her age. She wasn’t quite forty years old.

“Sukie was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen,” I said.

“I guess she was,” said Cruz with a silly grin.

“And still is,” I added. “And Cruz was the handsomest guy I ever saw outside of Tyrone Power or maybe Clark Gable.”

“You really think Tyrone Power was better looking?” said Cruz, grinning again as Socorro shook her head, and to me he honestly didn’t look a bit different now than he ever had, except for the gray hair. Damn him for staying young, I thought.

“Speaking of pretty girls,” said Socorro, “let’s hear about your new plans with Cassie.”

“Well, like I told you, she was gonna go up north to an apartment and get squared away at school. Then after the end of May when Cruz and me have our twenty years, she’d fly back here and we’d get married. Now I’ve decided to cut it short. I’ll work tomorrow and the next day and run my vacation days and days off together to the end of the month when I officially retire. That way I can leave with Cassie, probably Sunday morning or Monday and we’ll swing through Las Vegas and get married on the way.”

“Oh, Bumper, we wanted to be with you when you get married,” said Socorro, looking disappointed.

“What the hell, at our age getting married ain’t no big thing,” I said.

“We love her, Bumper,” said Socorro. “You’re lucky, very lucky. She’ll be perfect for you.”

“What a looker.” Cruz winked and tried to whistle, but he was too drunk.

Socorro shook her head and said,
“sinvergüenza,”
and we both laughed at him.

“What’re you going to do Friday?” asked Socorro. “Just go into rollcall and stand up and say you’re retiring and this is your last day?”

“Nope, I’m just gonna fade away. I’m not telling a soul and I hope you haven’t said anything to anyone, Cruz.”

“Nothing,” said Cruz, and he burped.

“I’m just cutting out like for my regular two days off, then I’m sending a registered letter to Personnel Division and one to the captain. I’ll just sign all my retirement papers and mail them in. I can give my badge and I.D. card to Cruz before I leave and have him turn them in for me so I won’t have to go back at all.”

“You’ll have to come back to L.A. for your retirement party,” said Cruz. “We’re sure as hell going to want to throw a retirement party for you.”

“Thanks, Cruz, but I never liked retirement parties anyway. In fact I think they’re miserable. I appreciate the thought but no party for me.”

“Just think,” said Socorro. “To be starting a new life! I wish Cruz could leave the job too.”

“You said it,” said Cruz, his eyes glassy though he sat up straight. “But with all our kids, I’m a thirty-year man. Thirty years, that’s a lifetime. I’ll be an old man when I pull the pin.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m lucky,” I said. “Remember when we were going through the academy, Cruz? We thought we were old men then, running with all those kids twenty-one and twenty-two years old. Here you were thirty-one, the oldest guy in the class, and I was close behind you. Remember Mendez always called us
elefante y ratoncito
?”

“The elephant and the mouse,” Cruz giggled.

“The two old men of the class. Thirty years old and I thought I knew something then. Hell, you’re still a baby at that age. We were both babies.”

“We were babies,
’mano
,” said Cruz. “But only because we hadn’t been out there yet.” Cruz waved his hand toward the streets. “You grow up fast out there and learn too much. It’s no damn good for a man to learn as much as you learn out there. It ruins the way you think about things, and the way you feel. There’re certain things you should believe and if you stay out there for twenty years you can’t believe them anymore. That’s not good.”

“You still believe them, don’t you, Cruz?” I asked, and Socorro looked at us like we were two raving drunks, which we probably were, but we understood, Cruz and me.

“I still believe them, Bumper, because I want to. And I have Sukie and the kids. I can come home, and then the other isn’t real. You’ve had no one to go to. Thank God for Cassie.”

“I’ve got to go fix school lunches. Excuse me, Bumper,” said Socorro, and she gave us that shake of the head which meant, it’s time to leave the drunken cops to their talk. But Cruz hardly ever got drunk, and she didn’t really begrudge him, even though he had trouble with his liver.

“I never could tell you how glad we were when you first brought Cassie here for dinner, Bumper. Socorro and me, we stayed awake in bed that night and talked about it and how God must’ve sent her, even though you don’t believe in God.”

“I believe in the
gods,
you know that,” I grinned, gulping the beer after I took the last sip of the mescal.

“There’s only one God, goddamnit,” said Cruz.

“Even your God has three faces, goddamnit,” I said, and gave him a glance over the top of my beer bottle, making him laugh,

“Bumper, I’m trying to talk to you seriously.” And his eyes turned down at the corners like always. I couldn’t woof him anymore when his eyes did that.

“Okay.”

“Cassie’s the answer to a prayer.”

“Why did you waste all your prayers on me?”

“Why do you think,
pendejo
? You’re my brother,
mi hermano.
”

That made me put the beer down, and I straightened up and looked at his big eyes. Cruz was struggling with the fog of the mescal and beer because he wanted to tell me something. I wondered how in hell he had ever made the Department physical. He was barely five-eight in his bare feet, and he was so damn skinny. He’d never gained a pound, but outside of Esteban, he had the finest-looking face you would ever see.

“I didn’t know you thought that much about Cassie and me.”

“Of course I did. After all, I prayed her here for you. Don’t you see what you were heading for? You’re fifty years old, Bumper. You and some of the other old beat cops’ve been the
machos
of the streets all these years, but Lord, I could just see you duking it out with some young stud or chasing somebody out there and all of a sudden just lying down on that street to die. You realize how many of our classmates had heart attacks already?”

“Part of being a policeman,” I shrugged.

“Not to mention some asshole blowing you up,” said Cruz. “You remember Driscoll? He had a heart attack just last month and he’s not nearly as fat as you, and a few years younger, and I’ll bet he never does anything harder than lift a pencil. Like you today, all alone, facing a mob, like a rookie! What the hell, Bumper, you think I want to be a pallbearer for a guy two hundred and eighty pounds?”

“Two seventy-five.”

“When Cassie came, I said, ‘Thank God, now Bumper’s got a chance.’ I worried though. I knew you were smart enough to see how much woman you had, but I was afraid that
puta
had too strong a grip on you.”

“Was it
you
that kept getting me assigned to the north end districts all the time? Lieutenant Hilliard kept telling me it was a mistake every time I bitched about it.”

“Yeah, I did it. I tried to get you away from your beat, but I gave up. You just kept coming back down anyway and that meant nobody was patrolling the north end, so I didn’t accomplish anything. I can guess what it was to you, being
el campeón
out there, having people look at you the way they do on your beat.”

“Yeah, well it isn’t so much,” I said, nervously fidgeting with the empty bottle.

“You know what happens to old cops who stay around the streets too long.”

“What?” I said, and the enchilada caught me and bit into the inside of my gut.

“They get too old to do police work and they become
characters
. That’s what I’d hate to see. You just becoming an old character, and maybe getting yourself hurt bad out there before you realize you’re too old. Just too old.”

“I’m not that old yet. Damn it, Cruz!”

“No, not for civilian life. You have lots of good years ahead of you. But for a warrior, it’s time to quit,
’mano
. I was worried about her going up there and you coming along in a few weeks. I was afraid the
puta
would get you alone when Cassie wasn’t there. I’m so damn glad you’re leaving with Cassie.”

“So am I, Cruz,” I said, lowering my voice like I was afraid to let myself hear it. “You’re right. I’ve half thought of these things. You’re right. I think I’d blow my brains out if I ever got as lonely as some I’ve seen, like some of those people on my beat, homeless wandering people, that don’t belong anywhere. . . .”

“That’s it, Bumper. There’s no place for a man alone, not really. You can get along without love when you’re young and strong. Some guys can, guys like you. Me, I never could. And nobody can get along without it when he gets old. You shouldn’t be afraid to love, ’
mano.
”