Juice

Voices running through my head. Get me high, they infiltrate. Get me faded, they plot and scheme. Let's smoke that fool for whatever reason. Let's jack that punk for whatever reason.

"You want anything? Candy bar? Soda?" The Detective fetched a manila folder stuffed with paperwork from the dented metal table of the Madison Street Jail Interrogation Room. I gazed at the badge clipped to his belt and the police-issue Glock stuffed in a holster almost as worn as his blue jeans. The boxed room reeked of sweat and piss. The cracked plastic chair I sat in scratched through my baggy black shorts at my thighs.

"Alright, Fernando." He patted the folder in his hand. "We’ll talk more when I get back."

You listen to the voices. You listen because they keep you alive. They teach you the law of the jungle -- even the predator can become prey. Whether a jungle of vines and trees, or a jungle of steel and concrete, same law, only different animals.

The Detective left and I scanned the room. Scuffmarks and graffiti bruised the white-wash slapped onto the walls. West Side Crips was carved into one wall. Wedgewood and El Jefe penciled on another wall, Pheoniquera traced by an inky finger beneath. Etched into the tabletop, Hollywood.

Hollywood. I wouldn’t be in this shit if it wasn’t for them. Wait. Hold up. Rewind to one week earlier.

One Week Earlier

I smacked the payphone’s receiver into the dial pad. I had a deal lined-up for an ounce of Peruvian flake and was waiting for the call in front of Baja Market off Roosevelt and Fifth Street, but my connect was lagging on the rebound.

When the call did come, it meant five hundred before the end of the day. Times that by three times a week, minus a five hundred cut for Hollywood, and it explained why running ounces was business as usual in South Phoenix.

"I got the juice, I got the juice."

Across the parking lot, the Juiceman tap danced on the peeling asphalt. The old homeless black man in the frayed tweed suit repeated the lyric again and again in rhythm to his dance. His oily face and hands glistened in the Arizona heat.

I hung up the payphone and wiped the sweat from my brow. The heat was unbearable, as if God held a magnifying glass over the city. An American flag and Mexican flag hung side-by-side from the store roof; a dust devil danced for a giant mural of Chicanismo spray-painted across the front wall. In front of the phone, a deep blood stain in the sidewalk.

"Business as usual?"

From around the side of the store appeared Ricky, the leader of Hollywood. A white Diamondbacks baseball cap was tilted low on his brow, covering his bug-eyes. Stroll came next -- the fattest vato in Hollywood. They called him that because the gordo never ran, just strolled. Lil Joker followed, a tiny, paper-thin vato who looked like a weasel and always talked pedo.

"What do you want, Ricky."

Ricky put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed tight. "Just checking up on my boy, Fernando," he smiled, and the others smiled too -- (la sonrisa de los chacales!). "You got my ferria yet, homes?"

"Why you always sweating me, esé?" I shrugged off his arm. "You’re gonna get your money."

"I know I will," Ricky slapped his arm back around my shoulders. "It’s just a matter of when, eh?" He let loose of me. "Just don’t make me wait too long." They disappeared back around the side of the store.

Ricky had it in for me since the day they jumped me into the gang six years ago in his backyard. Stroll and Lil Joker wouldn’t make a move, so he swung first. This other vato who was getting jumped with me, El Cid, pushed me out of the way and took the blow instead. I threw a retaliatory punch, landing it dead on Ricky’s jaw. His head snapped back and his eyes nearly popped out; he tripped over his feet and fell flat on his back to the laughter and ridicule of the others.

I never really knew El Cid. I wanted to ask him why he took the punch for me, but I never got the chance.

The phone rang. I looked to the receiver, staring at the scarred black plastic casing. It rang six times -- a ring for every year I had been in Hollywood.

"Yeah," I answered. "Twenty minutes. Yeah, see you then."

*****

I got a call for an order from one of my regulars that night -- a weto named Henry who acted Chicano and went to some ghetto tech school for business, the type that taught you how to be the next part-time manager for McDonalds.

Classes had just let out and all the students -- white, brown, black, yellow -- walked to their cars. They carried books in their arms or backpacks slung over their shoulders with pride. I smiled and showed my pride too, but they hurried around me with downcast eyes.

A bald, black Security Guard built like a bull stood across the tarmac, his thick, powerful arms folded over his chest. Dressed in sunglasses, tan khakis and a collared white t-shirt with Security in bold black letters silk screened across the front, he stared in my direction.

"What up, esé." Henry appeared from the crowd. He moved in close, his voice hushed. "You get it?"

"Yeah, I got it."

"Lets go to my car. I know this vato throwing a house party tonight. You wanna come? That’s where I’m going right now. There’ll probably be a lot of people looking to score."

We rolled to a pueblo-style house with flaking stucco and a faded red tile roof. The sun-beaten door stuck Henry’s knuckles with splinters as he knocked, and he flinched his hand away. The door opened and smoke poured out. In the threshold stood Henry’s camarada, Victor, another vato who swore he was in the mix.

"Who’s he?" Victor said.

"This is my homeboy, Fernando," Henry said. Victor wasn’t impressed. "The one with the talco," Henry said in a hushed voice.

"Oh, right! Shit, my bad. Come in."

Victor led us into the living room, disappearing in back with Henry. I waded through the party-goers dancing to Atomic Dog and wedged myself into a couch. Empty forties of Budweiser, Olde English and Saint Ides lined a coffee table in front of me. I took a roach from an ashtray crammed with snubbed joints and lit it, hitting it a few times. The roach singed my fingers and I flicked it at the ashtray. I leaned back, muscling my way deeper into the couch, throwing hard stares at the putos sitting to either side of me. They looked away and made room.

Time passed slowly, or maybe quickly. I didn’t care. The weed worked its magic and numbed my body and dulled my mind. The song ended, seamlessly replaced by others; the party-goers danced, drank forties, and got high, hitting me up for borregos of coke on the side. All was well in the land.

A loud crash in the kitchen slapped me awake. Pots and pans and silverware clattered to the floor; the table and chairs slammed around. I sprang up and rushed to the kitchen with some of the party-goers. Henry and Victor wrestled around, jabbing pot shots into the others face. They shoved apart and Henry snatched up a large kitchen knife from the floor.

"You’re dead, motherfucker!" Henry waved the knife through the air. Victor’s eyes locked onto the blade and he froze. I stood waiting with the crowd, frozen too. But then El Cid’s face appeared where Victor’s had been, and a lifetime of guilt clenched my chest and stomach, squeezing the apprehension from me.

I charged Henry and pinned his arms from behind. He wrenched his knife-wielding arm free and slashed at my leg, slicing open my pocket and knocking me to the ground. The coke in my pocket spilled across the floor.

"That’s enough!" I yelled. Henry saw what he had done and dropped the knife. He looked to me, to the stunned faces of the party-goers standing in the doorway behind him, and ran.

"Thanks, man," Victor slumped back against a counter, still shaking a little. Some of the party-goers came up and asked if he was okay.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I don’t know." Victor straightened up. "He said I took too much coke and got pissed."

*****

The next day, I was back at Baja Market. I needed to make up for the lost coke and the money I owed Ricky. As I waited for the call, I couldn’t help but stare at the blood stain in front of the phone. It had been years since I thought about El Cid.

"Business as usual?"

From around the side of the store appeared Ricky and the others.

"If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to ditch me and shit?" Ricky slid his arm around my shoulder and I tensed. "But you wouldn’t do that, eh?"

"You’re late on your payment, homes," Stroll cut in.

"Yeah, you’re late, homes," Ricky squeezed my shoulders hard. "You owe me a grand now, esé."

"There was a muleta last night," I said. "Some shit went down, bad, and..."

Ricky let go of me, shaking his head. The phone rang. I looked to it, then back to Ricky. It rang again.

"Saved by the bell," Ricky smiled. "Well answer it, puto."

I answered, and after a minute of yeahs and uh-huhs, I hung up.

"That was my connect," I said. "I’m hooking up three ounces right now."

"You have til tonight."

Ricky turned his back and walked away. As I watched him and the others disappear back around the side of the store, I wished I had my .45. I didn’t go around strapped unless I was going to use it because the cops hassled me sometimes.

The .45 would’ve solved my problems then and there. I had lied about the three ounces. After two years of doing business, my connect cut me off. I had talked to him earlier; told him that I had five hundred and change, and needed the rest fronted. He had to think about it. When he called back, the answer was no. Just like that, after two years. If I had nine hundred, he would’ve done it, but not for five.

Henry. He was my ticket out. It was his fault that I lost the coke in the first place. I could tell him to make up for it, he owed me four hundred. I knew his parents floated the bill for school, and he could get the money from them.

*****

El cuento de Cuentos

I had heard the story about El Cid. The story of stories. Ricky told me everything, his version at least. El Cid was at a house-party when it all went down. Some fine ruca started checking him out from across the room. She strutted over to the table, bending over to get a roach from an ashtray crammed with snubbed joints, her jeans stretching tight across her ass. She lit the roach and offered it. Four roaches later, they were in a bedroom, naked in the bed.

"What the fuck?" her man staggered in drunk holding a combat knife; some soldier fucked in the head after returning home from Iraq. "That’s my woman, you piece of shit!"

He stumbled forward, eyes bloodshot and crazed, whistling a deadly ballad with the blade. El Cid rolled out of the bed onto the floor as the other party-goers rushed into the room. The soldier chopped into El Cid's arm, spraying blood into the soldier’s face and eyes, giving El Cid time to jump up. El Cid slammed his fists into the soldier’s face, one after the other, even after the soldier fell to the floor. The soldier’s face turned to red and the room filled with a wet smacking sound, but El Cid didn't care because all he could see was that red, and soon it became all he knew.

The party-goers pulled El Cid off the soldier. He stood, naked, with his fists held out in front of him, the soldier’s face stuck to the ends of his hands. The ruca had bailed during the fight, disappearing with El Cid’s coke and cash.

*****

I was with El Cid at Baja Market the day Ricky took his life. Word got back through the grapevine about what had happened. The ruca was holed up somewhere in Glendale, talking about how she was down for El Jefe -- a Hollywood rival -- and was looking to set us all up with a ticket to Lugos.

"So what’re you gonna do?" I asked, watching the Juiceman tap dance in the parking lot.

El Cid stared at his stitched forearm. "I’m dropping the flag, esé."

He wanted out of Hollywood. It was the scar on his arm that reminded him.

"I’m gonna go legit and learn about business.”

I knew it was just talk and humored him by listening, but it put the idea in my head and made me wonder, too.

The Juiceman tap-danced across the parking lot over to us. "I got the juice, baby." He bowed and curtsied to El Cid; stuck out his hand. "Show the Juiceman some love."

El Cid clapped and tossed the old man a five as Ricky and the others walked up to the payphone with smiling faces and surrounded us.

"Business as usual?" Ricky asked me and I nodded, but before I could say anything, he looked to El Cid, smiling. "El Cid... qué onda, esé? I thought you was El Jefe now?"

"El Jefe?" El Cid smiled back. "Man, you trippin’, homes? Them putos want me dead."

Ricky pulled a .38 and El Cid's smile plastered the pavement along with half his head.

Ricky went to pull the trigger again but I snatched his arm and held it in check. He wrenched his arm away. "Y’Que, pendejo!" he wheeled the gun on me and smiled. "Y’Que?"

Stroll and Lil Joker had ducked around to the side of the store and were yelling at Ricky to follow. Ricky grinned, turned about face, and vanished around the side of the store. I stared down at the rest of El Cid’s head spilling out onto the pavement; knelt down next to his body. Police sirens wailed in the distance and I ran. Gangs were like thieves and had no honor. El Cid was honorable and I admired him for it. Ricky and the others only saw it as weakness.

*****

Ricky said I had until tonight, but I knew it wasn’t enough time. I ducked back to my pad, a shit-hole studio apartment I had been renting for a few months. Henry was a push-over, but if I was going to lay some heat on him, better I do it proper. I reached under my mattress and tensed up on the .45 stashed there.

Chale! The voices screamed at me as I pulled out the gun and stared at it. I looked to the simple dresser on the other side of my room and the glass-encased candle atop it depicting the Virgin Mary. I caught sight of my reflection in the long mirror leaning against the wall at the foot of the bed. I stared into the mirror, into a copy of my face, and tensed up on the gun some more. El Cid’s face appeared in the mirror and frowned.

I slipped the gun into my waistline and ran away. I hit the streets, peeling my t-shirt from my skin. The heat lingered at night like a frying pan taken off the burner to cool.

Twin circles of light flashed across me from up the street. I straightened up, straining to see the occupants inside the glasshouse ‘77 Chevy Monte Carlo with lifts as it turned onto my block and stopped. I knew what came next -- squealing tires, car speeds toward me, gun emerges from the passenger side. Take cover! the voices screamed, but I couldn’t move. The car passed and I kept walking. My pad wasn’t safe anymore and I needed a new place to crash.

I skulked through the neighborhood, past sagging, pueblo-style houses; past narrow dirt alleys lined with trash; past a playground tagged in graffiti where a cement table cluttered with empty 40’s warned of a gang’s passing. Drop the flag, esé, drop the flag! I kept walking. Vendidos!

"Get the fuck out of my head!" I ran, but the voices stayed with me, El Cid’s the loudest of all.

I went to the tech school to find Henry, but the place was closed up, so I slipped around behind the building to wait out the night until the next day. There was a small concrete building in back that I had seen the janitor use sometimes, but the vato hadn’t been around for a while, probably laid off. The window was cracked open, so I opened it and crawled in, huddling against the cold wall.

I looked at the .45.

Drop the flag! The voices kept screaming. Pull a ghost.

I knew the movidas -- blood-in, blood-out. Por vida es siempre. For life is forever. Vida Loca. Crazy life. Street life. They weren’t gonna let me go.

A soldados, a soldier, is one for life. Being in a gang, you’re in for life.

My father used to run with Logan Heights in San Diego. He told me he knew I’d probably turn out like him, but he always wanted me to be the one to break the cycle and make something of myself. There were better things available to me in life. All I had to do was look for them.

All soldados who become fathers don’t want their sons to turn out like them.

*****

The Next Day

The heat rippled in the air like waves on the ocean. I spotted Henry leaving a classroom. I ducked back around the side of the school, reaching into my waistline for the .45, but my hand wouldn’t move. Henry walked out into the parking lot to his car and drove away.

"Just what in the hell are you doing?" the Security Guard said from behind me. "You a student here?"

I couldn’t speak.

"What, cat got your tongue?"

"Nah, I ain’t no student!" I finally managed.

A tiny gold plastic nametag was pinned to his t-shirt that read Mr. Freeman.

"Then what the fuck you doing here?"

"I don’t know.”

"You here to sign up for classes?"

"No."

“I caught you sleeping in the janitor’s building this morning,” Freeman said and my heart sank. I didn’t say anything, felt like running. “Don’t you have a place to stay? You don’t look homeless.”

“No. I just…” but I couldn’t think straight, just looked down at the ground.

“What is it? Family problems?”

I didn’t answer.

“It’s okay, cuz, I understand,” Freeman finally said.

“So why didn’t you kick me out?”

“You weren’t hurting nothing. Shit, the janitor got laid off anyhow and nobody uses it anymore. And as you can see, this ain’t exactly Ivy League around here, so it ain’t like nobody gonna care anyway. Still, if anybody finds out, it’d be better if you were enrolled as a student.”

“As a student?”

“Yeah, cuz. It ain’t like it’s gonna cost you anything. You just sign up for Financial Aid. Look, you want to stay, I don’t have a problem with it, but I got to cover my ass if they find out and it’s the only way. You understand, right?”

"Yeah, alright,” I said.

The voices grew silent.

*****

Freeman set me up with a sleeping bag and pillow. There was a bathroom to shower, piss and shit.

The next morning I went to take a shower, when the .45 fell out of my waistline. I snatched it up, staring long and hard at the gun. I dropped it in the trash, covering the trash over it.

"Hey Fernando!" Henry spotted me leaving the janitor’s office. "Hey, where you been? I’ve been trying to call you like crazy, homes. Hey, you got any blow, like a twenty? I’m a little short on cash."

"Motherfucker, you got huevos. You owe me big time for all the coke I lost at the party the other night."

"Man, how you gonna do me like that."

"Get the fuck away from me, pendejo!"

"Calm down, man. You don’t have to get so pissed." Henry made the smart move and backed off. "You know, your crew’s been looking for you. They’ve been saying you forgot your homeboys. But they said it doesn’t work like that. They said you can never be through with the streets, esé, until the day you die. Until the streets are through with you."

"What the fuck do you know about it?" I said.

"You know what? I think they’d wanna know where you’ve been."

"Fucking relaje!" I lunged in at Henry with a punch to the dome that knocked him to the ground. I kicked his ribs, my shoe thumping his body like the sound a stick makes smacking into a piñata.

"Get off him," Freeman ran up and shoved me aside.

"You’re fucking dead, man!" Henry got up and ran away.

I walked off, cradling my hand because I dusted my knuckles socking Henry.

"Hey, cuz," Freeman yelled after me. "I wanna talk to you." I ignored him and continued walking, but he caught up to me. "I said I wanna talk to you."

He grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. "Mutha fucka, you gonna hear what I have to say!"

I threw a punch at him, lashing out with all the anger that had built up over the few days in that single, balled fist. He caught my arm and put me in a bear hug.

"Let go of me, puto," I struggled.

"Enough of this shit," he squeezed tighter, lifting me off my feet. "I said enough!"

I stopped struggling. "Let go of me then." He let go and I ran.

"You better take a good look around you, cuz," he yelled after me. "Ain’t nobody else lining up to help you. This is your only ticket out."

*****

Voices ran through my head, all jumbled together like a thousand radios tuned to different stations playing at the same time. I walked the streets, listening to the voices, trying to make sense of them, trying to figure things out. I don’t know how long I walked. It could have been an hour, two hours, or two minutes. When the voices quieted and the world spun back into focus, I found myself standing in the Baja Market parking lot, listening to the Juiceman tap dancing on the street corner.

"I got the juice, I got the juice," the Juiceman sang, his face glistening with sweat. I walked over to the payphone, to the stain in the pavement that was El Cid’s legacy.

"I don’t know what to do." I knelt down and touched the stain as a warm breeze blew through the parking lot. The pavement was cold, offering no sympathy. "Tell me what to do."

I stood up and looked around. The sun had nearly set, eclipsing the city in a limbo of orange-hued haze. I entered the market and headed to the coolers in back, the old Chuntaros in a white straw hat eyeing me suspiciously from behind the counter. I opened the cooler and reached inside for a forty of Budweiser.

A car rumbled into the parking lot and screeched to a stop in front of the store. I peered up over the aisles of food racks between me and the front of the store, ducking down as Ricky, Stroll and Lil Joker jumped out of the car wearing black ski-masks and rushed inside the store.

Sweat chilled my skin and my body tingled. Henry had tailed me and snitched where I was at. Ricky ran into the store first, waving a 9mm at the Chuntaros. Stroll entered next, strapped with a .38, followed by Lil Joker.

"Meter! Meter!" Ricky yelled at the Chuntaros and the old man lay down on the floor. Ricky faced my direction, shouting to me over the food racks. "We know you’re back there, esé." I stood and held up my hands. "Bring him over here."

Stroll hurried over to me as fast as his puerco legs would carry him. He nudged me toward the front with the .38 and I froze. "Move it, puto," he commanded, shoving me hard toward the front.

"Get the ferria from the register," Ricky said. Lil Joker ran behind the counter, opened the register and started shoveling money into a brown paper bag, kicking the Chuntaros in the stomach, who wheezed a painful moan. Ricky grinned at me as Stroll gave me a final shove to the front of the store.

"Get on your knees," Ricky told me and I froze again. He bashed my shoulder with the 9mm and I buckled, dropping down on one knee. "You should’ve never left us, homes." He leveled the gun at my head. "We can’t let you live. You know too much."

Lil Joker finished bagging the money as Ricky turned to Stroll. "Give me your gun." Stroll gave up the .38 and Ricky turned to Lil Joker. "Give me the money."

"What?" Lil Joker said. Ricky wheeled the .38 on Lil Joker.

"I said give it to me!"

Lil Joker scowled and thrust the bag into Ricky’s hand. Ricky snatched the bag and leaned over the counter, looking to me. He jerked the trigger on the .38 and the Chuntaros yelped, the fiery explosion blasting through the store. Ricky slipped the .38 into his pocket and tossed the bag of money at my feet.

"You shouldn’t have killed the old man like that," he smiled. "What’d he ever do to you?" He turned to Stroll again. "Go get the security tape from the back."

Stroll disappeared into the back of the store, returning with the tape. He showed it to Ricky. "Got it, homes."

"Put it in the car," Ricky said. Stroll hurried outside and Ricky yelled after him. "Al alba los perros." Ricky grinned at me again. "When the cops come and find you with the money and the murder weapon..." He patted at the bulge in his pocket where he had the .38. "... and find the old man with this gun..." He flashed the 9mm at me. "... they’ll think you tried to rob the place and you and the old man shot each other." He removed his ski-mask -- "open and shut case" -- and leveled the 9mm back at my head. "I hope leaving us was worth it."

I stared into the gun barrel, into fate. Ricky chambered the gun and the bullet jammed.

"Fucking piece of shit," he spat, fidgeting with the slide in a clumsy attempt to unjam the gun.

Something sprang to life inside me. Get up! The voices, they empowered me, shouting at me, screaming for me to take action. Permanezca vivo!

I leapt up and launched a right hook that sent Lil Joker hurtling backwards into the counter. Ricky dropped the 9mm and yanked the .38 from his pocket, but I was quicker and sprang up into his chest with my good shoulder, knocking the .38 from his hand. He crashed to the floor as I dived for the .38 at the same time Lil Joker recovered and grabbed up the 9mm, his tiny hands fumbling with the slide.

The jammed bullet dislodged and Lil Joker smiled triumphantly, until he realized I had beaten him to the draw. His eyes fixated on the gun, the last thing he saw, his smile fading to memory.

I stood over Ricky and aimed the .38 down at his face. The car outside revved up and peeled out in the parking lot as Stroll made his escape.

My eyes never left Ricky.

"Do it!" he screamed. "C’mon, do it! It’s your only way out." He lunged for the 9mm and I pulled the trigger. The muzzle of the .38 exploded fire once more, and Ricky’s body went limp.

*****

La vida Pasa

So that's how it all went down. I try to tell myself I did what had to be done -- try not to wonder if I could’ve done things differently to change how everything went down that night. In the end, I’m grateful it happened the way it did.

In the end, I just want my second chance back.

"You ready to talk now, Fernando?" The Detective reentered the interrogation room, breaking my trance on the gang name etched into the tabletop.

I wonder if I can get it back.

"Yeah," I looked up at him. "I’m ready to talk."

I told the cops everything that had happened that night. The cops didn’t believe me until they caught up with Stroll and found the security tape.

A week later, I was standing in front of the tech school, nervous about being there, working up the courage to go inside.

I revisited Baja Market later that day. The Juiceman was tap dancing and singing his ditty on the street corner. I walked over to the payphone, to the stain in the pavement. I looked inside the store, at the old Chuntaros behind the counter, his shoulder bandaged and in a sling. He nodded to me, raising his bandaged shoulder in salute.

I told the cops almost everything. I didn’t tell them how that night really ended. I didn’t tell them because I knew if I had, I would’ve lost my second chance.

"I got the juice, baby," the Juiceman stopped dancing as I walked past. I turned around and faced him.

And that second chance was the whole reason for doing what I did.

"The Juiceman saw what went down that night. The Juiceman saw what went down with your boy, El Cid." He stuck out his hand, gesturing for me to do the same. "C’mon, get it out there, baby," he smiled. "Show the Juiceman some love." I hesitated, then stuck out my hand. "Yeah, there it is."

He slipped me some skin and pointed down at my hand. I looked down at my hand, then back up at him.

"You got the juice now."