Iron River Page 3

  I prayed the rosary a million times before with Grandma.

  Sometimes it’s easy to think about the prayers and pray real hard, like when Grandpa was in the hospital with his stroke so he would get well. Other times I think about everything else but the Padre Nuestros and Diós Te Salve Marías. I think about Cruz watching TV in the front room and my little sister Dorothy playing with her dolls and why don’t Cruz and Dorothy have to pray too? Those are the times I look at each santo and ask them to tell God not to be mad at me for thinking about every other thing besides him.

  I’m an altar boy at the San Gabriel Mission. Once in awhile, I think about dying for my faith. And once in a while I think about what I’d do if a communist barged into the church during Mass and aimed a gun at Father Simon when he’s holding up the bread or wine. I’d see the gun and jump up just in time to take the bullet meant for Father Simon. That would get me straight into heaven and it wouldn’t hurt as much as being flayed.

  Like I said, some nights I have a heck of a time praying, but that night the prayers came hot and heavy. I prayed for the poor hobo and wondered what sins he committed in his life. If he stole anything, I’m sure God would forgive him because he was poor. So I prayed that God would let him into heaven. And if he had to go to Purgatory first, I asked God to let him slide and I would suffer for him since I was the one who put him there in the first place.

  But if I have to suffer, don’t make me be flayed.

  Cruz is probably going to blab on me anyway so I might as well tell you now that I still wet my bed. I had to start sharing a room with him two years ago. Cruz’ dad Lalo is Mom and Betty’s brother, but Lalo’s a mean drunk so we don’t have much to do with him if we can help it. When he beat up Cruz one time too much and too bad, Grandma took Cruz in, and he’s slept here ever since.

  Anyway, every morning I wake up and the sheets are wet and cold and make the whole room stink of pee. I don’t know why I still wet my bed. Mom and Dad took me to the doctor. When I told him I shared the bed with Cruz, the doctor asked me if Cruz ever tried to do anything nasty to me. I got embarrassed from that question and tried to remember if he ever did, but all I could come up with was the times he punched my arm when I said something stupid.

  The doctor told us there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with me and that I would stop sometime. So I sleep with a rubber sheet under my regular sheet. Every morning I have to shower off the smell of pee and take the sheets out to the washing machine in Grandma’s cuartito behind the garage.

  I don’t know if it’s the dream that makes me pee or the pee that makes me have the dream, but the dream’s always the same. I’m sitting on Grandma’s porch in the hobo chair when I hear the train horn extra-loud. I look toward Marco’s house where the roar of the train is coming from. I wonder what train it is because it’s not on schedule.

  Then I see the engine roar past Marco’s coming west way too fast. And that big black engine blowing black smoke over its head like it’s mad at the world. I know it’s going too fast to make the curve but I can’t do anything but watch. And it’s tilting over. I can see the wheels on the other side lifting off the tracks.

  As soon as it passes Marco’s, the engine falls on its side on the rightaway and then starts skidding on the street. Sparks fly into the sky and the train crushes Marco’s house and comes sliding along Main Street towards me. The flying sparks turn into hobos getting thrown around like pieces of torn-up paper. The black train is swallowing houses like a huge, hungry black snake.

  When it eats Danny’s house, I scream but my voice gets drowned out by the train’s horn. The big oak tree in front of Danny’s explodes in a million burning leaves and the engine skids toward me. I try to get up and run but I can’t move, like I’m glued to the hobo chair. I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to block out the engine’s headlight and brace myself for the locomotive. I don’t feel the engine slam into me. Just rough shaking. And all I can hear is the clickety-clack-clickety-clack of the cars when they cross the rail joints. I feel my blood oozing hot down my legs as I’m laying there on Grandma’s porch dying.

  “Get up, Pee Baby!” Cruz shakes me awake, pulls the rags away from the window, and opens it to get in some fresh air. “You pissed the sheets again.” You’d think he’d get tired of saying the same thing every time, but he doesn’t. I turn away from the light and cover my head with the blanket. Right away I smell my pee. My legs feel cold and clammy. When I turn, my hand touches the wet bottom sheet. I uncover myself and sit up. I wonder if I’m ever going to stop wetting the bed. Or having the train dreams.

  “You gotta stop pissing the bed, man. I’m sick of it.” When he says “man,” he doesn’t mean my nickname.

  I get up and take off my pajamas and underwear. I don’t care if I’m naked and Cruz is there. I just want to get the smelly clothes off. I strip the sheets and blankets off the bed and drop them in a pile on the floor. Then I put on my bathrobe and throw my underwear and pajamas on the pile. I carry the bundle out to the cuartito and drop it next to Grandma’s washing machine. I wet the bed so much my mom had to buy three sets of sheets for me.

  Mom and Dad were already gone to work, and Cruz took off after breakfast, but Grandma made it clear I had to stay in the yard the rest of the day. I got dressed, went out to the front porch, and waited for the police to come get me.

  From the front porch, I can look past the tracks and the warehouses with the broken windows and see the San Gabriel Mountains. Up on Mount Wilson, there’s a place that looks just like a heart with an arrow sticking through it. I was sitting in the hobo chair just thinking about how smart God was to make that happen when Danny opened the gate and came into the yard.

  “Hi, Man. What’re you doing?” He seemed like his usual happy self. I wondered how come he wasn’t worried like me.

  “Nothing. Grounded. You?” I got up from the hobo chair. “Aren’t you grounded too?”

  Danny hopped on the low wall of the porch and started hitting his heels against the cement to the beat of a song he must’ve had in his head. He stopped kicking the wall. “Block-grounded. I can go as far as the corners. How far can you go?”

  I pointed to the gate.

  Danny stood up and rubbed his butt like he just remembered he had one. “I got a good whipping last night. It hurt like hell but at least that’s over.” Danny says hell like hey-yell. “I’ve got the block till the cops come get us. What do you think they’re going to do to us?”

  I didn’t care about his sore butt. I was thinking the same thing about the cops. I didn’t want to talk about it though.

  I pointed to the heart with the arrow through it. “See that?”

  “What?”

  “The heart. It has an arrow going right through it.”

  Danny stared at the mountain for a long time. “Nah. I don’t see anything.”

  “Never mind,” I told him. “Let’s go up to the club.”

  Last year Little found a shipping pallet in the alley behind Silverman’s Market. We dragged it up to the roof of the little house my grandpa built in the back yard that Grandma rents to a couple who just came from Mexico and don’t speak English. His name is Germán. It looks like “Ger-man” like the country but he says it like hair-mon. Her name is Yoci. All my cousin Cruz talks about is how big her chichis are.

  Before they moved in, the house was empty for a long time so we dragged that pallet up to the roof along with a flat cardboard refrigerator box we found on the rightaway. A big avocado tree grows next to the garage and spreads like a tent over the little house. We climb the rusty fence to get to the tree to get to the roof where we hang around and be a club.

  What I love about the club is that up there all my worries go away. I can just lay down on my back on the cardboard and stare up at the green leaves and avocados and squint when the wind moves them out of the way and the sun hits my eyes. It’s cool up there and almost quiet. Sometimes I even fall asleep until Grandma calls me to wash up for supper.

&n
bsp; I laid down on the cardboard and Danny laid down next to me so close I could feel the heat from his body. “Scoot over,” I told him and he did. They say prison cells are real small and they pack prisoners in them like rats in a cage.

  We both laid there quiet in the shade. I watched a jet airliner through a hole in the avocado tent cross the sky and leave two white lines behind it. I imagined I was on that plane flying away to where the cops couldn’t find me.

  “Man, I’m scared,” Danny said. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t answer him. I must’ve fell asleep because I jumped when I heard the sound of somone on the rusty fence. Little looked like a big rat when he jumped from the fence to the tree to the roof.

  Like rats in a cage.

  I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest to make room for him on the cardboard. I could see Little was as scared as me and Danny. I asked him, “Did the cops come to your house yet?”

  “Would I be here if they did?” He shook his head. “I got a whipping when my dad got home from work. Then my mom grounded me to the yard, but I’m not going to sit there and wait for the chotas to come get me. They’re going to have to find me first.”

  I thought about that. That sounded like a good idea.

  “Is Marco coming?” I asked Little.

  He wiggled his shoulders. “I don’t know. He should. We should go down together.”

  Danny’s look told me he agreed. We would sit up in the club until Marco came and the cops found us. But it didn’t feel good. I felt like a trapped rat. And when I thought about the dead hobo, my heart felt like it had an arrow stuck through it and it hurt like hell.

  5

  Marco didn’t come all day and neither did the police. When, even from up in the club, we could hear Grandma cleaning the beans in the kitchen, me and Little and Danny made our secret club handshake and climbed down to go home.

  “¿Dónde ‘stabas?” Grandma asked when I came in. “You were supposed to stay in the yard.”

  “I didn’t go anyplace. I was up in the club.”

  She looked hard at me for a long time. Then she went back to her beans.

  “No molestes a Yoci. They’re good renters, and I don’t want no complaints. Go wash up and wait in the salón for supper.” That’s what Grandma calls the front room.

  My little sister Dorothy was playing with her dolls and watching the Mickey Mouse Club. I only like watching that show when they have something good on like Davy Crockett or Elfego Baca or Spin and Marty.

  I barely sat down on the couch when I heard the pachuco whistle through the screen door. A pachuco whistle is different than any other kind. It’s three notes with the middle one higher than the other two. I heard it again and looked outside. Somebody was at the gate. I looked back at the kitchen. Grandma was busy in there. I heard the whistle again. I got up and went to the screen door. It couldn’t be the police here to get me. I don’t think they give the pachuco whistle when they come to arrest people. And hobos knock on the door.

  It was one of the tecatos. His name’s Marcel and he’s cousins with our next-door neighbor Elvira. I know he’s a tee-cat because I hear people talk about how he brings shame to his family. I didn’t want to talk to him, but I thought if I didn’t he wouldn’t go away.

  “Ey, Little Man,” he said when I got down to the gate. Liddo. That’s how he said little. “Is your tío here?” I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Come on, Little Man. Rudy.” He rolled the R in Uncle Rudy’s name and said it like Rrru-thee.

  I was still confused. Rudy was in Folsom. All of Sangra knew that.

  “He’s in…he’s not home.”

  Marcel looked at me and smiled. “Well, when he gets here, tell him Lino dropped by.” Marcel put his hands in his pockets, turned, and walked down the sidewalk. I thought he was going to go in Elvira’s house, but he went past it and disappeared around the corner.

  Lino? Must be short for Marcelino. I guess his name was Marcelino, but I always thought his name was Marcel. I went back inside and waited for Mom and Dad to get home from work. I missed lunch and I was starving.

  A week went by. Each day my heart jumped less and less in my chest when the phone or the doorbell rang or somebody knocked on the screen door. The cops probably had to check for our fingerprints and collect evidence, and that was going to take time.

  I didn’t see much of the gang. They were probably laying low like me. I wasn’t grounded anymore, but I was afraid to leave the yard. When I saw the Turk go by on patrol, I made sure he didn’t see me. It was a long week.

  One night while I was watching TV, I heard Dad and Mom and Grandma in the kitchen talking in Spanish. They never do that unless something big happened. The last time they talked like that was when a little girl fell down a well in San Marino. Men worked for days to rescue her, but she was dead when they finally got her out. San Marino got famous all over the world. There were stories about Kathy Fiscus every day for a month in the Herald Express. It even came out on TV.

  Anyway, I could hear from the way they were talking that whatever it was, was something big. When they were finished, my dad took me outside to the front porch. He sat on the hobo chair and I sat on the arm.

  I was scared the police had told him they were coming for me or that him and Mom were getting a divorce. The last time we sat like this he told me my grandpa died in the hospital. That was two years ago. Now he was looking at me and the blue of his eyes looked cold and hard as ice.

  “Son, I got a letter today. The prison board approved your uncle Rudy for parole. He’s getting out and coming home in a few days.”

  Right away I thought about that tecato Lino with the pachuco whistle.

  My dad confused me. The news seemed good, but his eyes and voice told me it wasn’t.

  “Rudy’s trouble. You know he’s been in prison most of your life. Now he’s coming to stay with us until he can find a job and get his own place. While he’s here, you’re going to have to sleep on the couch and Cruz is going to have to go home and live with his folks. I hope Rudy doesn’t stay long. I don’t want him here.”

  “But he’s your brother.” He didn’t answer me. It was like he never even heard me.

  “When he gets here, I want you to steer clear of him, ¿M’entiendes? He’s bad news. I want you to promise me.” I nodded. “¿Entiendes?” I nodded again.

  Even when I pestered her, Grandma never told me much about Uncle Rudy. Like it hurt her just to talk about him.

  It was Cruz who gave me the story—how Rudy brought disgrace and shame to the family.

  Rudy is Dad’s younger brother. Cruz told me Rudy went to prison before I was born but was out for about six months when I was around five. I don’t remember him because my dad wouldn’t let him live with us even though Grandpa and Grandma wanted him to, so he stayed with Ted and Betty. Like I said, he was out for six months. Then he got caught using heroin, and they sent him back to prison. Nobody in the family ever went to visit him. I don’t know why. If he was my son or brother, I would have.

  Cruz said Rudy got kicked out of Mission High when he was a freshman. Then he went to public high school, but he made trouble so they kicked him out of there. He got picked up for shoplifting and smoking marijuana.

  I asked Cruz if he ever smoked marijuana, but he told me to mind my own business.

  When Rudy went to court, the judge told him he could choose between going to jail or joining the service. Rudy picked the service. Grandma said Rudy liked the service and was a good soldier. She said he fought in the war against the Germans in North Africa and Italy. He wasn’t wounded and didn’t get a Purple Heart like Ted, but Cruz says when Rudy came home he was different. Messed up in the head. Mad all the time.

  At first he spent a month just sleeping and laying around the house. After, he started looking for a job, but pretty soon he was staying out late at night and leaving the house later and later in the day. Then he stopped looking for work at all. Grandpa was patient with him for a while. Grandpa even took Rudy t
o work with him, but then Rudy quit doing that too.

  Cruz told me that at somebody’s wedding Rudy got drunk and got into a fight with my dad. Grandpa had to break them up. Rudy got back into heroin and Cruz saw him with the tecatos once or twice at the Smith Park and in the alley behind Silverman’s Market. Finally Rudy and some other guys got arrested and put on trial. Rudy went to prison and that’s about it. I didn’t know what he looked like because the only pictures we had of him were when he was little, but I guess I would recognize him if I saw him because he would probably look like my dad. Maybe he would look like me.

  “What did you do today?”

  My dad’s question woke me up from the daydream. I got up and stretched. Then I sat down on the porch wall.

  “Nothing.”

  It’s funny because I always say nothing even if I played on the tracks or went to the show with the gang or crawled down into the wash. Or killed a hobo. “Nothing,” I said again. But it was true this time. I was afraid to do anything.

  “Why do you think you still wet your bed?” His question surprised me. I shrugged my shoulders, but I could feel my face getting hot. I got the feeling Dad wanted to talk to me. I could tell the Rudy news shook him up. And the news that I killed a hobo. He wanted to talk to me but he didn’t know how.

  “Do you want to hear a story about when I was a kid?” he said.

  I did. Anything except about me wetting the bed. He leaned down in the hobo chair and turned so that the back of his head was facing me. He opened up his hair with his fingers so I could see the skin. He said, “Look at this.” I barely saw a line whiter that the skin around it—like a jet plane trail in the sky.

  “When I was a little kid on the ranch back in Arizona, I was sitting on a burro out in the corral. I had my arms and my legs crossed and I was balanced on the burro’s rump, nice and fancy. Well, Rudy came up detrás de mí so I didn’t see him. He must’ve pulled some hair from the burro’s rump because that burro bucked one time, and I flew up in the air. When I hit the ground—and it was hard ground, all rocks—I still had my arms and legs cruzados. Can you picture that? I landed on my head and it split open like a sandía.”