Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood

  “You can be such a bitch, ¿sabes, Gigi?”

  “Why? Because I don’t put up with your babosadas? Look, just keep me away from your girlfriends, okay. I don’t wanna know, René. Okay?”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You and Charlie are acting like Mr. and Mrs. Gladstein.” He lit a cigarette, blew out the smoke through his nose. “Screwing like rabbits.”

  Gigi crossed her arms. She was pissed. I thought she was gonna slap the hell out of René. She reached in her purse. It was a suede leather bag, really, like all the hippies had. Charlie had given it to her. She rummaged through it, looking for cigarettes. “Here,” I said. And I handed her one. I gave her a light.

  She raised her head and blew out the smoke toward God. “René,” she said. “Everyone knows I’m still a virgin.” And then she laughed.

  And then, René and I, we laughed.

  God, we laughed. And after we stopped laughing, she slapped the side of my head. “You didn’t have to laugh so hard, cabrón,” she said.

  I brought my dad home on a Sunday. Elena looked up the word “prosthetic” in the dictionary. “Plastic,” my dad said, and then he knocked on it. “Better than wood.”

  I thought of the lumber that fell on him.

  “Same shoe size,” my dad said. Smiling. Sometimes, he was like a little boy, my father.

  I cooked his favorite meal. Mine, too. A roast with potatoes and carrots and onions and gravy, an American meal. We sat down to eat. It was good. “I got my deposit back,” I said. Dad looked at me. He knew what that meant. That plan, about going away to school, that plan, it had been changed.

  “No,” he said.

  I looked at him. I wanted him to know that there was no way in hell I was leaving, not now. Couldn’t leave. Wasn’t possible. Wasn’t possible for me to think of leaving him and Elena. And the money we’d saved, we were going to need it for other things now. I knew that. He knew that, too. And California, well, it wasn’t a real place, anyway. Our Hollywood was better than their Hollywood. Yeah, yeah. “And I registered at State,” I said. I let that statement hang in the air. Waited for him to grab it as it hung there.

  He looked at me. “¿Cuándo?” He was sad, my Dad. He looked at me. I knew what he was holding in his eyes: my Sammy, my Sammy, you worked so hard.

  Don’t be sad, I wanted to tell him. “Two days ago. I got off early from work. I went and registered.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He kept nodding. Then he looked down at his plate. He always did that.

  “I don’t care about going to college at a fancy school, Dad.”

  “Sammy—” I don’t know what he was going to say next because he just stopped. He kept staring at his plate, then tasted the roast. “It’s good,” he said.

  I looked at him. And we nodded at each other.

  So that was that.

  In August, I bought an old beat-up ‘55 Chevy truck that needed a paint job. All I needed was something to get me to school and to work—I wasn’t planning on taking any road trips. The engine was good and the price was right. Smelled like an old truck. You know that smell. Like the sun had burned the insides out over the years. Like the sweat of all the owners. That was the smell. But I liked it. I’d never owned anything, not like that. I thought the whole world was watching. Not that the world cared. The world didn’t give a damn about a seventeen-year-old punk from Hollywood buying a beat-up truck and driving it around town like it was a Mercedes. But I couldn’t help but grin. I was grinning my ass off.

  Mrs. Apodaca said I needed to paint it. She liked things nice and neat. Like that green lawn of hers. Like that sidewalk of hers that you could eat enchiladas off of. “Red,” she said, “paint it red.”

  I drove to Gigi’s house and honked. She came out. “Sammy! You got a truck! It’s great! What a great truck! My brother knows someone who’ll paint it for you, cheap. You should paint it yellow.” She jumped in the truck. I laughed. At least she didn’t have a purse so she wouldn’t have to go through the charade of looking for her non-existent cigarettes. “You want a cigarette?” I said.

  We drove to René’s house around the block. We honked. His little sister came out and said he was still asleep. Ten o’clock and he was still asleep. But it was a Saturday. A good day for sleeping in. Not that I’d ever done things like sleep in. “Wake him up,” Gigi said. “Tell him there’s a girl out here who thinks he’s cooler than Ringo Starr.” Ringo Starr, that was Gigi’s favorite Beatle.

  René showed up at the door a few minutes later, barefoot and shirt unbuttoned.

  “Vámonos, huevón!” Gigi yelled.

  He shook his head. “¡Ay voy! ¡Ay voy!” He disappeared into the house and was out a few minutes later. Wearing his shades and a bandana.

  “You look like a badass pachuco,” I said.

  “Like the look?” He was even wearing khakis.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You gonna wear that when you go before the draft board?”

  “Hell no! Screw those guys. Let ‘em try and take me. I’m not fucking going.”

  I was sorry I’d brought it up. Shit. “I can drive you to Canada now,” I said.

  He laughed. “Yeah, this thing wouldn’t make it to Juárez.”

  “Hey, hey, don’t talk like that about my new truck.”

  “New?” Gigi said. “Yeah, well, I have an aunt who thinks she’s still in her twenties.

  “Hey,” I said. “I love this truck.”

  “It’s okay,” René said. “All you have to do is paint it black. Jet black.” Great. Everybody wanted to change my truck to make it more acceptable. Red. Yellow. Black. Right then, right there, I decided not to paint my truck. People didn’t like it—hell, they could walk.

  We went riding around, the three of us. Me and Gigi and René. I drove down to the levee and parked the truck. As I was driving, I was listening to Gigi and René talking. Arguing, really, but that’s how they talked. “You dumped her, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t dump her.”

  “You’re a puto, you know that? A big puto.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “If girls can be whores, then guys can be whores too. And you’re a really big whore, René. You’ll lie down and sleep with anyone. Puto. That’s what you are.”

  He rolled his eyes and lit a cigarette. He looked around as I parked. Then he looked at Gigi and me. “This is the place,” he said. “That night, this is right where Jaime and Eric were parked.”

  Gigi took René’s cigarette out of his mouth—then took a drag—then gave it back to him. “Those cops, they didn’t even try to find those bastards. What if they would’ve killed them? Jaime would be dead. Eric would be dead. And nobody would’ve cared.”

  She put her head on René’s shoulder. “You saved them. Best thing you ever did in your whole damned life.”

  “I didn’t save anyone.”

  “Yeah, you did. You saved them. They would’ve killed them.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I saved them. Now there are two homos wandering around in the world—free to be homos.” Then he laughed.

  “Don’t be mean,” Gigi said.

  “I can’t help it. I’m one mean sonofabitch. Every time I try and be nice, it doesn’t work. Last night. . .,” he shook his head. “Last night, I broke up with Dolores, then went out and picked a fight. I kicked some guy’s ass. I did. Shit. I coulda killed that guy. With my fists. And you know something? I wasn’t even hitting him. I was hitting—shit—I don’t know who the hell I was hitting. Not him. Some guys had to pull me off. It’s like I just wanted to hit and hit and keep on hitting.”

  René, I didn’t know him. Just when I thought he was changing, he’d change back to what he was, to who he’d been. Like he was afraid to become someone better.

  He laughed. But not a real laugh. “Someday, I’m gonna kill someone. And then what?”

  “No,” I said. “You’re not.”

  ?
??Why, Sammy? Because you said?”

  “That’s right. Because I said.”

  I didn’t know it, but that was the last time I would see René. At least for a long time. Just like Pifas, he’d been drafted. He didn’t tell us. I knew why he’d broken up with Dolores. I knew why he’d picked a fight and wanted to kill someone. I knew why. Maybe René knew why too. Such a smart guy. Such a waste. A week later, I went by his house, and his mom gave me a letter. “Te dejó ésta carta, mi’jo.” I guess he wasn’t the good-bye type. He just left. Maybe that’s what he did to all the girls he went out with. One day, he was there—and the next day, he was gone. The letter was addressed to me and Gigi. So I called Gigi on the phone that evening, and I said, “René’s gone. I went by his house. He left us a letter—you wanna hear it?”

  “Yeah,” she whispered. I could hear the hurt. I knew Gigi. I knew that thing in her voice. I knew exactly what it was. So I read it:

  Sammy and Gigi,

  Look, I just didn’t know how to say it. Uncle Sam owns me now. Look, I could’ve done something about this, but I didn’t. And now it’s too late. Look, you’re the best friends I’ve ever had. That’s the fucking truth. Even you, Gigi. I’m not gonna write—I’m not into that. Jaime, he finally gave up writing to me. I never wrote back. I just don’t do that. Maybe to my mom. Probably, I’ll write to her. So, if you ever want to know how I’m doing, check with her. Listen, I know Pifas didn’t make it back, but I’m not gonna get myself killed. I promise you. Make peace.

  René Montoya from Hollywood.

  Gigi was crying. She wouldn’t stop. God, I felt like I’d spent half a lifetime listening to Gigi Carmona cry.

  The other half, I’d spent listening to her laugh.

  When I hung up the phone, I cried too. I cried for René and for Pifas. I cried for my dad’s leg. I cried for never having gotten to go to a school I worked my damned Mexican ass off to get into. I cried for my mother. I cried for Juliana.

  I didn’t see Gigi too often after that. I ran into Susie Hernandez and she told me that Gigi and Charlie had formed some kind of rock band. Gigi was the singer, and Charlie was the lead guitarist, and Larry Torres’ older brother Ronnie and one of the Díaz brothers, they were all in the band. But Susie didn’t know the name of the band. “She’s gone way hippie, that girl,” Susie said. “Who ever heard of a Mexican hippie?”

  “Chicana,” I said. “Gigi’s a Chicana.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot. Me, I’m just a Mexican.” She laughed.

  That night I called Gigi. But she wasn’t home. I told her mom to have her call me. But she never did. I kept calling, but she wasn’t home. “Nunca está aquí,” her mother said. Never home. Nunca.

  I started college a few days before my eighteenth birthday. It was okay. Better than Cruces High. That was for damn sure. I was taking fifteen hours. And I worked as a part-time checker at Safeway. I didn’t care if I had to work hard. So what?

  Sometimes I looked at my dad’s leg. I wondered where legs went, the ones you lost. I wondered if they were like dreams. Once you lost them, they never came back. I wondered about that.

  I was in search of another plan. In the meantime, I thought it would be good to keep myself busy. And so I did. One Friday afternoon, I got a phone call. It was Gigi. “We’re playing on the grounds of the student union tomorrow at noon—Sammy, me and Charlie, we have a band. Something Cool—that’s the name of our band. Will you come, Sammy?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  The band wasn’t so great. They hadn’t decided who they were. Cheap imitations of a lot of other bands. I mean, really cheap. Tried to make up for everything by being loud. A lot of bands did that. And everybody was starting up a rock band after what happened at Woodstock. Concerts were happening everywhere. Nobody talked about money back then. But that’s what it was about. Money. Only they all said it was about making music. Yeah. Sure. Anyway, what the hell did I know? I wasn’t a big rock guy. I didn’t know shit about music.

  But Gigi, she had a voice. People stayed and listened to Gigi. She was wearing a long white cotton dress with yellow daisies all over it like she was a garden. And she sang that song, Beautiful People, and I swear I never wanted the song to end. She was better than Melanie or Joan Baez. God. I wanted to stay there. Stay right there and listen to Gigi singing forever.

  I remember clapping and clapping and clapping. Pifas would have loved her even more—if he’d seen her, if he’d have been alive. And then another group came on, and they played real hard rock, and they looked like they were stoned. Looked like they didn’t like taking baths. That was the new look. That was it.

  I went to look for Gigi and Charlie. We talked a little bit. And I could see that Charlie and Gigi, they were really together now. And I was glad. Because Charlie, he was a good guy. I remember what I’d thought when I first met him. I’d thought he was like the notes I took on the margins of my books. Yeah, that was Charlie. That wasn’t such a bad thing. And he loved Gigi. She needed that. If ever I met a girl who needed to be loved—it was Gigi Carmona.

  “We’re leaving,” she said. “Me and Charlie, we’re going to California.”

  “That’s where everybody’s going,” I said.

  “I’ll write,” she said.

  But I knew she wouldn’t. She was like René. She would be too busy living.

  I nodded.

  “I’m glad you came, Sammy. To hear me sing.”

  I nodded.

  “You ever gonna leave Hollywood, Sammy?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think about it much.” I wondered if she knew I was lying.

  She rummaged through her purse and took out a black rag. She tied the rag around my arm. Gentle. Like she was afraid of breaking me. “For Pifas,” she said.

  I nodded. “For Pifas.”

  I don’t know what she saw in my eyes. But she took my face and held it between her hands and held my face for a long time. As if she were memorizing me.

  Her hands were as warm as the morning.

  Then she let go.

  I stood there, and watched her and Charlie walk away. Then Charlie turned around, “Hey, Sammy!” he yelled. “Next year in Jerusalem!”

  I waved and yelled back, “Is that near Hollywood?”

  Gigi turned around. I could see she was crying.

  Don’t cry, Gigi. Don’t cry. I don’t want to remember you that way.

  That was the last time I saw Gigi.

  I went to the river that night. By myself. I smoked a few cigarettes and listened to the radio. There was a keg party in the distance. I could see the small fire they’d built. I could hear laughter. Someone was laughing. That was a good sign.

  I wandered around my entire first semester like a lost boy, didn’t have friends, didn’t want any. I’d lost them. My friends. They were gone. When I got too sad, I’d tell myself that I only lost my friends. My father, my father had lost a leg and a kidney. No tears on his face. What had I lost, anyway? But I couldn’t help missing them. Pifas and Jaime and Angel and René. And Juliana and Gigi. My heart hurt. So, I tried to stop thinking about them. I kept busy. I made other plans.

  That spring, there was a girl wearing a yellow dress at the student union. Yellow as the sun. The girl smiled at me. And I smiled back. But I wasn’t smiling at her. I was smiling at Gigi.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sick. That was a word I’d grown up with. Enferma. In two languages. Sick meant death—at least in the logic of my boyhood. Because of my mom. In Spanish, that word was a woman. And now, Mrs. Apodaca, she was sick. Enferma. That word was becoming her first name.

  On good days, Mrs. Apodaca still managed to step out into her garden. She’d give her roses a good, hard look, as if she was willing them to behave, to stay orderly, the way she’d trained them. But she no longer touched them, as if she was learning to let go of the things she loved. Letting go was not a virtue she’d ever practiced.

  On bad days, Mrs. Apodaca stood at the door and looked out. On t
hose days I don’t think she even saw her garden. She was looking out to see something much bigger than what she’d planted in her small yard. She looked like she was looking out toward a swallowing sea. And what she saw in those waters was not death nor the future, but the past. Her husband. Her daughter sleeping in her arms, newly born, resting in the open air for the first time. The streets of Hollywood. The food she’d loved to cook, the taste of it in her mouth. The simple houses of a village in Mexico. The sound of her mother singing a song in a voice as familiar as the lines of her working hands. It was as if she was trying to memorize the entire world she’d known—in case she might need a fragment of it after she died. That fragment might be her salvation.

  I studied her like I’d like always studied her. Like I studied a good book. Good books taught you what you needed to know.

  My dad and I, we kept up her yard. We weren’t as meticulous as she had been—but she didn’t seem to mind. Or notice. That was the sad part. She wasn’t out there telling us how to do it right. I missed her finger pointing at something in the garden—something only she saw. I missed that finger. I missed her disapproving voice. “No seas tan inútil.” To be useless. That was on her list of sins.

  I missed her sturdy body that dared anyone brave enough to try and break her.

  I missed her disciplined eyes.

  I was working in her garden one day, talking to myself. I do that. I still do that. I looked up and she was standing on the porch. “Who do you talk to?”

  “No one,” I said. I was still lying to her. I never learned.

  “When I talk, I talk to God. Or Octavio. But you—you don’t talk to God.”

  “Sometimes I do.”

  “Mostly you don’t.” There was still a remnant of disapproval in her tired voice.

  “No. I just talk to myself, I think.”

  “I think you talk to Juliana.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Do you still miss your Juliana?”

  I looked down at the ground and pulled a weed from her lawn. I hated this. Me and Juliana, we were a private thing. But Mrs. Apodaca was determined to get an answer. Even then, as her body was dissolving. Even then, she was stronger than me.