A Nation of Amor Read online

  I give my handkerchief to one of the kids.

  “Use this bro’, don’t mess up your clothes.”

  The metal doors clank open and four Chicago cops troop in, rolls of pink neck bulging over their baby blue collars. Mano looks up at me.

  “I’ll follow the squad car Mano. Don’t talk any shit at the station and it’ll be straight.”

  He nods to me and the cops take him out, one to each arm, one in back, one in front leading the bounty.

  MANO MATOS

  September 8, in the park

  The scales have been lifted to my eyes. I see threats everywhere. Threats to my family. Threats to the moral code I’ve chosen to live by. I’m sick of threats. Someone’s got to pay …

  Got to be ruthless. Somebody strong got to save the Latin Kings, a leader to rescue this wandering Nation of Amor. Trust can be a very childish thing, and a man must put childish things away …

  Flaco stands alone among us. Flaco don’t wanna be a Latin King no more. V-Out. By dropping his colors my brother determined his own sordid fate. To restore order, I must be the delivery boy for his punishment. Civil War! Brother against Brother …

  OR TWO STRANGERS???

  Once, I was a mild-mannered tagger, happy to doodle on walls with my simple spray paint cans. Mano, the Minister of Sight, Prince of Propaganda. The spray paint can is mightier than the sword. I deal in pictures.

  So did Poppy, in his own way. My father let his actions speak for themselves. We all need a hero.

  Tonight, I will start to reclaim this hood for a Nation of Amor. For Poppy. King Love!!!

  Someone must avenge the cancer of corruption that has spread since Poppy’s death. My pretty tags alone ain’t enough no more.

  The boys will be boys. And this hood’s got too boring for all of us. We’re out, ready, my army is assembled, a great circle of Amor around Flaco, a ring of steel strong as a handcuff. Twitchy Kings pant misty breath into the night. It’s a junta, it’s a leveraged buyout. Flaco has abdicated. The King is dead. Long live Mano!

  I step forward into the heart of the circle. Somebody switches on the fog lights of a Toyota. Me and Flaco glow green in the dark from the knees up. We look like we be standing in a deep, deep puddle. Craggy cloud shadows pass over the full moon.

  Meanwhile, beyond this V-Out, past the flame tips of smoking doobs, over the lagoon, past the rest of the park, all West-town is asleep. People tucked into their quiet beds. People like my Mariza, and deep inside her, my baby is asleep too.

  Gonna be the shot heard ’round Westtown tonight! Tomorrow, everybody’ll know it was me. Next to Poppy’s plaque I’ve left a tag, a little memorial of my own. A pure square of black, the black of smoke. A three pronged crown in gold, the gold sun of Amor. A symbol. Zip zip zip. The Mark of Mano. My will be done. Justice for this treacherous traitor.

  Maybe I don’t talk right. Maybe I can’t write it straight. But I have X-ray vision. I see what others can’t. Then I tag a crown.

  The boys are gettin’ restless. They want action. This ain’t no Sunday softball game. Mob voices whisper from the dark fringe.

  “Do him Mano!”

  Flaco stares down at me. The gun is heavy in the front pouch of my sweatshirt. This is all his fault, ain’t got nothin’ to do with me. Flaco dropped his colors. Flaco don’t want to be a King no more. Flaco is my brother, but the Kings are my bro’s. Sheeit, all words, more sorry ass words, more empty words, just kinky black shapes on the page, just hot breath on my neck.

  Flaco takes off his black sweatshirt, takes off the gold T-shirt. His skin glows a green Hulky color in the fog light. Flaco’s strong, his body drawn with a razor-sharp pencil. The cuts of his pecs, lats, biceps and triceps make little shadows.

  Family ties are the ones that bind. Flaco ran this hood from since he was fourteen. He can’t walk away from the Black and Gold. I can’t let nobody in this hood walk away from Amor. King Love!!!

  “Out the punk!”

  Flaco kneels down in front of me. My brother, I’ve got to shoot my brother. His nipples get hard like a girl’s in the cold night air. I reach for his right arm. Flaco lifts his head to beg for mercy.

  “Mano,” he whispers, “my other arm. So I can still write in school.”

  Punk! You worry about school when Poppy already gave you everything. You are his heir. You are strong and smart, braver than I’ll ever be. Can’t you see me Flaco? Look! They need a leader and you won’t lead. We got nothin’ here without the Kings! Why Flaco? Why?

  I pull at the loose skin under his other arm, but there ain’t much. I lift the gun out and point it towards the stars. So close, so easy. My finger on the trigger, the barrel only inches from my ear.

  It could be me? Who’s right and who’s wrong when brothers become Two Strangers? One shot, 4-ever. I could go to a heaven where all colors are People colors. No more spray paint handcuffs of only Black and Gold. I could tag with thick oily paint drops … Blue, a vein pumped on a sweaty forearm. Red, juicy fruit lipstick. Pink, a dirty smudge where somebody got erased.

  But I’d still remember. Some things, no man can forget. Like Folks on a joy ride, the flash bulb firecracker from the back seat and Ka-Boom!!! Homeboy is down and out, another black hat skids to the pavement, no more head to fill it. Like Husky the Puerto Rican cop, raising his night stick high with a diabolical leer then Kerwhack!!! A porky squeal as he brings it down on my back. Like Poppy before the firing squad, the guns shouldered and pointed and Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! A hollow burst of fire and Poppy’s dying in the park but nobody knows which gun killed him.

  Flaco looks up to me, his eyes tough and impatient, a halo of loose curls around his head.

  “Get it done Mano!” Flaco yells. “Do it bro’!”

  “Don’t call me bro’ no more,” I murmur.

  I press the gun barrel into the fat of his arm and Thoop!!! V-Out. The King is dead. Long live Mano.

  The boys scatter. I pimp it, nice and slow. Flaco’s behind me in the darkness now, he can walk back alone. I can see that craggy moon leading me home, feel the nighttime dew squeaky clean on my hightops.

  Division Street is quiet and empty. The Hood sleeps safely tonight. Mariza will be there for me, waiting warm in my bed. I must protect her from these things. What a man’s family doesn’t know won’t hurt them.

  There’s a fat shadow waiting by my door, a darker shade of nothing against the nighttime. There’s a hat, and the moonlight glints on the shiny brim. I draw my six-shooter.

  “Put that away you knucklehead!”

  Husky the cop steps to me outta the darkness.

  “You couldn’t even walk him home and make sure he’s all right? Could you?” Husky says. He crosses his heavy arms over his belly.

  “I understand,” Husky tells me, “some things you got to do. I’ll look the other way. But don’t push your luck. You’ll force me to lock you up one of these days.”

  Husky lays a heavy hand on my shoulder. “I knew your father. Better than you think. Angel Matos was a good man. Don’t push too hard. Take it easy kid. Life’s too short.”

  He walks slowly past me and heads for the park. I can taste the decay in the air. Some things a man never forgets …

  REYNALDO MATOS

  September 13, at Roberto Clemente High School

  All booked up, no room at the jail. These days, a minor needs a murder rap to get a reservation. Until Mano turns eighteen, judges, lawyers and probation officers will pass him back and forth like a nasty joke. But when the police pick him up after his eighteenth birthday, the judge will greet him like Norman Bates, a neon sign on the bench flashing vacancies, vacancies, vacancies …

  Same damn narc at the school doors. The pig must sleep with that clipboard, a check here, asterisk there, the kind of motherfucker who logs kill rates. By now, he’ll have passed primary responsibility for Mano to the beat cops. The blues will amuse themselves by yanking Mano from street corners and kicking his ass in the alley. Do I remember the old body sho
ts from a night stick … I always maintained my pretty, young face, but my legs and ribs were so battered I used a cane and stooped like some viejito.

  The up escalator retains salmon-colored traces on the handrail. Schools never seem clean; blood, urine, saliva, vomit, all wiped down and spread out, then sprinkled with disinfectant. Chemical pine perfume deodorizing human waste, the smell of education.

  At the top of the escalator twenty alleged students mill before the glass doors to the guidance office. As I open the door a kid emerges and I’m eyeball-to-eyeball with Flaco, another motherfucking nephew, Angel’s other boy. If it isn’t old home week!

  Caught the punk comin’ out of the principal’s office, and Flaco’s the reputed scholar of the two. In respect of the audience he brazenly chills on me, made bold by twenty defiant, adolescent mugs. I’m visibly unimpressed. So he eases his pimp and straightens up for a free political broadcast on behalf of Flaco Matos. But Flaco has me fucked up with some other uncle if he thinks I’m buyin’ a Colgate smile and a vertical spine.

  “What were you doin’ in there?”

  “Nothin’ Uncle Rey.”

  What makes a kid believe he can play off anybody over the age of thirty as if they are some sángano homeroom teacher? Clemente is like a lazy Skinner Box, conditioning youth for the village idiot Olympics. What were you doin’ out all night? ‘Nothin.’ Why did you fail English last semester? ‘I dunno.’

  “Right Flaco. I’ll be done with this Mr. Smiley in a few minutes. You wait and I’ll give you a ride home.”

  All of a sudden he’s the Mad Hatter and shit, worried glance at his watch, a chin fondle, the pensive head scratch, trying to tap-dance a little lie that I might swallow.

  “You heard me,” I tell him.

  He joins his comrades, but not before dramatically lobbing an obscene gesture over his shoulder. A gesture, which for Flaco’s sake, I assume is not meant for me.

  Mr. Smiley, what the fuck kind of name is that? A quick glance into his office verifies that this guy is a lifer from the get go. Naturally, I am far too pigmented to forgo a further security check before knocking on his door. A secretary rises from her perch.

  “Do you have any business here?” She twangs.

  I offer a dose of toothy sincerity accompanied by an unreciprocated hearty hand clasp. My deference duly noted, access is granted.

  The guidance counselor is crawling about in circles on his office floor. Attached to the electric typewriter on his desk is a thick, industrial extension cord which he must have unplugged from his lawn mower this morning. A further thirty yards of it are in loops on the floor, the other end in his hand. I don’t know if he knows I’m in the doorway enjoying his performance, but by the looks of this guy it wouldn’t bother him too much. On all fours, he makes a quick lap around the office, searching for an outlet, dragging the cord behind him so it wraps around the legs of his desk. The sole, visible outlet in the room is dangerously overloaded. Sympathetically, I scan the room and determine that Smiley is searching in vain. He grunts, rises, and successfully manages to scratch a bald spot without disturbing the two strands of hair combed forward from the base of his skull.

  “Mr. Smiley? I’m Reynaldo Matos from El Cuarto Año Alternative High School.”

  He chuckles to himself and projects a scaly pink palm. With a measured nod, as if some memory of our appointment is fighting through his swampy head, he retreats behind his desk, giving the cord one last loop around its legs.

  I draw a folding chair toward the desk.

  “As I said on the phone the other day …”

  But his eyes quickly drift away from me and rest on the extension cord.

  “… first of all Mr. Smiley I want to apologize for not keeping our last appointment.”

  He deftly rescratches his bald spot.

  “I run an alternative high school in the community,” I continue. “As educators, we’re battling one of the highest dropout rates in the country. When you send the formal drop notices to students’ homes, I would appreciate it if you could include some information about my school. I can offer a chance to the kids who don’t succeed at Clemente.”

  I shovel a handful of PR fliers toward him but he ain’t bitin’.

  “You have one of those GED schools,” he winces. “Right?”

  “Well, yes, we prepare students for the high school equivalency exams, but it’s more of a community-based school. You see—”

  “I’m sorry, Mr …?”

  “Matos, Reynaldo Matos.”

  He drags his A so my name becomes May-toes.

  “Mr. May-toes, your suggestion is against school policy. If the principal ever found out I was sending Clemente dropouts down the road, well …”

  He beams, amused by the absurdity of my proposal.

  “We’ve got enough problems trying to keep students in school without any competition,” he blathers. “The school board is on our butt. This kind of thing wouldn’t be in our best interests.”

  He chuckles, then rechuckles a heartier chuckle, a cease and desist chuckle. I suspend the fliers beneath his turkey throat.

  “So?”

  “I can see your point May-toes, but it’s not up to me.”

  I’m not moving a fucking muscle.

  Smiley ash cans the dithering idiot motif, squares himself, and leans forward out of the blocks. His face grows solemn, the folds and creases seem to relax, then harden, like a plaster cast, his new demeanor a dense reflection of conscious futility. For a moment, I almost feel sorry for the cabron.

  “I have been directed to forcibly withdraw nearly half of the current junior and senior classes by next Friday. Call it a vigorous redefinition of our market share. Current thought maintains that if we disenfranchise the gangbangers and low achievers we have a chance to peripheralize the negative role models many upperclassmen portray to the underclassmen. That’s as radical a policy you will find in any inner city high school. You want me to effectively refer those young people to you? Fine idea. But something I just cannot do. This is scared straight education. We can’t be seen to be offering some kind of safety net like yourself. Don’t worry Mr. May-toes, you’ll have plenty of students. The market we abandon will be yours. That’s good for your business.”

  “But this isn’t a business, it’s a high school,” I answer.

  “Yes, hell, but it all boils down to the same thing. Doesn’t it?”

  He rises and offers me his hand.

  “Don’t get me wrong May-toes. I admire what you’re trying to do. Lord knows we aren’t up to it.”

  Smiley never uttered a truer word. He happily returns to the dilemma of his extension cord. “Can you believe it?” He sighs.

  “What?”

  “A $6 million building and only one outlet in this office. Can you beat that?”

  “No shit.”

  I make for the door and discover our conversation has a rapt audience of now ex-Clemente students. Piénse … A few exaggerated finger pokes into Smiley’s shirt front would send the market scurrying for shares in my street credibility. I turn on Smiley.

  “You just kicked all those kids out of school?”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger, May-toes.”

  He points toward Flaco and says, “That mob has been here for three years. They’re so far behind in credits that it would take two more years to graduate them.”

  “So?”

  “So?” Smiley whines, “The law will no longer allow us to offer any student more than their allotted four years of high school. Where have you been May-toes? This has been headlines for months.”

  He’s got me there. Coverage of Chicago’s public school reform was a might slight in a Texas jail cell. I forge right ahead.

  “So if a kid falls behind because of absenteeism, pregnancy, gangs, you know, one of those insignificant things that afflict about 90 percent of all Clemente students, you toss ’em out because they don’t fit into your new market.”

  “The school board call
s it an incentive to perform,” he answers.

  “So in June,” I chide, “Clemente can truthfully report that it has graduated 80 percent of the senior class; all twelve students.”

  Smiley laughs, shooting me an incredulous pink look, that don’t you people understand anything look.

  My brother Angel would have stepped to the motherfucker, Bobo would ensure Smiley’s early retirement, and me, it’s been so long I’m not sure how or what to fight anymore. I quit fighting with my hands when I was in jail. Or was it when Angel got killed? Angel told me I must learn to fight with my hands, but that I will never win fights with my hands. That was his job. But he isn’t around anymore, and I feel like a soldier without a weapon.

  “You fucking butcher!” I shout.

  My closing comment is audible on Division Street. I rush from his office and the kids converge on me, forming a barrier of insulation for my histrionics. Flaco lays a hand on my shoulder; after what happened with Mano the other day he must think I’m about to take the place apart. I keep it going, milk it, chant over and over, “Fuck this place! Fuck this place!”

  Some positive role model I’m portraying. The kids are giving each other high fives.

  I raise my hands and they calm.

  “Y’all like that? Good. Now check this out.”

  I start handing the fliers around. “I know why this guy wanted to see you today, so don’t even try to play that off. If you want to be about something that’s gonna work, someplace that will respect you, classes start in two weeks.”

  As if I’m distributing leprous invitations to a tea dance at the Polacko social club. Flaco’s Mad Hatter impersonation of a few minutes ago is infectious, twenty kids prepare to check-out.

  A Latin King dressed in black and gold turns to his partner. “Some people do anything for a paycheck,” he cracks.