Culver City, CA, 2004

 

Here I am sitting on a park bench like I’ve been a thousand times before. The starlight kisses my eyes as I look upon love and decide I want our dim souls to bring each other light. Her life hasn’t been easy and my private hell began in an alley full of electricity and gunpowder more than ten years ago.

            I used to hold a cold beer as I sat on a wooden bench with the green paint peeling and exposing the sad tree it used to be. Now I’m holding her and we keep each other from being sad.

            “What do you think happens when we die?” I ask.

            “I don’t know. If you’re bad you go to hell and if you’re good you go to heaven?” she says asking for approval.

            “Do you worship a god who would ever send a human soul to suffer in eternal torture? The god I pray to wouldn’t do that. He let us find each other, right?” I whisper as I nuzzle her from behind.

            “Hell could just be a place where people have sex and watch cable all day. That doesn’t sound so bad,” she says jokingly.

“Seriously? You think that if we commit a hundred crimes we get sent to a hooker house with Tivo?”

“Okay. What happens to us baby? I want to know,” she replies finally playing my game.

            “Well, you know how they say energy never dies it only transforms? I think the human soul is energy and our soul is pure like a singer’s voice coming out of a microphone. Our body is initially dead without our soul like the microphone is silent when no voice is entering it.”

            “So what does that have to do with dying?”

            “Just because there’s no voice coming from a mic doesn’t mean that the voice disappeared. I think our energy is confused when we die like a lyric trapped in a mic cord that never finds a speaker. It searches and searches for anything to project itself from and eventually goes so far from earth that it becomes the one thing that can survive for millions and millions of years without searching for anything, a star.”

            “You think that when we die we become stars?”

            “Exactly.”

            “Stars having sex?” she asks.

            “In some cosmic way, I guess,” I say trying to move on with this.

            “We become hot balls of gas alone in space. That sucks,” she says smiling as my nose finds her neck.

            “If we’re lucky we get to have another star to keep us company, another voice spewing light down on other souls trying to find their way. We get to have one star burn with us for millennia. And when it’s time to burn out we shoot through the sky in one last blaze of glory before becoming a quasar or something else.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the little box and show her the ring inside. “Will you burn with me forever?”

            Tears fall like fat angels with broken wings and I start crying too. She says yes, jumps on me, and hugs me. She doesn’t let go. Our slippery faces slide against one another and I feel like everything is going to be all right. Then I hear music.

            It’s loud and the car that’s playing it stops at the bottom of the grassy hill that we’re sitting on top of. I can tell that Sherry is uncomfortable as three guys get out and start smoking cigarettes. I’m not; they just look like some assholes looking for a place to smoke.

            One of them is skinny with his Dodger hat turned to the back. A pubescent moustache forming, he can’t be more than fifteen. The second one is wearing a Raiders beanie. He’s fat and short. He might be the oldest one with a full goatee outlining his mouth. The third one is in between. He might workout. His blue fitted cap is low over his forehead covering his eyes.

            “Oh no, we’re not alone anymore. And I was gonna lay you on the grass and take you right here,” I say. She giggles and hugs me tighter than before. She gets off of me and sits down next to me. With our backs to the car of teens we hold hands and she stares at her ring.

            “Am I supposed to put it on you?”

            “Yes!”

            I take it from the box and slip it on her finger. “Do you like it?”

            “It’s perfect. I love it and I love you. Thank you, baby.”

            “I didn’t know really what to get you. You had mentioned princess cut and I just rolled with that. It’s white gold not silver, I know you don’t like yellow gold.” I’m rambling and the guys are getting really quiet now. My hair is a little longer than it used to be. My eyes are calm and sane. I admit my jeans aren’t as baggy as they used to be and my short sleeved plaid shirt isn’t as menacing as an oversized hoodie, so I can’t really blame them for thinking they can take me.  

I used to be a wolf in a pack, now I’m just a lone tiger. I’ll show no fear and I’ll attack if I sense danger. I’m a warrior now, not a drunken brawler. They don’t know what they’re getting their selves into.

Sherry knows most of my stories and I know hers, but she’s never seen me bring a man within an inch of his life. I don’t think I want her to.

            “It’s kind of cold baby. Let’s go back home so you can take me on the bed instead of on the wet grass,” she says sensing my apprehension.

            “Okay, let’s roll. Here, take my jacket.” We get up and I hear them growl.

            “The lovebirds are leaving guys. She wants some chorizo con huevos,” one of them says loud enough for us to hear and I look at her. Her eyes are fearful. She’s nervous and I don’t like it at all, but I keep walking. Culver City looks like a nice place to raise a family, but don’t be fooled. A cop got killed here in January. No one is safe anywhere.

            “Hey puto, I’m talking to you,” one of them says.

            “Sounded like you were talking at me,” I yell back at them without realizing what I’m doing.

            “You going to get some from your lady Holmes? Sharing is caring,” he says and they all laugh.

            Here in America we make our own justice. No judge is going to sentence these juveniles to a caning. If we run, they’ll get to the car before we can pull off. If we stay, Sherry’s in danger, not to mention the ring I just put on her finger that’s worth more than my car. It’s an ’89 Dodge Shadow, but it’s mine.

            “Baby, take my keys and pull the car out. Circle the block slowly and stop back where it was parked.”

            “Baby, no.”

            And her look of sadness and worry hurts me, but letting these guys disrespect her would kill me. I hear the crushing grass getting closer.

            “Go!” I push her and she starts running.

            “Aw, what happened no pussy tonight?” they say as they approach.

            “Nope, looks like I’m gonna have to fuck one of you bitches,” I say turning and taking off my shirt to expose my tattoos: a burning city, a red-eyed bald eagle, and a shooting star. They stop. Their courage has been slighted, but their stupidity is tenacious. My head is low to my chest and I tuck my shirt into the back of my pants so that it hangs out. The younger one was talking, but he shuts up.

            “Pinche gringo wannabe, you got some balls but that’s not gonna save your ass tonight.”

            “I’m no wannabe. I am what I am. What the fuck are you supposed to be?”

            “Chicano, Homes. Puro raza.”

I shouldn’t have asked. They say that with pride that pumps up their hearts.

“You look puro stupid to me. You disgrace la raza.” I should be telling them that we are all one people, that I’m a teacher and that I teach children English so that they can have hope. I know they don’t care. I know they are hopeless and that no matter what their machismo won’t let me walk away peacefully.

“Fuck you, Homes,” he wittingly replies and his drunken young partner’s fist comes so slowly that I can catch it if I wanted to.

I start turning with it before it ever lands like a bad night of pro-wrestling. I act like it hurt me and I stumble into the guy that crept behind me, Hat-Covering-Eyes. I grab his white shirt and kick his balls into his throat. Our heads meet as he hunches over and his hat clumsily falls. He bends over, right into my knee and his nose explodes onto my blue jeans. Hits come from behind. Skinny. I duck and turn to grab his belt with both hands. I strafe and use my momentum to swing him into and over the bench. Arms around my arms, squeezing. I get one free and send an elbow behind me. It meets Fat-Skull and I keep throwing it. His hands unclasp and free me. He’s dazed and drunk and my flurry of punches rains down like winter hail swelling his face and closing his eyes.

I pull his beanie over his eyes and close my hands around his neck pushing his face into my already bloody knee again and again until he goes limp. Hits. More hits. Skinny again. I turn into his punches, but he’s so young and small I run through them and grab his body, charging him back into the bench. His back arches. He stops swinging, turns over, and slides to the ground. I grab his head and bang it into the back of the bench, and bang it, and bang it, and bang it.

I’m on my back getting hit in the face. Everything is happening so fast, my hands don’t react in time. His friends have fallen around me and his fists seek revenge. Is this where it all ends? His hands are around my throat. I think of Sherry. His hands are squeezing with the hate in his heart for his own life.

I see my life.