La Pinta
Maximiliano Garde
Second Prize, Robert V. Williams Memorial Contest
Part 1
What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
--The Tempest, act 1, sc. 2, lines 49-50
La Pinta: A Prologue
La Pinta circumscribed the world's vastness. A new world opening unlimited possibilities for the Spaniard. She refuted the horrifying mystery of the ocean's abyss. The Spanish horseman--the pride of all Europe; the trampled, broken body of the Indio: infinite dreams crushing millennia of culture. The new world was not new. But evil and greed are words for the self-righteous: a convenient historical perspective for our enlightened age. We mock the mind of medieval man, we sing our praises, for we have come so far: we bear no sin. We tilt with the straw dummies of our darkened past. Our bastard civilization born of dreams and death; our Spanish father and our Indian mother: our beautifully fucked-up heritage, México. The immigrant's dream, the native's nightmare. The Chicano's paradox--to love and to hate yourself; to admire and to despise; to ignore what you cannot escape: your Indian eyes behind your Spanish face.
La Pinta: three gray walls and iron bars. Limited movement, unlimited surveillance: the claustrophobic agoraphobia of the panopticon. The metallic slam of the infinite finite. Circumscribed: four walls, two bunks, one toilet. Can you defend yourself when he comes to take your manhood? Can you preserve your virgin asshole? Will you find sanctuary in La Familia, La M, or the H? Will some fucking mayate shank you in the yard? Will your life end oozing out on the bestial floor, its uncontrollable mystery all too apparent then? The immigrant's reality. Aliens in a land paid dearly for by our ancestors. Fought for and lost by the Indians, fought for and won by the Spaniards, fought for and lost by the Mexicans. We fight ourselves for it every day and all it buys us are plots or cells. Alienated and undocumented: Mexicanos; alienated and unaccepted: Chicanos. Your Indian eyes look out from iron bars; your Spanish face always on the outside looking in.
La Pinta: the cranial dome wherein all limitations are bound. Encased in bone, fed by our ancestral blood, fueled by our rage. The mind set: as though it were meant to be set. The cutting off of possibilities. The closing, the starvation, the death of Mind. Soy Chicano. So I accept the limitations thrust upon me. Not of my own making but formed in the racist, fascist crucible. Protection. Stronger--much, much stronger--than the brittle bone that encases the brain. Protection. The armored plating, the iron bars forged in our minds. Forgery. A girded mind: to deflect, not reflect; to preserve, not learn; to stifle, not grow. Soy Chicano. I reject the Military-lndustrial-Police State-Educational Brainwash, Inc., etc.; and I create my own brainwash. Bound to be bound so I bind myself. "Check out my tattoos, ese." Not Dachau. Not Treblinka. But "White Fence, homes." "Puro Mission." I do not break my chains. No, I forge my own. Soy Chicano. I betray what my ancestors fought and died for. The blood of the Indio, the blood of the Spaniard: the toxic, volatile mixture. Will I explode? Will I implode?
Articulation
Half-articulated Spanish thoughts die in the dim morass of a bilingual subconscious. Half-grasped, dimly shaped they touch upon points; fragmentary, they appear from the abyss of the unconscious, finding NO translation into the English world. There are no words with which to grasp, to give form and, hence, meaning. Another idea dies; confusion is its wake. The frustrated jism of genius spilled. No adjunct to the Muses' diadem.
A mute mind opens and closes, but fails to speak. The awkward, broken fists of a shepherd claw but fail to grasp. Assaulted by an incomprehensible reality, the mind cries out silently. A soul extinguished and buried beneath the rubble of innumerable insults, slights, and oversights: his catalog of hatred, fear, and anger; his menu for violence. The gnawing idea that education brings expression and expression brings comprehension. A mind alienated by the demanded discipline of a conforming authority. An alien in his own country; an alien to his own mind. He is one more angry motherfucker ready to kill you 'cause he doesn't have the words to comprehend his pain.
Colores
Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye / In their stiff, painted clothes ...plaid Pendleton cholos lining Mission Street: frozen cool, stiff, unreal.
I always use a hot iron: hotter than you're supposed to for wool. I can't believe I'll get the creases just right unless it's hot. I fold each half down the middle of the front pockets; double check to make sure the fold follows the pattern on the wool perfectly: the itchy, soft wool of a new Pendleton. I spray a little water along the folds: it'll steam-in the creases. I work each crease back-and-forth. The smell of the steaming wool fills the room. Back-and-forth, till you get all the roundness out of the fold; leaving it flat, sharp, and hard; back-and-forth, two creases in front, three in the back: straight, perfect lines bisecting, trisecting. Military creases still razor sharp in twenty years, when the moths have eaten most of the shirt: back-and-forth. Rucas drive by in their painted faces: coolly indifferent to the desperate pleas. Discordant sounds of salsa, funk, and oldies jar in the eerily illuminated exhaust of automobiles: infinite desperation bounded by Sixteenth Street and Army. We have clogged the street in our futile ritual of automotive courtship; rationalized it as a tradition dating back to the plazas in México. Once again comes the girl in the maroon T-Bird. Will she look at me expectantly again? Will she gaze at me with her brown beckoning eyes; invite a flimsy pretense for a tryst on an ill-illuminated side street? Is she angry that I did not speak to her the first time? My noble passion and desire dies an ignoble death on my inarticulate tongue. Dare I speak to her? Dare I eat a peach?
"Here come those chicks again! Talk to them, homes," my partner's voice reflecting the nervous sexual tension of when-it's-so-close."Get them to pull over." What will I say? I am not really the inarticulate dork you see before you? Or, please pull over so that we can end each other's pain and anxiety? Perhaps, I that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty / To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph--? Behind her impassive face, her Latin eyes invite the pretense. Behind her distant beautiful face I see the pain: I know the pain.
¿Cómo decirte angelita? ¿Cómo decirte lo que siento? ¿Cómo
decirte de mi dolor y tristeza; decirte de la belleza que veo en
tus ojos; la belleza de dos almas semejantes; atorrados y
atormentados entre dos mundos; nuestra necesidad y
comprensión mutua? Pero pierdo las palabras. Las pierdo en
el desorden de mi bilingüïsmo. El sentido inarticulado, la
falta del entender.
"Say something, homes--she's waiting." My heart stops my throat. My synapses cannot fire across the no man's land between
two languages. The sentiment dies: starvation from inexpression. I do not have the words to tell her--I do not have the words. How do I tell her I don't just want to fuck her, I want to hold her, I want to make her feel secure? She passes down the street and out of my life.
"You blew it, ese! She wanted to talk to you. You blew it." I open another beer to drown my inarticulate tongue.
Sittin' in the Park
Yes I'm sittin' right heeere
Waitin fo-or you-oo my deear
Wonderin' if you e-evergonna sho-ow up
Dolores Park was the place to be on Sundays. All the ladies came out in their tube tops or Danskins and tight white pants; every type of Latina imaginable: morenas with thick, straight black hair; light-skinned, golden-haired girls with green eyes; Puertorriqueñas, with the unmistakable features of a distant African past; Chinas: the vaguely Asian looking Indias and mestizas. Their faces retelling the half millennia of Latin American history. Parking was a bitch, the place was jammed with carruchas, everyone wanted to be there on Sunday: cholos, cholas, salseras, salseros, nice girls who only went out on Sundays after the Spanish mass, Chicano bikers, rockers, congeros, bongeros, and mojados.
Eventually something would come down. Dolores Park was neutral ground and there were people from so many bamos that someone was bound to get stupid sooner or later. The police were nearby but they didn't bother going into the park until something happened: there were just too many people. When something did happen, the SFPD's new cross-country motorcycle squad would come in: threatening to run over anyone who didn't move fast enough. But while the peace lasted it was a mellow scene: the rolling green slopes and palm trees waving lazily in the breeze. If you closed your eyes and soaked in the sun, for a moment--an evanescent moment--you could imagine that you were somewhere else. I'm not sure where--the sensation passed so quickly--but somewhere nothing like the bamo: somewhere restful and welcoming.
I parked the car a couple of blocks away on 15th Street. Me and Jaime grabbed a couple of 16-ounce Buds and walked over to the park.
"Jaime, check out those chicks!"
"Hello, ladies." Jaime tried to get their attention but "Hello, ladies." Jaime tried to get their attention but they ignored us. "Oh, don't be so mean." He flashed them his sixteen-year-old wolf's grin. No reply.
"Man those chicks are stuck up,"Jaime said disgustedly.
"Maybe they just don't like cholos," I said: they looked like the salsera type. From the top of the park drifted down the hollow, rhythmic beat of the conga, another vato trying real hard to pound out the furious opening of "Se Acabó."
Trucha, homes--Garfield," Jaime told me in a half whisper, barely moving his lips. The brass glint of an "Olde English" can caught my eye. I looked without moving my head: five or six vatos and a couple of cholas sat atop one of the grassy mounds. I could hear their drunken voices trying to belt out an oldie. Here comes the night owl oooh-ooh, Comin' through the front doh-ohor.
Fucken punks.
"Shut up, homes--there's a bunch of them," Jaime whispered. "They can't hear me. What do you think, they're bats?" We walked on, eyes forward, ears open. We didn't want shit, but if it came, what could we do?
"Say man, I know those guys," Jaime said, looking up at a group of cholos sitting by some bushes. "That's Conejo, Sabina's boyfriend."
"I thought Gustavo was Sabina's boyfriend," I said.
"Nah, not no more."
"Man that chick has a lot of boyfriends."
"Nah, homes, just one at a time," he said smiling.
"She's kind of a slut, ese."
"Aw man, she's sweet."
"Yeah, I bet she is," I said.
"Just don't talk shit about her in front of Conejo, homes," Jaime warned.
"Man, I don't talk shit about people's ladies in front of them. I talk about them behind their backs." We both laughed. "'Sides, he doesn't look like shit."
"O.K., homes, just don't talk shit." I saw a flash in the bushes behind them.
"Conejo!"Jaime shouted.
"Jaime! ¿Qué pasa?" From close up I could see they were a lot older than us.
"Nothing much, ese. This is my partner Max." They looked at me icily. "He's cool, man," Jaime said, "he's Raza." That always broke the ice. "Orale, sit down, carnalitos. Want some pisto?" Conejo reached into the bushes and pulled out two Tecates.
"Thought you were a white boy, homes," he said laughing.
"Yeah, everyone does," I replied.
Oh man, check her out," said Jaime. One of Conejo's partners went over and started talking to this fine ruca: she actually stopped.
It was a hot day but I decided to leave my Pendleton on. I didn't like flashing any more white skin than I had to; besides once you're used to it, it doesn't bother you. Conejo had a lot of tattoos. He had the usual ones on his hands and arms: a big-titted Chicana in a bikini and sombrero; and a cross on his hand between the thumb and forefinger. He also had a teardrop tattooed on his face, which either meant he did time or he killed somebody: different barrios had different rules about these things. Conejo took off his t-shirt; his whole upper body was covered with tattoos. Some of them were faded, and it struck me that he must have been in his thirties. On his back, the Virgen de Guadalupe hovered over a '48 Chevy and the words, "La Vida Loca." Above the Virgen in thick three-dimensional graffiti letters was his barrio, "Folsom Park." Across the front of his stomach in big Old English script it said, "Soledad." He sensed that I was staring at his tattoo: I knew he couldn't see my eyes behind my '64's.
"See that, carnalito," he said, leaning back to stretch out his abdominals. "A homeboy of mine did it for me in la pinta. It helps to hide this." He pointed to the S, which followed the irregular contour of a scar: the dead flesh framed by the outlines of the letter.
"Eight fucking years, ese," he said gazing off in the distance toward St. Mary's Cathedral. "Eight motherfucking years." I wanted to know for what, but didn't want to ask. He kept quiet for a long time.
The congero and the timbalero were doing a perfect impersonation of Santana: the hollow, wooden pounding of the conga and the vicious metallic crash of the timbal. Se acabó... ...Se acabó...Se acabó...Se acabó...
"Fucking Folsom putos," a dark, skinny vato in a black "SirJac" jacket and wrap-around shades broke the solitude. "You ain't about shit." He stood defiantly in front of us, challenging. Five other vatos stood behind him, waiting. I didn't want to be in this--not for someone else's barrio--but I had no choice. People nearby began to clear out. Conejo's partner who had been speaking to the ruca came jogging over from where she was. We stood up. It was going down. "Garfield controla," the skinny vato said. Conejo stood. He reached...into the bushes...a sawed-off...shotgun. It was one of those surreal moments, slowly thawing in time, when perception loses its fluidity. The extreme, incomprehensible violence that your mind refuses to accept. Everyone scattered except for Conejo and the skinny vato. The vato stood before the flashing barrel, holding his arms out at his sides, "You wannna shoot me, ese?" he said. "Use it."
Conejo said nothing. I turned to run; I felt the explosion: the turbulence of the broiling, disturbed air. Falling to one knee, I looked back. The skinny vato lay on his back: he formed an upside down crucifix on the soft, grassy mound. His black "SirJac" soaked up his thickening blood as his life oozed out. Coolly--but quickly, efficiently--Conejo picked up his t-shirt and used it to hold the gun while he pulled the tape off the stock, he dropped the gun, and jogged toward the streetcar tracks. He disappeared into the tunnel that ran beneath the park.
A chola wearing a black "SirJac" like the skinny vato's came running up the hill screaming.
"Come on," Jaime yelled and I followed him: dazed. We ran across 17th Street and jumped the fence into Mission High. My Pendleton caught on the top of the chain links and I got a small tear. We ran across a courlyard and jumped a second fence onto Dolores Street.
"FREEZE!" I lo