Los Vatos

Back in the early fifties el Chonito and I were on the

Way to the bote when we heard the following dialogue:

Police car radio:Pachuco rumble in progress in front of Lyceum

Theatre. Sanger gang crossing tracks heading for

Chinatown. Looks big this time. All available

Westside units . . .

Cop to partner driving car:

Take your time. Let ’em wipe each other out.

That attitude was typical then. Has it changed?

Below I sing of an unfortunate act of that epoch.

They came to get him at three o’clock

On a Sunday afternoon that summer of ’48.

Five of them and a guitar in a blue ’37 Chevey.

(The vatos always carried guitars and drove around

In low chevies with bad metallic paint jobs.)

Two got down soothing long sleek hair,

Hidden eyes squinting behind green tinted tea-timers.

In cat-like motions, bored and casual, they sauntered

Then settled heavily on the car.

The one Chava whistled the familiar whistle

Which now sounded alien. The other drew a handkerchief,

Squatted slowly and wiped his thick-soled shoes —

Twin mirrors of despair, reflecting a wine bottle

Making the rounds in gurgling sounds inside the car.

Benny watched them from the window of the tiny bedroom.

His little sister of the huge,slanting eyes — eyes that

Surely witnessed in another time, in another land now

Foreign, Moctezuma slain — played on the bed; life being

Still good to her at that age. But Benny felt sorry for

Himself by feeling sorry for her. He felt a numb sorrow

For many things — and he felt anger.

His brain, his stomach, his feet —all of him—

Was not himself at all and he could stand outside

And look in. He was at once a rock and a lump of jello

Something — a thing, but not himself.

This he could see and not understand fully, but

Everything that was happening was happening, somehow.

“The boys!” called his mother, and her innocence

Made lacerations on his torpid mind. “Benito, the guys

Want you, ven! Cuidado, and don’t stay out late!”

She warned, in false concern. Benny is a good boy!

He walked past her without seeing her and in his thoughts

Illusive like a moth, the incredible notion

To crawl into her and the chance to be born again

Passed before him.

But the street and the heat and the guys waited.

Like all the other times of camaraderie of long ago

Before last night’s dance had changed all that

And now a mask went forth strutting a brave deathwalk

A clouded mind half-knowing, aware only of the hot sun’s

Leaping flames bouncing off the Fresno street.

He was consumed by a wall of heat and he managed

To utter, “here?” Then the mercury burst!

And he felt a red-hot wire-or was it a piece of ice?

Pass across his belly and he expired a softy moan of relief

Then his breath was cut short from behind-

Then again,

And again!

And his mother came screaming.

Source: Information: 20 Years of Joda (Chusma House Publications)