style="font-size:15px;"> “No, no, you wear it. It looks better on you. You know me. I don’t wear jewelry.”
“De veras, Güero, I can lend it. You need some gold. All you wear is that rosary, and you don’t even wear it outside.” He meant my rosary from First Communion, the one I always had on underneath my shirt. They all told me to show it off, that I should at least get one with the right colors, but they didn’t get it. I wore it because it reminded me of my mother’s brother-in-law, tío Jorge, my Padrino who had died the year before from a heart test gone wrong in the hospital. He and Madrina had given it to me, along with renting me my tuxedo for the pictures. Padrino and Madrina, my uncle and aunt, were good people and always giving of their time and money to me because they never had any boys, just my three girl cousins. When I was little, I always thought they wanted me to be their son, and if my parents ever died, I knew they would treat me like parents should. I always felt guilty when I thought about living with them if my parents both died. I kept meaning to go see my Madrina, as she was alone now, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. It was the same way with my grandma, ’Buelita Guadalupe. I hadn’t seen her in a long time either and I needed to.
“No, está bien. I’m fine. You wear it.”
Rigo said, “I told you it’s stupid, fake gold. He doesn’t want to wear that. Güero’s family has money, and he can afford the real thing.” He looked at Ángel and said, “Yeah, I know, fake-no-speaking-Spanish Coconut Mexican, right, but I know good gold when I see it. The Bargain Bazaar wouldn’t even sell the cheap caca they wear.” Ángel jerked his fist towards Rigo and he jumped back, almost knocking over a rack of key chains. We all had to laugh at that one.
I said, “Gold’s gold, güey. Anyway, qué te importa? What’s it matter to you?”
Rigo said, “Whatever, fool, I was trying to back you up anyways. All’s I’m saying is if they’re going to wear it, they should wear the real thing.”
Smiley said to Monstruo and Bobby, “You all got style. Don’t listen to him. He’s just a jealous hater. Hey Bobby, why don’t you lend it to me.”
All of what Rigo said didn’t seem to matter to Monstruo and Bobby because they held out their gun-shaped rings and said, “Puro HCP Soljas.” They were always saying this, that they were Pure HCP Soldiers.
Ángel turned away to show them his neck, which had an HCP tattoo in black Old English letters, below his left ear. I wasn’t into that, but I did know that Monstruo and Bobby would always give me, Smiley, and Ángel backup no matter what. Basically, they’d do anything Ángel said.
Like the one time when Smiley hadn’t studied for a pre-algebra test he needed to pass to get credit for the class, he’d told Ángel about it. Ángel then told Monstruo and Bobby to pull the fire alarms and within a few minutes, all of us were outside in the parking lot at Dennett High School. Smiley got an extra day to study, while Bobby and Monstruo got in-school suspension for three days.
Or the other time at a football game in McAllen when these fools from the Navarro followed me into the restroom to jump me for my jacket. When I walked in and they followed me in, Bobby and Monstruo came right in after them. Monstruo made eye contact with them in the metal mirrors and lifted his chin and kept it there, telling them ¿Que onda? with that look. They took one look at Bobby with his hand inside his jacket, as if he was hiding something, and Monstruo with his yellow skin, dark circles under his eyes, and those arms that were too long for his body, and they didn’t want any of that. They just walked back out.
Monstruo and Bobby would always back me up because I was tight with Ángel, who was Puro HCP for Life. If any of us lived the crazy life, it was Ángel. As if throwing down on anyone who crossed him, and throwing signs wasn’t enough, he had forever tagged himself with the HCP tattoo on his neck. Whenever the principal Mr. Scott saw it Ángel told him it stood for Hermelinda Carlota de las Pacas, his made-up grandmother’s name, but Mr. Scott never believed him, even though he was a gringo and most of them didn’t know any better. Mr. Scott must’ve taken a G.R.E.A.T class or something and knew that HCP stood for Hispanics Causing Panic. Mr. Scott stopped sending Ángel home for the tattoo because it never worked. Every time Ángel got suspended, he came to school anyway, either by sneaking around the buildings and halls all day or just going to classes like normal. So because Mr. Scott got tired of fighting with him and having security chase him around the school, what he started doing was making him put band-aids over the tattoo, which looked even more thug, like he’d gotten messed up in a fight over the weekend.
Why wasn’t I Puro HCP? How come I’d never been initiated like Ángel and all my other friends who were running around town, claiming HCP as their identity? Basically, it was because of when I left private school in elementary and got sent to Dennett Junior High. I hated that all the montoneros ran around beating down kids after school, during lunch and PE, six to one, seven to one. Even though no one did this anymore, I never forgot it, and thought this way of thinking was weakness and showed how afraid you were.
Pop always said if you’re going to be tough you got to be able to stand alone. A montonero is a coward, he had said. A real man can stand alone and doesn’t need a montón of his friends to back him up. He had gotten it into his head that I was getting soft at Our Lady of Lourdes, and said I needed to learn about the real world. That’s why he sent me to Dennett Junior High in seventh grade. I don’t want you to be a gallina, he had said. That’s also why he taught me how to box in fifth and sixth grade, to get me ready for the real world in junior high because he remembered how it was in his day in Barrio La Zavala in McAllen. But then, Pop said if I ever ran with the wrong crowd, he’d put me into one of those boot camps where they shave your head and yell at you. I already had the shaved head, but it was the yelling at you part I didn’t like. Pop was a drunk and I barely saw him, but he knew some things about life and if he made a threat, he came through with it, even if he always contradicted himself.
Ángel looked at us and said “Órale pues, we’re leaving this chafa store.” Ángel said this, looking at the security wannabe club kid at the checkout counter. He wore a white, shiny club T-shirt that was too tight around his stomach. I mean you could see the shape of his belly button through the shirt. What was up with that? Ángel and I just looked at each other and laughed.
On our way out, Ángel looked at the club kid and said, “Ever heard of XL, homes? It’s like size large, but bigger. That Extra Medium isn’t working for you.”
Of course, Rigo had to open his mouth too. “Yeah, stupid!”
Ángel said, “Can one of you tell me why we still roll with this fool?”
He acted like he didn’t hear Ángel, which meant maybe Rigo was learning after all.
five
Later at the food court, I could feel the pizza going all the way down to the bottom of my stomach. At the table next to us, this mother was slapping her son on the head because he was blowing bubbles in his soda. His sister smiled about seeing her brother get hit. The little boy blinked his eyes shut tight and smiled as she kept slapping him on the head. We all laughed and Ángel said, “Mira, el future cagapalo of America.” Kid was going to be a troublemaker.
Ángel was talking to Rigo, Monstruo, and Bobby about what they were going to do tonight, but I wasn’t hearing any of it. I was looking at the pretty preppy girls a few tables away from us in their nice clothes, bright Americanas, smelling sweet, their white teeth laughing, their eyes trying very hard not to meet mine. They looked like rich gringas who went to Sharyland High School, where all the other rich kids went, where I would have gone if Pop had bought a house any further east of where we lived.
Ángel
