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 looked over at me and said, “Hey, Güero, you like those gabachas over there?”
“Just looking, güey.”
Ángel said, “Watch this,” and got up.
“No’mbre, where you going to go?”
“Don’t worry, I’m just going to go talk, see what’s up, see if I can get some numbers just to say I did.”
I said, “Órale, go try your best,” just because I wanted to see what Ángel would do.
Ángel said, “Oye Rigo, Monstruo, and Bobby, you all stay here. We don’t want you scaring them and then them calling security. Okay?”
The way Monstruo smiled it was like he’d said something nice to him. His real name was Reginald, but he hated it because it was an old man gringo name. Because his dad was nowhere to be found the day he was born, his mother had named him after the doctor who delivered him. He liked Monstruo or Monster better, even if it was because of how scary he looked. Ángel turned back around and asked me if I wanted to go with him.
“Vámonos,” I said. I was the only one Ángel wanted on missions like this.
I know it’s crazy, but sometimes when I walk into a room like a club or a classroom I get a feeling where everything slows down, everybody’s watching me because I’m the baddest Mexican who ever lived, and I own the whole room and nobody can stop me. Walking with Ángel, I got this feeling now and those girls looked at us as if they weren’t sure if they wanted to walk away or stay and see what would happen. These were the same type of girls Smiley saw in the halls and went, Psst oye güerita! to, the same girls who acted like they didn’t see us every time.
“¿Qué onda?”
“Excuse me?” the blond one said. Her hair was so blond it was almost white. Girl also had a fake and bake tan. I hated that. Why weren’t people ever satisfied with the color they were? Like I was one to talk, right, me wishing I was darker like my dad.
Ángel said, “I said ‘what’s up,’ as in how you bien buenas doing?”
“Just sitting here,” the second one said, kind of sweet. She had a little more skin on her than the one who was all attitude. Even though she had lost some weight, was wearing a different style of clothes, I suddenly recognized her as Bell, this girl I’d had for art the year before. Bell was a Hispanglo, a half-white, half-Mexican whose real name was Maribel Porter. Her skin was the white kind that could get all golden brown, but not dark, if she spent time in the sun. Since my mother was light-complected and my father was dark, Bell and I almost had the same color of skin, but hers was pinker, especially in the cheeks.
We had talked a lot with each other in art class and always paired up whenever we had a project. I knew she liked me, and I had liked her in a way too. Bell was nice to everyone, and it didn’t matter if they were prep, kicker, thug, grifo, or whatever. If she ever saw a kid sitting alone in class when we were supposed to be doing a project, she would go over and ask if they wanted to join us. Back then in the hallways, I didn’t make a big deal that I knew her, and pretty much ignored her, not to be stuck-up, but so that Llorona and her girls wouldn’t mess with her. Bell had moved to Sharyland second semester and I never saw her after that, but always wondered how she was doing.
The third one just kept looking at the blonde to see what she was doing. She was the leader. I just lifted my eyebrows, gave each of them a little what’s up look, not too much, not too little, but made sure I smiled at Bell. I was going to let Ángel do the talking, even though that was my specialty and I had an in with Bell. Mama once told me that I had the Izquierdo gift like my father, that I knew exactly what to say to women, exactly when they needed to hear it. She had heard me talking to Llorona on the phone late at night and knew.
“So the reason I came over here was to ask you all what you were doing tonight. Me and my friend Güero here are going to have us a little party at the Hilton. We like to do that, rent a room and buy some champagne and go swimming at midnight with pretty girls.” Ángel