Fuck Shakespeare

Fresno State, 1984

“Fuck Shakespeare!” Bino said.

He stood with his feet firmly on the ground, his shadow looming over me. Andrés had told me that Bino was a former Green Beret, a black belt who could kill with two fingers. Now he was a Chicano radical, an activist who used militant tactics.

“What do you like about him?” he asked, jerking his head up as if he were about to kill me.

I stuttered my answer: “A-a certain universality of . . .”

“Fuck him,” he shot. “I hate that white asshole.”

“Yeah, Bino prefers brown assholes,” Andrés said.

Students walking along the path had to step on the lawn to get around us. Bino towered over me, and I shifted my feet wondering what he wanted from me, why he had stopped me as I was walking out of the library. He was a seventh-year sociology major. Some days in the free speech area he’d make impromptu diatribes against the university or the government. His words were so strong—“Reagan is the KKK!” he’d say, and he attracted crowds.

He was a favorite of the MEChistAs, but others didn’t know how to handle him. They thought that they were entering a political debate in the free speech area, but he only let them talk for about five seconds before he went nuts, sticking his finger in their faces, calling them racists. He could rile up the radical Chicano students so it looked like they were about to start turning over cars and blowing up buildings. “Have you even taken a Shakespeare class?” I said to him, kind of snobbishly. I hadn’t meant to sound that way, but I was just confident that he hadn’t ever read Shakespeare.

“What the hell for?” he asked. “What does it matter to that Chicano kid who was beat up by those frat boys? Right here on campus? You heard about that? Happened here, a week ago. Or were you too busy reading Romeo and Juliet?”

“If you spics want to talk,” Andrés said in a mock Okie accent, “you’d better do it on the grass. Decent white folks is using this path.”

“We’re reclaiming this land in the name of Aztlán,” Bino said. “Them whiteys can go back to Europe.”

I looked around, just to make sure no one had heard that. Although Andrés looked white—tall, dirty blond hair, blue eyes—he was dressed like a cholo, an urban Chicano gangbanger with creased Ben Davis work pants, an ironed white T-shirt, and black work boots. An unlit cigarette dangled from his lips as he patted his pockets for matches. “I mean, think about it, fellas,” he whined like a bratty white boy. “You’re holding up traffic.”

“I have to go to class,” I said.

“Shakespeare?” Bino asked, as if the thought made him sick.

“You know, there really is a lot to admire in his writings,” I said. “One just has to put one’s prejudices aside.”

Bino stepped in closer to me. He put his face inches from mine, like an evil version of the cop in that Norman Rockwell painting. His teeth were clenched: “What? What the hell did he write that’s so important to us?”

I could feel the heat of his breath on my face. I took a few steps back and looked to Andrés, who lit his cigarette, took a long drag, and blew the smoke into the air.

“Well, sheer volume alone is impressive,” I said.

“Suppose he was several writers,” Andrés said. “I read that somewhere. What if Shakespeare was a bunch of people?”

“That’s stupid,” I said.

“Why’s it stupid?”

“Those theories have been discredited.”

“Aha! But by who?”

By whom, I wanted to correct.

“By white people, ¿qué no?” Andrés continued. “Nobody would publish the truth.”

“That doesn’t even matter,” Bino said, slinging the backpack over his other shoulder to free both hands, like a soldier ready for hand-to-hand combat. “The important question for our people,” he said, “is what did Shakespeare, a white icon—What did Shakespeare, an example of the superior white mind—What did Shakespeare do for our people, our people who struggle every day?” He held up a finger as if it represented “our people.”

“What does he mean to our people, our people who have a right to dignity but get none? What is to be admired in his works, not from a gabacho perspective but from a Chicano perspective?”

“Not a damn thing,” said Andrés. “You’re right about that, Bino.”

“You guys are writers,” Bino said. “What are you doing for the Movement? What are you doing for the people?” He looked at me. “I saw one of your poems in that English Department journal. It was about a stupid horse eating grass! What the fuck is that shit? You should be writing about the struggle.” He stepped back and looked at both of us. “If you guys were down for the people, down for the revolution, you wouldn’t care about getting published. You wouldn’t care about the glory, the recognition, the pats on the back. You wouldn’t care about the book contracts, the letter from Knopf saying you’re the greatest writer they ever encountered so here’s a thousand dollars for your next book. You wouldn’t care about signing your name to what you’ve written. You’d all use the same name, one name.”

He paused and ran a palm over his short hair. The sides were graying. He must have been about forty-five years old. “I write poetry,” he said. “Did you know that? But I never sign my work. Oh, no. What I write is not, I repeat, is not Bino Duran emotionally masturbating on the page. It’s the voice of the people crying out for justice.”

“It wasn’t really about a horse,” I said. “That was a metaphor—”

“Fuck your metaphors! The poet is either a clown or an enemy of the oppressor. What we need—what our people need—is a Chicano Shakespeare, someone to speak out for our needs. One voice. We should put all our writings together and publish them under one name, one writer. The Writer.”

“Hold on there, feller,” Andrés said, in his Okie voice. “Now you’re talking a little crazy-like. It’s easy for you to give up your poems because you write shit. But when you’re a genius like me . . .”

From some distance away, between two buildings, my eyes were pulled to Manuel Padilla walking toward the library. He was on time. My heart jumped because I didn’t want him to see me next to these guys. I looked around as if I might find an escape but found instead my reflection in the mirrored windows of the library: a little dark boy, round face, thick black hair that looked greasy, dressed in dark slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt. I looked like a busboy.

“I have to go study,” I said.

Both Andrés and Bino held out their hands for the Chicano handshake, each step of which was so awkward and slow for me. I submitted my thin fingers to their strong grips.

Manuel stood up at the head of the table, lecturing in front of four or five others, all of them holding pens, their books open. Across the hall, I sat at an oak table and tried to concentrate on reading Hamlet, but I couldn’t stop looking at him. I imagined touching his face with the back of my fingers, and him looking up at me with eyes that sparkled love.

In reality, of course, he was taller than me and would have to look down to make eye contact; and he was untouchable to a guy like me. I wasn’t even out, and I didn’t feel like I could be because of Andrés and the other Chicanos. They may have thought themselves all progressive, but Andrés freely used the word “faggot” to describe people he didn’t like.

Andrés was sitting across from me carving into the oak table with a pocketknife. “Hey look at this,” he said. He had carved the Lowrider logo, the face of a mustached cholo. “Pretty cool, ¿qué no?”

Manuel put on a pair of glasses and read a passage from the book out loud to the others as he walked back and forth.

“Come outside with me while I smoke,” Andrés said. He pulled out a cigarette.

I ignored him, ignored Shakespeare, watched Manuel, and there was a certain bend in his front lip, like the start of a smirk.

“Come on, man. Come smoke with me.”

“I don’t smoke,” I said.

Andrés turned around to see what had me so absorbed. “Why you keep looking at Manuel Padilla like that? Got a crush on him, maricón?”

“Just go smoke,” I said.

“Sellout,” he said, but he just stood there, because he didn’t like to smoke alone.

I looked down at the words of Hamlet, pretending to be absorbed, hoping Manuel would—at that moment—look over at me and see how hard I studied, hoping he would notice me, although I wasn’t much to notice.

The youngest of ten boys, I was the shortest and darkest. They called me El Indio. They all still lived in Farmersville, working the nearby almond fields or as forklift drivers. Although one other brother finished high school, I was the only one to go to college.

Now I scratched my head, as if the passage I read, because it was so complex, required extra thought.

“I wonder what he’s doing with all those white people,” Andrés said.

“It’s a study group,” I said.

“Dude, why do you look at him like that?”

“Like what?” I asked. “He’s interesting. That’s all.”

“He’s not a fag.”

“You shouldn’t use that word,” I said.

“Come on, sellout! Come outside with me so I can smoke.” He stood up, expecting me to do the same.

“I’m not a sellout,” I said.

“Come with me,” he said, stressing “me” with a whine. “Do it for the people.”

“Just because I don’t hate white people doesn’t mean I’m a sellout,” I said. “If I did, I’d have to hate you, Okie.”

“Only half of me,” he said. “I’m a Chicanokie.”

While one of his hands held his eyeglasses, Manuel used the other to emphasize a point he was making. That almost smirk on his upper lip.

“Come on, man,” said Andrés, a cigarette in his lips. “Let’s go.”

“I’m studying,” I said. “Go yourself.”

“You’re acting like a white boy,” he said. “Like that boy.” He pulled the cigarette from his lips and pointed with it.

I turned around and saw Stanley Monk, president of the campus Greens, walking toward us, his smile growing big with recognition.

“I hate that gabacho,” Andrés said.

“Is that why you’re always drinking beer together?” I asked.

“Shit, he pays for it,” said Andrés.

“What are you guys doing?” Stanley asked, as if we were his best friends. His skin was much darker than usual because he had spent the summer at the beach. His curly blond hair made him look like a photo negative.

“I’m trying to study,” I said.

He looked down at my book and his eyes widened. “Shakespeare. Have you been to the English Department?”

“It’s my day off,” I said. “Why?”

“Someone spray-painted all over the walls, all over the walls in big letters. You know what they wrote?” Stanley asked.

“Just fucking tell us,” snapped Andrés.

“Fuck Shakespeare.”

I looked at Andrés, who looked at me.

“It’s everywhere,” Stanley continued. “‘Fuck Shakespeare’ all over the place. It’s hilarious.”

“Hur! Hur! Hur!” said Andrés, making fun of how white people laugh.

“Andrés, did you know about this?” I asked.

“Not me,” he said.

“Who do you think did it?” Stanley asked.

“How the fuck would we know?” Andrés asked, stepping in like he was ready to fight.

“Don’t get offended. I’m just asking.”

“You’re just assuming that since it’s graffiti it was done by a Chicano,” said Andrés.

“You guys are too paranoid,” Stanley said.

“You guys? I didn’t even say anything,” I said.

“He means Mexicans,” said Andrés. “He’s racist. Just like the rest of them.”

“Give me a break,” Stanley said, as if trying not to take Andrés seriously. He took the backpack from his shoulder and placed it on the table. He sat across from me and looked in my eyes. “You know I didn’t mean that.”

“What did you mean?” asked Andrés.

“I’m ignoring you,” he said to Andrés. Then to me: “Personally, I think it was Brad Jenkins. He flunked Shakespeare. Now he can’t graduate. He’s real pissed because he wanted to teach English in Japan. Had it all planned.”

Manuel sat down and listened to someone else in his study group talk, some white guy who looked like a frat boy, clean-cut, handsome, white teeth. After he was done, everyone in the study group began to close their books. Manuel took off his glasses and began to put his stuff away. To get out, he would have to walk right by us.

While Stanley and Andrés went on talking, he passed by, holding his briefcase, walking very professionally toward the elevator. He said hello to Andrés, who said hi back, and then Stanley said, “Hiya, Manuel,” and waved.

“Hello, Stanley,” he said.

Then he looked right at me and raised his eyebrows as if to say, “That Stanley guy’s a loser,” as if there were a joke between us. When he reached the elevator, he pressed the button and then turned around, facing us as he waited.

“You know what your problem is?” I said to Stanley. “You think you’re so liberal because you care about trees and toxic waste and you vote with the Greens, but you don’t give a damn about Chicanos. You and your causes—your anti–nuclear power demonstrations—are just a bunch of bourgeois games that do nothing more than mitigate your guilt for being so rich and privileged.”

I could tell by the way Manuel took a step closer to us that I had his attention. Andrés’s mouth dropped opened as he watched me go on.

“What have the Greens ever done for us?” I continued, hoping the elevator would come soon because I really wasn’t sure where I was going with this. I imagined I was Bino giving a speech. “Over 50 percent of our children never graduate high school. What do you guys care? Most of our people are in poverty. What do you guys care?”

“Hey! We are actively recruiting Chicanos to join the Greens!” he said.

“To join your fight,” I said. “To join your bourgeois fight. What about when a Chicano kid is beat up by frat boys? They called him ‘greaser’ and ‘spic.’ Where were the Greens then?”

I wanted to ask what the Greens had ever done for gays, but I just stopped. Stanley stood. “You guys are unreasonable. I’ll see you later.”

“Who’s ‘you guys’?” I asked.

He waved off my question with one arm.

“Hey, Stanley,” Andrés yelled.

Stanley turned around, hands on his hips.

“What?” he asked.

“Fuck Shakespeare,” said Andrés.

We laughed.

Like a proud father Andrés looked at me. “That was great. What happened, man? I mean, what got into you, ese?”

Manuel’s elevator arrived and he stepped in, but before the door closed he smiled at me. There was no question he was gay. I knew it. I knew it.

Then the administration building—an old brick structure nestled on the lawn between two more modern buildings—was splattered in white paint, letters big as humans, “Fuck Shakespeare.” The line of oak trees outside the library had a red letter painted on each trunk. On one side of the path were the letters FUCKSHAK, and on the other were ESPEARE. The graffiti was signed El Escritor.

Then things got ugly.

Most of the books in the library by or about Shakespeare were destroyed—pages torn, passages crossed out with black markers, and the covers sliced with a knife. El Escritor didn’t claim this work—nor the black ink poured over the brand-new stack of collected works in the bookstore—but everyone assumed it was El Escritor and that he was a Chicano, especially after one wall was painted with “Chúpame Chakespeare.”

As I was making copies one morning in the English Department where I worked assisting the secretaries, I heard a couple of English professors talking about the graffiti.

“It’s a misdirected form of protest. It’s certainly not in the spirit of César Chávez, whom I met once. I think a boycott or a march would have been much more effective.”

“Oh, I agree,” said the other.

They came into the copy room, Karen and Mike, which is how they liked to be called by their students, and they both looked at me and stopped, as if they were surprised to find me making copies.

“Hi,” I finally said. They looked at each other as if wondering if they should ask. Finally, Karen hooked her long, thin blonde hair behind her ears. “Can we ask you something?”

I stood frozen, the machine spitting out copies chinga chinga chinga.

“Sure. Why not? What is it?”

Chinga chinga chinga

As if on cue, they took two steps closer and then looked at each other and behind them to make sure no one was coming.

Finally Karen spoke. “Who’s doing the tagging?”

“What?” I asked.

“It’s cool,” assured Mike, pushing his glasses up his nose. “We understand. I mean, we were around in the ’60s.”

“As students,” Karen clarified.

Chinga chinga chinga

“We believe that it’s a form of, well . . .”

“Political expression,” Karen finished.

“Yeah, man, and we understand that, believe me. We’ve been there.”

“I was maced by the police in Berkeley,” Karen said proudly.

“I was, well, I was involved in a lot of crazy stuff,” said Mike.

The copy machine stopped and the silence buzzed. The two secretaries in the outer office were pretending not to be looking at us as they sat at their desks thumbing through papers.

“I’m not sure what you want me to say,” I said.

“El Escritor,” Mike said, as if the words were significant. He might have even winked at me.

“What?” I said.

“Never mind,” Karen said, leading Mike out of the copy room.

I finished the copies and walked into the main office where the two secretaries sat at their desks. Dr. Dart, the English Department chair, stood in his doorframe shaking his head. He was a little man, my size, with a beard like a rabbi’s. “Stupid,” he said. “It’s stupid.”

And he closed his door.

Later, I thought how strange it was that I had never been involved in anything Chicano, the organizations, protests, nothing, yet many people assumed I was connected to El Escritor, connected to the Chicano students. Maybe it was because Andrés was my roommate. Maybe it was my complexion, the Indianness of my nose.

One afternoon as I walked through campus, I saw Bino sitting with Manuel Padilla and a woman I didn’t know. They were outside the cafeteria at a group of tables students referred to as “Little Tijuana” because so many Chicanos sat around there. I had never hung out there myself because I didn’t know many people except for Andrés, but Bino saw me and waved me over.

“It’s El Escritor,” he said as I walked over.

Chicanos at other tables looked at me. Bino stood up to offer me his hand, as if I were someone important. I went through the steps of the handshake, dreading the end, because there were women there too, and I wasn’t sure if I should do it with them. I had never seen Chicano men shake hands with Chicana women the same way they did with other men, and it always seemed sexist not to. But I couldn’t NOT treat the woman the same way, but still, after Bino let go of my hand, I withdrew it. I didn’t offer it to anyone else.

“El Escritor,” the woman said to me. “What’s next on your agenda?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Ask Bino.”

“Sit down,” Bino said.

He had a copy of the campus newspaper, and the front-page headline read: “Bard Hater Terrorizes Campus.” I could make out in the first paragraph that El Escritor had threatened to blow up the theater where a production of Richard III was being rehearsed. The tires were slashed and the windows busted out on the director’s car. I looked at Manuel’s wrist, his watch. It was sleek, with golden roman numerals for the hours.

“The chair of the English Department thinks I’m responsible,” I said. “I guess it’s because I’m Hispanic. I mean, Chicano.”

Manuel put down the paper and put his elbows on the table as if ready to hear a good story. “What did he say?” he asked.

“It’s just the way he acts.”

“You’re an English major, right?” he asked.

I admitted I was.

“Andrés was telling me about you. He says you’re pretty smart.” My heart started to beat so hard that I was afraid he would hear it.

Make no mistake, this is a love story.

I looked at his wristwatch because I couldn’t look in his eyes for very long. “You’re the chair of Chicanos in Law, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, how come you don’t come to our meetings? We could use a good writer.”

“We can always use El Escritor,” said Bino.

I looked around, hoping no one was paying attention. “People might really think I’m him,” I whispered.

“What do you mean ‘Think’?” he said, loudly, standing up. “You mean they KNOW who is El Escritor.”

Bino and the woman went and sat with a group of Chicano students at another table and started talking with them, leaving me alone with Manuel. My palms started to sweat.

When I looked over at him, I found that he had been watching me, his eyes gentle.

I was happy.

Finally I stammered and stuttered what came to me: “Can I see your watch?”

He held out his wrist. There was a black leather band with something engraved in it, a name, although it didn’t look like “Manuel.”

“It’s nice,” I said.

“I liked what you were saying the other day to Stanley Monk,” he said. “Someone who can speak the way you can needs to be involved,” he said. “You should write something for us.”

“Sure, of course. Like a poem?”

“An article explaining the graffiti,” he said.

“I’m not sure I understand it myself. I have nothing against Shakespeare,” I said.

“This has nothing to do with Shakespeare,” he said. “I understand he was a great writer. But this is a vehicle for mobilization. People are paying attention.”

“I tend to stay neutral as much as possible,” I said, stuttering the “N” on neutral for about seven beats.

“Neutral?” he said, as if the thought were disgusting. “What does ‘neutral’ mean? And don’t define it according to Webster. What does it mean politically? Compliance? Acceptance of the status quo? There is no such thing as neutrality. That’s a bourgeois concept.”

“What do you even mean by bourgeois?” I asked. “You sound like robots.”

“Oh, my God, I can’t believe you’re serious,” he said.

“Never mind, I just . . . you see why I don’t like to talk politics? It’s too divisive. Can we change the subject? Tell me about you.”

He sat there looking at me, shaking his head, as if he hated what he saw. “No, I don’t think so,” he said.

“I have to go,” I said, and without looking at him I rose from my seat and walked away. I know I looked funny, my arms swinging from side to side as if I had no elbows, but I kept walking away until I lost all consciousness and my body took over.

I went to the English Department for work, and when I walked in, I noticed the secretaries looked nervous. I stood before their desks and asked what I should do. Then I heard a crash come from Dr. Dart’s office, and I heard him cuss.

“His car was vandalized,” one of the women explained.

The office, quiet most of the day, had an oppressive air about it, and everyone whispered. When I finished making a stack of copies, I brought it to the secretary and she told me to take it to Dr. Dart.

I knocked on the door. “What?”

“I have some papers for you,” I said.

“Well come in then,” he snapped.

When I opened the door, the papers slipped from my grip and flew all over the floor.

“What are you doing?” he yelled, standing up. He was such a tiny man that we were almost eye-to-eye.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Dart—” I bent down to pick them up.

“Just leave,” he said, “I’ll get them.”

I stood up and stumbled into a wooden coatrack, knocking it down. With a thud it hit his desk. I apologized.

“Just . . . leave,” Dart said, trying to contain his anger.

I kept apologizing, gathering papers from the floor and dropping them again, making a greater mess. As he continued to tell me to leave, I ceased to hear words, just saw his mouth moving in slow motion.

And I realized.

I was doing this on purpose.

When he slammed the door behind me, I felt pretty good. I turned around, and the secretaries were looking at me. “I think I should take the rest of the day off,” I said. They nodded agreement.

A cool breeze swept through the pines that surrounded our balcony. Andrés and I had bought beer and tri tip. I unrolled the end of the stiff, hard charcoal bag, poured the chunks into the barbecue, squeezed on the lighter fluid, and let it soak. The sharp gas smell gave me a headache. Inside, Andrés was singing along with his favorite Led Zeppelin tape, his screeching voice like a wail of anguish.

When you feeeeeeeeel like you can’t go on

In the metal black bowl where the charcoal was piled I saw Dr. Dart yelling, spittle dripping from his beard. I saw Manuel shaking his head at me. I saw Bino’s face scrunched up in anger, pointing his finger.

The doorbell rang and Andrés went to answer it. “Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” he exclaimed in his best Okie accent.

Through the glass I saw Stanley Monk. “Look what I brought for us, my friends,” he said as he walked out on the balcony and ceremoniously pulled from a paper sack a six-pack of foreign beer in green bottles.

“What the hell kind of beer is that?” Andrés asked.

“This, gentlemen, is the best beer your ugly asses will ever drink.” He opened one and handed it to Andrés.

“What the hell,” Andrés said, gulping the bottle of Bud he already had and then taking a swig of the new one. “Hey, not bad.”

“The best,” Stanley said, handing one to me.

“No thanks,” I said. “I’m still on my first.”

“Come on,” he urged. “Try a real beer.”

“Later,” I said.

“I’ll put this in the refrigerator,” he said, entering the apartment, singing along with the music. “I didn’t know Chicanos listened to Zeppelin,” he yelled. The phone rang and Stanley answered it. When he came out he said, “There’s some señora on the phone speaking Spanish.”

“My mom,” I said. “I’m going to turn the music down,” I told Andrés.

“Hell no, you ain’t,” Andrés said. He had glassy eyes, which meant he was getting drunk.

“Well, then, I’m taking the call in your room.”

I went inside and told my mom I’d call her back, so she wouldn’t have to pay for it. I walked down the hall.

I reached his door.

When I opened it, cold air and a flood of nervousness washed over me. Things looked normal enough: papers and books were scattered everywhere, even on the floor surrounding the wooden legs of the desk, as if Andrés had been looking for something by throwing stuff around until he had found it. The walls were lined on three sides by bookshelves—thick tomes on politics and revolution—and they made the room feel small, almost confining, like an interrogation cell. On the wall hung a Malaquias Montoya poster of an illegal Mexican wrapped and suffocating in an American flag, and next to that was a life-sized poster of Zapata staring in my eyes as he held his rifle. The computer and the telephone were on the desk. I nervously sat, feeling as if I were being watched, and called my mom.

My father was getting more senile, she said. I pictured him sitting, not at home in his regular recliner but across Andrés’s room on the futon, scratching his disheveled white hair, mouth moving as if chewing without teeth, and looking around, clueless about where he was.

My oldest brother, Miguel, she added, had lost his job because the farm had been sold. He and his wife were having hard times.

She said I should write something nice for him, perhaps a poem, forgetting that he couldn’t read English and I couldn’t write Spanish. “Write down with pen and paper,” she said slowly, “the new address of your brother.”

I placed one hand on the desk top, on the scattered papers, and felt for a pen.

My face froze in disgust as I felt around in the mess, because I almost expected to be bitten by something. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote the address in my large, childlike handwriting. We said our good-byes. I hung up. I looked at the address.

The piece of paper had been torn from a Shakespeare book.

I had to admit to myself what I had already sensed. Andrés was El Escritor.

He had been a member of MEChistA ever since I met him and was good at putting across the radical rhetoric of Bino, but inside he was still a kid. I once saw him get excited when the waitress at Denny’s accidentally brought a kid’s menu to our table along with some crayons. He sat there the entire time coloring the faces, holding the paper up for me to see, saying, “Now that’s talent!”

Perhaps Bino didn’t take him seriously, and this was a way of doing his part, although I wasn’t sure what it had accomplished or why they embraced it as a revolutionary action. Perhaps the publicity.

Out the window, I saw Andrés squatting in front of the barbecue eating beef slices off the grill with one hand while holding a cigarette with the other. He pulled off a strip and handed it to Stanley, a vegetarian, who put his hand over his mouth as if gagging. Andrés shrugged his shoulders, gobbled up the meat, took a drink of beer and a drag off his cigarette.

“Hey, Andrés,” I yelled out the window. “Come here for a second.”

“You come here, shit,” he said. He was drunk.

“Seriously. I gotta tell you something.”

“Fuck,” he said, raising his beer to his mouth as he felt his way into the apartment. He came in the room. “This better be good.”

“What’s this?” I asked, holding out the page.

“Looks like an address,” he said.

“I mean, what is it written on?”

He examined it closely. “Looks like a page from Romeo and Juliet,” he said, shaking his beer bottle to see how much was left. “So, what do you want?”

“You’re El Escritor!” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You’re El Escritor. You’ve been doing all that damage. How come you never told me? I was sure it was Bino.”

Andrés looked at me in disbelief, and since he was drunk, his expression was exaggerated, like he thought I was the biggest idiot in the world. “Man,” he exclaimed, “you’re really stupid. I can’t believe how stupid you are. No wonder nobody likes you.”

“What are you getting upset about?”

“I had hope for you, man, but you’re just a little tío taco who don’t know shit. All your life you try to fit in with the gabachos, but you’re too damn brown to ever do that. It don’t matter what you think of yourself, white people see you coming and they see a little brown Indian, a little mojado. But you’re too stupid to realize it. All you’ve managed to achieve is making your own people hate you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I yelled. “Who hates me?”

“Wake up and smell the frijoles, coconut.”

“You know, the heck with you!” I yelled, storming out of his room and into mine. I slammed the door shut.

“Man, you are stupid,” I could hear Andrés say.

A little later I heard a knock on my door. I stood up from my bed and went to answer it, expecting it to be Andrés ready to apologize, but it was Stanley, standing there shaking his head.

“What do you want?” I said.

“Andrés says you didn’t know. Is that true? You didn’t know?”

“Know what? You mean, who El Escritor is? Well I found . . .”

“El Escritor is everybody,” he said. “Even me. I even did some of the spray paint.”

“You’re El Escritor?”

“No, not me. Everybody. I did my part just to show my support. Although personally I think there are other channels. El Escritor isn’t one person. It’s the Chicanos, man. How could you not know that? I’m not a Chicano, and even I knew it.”

“Then why did you act innocent that day in the library?” I asked.

“Even Andrés didn’t know about it then.”

I pictured this: Andrés tearing pages out of library books, slashing the covers with his pocketknife, slashing the tires of the director’s car; Bino writing the giant letters on the trees; Manuel’s wrist twisting, the watch sparkling against the black ink that poured slowly like oil over the books. No wonder he thought I was such an idiot to deny that El Escritor was me. How could I have been so out of touch? How could I have been so separated from everyone else? El Escritor was not one writer but a bunch of them, under one name.

Now I was standing alone in a dark hallway at the university, watching a figure walking toward me from the hallway lined by numbered doors. I knew it was Bino.

On the walls close to where I stood were freshly painted words: “Fuck Shakespeare” and “Queers hate the Bard.”

Bino stepped closer to me and stopped. He looked at the red words dripping on the walls. He extended his arms as if wind blew through him. “This is great,” he said. “What’s that you got there?” he asked, indicating my hand, which I held behind my back.

I showed him the can of spray paint. “I, uh, found it in the trash,” I said. “El Escritor must have just left.”

Bino let out a hearty laugh like a lumberjack. “Probably he ran when he saw you coming.”

“It wasn’t me,” I said.

“Get rid of that can,” he said. I tossed it in the trash.

We walked out together, into the night, bushes and trees going wild in the wind. The air was cool.

“You know,” Bino said, stopping to look at me. “Your fight is important too. I know we need to be more open, more inclusive. We haven’t been good at that, and I’m sorry. Things are changing, man. You could help with that.”

“What can I do?” I asked.

“Come with me,” he said. “Let’s meet with some of the MEChistAs.”

“Sure,” I said.

We walked through the double doors of the well-lit campus coffee shop, and across the vast floor I saw Andrés and a woman at a table.

When we arrived at the table, and I offered Andrés the Chicano handshake. Then I offered my hand to the woman. She firmly grasped mine, and we went through the Chicano handshake together, step by step.