UNAFFILIATED

I’M SITTING ON THE METRO BUS, TALKING TO CARLOS FUCKING DÍAZ.

No, Carlos is doing all the talking.

It’s what I get for not walking home.

This bus goes way down to main street Des Moines, down by the water. It takes me home the long way. Takes forever. I just wanted to stay dry on a piss rainy day, that’s all. Just wanted a change of scenery.

But what I got was Carlos planting his ass next to me. And as usual, he’s got Luis on his mind.

And just like everyone else, he acts like Luis and I are buds.

I tell him we’re not.

He doesn’t listen. He just goes off, agitated, real concerned-sounding. Like he’s searching for answers. He tells me all this shit about how Luis’s dad got shot in a drive-by when Luis was little. He says Luis’s brother, Rubén, got jumped in not long after that and he’s been in and out of juvie and real jail ever since. And he’s probably killed a few guys.

Carlos stops talking and looks at raindrops running down the window. “It’s why I can’t figure this shit out. Those old-school dudes and his brother and cousins got Luis surrounded three sixty. Nobody really wants in the life, but man, it’s in the air you breathe. It’s in the water you drink. If you try to escape it … it’s like fighting gravity. You can’t do it. The force is too strong.”

He looks at me as if I might have something to say about all this.

I don’t have a fucking clue.

“Nobody seen Luis runnin’ with nobody. Everybody got their eye on him, but nobody even knows if he got jumped in yet. Nobody knows if he’s affiliated. And he don’t talk to nobody, so…”

“What does that mean?”

“It means if he ain’t affiliated, dude has got to get it done. Callado’s a player from player blood. Everybody wants a piece of him. So if Flaco ain’t got him runnin’ with Sixteenth Street by now, then Deacons, Mafia, MS13, whatever … they all gonna come after him. And when they claim him or jump him in, who knows what insane shit Flaco gonna pull?”

Carlos looks at me like a life depends on what he’s about to say. “I ain’t gonna be in school for a couple days. You tell Luis I got his back. Tell him if he knows what’s good, he gonna get his shit rollin’.”

I don’t know what to say.

“You on that for me?” He reaches up and pulls the cord for the driver to stop.

Carlos mistakes my shaking for a yes. “You okay, you know that?” He holds his fist out for a pound.

The bus comes to a stop and the driver yells, “Hey kid, this your stop, right?”

I want this to be over, so I pound him.

He takes off and I just sit there with my head on the window. I’m shaking like a jackhammer, wondering what Carlos’s deal is. Wondering about Luis. Wondering what the hell is going on.