SUNDAY AFTERNOON Diego put the word out on the streets of El Segundo barrio that he was looking for Mundo. Diego waited for him on the steps that went nowhere. That evening he watched Mundo dance his way up the street.
“What’s the word?” Mundo asked as he reached out to shake his hand. “You got some more private-eye work for me, ese?”
Diego shook his finger in the air, wrote down a few words, and stuck a note into Mundo’s hands. “I’m going to quit my job tomorrow. I want you to be there when I do it. I’m going to give him this letter.” He handed a neatly folded piece of paper to Mundo who began reading the perfect handwriting:
Dear Gonzalo,
I have always hated working for you. I don’t like you—I never have. From the very beginning I could see that you were mean and cruel and awful, but I’ve never been able to figure out why. (I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?) I’ve worked for you for almost ten years (ten years!), and you have never given me a vacation, and you’ve never treated me like a real human being, and you never even pretended to treat me with any kind of respect. I deserve some respect. My friends have told me I was a pendejo for putting up with you, and do you know something? They were right. But as of today, I AM QUITTING. I don’t think I owe you a two-week notice. I don’t think I owe you anything. I have gathered witnesses that are willing to testify to the fact that I have been working for you for the last nine and a half years. I am reporting you to the I.R.S. and the Social Security Commission, and I am getting a lawyer to help prosecute you for breaking the law. I have no benefits, and I have not even paid a cent into Social Security because you paid me in cash so you wouldn’t have to pay me minimum wage. I decided, in the name of justice, to make sure you get busted. None of this would have happened if I had ever seen a trace of human decency in you. I’m sorry it has to be this way, but I have the feeling if I just quit, you’d find another employee to step on. I’m going to make sure you never treat anybody like you’ve treated me ever again. I guess I’ll see you in court. Maybe they’ll put you behind bars. Who knows? Maybe they’ll go easy on you.
Sincerely,
Juan Diego Ramirez
Mundo handed the letter back to Diego, thrust his fist up in the air and let out a yell. He picked Diego up and flung him around in circles, throwing him playfully back on the ground. He laughed and applauded, and did a dance up and down the steps that went nowhere. “Man, Mr. Diego, you should be writing for a newspaper or somethin’. You can do some smooth writing. That sonofabitch is gonna be mad as hell. It’s perfect. I know what I’m sayin’, Diego. It’s the most perfect letter you ever wrote.”
“You really think so?”
“Listen, you doin’ yourself real proud. I don’t read too much, you know, but I got a good eye. Look, I’ll read it to you. Watch my lips real good, just watch.” Diego handed the note back to him. He stood near the top of the steps, and began reading the letter aloud. As Diego looked up at him from a few steps below, he felt as though he were watching a play. He stared at Mundo’s lips and tried to imagine what his own words sounded like. When he finished, Diego clapped his hands and laughed.
Mundo took a bow and snapped his fingers. He skipped down the steps. “You want to read it to him?” Diego wrote.
“Nah, Diego, what’s wrong with you? That’s not my job, man, that’s your job. Just hand him the note and let the bastard get a good look at your handwriting. His teeth are gonna drop to the damn floor. That smile of his is gonna disappear off the face of the city—forever, man. It’s gonna be great—it’s gonna be so damn great! I hate that guy.”
“Will you be there when I show it to him, just in case he gets violent or something?”
“Man, I wouldn’t miss It, Diego. That good-for-nothin’, spineless, dickless pig once had a friend of mine thrown in jail. If he even looks at you wrong, I’ll jump him and tear a new asshole in him.”
“Don’t hit him, Mundo—promise me you won’t hit him. I don’t like that. Just keep an eye on him, that’s all. I got another friend of mine who’s going to be there. Her name’s Luz, and she says she wouldn’t miss seeing this for the world. Just get there around ten or so at Vicky’s, I’m going in just like always, and he never comes in until later. Just be there around ten, that’s all.”
Mundo smiled as he read Diego’s handwriting. “I’ll be there, you bet. But who’s this Luz that’s gonna show?”
“She’s an old friend. Remember, I told you all about her?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, “that crazy maid that talks a lot and puts men down. I thought you said she was in Chicago?”
“She’s back, and we’re even going to be roommates. She’s going to find us a place, and we’re going to move in together.”
“Man, Diego, you got yourself a sugar mama.”
Diego laughed. “It’s not like that. We’re both tired of living alone, that’s all. And besides that, it’s cheaper. And if you ever need a place to stay, you can always come over to our place. It’s going to be a real nice apartment—maybe even a house—not like I have now. It’s going to be real nice. Just wait, you’ll see, a kitchen and everything.”
Monday, at ten o’clock, Luz and Mundo showed up at Vicky’s, both of them wearing smiles. There were only a few customers lingering from a late breakfast, Diego sat them at a table right next to the bar. “Best seats in the house,” he wrote.
Luz laughed and looked the place over.
“Luz,” Diego wrote, “this is Mundo. He’s my friend.”
Luz lit a cigarette and looked Mundo over. She smiled politely.
“I hear you and Diego are gonna be living together.”
Luz nodded, but did not attempt to make conversation with him. She disliked him on sight. He was too much like a lot of men she’d known—too much like her first husband.
“You got an extra cigarette, esa?”
Luz handed him a cigarette. “Don’t call me ‘esa,’” she said. “I don’t like that. I’m old enough to be your mother. I got sons big enough to kick your ass, so just have a little respect.”
She looked at Diego. “Since when have you started hanging around with gang members? Look at that tattoo—people like him wear those things like medals.”
“He’s a nice guy, Luz. Don’t be rude.”
She took the note and shook her head. “You really are a pendejo, my Diego. Just look at him.” She looked directly into Mundo’s eyes. “I know lots of pinches like this guy.”
“Look, esa, I don’t have to take any of your shit, got it? Diego here, he’s all right—he saved my ass. We help each other out, just like you’re supposed to do, got that? I don’t want no trouble with his friends.”
“Be nice, Luz,” Diego wrote.
She made a face at his note. “My first husband was just like your friend here. He used to strut around the streets like he owned them. He left me with two sons when somebody blew him away.”
“Look, esa, I’m not your pinche husband. Whatever that clown did to you, it’s not my fault. I ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.”
Diego brought them a cup of coffee. “It’s on the house,” he smiled.
Luz clapped her hands as she read his note. “Ay, Dieguito, you do have a sense of humor.” She looked across the table and met Mundo’s eyes. “I bet you use those black eyes to crawl into a lot of skirts.”
Mundo smiled.
Luz smiled back at him. “I’m going to be nice to you. I don’t like you, but I’ll try and be nice to you for Diego.”
“Look, esa,” Mundo stared back, “I won’t mess with you. I swear it.”
“And don’t call me ‘esa.’ My name is Luz.”
He nodded. “Doña Luz.” He laughed.
Luz looked around the room and puffed on her cigarette. She motioned to Diego and pointed at the bar a few feet away. “He’s here, Dieguito.”
Diego froze. He took a deep breath and felt his heart pounding. He thought it would leap from his chest and fly away like the pigeons at San Jacinto Plaza. “Maybe I should forget about it, and just walk out,” he wrote. He put the note on the table.
“No, man,” Mundo said. “Go up to him and flatten his ass.” He looked at Luz. “Dona Luz and me, we’ll be right here watching the whole thing. Show him what you got, Diego. Stay coot—real cool.”
He looked over at his employer. “Ten years,” he thought.
“Move, Diego,” his boss said, “you still haven’t mopped the floors.” His eyes caught Luz’s face—and he smiled at her. “He’s getting a little lazy,” he told her. His eyes looked her over carefully. He didn’t notice Mundo sitting across from her. “You’ve never been in here before, have you?”
“No,” she smiled at him, “but this place has a reputation. All my friends tell me that Diego is the best waiter in town—the best cook, too. If it wasn’t for him, all your customers would leave—at least that’s what I hear.” She grinned at him and winked.
He smiled back at her.
Diego walked up to him and handed him the neatly folded note. “What’s this?” he asked. He opened the note and began reading it.
Diego, Mundo, and Luz watched him closely. His face turned red as he finished reading the note. He wadded it up in a fist. “You ungrateful pig!” he yelled. His contorted face wrinkled up with his anger. Diego’s eyes opened wide, and he fell his heart pounding faster than a hummingbird’s wings. He thought it was going to pound himself into powder. His boss grabbed a dirty, wet towel from the bar and threw it at Diego. Diego caught it as if he were intercepting a football and threw it back at him without thinking. His eyes opened wide as the wet towel hit his boss’s chest. He felt as though he were somebody else; felt as if he was no longer the same man, the man who had worked in this dark place for ten years. His boss reached over the bar and grabbed him by the collar. “Nobody does me like that. I’m going to break both your fucking hands, and you’ll never write another note again.” Diego felt the breath pressing against his face like a hot iron.
Mundo leapt from his chair and threw a closed fist at Diego’s boss. He stared up at Mundo, dazed, and fell back against the wall breaking the glasses behind him. He shook his head and wiped his bleeding lip, clenched his jaw and then raised his fist.
Luz got up from her chair and walked in front of him. “Look, you pinche, you swing that fist and you’re a dead man.” She stuck her chin out and pointed directly ai his face. “You like the ladies, don’t you? Well, you move one inch and you’ll never make love to another woman again.”
Diego’s boss stared at the trio in front of him. He looked at Mundo, then Luz, then Diego—then looked toward the telephone.
“Don’t even think about it,” Luz said.
His faced turned white.
Luz winked at him. “You look like you could use a drink, Gonzalo. Your name’s Gonzalo, isn’t it?” He nodded his head slowly.
Mundo looked over at Diego. “Pour the man a drink, Diego. On the house.”
Diego walked over to the other side of the bar and poured his boss a drink. Luz and Mundo looked at each other and smiled while Mundo poured Gonzalo some tequila. Diego stopped, smiled, and took out three more glasses, and poured them all a drink. “This one’s on me,” he wrote. He took out a five-dollar bill and placed it on the bar. They raised their glasses, all of them except Gonzalo.
“Won’t you have a drink with us?” Luz asked. “Have a drink with us, you pinche.”
“Fuck you,” he shouted.
“Ah man,” Mundo said, “Doña Luz asked you real nice, Gonzalo. C’mon, have a drink. A little shot to settle your nerves.”
Gonzalo raised his glass and they all drank. “I spit on all you bastards,” he said. He looked at Diego. “I give you a job and this is what you do to me?”
Diego looked at his pad and wrote: “It takes more than three dollars an hour to buy someone’s loyalty. My lawyer will be in touch.” He smiled at Luz and Mundo then added to the note: “Rot—I hope you rot in this place.” Luz and Mundo laughed as he put the finishing touches to his note. He shoved it in front of Gonzalo who tried to ignore it.
“Read it,” Mundo ordered. “The man is trying to communicate with you.”
Gonzalo stared at the note and read it.
“Read it aloud.”
Diego watched his lips as he read it. He handed his apron to Gonzalo and stretched out his arms as if he were about to fly. He walked out from behind the bar on Luz’s arm. They walked out of Vicky’s windowless bar, and stepped out into the streets of the city. If I had a voice, Diego thought to himself, I would howl in the streets, I would howl “I’m free, I’m free.”