The telephone rings when I enter my rooms. I’m flummoxed—the phone almost never rings. My only calls are from Blessed World. Is it them? Offering another gig? I don’t know what to think. I’m completely shattered, my uniform stinks with blood and dirt. Breathing hard, I grab the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Is that you, man?”
I give the caller a taste of his own medicine. “Who else would it be? The chief of police?”
“Don’t fuck with me, asshole.”
“Who the hell is this?”
“You don’t know? It’s Alonzo.”
Alonzo is from Waterman Gardens, the toughest projects in town. Midway through his high school senior year, after his teachers urged him to pursue a career as a janitor, he went to the principal’s office with a stolen hand grenade and a list of demands from the other Mexican students. The hand grenade didn’t work. The administration refused to honor the demands. Alonzo got slapped with thirty-six months in California Youth Authority at Chino. After doing the time, he celebrated his release by getting drunk in Perris Hill Park.
He’s been drinking a pint of whiskey every day for years. Only the best brands, he is fond of saying. I haven’t spoken to him in six weeks. Not since he went into an evangelical-funded rehab facility in the Del Rosa district.
“Alonzo? What’s wrong with your voice? It’s scratchy. That’s why I didn’t know it was you. Do you have a cold?”
“I just had a tracheotomy.”
“A tracheotomy? Christ almighty. What’s wrong?”
“What ain’t? It’s my second one in a month. I’ve got cancer in my throat. Had a damn tumor in there bigger than a golf ball. Now I’m third stage.”
Navigating the medical conditions of friends is more dangerous than a battle zone. With every passing decade, our bodies deteriorate and reconfigure themselves into an ever-growing continent of illnesses. Third stage is a synonym for war.
“Alonzo?”
“What?”
“How much do you weigh?”
“I was up to three hundred.”
“And now?”
“I’m skin and bones, thanks to chemo.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I’m down to two hundred.”
“That’s pretty good. More like you used to be.”
“Yeah, well, whatever.”
“Are you still drinking?”
“Uh, no. I mean, sometimes. When I was done with that damn chemo, I wanted to celebrate. Then my mom came to stay with me. She was taking out the garbage one day and found a bottle. I lied to her, told her it wasn’t mine.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t want her to feel bad.”
“Jesus, man, what the fuck is going on?”
He adroitly switches the topic. “So what’s up with you?” “You’re not going to answer my question?”
“No, I’m not.”
“That’s chicken shit.”
“I won’t deny it.”
“Okay. Be that way. But things have changed with me.”
“How poetic.”
“Yeah, it is. I’ve become a priest.”
“A priest? You go to seminary school since we last talked?”
“Blessed World hired me. I paid fifteen bucks for a certificate.”
“And that made you a priest?”
“Actually, I’m a donations solicitor. I hustle money.”
“Huh? Where’s the profit in that? I can’t see it.”
“I work on E Street. But today I did a kid’s party. It was great.”
“Sounds fucked up, if you ask me. You getting paid?”
“Yeah. I started as an intern. Now I get a flat wage.”
“Hallelujah. What a genesis. Any benefits?”
“No.”
“See what I mean? You’re getting ripped off.”
He’s trying to pull me down. It’s an old dynamic between us—when he dances in the mire, he expects me to do the same. I don’t, I’m an outright enemy. I hate adulthood.
“Alonzo, I’m a felon. I’m lucky I’ve got the gig.”
“Sure, sure.”
“And I make people feel good.”
“How?”
“I bring mythology into their lives.”
“What a load of crap. Totally bogus.”
“I believe in myths.”
“That makes you an idiot.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Then get this. Your dad fought in Vietnam, didn’t he?”
“You know he did.”
“What did your old man say about it?”
“He said when it ended, the war at home began. The final war. The last war.”
“He was realistic. Not like you.”
“Don’t be shitty, Alonzo. I know you got issues.”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“From you.”
“How so?”
“You said you’re sick.”
“So what if I am? And guess what? Rudy from Muscoy wants to speak with you. That ain’t good.”
Alonzo hangs up on me—I’m paralyzed with the dial tone in my ear.
□ □ □
Mormons settled the town during the 1850s. Campus Crusade came here in the early 1960s. My father said when the 1965 Watts riots started, North End white boys slept with their rifles. Alonzo’s own favorite pastime is manufacturing reloads for his Colt .38. Nothing brings him greater pleasure than to crimp cartridges at his worktable. Double-notched armor-piercing hollow-point bullets overpacked with gunpowder. Now and then, he looks out the window—his neighbors fly a Confederate battle flag in their backyard. Later he’ll inform me: “As history passes through us, we’re passing through hell.”
And Dalton? He’s a cowboy, a throwback to the days when the white boys ran the police department. When only white people lived north of Highland. Black folks had the flatlands west of the freeway. Mexicans south of Base Line.
I’d better watch out for Dalton.