El Hijo de Hernez - Marcos Donnelly(1), ebook
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MARCOS DONNELLYEL HIJO DE HERNEZ*"His fingers, they noticed, were ever straying As if impatient to be playing . .."-- Robert BrowningThe neighborhood's north boundary was East 82nd Street. When I was growing up,I'd watch the black kids play basketball there, on the pavement inside theeight-foot fence around Saint Malachy's church and Catholic school. The priestsleft the gate unlocked from sun-up to dinner time. There was never any troublethere, no drugs, no blades or guns, no gang members showing colors. Not on thechurch grounds. The priests just figured there'd be no trouble, and therewasn't.I saw Saint Malachy's in the newspaper last week. I think I did. One of thosehelicopter photos, and not a real high-up picture like the ones the LAPDhelicopters take. It was low, a Times shot. The crazy-mother journalists feelit's their life duty to keep taking those pictures. If you ask me, the cops gotthe right idea: stay high, real high.The photo showed seven towers on what used to be the Saint Malachy's grounds.You could make out the pole for the basketball hoop, still there west of therectory. Three of the towers looked finished already, sprouting out of theskeleton frame of the church like accidental steeples. They're like the hundredor so other towers around the old neighborhood: tall, rungy, like concretespider webs pulled from the middle on up toward the sky, and decorated withdishes, stop signs, soda cans. Other bizarre stuff.Bizarre stuff . . . the stuff you mention last. Like the tower at the comer of10th and Compton, made up all of skulls. That one's forty-five feet high. Andthe one at Imperial and Avalon, the one called Las Munecas. Dolls, hundreds andthousands of them, cemented into the pipe and chicken-wired struts -- stuffeddolls, rag dolls, china dolls, Cabbage Patch dolls, and every race, shade, colorand creed of plastic Barbies.I don't know, of course, but I like to think that Mr. Pietr had my brother Luishelp build that one, the tower Las Munecas. That would be fitting. That wouldhave made Mama proud.I still hear him sometimes. Not my brother Luis, but Mr. Pietr. And not just atnight, either."Jose," he says. "Jose, come build the city." And there's the music, the sweet,sweet, goddamn music behind his words. And the only thing holding me back isremembering I don't call myself Jose. Me Ilamo Joey. Eso es, si que es.The Save-Our-Cities lady started shouting at the man from the LA Mayor's office.Mama was up there on stage behind them, and I saw her pinch the bridge of hernose. She picked that up from television; one night she'd pointed it out to me,how tense people on TV always pinched their noses, and after that she always didit, too. A few of our neighborhood leaders, also sitting on stage, noticed herpinching, and two of them mimicked her. I don't think they realized why theywere doing it.Mama had that sort of influence."Millions of dollars are pumped into areas like Beverly Hills, Park La Brea, andWest Hollywood, while this community rots of neglect!" The Save-Our-Cities ladywas a white woman with stringy red hair and a baggy T-shirt.Besides Mr. Pietr, my seventh-grade teacher, she was the only white person inSt. Malachy's community hall. It was hot, and the hall was way too small for thehundred or so of us packed in there. A couple of ceiling fans turned slow enoughthat I could count the separate blades; they spun useless and lazy, twisting theheat around for us."Los Angeles County and the federal government have invested heavily in thisarea." The man from the Mayor's office talked quieter than the lady. "Myparticipation here tonight is evidence of our interest in your anti-drugefforts. Grass-roots movements like these encourage us to continue ourinvestments." He was a black man, and even at thirteen I could imagine theconversation downtown. "Fringe of the Watts area," some white politician wouldhave said. "Better send a Black or a Mexican. We got any free?"I didn't want to be there that night, but Mr. Pietr told us it might be a goodidea. He said we should show our support for the South Central Drug-Free Zoneeffort. The way Mr. Pietr said it meant he might not play the pipe for the classif we didn't show up. Everybody from my seventh grade class was there."Invest!" The Save-Our-Cities lady had a shriek like a bus braking on a wet day."You call the Watts Shopping Center an investment? How many people here in thishall do you think can actually afford to shop there? You have no idea, do you?"I wondered if she had any idea. Father Galloway, the pastor of St. Malachy's,had brought the woman in as a guest speaker for the meeting. I'd never seen herbefore, and she'd probably never be back. Not to shop, not to live here, not fornothing.People from the crowd started yelling out their own opinions, but the Mayor'sman stayed calm. "Since 1990, nearly fifty million dollars have been invested inthe Fifteenth District and surrounding areas. We've used HUD allocations tocreate seven immense housing projects, two additional senior citizen centers for. . ."He hesitated because the audience shut up, all at once. He saw why when helooked to his left, our right: Mama had stood. Father Galloway, with skin likenighttime and a permanent face of worry, stepped in front of the Save-Our-Citieslady to talk through her microphone. "If we could yield the floor for a moment,I believe La Viuda de Hernez has a comment to make." Most everybody still calledMama that, "the Widow of Hernez," even though it was five years since my fathergot killed down on Imperial. Mama liked being called La Viuda.She didn't use the microphone. "Fifty million dollars since 1990. That would beeight years. Mr. Pietr, how many people would you say live in the FifteenthDistrict?"All our heads turned to find Mr. Pietr. He wasn't hard to spot, tall, lanky, andpaler than any Anglo I'd ever seen. Mr. Pietr stood to answer, the way he madeus do in class. "I would guess around forty thousand, Senora." He said senorafunny, all swallowed and white-like."That seems to be an arithmetic problem, doesn't it?" Mama said. "I wonder howmuch that would be just for me, just for one day."More movement in the audience -- Zane Gerard, Lucinda Ramirez, Tyque Raymond,everybody else from my class shifting all nervous because they knew what wascoming. Mr. Pietr looked around until he found the first student who hadn'tdisappeared in a slouch."Jose Hernez," he said.I hated when people called me Jose.I stood."Could you solve that problem for us?"I caught the Mayor's man rolling his eyes. The Save-Our-Cities lady lookeddistracted, maybe a little confused that she was no longer the center ofattention. Mama had a smile, tight and proper.I closed my eyes and listened for it. I could remember the exact tune, the pipesong for math class. I could see Mr. Pietr playing, I could feel the breezeblowing numbers all around me, and I saw the right numbers lining up andbehaving themselves for me when I told them to. Fifty million dollars wasdivided by eight years, which was split for forty thousand people in theFifteenth District, and a portion I gave to my mother who I saw bubble apartinto three hundred and sixty-five days, all in a rectangle of seventy-three rowsby five columns, which was the only way I could make them float neatly. Ireached out, took one bubble, and read it.I opened my eyes. "Forty-two cents, plus eighty-one one hundredths of a penny ifyou round up." I checked over to Zane Gerard. He was nodding at me. I knew thateven though it wasn't his math problem, he couldn't resist working it, too. Noneof us wanted to resist. Behind Zane Gerard, Tyque Raymond was thumb-upping me."Course, I didn't count leap years," I said. The man from the Mayor's officedidn't seem to know what to say to that. I watched Mama digging through her bigwicker purse. She pulled out two quarters, walked over to the Mayor's man, andpressed them into his palm. "You can have today's investment back. You haven'tdone anything for me today."That broke the crowd's quiet. People hooted, yelled insults, even tossedquarters, dimes, and pennies up on stage at the man's feet. The seventh gradeclass of Saint Malachy's school sat still, doing nothing shouting nothing,tossing nothing. I glanced at Zane, at Tyque, at Lucinda, Marialuz, Jamal,Manuel, Bobby, Tamara. They were all remembering it, just like me: the pipe songfor quiet, for staying calm and not joining in trouble. I looked back toward Mr.Pietr; the fingers of his right hand tapped restless on his left forearm, likehe was anxious, real anxious, to play.The meeting broke up. Mama, the Save-Our-Cities lady, and Mr. Pietr talkedtogether on stage in a tight huddle, while Father Galloway hurried all anxiousthrough the crowd, blessing everybody and wishing them goodnight. Me and Zaneand Tyque stood by the hall doors. Zane had his arms crossed and looked mean.Tyque jittered and bounced on his toes. Tyque was always touching things --walls, light switches, people's arms, like if he didn't keep some contact goinghe might zoom away off the face of the Earth.When most everybody was blessed and leaving, Zane asked, "We going out?""Gotta tell La Viuda.""He's gonna tell La Viuda first," Tyque told Zane. Zane smirked.Before I could walk over to the stage, the Mayor's man stepped in front of us.This close, he was a hell of a lot bigger. I didn't know he'd stayed around. Hewas all by himself, no huddles like Mama's and no blessings from FatherGalloway. "Hello, boys," he... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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MARCOS DONNELLYEL HIJO DE HERNEZ*"His fingers, they noticed, were ever straying As if impatient to be playing . .."-- Robert BrowningThe neighborhood's north boundary was East 82nd Street. When I was growing up,I'd watch the black kids play basketball there, on the pavement inside theeight-foot fence around Saint Malachy's church and Catholic school. The priestsleft the gate unlocked from sun-up to dinner time. There was never any troublethere, no drugs, no blades or guns, no gang members showing colors. Not on thechurch grounds. The priests just figured there'd be no trouble, and therewasn't.I saw Saint Malachy's in the newspaper last week. I think I did. One of thosehelicopter photos, and not a real high-up picture like the ones the LAPDhelicopters take. It was low, a Times shot. The crazy-mother journalists feelit's their life duty to keep taking those pictures. If you ask me, the cops gotthe right idea: stay high, real high.The photo showed seven towers on what used to be the Saint Malachy's grounds.You could make out the pole for the basketball hoop, still there west of therectory. Three of the towers looked finished already, sprouting out of theskeleton frame of the church like accidental steeples. They're like the hundredor so other towers around the old neighborhood: tall, rungy, like concretespider webs pulled from the middle on up toward the sky, and decorated withdishes, stop signs, soda cans. Other bizarre stuff.Bizarre stuff . . . the stuff you mention last. Like the tower at the comer of10th and Compton, made up all of skulls. That one's forty-five feet high. Andthe one at Imperial and Avalon, the one called Las Munecas. Dolls, hundreds andthousands of them, cemented into the pipe and chicken-wired struts -- stuffeddolls, rag dolls, china dolls, Cabbage Patch dolls, and every race, shade, colorand creed of plastic Barbies.I don't know, of course, but I like to think that Mr. Pietr had my brother Luishelp build that one, the tower Las Munecas. That would be fitting. That wouldhave made Mama proud.I still hear him sometimes. Not my brother Luis, but Mr. Pietr. And not just atnight, either."Jose," he says. "Jose, come build the city." And there's the music, the sweet,sweet, goddamn music behind his words. And the only thing holding me back isremembering I don't call myself Jose. Me Ilamo Joey. Eso es, si que es.The Save-Our-Cities lady started shouting at the man from the LA Mayor's office.Mama was up there on stage behind them, and I saw her pinch the bridge of hernose. She picked that up from television; one night she'd pointed it out to me,how tense people on TV always pinched their noses, and after that she always didit, too. A few of our neighborhood leaders, also sitting on stage, noticed herpinching, and two of them mimicked her. I don't think they realized why theywere doing it.Mama had that sort of influence."Millions of dollars are pumped into areas like Beverly Hills, Park La Brea, andWest Hollywood, while this community rots of neglect!" The Save-Our-Cities ladywas a white woman with stringy red hair and a baggy T-shirt.Besides Mr. Pietr, my seventh-grade teacher, she was the only white person inSt. Malachy's community hall. It was hot, and the hall was way too small for thehundred or so of us packed in there. A couple of ceiling fans turned slow enoughthat I could count the separate blades; they spun useless and lazy, twisting theheat around for us."Los Angeles County and the federal government have invested heavily in thisarea." The man from the Mayor's office talked quieter than the lady. "Myparticipation here tonight is evidence of our interest in your anti-drugefforts. Grass-roots movements like these encourage us to continue ourinvestments." He was a black man, and even at thirteen I could imagine theconversation downtown. "Fringe of the Watts area," some white politician wouldhave said. "Better send a Black or a Mexican. We got any free?"I didn't want to be there that night, but Mr. Pietr told us it might be a goodidea. He said we should show our support for the South Central Drug-Free Zoneeffort. The way Mr. Pietr said it meant he might not play the pipe for the classif we didn't show up. Everybody from my seventh grade class was there."Invest!" The Save-Our-Cities lady had a shriek like a bus braking on a wet day."You call the Watts Shopping Center an investment? How many people here in thishall do you think can actually afford to shop there? You have no idea, do you?"I wondered if she had any idea. Father Galloway, the pastor of St. Malachy's,had brought the woman in as a guest speaker for the meeting. I'd never seen herbefore, and she'd probably never be back. Not to shop, not to live here, not fornothing.People from the crowd started yelling out their own opinions, but the Mayor'sman stayed calm. "Since 1990, nearly fifty million dollars have been invested inthe Fifteenth District and surrounding areas. We've used HUD allocations tocreate seven immense housing projects, two additional senior citizen centers for. . ."He hesitated because the audience shut up, all at once. He saw why when helooked to his left, our right: Mama had stood. Father Galloway, with skin likenighttime and a permanent face of worry, stepped in front of the Save-Our-Citieslady to talk through her microphone. "If we could yield the floor for a moment,I believe La Viuda de Hernez has a comment to make." Most everybody still calledMama that, "the Widow of Hernez," even though it was five years since my fathergot killed down on Imperial. Mama liked being called La Viuda.She didn't use the microphone. "Fifty million dollars since 1990. That would beeight years. Mr. Pietr, how many people would you say live in the FifteenthDistrict?"All our heads turned to find Mr. Pietr. He wasn't hard to spot, tall, lanky, andpaler than any Anglo I'd ever seen. Mr. Pietr stood to answer, the way he madeus do in class. "I would guess around forty thousand, Senora." He said senorafunny, all swallowed and white-like."That seems to be an arithmetic problem, doesn't it?" Mama said. "I wonder howmuch that would be just for me, just for one day."More movement in the audience -- Zane Gerard, Lucinda Ramirez, Tyque Raymond,everybody else from my class shifting all nervous because they knew what wascoming. Mr. Pietr looked around until he found the first student who hadn'tdisappeared in a slouch."Jose Hernez," he said.I hated when people called me Jose.I stood."Could you solve that problem for us?"I caught the Mayor's man rolling his eyes. The Save-Our-Cities lady lookeddistracted, maybe a little confused that she was no longer the center ofattention. Mama had a smile, tight and proper.I closed my eyes and listened for it. I could remember the exact tune, the pipesong for math class. I could see Mr. Pietr playing, I could feel the breezeblowing numbers all around me, and I saw the right numbers lining up andbehaving themselves for me when I told them to. Fifty million dollars wasdivided by eight years, which was split for forty thousand people in theFifteenth District, and a portion I gave to my mother who I saw bubble apartinto three hundred and sixty-five days, all in a rectangle of seventy-three rowsby five columns, which was the only way I could make them float neatly. Ireached out, took one bubble, and read it.I opened my eyes. "Forty-two cents, plus eighty-one one hundredths of a penny ifyou round up." I checked over to Zane Gerard. He was nodding at me. I knew thateven though it wasn't his math problem, he couldn't resist working it, too. Noneof us wanted to resist. Behind Zane Gerard, Tyque Raymond was thumb-upping me."Course, I didn't count leap years," I said. The man from the Mayor's officedidn't seem to know what to say to that. I watched Mama digging through her bigwicker purse. She pulled out two quarters, walked over to the Mayor's man, andpressed them into his palm. "You can have today's investment back. You haven'tdone anything for me today."That broke the crowd's quiet. People hooted, yelled insults, even tossedquarters, dimes, and pennies up on stage at the man's feet. The seventh gradeclass of Saint Malachy's school sat still, doing nothing shouting nothing,tossing nothing. I glanced at Zane, at Tyque, at Lucinda, Marialuz, Jamal,Manuel, Bobby, Tamara. They were all remembering it, just like me: the pipe songfor quiet, for staying calm and not joining in trouble. I looked back toward Mr.Pietr; the fingers of his right hand tapped restless on his left forearm, likehe was anxious, real anxious, to play.The meeting broke up. Mama, the Save-Our-Cities lady, and Mr. Pietr talkedtogether on stage in a tight huddle, while Father Galloway hurried all anxiousthrough the crowd, blessing everybody and wishing them goodnight. Me and Zaneand Tyque stood by the hall doors. Zane had his arms crossed and looked mean.Tyque jittered and bounced on his toes. Tyque was always touching things --walls, light switches, people's arms, like if he didn't keep some contact goinghe might zoom away off the face of the Earth.When most everybody was blessed and leaving, Zane asked, "We going out?""Gotta tell La Viuda.""He's gonna tell La Viuda first," Tyque told Zane. Zane smirked.Before I could walk over to the stage, the Mayor's man stepped in front of us.This close, he was a hell of a lot bigger. I didn't know he'd stayed around. Hewas all by himself, no huddles like Mama's and no blessings from FatherGalloway. "Hello, boys," he... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]