The Soup and Sorrow Digest

Escape

Some idiot called La policia. The whines of sirens loomed louder, more calamitous, everyone scattered to the four directions. Andrew did not want to explain to his father just where he had been for the last hour.  Felipe would not dare to continue to circle Emilio’s snarl and reconfirm his missive of near-missed incarcerations. Miguel did not want to explain the pack of cigarettes in his pocket.  Razor in hand and two hundred dollars in tens in his pocket, Ricardo stopped kicking Andrew’s torso, instead fled past the lawn and darted crazedly after Eduardo’s disappearing silhouette down the sidewalk.

Dragging his left leg behind him, Ricardo hopped to the east end of the street, which terminated to Corazon Street. Head, face, stomach, and thighs were one gigantic glowing ember of pain.  The air cut in his nostrils like bleach fumes.  Thinking was useless. Feeling was useless.  The sun, piss-colored, useless, afloat in the flame blue sky. And those sirens, rhythmic in its augur of doom, were approaching closer.

Strangers probed his face a quiltwork of cuts and discolorations and blundered past him with their lips crumpled. Fear drumming its mad beats, he became aware of the razor still clenched in his left hand, and no sooner, scrambled to fold the razor back into his pocket.  At the residential crossroads, he paused to recalibrate his plans. Where was the car? Where were Felipé and Eduardo?  They had dropped him off earlier so that they could go on ahead and buy flowers for Maria.  They were supposed to meet again at the bus stop on the busier Sidecar Street on the north end of Corazon. 

Mierda. The sirens were zooming in like a fast-moving storm cloud. Ricardo gritted his teeth and wiped down his puffy painful face with the fast swipe of his useless arm.  Blood and sweat were messy brush strokes on his arm. He swished away from the northern onslaught of blue and red flashes of a police car and hopped, badly limping down to opposite end.  House after house was gated with chain-linked fences, leaving no entrances for hidden walkways in which he could hide and rest his sore hips. 

Luckily at the end of the street was the busier Flamingo Boulevard.  The far away storefront lettering of something glinted into sharper focus.  Hope blossomed. But pain avalanched down the side of his torso, forcing him to halt and clench his teeth. A moment hardened and unhorsed him from the stride of self-control.  Bellicose urges warred against pain fighting harder for his attention.  He thought of Andrew and he was going to get him and cut him to bits. That worm had caused the pain throbbing in his head, made his mouth a raw bloody sore, stole every smidgen of his pride.  He was going to get him.

But the sirens… Ack! The knot on his right side that refused to released its hold over him. His legs cramped. He could not take a further step, even a piddling step. Slowly, a wish whispered.  He could turn around, somehow make it to the end of Sidecar street, and then after a few more blocks be back under the green gabled roofs of his parent’s house.  He could, but no one would be there. They would be at Maria’s, eating, singing, dancing. Tiger Balls.   Was he going to show his puffy face to them anyway?  Like the last time he showed up at the front door with a puffy, bloated face before Benito after the violent mess with Carlos over Rosa. Ha. He did not even care for her, but he found himself fighting for her. At least he had had a plausible reason. Sacrifice, honor… And now what? Right, a fucking tadpole got the better of him.  

He thought of the shame of it, the derision of it, the theatricality of slumping red and broken back to his parents’ doorstep. Benito would be vindicated on the no-good effete bastard son. Selena would vilipend on the innocent Rico turned bad: he could have been a chivalric prince of mighty brawn and strong arms.  And the relatives would whisper bedtime stories on the Exhibit A of creepy ogres to their snotty children.  But family was supposed to be sanctuary.  What was sanctuary if it could not you protect the moment you needed it most? No, just, no.

And amid the horrors haranguing and flagellating him out in the open space of a driveway, Ricardo did not notice the police car that had stopped by him. Officer Guillermo Fuentes and his partner Bill Stanton had answered the call to a street brawl, but they found the front lawn a deserted patch of weeds and broken glass.

Guillermo rolled down the driver’s side window and called out, “Bella Rico.”

Ricardo shifted and stared stupidly at the skin-cut head hanging out the window. Just his luck to run into Guillermo. The police officer thought him a greedy, flippant punk who refused to kowtow to Inez’s sensibilities.  He thought Guillermo was a big hunk wimp who groveled to Inez’s chattering.  Just his luck to run into him.

Ricardo spat a wad of blood on the side away from police car. He reminded himself he was just a teenage boy walking peacefully down the street.

 “Tío,” Ricardo began gregariously, “You should be saying that to Tía Inez … She just might let you kiss her if you do… Makes me wonder why you don’t …” He could see Bill’s face, at the passenger side, dimple with the hard lines of disdain.

“She asks me about you,” Guillermo said.  “Says I should arrest you and bundle you over to her place. God really wants you to eat her posolé.”

“Tell her I’ll come over, when God teaches her how to cook.”

Guillermo was frowning now. “I find you here nice and pretty when we get a call about a gang fight.”

“Tío, I saw nothing. I’m on my way to get flowers for Maria’s Confirmation.”

“Punk, you dare lie to a police officer?” Bill hammered from his far end.

Guillermo mimed to himself to keep calm.  Ricardo settled his cool glare over the black antenna spearing above the windshield.

 “I’ll drop you off at the confirmation,” Guillermo said.

“Why aren’t we arresting the fairy? Obviously, he knows something,” Bill objected.

Guillermo rolled his eyes; Ricardo gulped down the rise in his heartbeat.

“The fairy said he says going to the confirmation, right Rico?” Guillermo asked in a determined false tone.

“Si,” Ricardo said in the most upbeat tone possible.

“And you’re going to talk to your aunt and do what she wants, right Rico?” Guillermo’s eyes narrowed on him.

“Si…”

“Your eye’s bleeding.”

Ricardo stared motionlessly at the Guillermo’s rising smirk even as he could feel the cold stickiness cling to his eyelashes.

“Please, don’t make us have to intervene.” The police car spun around back to the direction of Celina Street.

Ricardo proceeded onto Flamingo Street, his rickety gait, 1-2—3, 1-2—3, forceful and painful. Traffic was a steady stream of honks and red brake lights.  The bright metallic canopy of the bus stop hung over a seated white lady wearing an oversized frilly shirt and equally oversized glittery belt.  Light was squeezing thin in the Ricardo’s hot and heavy eyes, and an arc of something terrible darted through his head.  He sidled up to the perimeter of the stop, but upon seeing his bloated bloody presence, she rushed out of her seat and stayed a good six feet away from him.  Ricardo gratefully took over the long bench, muttering, “Fuck you too.” Yeah fuck Guillermo. Fuck Inez and her bad food and bad sermons. Fuck Carlos and his ‘plans.’ Fuck Andrew with a rusty fanged pole. Fuck Steve, fuck him. Fuck his parents. Fuck everybody. Fuck that man over there squawking, “Compramos d’oro, we buy gold, we buy gold,” like a dolphin paid fish to wiggle his fins.