Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez Read Free Book Online Page B

My half-brother Alberto looked Caribbean. His mother came from Veracruz on the Caribbean side of Mexico which has the touch of Africa. The rest of us had different shades of Spanish white to Indian brown.
    Uprooted again, we stuffed our things in a garage. The adults occupied the only two bedrooms. The children slept on makeshift bedding in the living room. My grandmother Catita also stayed with us. There were eleven of us crushed into that place. I remember the constant fighting. My dad was dumped on for not finding work. Seni accused her husband of having affairs with other women. Mama often stood outside alone, crying, or in the garage next to all our things piled on top of each other.
    Rano and I sought refuge in the street.
    One night, we came home late after having stocked up on licorice and bubble gum. We walked past police cars and an ambulance. Colored lights whirled across the tense faces of neighbors who stood on patches of grass and driveway. I pushed through low voices and entered the house: Blood was splattered on a far wall.
    Moments before, Seni had been brushing Pimpos’ hair when, who knows why, she pulled at the long sections. The girl’s screams brought in my sister’s husband. An argument ensued. Vicious words. Accusations.
    Seni then plucked a fingernail file from the bathroom sink. She flashed it in front of my brother-in-law’s face. He grabbed for her hand. The nail file plunged into his arm. Mom and Dad rushed in, ramming my sister against the wall; nail file crashed steely bright onto the linoleum floor.
    Soon after the incident, the landlord evicted us all. This was when my mother and father broke up. And so we began that car ride to the train station, on the way back to Mexico, leaving L.A., perhaps never to come back.
    We pull into a parking lot at the Union station. It’s like a point of no return. My father is still making his stand. Mama looks exhausted. We continue to sit in our seats, quiet now as Dad maneuvers into an empty space. Then we work our way out of the car, straightening our coats, gathering up boxes and taped-over paper bags: our “luggage.” Up to this juncture, it’s been like being in a storm—so much instability, of dreams achieved and then shattered, of a silence within the walls of my body, of being turned on, beaten, belittled and pushed aside; forgotten and unimportant. I have no position on the issue before us. To stay in L.A. To go. What does it matter? I’ve been a red hot ball, bouncing around from here to there. Anyone can bounce me. Mama. Dad. Rano. Schools. Streets. I’m a ball. Whatever.
    We are inside the vast cavern of the station. Pews of swirled wood are filled with people. We sit with our bags near us, and string tied from the bags to our wrists so nobody can take them without taking us too. My father turns to us, says a faint goodby, then begins to walk away. No hugs. He doesn’t even look at us.
    “Poncho.”
    The name echoes through the waiting area.
    “Poncho.”
    He turns. Stares at my mother. The wet of tears covers her face. Mama then says she can’t go. She will stay with him. In L.A. I don’t think she’s happy about this. But what can a single mother of four children do in Mexico? A woman, sick all the time, with factory work for skills in a land where work is mainly with the soil. What good is it except to starve.
    “Esta bien,” Dad says as he nears my mother. “We will make it, mujer. I know it. But we have to be patient. We have to believe.”
    Mama turns to us and announces we are not leaving. I’m just a ball. Bouncing outside. Bouncing inside. Whatever.

Chapter Two
    “If you ain’t from no barrio, then you ain’t born.”—a 10-year-old boy from South San Gabriel
    O NE EVENING DUSK CAME early in South San Gabriel, with wind and cold spinning to earth. People who had been sitting on porches or on metal chairs near fold-up tables topped with cards and beer bottles collected their things to go inside. Others put on