Pound for Pound by F. X. Toole Read Free Book Online Page B

night. She had good benefits from the hotel and made good money, including her tips, but supporting two kids alone, even on the “eastside” was tough. Living without her husband was tougher still.
    Soledad daily served
gabacho
girls Lupe’s age, observed how the white girls dressed and behaved, heard how dirty and rudely they talked, saw how many were pregnant but without wedding rings.
Airheads,
the whites had it right, thought Mrs. Ayala. Not her daughter. She didn’t allow Lupe out with boys after nine o’clock, and then only when her deaf younger brother went along as a chaperone. Once word got out in the barrio, Lupe wasn’t asked out much, but it wasn’t because the boys didn’t have their eyes on her. Mrs. Ayala’s rules were unbendable, had to be. Lupe would sometimes sulk, would argue that the other girls got to stay out until midnight, even later.
    Mrs. Ayala had lost too much of her family to risk losing her daughter, too. “As long as you live in my house, you will be a lady. You will not be like these little
putas
who give love away like it was a penny, little tramps who behave like boys between the legs, and have all of the disadvantages and none of the advantages of being real whores. Besides, I have to get up before
la madrugada,
before
dawn,
and I’m not losing sleep so you can be just another East Al-Lay
chola.”
    Lupe would make faces and huff, but underneath she depended on her mother, knew she needed her tough wisdom, loved her for being strict. And Mrs. Ayala knew that she’d better raise the girl right, or her beautiful husband, Jaime, her sweet Jimmy, would be waiting for her in heaven to divorce her, maybe worse, maybe slit her lazy throat. She wouldn’t blame him.
    All of Lupe’s kids from the clinic were Chicanos, boys and girls; two were chubby, all but one was short compared to most white kids the same age. All signed quick as the wind because Lupe was their teacher, and they were inspired to learn because Lupe wanted so badly for them to learn. She herself had begun to sign as a child when her younger brother, Jesse, at six, lost his hearing because of a severe case of mumps.
    Now twelve, Jesse had started at the CFD four years earlier, when Lupe was almost thirteen. In the process of helping her mother and brother learn to sign, Lupe became deeply involved in the world of the deaf. She took advanced courses in high school, and planned to study audiology and speech pathology in college. She worked part-time at the clinic, and attended seminars at the various facilities throughout the Los Angeles area. Her grades were excellent, and she was sure to get scholarship offers from the various Cal state universities to which she would apply. Her life was good, but it was also hard. When she grew weary, she drew strength from the little children, born forever trapped in silence, who struggled so bravely to learn to speak with their hands, who worked so hard to develop skills that others often squandered.
    Aside from loving the horses, Lupe liked the arena because she could show what a good horsewoman she was. She could also flirt. She liked the way some of the older riders looked at her, how some tried to plant a little kiss on her neck. She liked
piropos,
too, the respectful ones, flirty compliments made in Spanish while a young man might clutch his heart tragically—
¡Ay-yai-yai, no me dejes así morenísima de mi alma!
—Oh, don’t leave me like this, darkest beauty of my soul!
    She would, of course, continue on her way, giving no sign that she’d heard, or that she was flattered, but she’d heard, all right, and was flattered. The
piropos
were said in fun and mostly by boys and young men who had known her as a little girl—and knew the great sadness that clutched at the heart of Lupe’s family.

Chapter 5
    D an and Tim Pat passed through the heavy downtown traffic, then switched from the Harbor to the Hollywood Freeway. Traffic was still heavy, but the Melrose-Normandie exit