ERNESTO VERA

APRIL 29, 1992

8:14 P.M.

1

I'm in Lynwood, South Central, somewhere off Atlantic and Olanda, putting tinfoil over trays of uneaten beans at some little kid's birthday party when I get told to go home early and prolly not come back to work tomorrow. Maybe not for a week even. My boss is worried what's happening up the 110 will come down here. He doesn't say trouble or riots or nothing. He just says, "that thing north of here," but he means where people are burning stuff and breaking out storefronts and getting beat down. I think about arguing, because I need the money, but it wouldn't get me anywhere, so I don't waste my breath. I pack the beans away in the truck's fridge, grab my coat, and leave.

Earlier in the afternoon when we got there, me and Termite — this guy I work with — saw smoke, four black towers going up like burning oil wells in Kuwait. Maybe not that big, but big. The birthday kid's half-drunk father sees us notice them as we were setting up tables and he said it was because the cops that beat Rodney King aren't going to jail for it, and how did we feel about it? Man, you know we weren't happy, but we don't tell our boss's client that! Besides, it was a raw deal and all, but what did it have to do with us? It was blowing up somewhere else. Here, we shut up and do our jobs.

I been working the Tacos El Unico truck going on three years. Whatever you got, I'll sling. Al pastor. Asada. No problem. We do some nice cabeza too, if the mood hits you. Otherwise there's lengua, pollo, whatever. You know, something for everybody. Usually we park over by our stand on Atlantic and Rosecrans, but sometimes we do birthday parties, anniversaries, anything really. We don't get paid by the hour at these, so I'm happy when they're done sooner. I say bye to Termite, tell him not to show next time without washing his hands good, and head out.

If I walk fast, it's twenty minutes home, fifteen if I take the Boardwalk through the houses. It's not a boardwalk like Atlantic City or nothing. It's just a thin little concrete alley between houses that serves as a walkway between the main street and the neighborhood. That's our shortcut. As my sister would say, "fools been running from the cops on it since forever." Go down and it takes you straight to Atlantic. Go up and it leads into the houses, street after street. That's where I go when I get there. Up.

Most people's porch lights are off. Backyard lights too. Nobody's out. No familiar sounds. No Art Laboe Oldies music playing. No people fixing cars. When I'm passing houses, I only hear TVs on, and all the anchors are talking about is looting and fire and Rodney King and black people and anger and that's cool, whatever, because I'm focused on something else.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not being cold or nothing like that, I'm just taking care of what I need to take care of. You grow up in the same neighborhood as me, one with a gun store that sells single bullets for twenty-five cents to anybody with bad thoughts and a quarter, then you might end up the same way. Not jaded or pissed or anything, just focused. And right now, I'm counting months till I can get out.

Two should do it. That's when I'll have money saved up to get some wheels again. Nothing fancy. Just something that gets me to work and back without having to walk these streets. See, I been cooking someone else's recipes forever, but I'm not trying to stay that way. When I get my own car, I'm driving to Downtown and begging for an apprentices