Friday Night Fish Tacos

Friday night were a Religious experience. If only you all could walk with me. Well you can...

     After reading and writing, I left and headed back to the Villa. My time there went along easy. I was having the time of my life. Four hundred dollars rent and lived in an exclusive piece of Long Beach history. I was eating healthy and always finding things to do, plus I was employed full time and making pretty good money, after not being able to find employment for a year.

     My jobs prior to the Corp were: PE teacher for a Chinese school in Diamond bar and teaching Chess to inner city grammar school kids in Compton. I couldn’t keep either: my pay was covering the gas.

     Depression and frustration became my tag team partners, beating me up and down then rubbing my face in my own failings every single morning. I searched from the Valley to the South bay for work- nothing.

      After being rejected by the Corps three times they finally hired me. It was a strange place with a power struggle between the trainees and the staff that went from class to class.

     I did my time, worked out in the gym sometimes and left. I didn’t want to know anyone or make any new friends. It was my buddy Prieto that told me they were hiring, but I guessed his name didn’t carry the hire my boy clout. 

     I made it through the week with ease and sometimes saw Corey at the park, but he was often busy talking to the group of Meth addicted, Mexicans drunk off of cheap beer, laying in the grass by the bathroom of the community center.

      Sometimes at night, I came across Shadow on my way back to the Villa. He patrolled Broadway begging for money with his friend Diablo the El Salvadorean gang member. Occasionally, I gave them change, a few words and then be on our separate ways.

     Shadow was the leader of a group of four Mexicans that walked up and down Broadway every night and eventually ending up in Bixby Park: where they slept. There was Shadow: he was an Eastside Longo and I heard his family was connected deep on the Westside on Long Beach. He was the politician of his group.

      All his personal information I got from Ty: the Longo/Blood knew everyone. Shadow could talk to anyone, because he was friendly and approachable, but often through very long, winding conversations, I never really learned anything about him. He continued to be a giggling mystery to me.

     I often heard his joyful laugh echoing from the park. He gave me the moniker El Monstro due to the size of my shoulders, after I completed my weekend work out, then strolled up Broadway sporting my trademark black tank top.

     If one knew him they were safe within the Mexican, Pisa and Longo community, who were running the block secretly. It was Shadow’s crew that actually brought the dope into the Gay Ghetto from the Black Fort.

     There was also Gordo. A chubby, Mohawk wearing, dark Latino with a protruding gut and slow, lost gate. He hardly spoke or waved unless drunk off the Steel Reserve. He never moved unless he went to the corner store owned by the short, older Cambodian man or moved from one side of the park to the other, when the police did a ride through.

     Then there was Diablo: average height with sunglasses and a baseball cap. He was darker then the rest and had a face that radiated all business. He spoke a little but rarely smiled. His eyes saw everything and he moved through the ghetto silently. Diablo was from the world famous El Salvadorean gang i chose not to mention.

      There were also a couple of rotating drunks who hung with them, some used up Strawberries and their older children. It was like a huge family based on addiction and a common tongue. The group threw in money for a beer, passed the hat around and pitched in for food, then cooked on the outdoor grill in the park. I always approached to say hello or check on Corey to see if he was in good spirits.        

       The last one came later. His name was Drama and he fit his name. The first time I saw the skinny, bald headed, white skinned Mexican he was screaming drunkly around the park announcing his release from Prison in Oklahoma. He offered me a hard pound with his rock solid right hand. I gave him respect but moved quickly away. The last time I saw him humble, broken, sober with a black eye explaining Ty he was only going to use drugs on the weekend. Sometime, the best intervention was a beat down at the hands of a rival gang.

      I lived for Fridays: the day I craved all week. I had to explore from Fourth street to Ocean. I  hit up the semi straight bars on Fourth and cut across Broadway to peer into the gay bars and then go down toward Belmont shore to hang with the Rich beach slash college crowd. I would stop by one of the local liquor stores or make myself a drink and at Susies. I called that ‘Pre gaming.’

     The crawl was fun at first but it tired my feet and when drunk I neglected my feet. Broadway had an additive spirit and one of anything was never enough. It was dangerous to carry around a fat pocket, because I woke-up the next morning despondent, trying to take an inventory of my past spending spree.

Lets see. Fifteen at the Maria’s on fish burritos, ten on liquor, no wait 20 on liquor, 5 on 7-11 hot dogs…ect, ect

     I returned home: drunk and stinking of adventure. I plopped down on the half filled air mattress and fell into a coma, until the next morning: surprised I even woke up at all. Surprised I wasn't robbed. Surprised I wasn't stabbed. I had a meeting with my mind and we both decided to slow down and take it easy.  The next week will be much better.

     I  even devised a plan. My mind had already focused on my Saturday plans. I still had a pocket full of money and a thirst to uncover the ghetto: one street at a time and decided it would be the Red Room.

     I fixed a Rum and Pineapple juice at Susies and made my way to Marias to purchase my traditional, three Baja fish tacos, which had become a ritual to celebrate my rising above poverty to the finer things. I finished my food, while watching a soccer game in Spanish.

     I imagined what it must be like in a Central American stadium, during a soccer game. The lights were a little suns illuminating the field. Thousand of tanned bodies jammed together in aniticipation of a one to nil score. I would rather catch the first train North, find a Coyote and sneak across the Arizona boarder if that was the high point of my weekend.

     I took my last bite of the taco and prepared to order another but that would be greedy. I paid my bill and tipped the sexy, thick, blonde waitress. I turned on Orange street passed  the Doc’s old street and made a right on Fourth.

     At the Red Room I gave the derby wearing, dark eyed doorman my Id. He had a bad aura about him as though he knew evil secrets. Yet physically beatable to me, there was something about him that made me pause and that momentary pause was enough for him to take advantage and I would be high-fiving St. Pete, trying to peek at the Book of Life while sneaking by the Pearly gates.

I swear I’m here someone where! Check under my middle name-Michael.

     I entered the bar and grabbed a seat. The women weren't the type I was accustomed to in the Valley. These broads seemed on the other side of rundown, but they were on the sunny side of twenty. The Valley was filled with wanna-be model, actresses and almost successful porn stars, sitting pretty hoping someone bought them a beverage because: they are past due on the phone bill, last months rent and did not want to jerk off their Persian landlord again in the laundry room.

     Unfortunately, the pretty faced men with the expensive, vintage gear from the Buffalo Exchange, three years off the bus from Kalamazoo were just as broke and did not have the option to stroke anyone but themselves. So all the pretty people, sat together posing: broke and sober. Until the rich Persian boys, from Woodland Hill entered with the families Black card, then your almost girlfriend from Groton, Conn was drunk, earning next months rent in a room at the Holiday Inn to a romantic, Iranian love ballad with a window view of Ventura Blvd-

 Double beds.

Author's Note

Give it too me. Bixby Boys is back...

Reviews

[Ency Bearis]

Good write, a fascinating story.

[TL Boehm]

Another brilliant write. Astro used the word seamless. I concur - you have that way of writing wherein the reader can just fully immerse into the story - Fish tacos. yup.

[Astro]

Well my friend, if this is a nonfiction or fictional piece of writing it is excellent in it's ability to seamlessly invite the reader into a world they may or may not be familiar with. It is completely plausible and has a good mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. On the grammatical side, there are some spots that need a bit of editing but the majority of your piece is easy to understand and all too clear. The way you, or your character weaves in and out of different worlds makes it a fun and exciting read. I'll leave you with a few spots that need cleaning up a bit.

"He would patrolled Broadway..." should be either "he would patrol Broadway" or better, "he patrolled Broadway"
" He reminded a giggling mystery to me." should be "He was a giggling mystery to me."
"I imagined to myself what it must be in a Central American soccer stadium during a soccer game." Between "be" and "in" you forgot "like".

Peace friend keep up the great writing.

[Renée]

oh the places you go...Very Colorful addition.. all familiar names and places for me..and fish tacos...nom!

[Dayran]

Reads like a montage for a TV series ... that series would surely be called ' The Streets of Southern California.'

[Leslie Philibert]

For me is Judas America...this all fits, brillantly obeserved,as fascinating ( and sometimes as diffcult) as the US !

[roarke]

this reminds me of my first night in LA, a temporary apartment in Silverlake, cruising down Sunset Blvd, past the barrio, and into the wet, dark deserted streets of downtown, where packs of dogs roamed the back alleys, free and untethered. Fish taco's would have tasted real fine then.