Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood by Benjamin Alire Sáenz Page B

on my front porch one night, a week before Pifas was leaving. Leaving—I’ve always hated that word. It was beginning to thunder. Rain. August was like that. “Toss me a cigarette,” I said. “I’m out.” He tossed me one. I lit it. “No,” I said. “I don’t think that.”
    “Yeah, you do. You don’t respect me. Dime la verdad. I can take it.”
    “No seas pendejo. I respect you, Pifas.”
    “Since when?”
    “Since that night. When Juliana—you know. Since that night.”
    “And before that?”
    “Before that? I thought you were a dumbass.”
    He laughed. We both laughed.
    He nodded. I watched him—then joined in the nodding.
    “I’ve always been a screw up,” he said. “Not you, Sammy. Ever since grade school, you were one serious kid. Always working—puro trabajar, trabajar, trabajar. Mano, tienes que re-laaaaaaax. Even when you play, it’s work for you. Me, I do too much relaxing.”
    “You’re not a screw up,” I said.
    “I didn’t enlist.”
    “What? What are you saying, Pifas?”
    “I got drafted. I didn’t want anyone to know, know what I mean? ¿Sabes? Me dio vergüenza. So I made out like I enlisted. Everyone knows only losers get drafted.”
    “Don’t do that, Pifas. It’s a system. It’s just a system.”
    “There are winners in that system, Sammy. Look, I know the score. Look, we both know, don’t we, Sammy? There’s two kinds of people in this fucking world—those who make it and those who don’t. We’re on different sides of that coin, ¿sabes? And when that coin was tossed, your side landed facing the sky and my side landed facing the fucking ground. And we both know, don’t we, Sammy? And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. Let’s not waste time cryin’ about what’s never gonna change.”
    “You’re not a loser,” I said. It was storming now. The rain was coming down, the sky crackling like it was a piece of dry wood on fire. “You’re not a loser, Pifas.”
    “You used to think so.”
    “Damnit to hell, I was wrong.” I looked at him. So many times, I hadn’t seen him. “Pifas, listen. Listen to me. I was wrong about you.”
    They were rioting in Chicago. Rioting. Not that riots were something foreign. I grew up watching that sort of thing. Normal stuff. Blood was normal. People exploding like boxes of ammunition—that was normal. The grotesque, twisted faces of men and women shouting, being hit. The reflex of an arm going up to protect a face. Faces were sacred. The Aztecs knew that. Not there, don’t hit me there. I grew up like a lot of people—being a witness to all that from the safe distance of my own home. Television did that. Made you far from things. Made you a watcher. Made you believe you were safe. We watched the footage, my father andI, on the news. He was addicted to the news, needed to watch like I had come to need cigarettes. Never missed, not if he could help it. He pointed at the screen. “Look, hijo. Mira. Cabrones. This is not democracy.” My father didn’t cuss much. But he cussed when he watched the news. There was always something on to make him mad. He could get pretty fierce about things. His children. His politics. He looked at me, “Do you think this is democracy?”
    “No, Dad,” I said, “it’s a riot. It’s a bunch of cops beating up on demonstrators.”
    “And you think this is a good thing?”
    “No, Dad.” I’d had these conversations with him before. I knew how they went. He wanted me to think. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t brain dead. You can’t just think about yourself. You can’t just think about school. There’s a world, mi’jo. You have to think about what’s going on in it. You have to figure out your place. That was his standard lecture. Or some variation.
    He shook his finger at the television screen again. “Mayor Daley’s a pinche,” he said. “You watch. Because of this, that sinvergüenza Nixon’s going to win the election.” My dad hated Nixon. I hated him, too.