Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood (14 page)

Dad and Mr. Sánchez were proud. Their people had come out to vote. They’d done their job. When the polls closed, my father bought us hamburgers at LotaBurger. We went home, hamburgers in hand, to watch the results on television.

Humphrey won by a landslide—in my dad’s precinct. Humphrey had taken Hollywood by storm. The nation went a different way. Like Gigi Carmona, Hubert Humphrey would never be president. We were always out of step. Out of line, some people would say. Way out of line.

That night, my father and I went to our version of the wailing wall—the front porch. He had a beer. I smoked a cigarette. “No me gusta perder,” my dad said.

I nodded. “I hate losing, too, Dad.”

Then all of a sudden, he broke out laughing. At first I thought he might be crying. But he wasn’t. “Maybe we shouldn’t hate losing so much, you know that, Sammy? I mean—it’s the only thing we’re good at.” He laughed and laughed. God, his laugh made me smile. But that’s when I understood that there wasn’t much of a difference between Gigi’s tears and my father’s laughter.

“Sammy, how come everybody wants to be in love?”

“Because everybody’s crazy, that’s why.”

“Were Mom and Dad crazy when they were in love?”

“Probably, Elena. That’s the way it is.”

I was fearless
when I was a boy. Not afraid of anything. Didn’t have bad dreams. Wasn’t afraid of the devil. Pifas Espinosa, he had dreams. Bad ones. He used to tell me all about them at recess, how the devil would come, how he wore disguises. How the devil always dressed like someone he knew, his father, his mother, one of his brothers, a teacher, the guy behind the counter at Rexall drugs. And then he’d move in for the kill. “He takes me with him.” He was afraid. I felt bad for Pifas. Even though I hadn’t liked him back then. Me, I never had dreams like that. I had a guardian angel. And, as insurance, my Mom hung a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in my room. His heart burned like his eyes. For me. His heart.

I didn’t have to be afraid.

And I wasn’t afraid of school. Lots of kids in Hollywood were afraid of school. There were rumors about what went on in there. “They make you hate your mom and dad. They turn you into a gringo.” I heard a kid say that at the Pic Quick. I knew it wasn’t true. If you weren’t born a gringo, you couldn’t become one. I knew that. I wasn’t afraid of school, even though my English wasn’t so great. Not at first. My parents spoke it, but they liked Spanish more. I liked Spanish more, too. School, well, school was an all-English thing. But that didn’t scare me. English. Spanish. They were languages. What was scary about that? Uno, dos, tres, cuatro. One,
two, three, four. Was that scary?

Even scary teachers didn’t scare me. I think that’s why so many of my teachers didn’t like me. They looked at me, saw the lack of fear in my eyes. That’s what they saw. I think they mistook that fearless look of mine for a lack of respect.

No, I wasn’t afraid of bad dreams or devils or English or school or teachers. And I wasn’t afraid of the neighborhood I lived in. When I was in sixth grade, I overheard a man at the Safeway say he wouldn’t walk through the streets of Hollywood at night. “Not in that neighborhood.” Even Mrs. Apodaca was afraid of our barrio. Said it wasn’t decent. Anything could happen. Like what? I’d been walking through the streets of Hollywood my whole life. Walked and walked. Found things. Saw stuff. Talked to people. Asked them questions. What was there to be afraid of?

My mom was always chasing me down. Always trying to escape. Streets, alleys, the aisles of Surplus City. Every chance I got, I made good my escape. Mama always found me. She was crazy about me. My dad, too. Always hugging me and kissing me and holding me. For the longest time, I was an only child. I was an entire world for my mom and dad. I was heaven. I was Eden.

And they were gods.

I was eight when Elena was born. Old enough to be jealous, I guess. But I never was. Jealousy wasn’t ever my thing. I loved the idea of having a sister. When my mom was pregnant, I told her that’s what I wanted. A sister. That’s what I wanted. That’s what I got. I thought my mom was giving me a present. I thought Elena was for me. When my mom went into the hospital, René asked me if I was afraid. “Why?” I said.

“What if she doesn’t come back?”

I wasn’t afraid. Maybe I should have been. But I wasn’t. Fear was something in my future. Something I was bound to learn sooner or later. We learned to read, to write, to think, to sin, to love—and to be afraid. That’s what we learned in living. For me, fear was something I learned in the confessional booth of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church. If I was heaven to my parents, I was hell to Father Fallon. Sammy Santos wasn’t Eden. No, not to Fallon. Everybody’s garden was different.

I don’t know why. I took an instant dislike to that priest in catechism classes when I was seven. He was big and white. Not fat really. But not skinny. Thick. Like the trunk of a tree. He came to our class and spoke about sin. His topic was as serious as his voice. Gravel, like gravel in a cement mixer. He smoked a lot. I could smell it. Maybe that’s why he always talked like he needed to clear his throat. Like he was about to spit.

Sin and repentance. That was his topic. He told us how holy God was and how not-holy we were. I took notes. That’s what I always did. Took notes.
God wants to redeem me
that’s what I wrote. That’s what he said. That’s what I wrote. And then I wrote.
Heaven is something you have to want.
That’s what he said. That’s what I wrote. I wondered how badly I wanted heaven. I wondered if I had to love Father Fallon in order to get there. Probably I did. I was in trouble. Serious. I don’t know why, but I told Larry Torres that I didn’t like Father Fallon. “No one likes him,” Larry said. “He’s just an F.B.I. anyway.” I didn’t ask him what that meant. I didn’t want Larry to think he knew more than me. Later I asked Pifas what that meant. “Foreign Born Irish,” he said. “Oh,” I said. I guess I’d known that. I mean, everybody knew Father Fallon was from Ireland. It was supposed to be a good thing. It was better to be from Ireland than to be from Mexico. I knew that.

I studied hard to make my first communion. I had reached the age of reason. That’s what they told me. It sounded important. I learned my Baltimore Catechism. I didn’t know where Baltimore was. Didn’t know why they’d named a catechism after a city. No one ever explained that to me. I guess if it was important, they would have told me. I sometimes got distracted by side issues. I still do that. But the main thing—the main thing was that I learned about God. Learned about the seven sacraments. Learned to pray the rosary. Learned the Apostle’s Creed and the Act of Contrition. Sister Joseph taught me the prayers in English. My mom taught me the prayers in Spanish. Two women. Two teachers. Two languages. Two of everything. I was lucky. That’s what I thought.

For the longest time I was confused about the theology of sin. But this is what I was told: there were mortal sins and there were venial sins. That sounded simple enough. Mortal sins were big sins. Serious. Things like missing mass, using God’s name in vain, stealing, coveting your neighbor’s wife—whatever that meant—and killing. I knew what killing meant. I never understood exactly why missing mass was as serious as killing someone. I guess I figured it was a good way of getting people to go to mass every Sunday, of keeping order. Order was important. Couldn’t have a church that was in chaos. No. Mrs. Apodaca wouldn’t have stood for it. Mass. Every Sunday. Serious business. Mortal.

Then there were venial sins. They were smaller—things like getting mad and yelling and not obeying your parents and cussing. I figured most of my sins fell under this category. Maybe I was kidding myself. Maybe there were mortal sins I didn’t even know about. And maybe I’d committed them. All of them. Without even knowing it.

Larry Torres informed me that sex was a mortal sin. I didn’t know anything about that. “If you’re married,” he said, “then it’s okay.” I took
his word for it. Larry Torres seemed to know a lot of things. “Getting a hard-on, that’s a mortal sin, too.” I didn’t know what that was. But he had two older brothers. They must’ve told him these things. How else would he know? I nodded.
Hard-ons
, I thought. Serious. Mortal.

My first confession was pretty uneventful. There was about eighty of us who were waiting in line. We sat in the pews, kneeling, preparing ourselves. To make our hearts contrite. That’s how Sister Joseph put it. I remember kneeling in my pew listening to Larry Torres and Reyes Espinoza endlessly discussing what they were going to tell the priest. “I’m going to tell him I killed someone,” Reyes Espinoza whispered. Even as a kid he was a liar and a jerk. Even back then.

“And did you kill anyone?” Larry whispered back.

“Nope.”

“Then you’re lying.”

“That’s the plan,” he said. “I’m going to tell Father Fallon that I killed someone. And then I’m going to tell him that I lied.” Reyes had it all figured it out.

I rolled my eyes.

Reyes caught me in the act. Rolling my eyes. “I’m gonna kick your ass,” he whispered. He had no respect. We were in church. And there he was threatening me. He was a real cabrón. He didn’t have a contrite heart. I knew that. I was right about that.

I rolled my eyes again. Reyes Espinoza never scared me. If scary teachers didn’t scare me, why would Reyes Espinoza? “Go ahead,” I said real soft. “I need something to tell the priest. I can tell him that I beat you up. Right here. Right in front of God and all the angels. Maybe that’s good enough to count as a mortal sin.”

“You’re a joto,” he said.

I hated when people called me that. That was the worst. “I hate you,” I said. Now I really did have something to tell the priest. I wondered if hating someone was mortal or venial. I hated Reyes enough for it to count as mortal. One mortal, I thought, and about eight or nine venials. That was my list.

Larry wanted to know exactly what I was going to tell the priest. I shook my head. I told him it was a sin to tell.

“It isn’t,” he said.

“It is,” I said. “You can only tell a priest.”

“Shhh,” Sister Joseph said. She gave us that look. That nun look. Even nice nuns could give you that look. They learned it in the monastery. They had to pass a test before they could take final vows. The look was on the test. “Shhhh,” she said. She stood there a while.

I wasn’t afraid. Not then. I had my sins in order, including my newly acquired one regarding Reyes Espinoza. I had a contrite heart. I was ready. It went okay. Nothing special. My sins weren’t that special. I knew that. The confessional wasn’t as dark as people said it was. I remember that. And I remember reciting the Act of Contrition perfectly. I was proud. I thought about reciting it in Spanish, too. So Father Fallon would know that I knew how to talk to God in two languages. I didn’t, though. When I walked out of there, I felt clean. Real clean. That’s the way it was supposed to be. I liked that. It was better than taking a bath. Clean. I liked that.

At first, I went to confession almost every week. Father Fallon wasn’t nice. He wasn’t mean. But he wasn’t nice. Sometimes he mumbled. But I never got the feeling he actually cared very much. I figured it was me. My sins were pretty dull. Venial was dull. That was okay.

When I got to high school, things began to change. That’s when I
began to be afraid. Maybe not afraid of confession. Maybe just afraid of Father Fallon.

For Lent, I’d given up eating Payday candy bars—and I’d given up drinking Pepsis. Loved that drink, loved it like anything. Giving up something was supposed to hurt. If it didn’t hurt, then what was the point? I missed my Paydays. I’d also made a promise to do something nice once a day. Maybe I’d make an effort to do more than grunt at my teachers, not that I grunted on the outside. I did most of my grunting on the inside. But Mrs. Apodaca said God saw the words you said—even the ones you said to yourself.

The first Saturday after Ash Wednesday, I decided to go to confession. Actually, Mrs. Apodaca felt God had personally appointed her for overseeing my salvation. She’s the one who actually decided for me. She knocked at the door and reminded me that it was Lent, and Lent was a time for humbling yourself before God. And what better way of humbling yourself than partaking of the sacrament of confession. “Yes, yes,” I told her. I already had plans.
Mil gracias, Señora for the reminder. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“And don’t forget,” she said, “to tell the priest you missed mass last Sunday.”

“I was sick,” I said.

“Yes, but tell him. It’s up to him to decide if it’s excused.”