The Afterlife (12 page)

The rosary, it appeared, was over, but not the grief. My mom was crying, and some aunts I hadn't seen in years were tossing tears freely. Uncle Richard was there, along with his girlfriend, who in her high heels was taller than him and just about every guy in the room. Then I spotted the four Js—Jamal had a middle finger in a splint, a basketball injury. Jason sported a bruise under his eye, also an injury. I felt good for them because their appearance suggested that we had won over Sanger. Coach wouldn't have put them in if the game had been close. After all, they were second stringers.

"Hey, guys," I greeted, but, of course, they couldn't hear or see me. Still, I thought I'd better greet them. They were huddled together, segregated from the adults because they were young. I was going to miss them, and I think they were going to miss me, too, at least until I became a photo in a yearbook,
nada mas,
or in ten years' time a name mentioned at a high school reunion.

I remember when I was little I had ruined the classroom pencil sharpener when I stuck a crayon in and gave it a mighty crank. The teacher called Mom, and Mom called Dad, and Dad, home from work, called me from the backyard, where I was playing with Angel. My
nalga
whipping took me from the living room to the bedroom and back to the living room. I remembered crying in my bedroom, rain on the window, and thinking that if I died they would be really, really sorry. I was seven at the time, so full of self-pity that I pictured them at my funeral, all crying because they missed me.
See?
I sniveled back then.
You should have been nice to me. Given me more candy! Taken me places! I didn't mean to break the sharpener!

It had come true. They were crying at my funeral and whether they were thinking they should have been nicer to me,
pues,
I wasn't able to tell for sure. But those were real tears. And the body in the coffin was real, too. I approached it slowly and almost buckled because I was full of self-pity.

"Oh, Chuy" I heard someone call. "Oh, Jesus!"

It was Aunt Sara from Modesto. With a raccoon look from the mascara on her face, she returned to view my body once again. She honked into a Kleenex and her husband ushered her away. When she was gone, I stepped forward. I swallowed my fear as I lowered my gaze to the body in the coffin. It was me, after all. I was dressed in a new black suit and a tie that was the colors of my school, black and red. My hands, laced together, rested on my stomach. I realized that I wasn't too
feo
-looking, even with my large nose. My hair was combed nice, but my cheeks had too much makeup! There was nothing I could do about that, though. I couldn't do anything about the little smirk on my face. I was smirking as if Angel was in the middle of a joke and I was lifting the corners of my mouth ready to laugh.

I did laugh.
Dawg!
I barked to myself. Me in my coffin with a grin on my face. I had to wonder whether it was going to relax or if I would have to wear it as I was lowered into the ground, where I would spin and spin with the daily rotation of the earth.

I turned and eyed my
primo
Eddie shoving something large and heavy into my moms hands. My mom tried to give it back, but Eddie—bless him—wouldn't have it. It was back in my mom's care. The world was safer, quieter. I only prayed that someone would roll my coffin away before the termites got a chance to burrow into the polished wood of my snug little bed.

But I had had enough of these dark thoughts. I wanted more from life, even if I didn't have one. I wanted something to really remember.

T
HE COLISEUM
in Oakland was jammed with cars, trucks, campers, and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Small barbecues were fired up, sending spirals of smoke into a sky lit by banks of lights. Ice chests brimmed with sodas and beers, and, at one site, champagne—someone with class and better breeding than most of the dudes at the game was ready to celebrate a victory. I watched a guy bringing a taco bloated as a water balloon to his face. Juice ran down an arm decorated with a bluish Raiders tattoo. He could have chosen the name of a girlfriend or wife who could disappear in a huff. But the Raiders? They were permanent.

On that Sunday night I asked myself what I would really like besides snuggling in the arms of Crystal. The answer was clear as the puddles I
stepped over: to see a Raiders game live, not on TV It was a simple gift to myself. Luck had it that the Raiders were playing on
Monday Night Football.

That Sunday, as I drifted around Fresno, I found myself on Fausto's block. I thought maybe Robert Montgomery followed Yellow Shoes there.
Robert might want to go with me,
I thought. But Robert wasn't there, or Fausto, whose house was blown wide open. After I froze off the hinges of the front door, the
mocoso
kids in the neighborhood had sneaked in and taken off with the bikes. Even the ones with flats and no wheels.

"Incredible," I muttered.

Two kids were bike riding at the late hour of nine o'clock when they should have been bathed and buttoned up in bed. School was the next day. But they couldn't care less. The kids rode through rain puddles, their black, black hair parted by wind and drizzle. They were fearless.

After I had left the Everlasting Light Mortuary, I had walked in the rain and lamented my death. I was feeling sorry for myself and for Crystal, a girl I'd decided I truly loved. She was at home, perhaps watching her parents cry their hearts out until there were no tears left to race down their long, ashen faces. I had promised to return to her, and I was going to keep my word, which was the only thing I had left.

I ghosted around Fresno that Sunday night, and early the next morning, at a 7-Eleven, I slid into a van with three chubby guys—all
raza
—who were making plans to escape to Oakland. They worked for the city in sanitation, and decided to call in sick—let the garbage fester in the alleys. They wanted to see the Raiders play the Kansas City Chiefs, a rivalry that went back to the 1970s. Back then the Raiders had Stabler at the helm and Biletnikoff running a slow but effective pattern.

We departed Fresno a little after two o'clock in the afternoon. I rode with these guys, and for three hours straight they talked about what they were escaping: work. They talked about the good stuff people tossed in the garbage.

"The garbage I handle is first-rate," a guy named Hector bragged. He worked a route in the best part of Fresno and had taken away, cleaned up and repaired, and sold on his front lawn in a yard sale enough goods to put his son through the first year of college. City College, but still...

One guy named Manuel was bummed out. His route was in the poorer parts of Fresno, and he never got anything worth salvaging. Even the pork chops were gnawed to the bone, so his dog never feasted on other people's scraps. The cereal boxes were cleaned out, the egg and milk cartons, the soup cans,
todo!
There was no waste in the area he worked. Times were hard, and getting harder. Even the flies were disappointed.

They took an inventory of things they had gaffled, and the people who lived on their routes. Hector bragged that there was a woman who liked him, and the others taunted, "Is she blind?" Their laughter rattled the bag of barbecue pork rinds in their laps.

Near Livermore my name came up—or, to be truthful, my murder.

"You hear about that
chavalo
who got stabbed?" Manuel asked. His forehead became pinched with hurt.

"Yeah," Hector muttered. "I'd kill the dude that killed my son." He was looking out the window at a subdivision of new homes that were going up, their frames like gallows, the tiled roofs the color of dried blood. "Kids got it harder now than when we were running the streets."

"You got that right," agreed Manuel.

The three drove in silence the rest of the way. But as the bright lights of the Oakland Coliseum appeared against the gray sky, the gang of three—even the one at the wheel—started to slip into their Raiders gear—hats, jerseys, black under their eyes as if they were players. They didn't moan when parking cost fifteen dollars and scalped tickets set them back eighty each. They were there to party.

My friends went one way, and I went another, hugging the ground because I was almost being blown away by the wind off the bay. I took in the sights of a pre-game party in the huge parking lot that surrounded the stadium. I had no hunger but appreciated others who stomped their shoes and boots when they dipped a tortilla chip in salsa and couldn't handle the fiery taste. I couldn't catch the footballs that were tossed around the parking lot, and the dudes playing catch couldn't catch them, either. The dogs that ran barking had more natural gifts for catching Frisbees than the middle-aged jocks with sausages for fingers.

The wind slashed through the parking lot. I decided to float over the fans entering the gates of the Coliseum. I was tripped out by the size of the place, and by the fans wigged out in Raiders gear—one guy had a skull on each bulky shoulder. The skulls were more handsome than he was, I swear. He had no front teeth, and his eyes were sunk deep into his flesh. His nostrils were large as nickels.

It was six days before Halloween, but every Sunday—Monday in this case—was Halloween for the Raiders Nation. Everyone wore black, and almost everyone made a fashion statement with masks, skulls, chains, shields, tiny spears, body plates of rippled muscle, flags, the whole nine yards, as my dad would say. If you came dressed in a simple sweater, you were out of place. If you had manners, you may as well go home.

I found myself a front-row seat. The Raiderettes were doing a routine to a song I couldn't place. I thought of Crystal, a former cheerleader. If she had been at my side, she would snarl at the Raiderettes and maybe jealously call them a name or two. I would call them "sweet" or "hot," the vocabulary of a seventeen-year-old boy. How else was I supposed to respond?

"This is sweet," I said to myself when the Raiders won the toss and chose to receive the kickoff. The Chiefs lined up, kicked off, and the game began with a fumble. The fans moaned but none booed. Only sixteen seconds had been chewed off the clock.
What was the big deal?
the fans thought. But the Chiefs, three plays later, scored on a quarterback keeper.

A guy, chest bare and face painted black-and-white, raced down the aisle and roared next to me, "That call suuuuuuucks!" He was practicing for the bad calls the refs would make. He bared his feelings again when security escorted him away.

I realized that because I was invisible, I could move down to the bench where players were gargling on Gatorade and being taped up by assistants.

"
Tonto!
" I scolded myself. "Get down there on the field."

I dived from the stands and was picked up by the wind that swirled burger wrappers. I sailed and hung over the fans in primo seats, the ones close to the field that cost a fortune, before landing a few feet from the Raiders head coach, who was rolling a Life Saver in his mouth. He was taller than I imagined, and suddenly angry as he slapped his clipboard on his thigh. He crunched the Life Saver into a sweet dust. His brow furrowed as the offensive coordinator up in the booth called a play. However, the head coach vetoed that play and called his own, his hand in front of his face. But I picked up his body language. It was a running play because his right arm went to his chest as if he were huddling the rock.

I was right. The running back gained six yards on a straight-ahead play that was all power and grit. The running back jumped up and ran off the field because his shoe had kicked off. Right then I looked down at where my feet should have been. They were long gone, as were my legs. My arms had vanished, too. My favorite part of my body—my abs—was going fuzzy. I tried to wipe out this sour image of myself. I was there to see the Raiders win!

"Come on, guys!" I crowed.

They adjusted their jocks and helmets, and stuck their mouthpieces back into their chops. They held hands in the huddle, and there was nothing girlie about that. Even from the sidelines I could see that they were huge and would have had trouble getting into Uncle Richard's Honda.

I gazed up at one of the booths, where the offensive coordinator was making the calls.
What a job!
I thought. I sized up the cheerleaders, pom-poms flailing, who were dancing to the Stones' "Start Me Up." I even liked the goofy guy in the stands shouting "Popcorn!" I would have loved that job, or even the job sweeping up the popcorn that didn't make it to the fans' mouths. No telling what I would have found as I swept up after one long, drunken party.

I drifted out onto the field. Who was there to stop me? After a field goal—the Raiders were stopped on the seventeen-yard line—I sailed out to the center of the fifty-yard line, which was already torn up by spiked shoes. I hovered near the kicker as he squeezed the football and placed it on the upright. I turned and scanned the sidelines, where the players, exhausted from the last play, were bent over and breathing, their white breath hanging in the autumn sky. And it was a lovely sight seeing a player throw up. Where else could I witness a player playing his guts out?

I turned back as the kicker sent the ball; it sailed into the lights and seemed to hang on the roar of the crowd. Then it tumbled end over end, and the defensive team, helmets lowered, started a fearless charge up the field. I flew with them, eyes wide-open for at least ten yards. I blinked, however, when a Chief with bloodshot eyes and hot snot blowing from his nostrils ran right through me. If I had been flesh and bone, I would have been out for a long time. These guys could hurt. Even their looks stung, and especially the slashing fury in their eyes.

A ref whistled, threw a yellow flag into the air, and called a foul by the Raiders. The fifteen-yard penalty had the culprit, hands on hips, wagging his head at the injustice of being picked on. But I saw him smiling in his helmet that barely fit his large head. He fit his mouthpiece back in and was ready for more of the same.