“Sell it to somebody else,” I said.

He threw his food into the trash. “Motor on up to Prince’s if you feel like it. I got to get back to my people.”

“Your people?”

“My old man is selling Popsicles. I’m putting food on the table and paying down the mortgage. That wouldn’t be happening if it wasn’t for Manny and Cholo. They’re good guys. They accept me as I am.”

“They’ll wipe their ass with you.”

“You’re just like your old man,” he said. “You play the Southern gentleman, but you think you’re better than other people.”

He walked away from me, his jaw hooked, his shoulders rounded hood-style.

“Don’t talk about my father like that,” I said at his back.

He paid me no attention. I got into my heap and tooled down South Main toward Herman Park, the lamps coming on along the boulevard and in the live oaks on the Rice campus. I should have kept going, but I couldn’t let it rest. I made a U-turn, horns blowing at me, and went to Prince’s drive-in and drove up and down the aisles. Saber’s heap wasn’t there, and neither was the canary-yellow Ford convertible. They didn’t want to go there without the girls, I thought. It was all about the girls. I headed back to the roller rink.

Was I being unfair? I wondered. Not a chance.

It was almost dark, the heat draining out of the day. I pulled into the parking lot. Saber’s heap and the Ford were still there. I got out and went inside. The tent was more crowded now, the music faster, a tinge of sweat and talcum and hair spray in the air. I went back outside and saw Saber and the Mexicans and the girls gathered between two storage sheds, drinking canned beer, lighting up, giggling. The wind changed and I knew what they were smoking. I started walking toward them.

“Come with me, Sabe,” I said.

“Cain’t do it,” he said. “I’m with my pards.”

The girls were passing hand-rolls around, bending over when they laughed, looking at me as though I were a balloon that had broken its tether and floated into their midst.

“I’m Manny,” one of the Mexicans said. “This is Cholo. Why you keep showing up wherever we’re at, man?”

He was thinner than his friend, wrapped tighter, with darker skin and more ink on his arms and neck. Cholo had eyes that were soft and warm and unthreatening. I believed that either of them was capable of disemboweling me and gargling beer while he did it.

“Hey, you hearing me, gusano?” Manny said. “You were in our cell. Then I see you at the drugstore and now at the roller rink. You just keep coming around, man. It’s starting to upset me.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said.

“That ain’t no way to talk, man,” Cholo said. “Want to join us? We got a place in the Fifth Ward. The neighborhood ain’t just for coloreds. We get along good there. Hey, you like music? We got all kinds of records, man. You like to dance, too?” His eyes shifted at the girls.

“What’s a gusano?” I asked.

“It means something like compadre,” Manny said.

“It means ‘worm,’?” I said.

“You pretty smart.”

“He’s okay, Manny,” Saber said. “We’ve been pards a long time.”

“He don’t look like no pard to me. But if you say so, man, that’s cool,” Manny said. His eyes went up and down my body. “We’re friends now? You want a hug?”

I looked back at him and didn’t answer.

His eyes were flat and glassy. He puffed on his reefer, pinching it with two fingers, never blinking. “You think because you’re tall, you’re a macho guy? You was in jail a few hours and now you’re an ex-con? First day up in Huntsville, you’d be in the bridal suite. They’d drive a freight train up your ass.”

“You damn spic,” I said.

I had never used that word before, not once. My mouth went dry. I tried to swallow, but there was nothing in my mouth, just a bitter taste.

“He didn’t mean it,” Saber said.

Tags: James Lee Burke Holland Family Saga Historical
Source: readsnovelonline.net