“I wanted to get pregnant so I could get out of the life,” she said, but her eyes drifted like she was talking to someone behind me. “It scares me, the things we do. Don’t you think about it? The fighting? The partying? What are we going to do when we’re viejas? Hang out at the river and show off our skinny-bone butts to the boys?”
I laughed. I couldn’t imagine two old ladies doing what we did.
“But now I’m scared about this,” Ana said.
“Don’t think about the future,” I said. “We’re party girls, ésa.”
“Yeah, don’t think about the future, because we don’t get one,” she said.
Ana was only fourteen. Her mother and sisters were planning a big quinceañera for her. Her family didn’t have much, but they celebrated everything. They loved Ana, and their love blinded them to seeing the life she lived. None of them saw the fear that gripped her heart every morning when she stepped out the front door. Every day she walked to school, eyes darting, scoping the neighborhood, wondering if this was the day she’d get blasted. Our school sits in the middle of enemy territory. No way around it. You want to go to school? You have to go through it. I had to go to school so Mom could get her welfare. Ana had to go to school because she loved the reading and the learning, even the math. I wasn’t smart like Ana. Teachers said she’d go to college. The same teachers told me I’d end up in prison if I didn’t die first.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Ana said. “The risks we took jacking all those cars.”
“That was fun,” I said. “You liked it.”
“We could have hurt someone,” she said.
“But we didn’t,” I said.
“What about when we were chased down by the cops?”
“We got away,” I said. “And now it’s a funny story to tell our homies.”
“But it still makes my heart race. Sometimes I lie in bed and think of what we did, and then I pray to Mother Mary to look into her heart and pray for me.”
“You were never scared of anything,” I said. “Not even hell.”
“Don’t tell me you believed my act.” Ana laughed bitterly. “Cuidado, or you’ll start to believe your own.”
I searched her face, trying to see her fear.
“I was always scared,” she said. “And now I’m scared of this. How am I going to tell my mom?”
Ana brushed the hair from her face. Her eyes met mine, and for a moment I saw another person inside Ana’s body, someone trapped and wanting to break free. She turned from me and faced the wind, but I had already seen tears edge to the corners of her eyes.
“Your mom loves you,” I said, wishing I had been born to Ana’s mother. “Just tell her. What’s the problem? Lots of girls at our school are pregnant or have kids.”
“My sisters got married first,” Ana said. “And what about Amelia?”
Amelia was her younger sister, behind us two years in school. Ana was always fussing over her and telling her what to do so she wouldn’t get in trouble.
“I don’t want Amelia to fall into the life,” she said.
“Don’t worry. Amelia can take care of herself. Your mom’s going to understand, and Pocho’s going to be really happy,” I said.
“It’s not Pocho’s,” she said, and passed her hands over her face as if she were pushing away a sad memory. “Pocho and I haven’t. I don’t love him.”
The wind was playing tricks with me, stealing words from Ana’s mouth. She couldn’t have said Pocho wasn’t the father, but already my mind was going through all the guys in the gang that she might have been with. I couldn’t think of any. Pocho wouldn’t let any of the guys hang around her. He was too jealous.
“What’s Pocho going to do when he finds out?” she said.
“He’ll understand,” I said, but that wasn’t what I was thinking. Pocho thought he was the baddest cholo in L.A. County. He was paranoid and jumpy. Even if someone bumped into him accidentally, he acted aggressive and out of control. Some girls thought that made him more of a man, but I knew Pocho’s real story. He hated me for knowing the soft places inside him. There was always a tension between Pocho and me, as if someday we were going to have to fight it out. Maybe it was going to be over this. Ana’s baby.
“We could run away,” I said. I’d been begging Ana to run away for a long time. “You and me, we could raise the baby. I could get a job, lie about my age, pick up money dancing in bars or steal it from some gabachos.”
She shook her head. “There’s no escape.”
Then in the distance tires squealed. A motor revved, and a Chevrolet Monte Carlo blasted out of the darkness and turned the corner, its headlights blinding me.
“You recognize it?” I asked.
The car slowed, then stopped in front of us.
“Who is it?” Ana asked. “Can you see?”
I didn’t recognize anyone. The guys all had the look, but they didn’t have the dead eyes of guys on a mission. Lots of times after the go-go battles, guys tried to find us, flirt with us, and ask us out.
“Just a bunch of busters,” I said.
“Nobodies,” Ana said, but the sound of her voice made me think she was mocking me.
The back window rolled down, and a sawed-off shotgun pointed at us from the backseat. The shadowy face over the gun yelled an enemy gang name in a low, growling voice.
I jumped behind a Dodge parked near the street corner and rested my face in the wet grass, waiting for them to blast us.
“You down, Ana?” I said, the grass flicking my tongue and lips as I spoke, the taste of dirt filling my mouth.
When Ana didn’t answer, I looked up. She stood at the corner, waiting for bullets. At first I thought she was showing how brave she was. That’s how she got her street name, Chancey: always taking chances. I thought she’d duck at the last second.
Instead she faced the car defiantly, throwing our gang sign, my black coat flapping behind her like giant wings.
“Ana!” I screamed.
The guy holding the gun hesitated as if he didn’t know if he should shoot a girl or not, or maybe he was seeing Ana’s face, her soft, beautiful angel eyes, and he was falling in love with those eyes that were right now daring him to kill her.
“Ana, get down!”
“I chose the music,” Ana said. “Now I’m going to dance.”
I sprang from behind the Dodge as angry white fire split the night. Ana and I rolled to the ground with gunfire spraying over us, hitting trees, chipping the cement curb, and shattering car windows.
The Monte Carlo screeched away, turning the corner too tight. The hubcaps scraped against the curb, showering red sparks onto the sidewalk.
I clung to Ana, the smell of honeysuckle filling my lungs, my ears still ringing from the gunshots.
“Chancey, you’re as crazy as it gets. Wait till I tell everyone what you did.”
Ana didn’t answer.
Then I felt something warm and frightening soak into my blouse and trickle across my chest and neck, finally mixing with my tears.
A siren rose above the wind’s wailing, and footsteps gathered on the sidewalk, crunching dead leaves and gravel, stopping a respectful distance from where I lay with Ana on top of me. In the dark sky overhead a helicopter’s blades thumped. Then a white spotlight shone down on us. A sheriff’s car pulled to the curb, and red and blue flashing lights slid over us for the second time that night.
Finally paramedics lifted Ana off me, placed her on a stretcher, and carried her to the back of an ambulance, her blood dripping on the grass, the street, the ambulance floor.
I stood. Ana’s blood covered my blouse. Tiny rivulets streamed down my arms and legs. People thought I had been shot, too.
An old woman with deep wrinkles in her leather face crossed herself and said, “Milagro.”
Then another woman, her black shawl flapping wildly around her face, said something about the devil winds bringing me back to life, and they all stepped away from me as if the wind had poss
essed my body.
A paramedic sat me on the ground and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.
“I’m not hit,” I said. “It’s Ana. Get her to the hospital.”
He smiled at me sadly. “Just let me check you,” he said.
“It’s Ana’s blood,” I said. “Not mine. Please, take her to the hospital. Don’t waste time on me.”
He took my blood pressure anyway and checked my arms and legs and chest. Then he snapped his red case closed and stood and stared at the long black tire marks on the street as if he were trying to decide where to go.
“It could have been you, you know?” he said. His voice sounded sad. I didn’t know who he was talking to at first. “Maybe you should think about how this would have hurt your parents—if you had been the dead girl.”
That was when I knew Ana got out for good. Rest in peace.
He looked back at me as if he couldn’t go until I gave him an answer.
I drew in a deep breath to steady my voice.
“The only one who cared just died,” I said softly.
“Sorry,” he said. Then he turned and walked toward the fire department truck as a deputy sheriff walked over to me, her uniform tight over her hips and belly, her heavy shoes scraping against the sidewalk.
The deputy gave me her card. She wanted to know my name and address and the name of the gang I belonged to. I stared at her. I didn’t have a name without Ana to call it. It had taken the two of us to make one for so long that I wasn’t sure I existed without Ana. My hands started shaking.
I began to weep, and the deputy sat down beside me. She crossed her legs and didn’t seem to notice the ocean of blood around us.
“You know who did it?” she asked. “Is that why you’re scared? That they’ll come back and get you? I can help you if you help me.”
“I didn’t see anything,” I said. I shook my head and pushed the tears away from my eyes.
“What gang did your friend belong to?”
“She was a good student,” I said. “She wasn’t mixed up with anything. Tell her mom that. It was my fault. I’m the banger. Ana was a good kid. We just danced together. That’s all.”
She put her hand on my shoulder. Her skin smelled of Ivory soap and gun oil and a good life. “I know better than that,” she said softly.
“Just tell her mother,” I said.
“Call me if those punks come back and give you any trouble,” she said.
“I’m okay,” I said.
She looked at me like she didn’t believe me. “Keep the card in a safe place,” she said, and stood, her leather belt and shoes cracking from the movement.
I pitched the card into the pool of blood. The last thing I needed was for anyone to think I had turned rata and was helping some deputy sheriff. I’d never disgrace myself by testifying, even against a rival gang. I’d take death or prison first.
“Look, I know you kids don’t like the way the law works,” she said. “You think the only justice is revenge. But the fighting’s never going to stop if you don’t stop the retaliations.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, even though I was already planning how to avenge Ana’s death.
“I know you do,” she said, and handed me another card. “You call me any time, day or night. You think about what I said. Your friend’s dead, and now you have to make a choice. Don’t lie to me and say you don’t. It’s your choice.”
“I don’t got choices in this neighborhood,” I said. “If I had choices, you think I’d stay here?”
I watched her walk back to the sheriff’s car and talk to her partner, the blue and red lights strobing over their faces.
She came back to me. “Come on, honey. We’ll drive you home.”
I sat in the back of the sheriff’s car, shivering in spite of the paramedic’s blanket still wrapped around my shoulders. I wished I had had the courage to tell Ana the truth, to tell her how I wanted out, too, to be just a normal kid, drawing wedding gowns on the playground with a stick. Maybe if she had known I was scared, too …
I held myself tight, the blood tacky on my skin. I couldn’t stand that Ana was gone. The deputy was right. I wanted revenge. I wanted to kill someone for doing this to her. No one hurt Ana without payback from me. Those bangers were dead already. Muertos.
The sheriff’s car rolled to a stop in front of my house. The deputy walked with me up to the front door, kicking through the yellowed newspapers scattered on the walk.
“I’ll talk to your folks,” she said.
I opened the door. Mom was standing in front of the TV in the middle of the living room, holding a cigarette in one hand, a beer in the other, singing some song I didn’t recognize, maybe one her new stoner gabacho boyfriend had written. He was strumming his guitar, still in his skivvies, his eyes red from the cigarette smoke and beer.
When Mom finally saw me, the song stopped in her throat and the beer dropped to the floor, suds puddling on my grandmother’s rug.
The deputy looked at Mom, then at me. “Sorry, kid. Don’t forget to call me.” She shook her head, turned, and walked away, her shoes hitting the sidewalk in rapid beats as if she couldn’t get away from the sight of my mother’s nakedness fast enough.
I ran to the bathroom and locked the door. I tore off my clothes and turned on the shower. I could hear my mother screaming at the man to get out. The front door slammed shut as I climbed into the steaming water. I let the fiery water pound my skin, my mother at the bathroom door, speaking through the keyhole.
“Kata. Kata! What happened, Kata?”
I hated the fine tremor that had crept into her voice. When the water turned cold, I turned off the spigot and stood in the steam.
I didn’t know what to do without Ana. I didn’t want to be here in this life without Ana.
I took a razor from the medicine cabinet, held it between my index finger and thumb, then slowly cut my skin, pressing hard, etching Ana’s name into the web between my thumb and index finger, my blood dripping onto the white towel.
My mother remained at the keyhole, sobbing and calling my name, her breath rushing through the small hole, joining the wind shrieking around the house.
“I promise, baby,” she said. “I promise I’ll stop drinking. I’ll be a mother again. I promise. Just say something. Talk to me.”
She had made that promise too many times for me to believe her.
“Kata, baby, what happened?”
I never answered her.
That was the night Ana died.
With images from our last night together churning in my head, I leaned over and kissed Ana one final time, her red lips waxy and stiff. Then I walked away from the casket, past the old women crowded in the front pew, pinching off the beads on their rosaries, their heavy perfumes spinning in the air like a potion against death and evil, covering the musty smells of incense, prayer books, and ancient adobe walls.
Most of my homies sat in the back pew in shadows. They wore black sweatshirts with white Old English lettering across the front that said REST IN PEACE, CHANCEY. Kikicho had given me one to wear, but I couldn’t wear it yet. I didn’t want Ana’s mother to know I was ganged up.
Maggie, fair-skinned with red hair and no cholo mix in her Anglo blood, had been in the gang since she was eleven. She had a sense of invincibility that made her seem like a good-luck charm. She passed out black satin ribbons for people to pin to their clothing. I had made photocopies of poems that Ana had written, but I felt too sad to hand them out, so Maggie was doing that, too.
I didn’t want to sit with my homies. I did at all the other funerals, but this time I felt too angry to be with them. I knew they would say it was scandalous, the way I was acting, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t like the way they acted, like Ana belonged to them. They didn’t know her, really. A thought crept across my mind, whispering with cold, hateful breath that I hadn’t known her either, not the way I thought. I raked my fingers through my hair to push the thought away, t
hen paused at the edge of the altar, looking for a place to sit.
Kikicho stood on his metal canes and walked to the casket, his right leg dragging on the adobe floor. He balanced his canes against the coffin. The metal made a hard, clanking sound against the brass handles. Kikicho had three bullets inside him, one almost visible in his temple, one near his ear, and another somewhere in his back. Three other bullets had gone through his right leg. The doctors said he’d spend his life in a wheelchair.
I met him when he was in the wheelchair, making jokes about the bullets and pretending to stick a magnet to his temple. The magnet had drawn me to him. I took it from him and slipped it in my pocket. I didn’t know him very well then, only that he was an old vato loco and I respected him too much to let him become Pocho’s jester. He had paid his dues. Kikicho had something inside him, a softness of soul that made him handsome to me even though the other girls couldn’t see his beauty. They wanted guys like Pocho who ran fast and hit hard and treated them badly.
“Come on,” Kikicho said, and motioned with his chin for me to stand near the casket. He drew a camera from his pocket.
Pocho and Serena had already found places near the head of the coffin. Serena put her arm around Pocho and leaned into his chest, her face sad, her hands curled in our gang sign.
“Dreamer, oye,” Pocho said. His hair and eyes were black as raven wings, but his face was as fair as the first conquistador to land in the New World.
“Come on, Kata,” Serena said, waving me toward them with her perfect hands, the nails and rings glittering in the candlelight.
I shook my head.
“You guys were too mean to Ana,” I said, “to take a picture with her now. It’s scandalous.”
They looked at one another as if each expected the other to understand what I was saying.
“You know what I’m talking about,” I said. I stepped closer to the casket so the other mourners couldn’t hear me. “Two years ago, what you did to her when we got jumped into the gang.”
Ana and I were jumped into the gang the same day. Sometimes it’s just girls jumping girls, but sometimes, if you want to join a gang with guys, too, then both hit on you. Ana went first. She was small, but she had lots of heart. They pulled her hair and slapped her face and kicked her hard. That should have been enough, but then Serena ripped the gold hoop earrings from Ana’s ears. Dark red blood curled down Ana’s throat. She had to wear Band-Aids on her ears for two weeks and lie to her mother, saying the earrings got torn from her ears in P.E. during a basketball game. Her mother called the school, but no one from the school called back, so Ana was safe in her lie.