Chapter 15

One week becomes two. Two become three. A month passes before I realize it.

Vanessa and I find our rhythm.

Every morning, just as the sun comes up, I walk in through the front door of the house instead of slinking around the back. Chinita and Muñeca are still asleep. I tiptoe upstairs and lock Vanessa’s bedroom door behind me.

Sometimes Vanessa is at her desk, studying. Sometimes she’s curled up under the covers, reading a book. Sometimes she’s sitting up on the bed, dressed in something sexy, touching herself and getting her pretty pussy ready for me.

I watch her transform, bit by bit. She gets a haircut and paints her nails bright red. She buys new lingerie and orders things from the Internet that leave me speechless and horny as hell.

“Do you like it when I wear this?” she asks. “Will you try this on me? Do you think this will feel good?”

My answer for her is always yes.

Yes to the corset and thigh-high stockings that make her look like Bettie Page. Yes to the black Velcro bindings we use to tie her wrists and ankles to the four wooden posts of her bed. Yes to the new vibrator that makes her come so hard she cries with pleasure. Yes to the jeweled plug we’re both still too giddy and nervous to try, even though the idea of putting it in her makes me so fucking hard I can’t breathe.

Yes, baby.

Yes.

She’s stockpiled five years of orgasms. I’m more than happy to help her catch up.

It’s a strange sleeping arrangement. We’re hot-bunking that bed—she takes it at night, I take it during the day. We make love in the mornings before she leaves for work. We spend dinnertime with the family before I leave.

But I wonder. What would it be like to sleep—just sleep—with Vanessa? I lie alone in her bed and imagine it. Does she snore? Does she talk in her sleep? Is she the kind of sleeper who kicks and rolls around?

I want to add this knowledge to the list of a hundred things I’ve already learned about her.

For example, she’s got a pale scar across her eyebrow where she fell off the bed as a little girl. She covers it up with makeup during the day but in the morning it’s there, a little secret just for me.

That crazy energy she uses to tackle everyday tasks? She uses it in bed too. I’m fitter than I’ve been in my entire life and I can barely keep up with her. As soon as one orgasm passes, she takes a deep breath and starts sprinting toward the next one.

I know she misses Sleepy. She talks about him sometimes when we’re alone. Having the chick you’re sleeping with tell you about her late husband might make some vatos uncomfortable, but it doesn’t bother me that much. I figure, I got my dead too. Not everyone knows how to talk about death. When you find someone who speaks that language—the language of grief—it’s a big relief. You don’t feel so alone, I suppose. So she talks about Sleepy, and I listen.

“Do you know what I liked best about him?” she says.

“What?”

“That he was always trying. He was always trying to do better, to be better. No one tried harder than that pendejo.” She smiles to herself. “He was like this goofy puppy who just wanted to be loved. He’d do anything for it. He had so much heart.” Her smile fades. “Maybe too much heart. When the discouragements piled up, he just couldn’t cope. He took everything to heart. It’s a difficult balance, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“The human heart. It needs to be soft enough to feel things but hard enough to survive them.”

Vanessa lets me see her deepest thoughts, but she also lets me watch her day-to-day life. Sometimes I watch her iron her clothes for work. She’s detail oriented. Sharp creases, starch. Her shoes aren’t new, but she polishes them up and makes sure there are no scuff marks. I lie in bed and watch her as she sits at her dressing table. Her routine is exact, even though it’s a mystery to me. Creams and lotions and powders. Makeup and perfume and hairspray. Lipstick—first a pencil, then a brush. So much work. But when she’s done—¡híjole! What a knockout. A work of art.

Her accountant exam is coming up. I watch her study. I see her notecards and notebooks. The schoolgirl inside her is ferocious. She is chasing that better life for herself and her daughter. I have no doubts she’ll catch it.

She likes her coffee with lots of cream but no sugar. She doesn’t like mayonnaise because Chinita used to use it as hair conditioner and the smell makes her nauseous. She doesn’t believe in karma because bad stuff happens to everyone regardless of whether they deserve it or not. When she’s stuck in traffic, she likes to think up insults for herself and comebacks to match them—“That way I’m always prepared.”

I like her details, her quirks, the thousand things that make Vanessa who she is. I’m fascinated by her in a way I’ve never been fascinated by anyone else.

Together, Vanessa and I clean out the rest of the garage. There’s just a little bit left to do. We lay out all the junk from the bed of Ben’s truck. There’s an old moonshine still and tubing. I remember that both Alan and Ben are from the boondocks where people make their own liquor. There’s a box of Playboy and Penthouse magazines from the ’70s stashed in the cab of the truck. We get a kick out of those—the out-of-focus photography, obsession with tan lines, all that pubic hair, growing wild and free. Vanessa’s a little grossed out to find her abuelito’s spank bank, but she sets them aside to sell on eBay.

Tucked under the junk in the bed of the truck is a little bicycle. It’s pink with training wheels. The wheels are flat and the frame is dotted with rust. Dusty streamers hang from the handlebars. I pick it up and rest it on the driveway.

“Hey, look at that. That’s cool,” I say. “Yours?”

Vanessa looks at it but she doesn’t seem nostalgic about it at all. “I think it’s too beat-up to sell. Just toss it in the trash.”

There’s a basket, warped. The seat looks new, just dirty. Under the grime, it’s not a bad little bike. “I could fix this up. It wouldn’t be hard. For Muñeca.”

Vanessa makes a face. “Nah, I’ll just get her a new one. She won’t want that.”

Something is strange about the way she says that. “What’s wrong with this one?”

“Nothing’s wrong with it. Besides it being disgusting and rusted out, I mean.”

“Really?” I have a feeling I know what’s wrong with this bike. “Did Ben teach you to ride? Did he get you this?”

“No, it was just…” She runs her hand over the seat and rubs her hands together to get the dust off. “It was just one of my mom’s dumb ideas. She came to see me after one of her vanishing acts. Four days after my birthday because she forgot what day it was. She brought this bike, brand-new. We went to the park. She played with me all afternoon, from lunchtime until dark. It was perfect. But then she left again. I didn’t touch the bike because I didn’t want to ride it without her. I waited and waited. Two years passed before she came back. By then, I was too big for the bike.” Vanessa sighs. “Yeah, just get rid of it.”

I call up my old buddy Yoda, a little dude from the neighborhood who’s a genius mechanic with—how do I say this?—a talent for moving vehicles of dubious origin. Back in the day, Yoda resold or chopped all the cars my brother and I lifted for Hollenbeck. Today he shows up at Vanessa’s with his flatbed tow truck. I slip the bicycle into the truck bed when Vanessa isn’t looking.

Yoda’s in his navy blue coveralls. While his assistant gets the pickup onto the truck bed, I introduce Vanessa to Yoda, who shakes her hand with his greasy one and immediately makes heart-eyes at her.

“Mucho gusto,” he says. “Encantado, señorita.”

I clap him hard on the back, shaking him out of his trance. “So how does this work?”

He shrugs. “Pues, same way. You give me the car. I give you the feria.”

“We never did this in broad daylight.”

He shrugs. “You never sold me a car that wasn’t stolen.”

“True.”

He hands me an envelope full of cash. I hand the cash to Vanessa. Yoda drives away with an old Chevy truck. Everyone wins.

Later that afternoon, I watch Vanessa sitting on the back porch with Muñeca. She paints her daughter’s nails. Their dark heads bend toward each other like a heart. When she finishes, Vanessa caps the bottle and asks, “Okay, what song this time?”

“Mary Poppins!”

“Again?”

“Again, Mommy!”

Vanessa takes her daughter’s hands and whistles the spoonful-of-sugar song on them. Muñeca sings a mixed-up version of the lyrics. When the whistling is done, Vanessa kisses her daughter’s forehead. “Are they dry now?”

“I think so.”

“Can you put your Tinkertoys away in the big box? I’ll come help you in a few minutes.”

“Okay.” The little girl stands up, carefully opens the screen door, and skips inside.

“Why do you do that?” I ask. “The whistling?”

“You blow on the nails to help them dry. I thought it was boring so I started whistling. Same thing. It’s air with added music.” Vanessa laughs. “Once we tried to do the song from The Addams Family but Muñeca snapped her fingers and messed up the nail polish.”

Right then and there, I realize three important things.

First, Vanessa became the kind of mother she needed when she was little.

Second, one month with Vanessa has already passed. I only have one more month with her.

Third, I wish I could control time—stop it, slow it down, rewind it. I would rewind this month and play it again and again.

On the other side of town, Alan continues my crash course in beer. So far, I’ve helped him brew a Weissbier, three different kinds of IPAs, a lager, and a stout. I brewed a batch of Dogtown IPA by myself while he watched. We’ll know in a few weeks if I screwed it up.

I try not to question his misplaced trust in me, but I have to admit, it’s fun to cook in his crazy lab. He teaches, I taste. He brings out dishes of spices from the kitchen and has me smell them to see if I can detect the aromas in the beers. He says we’re “developing my palate.”

All I know is, if high school had been this fun, I wouldn’t have dropped out.

I have dinner at the restaurant once a week. Alan comps me every meal, but I tip the servers in cash. Sometimes his brewing buddies come by and I join them at their table. To my surprise, I can understand what they’re saying about sixty percent of the time.

Once, Alan even introduces me to the guy he’s seeing, an eye doctor from Marina del Rey. The dude comes by to pick up a growler, a glass jug of Feliz Navidad. After he leaves, I elbow Alan in the ribs.

“Am I supposed to tell you he’s cute?” I ask.

Alan laughs. “Only if you think he is.”

I flash him a thumbs-up.

I’m studying the differences between ale yeast and lager yeast in Alan’s notebook when he taps me on the shoulder. “Come here. I have to show you something.”

I follow Alan into his office, basically a walk-in closet off the main kitchen. Inside, there’s a bulletin board, a desk, a phone, a computer, and a printer. There’s barely room for Alan. I stand in the open doorway. From a tall stack of papers on the desk, he digs out a large envelope and hands it to me.

“Do you have your high school diploma?” he asks.

“Yeah.” I open the envelope. “I have an associate’s degree.”

“Even better.”

“What is this?” I take out a catalog from Greenbriar University, a technical and vocational school near Glendale. I open it. “Brewing science certificate.”

“Greenbriar offers a hands-on program in beer.” Alan can’t contain his excitement. “There’s a working brewpub on campus. They offer courses in the history and science of beer, including all-grain brewing.” He takes the envelope from me and pulls out an application form. “I requested an application for you. I want to write you a recommendation.”

I look at him. I always suspected he was crazy. “What? A recommendation?”

“You are killer at this, Sal. You have an amazing instinct for flavor. You have mechanical and technical aptitude. You’re exacting. I’ve seen it. You’d be perfect for this program.”

I flip through the pages of the catalog. There’s pictures of a brewery and a restaurant, along with happy smiling students in goggles doing lab work and examining samples of beer from big silver tanks. “I don’t know, Alan. I can’t afford this.”

“This is a special application. For their scholarship program.” He holds the paper in front of my eyes. “One scholarship a year. Open to anyone. All books, tuition, and supplies paid.”

I take the paper. “Have you seen my record? Why would these fools give me money? They’d have to be drinking too much of their own beer before they let my delinquent ass in.” I close the catalog. I make a joke because it hurts less to joke than to admit I’m actually interested in a program that would never accept me.

“Sal,” Alan says, “listen to me. You’ve just started, but you are good at this. I know you enjoy it. Apply. It’s easy. Fill out this form plus an essay—”

“An essay? Fuck that—”

“—A short essay. Add my recommendation. Then drop off the package at the admissions office. I know the director of the hospitality management program. I’ve sent him many students over the years. He’ll like you.”

“I don’t know—”

“Sal.” Alan folds his arms. “You don’t have to know. You just have to apply. Will you do that? Just try?”

I put everything back in the envelope. “Maybe.”

“Promise me you’ll apply. For me.” Alan looks at me over the frames of his glasses. He’s wearing a backward Bay City Brews cap and a T-shirt that says there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data…

I look him in his kind, geeky face and say, “Fine. I promise.”

---

It’s a blazing hot afternoon. In L.A., summers last until October. In the backyard, I’ve repaired the bindings on the swings and tested them again and again. Muñeca swings lazily back and forth. Chancla the dog rides in her lap. His long ears drape over Muñeca’s arm.

The rest of us are sitting on the back porch. No breeze. Everything is still. Sunshine bakes the garden. Different smells mix and rise up into the air: epazote, hoja santa, cilantro, yerba buena, rose petals, and fresh-cut grass.

I borrow the Ensenada bottle opener on Chinita’s keychain. The cap pops off and my nose fills with the scent of Bay City Brews’ Ocean Avenue Wheat, a Hefeweizen I made with Alan’s supervision.

I pour the ice-cold liquid out into glasses for Vanessa and Chinita. It’s a cloudy, light golden beer with a fluffy white head like a marshmallow. I pour a glass for me.

“Salud,” we say together, and clink glasses.

I take a drink. The familiar flavors roll around in my mouth. Cloves, a spice Alan taught me about. Vanilla. It’s refreshing.

“Hoo-ey!” Chinita exclaims. “That is some good cerveza, Sal. You made this?”

“With help, yeah.” I take another drink and look over at Vanessa. “What do you think?”

She smiles and my stupid heart sparkles like the Fourth of July. “It’s delicious.”

Together, Chinita and Vanessa help me fill out the application Alan gave me. We sketch out an essay about why I’d be good for the program. Vanessa wants me to talk about my fucked-up childhood and my time in prison, but I hesitate. I don’t want the admissions officers to feel sorry for me.

“It’s not about pity,” Vanessa says, “it’s about truth. This is your truth. What is so wrong with being real about who you are?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it.” I go quiet, lost in my thoughts. I’m having trouble explaining what I’m feeling. “It’s just…I don’t know.”

After a minute, Chinita says, “He just doesn’t want that to be all they see. Is that it, mi’jo?”

I nod.

We open a second bottle and I get some essay ideas sketched out in the back of my notebook. The application is due in a few weeks so I don’t have much time to lose.

At the bottom of the form, there’s one more space. Optional: Please add any relevant experiences or circumstances not included elsewhere in your application.

I take a deep breath. By the porch, the hoja santa is growing dark and wild. Its name means “holy leaf.” The smell is strong and unforgettable, a little like root beer. I take a drink of the Hefeweizen and close my eyes.

In my nose, the aromas of the beer blend with the aroma of the plant. The balance between sweet and herbal strikes me like lightning.

That’s it.

Beer brewed on the Westside with ingredients from the Eastside.

A brand-new recipe.

I stand up and pick a huge handful of hoja santa.

“What are you doing?” Vanessa asks.

“I have an idea.” I look at her and smile.

“What?”

“A surprise.”

“You know I don’t like surprises.”

“You sure about that?” I say with a wink.

Early the next morning, Vanessa and I are just coming down from our orgasms when the dog starts barking ferociously downstairs. The doorbell rings.

“Who is that?” she murmurs. “It’s seven a.m.”

Vanessa blinks and yawns. She pulls on a T-shirt and shorts. I put on a pair of sweatpants and run a hand through my hair. Now that it’s grown out, it requires more attention. Gel and messing around in front of a mirror. Kind of a pain. It looks like hell right now.

I follow Vanessa downstairs.

“¿Quién es?” Chinita pops her head out of her bedroom. She’s wearing a bathrobe and slippers. Her hair is in curlers again, covered by a rainbow-colored scarf.

Just as Vanessa opens the door, I see the police cars outside.

Fuck.

Officers surround the house, front and back. The three standing on the front porch are identical—old Mexican dudes with shaved heads and big mustaches, in plain clothes with jackets that say LAPD. Their hands rest not-so-casually on their guns.

“Good morning, ma’am. We’re here for a parole compliance check,” says the first one. “Is Salvador Rosas home?”

“It’s okay, baby,” I whisper. “Just a routine checkup, like we talked about. Do everything they ask, okay?”

She looks up at me, a little fear in her eyes. “Okay.”

“Good girl.” I squeeze Vanessa’s shoulder and step out in front of her. “Hello, officers. That’s me. I’m Salvador.”

With that unsmiling professionalism I’ve come to expect from my many run-ins with law enforcement, the officers cuff me and sit me down on the curb in front of the house for the whole neighborhood to see. The chismosas come over to talk to Chinita, who’s holding a nervous-looking Muñeca in her arms. Adults come out with coffee mugs, ready for another show before work. Kids come out in their pajamas, staring.

Today, I’m the show.

Shirtless, tatted-up, no-good Sal. In cuffs.

Everybody.

Look at me.

Vanessa lets the officers search the living room, the kitchen, and the bedroom where we sleep. She unlocks the garage. I panic for a second, thinking they’ll find my stash of money in the lawnmower. But why be afraid? That’s legit money, the first I’ve ever made. I’ve got the stubs and receipts to prove it. In the end, they don’t find it anyway.

Vanessa gives them my backpack. They check my papers, including my pay stubs and my parolee information with the name of my parole officer and the number to his office downtown.

Everything checks out. Since there are no guns, drugs, stacks of cash, stolen cars, random car parts, or severed heads on the property, the cops uncuff me and leave, no doubt to go brighten somebody else’s day.

Chinita gets the little girl dressed and takes her to school. Vanessa calls in to work and reschedules her morning appointments to the afternoon.

We sit in the sunny kitchen together over cups of hot coffee. I’ve put a T-shirt on but Vanessa is still in the clothes she slept in. For someone who spends lots of time on her appearance, she is surprisingly calm about facing strangers in her pajamas and bed head. She was calm throughout the whole ordeal, as if letting a herd of cops stomp through her house was no big deal.

“So what was your sentence?” she asks.

“Five years for carjacking and three counts of grand theft auto. Three years on parole. My brother got the same sentence, but he was an asshole in prison so he’s had to stay inside longer.”

“When did you start stealing cars?”

“I don’t remember. Young. The older vatos showed us how. Homeboys would drop us off in nice neighborhoods, we’d lift the cars, drive them back here to Yoda’s shop, and take our cut. The rest would go to Hollenbeck. That was that.” I take a drink of coffee, remembering how valuable we were to Ruben back then. Low drama, high profits. “We liked it because we could keep our hands clean—slinging drugs and banging are messy. Dangerous. Junkies are in your face all the time. Homies are always beefing over turf. But stealing cars from strangers—we could pretend we were Robin Hoods instead of straight-up villains. We were good at it too.”

“How did you get caught?”

“The Organization raised our taxes. Ruben got more aggressive with operations and upped everyone’s quota. My brother and I were working double time to make those dues. One night, we got careless. Out in Pico Rivera, we were grabbing a Honda Accord. Nothing fancy, just an easy car to steal and chop.

“We were tired, not sleeping much. We weren’t paying attention. I was about to start the car when we heard shots. No freeze, no warning, no call-out, just bullets.

“My brother got out of the car. The owner came charging out of the house, shooting at everything. Eddie got shot once, twice. When he went down, I lost my shit. Without thinking, I ran over to the owner and tried to grab the shotgun out of his hands. The guy—he had a gun, but he was just a regular dude. He looked scared as hell. I could tell he’d never been in a fight before. But he wouldn’t let go of the gun. So I twisted it and smacked him in the face with the stock. That’s when he finally let go. I threw the gun over the neighbor’s fence.”

“Weren’t you afraid?”

“I should’ve been. But I wasn’t thinking.” I put down my mug. “The owner ran away. I tried to pick my brother up and do the same thing. That’s when I saw the blood. A fucking river of blood, running down into the gutter like a goddamn nightmare.”

The hideous memory rises up. Eddie’s face, pale and plastic-looking. His eyes are closed, like he’s sleeping.

“He’d already passed out,” I say. “Later on I learned his axillary artery had been shot to hell. That’s the name of it—axillary artery.” I point to my underarm. “Get cut there, and you bleed out fast.”

“What did you do?” Vanessa asks.

“The only thing I could. I stayed with my brother.”