Chapter 2

“Explain,” Vanessa says, “and talk fast. I’ve had a long day.”

To buy time, I shake out my wet shirt and hang it on the fence. How to explain to this angry woman that she now has a tatted-up ex-con living in her garage for the next eight weeks? “Your grandmother rented the garage out to me because I needed a place to stay,” I say. “She didn’t tell you?”

Vanessa glares at me like an eagle. “No, Ghost. She didn’t tell me, as you can probably guess from my reaction just now.”

“Yeah, okay. I see your point.” There’s water in my ear. I turn my head to the side and knock on my temple to get it out. “We agreed on two months. I paid her up front.”

“Up front? How much?”

“Two hundred.”

“Two hundred a month for rent? That’s ridiculous.”

I clear my throat. “Uh, two hundred for two months.”

“Say what?”

“Two hundred for two months. And she told me to clean out the garage. While I lived here.”

“To clean out the garage?”

“Yeah.” I look at her face, which seems to be turning redder with each word I say. “She said…she said you would be okay with it.”

“She did?” Vanessa rubs the bridge of her nose and takes a deep breath. “Well, she was wrong. I have to talk to her. This is not going to work out.”

But this—whatever this is—has to work out. I need a place to sleep, and I need to keep saving money for an apartment. Just like Chinita had to sell me the broken-down garage as a place to live, I find myself in the weird position of having to sell myself to Vanessa. I have to convince her that I’m a good idea. Tall order.

I narrow my eyes at Vanessa to make it look like I think she’s crazy. In reality, I’m trying to check out her boobs without her noticing. The top buttons of her blouse are holding on for dear life. If I squint, I can see the outline of her lace bra through the cotton.

Okay, focus.

“But this is a good deal for both of us,” I say, as if I really believe it.

She looks up and, even though she doesn’t mean to, her eyes drag up and down my chest. She blinks away the heat I’m pretty sure I see there, and suddenly I feel aware of myself. I’m half-naked.

A pretty girl just checked me out.

I can work with that.

“I’m a hard worker,” I say quickly. “I’ll get this garage all cleaned up. Find out what you can sell and what you can keep. You can make a little cash. I’m sure this stuff has been sitting here for years. You’ve just been too busy working and taking care of business to go through it. Let me take care of it.”

“But—”

“I saw a lawnmower in the garage.” I scan the yard. “I could cut the grass back here. Trim up the tree.” I look at the swing set, new but half-assembled. “I saw your grandpa’s old tools back there. I could get the swings put up too.”

“I don’t need a live-in handyman,” Vanessa says.

“It won’t be permanent. I just need to finish saving up for my own place. Two months. That’s it.”

Thank God, Chinita comes out of the back door and walks down the porch steps. She lights up a cigarette and winks at me. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt, mi’jo? Are you already trying to seduce my granddaughter with all those muscles and tattoos o que?”

“¡Abuelita!” Vanessa says, turning around. She switches to Spanish as if I can’t understand. “How could you make this arrangement without me? This is not a good idea.”

“Why not?” Chinita reaches into her back pocket and hands Vanessa the wad of twenties I gave her earlier. She speaks English and nods at me. “Look. Back-to-school money for Muñeca. Haircut, new shoes, backpack. All the tissues and wipes and school supplies she needs, right there.”

Vanessa takes the money. She looks at it and looks at me. “Where did this money come from?”

I try not to be defensive. She’s right to be careful. She’s got a kid. I understand. “It’s totally legit. I have two part-time jobs. At night. I have the check stubs if you want to see them.”

“I do. I do want to see them.”

“He’s paying rent to live in the garage and clean it. Are you telling me that’s not a good deal? You look at numbers all day long. Are going to tell me that you don’t want someone to pay for the pleasure of looking through all that basura and cleaning it up? What kind of an accountant are you?” Chinita laughs. The ha-ha’s come out as coughs. “It’s a good deal, Vanessa.”

Vanessa looks at the money again and looks at me. I can see she’s struggling not to look at my body. I fold my arms. I flex, just a little. Her beautiful dark eyes dart down to my biceps before snapping back up to my face like pinballs.

“Check stubs,” she says, and her drill-sergeant tone scares away my self-confidence.

“Fine, fine,” I say.

I turn around and go back into the garage. My backpack has a pocket where I keep my paperwork, all the forms my parole officer makes me cart around, plus the stubs I kept from the check cashing office. I don’t have a bank account yet. I pull out the stubs and bring them over to Vanessa, who has her hand out like a first-grade teacher who wants my slingshot.

“Give it here.” With a frown, she looks each one over. “Defiance. What’s that?”

“The gym where I work.”

An eyebrow goes up. “What do you do there?”

“Janitor. Four nights a week, eleven to seven.”

“And what’s this one?”

“Serenity Day Spa. I clean up there too. Three nights a week.”

“You work every night?” she asks.

The clockwork schedule keeps me out of trouble. “Yes. Two part-time jobs. I’m saving up for my own place. I’m almost there.”

“So you’ll be asleep here during the day—”

“Both places are in Santa Monica. Two-hour bus and train trip, each way. I’ll barely be here.” I do some quick math in my head. “Your daughter’s in kindergarten. Her summer vacation just ended, right? While I sleep, you’ll be at work and your daughter will be at school.” I search her face and give her a little smile. “Ghost. Like my name.”

She looks at the money once more, then at her grandmother. “You gave him keys? To the house?” She says it like she can’t believe her grandmother could be so stupid.

“Of course I did. Where’s he gonna shit? The bushes?”

“¡Abuelita!”

“Salvador’s not all bad, Vanessa. Will you lighten up?”

“No, I will not ‘lighten up.’ This is our home,” Vanessa says. And even though Chinita’s on my side, I feel a little bit of pride in Vanessa. She’s not going to get bullied into anything. She’s not going to be pushed around. There’s fire in her. I can feel it from here. God help the poor motherfucker who underestimates this woman. When she turns her glare on me, I have to fight the urge to step back.

“I’m going to say a word you probably know really well,” she says. “Probation.”

I laugh. “Probation? Yes. Yes, I know that word.”

She hands back my check stubs. When she comes close, I can smell her perfume. Strawberries and vanilla. Something sweet—something to crave. “You’re on probation. We’ll see how it goes. If for any reason I, or my daughter, or my grandmother feel uncomfortable with you living here, with you being on our property, you are out. Like that. You clear out as soon as I say.”

“And I get my money back?” I ask.

“Minus the days you slept here, yes.”

I watch her face, the small adjustments and movements that secretly broadcast what she’s thinking. I fold my arms again to see if I get another rise. “So what would make you feel uncomfortable, Vanessa?”

I can tell she’s fighting to ignore the move. “It’s a long, long list,” she says. “Too long to tell you right now. I’ll just let you know when you cross the line.”

“If that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

“That’s the way it’s gonna be.”

“All right. Deal.”

With a sigh, she picks up the hose again and heads to the faucet. She tightens the spigot and carefully coils the hose. I watch her manicured hands getting muddy and dirty, and for some reason, I feel something move inside me. A deep-down ache, a longing. Something about her hands—clean touching dirty. For a moment, I wonder if she’d ever touch me like that.

“I gotta wash up.” My voice is kind of scratchy and rough, and I can’t get the words out properly.

Chinita stands aside and nods at me. “Go ahead, mi’jo. I think we tamed the beast for now.”

Vanessa shoots her grandmother a silent, furious glare and I feel that blast of heat again. It’s strong. I try to shake it off—I can’t.

“Thank you, señora,” I say quietly, and go inside.

Before we go on, you should know a few things about Vanessa.

First off, she’s a good girl.

Always has been.

When I was in middle school, things started happening. I don’t mean the usual things, like the girls getting titties. Obviously, that stuff is pretty interesting but not exactly what I mean.

In my neighborhood, in addition to going through puberty, kids in my school split into two species.

You could watch it happening.

One group of kids just kept doing what they were doing, going to school or playing sports. Their lives were about grades, school dances, marching band. Some of them worked in their parents’ shops and had nice quinceañeras where there were no fistfights and the cops didn’t get called.

The second group of kids took the gangster track. They began dressing different, acting up in school, running errands for the older homies, and getting into minor trouble—smoking weed, shoplifting, shit like that.

The girls who went that way usually had parents or older siblings in gangs. The transformation would happen over a long period of time or it would happen overnight, but it would happen, sure as shit. Caterpillars to butterflies. Before long, the girl would arrive at school wearing her makeup a certain way. Her clothes would be different, she’d stand taller, smile less. One day she’d get jumped in and just like that, she was a chola. A homegirl.

Vanessa was never a chola. She was just a quiet girl from the neighborhood who lived with her grandparents. I never knew what happened to her parents, but for as long as I remember she and Chinita and Ben lived in that rickety house by the park.

She never called attention to herself, except when it came to grades. She was a good student.

I was already skipping school by the time I started to notice Vanessa. Who didn’t notice her? Two years younger than me, pretty and smart. She wasn’t talkative. When she talked, it mattered, and when she made a joke, it wasn’t a silly ha-ha, it was the kind of laugh that made you bend over and laugh your ass off. She made it count. Back then, I’d flirt with her because I was a travieso and what little troublemaker didn’t like to flirt? It didn’t matter anyway. I knew the truth. She was off-limits to me, hidden behind the high wall of her good grades and no-BS attitude. So I crushed on her from a distance.

Later, while I was in jail awaiting trial, I heard the news. Vanessa didn’t make it out of the neighborhood like we’d all thought she would.

She’d gotten with a homeboy from the grade above me. Got herself pregnant. A quick wedding. No fancy university far away for her. Instead, she had to stay at home with her new husband and her grandmother.

Locked up, I had lots of time to wonder about her, this untouchable girl who got touched. Her path ended up so different from the one we had imagined for her.

The thing that ate at me? I’d known the father. He was another kid in ESHB, a soldier like me, nothing special. Sleepy was his name.

Lying awake in my metal bunk bed, I’d think about Vanessa’s situation. Why’d she fall for Sleepy? She could’ve fallen for me. It should’ve been me.

I should’ve been the one.

Holding her.

Being her man.

Going to bed with her—I thought about that a lot.

Putting a ring on her finger when I learned she was having my kid.

I had a lot of time to think about these things. What did Sleepy have that I didn’t? I couldn’t figure it out. Instead, alone on those cold nights, I imagined coming home to her, climbing into her bed at night, and lifting up her nightgown. She’d reach for me too—she’d want me as much as I wanted her. At least in my dreams.

Wet dreams, I guess.

My trial date kept getting pushed back. Meanwhile, the Organization was getting more aggressive. Ruben, our leader, passed down messages from the shot-callers in the pinta that ESHB had to secure our territory, to push out any dealers who didn’t pay taxes to do business within Hollenbeck’s boundaries. Sleepy became part of the group sent out to intimidate them.

When a lowlife small-time dealer turned up dead in an alley with a bullet through his left eye, the cops were all over it. Ruben said to hold steady, be polite, don’t give up any information, but don’t trip. The heat slowly died down and after a few months, it was back to business as usual.

One problem—the job had affected Sleepy.

He started drinking. Then he started using. From what I heard, he wasn’t showing up at home or at meetings with Ruben or his crew. He’d disappear for days.

For all the shit I’ve done, I’ve never killed anyone. I knew some homeboys, both in and out of prison, who had multiple kills under their belt. Whether they were convicted or not, each death was a sentence. A silent punishment. A weight to carry forever.

Once, in a quiet moment, I asked Ruben, “How does it not make you crazy, thinking about all this crazy shit?”

He told me, “You have to disconnect. It’s not violence to be violent. This is business. This is what we do.”

And those words became the thing that kept pushing me forward. Kept me steady when I had to beat someone down or intimidate people.

This is business. This is what we do.

When Sleepy turned up dead, we were surprised, but not really. Ruben said the kid had been fading, becoming less of himself, distant and twitchy. A heroin overdose. It didn’t look like an accident but no one said suicide out loud. Whatever the case, Sleepy was gone. The gang sent a little money to Vanessa and that was it. She was left alone, a widow and a single mother even before her baby was born.

Eventually, Trouble and I were tried and given our time. I started my sentence just before Sleepy was laid to rest. I imagined the funeral, the group of homies posted up at the church and drinking beer at the house. Vanessa dressed in black.

I thought about her.

But this time I wondered what it was like to be her, a good person who fell in love with the wrong person, fast and hot. A widow with a baby.

Now her life would be forever different. Forever changed, because of this turn she’d taken in her road when she was young.

A few years later, I heard she graduated with a degree from the local college. Of course—that’s what people like her do. Her grandmother retired and watched the kid while she studied and worked. Bookkeeper, I think.

I wonder if she misses Sleepy. I wonder if she regrets the choices she’s made.

I ask myself that question all the time. Do I? Do I regret my choices?

After I wash up and put on a fresh T-shirt, I grab my hoodie and my backpack from the garage and head out into the night. Vanessa and her grandmother are upstairs. I can hear a TV and a little kid laughing. I lock the back door and the gates when I leave.

First off, a taco dinner. The owner of the truck sees me counting out quarters to pay him and gives me two more on the house. I tell him no, no, no and he says in Spanish, “Pay me a little extra when you can.” I fist-bump him through the window of the truck.

The thing with our neighborhood that outsiders can’t see is the pride we have in it. The way we take care of each other. Yes, I’m kind of a lowlife. Yes, I come from a long line of lowlifes, and yes, I’m an ex-con who can’t get work except night shifts as a janitor, but this is my hood. I know the people in it, and I would throw down for them as they would for me.

Poor looks after poor.

Believe that.

I finish my tacos and throw the paper plate in the trash.

Off to work.

The two-hour trip from East L.A. to Santa Monica is an epic journey. First, I catch a bus downtown and walk to the 7th Street Metro station. I catch the Expo Line to Santa Monica, eighteen stops. I get off at the ocean and take one final bus to Main Street.

My favorite part of the trip is the train. That’s my quiet time.

I take a deep breath and let it out. As always, the train car is almost empty except for a few misfits like me heading out into the night. It’s August and the sun has just set. When winter comes, it’ll be dark the entire time I’m out, which is fine by me. I prefer the dark.

Six months ago, when I first started working in Santa Monica, my case manager handed me a Metro map and drew out my route. I thought, No problem. I can do this. But as soon as I stepped out onto the crowded train platform at 7th Street, something happened to me.

I couldn’t understand it.

People crowded up against me, moving like water, this way and that. All of them going in a different direction, all of them rushing. The noise of the trains and the echoing of the high ceilings in the station filled my ears.

I got dizzy. I couldn’t breathe.

When I leaned against a trash can to get my balance, a sheriff’s deputy approached me, his eyes wary, his hand on his gun—as almost all law enforcement approaches me. This one was older, at least. His calm voice dragged me out of the darkness.

“Son, are you all right?”

Son. He called me son.

When I was younger and the chip on my shoulder was big and hot, I would’ve looked him in the eye and spat, “I’m not your son, motherfucker.”

But in this moment, my voice shook as I said, “Sir, I think I’m having a heart attack.”

The deputy called for backup. A small group of officers arrived, followed by paramedics. They sat me down on a bench and as a crowd gathered to watch, the paramedics took my blood pressure and ran their tests. My chest was tight, tight like a fist. I felt like I was breathing through a coffee straw. I couldn’t get enough air.

“Am I dying?” I asked.

One of the paramedics took my hand. “You’ll be okay,” she said. “You’ll be okay.”

I didn’t believe her.