摘录
Chapter One Attitude As sure as farts follow frijoles , El Indio Jesús found himself in the custody of the police at fairly predictable intervals. There was always that phase of his life cycle. La chota apprehended him with or without due cause. Sometimes they charged him with being drunk and disorderly. Often enough, they said he was driving an unsafe vehicle. Most likely, they were stimulated to make the arrest because he looked Indian or Chicano or Genizaro or poor or vulnerable. They booked him for driving while intoxicated or for operating an unsafe vehicle or reckless endangerment of the citizenry or whatever. But no matter what the charge, to it was invariably added the unwritten "attitude," as in "I don't like your attitude." But it was more. This uncommonly common man, so ordinary, so invisible, carried himself in an unassuming way that spoke of strength. He was duende . He had seen and felt death. Death meant nothing to him. Except that it made him respect--love--life all the more. Many survivors of death recognized their kinship with him. They were attracted to him. They liked the edge of life that they had experienced, that bonded them. Duende gave them that gift. What is more, it was sometimes said as warning in the barrios that those without that touch of mortality fear those with it, fearing them for their courtship of the edge of life. A policeman like Officer Ward, who might daily face sudden death, may forever live without reaching a state of duende . He never savored death, reconciling himself to it, never embracing its possibility. He keeps his fear, equipping himself with more and more physical and mental weapons to combat it. He will never have duende and resents--hates--those who carry themselves in ways that separate them from those who fear. These the police cannot intimidate. These simply madden them. And so, derived from duende , the matter of "attitude" did not rest upon anything that El Indio Jesús actually said, for he was ever studiously polite and deferential. When slapped with sarcasm or paternalism or naked hostility, he still maintained a composed demeanor. It was not language distance, either. He spoke perfect gabacho --accentless English--with a vocabulary generally larger and more imaginative than that which any arresting officer, especially Officer Ward, could command. The word atufado described his way of passive resistence when faced with a threat. For centuries the term was applied to the maddening stoicism of the natives of the land. So, there it was: a combination of duende and atufado that was so enraging. And then there was the matter of transportation, what he called his caro troquita . This obsolete vehicle that, despite all odds was still operating, modified into a trucklike thing capable of carrying a half-ton for short distances, well, it was a public eyesore and should definitely be off the streets, paperwork be damned. Whereas that chota Officer Ward struggled to pay off his twelve-thousand-dollar Chevy pickup with the camper body at 17 percent interest, this lowlife Chicano or whatever rode around in a vehicle insulting not only to visions of the Chamber of Commerce but even dared to slogan the monstrosity with AQUÍ VIENE TU DADDY. In the past, and not infrequently, El Indio was booked on the kinds of charges laid upon those with a problem of attitude. Also, and typically, his caro troquita was now impounded, towed to a holding lot some fifteen miles from the jail, almost into the mountains. He was set free again when a priest, after a few days, delivered his mail, which included the caro troquita 's proper registration and title. He left with a set of new friends and new ideas. And messages to deliver. To retrieve his caro troquita , he had to come up with the three-dollar-a-day storage fee tacked onto the forty-dollar towing fee, swelling the ransom beyond what he had originally put into the erstwhile Volkswagen bug. It must languish in the impound lot until or unless he decided to liberate it. More often than not, when faced with this same sort of situation and recognizing the value of cost effectiveness, the Robert O. Anderson School of Business not having exclusive rights to the concept, he would abandon his creation. He knew that within days the pan with its serial number and all its vital organs would be stripped from the body by his carnales from Juárez who worked and controlled the lot. When he was released, he could make arrangements for the pan to be transferred to an intermediary, a former 187th Airborne Regiment paratrooper with Chosen Reservoir experience. The rest of the parts, or better parts, would be collected through barter until it all coalesced and was born again, like a Frankenstein monster VW beetle, atop the original pan, but bigger, stronger, and uglier. The new caro troquita , complete with title, license, and registration form down to matching serial numbers, would then be christened, perhaps as "Juanabago," "La Unica," or "Chipita." El Indio Jesús sought to recover his tools stored in the caro troquita , however. This was a problem for him, for he truly loved his tools, cherished them, and mourned their loss. He wished that he did not care so much for his tools, because that complicated the simplicity of his life. But all too often, they were lost. He believed that there was a descending system of tool theft whenever his vehicle was taken from him whereby the officers took the very best, the tow truckers the next in quality, and the operators of the impound center whatever remained. This assumption lay in his observation that none of his tools ever showed up in pawn shops. As a rule, tools stolen by a thief eventually appear for resale at pawn shops or at flea markets. But he would remember his tools always. El Indio Jesús never lounged in jail for long. First of all, jail was not punishment for him, and his jailers perceived this quickly and considered him more dangerous inside than out. He really enjoyed this opportunity to meet the inmates and guards because there was a great deal to be learned from them. And there was much that he could teach during the long hours of waiting. Then, too, it was clear that El Indio was no criminal and that his arrest was at least a misunderstanding or, at most, a miscarriage of justice. Another thing bothersome to the jail authorities was the profile of the guests who visited him, who demanded information about the charges and conditions under which he was arrested. These guests included hotshot attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and representatives of the Archbishop's Office of the Catholic Church. These visitors made the jail administrators uncomfortable. Before long, the Irish priests from the Old Town Catholic Church saw to it that he was released to perform community service under their guidance. These priests recognized and respected his multiple skills for building and repairing, for tasks that required manual labor, a strong back, and a mind willing to absorb monotony. In Old Town, La Plaza Vieja, they would see to it that he discharged his debt to society by working in that barrio under their benign supervision. But El Indio Jesús made arrangements, too. He established an understanding with the priests about the specifics of his labor Years ago, when he first fell into their hands, he offered them a deal. Either he would give them forty hours a week of gabacho work or twenty hours of nongabacho work, or some mutually agreed upon combination. El Indio Jesús saw gabacho work as laying things in a straight line, such as stacking cement cinder blocks to make a wall, installing electrical wiring, setting up a hot water tank, or painting and posting signs saying, NO PETS, NO ADMITTANCE, PRIVATE, KEEP OFF THE GRASS, VISITING HOURS 8 TO 4, or NO PARKING, VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED AWAY AT OWN EXPENSE. The cognitive category also included assembling prefabricated items with assistence of instructions in English, French, or German, but rarely in Spanish. Nongabacho work, as he defined it, allowed him to be creative, imaginative, and insightful. Walls that seemed to undulate like waves yet were firmly based or capturing sunlight as a friend and not an enemy were some of the challenges that nongabacho work inferred. Although it contained a certain degree of freedom, it was highly taxing of his mental energy and, often enough, his physical energy as well. It was up to the priests to decide the condition of El Indio Jesús' servitude. At base lay the ever present need to repair, shore up, buttress, weatherproof, winterize, summerize, and beautify the church and support buildings and grounds. The priests, and those responsible for the operation of the church as a structure, were completely ignorant of eighteenth-century construction techniques and architecture. They were at the mercy of a native, such as El Indio Jesús, who gave the impression of commanding a genetic knowledge on how to do what must be done. And they knew it. This day, El Indio Jesús left the city jail in the company of a Legal Services lawyer and a priest. As they turned the corner of the building, they came upon a knot of men engaged in conversation in the parking lot. There was a physical similarity among them that almost suggested consanguinity--tall, thin, pale, sharp-eyed. In one simultaneous movement, they turned to look at El Indio Jesús and his companions as though programmed to extraordinary high levels of alertness. When the three came abreast of the group, El Indio and one of the tall men separated out from their companions, moving away to talk in intense, soft, but rapid Spanish. To the two sets of watchers, nothing could be interpreted from either the words or the body language of the two. Then they split apart and moved to rejoin their companions. " Hasta luego , Martínez," the tall man called back. " Hasta pronto , Beserra, hasta muy pronto ," responded El Indio Jesús. "Friend of yours?" the lawyer asked, with an astonished expression on his face. "Friend? No. But we go back a ways," he replied. The lawyer and the priest exchanged surprised looks as they continued walking toward the lawyer's car. Across the parking lot the other group of men walked toward the city jail and courthouse. "Friend of yours, Captain Spencer?" one asked the man who had talked with El Indio. "Friend? No. We just go back a ways," he answered. "You can sure dish out that spick lingo, Jack," another remarked. State Police Captain Jack Spencer regarded him thoughtfully, then replied, "Throw enough of these guys in jail and you get to know the language pretty good, Charlie." Then he laughed, but without humor. Copyright © 2000 University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. All rights reserved.
