Del Varrio II: Rock Star by Blake Sidewalker

I didn’t know why, but one of the most relaxing activities in my day was to weigh and bag tree. I liked to sell it more than do it, but I smoked a lot of that shit. In the summer of 1984 in Los Flores, everyone wanted to smoke so business was great, and I had been rolling with the Vagos for about five years, so it was never hard to re-up, and I had plenty of protection. My big brother, Angel, was back in the pinta again. My mother was sick, and my sister was working at a restaurant. I had to drop out of highschool, and get a jale at the garage to be able to keep the roof over our heads. My sister, Rosalita, was still in school. She was very smart, and also studying to be a nurse. I didn’t know how she found the time for it all. My chamba was a lucky break; I didn’t know much about cars until the garage took me in, and taught me as I worked. Maybe some day, I could build my own calrada, I’d fixed enough carcanchas. As great as it was to have a jale, I still needed more money, so I sold a lot of grass for the Vagos. My brother’s carnal, Miguelito, would often hover around, but Mama didn’t like him much. He used to make me nervous too, but he and Angel took me on so many adventures that not much of anything scared me. He knocked on my bedroom door. I got up from bagging tree, and opened the door. Miguelito’s face glistened with a thin layer of summer sweat, one drop sliding down from his freshly shaved head over the teardrop tattoo at the outer corner of his left eye. He lifted his heavily tattooed arms to grab the outer trim of the threshold, and hang “¿Que te pasa, Calabaza?” Miguelito asked. “Nada, nada, Limonada,” I answered, “I’m just bagging up the rest of this tree.” Miguelito hung forward a little bit. His cologne was doing a good job in this heat, “Take a break, Homes, I got something that will bring you more lana.” “What you got, Ese?” I asked. Miguelito smiled through his shortly trimmed goatee, “I learned a new trick, Carnal. I only have half of the ingredients though. I’m missing the important half.” “What’s that?” “I’ll show you when I find it, Homes, and I know where to find it. I’m just going to need your help.” “What do you need me for, Carnal?” “Muscle, Homie.” I don’t know how well I concealed my flattery, but it didn’t matter because Miguelito understood me just as well as my actual brother. What was Miguelito up to? “Why me?” I asked. “You’re the kind of business man I need, I promised Angel I would look out for his familia, and I don’t want else anyone to know this trick,” said Miguelito. I was even more confused, “I know you’d rather show me this trick than tell me.” “¡A huevo!” Miguelito offered, “Órale”. “Simón,” I said, “let me just hide my shit.” “No hay pedo,” Miguelito assured. Miguelito had me driving in the night up near North Rock. If they ever decided to develop real estate up here, they’d probably find a lot of bodies. This was the best place to bury a body, If you didn’t count the desert. I knew that Miguelito had already buried at least one up here. You could say that was my first day as a Vago, witnessing Miguelito murder a Balla when I was thirteen. It left a strange taste in my mouth at first, but chilling with Angel and Miguelito was like heaven, so I quickly left the weird feeling behind, even though I had never told anyone. If Miguelito had killed anyone since then, I never saw. We didn’t have any problems with the Kilo Tray Ballas selling dope in Glen Park though. Nobody even saw them hanging out there. I had still seen a lot of action since then, but I don’t think I’d been that close to a murder ever since. When we got out to North Rock, Miguelito gave me directions to a specific place to hide the car, and we waited. It wasn’t long before a car pulled up, and another, from the opposite direction, shortly after. The people inside the cars stepped out into the headlights. Their words were brief, but they exchanged a suitcase and a duffel bag. It was at this time that Miguelito handed me a Tech-9. He reached in the back, and pulled out an AK-47, whispering, “My old plan was stupid, Carnal; I have a new one. I want you to drive in circles around these two cars until every one of these putos is dead.” I flipped the safety off the Tech, and all I could say was, “Loco.” Miguelito chambered a round into his K, “Don’t turn the headlights on; drive as soon as I start shooting, spray-and-pray that Tech at anyone you see moving in or outside the cars, Homie.” I didn’t have time to let the terror sink in because Miguelito was out of the sunroof blasting everyone standing between the two cars. “¡Dále gas!” Miguelito barked. I put the pedal to the metal, sped from behind the flora hiding our carro, blasting the Tech in short bursts, hitting as much as I could while shooting with my left hand. I’m not sure if I hit anything substantial, but Miguelito was an incredible shot, even out of a moving car. Our victims barely managed a few shots, and we hadn’t circled more than a couple times before the men outside were lifeless on the ground. We got out of the car to check for survivors. There was glass and blood all over the interiors of the cars. Anyone moving got one to the dome as Miguelito had brought a 9mm to put any survivors out of their misery. It was all starting to hit me, “What did we just do, cabrón?!” “Right here, Ese!” said Miguelito with more excitement than I was used to from him. He was standing by the duffel bags, and started rummaging through them. I came up to see what exactly he was tripping about, and was not disappointed. One duffel bag was full of cash, the other was full of ten kilos of llallo. “Somebody is going to be very angry about this,” I realized aloud. “Don’t be a chavala, Homes. Help me with this varo.” Said Miguelito. “You had a worse plan than this, vato?!” “Simón. I was only going to ambush those mayetes, and take their yay, but I figured that the lana would also be nice to have.” “Who are those paisanos from the other car?” “San Fierro Rifar. The mayetes are Ballas, Kilo Tray by the looks of their tattoos.” “How did you know this was going down, Carnal?” “I been lurking, Homes. I’m a motherfucking ninja, and those Kilo Tray pendejos talk too loud and too much. There should be 150,000 dollars in this bag.” “What do we do about this mess, Ese?!” “Los puerqos son estupido. They’ll think they did this to each other.” I remembered how this had started, “Is this the trick you wanted to show me, vato?” Miguelito took a huge, grinning breath through his nose, “Nel, Homes.” Miguelito hovered over a sauce pan of boiling water, and I was horrified to see him dump a bunch of baking soda and cocaine together in a mason jar, but as he cooked the concoction, I was mystified by how it all hardened into a solid lump. After a while, he had the big, white stone on a mirror. He switched his blade open, and cut a little piece of the lump away, then he placed it in a metal smoking bowl. He handed me the pipe, “Take a long-ass hit of this, and hold it in as long as you can.” I took the pipe to my mouth, and Miguelito raised the lighter to the bowl, igniting it as I sucked in. The little pebble hissed and crackled as it burned, and tasted like smoking plastic out of an aluminum can. I filled my lungs as full as I could, and passed the pipe to Miguelito as I held the smoke in. He partook of the pebble himself, and as I blew the hit out, euphoria hit me like a nice line of blow, but a little different. “What the fuck is this, Miguelito?!” “Wacha, Carnal,” said Miguelito, “this shit is gonna make us rich. Don’t do it all the time though; it’ll fuck your shit up, Ese. Divertido, porque hace loco, and then you just want more.” We had an intense conversation all through the night as we cooked more of the stuff, and stuck it in tiny baggies. The next time I set foot in Glen Park, I felt like it was all mine. Miguelito and I said nothing to anyone about the incident in North Rock, but we had so much baro that we were rock stars in the barrio for the whole summer. I got plenty of nice things for my familia. I was able to get my mother better medical attention, and paid for my sister’s nursing classes. I got a lawyer for my brother. I got myself a pimped out low rider with gold rims, I had the nice clothes, and the fiends kept coming for more. I’d been fucked by life enough to know that this wouldn’t last forever though.