Ghetto Solid

It was going to be another scorcher in the San Fernando Valley, Esperanza sighed as she cut up the chilis for the customers that would soon walk through the door. Every morning, starting at 6, she would open at her boss' insistences even there wasn't so much of a trickle of breakfast crowd; just a few locals on their way to their pipe-fitter's jobs wanting an easy breakfast burrito.

She had no clue why the boss, Carlos, needed her to be in so early, as the place did a booming business at both lunch and dinner times, enough to be a success without the paltry breakfast receipts. But Carlos was bien codo or basically, very cheap, she laughed to herself as she sliced through chili after chili.

Esperanza would have preferred to sleep in like her boss, but she had to wake up early on account of getting her little niño to school. She was crazy about her little guy and he was the only reason why she would put up with getting up so early and putting up with Carlos' eager hands when he deemed it necessary to finally show up and play grab ass.

She would have gone loco putasos a long time ago on his ass if it weren't for her little one. She dared not tell her boyfriend Julio who would have certainly gotten her fired if not himself wound up in jail for assault had she ever told him. No, she needed this job more than it needed her.

Esperanza enjoyed the afternoons when businesses broke for lunch and the kids got out of school. It kept her most busy and took her mind off of the life she led. Then there were some days when the little animals took over the place and overwhelmed the other diners. There had been a few times she would have to come out from behind the register and crack down on the little thugs when they became too rowdy. Other than that, they were just normal kids venting off excitement and energy at everything being experienced for the first time. Esperanza would watch them and smiled as they acted out and behaved like the kids that they were. Carlos hated the noise the kids created and would get on Esperanza to yell at them from time to time, but he admitted he didn't mind the noise they were making on the cash register.

As she watched them, sometimes Esperanza's mind would drift back to the very same age and remember how things used to be in middle school before real life intervened. It only seemed like a short time ago she mused. She recalled when she told Julio the news that she was pregnant. She thought for sure that he would leave town, but he turned out to be responsible. She smiled as she recalled how her father hated Julio and called him a "no good cholo". Her father was right and even though she denied it, Julio did belong to a gang. Julio just shrugged it off as it was just the guys he grew up with and if they all had records, so what? They were just into things like everyone else their age had been. If they had any pride and any gang stature, they were no different from anyone else. They stole, they dealt, they kicked ass when they had to in order to keep their pride intact and they weren't the least bit sorry or forgiven.

Esperanza made no excuses for Julio. "He has the flava.", as she called it, in her East L.A. accent when asked how she could still be involved with a guy who didn't even own a car but pedaled around on the same bike he had had when he was a teen. The only difference was that he had modified it with longer handlebars and had given it some ghetto flash by giving it a new chrome body and spinners for the wheels. Esperanza's friends thought he looked ridiculous, riding a bike in his wife beater undershirt that showed off his tats, a baseball hat, untied kicks and long-assed shorts but that was the style. He was born a cholo and he would die a cholo, as long as he could help it.

She worried about Julio getting into trouble but he had only done a little juvie time when he was younger and jail for a few months on what he said were trumped up charges the sheriffs made to close the case. This was when she had been pregnant with Manuel and to her knowledge, he had not been in trouble since.

Little did Esperanza know that Julio and his crew were still dealing and carjacking. He never told her any of this as he reasoned what she didn't know didn't hurt her and the less she knew the better, should anyone come asking. He didn't tell her of their latest venture of stealing tools from school construction sites.

Esperanza began to cut a bushel of cilantro when she heard the jingle of the bell above the screen door. It was one of the union guys she had seen during the week or so. She figured he must be new and starting as some journeyman's apprentice as he was a scrawny, young kid, somewhat nervous, she thought to herself.

He was cute in an off-beat way she had noticed in the few days that he had been coming in and she remembered he would always order the same thing. A bacon and cheese burrito for breakfast and would never look her in the eye. This was typical for guys his age, she smiled as she came out from the back to the counter.

"You're early today."

"Huh?"

"You're early, I sad. Where's your homie?" She asked.

"Sick today."

"Oh well, you usually come in later."

"What does it matter?" He shrugged.

"Easy, just talkin', home boy." Esperanza snapped. "What can I get you?"

"I dunno."

"You always order the same thing."

"Uh-huh." He nodded blankly.

"A bean and cheese burrito." She offered.

"How'd you know?" He asked, startled.

"I always pay attention to what my customers want. Especially the cute ones." She flirted.

"Oh okay. That then." He nodded.

"Give me just a minute." She said and turned. "I'm just about ready to open.-" She said over her back. It was all the kid needed.

Stars filled her vision as he smacked her with the backend of his revolver. She fell to the floor and could smell the Fantastico Carlos used to clean the chipped linoleum. The kid hopped over the counter and slipped in her blood which was pooling on the floor. She could hear something skitter across the tile and hit something metallic. She could see the handle of a pistol under the freezer as she bled out on the dirty floor.

"Shit!" The kid yelled. At first, she was certain this was due to the embarrassing move of him losing the gun, but then heard something more. She heard the kid wincing in pain.

"I think I sprained my ankle, you stupid bitch." He muttered and then cried aloud. "You have to help me."

Help you? she asked herself. Help you? You just knocked me down and now you want me to help you? Who's the stupid bitch now? Esperanza said to herself. She didn't know what to do. Initially, she played it as if she was knocked out cold but when she discovered that the kid couldn't stand and asking for her help, she decided he was most likely now unarmed. She opened her eye slightly and saw him trying to use the counter to stand, which was of no use. That was no sprain she said to herself and thought back on her days at nursing school; that was a break.

She sat up and felt the inside of her head slosh from one side to the other as the yolk of an almost broken egg, she thought.

"Thank God, chica. You gotta help me-."

"Help you?" She spat incredulously as she watched her own blood drip onto the yellowed floor. She couldn't help but wonder what her hair looked like and was pissed as she had just gone to the salon over the weekend.

"You gotta help me." The kid bellowed. "I need help here, man."

You must be fucking joking, homie. She told herself. "Well, if you hadn't hit me over the head, I could help you." She snapped.

The kid stopped trying to wedge himself between the floor and the counter top and slid down in dejection. "Fuck."

"What were you trying to do?" She heard herself ask.

"Nothing." He muttered.

"Were you trying to rob me?" She heard herself ask, almost as if she could not control her own mouth. She wondered if the gash in her scalp had something to do with it and then wondered how stupid could she be?

"No." He said softly and touched at his shattered ankle.

"You coulda just asked. I don't know why you had to get all bad-ass about it."

"Look, chica. Yo no se."

Gawd, she thought. A thug without a plan. There was nothing worse. That was when the shortcut to thought was violence. Better keep this home boy talking. If she could keep him talking, she could keep his thoughts occupied and away from looking at the clock and the approaching first wave of customers.

Her head throbbed and she wondered about staying conscious herself. Talking would also help this, she reasoned.

"So, you got a name?" She asked, thinking of the hostage negotiation tactics she'd seen on her favorite cop shows on tv. She knew that if she could get him to relate to her on a human level, the better the chance she had to make it out of the present situation no more hurt than she already was.

"What?"

"You got a name?"

"Why?"

"What the fuck is your problem?" She snapped. "I asked you a question, home boy!"

"Felix." He muttered.

"Esperanza." She heard herself answer in return. "Why you do me this way, homie?"

"I dunno." He mumbled.

"What?" She raised her voice and then felt her head spin.

"Need the dinero."

"You work, why you need the money?"

"I got let go."

"Why they let you go?" She asked.

"Tools were missing."

"You do it, chico?"

"Nah."

"C'mon!"

"Nah, I didn't do it!" He yelled. "Why don't no one believe me?"

"Easy, chill." She held her hand up. " You remind me of my son. Ay, no patience."

"You got a kid?" He smiled and then turned sullen.

"Yes, my niño, Manny."

"How old?"

"Five, going on six soon. Why?"

"I got a daughter." He said as the smile returned to his face and then stayed for a while longer before receding again. "She's eleven months."

"Thug life ain't no life." Esperanza said, quoting a song."

"For realz." Felix nodded.

"Dang, homie!" She exclaimed. "Why you gotta do this?" She said as she noticed the knife handle on the kitchen floor sticking out from underneath the freezer. She hoped he hadn't seen it. She slowly looked away from the blade, along the floor and up to the kid's staring eye. Immediately, both jumped for the knife handle. There was a desperate squeak of feet along the linoleum, not unlike the sound of sneakers on a basketball court.

Felix only jumped so far before wincing in pain as he fell on his chest and chin. Esperanza kicked at him as she made her way towards the blade. He cried out in agony as she inadvertently nailed him in the ankle. She staggered to her knees and leapt at the handle.

"Step off, dawg!" She snarled. "You're assed out!"

"Shit." Felix grumbled and fell back to the floor in defeat.

With the light of day came the first couple of customers, Felix was apprehended. Seeing the bloody counter and hearing Esperanza's pleas to call the police, they held the kid down until police arrived shortly thereafter.

When questioned at County in a hospital corridor and handcuffed to a chair with an officer standing next to him and waiting to go to X-Ray, Felix revealed the true reason why he fell back into a life of crime.

He said his tools were stolen at the construction site where he worked and he, being the new apprentice, was accused and fired. He needed cash to meet his bills. Ironically, it had been Esperanza's fiancé, Julio, who had been responsible for the theft. It was about doing a ghetto solid he told Esperanza. It sounded more like karma, she thought as she held an ice pack to her throbbing head.

BIO: Joseph Grant's stories have been published in over 300 literary reviews online and in print. He has had two boxing novels published by Fight Card Productions, "The Last Round of Archie Mannis" and "The Guns of November. A collection of his short stories, "Mexicali Blue" with a foreword by John Hemingway (grandson of Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway) has also been published.

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