Republic of East L.A.

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Chapter One

My Ride,
My Revolution

The long sleek limousine lays into the curved street as kids of all sizes, of many coughs and giggles, skirmish around it, climb its blinding chrome and white armor, smearing dirt and fingerprints on its tinted windows. The unshaven men gather around to put words together about this wonder on the roadway, to excavate a new vocabulary for this intrusion that seems to smirk at their poverty, to lay like a diamond on a garbage-strewn lot. But still, it's kind of their hostage. Here in a run-down section of East Los where limos don't belong — although here it is, laughing at fate, at "everything in its place," at a segmented society of "who has" and "who hasn't," and practically telling the world, "see...here I am, in the barrio — how about that!"

I'm awake, sitting at the edge of my bed with my hands on my head, startled by the wedges of daylight through torn curtains, by the voices and inflections, their wild abandon, and by the men's search for living poignancy from the polished enormity in their midst.

We're all neighbors of small cottages near Prospect Park in Boyle Heights. The cottages face each other and onto a dry courtyard as vecindades are wont to do wherever old Los Angeles still rises out of gray ground, which I know something about because I read, because I spend many hours in libraries, because I care to know most everything about most nothing. One of the cottages, I swear, has twenty people in it: children, grandparents, wives, husbands, uncles, aunts, and probably a stranger whonobody knows, but they make him breakfast anyway.

I'm the limo driver. It's hard to believe that me, a longhaired, chiseled-faced, brown-red man can be the chauffeur of a luxury vehicle that we mostly only see in movies or magazines. But this is just the latest gig in a lengthy row of short-term and sometimes bizarre jobs I've had in my twenty-nine years — mostly because I won't do any work that demands commitment or an emotional investment. Like I won't clean the windows of downtown highrises or dig ditches — which only the undocumented would do anyway — or kill rats in sewage tunnels, or sit in an office cell, surrounded by half walls, bulletin boards, and phones.

Man, I hate phones.

I've been an extra in obscure movies, though I have to say I'm like an extra extra — you'd never spot me in a crowd of nobodies. I've played acoustic guitar at the Metro station downtown when it first opened — and before the cops started pushing the musicians out. And I've sat for people's apartments with their flea-bitten cats — one time I had to bomb a place with Raid to clear out the annoying blood-sucking vermin that practically ate me alive. Those cats were probably the most grateful co-workers I ever had.

What I like are jobs where I can think, listen to music, maybe read a book, and check out every mole and pimple of the city.

Like a limo driver.

I've just started. Only the other day, I first brought the limo home. It's not your basic paint-peeling Chevy or rusty pickup like the rest of the junk heaps around here. It is an extra seventy-one inches of curved metal-and-glass epiphany-creamy white, tinted windows, and dark gray leather interior. And apparently it's a big hit. I don't normally score big points with my cottage neighbors as it is.

My name is Cruz Blancarte. I'm Mexican, but I'm Indian. That's what everyone around here always brings to my attention — like they're not. Only I happen to look like I come out of the reservation. That's because I'm what you call a Purépecha. It's good to be clear about these things, especially for those who don't have an inkling about these matters. Some people call us Tarascans. We're known for taking on the Aztecs — the Mexikas — back before the conquista. We even made the Spaniards wish they'd never crossed our paths. We're a tough people from the hardiest parts of Michoacán. Many Purépechas still speak their original tongues and don't have anything to do with the mestizos — who are mostly Indians who've forgotten they're Indians. But the Purépechas are getting close to their last stand as poverty and neglect piles up against them. They're now too hungry, too drunk, and too despised most of the time to do anything substantial about it.

The thing is I don't wear my hair long because I'm Indian. I wear it long because I'm in a rap-and-rock band. The group is called La Cruz Negra — the Black Cross. It's a play on my name but also on darkness, Christ, and not being Christ. Somebody may consider us a rockero band — you know the Spanish-language rock groups that have streamed out of Mexico and other Latin countries. But except for our name, we only throw in Spanish words here and there. We sing mostly unintelligible English. But nobody cares. It's yells and hiccups. It's gravelly throats, guitar feedback, and ass-kicking drums. It's heart jumper cables — this is what we are.

There are four of us — four like most garage bands, like Metallica, like Rage Against the Machine, like Limp Bizkit. There's Lilo, Dante, Patrick, and myself. The other guys in the band don't know how to play that good — I'm the only one who's actually studied some music: guitar, a little piano, and bass. But they're the shits, man. They rock.

My mom, Ruby, is a Chicana activist from back in the day — you know, the sixties and seventies...