Chapter 33: A home of my own
The cab driver steered east, weaving through the now-late
morning traffic, out of Skid Row and into a landscape that reminded me less of
New York City than it did of my home town, Paterson.
Low three and four story stick style buildings replaced the
six to eight story stone constructions – Bodega stores, travel agencies, beauty
parlors, nail salons, Latin night clubs, auto repair shops, barbers, tailors,
cheap clothing shops filling the bottom floors of those structures along the
main drag, while behind these, rising slowly into the hills beyond, two and
three family houses cropped up like mushrooms, remnants from a bygone era from
when real estate investment companies had sliced up old Spanish estates into
lots for house, creating a grid work of streets into which Mexicans and other
Chicanos flocked.
The cab rolled down a street of shops, wheels rumbling over
the still visible rails of a one-time trolley, while along the curb, young men
clustered around refurbished cars, brassy Latin music echoing off the facades
of old brick structures of what served this part of the city as downtown.
Through the slightly open cab window floated in the scene of
tacos and burritos being sold from carts, as well as the strong skunk-like odor
a marijuana, clouds of which clung to each corner like smog.
At several corners, stores advertised goods in Spanish, the
way stores along Market Street in Paterson had, some even displaying the
upside-down carcasses of various dead animals, but rabbits to small pigs, from
chickens to painted ducks.
The Chicano faces walking the sidewalks or standing on
street corners had a weathered look lacking in Paterson, and seemed to walk and
talk with less ferocity, as if all here was part of some slower-motion movie
and the residents of this part of L.A. would not be hurried in their own
neighborhoods the way they were working the fruit and vegetable fields in which
many of them were employed.
Patrol cars prowled the main drag as frequently as the
yellow buses, drawing attention and curses from those on the sidewalk.
“This place is going to explode soon just like Watts did,”
the driver mumbled as he drove. “And for the same reasons. You can’t stuff so
many Chicanos in one place and expect it not to boil over sooner or later. Are
you sure you want to live here?”
“Is it cheap?”
“As cheap as any part of this fucking city,” the driver
said.
“Then, I want to live here. At least, until I can find
something else.”
“Good luck with that,” the driver said. “You better buy a
gun.”
I said nothing about the pearl handled pistol from
Philadelphia deep in the pocket of my jeans.
The cab pulled off the main drag and onto one of the side
streets – the rising hills at the end, rising up out of the seat of roofs, tan
with dying grass, vacant of any structure.
Around us, three story, run-down houses dilapidated
apartment buildings appeared, gang tags on some of them, many bearing “room for
rent” signs, or in most cases, "Habitación para alquilar."
"You got lots of places to rent on this block,"
the driver told me. "These are mostly apartment houses, safer than those
you'd find closer to downtown. Most of the people up here work for a living,
and don't cause nobody trouble -- though you can't tell that to the cops, who
seem to think all the Chicanos are punks."
"Will they mind renting to me?" I asked.
The driver glanced up at me in the rearview mirror.
"They'll think it odd you'd want to come here to live, but they'll take
your money."
He pulled over and I got out. I was about to pay the driver,
but he insisted on helping me look for a place.
"I know some of
the lingo," he said, as we climbed up one set of stairs, knocked, and when
no one answered, climbed back down and made our way to the next house.
A Mexican man answered the door, wearing a dirty t-shirt and
a pair of ragged work pants, both stained with dried paint. His dark skin had
the texture of brown leather, but his eyes were bright and slightly suspicious.
"¿Qué quieres?"he asked.
"The boy's looking for a room," the cab driver
said. "You have any to rent?"
The Mexican shook his head.
"Al final de la calle" he said, jabbing a crooked
finger towards the other houses, making it clear that he meant the brick
building not the stucco buildings on either side.
We made our way back down to the walk, then up the walk to
the brick house. Several younger Mexican males leaned against a 1950s Chevy,
each smoking cigarettes, each ceasing to speak as we passed. None looked
remotely dangerous, just surprised. The cab driver kept glancing over his
shoulder at his car. No one came near it.
This time, the building had a door bell, and set of locked
doors that opened with a buzzer, something that had been common only in the
better neighborhoods in Paterson, and signified a building constructed for
apartments.
A small Mexican woman peered out at us from the hall beyond
the inner door, looking puzzled at what she saw, making gestures as if to
determine what we wanted before she actually had to open the door. When that
failed, she made her way out, and after a short exchange in Spanish with the
driver, nodded, and held up a finger and pointed towards a door just inside.
"She says she had an apartment on the first
floor," the cab driver told me. "You want to see it?"
I nodded and he signaled the woman, who hesitantly opened
the doors to let us in.
The air swirled with strangely provocative smells, of
heavily spiced cooking, tainted by the less appealing scent of roach spray,
heavy perfume, stale beer and dirty diapers. Somewhere deeper in the building
the brassy sound of Latino music helped cover the wail of a baby.
We stood in a small hallway illuminated by a weak overhead
light. Several doors opened into this space from the right and left, while to
slightly to the left a stairway rose to the upper floors.
The woman motioned for us to wait, then went through the
door to the left which was marked “superintendente” then returned a moment
later carrying a ring of keys, these rattling as she crossed to the door on the
right. After three attempts, she found the right key and pushed the door
inward.
The reek of roach killer wafted out along with the scent of
cleanser, more powerful when we stepped inside where all the windows had been
closed.
I saw no roaches and the place seemed clean, and compact,
with a main room, a bathroom and a kitchen.
The main room had two windows across from the door coming
in, one of which looked down onto an ally, the other into a strange space
constructed to provide air to the apartment, but nothing more, looking out onto
other windows in other apartments.
The main room had a couch against the left wall, and a
Murphy Bed that pulled down from inside the wall between the door to the
kitchen and the door to the bathroom.
The woman pulled on the cord to demonstrate and the springs
to the bed creaked at it lowered to the floor.
I glanced in the bathroom where there was a tub and a small
sink, the mirror cracked in one corner above the sink.
The kitchen had a stove, refrigerator, sink and table with
another window above the table that looked out onto another alley.
"How much does she want for the place?" I asked
the cab driver.
He spoke some
Spanish, and the woman spoke back at him, quoting a figure.
“That includes utilities,” the driver said. "It's a
little over priced for this neighborhood. But the apartment's a lot cleaner
than most of those I've seen."
I pulled out a stack of bills from my pocket and counted off
the required amount into the woman’s outstretched palm.
She counted the bills three times before she was satisfied,
then handed me two keys, one for the front door, the other for the door to the
apartment.
"I'll get the rest of your stuff," the driver
said, and both he and the woman left, with me standing in the middle of the
empty space, a little stunned by the quickness of everything, my life
re-established in a matter of moments.
I moved around the apartment, opening a drawer to the small
night stand near the couch, finding a well-worn Bible in Spanish as well a few
pieces of candy. The cabinets in the kitchen produced no richer a find: Several
cans of bug spray, one empty, the other half full. The medicine cabinet in the
bathroom produced only dust.
A moment later, the driver returned carrying my suitcase, my
brief case and a shopping bag with my leather jacket, which he dumped onto the
couch.
“There you go,” he said.
I paid the fair and gave him a generous tip. He shook his
head at me.
“Good luck, buddy,” he said, then vanished back the way he’d
come, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the hall, then with the slam of the
front door, down the steps. The car starting and pulling away was more remote.
I was alone.
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