Read Online Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Luis J. Rodriguez
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Angel charged $5 for an hour’s work beneath the school’s bleachers. They were crude, unadorned, hand-etchings. Angel used sewing needles, sterilized by placing them over a match flame. He then tied a tight wound of sewing thread on the end. Enough of the needle’s point stuck out to penetrate below the skin. Angel dipped the needle into a bottle of black India ink, allowing the thread to soak it up. Then he punctured the skin with quick up and down motions, filling the tiny holes with ink from the thread.
I got the tattoo on my upper right arm. It was an outline of a cross beneath the words “Mi Vida Loca.”
We drove teachers nuts at Garvey. A number of them were sent home with nervous breakdowns. We went through three teachers and five substitutes in my home room my first year at the school.
One of my teachers was a Cuban refugee named Mr. Enríquez. We made him wish he never left the island. He could hardly speak English. And when he spoke Spanish, it was a sure sign we were in trouble.
Every morning Mr. Enríquez entered the class and got bombarded with spit balls and jelly beans. Sometimes he’d turn around to write something on the chalk board and everyone would drop their books all at once.
Often you could find Mr. Enríquez with his head on his desk, cursing into folded arms.
Then there was the science teacher, Mrs. Krieger. She must have been 80 years old or more. It took her half the class period to walk up the stairs and down the hall to her classroom. By that time most of the class was gone. Once, as she creaked around to write something on the chalkboard, we threw her rain-stained, beat-up encyclopedias, which were as ancient as she was, out the windows. Then we threw out the desks and chairs. Before long, most of Mrs. Krieger’s classroom was scattered across the front lawn—and she didn’t realize it until a school official ran puffing up the stairs to investigate what the hell was going on.
There were many good teachers, but some of the others appeared to be misfits, such as the gym instructor who looked like a refugee from the Marines. He shouted commands even in normal conversation, was always dressed in shorts and never failed to have a stainless steel whistle hanging from his bull-neck. The shop teacher was Mr. Stone, who acted exactly as if he were carved out of a thick piece of gray granite. He dealt with us harshly, always on his guard. But one day we broke through his defenses.
The shop class was inside an old bungalow at the back of the school. The front door had “Las Lomas” spray-painted on the outside followed by the words Con Safos, the cholo term that signified nobody should mess with this—if they valued their life. Mr. Stone was inside showing our class how to cut a piece of wood on a rotary saw.
Then Elías, one of the vatitos, started a racket from the back of the room. Mr. Stone turned around to discipline him. But he forgot to turn off the saw. It sliced away at the board … then his finger. Man, what a mess! Mr. Stone turned a sickening pale color as soon as he realized what had happened.
“God damn it!” he yelled, “God damn it!” as his face wrinkled with every throb of pain.
An ambulance came and rushed Mr. Stone away. School officials shoved everyone else into another classroom until they could hold meetings to determine who to blame. But Elías and I sneaked out and returned to the wood shop bungalow. The door was still open. We foraged through the piles of sawdust and wood pieces and found Mr. Stone’s finger. It looked purplish with dried blood and bone chips on one end. Elías carefully placed it inside an empty cigar box.
For weeks we kept the finger in Elías’ locker. He’d bring it out to scare some of the girls and to show it off to incoming students until it shriveled away, like a dried sliver of old fruit.
“You can’t be in a fire and not get burned.”
This was my father’s response when he heard of the trouble I was getting into at
I got the tattoo on my upper right arm. It was an outline of a cross beneath the words “Mi Vida Loca.”
We drove teachers nuts at Garvey. A number of them were sent home with nervous breakdowns. We went through three teachers and five substitutes in my home room my first year at the school.
One of my teachers was a Cuban refugee named Mr. Enríquez. We made him wish he never left the island. He could hardly speak English. And when he spoke Spanish, it was a sure sign we were in trouble.
Every morning Mr. Enríquez entered the class and got bombarded with spit balls and jelly beans. Sometimes he’d turn around to write something on the chalk board and everyone would drop their books all at once.
Often you could find Mr. Enríquez with his head on his desk, cursing into folded arms.
Then there was the science teacher, Mrs. Krieger. She must have been 80 years old or more. It took her half the class period to walk up the stairs and down the hall to her classroom. By that time most of the class was gone. Once, as she creaked around to write something on the chalkboard, we threw her rain-stained, beat-up encyclopedias, which were as ancient as she was, out the windows. Then we threw out the desks and chairs. Before long, most of Mrs. Krieger’s classroom was scattered across the front lawn—and she didn’t realize it until a school official ran puffing up the stairs to investigate what the hell was going on.
There were many good teachers, but some of the others appeared to be misfits, such as the gym instructor who looked like a refugee from the Marines. He shouted commands even in normal conversation, was always dressed in shorts and never failed to have a stainless steel whistle hanging from his bull-neck. The shop teacher was Mr. Stone, who acted exactly as if he were carved out of a thick piece of gray granite. He dealt with us harshly, always on his guard. But one day we broke through his defenses.
The shop class was inside an old bungalow at the back of the school. The front door had “Las Lomas” spray-painted on the outside followed by the words Con Safos, the cholo term that signified nobody should mess with this—if they valued their life. Mr. Stone was inside showing our class how to cut a piece of wood on a rotary saw.
Then Elías, one of the vatitos, started a racket from the back of the room. Mr. Stone turned around to discipline him. But he forgot to turn off the saw. It sliced away at the board … then his finger. Man, what a mess! Mr. Stone turned a sickening pale color as soon as he realized what had happened.
“God damn it!” he yelled, “God damn it!” as his face wrinkled with every throb of pain.
An ambulance came and rushed Mr. Stone away. School officials shoved everyone else into another classroom until they could hold meetings to determine who to blame. But Elías and I sneaked out and returned to the wood shop bungalow. The door was still open. We foraged through the piles of sawdust and wood pieces and found Mr. Stone’s finger. It looked purplish with dried blood and bone chips on one end. Elías carefully placed it inside an empty cigar box.
For weeks we kept the finger in Elías’ locker. He’d bring it out to scare some of the girls and to show it off to incoming students until it shriveled away, like a dried sliver of old fruit.
“You can’t be in a fire and not get burned.”
This was my father’s response when he heard of the trouble I was getting into at
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