Read Online Los Angeles Stories by Ry Cooder - Free Book Online Page B

composer build such a work of feeling from two words?
    Sin ti
    Es in ú til vivir
    Como in ú til ser á
    El quererte olvidar
    â€œGracias a todos! And now, for your dancing pleasure, the orchestra of Bebo Guerrero!” I left the stage. Couples rushed to the dance floor. I observed Sergeant Morales and his wife. A gentleman, he escorted her to the ladies’ lounge and waited by the door.
    â€œBuenas noches, Señor Morales. Are you enjoying yourself?”
    â€œAh, my friend, buenas noches! My wife is enchanted, I am delighted!”
    â€œMay one ask if there is progress in the matter of Alberto Salazar? The musicians were wondering. . . .”
    â€œWe have determined that there was a man seated next to Salazar. He left early. We are very interested in this man, his descrip­tion, his type. We will find him, whoever he is. And now, con permiso, let me introduce my wife.”
    Was I undignified? Undoubtedly. Mute, even? Possibly. “Aquellos Ojos Verdes” . . . the song began to play in my mind. Odd, I thought — I know this face, I’ve seen her somewhere — the green eyes, the somber expression, the lustrous black hair. They returned to their table, and I left the building by the side door. The night was cool. Gradually, I recovered myself. In the alley, Angel was smoking a cigarette and drinking from his flask. I took it.
    â€œAy, hombre, qu é pas ó ? You, drinking? Ó rale!” He laughed. It is not my custom to drink during performances. “Ah, s í , ya comprendo, la muchacha with the green eyes, I saw her! Que chula! But her man is a cop, I know him! Cuidado, mi carnalito!”
    â€œIt’s nothing. The music affected me.” I felt something else. In the darkness, someone was watching. Angel went back inside to look for women. The frenzied beat of a rumba was making the wall of the building beat like a drum. To me, the rumba is primitive and unmusical. I remained outside. Further down the alley, someone began to cough — a harsh, rattling sound.
    â€œTUBERCULOSIS LOVES MEXICANS,” my grandfather said as he lay dying of the dread disease that was to take him, both my parents, and my sister by the time I reached the age of fifteen. I can recall my mother crying and arguing with an Anglo doctor. Was I four years old? “This child was born with tuberculosis. He will never grow properly. He will always be sickly. He is going to cost the city of Los Angeles a lot of money!” I was in a tuberculosis ward in the children’s wing of General Hospital, on Mission Avenue, but a ward for Mexican and Negro children only. Unforgettable! The long room — a contaminated yellow­-green. The ancient iron beds — so jammed together as to be touching. And the endless coughing, the frightened faces.
    But my mother was brave. One day, she came bursting into the ward, running. She took me in her arms and fled. The Anglo nurses ran after us, screaming for help, for the police. It was after dinnertime and the place was quiet. My uncle was waiting outside in the Ford truck he used for hauling chickens. We escaped. Much later, I learned that the police had tried to find us, to bring me back to the hospital, which was really a prison for the poor and the sick. They were afraid los gabachos would learn of the tubercular Mexican boy running loose on the streets of Los Angeles, resulting in wide­spread panic! Civil unrest! Political upheaval! But we fooled them. My mother took me to the little Mexican Hospital, on Hammel Street, behind the cemetery. She reasoned that the police would never go near the place; they were too afraid of catching the dread incurable Mexican Sickness.
    Dr. Ricardo Chavez treated me for one year. I was allowed to live with my grandparents. The doctor discovered that both my mother and father were infected, my father in the advanced stage. He died within weeks of the diagnosis; my mother, one year later. Somehow, I