..excerpt from chapter 6..

Mama gazed out of the back porch window to the garage room where I spent days holed up as if in a prison of my own making.

She worried about me, although not really knowing what I was up to; to protect herself from being hurt, she stayed uninvolved. Yet almost daily she offered quips and comments about me not attending school. Mama called on the former principal of my elementary school in South San Gabriel to talk to me. This was the same school where Mrs. Snelling performed seeming miracles for my brother. While Joe amounted something, to Mama I turned out to be a smudge on this earth, with no goals, no interests except what got puked up from the streets. Bespectacled and bow-tied, Mr. Ruthro wore unpressed suits which hung on his tall, lean frame. Mama knocked and I invited them in. Mr. Rothro ducked under the doorway and looked around, amazed at the magnificent disorder, the colors and scrawl on every wall, the fantastic use of the imagination for such a small room. Mama left and Mr. Ruthro, unable to find a place to sit, stood around and provided an encouragement of words. Some very fine words. "Luis, you've always struck me as an intelligent young man," Mr. Rothro said. "But your mother tells me you're wasting away your days. I'd like to see you back in school. If there's anything I can do -- write a letter, make a phone call -- perhaps you can return at a level worthy of your gifts." I sat on a bed in front of an old Royal typewriter with keys that repeatedly got stuck and a carbon ribbon that kept jumping off its latch. My father gave me the typewriter after I found it among boxes, books, and personal items in the garage.

"What are you doing?" Mr. Rothro inquired.
"I'm writing a book," I said, matter-of-factly.
"You're what? May I see?"

I let him glimpse at the leaf of paper in the typewriter with barely visible type, full of x's where I crossed out errors as I worked. I didn't know how to type; I just punched the letters I needed with my index fingers. It took me forever to finish a page, but I kept at it in between my other activities. By then I actually had a quarter of a ream done.
"What's the book about, son?" Rothro asked.
"Just things...what I've seen, what I feel, about the people around me. You know -- things."
"Interesting," Rothro said. "In fact, I believe you're probably doing better than most teenagers -- even better, I'm afraid, than some who are going to school."
He smiled, said he had to go but if I needed his help, not to hesitate to call.
I acknowledged his goodbye and watched him leave the room and walk up to the house, shaking his head. He wasn't the first to wonder about this enigma of a boy, who looked like he could choke the life out of you one minute and then recite a poem in another.

Prior to this, I tried to attend Continuation High School in Alhambra -- later renamed Century High to remove the stigma of being the school for those who couldn't make it anywhere else. After a week, they "let" me go. A few of us in Lomas fought outside with some dudes from 18th Street who were recruiting a section of their huge gang in the Alhambra area. But Continuation High School was the last stop. When you failed at Continuation, the only place left was the road.

Then my father came up with a plan; when he proposed it, I knew it arose out of frustration.

It consisted of me getting up every day at 4:30 a.m. and going with him to his job at Pierce Junior College in the San Fernando Valley -- almost 40 miles away on the other side of Los Angeles. He would enroll me in Taft High School near the college. The school pulled in well-off white kids, a good number of whom were Jewish. My father felt they had the best education. I didn't really care so I said sure, why not?

Thus we began our daily trek to a familiar and hostile place -- the college was located near Reseda where the family once lived for almost a year. The risk for my father involved me finding out what he really did for a living. Dad told us he worked as a laboratory technician, how a special category had been created at Pierce College for him.
My father worked in the biology labs and maintained the science department's museum and weather station. But to me, he was an overblown janitor. Dad cleaned the cages of snakes, tarantulas, lizards and other animals used in the labs. He swept floors and wiped study tables; dusted and mopped the museum area. Dad managed some technical duties such as gathering the weather station reports, preparing work materials for students, and feeding and providing for the animals. Dad felt proud of his job -- but he was only a janitor.

I don't know why this affected me. There's nothing wrong with being a janitor -- and one as prestigious as my dad! But for years, I had this running fantasy of my scientist father in a laboratory carrying out vital experiments -- the imagination of a paltry kid who wanted so much to break away from the constraints of a society which expected my father to be a janitor or a laborer -- when I wanted a father who transformed the world. I had watched too much TV.

One day I walked into the college's science department after school.
"Mr. Rodriguez, you have to be more careful with the placement of laboratory equipment," trembled a professor's stern voice.
"I unnerstan'...Sarry...I unnerstand'," Dad replied.
"I don't think you do, this is the second time in a month this equipment has not been placed properly."
I glanced over so as not to be seen. My dad looked like a lowly peasant, a man with a hat in his hand -- apologetic. At home he was king, el jefito -- the "word." But here my father turned into somebody else's push-around. Dad should have been equals with anyone, but with such bad English...
Oh my father, why don't you stand up to them? Why don't you be the man you are at home?
I turned away and kept on walking.

The opportunity for me to learn something new became an incentive for attending Taft High School. At Keppel and Continuation, I mainly had industrial arts classes. So I applied for classes which stirred a little curiosity: photography, advanced art, and literature. The first day of school, a Taft High School counselor called me into her office.
"I'm sorry, young man, but the classes you chose are filled up," she said.
"What do you mean? Isn't there any way I can get into any of them?"
"I don't believe so. Besides, your transcripts show you're not academically prepared for your choices. These classes are privileges, for those who have maintained the proper grades in the required courses. And I must add, you've obtained most of what credits you do have in industrial-related courses."
"I had to -- that's all they'd give me," I said. "I just thought, maybe, I can do something else here. It seems like a good school and I want a chance to do something other than with my hands."
"It doesn't work that way," she replied. "I think you'll find our industrial arts subjects more suited to your needs."
I shifted in my seat and looked out the window
"Whatever."

The classes she enrolled me in were print shop, auto shop, and weight training. I did manage a basic English literature class. I walked past the photography sessions and stopped to glimpse the students going in and out, some with nice cameras, and I thought about how I couldn't afford those cameras anyway: Who needs that stupid class?" I'm sorry, young man, but the classes you chose are filled up," she said.
"What do you mean? Isn't there any way I can get into any of them?"
"I don't believe so. Besides, your transcripts show you're not academically prepared for your choices. These classes are privileges, for those who have maintained the proper grades in the required courses. And I must add, you've obtained most of what credits you do have in industrial-related courses."
"I had to -- that's all they'd give me," I said. "I just thought, maybe, I can do something else here. It seems like a good school and I want a chance to do something other than with my hands."
"It doesn't work that way," she replied. "I think you'll find our industrial arts subjects more suited to your needs."
I shifted in my seat and looked out the window.
"Whatever."

The classes she enrolled me in were print shop, auto shop, and weight training. I did manage a basic English literature class. I walked past the photography sessions and stopped to glimpse the students going in and out, some with nice cameras, and I thought about how I couldn't those cameras anyway: Who needs that stupid class?
In print shop I worked the lead foundry for the mechanical Linotype typesetter. I received scars on my arms due to splashes of molten lead. In auto shop, I did a lot of tune-ups, oil changes and some transmission work. And I lifted weights and started to bulk up. The one value I had was being the only Mexican in school -- people talked about it whenever I approached.
One day at lunch time, I passed a number of hefty dudes in lettered jackets. One of them said something. Maybe it had nothing to do with me. But I pounced on him anyway. Several teachers had to pull me off.

They designated me as violent and uncontrollable; they didn't know "what to do with me."

After school, I walked to Pierce College and waited for Dad to finish his work so we could go home, which usually went past dark. I spent many evenings in the library. But I found most books boring and unstimulating.
I picked up research and history books and went directly to the index and looked up "Mexican." If there were a few items under this topic, I read them; I read them all.
Every day I browsed, ventured into various sections of shelves; most of this struck me with little interest. One evening, I came across a crop of new books on a special shelf near the front of the library. I picked one up, then two. The librarian looked at me through the side of her eye, as if she kept tabs on whoever pursued those books.
They were primarily about the black experience, works coming out of the flames which engulfed many American cities in the 1960's. I discovered Claude Brown's Manchild In The Promised Land, Eldridge Cleaver's Soul On Ice, and the Autobiography of Malcolm X. I found poetry by Don L. Lee and LeRoi Jones (now known as Haki R. Madhubuti and Amiri Baraka, respectively). And a few books by Puerto Ricans and Chicanos: Victor Hernandez Cruz's Snaps and Ricardo Sanchez's Canto y Grito: Mi Liberacion were two of them. Here were books with a connection to me.
And then there was Piri Thomas, a Puerto Rican brother, un camarada de aquellas: His book Down These Mean Streets became a living Bible for me. I dog-eared it, wrote in it, copied whole passages so I wouldn't forget their texture, the passion, this searing work of a street dude and hype in Spanish Harlem --- a barrio boy like me, on the other side of America.

I didn't last long at Taft High School. My only real friend was Edwin, a black dude who lived at the Pacific Boys Home. During lunch hour, we "worked" the neighborhood: breaking into the nearby fancy houses. Edwin eventually got popped stealing a car and ended up in youth camp.
There were a few Jewish lowriders I talked with in auto shop. We shared ideas about hydraulic lifts and pinstripe body designs. They even sported cholo-style clothes, slicked their hair back, and learned a few street songs and dances. But nobody else dealt with me.
One day I came in slightly late to my English Lit class and sat down; I placed a book on top of the desk. The teacher walked up to me and picked up the book.
"American Me by Beatrice Griffith," he said. "Where did you get this book?"
"It's a library book --- it's about the pachuco experience in the 1940's."
"Sounds good, but the book you were to bring here today was Wordsworth's Preludes. That is your assignment, not American Me."
This book is something I'd like to read. I can even do a report on it."
"Young man, you don't decide your assignments in this class. If you can't participate like the rest of us, I suggest you leave."
"Fine --- who gives a fuck what I want!"
I stormed out of there. Needless to say, this was my last day in the English Lit class.

But the teachers' strike of 1970 was the real reason I stopped going to Taft. The strike lasted a couple of months. But when the teachers settled with the Los Angeles School Board, I stayed out; I felt the school district hadn't settled with me yet.
I ended up back in the streets. Somehow, though, it wasn't the same as before. A power pulsed in those books I learned to savor, in the magical hours I spent in the library -- and it called me back to them.
Sometimes I roamed the street with nothing to do and ended up in a library. Later on my own I picked up Wordsworth, Poe, Emerson and Whitman. Chicharron and the others noticed the difference. Chicharron even called me the "businessman" because whenever he'd ask me about the books I carried, I would say: "Just taking care of business."
I also learned not to be angry with my father. I learned something about my father's love, which he never expressed in words, but instead, at great risk, he gave me the world of books -- a gift for a lifetime.