Norma offered me a soda and two sandwiches she'd snatched from work. I ate them by her pool, which shimmered under an orange porch light. She offered me her neck, too, and I gladly accepted it, putting down my own dark love placa. She moaned. She said that I reminded her of Jesus, my dead cousin, and I didn't care that she made the comparison. I had food to eat and a place to throw my besos. She was misted over with perfume, but I could taste the salt on her neck and shoulders. I struggled to bring down a strap from her swimsuit, but she fought me off playfully, saying that I was a naughty boy. So I fed my hunger on her neck and her shoulder. We traded tongues and then I was back to her neck. I didn't pull my face away until she said through a man, "You know that Angel did it, don't you?"

I pushed her away and looked at her. "What do you mean?"
She didn't answer. "You're just like Jesus," she whispered. Her tongue was a flickering flame on my ear.

I made her stop and repeated, "What do you mean about Angel and Jesus?" Norma quickly cooled. In the glare of the porch light, with her tattoo tear, she looked like a vampire. Her eyeteeth shone. Her hair was mussed.

"Jesus was so nice," Norma said.
"Don't kid yourself," I said. "Jesus was a gangster like everybody else."
"But he was nice."
I didn't say anything to this. We sat at the pool's edge, our feet in the water. She kicked her legs girlishly and the light on the surface broke like glass.

"I don't believe you," I told her after a moment of silence. Evil as he was, I couldn't see Angel doing Jesus like that. Maybe someone else, but not Jesus.
"It's all around. Everyone knows, Eddie." She told me that she had heard the rumor--the chisme--from homies at Holmes playground.
She said that Jesus was mad because they had a stolen a car together and Angel sold it but didn't split the profits.
"You ain't making this up?" I asked.

She shook her head. Her eyes were large, stamped with so much of the ugly world. I jumped to my feet. My heart pounded at the thought that Angel had plunged a knife into Jesus, his carnal, or at least the friend he kicked around with. Now he had my gun, my aunt's, and I thought that he would use it as easily as he would brush his teeth.

"Don't tell anyone I told you," Norma said. Her eyes were even bigger.
I lowered myself into the pool and then pushed myself back up on the edge, water falling off in sheets. I had to cool off.
"You won't, will you?" Norma pleaded.
"Nah, girl." I figured that I would play dumb my usual role, and not let on that I knew.

Norma kicked her leg in the water, and even though she looked good sitting at the edge of the pool, her breasts like pillows, I knew I had to get out of there.
"See ya," I said to Norma. I grabbed my clothes and jumped a small chain-link fence. I figure that I might have to get used to jumping fences.

The streetlight threw out a medicine-colored glare on the asphalt street. Like a cat, I kept to the shadows and didn't speak up when I saw three Hmongs easing a wire hook inside a car window. Break-ins were as common as yawns. Nothing new in Fresno.
My apartment was quiet as a shoe and just as smelly. All the windows were locked up. I flung two open and then turned on the swamp cooler, but kept the lights out. The moonlight flooded the dining table, where I spotted about three dollars in coins. Under the coins there was a scrawled note from my mom that read, "Mi'jo, you go get some coffee tomorrow."

In bed I slept some, but I mostly lay listening for sounds of footsteps. When I woke just after seven, my eyes felt raw. I got up, the mattress groaning under the weight of my body. Since there was no coffee, I drank water. I rattled a box of raisins in the cupboard, opened the flap, and tossed them into my mouth.
"The dream life," I joked to myself.

I sat on my couch, a hand-me-down from my mom, and would have sat there all day, except a knock on the front door spooked me. I jumped to my feet and crept across the floor. I peeked out the blinds and saw somebody in uniform. At first I thought, The police, but when I saw the stripe on his sleeve, I realized that it was the military. I thought, Shit, man, they're here to recruit me. I was suddenly filled with hope.

When I pulled open the door, the smiling soldier yelled, "Border patrol, homes," grabbed me by the throat, and pushed me hard to the wall. My eyes almost leapt from my sockets and my tongue flapped like a lizard's tail. He held me there until he had his fill of tough-guy tactics. Chuckling, he let me go. It was Jose Dominguez, a friend from school I used to sniff glue with. He was a cop in the marines and had learned a lot of in-close fighting techniques that could mess up people for life. After my eyes cleared and my tongue fixed itself back into place, I punched him for real in the stomach. Jose took it with a stutter step backward, and with a grin bellowed, "You can't hurt this soldier, homes."

It was too early in the morning to bother with him. I went back to the couch , swallowing and feeling the damage to my throat.

"What are you doing here?" I croaked. I picked up a newspaper and rolled it up. A black fly circled the air.
"I'm on leave."
"You're on leave, and you come back to this hole?" I swallowed and then said, "You messed up my throat."

"I didn't even touch you. If I had touched you, you woulda known." Jose glanced around my apartment. "How come you're living in this cave?"

I ignored him. I busied myself with the fly. I whacked at the air and missed. I told Jose, without much conviction, "I'm doing OK."
"You look like shit, homes," he told me. "When's the last time you ate?"
I didn't say that breakfast was water and raisins. I took another swipe at the fly and missed.
"Come on," Jose whined. "Lets go out for breakfast--Cuca's or Mama Luisa's?"

I got up, ran a razor over the baby stubble on my face, and slipped into a T-shirt with a Champion spark plug on the front. Jose and I had kicked around since junior high when we pulled together our first peewee gang, the Impalas. We scratched our placas in wet cement, tagged walls and signs, and occasionally ripped off bikes from crybaby kids. We would have stayed friends, except he moved across town. We didn't meet up again until we were at Roosevelt High, and by then he was a wrestler and had changed. He was clean-cut, just like now. He liked uniforms back then, and apparently he still liked them. You'd never have guessed that we had tripped around Fresno sniffing glue from paper bags. Now he was a marine with cropped hair.
"You got a ride?" I asked as we stepped into the sunlight. I peeked around cautiously as we strolled up the driveway toward the street. No telling where Angel could be hiding with his cannon.

"I got my dad's car," Jose said as his hands swung at his sides as if he were marching. "He had a heart attack."
"Ah, that's too bad," I said, meaning it. Mr. Dominguez had been a suave guy. One time he'd taken us to the lake, where he got drunk and passed out. We snagged the empty cans and downed the leftover piss-colored beer.
"He's OK," Jose said. "He just can't work no more. Or drink."
For one greedy second I thought of asking Jose where his dad worked. Maybe I could get his job if it was still open. But I just swallowed and rubbed my throat, which still hurt from his grip.

We hopped into his father's cheap Dodge Colt and took off with the speed and noise of a lawnmower. Blue smoke hung in the air.

On the way over to Cuca's, Jose told me about the marines--from the day they buzzed his hair to the hand-to-hand combat with real bayonets. He told me that he had gained fifteen pounds and put on a boatload of muscles. He said even his butt muscles got hard. "No way!" I laughed.
"Feel it, if you don't believe it," he told me.
"In your dreams, homes."
He told me then, seriously, that he was being shipped out, destination unknown because it was top secret. He wanted to kick around Fresno one more time.

I clicked my tongue at this top-secret stuff. He was playing games.

"You know, homes," Jose said as we moved over the bumpy tracks to the west side. "You know I won't be eating any Mexican food for a long time." I didn't say anything. My stomach was already caved in. The topic of food only made it worse. We drove in silence, the Dodge Colt doing alright once it got going. Then Jose asked, "You ain't doing too good, huh?"
"I could be doing worse."
I told him about my poor cousin now on his rack of black earth, and Jose just shook his head, whistled, and said, "I guess you could be messing up worse."
He asked me who had done Jesus, and I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "Someone."
At a red light, some punk kids saluted Jose with a pinche finger, and Jose returned it with a grin. He pulled the Colt away with its lawn-mower growl.
"Yeah, once you're dead, you're dead." I said of my poor cousin.
"De veras. I saw some films in boot camp. Stuff the public never sees."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"You know, films about safety, so we don't go around doing dumb shit." He described how they were herded into an auditorium and shown clips of injured and dead marines, all maimed by their own stupid errors--or so the sergeant barked.
Jose talked about a guy who sliced off his chin with a bayonet and another who, for a joke, stuffed a bullet in his nostril, tripped, and blew out his left eye. I half listened with my eyes peeled for Angel.
"Yeah, bro. It's tough in the marines!"
"You get to eat good, no?"
"Chocolate milk seven days a week," he crowed. "They got a brown cow back there in the kitchen."
Then Jose started in about how he had to club drunk marines. He said he was bad. I was already tired of his macho shit about marines, but I stayed quiet. It was a free breakfast, and I knew that Jose, deep down in his heart, was OK.
Before we got to the restaurant, Jose drove by Leticia's house. Leti was Jose's girl for three years, but they broke up when she caught him with Norma.
He honked the horn and when he saw the curtain part, he waved, laughed, and drove away.
"You didn't get over her, huh," I said.
"You mean, she didn't get over me."
I could see that Jose was still bothered about Leti. But it was his love life, not mine.
At Cuca's we got first-rate service, not only because we knew the owners but also because Jose was wearing his uniform. He stood tall and clean, not like me, a rag dipped into a pail of soapy water.
"It's tough being a marine," he told the owner, a woman my mom and every Mexican in Fresno knew.
"You look so handsome." La senora smiled.
Jose beamed.
We ordered the works, chile verde with a couple of eggs on top. Plus sodas. As we finished our grub, a shirtless black dude with red eyes came into the restaurant. I sized up his arms for needle tracks, but his veins weren't tattered with pucker marks. I assumed he was homeless.
"People, I got onions!" he shouted. "You need 'em, ma'am?"
He directed his attention to the owner, who waved him off as she muttered in Spanish. The black dude turned next to a Tejano returning from the rest room to hs seat.
"Nah, we ain't interested in onions," la senora Cuca repeated as she rubbed down the counter. Her patience was up. "You gotta go!" "They're real good," the dude said.
"No! Go! !Andale!" La senora waved a dish towel at him.
The dude looked around the small restaurant, where the patrons were eating slowly and waiting for him to leave. They didn't spend good money to watch the homeless hustle onions.
"Onions," he repeated, this time quieter. "Whole sack of onions for three dollars."
When Jose called him over with a nod of his head, the dude hustled over and said, "Twenty-pound sack for three dollars. A good deal!"
I could smell his sweat and the iron scent of someone desperately waiting for a sale.
"Where did you get them onions, man?" Jose asked.
"I found 'em."
Jose and I knew that he snagged them from the fields.
"I found 'em on the road," he added, pointing vaguely at the door. He looked from me to Jose and then said, "You a marine?"
"What do you think?"
"You kill anybody?"
"No, man. I ain't into hurting people."
The black dude looked at the smeared faces of our plates. "I need money, man. I got onions, and family is hungry."
Jose rolled an ice cube into his mouth and said, "I'll be outside in a sec."
"Be quick, sir," the black dude said as he walked backward. "It's hot as hell out there."
He left the restaurant calling out one last time, "Onions!"
Stuffed, Jose and I sat in our booth and watched a fly walk back and forth, like a sentry. I told Jose that the fly was him, a marine fly.

"!Chale! In the marines we got flies three times as large. That fly looks like it belongs in the air force."
Jose paid. We left the restaurant and the sunlight was like a knife in our eyes. Bums, day laborers, and wanna-be gangsters hugged the dusty shadows of boarded-up businesses.
"It's hot," Jose said.
"Wait until three," I said. I turned when I heard the dude with the onions hiss, "Over here, my friend."
Jose fit his cap snugly on his head and walked toward the dude, who hustled us to the parking lot. He headed toward a car holding five children, two in the front and three in the back. The car, a huge Buick Electra, was a standard RV of poverty. The windows were greasy. The upholstery was throwing up its guts. One of the children, still in diapers, was howling.
"These be really good onions," the dude said. He opened the trunk of the car with a poke of a screwdriver into the hole where a lock had been. He lifted one bag and the car squeaked.
"Three dollars for a sack. Why don't you take five."
"What am I going to do with five sacks?"
The man looked at Jose and said, "That's right, you a marine and going overseas. Am I right?"
Jose didn't want to rap with the guy. "Just give me two."
"Why not three?" He looked at me and remarked, "Your amigo could use some onions."
"I don't need a sack."
"It's vitamin C. Good stuff. Tasty with taters. How your kind of people call potatoes?"
"Papas," Jose said. He seemed to be smiling, but the smile was forced by the sun's glare. Jose wanted the deal over.
"Them! I ain't got 'em now but I can find 'em."
"Right in the road, huh?" Jose said.
Jose ended up buying three sacks of onions and then, a real soldier, handed a pack of Juicy Fruit to the kids in the car. The black dude thanked us a hundred times, even bowed, and with a sack in each hand, Jose led the way to the car. I carried the third sack, which felt heavy as a body.
We loaded the sacks in the trunk of the Dodge Colt and were getting ready to leave when I spotted Mr. Stile's red Toyota across the street in front of the Azteca movie theater. Heat was wavering off its roof and hood.
"Jose!" I called. He nearly jumped out of his shoes.
"You think you callin Mexico? I'm standing right here. No reason to shout." Jose was bent down, checking out the front wheel. He stood up, spanking dust from his palms. "What?"
I told him about how I had worked for Mr. Stiles and had my truck--Mr. Stile's truck--stolen right out from under me.
Jose scanned the block, his cap off.
"Let's go get it," Jose said after a moment.
"I don't know, man."
"Whatta you, scared?"
"Ain't you?"
Jose scanned the block again, this time more carefully. His gaze fell on two winos and the winos' dog. He opened up his car door and from underneath the seat brought out a crescent wrench. He threw me a screwdriver, which I turned over in my hands and examined.
"You know this dude Stile's number?" he asked without looking at me. He had turned his attention to the truck.
I told him I did, and Jose said, "Call and tell him that you found his ride. Tell him to get down here and we'll wait for him."
In a flash I went back into Cuca's restaurant and used the pay telephone. Nervous, with sweat running like the Mississippi River down my brown face, I got Mr. Stiles on the third ring. He seemed groggy. When I started to explain where his truck was, he said with a cry in his voice, "I trusted you, Eddie."
"Mr. Stiles, I didn't mess you over," I said with a cry in my own voice. "It's the honest truth. I'll be waiting with the truck and I'll tell you how it was."
"Why did you do it Eddie?" he cried. He was wide awake.
"I'm telling you, I didn't do it!" I told him I had gone to the dump, done my job, picked up a refrigerator, and when I took it home, someone snagged his truck. There was silence on his end. I pictured his house with one tree on the front lawn. Birch tree/bitch tree, I thought. I pictured his house and then the kid on the tricycle. Right there, at Cuca's, I had the feeling that cops were going to be involved. I saw myself on the ground, legs splayed, a cop's boot three inches from my face.
I shook the image. I gave him the directions and told him if he wanted his truck to get down here. I hung up, my legs weak. I left the restaurant without eyeing anyone, not even la senora, who followed me with her gaze.
The sun was harsh and for a moment I couldn't see. I shaded my eyes and when I looked across the street to the red Toyota, I saw Jose bending over like he was checking a tire, except there was no tire. He was bending over and three guys--brown boys in green Dickies--were running. One turned and threw a bottle at Jose. The bottle missed but kicked up shattered glass.
"I'm going to get you!" I yelled, and ran across the street, searching for something to pick up. I was going to mess up those boys.
Jose was stabbed. He was down on one knee, blood in the shape of the United States on the sidewalk. The winos and their dogs came over to see if they could help.
"Jose!" I screamed over him, and undid his jacket. "I'll get 'em, I'll mess 'em away."
I laid him down on the sidewalk and he kicked his legs, like he was riding a bike. The blood seeped from his shoulder and near his waist. His eyes had collected tears and they were ready to race down his face. I don't know if they were tears of pain of tears of embarrassment from getting knifed by thirteen-year-old changos.
Jose bicycled his legs and rolled to his side. He tried to get up, but I held him down gently and told the winos to go to Cuca's for help and to get some towels and ice. They staggered away. The wino dogs followed, tails shaking.
"You shoulda waited," I cried.
In the distance, I heard the jingle of a mexicano's paleta cart and farther off, less sweet, the blowing siren of a cop car.

The next morning I left for the hospital, my head up not because I was feeling good but because I was keeping alert. No telling when someone was going to jam a knife in me. No telling when Angel would pull a gun from a paper bag and fire on me just as I crossed the street or bent down to tie my shoes.

"Nothin's right," I muttered to myself as the hospital door signed open and the cool air replaced the warm, humid air. I noticed there were more people going in than coming out. It was a spooky thought. You show up at the hospital and don't get to leave. I raced to the sixth floor. Jose was lying up there with tiny plastic hoses in his nose and IVs in his arms. Stitched up, drugged up, and slobbering on a clean pillow, Jose was going to make it.

Jose's family was there. I could feel that they thought it was my fault. I tried to tell them I had gone to make a phone call and when I returned Jose had been stabbed. They looked away hen I told them about the red Toyota truck and how Jose was going to help me. They knew it was my fault, and Jose was too groggy to stand by me. Carloads of relatives showed up. Even Jose's ex, Leti, showed up spilling tears. She cried into her hands, both tattooed, I saw, with Jose's initials. Jose's mother held her and Leti hugged her back. It was a regular feel-good session.

I walked back to Cuca's. Mr. Stile's truck was gone. I figured that he had come and gotten it, and he may or may not have looked down and seen Jose's dried blood. No telling.

I bought a Popsicle and examined my situation. I had returned the truck but at the cost of seeing my friend get knifed. I had traded headaches. Then there was Angel lurking somewhere in Fresno. At that moment he could have been beating someone with a pipe or pulling a holdup at a 7-Eleven.

With my Popsicle melting, I hurried to the bus stop. I kept my distance from the winos and the wino dogs. Ten minutes later I boarded a bus and got spooked again when I noticed there were more people getting on than getting off. We were all poor, all going somewhere. But where?

written by Gary Soto

from "Buried Onions"
© 1997