Oh, yeah. The police had �em locked up. About nine or ten of us for narcotics. Ever since Jaunitos little brother ODed. Only two were in rehab. Do these police really think they�re changing lives?

But, that�s not important, because peering through the crack of the stained sheet curtains I saw two females knocking on Betos� door. His girlfriend: Suca (swollen with pregnancy) and Miela in tears.

His mother stood behind him and he dismissed her absentmindedly.

Oh, Grita just had a miscarriage. She was fourteen. I told her that that�s how it would end, but bitches don�t be listening. Now, Suca�s upset and the fetus forms.

He�s handsome. Nearing eighteen, and he stood there with slick back hair- so black it was almost navy and the general neighborhood apparel of khaki dickeys and belt. His sprouting moustache and bare rippling chest made the ensemble complete. His hands were callused and blackened from listing boxes and mechanics. Anything for his son and his unborn child.

Tomorrow was Dia De Los Muertos and Beto paid me a visit.

The day pounded and the night sparkled in a flurry of dandelions, liquor bottles, and peeling low-riders with hydraulics.

So, on my front steps (after the little ones had gone to bed) Beto and I shared a blunt under the golden moonlight.

There, he�d spill out his problems to me like a bucket of paint on a canvas where I would paint a clear picture. A picture he could understand. I did this for him and for everyone. Me. That is why they call me the Ghetto Mama.

�They killed Marcelo, now they are looking for me. Suca�s afraid of loosing the baby. She�s afraid of loosing me.�

�This is your second child, correct?� I asked knowingly as I rolled a candy skull between my fingers.

�Si. You know my baby boy:
Roberto.� The name of the round child was tattooed on my brain, since I�d held him, watched him, since I�d changed his boiled diapers, and fed him on the milk of Sucas� breasts.

Beto works hard for his son and his unborn child. How many times have I seen him carry that infantile boy down the gnarled sidewalks of the barrio?

Suca cries at the sight of him. She loves her son, but I believe that there is part of her that resents him, for taking her childhood away from her.

Across the street his front door opens and two children and his mother- short and round, trundle down the apartment steps.

�Mama?� He cried, lolloping across the street. She was going with the children to the church for night mass and Beto went inside where his eight-year-old sister, Jessica, his five-year-old brother, Alejandro, and his son were still watching television.

That night there was a shrine to their grandparents in their kitchen scattered with water stained photographs and candles whose flames licked at the rosey cheeks of the Virgin Mary and caressed the toes of JesuCristo.

The t.v glowed casting flickering blue shadows across the dim flat. Dandelions strewn across the bare baseboard, and Beto eased into an easy chair.

And then there was a knock at the door Jessica jumped to get it and two angry vatos, dressed to kill, were in the doorway. But, Jessica was headstrong- nothing scared her, because her demented cousin Carlos, cut her arm with razors when she cried.

�Who are you? What do you want?� Through squinted, almond, eyes they saw the truth in the round, muddy, waters that were the windows to her soul.

�Friends of your brother. Is he here?�

�Si. Come in.� The other winked in an almost friendly way.

�We�ll stay here.�

�Your friends are at the door, puto!�

�Shut the fuck up!� Beto clamoured ot the front door and rolled his head in dismay when he saw who it was. �What do you want?� His fingers tightened around the doorknob nervously. The cool brass felt good against his sweaty palms.

The cholos went off in angry whispers that morphed into ferocious growls. Beto got more worried.

Smoke in the night and a stream of blood pours down her leg and brands her clothes. Sinking to the floor with the sound of Betos� name on her tongue.

Forcing themselves into the flat Jessica grabs up Roberto and flees, running across the street to my flat. With screams of fright and blows to the face Beto sends Alejandro under the box spring bed� to watch.

The click of the gun clip makes the nieghborhood seem silent. Betos� moist panting exudes into the warm, night, air.

Jessica, with Roberto in her arms pounds on the door and I, alone in the house, open it.

Holding the infant close- perched on my hip, on my front steps with Jessica pressed to my side. A man screams, a fetus is dead, and a gun shot is fired. The two cholos retreat, leaving a blood splattered easy chair, a dead father, and a frightened little brother under a box spring bed.

Here, every day is Dia De Los Muertos.

I like it.

Please tell me I'm not the only person here who bothered reading it.

Me too, very rich as well as obscene , not that it affects my impression of the story, but is it fact or fiction or a ???%mix of the two? Cool!

except, of course , for the fact that what is described is totally uncool. The more you have seen and felt of evil the more you can appreciate and revel in /marvel at goodness.

My favorite part of slc punk , one of them, is when Heroin Bob, tell Stevo that he feels
at home, and that it feels good, such a departure from the hardcore beat your fucking face in punk persona, and having gathered the courage to express feelings so openly and with a beautifully projected glee , subtle glee venturing out into the light of day, coaxed and nurtured, he looks out the window
and all in a moment accepts his past, embraces his life and nurtures his future...
only to be shot down hard by the only person in the world he had cared enough to tell about it. It was exquisetely brutal.......

[This message has been edited by winki (edited 10-10-2000).]

It's nonfiction. That really happened to me.