From up above, from a rooftop, or an upper window, they could be dancing. The hip hop thumps from the oversize speakers in the trunk of one of the cars, a late seventies Monte Carlo with the metal flake image of Popo, the Aztec warrior, his dead bride Itza draped across his muscular arms, airbrushed onto the hood.
At street level, the dance assumes violent proportions, a ballet of flying fists glancing off shaved heads, looping strings of blood arcing through the air, bodies lifting under the force of uppercuts and roundhouse punches.
As fighters fall unconscious, they’re dragged from the circle of spectators, and the victors turn their attentions towards each other, a melee who’s fury is contained by the ring of witnesses and some as yet unknown code. The fighters dwindle till two remain, a hulking giant with a sweeping mustache and long black hair tied back in an Indian braid, and a smaller fighter, as thin as barbed wire whose fists are a blur. As they dispatch their last opponents, and only they are left standing, a tentative truce is assumed in a pause in the action.
The giant tilts back a bottle of tequila and drinks till it drips down his chin.
“Fuck this shit,” the smaller guys says, and walks away.
The giant roars, and flexes his muscles as he points to a passive group of vatos leaning against the trunk of a car.
“You Kings are a bunch of pussies,” he yells. “I beat all your soldiers, and I’ll beat you,” he bellows, as his extended finger sweeps half the crowd. “Come on,” he yells, “bring it on.”
The crowd is predominately male, on separate sides of the circle, divided by hairstyles, half shaved heads, the other half with long single braids, and the giant taunts the shave heads.
They sit impassive, in khakis and t-shirts, their postures slack, taciturn, but their eyes shine like chunks of obsidian.
“That fool,” Saul says to Chivo. “I’m gonna waste his ass.”
“Not here, dude,” Chivo says. “His time’ll come.”
“All you fuckers,” the big guy yells, “come on.” He’s enraged, and his eyes flash like flames.
“So what, you think you’re badass, or something?” It’s Davie, Jessie’s little brother. Jesse’s O.G. He’s in Huntsville, now, doing ten for cocaine. Davie’s fourteen, but the Kings let him hang around because of Jesse. But it sucks being somebody’s little brother. Davie wants to make his own name.
“Fuck off, punk.”
“What’s a matter? You afraid of me?”
The Kings shift uncomfortably. Anything happens to Davie, and Jesse’s gonna be pissed. And when Jesse gets pissed, that’s a bad thing. Davie slips between a couple of Kings, till he’s in the circle, squaring off against the big guy. The big guy curls a lip, so his mustache arches like a caterpillar.
“You punks gonna let this kid do your fighting?” he asks the Kings.
The Kings’ postures range from indolence to controlled rage, but they all stand still, waiting to see what develops. They’re in a bad spot. Nobody wants to step up to the big guy, not here, not now. Davie’s put them in a position where they can’t win.
“Go away, kid,” the big guy tells Davie.
“Fuck you, puto,” Davie tells him.
“Walk away.”
“Go fuck your mother.”
The big guy squares up to Davie. There’s still fifteen feet between them. The big guy’s face goes hard, and his eyes turn hollow, and far away.
Davie’s got a rock. He’s been throwing rocks all his life. At cats. At the neighbors. Three nights ago he broke the window on a police cruiser as it drove through the barrio. He’s got a good rock. Smooth. Round. He picked it up this afternoon, knowing it was a good rock. He whips it like a fast ball. His arm’s a blur. His hand comes from behind him, hip level, and whips up and over his shoulder, and that rock travels like a bullet, covering the distance between him and the big guy in flash, and it catches the big guy right between the eyes. It was a one in a million shot. Like a half court three pointer.
Luck, enhanced by practice. Like a three rail bank shot.
The big guy drops like a sack of shit. Straight down. Like every bone in his body were reduced to sudden dust.
He doesn’t die, but he doesn’t get up. After that, for the rest of his violently abbreviated life, his left eye would wander off sometimes, looking, maybe, for that rock it never saw.