All Day Music.

I.

Out in the garage, he opened the hood of a ’72 Electra and his first tall can of the day. The Buick and the Budweiser. It was warm and early and pleasant. Half past ten in the morning, cold beer, birds screaming at each other, Henry Lopez surveyed the day’s work as it sat there inside the cluttered one car garage. He had been offered a hundred dollars cash to tune-up the Electra by an ex-brother in-law who lived down in Norwalk. He knew the job was worth more and that the labor would be tedious and unfulfilling. But he took a second swig, looked around and tried, with all conjured might, to evade his own thoughts.
Henry looked down into the heart of the weathered monster. A corroded 455 big block. He stared down into what had once been a glorious machine. And then began his work.

“Henry! Phone for you!” A child’s voice screamed from inside the house. A screen door separated his place of business from the inside of the tiny house, starting with the kitchen. He ignored the noise and lit a non-filtered cigarette, continuing his labor under the hood. He didn’t like phones.
Then, a lovely little woman, nine years in age, wearing two long black braids, appeared before him, hands on her waist, startling him just a little.
“Uncle Henry, there is a phone call for you,” she said.
Henry stood up and smiled. Hello Priscilla.
“Who is it?” he asked, ash finally dropping from the cigarette in his mouth.
Priscilla rolled her eyes in frustration.
“You know who!”
“Yeah, yeah, ok.” He laughed a little and looked away.
“I just thought you should know,” she said. “You know she’ll keep calling.”
Henry thought about it, tried not to, couldn’t help it.
Priscilla, his niece and accomplice, walked back into the house to where she left the phone, gave the familiar excuse for his absence and took the familiar message, usually an earful of shit about responsibility and money and so forth. Then she hung up and returned to reading her book and watching TV simultaneously.
Henry yelled to her from the garage, “Thank you mija. You’re an incredible woman.”
No response. “Did you know that, baby?”
“I don’t like when they yell in my ear on the stupid phone!”
“You’re more of a woman, than…any woman I’ve known, more than any one of them you know…” Henry trailed off, talking to himself, unsure if his niece was still listening. He figured she was.

Priscilla opened a can of orange soda and listened to her uncle work. Priscilla Mejia, at her young age, knew some womanly truths. Men were little babies, no matter what. No different from her little cousins, crying when they want something, console them and satisfy them, then they're crying about something else. They seem to bury themselves with needs. Men were incapable but also inevitably threaded into her life in one way or another, for better or worse. She loved her uncle though, loved him just the same.

By noon, it was searing and uncomfortable, especially inside the garage. He knew he should take a break and go inside the house where it was cooler but he had already changed the oil, replaced a hose and topped off all the fluids. He planned on finishing up early and having the end of the afternoon to sit on the porch and listen to a Dodger game, or call up Lilia to see if she was down. But he couldn’t think too far ahead. Something was leaking from under the Buick. He needed a beer. He dropped a wrench. The phone was ringing. Goddamn, it was hot. He could hear his niece tell her that he wasn’t around. He was busy. He was working. No, not like a real job but real work. No, he isn’t here.
Henry stood and walked into the front yard where he didn’t have to hear a child make excuses for him. He wanted to pick up the phone and viciously explain to the voice on the other end that he didn’t have any money. To stop fucking with his niece’s head. He was trying real hard. A dark and murky feeling began to settle. It seemed that every breath he drew was heavy with reminiscence and longing. He wanted to be left alone.

All the houses in Baldwin Park looked more or less the same. Different colors, some standard, some pink, some bright green, some small and clean, some run-down, a little fucked up. Cars worse off than the Buick were being worked on in other garages or else lay rusted in the yards. Music poured out from every other garage or backyard. Oldies played soft and slow. Or else Banda raged loud and proud. Every sound dissonant and beautiful. He looked at the houses on the street. He saw each one as a tiny mansion, workers and warriors under the sun, getting by and moving through the spiral of time. This was his neighborhood and always had been.

By now, whatever it was that leaked from the Buick had spilled down the driveway and a dirty stream now gathered around his boots. Henry knew he would have to fix all these additional problems. It was real fucking hot outside. Henry went back into the garage. He needed to fix this car. He needed another beer.





II.

Moises Arias thought about the ocean as its breeze came through the screen door, having traveled some thirty elusive miles to find him. It rattled chimes in a faraway backyard and finally embraced him completely. Moises had spent that morning scrounging through an ash tray, looking under a couch, searching frantically for a roach, a misplaced crumb or with greater hope, an endless fucking mountain crop of weed, hidden, just waiting to reward him for his relentless search and pursuit. He eventually found his prize. It was nearly half of an old blunt, a super roach, discarded and misplaced long ago. Moises found it in a jar of change, with a book of matches, perfection and peace finding him at last.
Soon he was high and reading Antonio Gramsci, studying for a college class, happy to be alive. When he was bored, in the early afternoon, he continued to greet the day and wait for another pleasant breeze and meditate in his own way on the wind and the reality of things. Moises put his long black hair into a pony tail that reached the small of his back and it shined like obsidian when he walked outside into the sunlight.

Henry was underneath the Buick now, fixing another ailment. He moved in a quick cycle of ferocious labor, flashes of fatigue and then cold beer to regenerate. Any alleviating breeze was lost on him, never making it inside the garage. By two p.m. he didn’t know where he was or why he was fixing this goddamn car. Just when he felt he could expire, a voice picked him up out of his daydream. He slid from underneath the car and saw a Mayan prince eclipsing the merciless and beautiful sun. Then he saw it was only the neighbor kid. Not the divine design of the gods, just some acne scarred Chicano. Henry recognized this pudgy stoner as the same kid wandering into the middle of the street in diapers. He thought Moises looked about the same, more age to the face, a hint of a mustache but still a baby’s face. The only real distinction that Henry noticed was in the eyes. Moises now had a dark ferocity in them, even though they were only half open and bloodshot from a morning of weed smoke. His voice was deep and commanding but stoic and slow. Moises, high as fuck.
“Henry, carnal, I thought that was you,” Moises said. “I didn’t know you were out.” He shifted, feeling awkward, hoping he didn’t sound like an asshole.
“Yeah, I’m back in the world, ese. How are things, Moi?”
“Oh you know, mas o menos, going to college.”
“East Los or…”
“No, No, Cal State now, I’m gonna fuck some shit up from the inside, you know?”
“Oh yeah?”

Henry was listening, was interested, but his work preceded all other interactions and interests. He had to get this fucking car fixed but couldn’t just tell this kid to fuck off, couldn’t tell the evil voices that screamed through the telephone to fuck off, couldn’t stop this car from falling apart, needing the small amount of cash and being this hard up, he couldn’t tell his tightwad ex-brother in-law to take his car and fuck off. Henry couldn’t keep these thoughts from invading the afternoon. The car needed to be fixed. But it was an endless slew of problems. Now the coolant was leaking everywhere.
“Need any help, man?” Moises asked.
“No.” Henry thought about it. He could put some of these youngbloods to work, have his niece out there holding tools, a team of surgeons and such. He laughed to himself.
“It’s cool, Moi, it shouldn’t take me too long,” Henry said.
“Ok, that’s good anyway, ‘cause I can’t work on cars for shit.” Moises laughed loud with his full heart, put his hand on Henry’s shoulder, “I better stick to the books, you know?”
“Yeah, you should do that. You want a beer, man?”
Moises couldn’t refuse a tall can with a weathered legend of the barrio, this barrio, this town, this street.
“Fuck yeah, ese, they in this ice chest here?”
“Go for it, there’s a few more in there.” Henry could see the kid was a little uneasy but played it off with ease. Moises was big and soft and couldn’t hurt a blade of grass, but he looked strong and fierce and he was smart. Henry liked him. But he hoped the tall can would send him on his way. It was hot and it was Saturday, he thought, didn’t this kid have somewhere to be?

Moises didn’t have anywhere to be. He hung out for over an hour. Drinking two tall cans, offering to go buy some more, saying although he was only nineteen, the Korean dude at the store on the corner sold to him all the time. Moises was drunk after the first tall can and then felt comfortable opening up. He told Henry about school, about this woman in his Political History of Latin America class. Her name’s Raquel and she lives in Boyle Heights and her father was this Peruvian revolutionary but she never met him, she lived with her mother, a Mexicana, in Boyle Heights, and that usually he liked to get laid and be on his way but this mujer was different, something about her and the things she said in class, she countered all the bullshit regular ass college kids with her intelligence and insight, “And on top of that,” Moises concluded, “She’s fucking down, you know?”
Henry just worked and half listened. Moises talked about everything. He was normally quiet and liked to read and he performed his own rituals, summoning gods left alone and suffering since 1519 and so forth. But the warmth of the sun and the taste of cold beer made him feel comfortable.
Then he asked Henry some questions about cars, about Electras, Cutlasses, Impalas, wanted to know about the old days, low riders, 1968 in East L.A. Did he ever meet Oscar Acosta or did he know any brown berets, did students walk out of Sierra Vista like the vatos at Roosevelt, pausing in his wondering, how old was Henry? Did that make sense chronologically? Moises wanted to know if Baldwin Park was as down for La Raza so he could feel good and proud about the history under his feet. But he paused at some point in his rambling, wondering if he was asking too many questions. Moises and his insatiable thirst for knowledge gently collided with twenty four ounces of beer. It had been a great day for him so far.


The phone was ringing again and the Buick wasn’t leaking anymore. Henry was sweaty and his rough hands were covered in grease. Moises’ voice drowned the noise of the phone and caused the sound of Priscilla excusing her uncle to be inaudible. Then it was momentarily quiet. Priscilla walked into the garage, regarded Moises with a smile that was returned, then glared at Henry relentlessly.
“I know baby, I know,” he said.
“This one sounded more serious,” she said.
He nodded and looked away.
“It’s getting kind of ridiculous.”
She stood there for what seemed like a large portion of time, a still frame, a scowling and radiant and eternal glare. “You think they’re going to stop?” she said.
Then she looked away. She turned to her neighbor. “Moises, did you want an orange soda?”
“No thank you, maybe later.” Then Moises remembered something.
“Hey, I have a book you might like. I can bring it by later. It’s about desert things. Native people, animals, wildflowers, everything.”
“Cool. Thank you, Moi.”
She then disregarded her uncle and went back into the house. The sudden silence in the garage seemed to seize and strangle Henry. Moises noticed but was too buzzed to figure the reasons why. Henry looked out into the street, tried to fix his eyes on something to take him away from this moment in time. Moises killed the last of his tall can and looked up. “Hey Henry, if this car’s running ok, you think I could get a ride somewhere?”


III.

The garage was still open. The Buick continued to fall apart, stretching the afternoon into a grueling and laborious time. All of this against an otherwise warm and easy afternoon. Fucking L.A., man, Henry thought. His heart was always in so much pain on days like this. He looked around and saw everything changing, something beyond nature. He felt some inexplicable force, poised to strangle this place, his home and his family and then evasively slip out unnoticed. Henry would look around at all the remnants of his youth still living in the gravel and dead grass of the neighborhood. He could still conjure all the little fortunes lying around. The barbeques in the park and listless window shopping on the boulevards, Saturday in California, early beers and old stories. Children playing, moving through the neighborhood in all their glory. And he loved every last one of these kids, these young people that ran the streets, the corners, the parks. Some would not live long and he took pride in his own survival. And even the child inside the house that he loved, could not shake him from the nightmare in his head. He didn’t want to go back to jail, didn’t want to go to church, didn’t want to go back in time and do it all over. And he didn’t want to think about the bleak and stagnant future that lied ahead for him. It seemed that only the simple things remained. But all else had become disfigured and strange. All he could see was the fucked up Buick and the handful of cash he might have for another Saturday night in Los Angeles.

People kept coming by. Henry was happy to see them, old friends and cousins and such. But they were all interruptions. Gloria, who his sister used to roll with, was having problems with her girlfriend and wanting his advice. Moco, the biggest dude in the barrio and a legendary character, came by with some beers and talked about the old days but had to take off to his son’s soccer game. And Simon, who was Luisa’s five year old boy, walked over dressed like a cowboy, chaps, vest, gun belt, a blue bandana over his face. But no hat. Simon also refused to leave, telling Henry about how his horse was stolen by bandits to which Henry played along until Simon’s mother called from two houses down. Off into the sunset, the little cowboy ran.

The phone kept ringing, Priscilla took the calls, Moises was inside watching TV with her. Moises was a good companion for any age and Henry was glad to have some time alone finally with the car.
Eventually, people stopped coming by. Some older people would walk by and wave and Henry would wave back. By now it was early evening, the car still falling apart, several more beers gone down, sweat burned Henry’s eyes and his thoughts lingered on. His chest hurt. He needed to get out of here, away from this feeling. He drained the last lukewarm swill of his Budweiser and patched up the Buick as best he could. With Band-Aids and prayers, it would have to do.
Henry walked into the house and into the room he had once lived in as a young man, as a child, as an infant.
He showered and shaved and ironed his favorite pair of khakis. He found a Fernando Valenzuela jersey he hadn’t worn in twenty years. He put it on over an undershirt and a simple gold crucifix his grandmother gave him when he went away for the first time. Henry loved her more than God.
He tried to call Lilia one last time, in hope of a decent Saturday night. But nobody answered. So he took one last look into the mirror before walking out into the front room. Moises slept sitting up in a chair while Priscilla watched TV.
“Did anyone call who I might want to talk to, baby?” Henry asked.
“No,” Priscilla said.
“Well,” Henry looked around the room and finally felt relaxed, “Don’t worry about it anymore. I’m sorry you’ve had to do all this for me and I’m sorry I haven’t been around to take you to the park and to help you with things. Just know that I wasn’t meant to be around all the time. But I love you just the same.”
Priscilla had never heard her uncle say that much at one time before. Not to her or anyone else. He was always such a quiet man, a listener, a hard ass who would fix cars and fight other men in parking lots. But here he was, kneeling beside her, looking straight into her eyes. She could see his eyes welling with tears but they didn’t fall.
She knew what was next. She knew that she wouldn’t see him for some time. But this time held some kind of affirmation that she needed. Henry would always love his family and take care of them when he could. She had nothing to say but let him know that she understood, in the same way she always did, a look a feeling, something inexplicable that they shared. Henry said nothing more. The profound silence was broken up by Moises as he began to snore loudly. It was louder than any of them had ever heard and strange sounding. Like a large animal suffocating then breathing fluidly and peacefully, then suffocating again. Henry and Priscilla both broke into laughter and neither of them could stop. They laughed so loud that it woke Moises up to which he replied something incoherently and then fell back into the heaviest nap of all time.
Henry stood up and walked into the bedroom feeling the weight of many years recede and fall away.

He rolled three joints, grabbed a Pendleton and a little money he had stashed away.
When he came back into the front room, the TV was still on. Cops in Albuquerque were arresting an old drunk man for stealing a bike. They were rude and condescending and abusive. They were cops all right. Henry turned it off, woke Moises up with a slap to the leg and stood straight and summoned the room.
“Ok, peoples, get your shit and get into the car. Moises, you need a right somewhere, no? Priscilla, I’m gonna need to drop you off at your prima’s house, ok?”
“Lorena’s house? That place sucks.”
“No, at Darlene and Flaca’s. In South Gate, baby. I’ll let your mama know. Come on, Moises, go get a jacket and a joint. Vaminos, bro.”
Moises was still sleepy but got up and was ready. “I got everything I need, carnal.”
Priscilla got a jacket and a backpack with her colored pencils and a notebook. They were all ready to roll.

For all its constant problems that day, the venerable 1972 Buick Electra ran pretty good. Henry felt good driving it, the work was done, the day was fading away. They listened to oldies on the radio with the windows down and sat comfortably in the wide vinyl seats. They cruised past familiar parks and down boulevards and side streets that Henry hadn’t been down in awhile. Moises, sitting comfortable in the big backseat, had to be in East L.A. for a community organizing function. “Extra credit for school and plenty of girls,” he explained.
Priscilla wore sunglasses and felt calm and grown up cruising in big car down a wide boulevard. These boys in her life would have to be taken with a hundred grains of salt. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You’re a Big Girl, Now” by the Stylistics came on and everyone leaned back and simultaneously, though in their own way, felt the good times coming on. The afternoon faded faraway behind them and the summer night greeted them . More cars on the road but no weekday traffic. The radio seemed to know what they wanted to hear. Henry felt himself cruising back in time. Every corner, every park bench, every woman walking down every street seemed to evoke some long lost memory.
With his mind full of painfully hard times, these fine sceneries revealed themselves and embraced him as he rolled down Whittier Blvd. And when the sun was finally gone, streetlights and headlights all around, they arrived at the Salazar Community Center.

When Priscilla let Moises out, he gave her a hug and looked at Henry.
“Gracias, carnal. Good times hanging out today, good luck with this fucking car, man. Thank you for the ride. I guess that’s it then. I gotta see about a mujer.” Moises laughed a little. He was going to be all right. Henry nodded his head in recognition.
When Moises was walking away and Priscilla was sitting shotgun again, Henry whistled to get his attention. He walked back to hear what Henry had to say.
Henry suddenly conjured countless things to tell his friend upon this departure. But he just looked him in the eye, straight and stern, and said, “Worship the earth around her, ese. And you know…be cool.”
And the two men clasped hands, the eternal handshake of brotherhood. Priscilla rolled her eyes a little under her shades and watched the sun set over the evasive ocean that seemed so far away. In this Buick, they could go anywhere.

Then Henry and Priscilla were cruising down the 710 toward Long Beach. The night air had relieved the ruthless heat. Henry still felt a certain heaviness but it was mostly the residuals of earlier thoughts. He felt a sweet admiration for his niece and a deep longing for all the dying times around them. The Buick sounded great and Henry was proud of that. It had to be in Norwalk soon. Luis, his ex-brother in law, would be waiting with the chump change for a nearly rebuilt engine. It was an injustice embedded in a million others.
Henry couldn’t hang. That was his problem all along. Priscilla was enjoying this cruise with her uncle. It seemed pivotal and strange. In her short time, there had been so many goodbyes, piled atop one another. She couldn’t wait to see her mother when she finally got off work, at the hospital, later that night.
“Baby, you think you could do me one more favor?” Henry asked.
“I called my mom before we left.”
“Thank you. You’re the greatest woman that has ever lived,” he said.
Henry said nothing more as they exited the freeway and rolled down more familiar streets. They pulled up to an old apartment where her cousins and her aunt on her father’s side lived. The street was dark and quiet.
“You comin’ in Henry?” Priscilla asked somberly.
“No. I think I’ll just head out. But I’ll make sure you get in ok.”
“You look real nice. Do you have a date tonight?”
He smiled, could feel himself smiling.
“No baby. Well, not yet. You never know.”
They both laughed. The engine was idling loudly and the radio hummed softly. Henry did look good. And for the first time in awhile, he felt good. He knew these feelings were like smoke in the air. They hang there awhile and eventually fade, sometimes slowly, most times in a desperate flash.
And when she hugged her uncle this time, long and good and poised for departure, she left a stain of tears on his Valenzuela jersey.
And then she walked away, trying to act tough, knowing she would always have to. Her cousin greeted her at the door and Priscilla waved back at the Buick as it slowly rolled away.

When Henry got back onto the freeway, he knew what roads to take to go east a few miles to Norwalk, to get his payment and return the car. His ex-brother in-law had enough money to pay him fairly but Henry knew he wouldn’t. On top of being cheap, Luis remembered every rift, every scuffle, every ounce of bullshit in their lives. It wasn’t worth the trouble. Henry couldn’t live that way. And he knew Luis would be too drunk to give him a ride back to Baldwin Park.
When he cruised down and found Interstate 5, he stopped at a red light. The mercy would not be found and tomorrow the sun would rise and do its thing once again, burning holes into hearts, playing music for everybody, low and slow and just on time. With the chaos of luck, it might be all right.
Henry turned the radio up, rolled the windows all the way down and took the freeway south. He didn’t know where he was going. And a lot of people would be calling, looking for him. But he couldn’t think of that. He had to roll with what consumed his mind tonight. A sea of dim lights flickered across South Los Angeles. Henry pushed the pedal down and leaned back in the old and wide and comfortable bench seat. The Buick felt good. Nothing left but a serenade, the sweet sound of oldies finding their way through muffled speakers and a bent antenna, over the victorious roar of the engine, igniting the night around him. They don’t make them like they used to, he thought. It was his work. It was his world.