Made in L.A.: Chasing the Elusive Dream

The Serenade of the Gangsta

The Serenade of the GangstaSara Chisolm

The new Gold Line subway system serves as the backbone of our community, allowing gringos access to Mariachi Plaza. All the good musicians lumber around here with guitars, trumpets, and accordions resting beside them in their cases. Boyle Avenue and First Street box in the oxidized statue of the mother of Ranchera music, Lucha Reyes. The stoic statue has its hands placed on its hips with its back towards a few shops that have colorful murals painted on their sides. Tables and sun-bleached umbrellas line the front of the stores. Lucha’s prideful gaze rests on the stone symmetric mirador, the circular pattern of red and white cement ground, an affordable housing complex, and mainly, her fellow musicians: the mariachis.

The mariachis advertise well. Boyle Ave is stitched together with cars, rusty vans, parking ticket-draped hoopties, and even a few lifted trucks emblazoned with logos, phone numbers, and decals of Mother Mary receiving a serenata. Most of the time, black-suited mariachis yell out to subway patrons, soliciting buyers for their band’s services. “Who wants a romantic serenade by a live band for their one true love? Or perhaps the person that is just for now?” A few times a week, one of the mariachi singers will belt out a tune, allowing the pedestrians an opportunity to hear a serenata of foretold love and doomed lovers.

When you grow up around here, the serenata is all you hear about. At your family gatherings, you will hear about how so-and-so got engaged and how perfect the serenata had been. Within your school, amongst your friends, someone will bring up how so-and-so is learning to play an instrument so that he can present some girl with a serenata. Or you will hear about how much so-and-so’s mariachi band costs for a serenata, so you better save if you want one.

The romantic lures of the serenata never captured my attention. I have always been too busy hustling on the streets to give a damn about romance. I make a lot of money through extorting local businesses and dabbling in drug sales on the sly. My gang is ambitious. We have carved out our territory through savagery. No one is immune to the cruelty of our reign, except the mariachi. They are untouchable.

I’ve made it no secret among the mariachis that I operate in the select business of “party favors.” Everybody knows the true blood of the plaza flows from the lips and fingers of the mariachis. However, you could also say that the blood flows a little easier with the help of the drugs that line my pockets. Manuel, the leader of our gang, is always hesitant about the drug trade. I am different. I am not a p***y. I have a budding rap career. I have to pay for my studio time. I can peddle my goods among the mariachis and not think twice. If a mariachi wants to buy some drugs, then at least it should be from me.

I wasn’t surprised when an elderly mariachi dressed all in black velvet approached me. The old man had been standing near the entrance to the metro station where colorful tiles of glass within the metal overhanging canopy looked like broken pieces of stained-glass windows when the sun shined through them. The mosaic of light reflected onto a mounted bust of a woman with upraised hands and a child cradled underneath her.

Now, as he tinkered towards me like some busted wind-up toy, the mariachi’s arms waved in the air, giving the illusion that the fingertips of the statue and his own were brushing against one another. The moaning of the lower-level escalator sounded like cries of repentance. His left leg dragged while his guitar case bounced at his side. More than likely he was drunk or high from the last gig’s payout. In this area, the promises of Hollywood became no more than a lingered whisper. Where the residents mainly survive on meals of beans and rice, you have to be careful. If he touched me or tried to take my stash of dope, I’d have to put him in his place. Revered or not, if you aren’t about this Los Angeles gangsta life, then you better be careful in these streets.

I dug in my pocket. Slipped on some brass knuckles as easily as a new pair of underwear. I propped my hand up on the pocket of my jeans, letting the gleam of the brass greet his arrival.

The usual baby-blue sky and flecks of cruising white clouds were suddenly subdued. The sky was blotched with looming heather overcast. The sun’s rays beamed down through gaps in billowy canopy. Cockroaches scurried from every orifice of the plaza, some huge ass ones, skinny ones, and even some with eggsacs bending out of their backsides. My body shivered as if I had felt the sting of my old man’s belt. I hated bugs. I shifted my feet and couldn’t help but step on some. The crunch of their bodies permeated the slow drawl of the mariachi’s throatful hum. I bobbed my head for a second, creating words to his beat in my head. So many gangstas dreamin’ about a rapper’s life, I ain’t ever given up, I’m get mine, I got a wad of cash so fat you could flatline. Then the bugs climbed up his legs and disappeared within his black uniform.

He smiled, and a feeling of doom washed over me. He was a man that was gray. You could see his teeth were partially transparent. His smile opened up the world; placid steel-colored saliva tainted his mouth. His face was clean-shaven, with patches of flaky eczema that were as dull in color as dry toothpaste on your favorite sweater. He had strands of regal metal-wire hair sticking out from the corners of his tilted black sombrero, embroidered with silver thread.

I blinked a few times and squinted. My eyes searched for the bugs then found them hanging on his suit like decorative buttons. They shined in the absence of the sun.

“Una serenata?” he called out to me.

I took off my baseball cap. My highlighter-bright dreadlocks fell onto my tattooed forehead and eyelids. I flexed the bill of my cap and put it back on. I was not in the mood for the tricks and trade of a drunk.

“Nah man,” I barked. I remembered how to say that I didn’t want something in Spanish. But long ago, I gave up the polite sing-song words of my home language, replacing it with street slang and thug talk.

“Do you want a serenade?” his melodic voice rung out.

I blinked and shook my head.

“Whatcha want?” I dipped my head low, avoiding his light-grey gaze. I had to make a thousand more dollars if I wanted to pay for a day’s worth of studio time. I thought about exit strategies if he attempted to rob me.

He stomped and ground down the heel of his boot, staining the red cement with a splatter of gray bug bits.

I leaned in and said, “You want some weed, pills, trippies … What?”

“Do not worry. I am quite good. Even for the likes of …” He waved his hand up and down my body. “Even for members of the community like you.” His Spanish accent drew out. He fumbled with his guitar case. “I can do elderly birthday parties. They usually don’t want me for weddings.”

I stared hard at him before saying, “Look, old man …”

“Yes, I can see,” the mariachi said while nodding, “you are missing the attendance of a good girl’s company. Let me put your mind at ease.”

“I told you, I am not into that type of s**t,” I stated. I put my hand on the pocket filled with baggies of drugs. “If you need to party, though …”

The mariachi frowned slightly before explaining, “I am just saying that you are all alone in this world, just as a man is in his own death.”

The mariachi lifted a silver-gray guitar out of its dilapidated case. Back in the day, this guitar was beautiful. Now the strings curled up like cat whiskers, but the neck was elegant and sturdy. If I took off with it, I wondered how much money I could’ve gotten for it. The edges of the instrument’s body were blurry, as if you couldn’t focus your eyes on them.

“Of course, I do play funerals. I am good there. Sending the dead off to their own personal purgatory.”

I hadn’t held one since I was a little boy, so I yanked the guitar out of his hands and then held it with affection while I examined it, trying hard to pull the blurry edges of the instrument into focus. I must have been imagining s**t. I mentally reminded myself to lay off the weed. Memories of my old man sitting in the living room and strumming his guitarra filled my head whenever I was high, because there are only two things that a man grows up to be if he lives in this neighborhood long enough. You can turn to the streets or pick up an instrument.

“Then perhaps a music lesson or two so that you can become a mariachi?”

I almost laughed in his face, then bit my tongue. “I already told you, old man. I’m a gangsta.” I shoved the instrument towards the mariachi.

“You can find redemption in anything,” he said.

This time, I laughed and waved my hand by his chest to dismiss him. I turned my back, and he grabbed my arm. “Help an old man out with something to eat?”

I pulled back my fist and swung at him. The brass was my paintbrush as the mariachi’s blood decorated the pavement. I saw the glint of the silvery guitar and luminescent shells of the bugs descend to the ground in a clatter. The mariachi’s instrument looked more like toy car parts than splinters of wood from a broken guitar. The cockroaches scurried over the splinters and strings, and when they touched the mariachi’s broken guitar, they turned into a lucid gray. The old man hunched over his instrument and the bugs scattered, revealing a newer version of the metallic guitar.

The cockroaches climbed over my new Cortez shoes. I kicked at them and stomped, relishing the sound of their exoskeletons succumbing to the weight of my foot. They scattered to the far reaches of the plaza, snatching up all the surrounding color. The bright blue hue of Lucha Reyes’s benevolent face, the tan stone of the mirador, and all the buildings in the plaza became a striking, lifeless gray.

“You dropped something,” the gray mariachi stated while pointing down.

My inventory of drugs had fallen out of my baggy jeans and onto the concrete. The arrangement of scrunched-up bags of chalky crystals, colorful pills, and green herbs looked like a forbidden garden growing out of the curb. I quickly picked up my stash. I looked around the square at its inhabitants. This was the time when the gangstas on the block targeted the local businesses. With the usual lunch crowd tucked back into work, the businesses were easy, witness-free targets for the picking. We frequented the small wheeled carts, fruit stands, and shops, threatening to put them out of business if they didn’t pay up. I saw an associate or two of mine out of the corner of my eye.

A couple of homies walked by; they leaned toward me and gave exaggerated grins. One held out his index and middle finger in my direction, pulled back on the fingers of his other hand, and winked: the universal warning sign of the streets.

“I only wanted to serenade you,” the old man bellowed. “So few men are allowed such beauty at a time of devastation and death.”

The gray mariachi stood up. As if he had pulled on a string, his hand commanded the neck of the instrument to him. He held the instrument. The old man began to strum his guitar. The instrument vibrated as if it had a pumping heart.

I jumped back out of confusion and fear. I looked around the plaza, checking to see if other people saw what I saw. But the time of the day was all wrong. The middle of the afternoon, when the real gangstas took their gang’s cut in the profits of the local businesses, had somehow dissipated to later on in the day.

Midday was in the middle of its natural escape as the sun dipped a little bit lower behind a tower of gray clouds. This was the time when the commuters packed up their backpacks, briefcases, and purses, getting ready to flood the square. Most of the mariachis were setting up for practices, weddings, birthday parties, or the sentimental performances of the surprise serenatas.

I stared at him. His eyes glowed an unearthly sea green. The dullness of his skin was blossoming into a rosy brown tint.

“I wonder what I shall call this one?” He rubbed his chin. “Oh yes. The serenade of the gangsta.”

“I — I’m outta here,” I stammered.

“It is all the same,” he whispered. “The serenata and your death have already begun.”

With that said, he began to robustly pluck the guitar strings while he tapped his foot. I ran off, the trail of disgusting cockroaches always a few yards ahead. Their small opaque bodies bleached the neighborhood a monotonous gray.

I ran to the end of the block. The cars whizzed by. The sound of barking dogs could not hide the beauty of the mariachi’s voice as it reached my ears.

He didn’t sing in English or Spanish but still I understood it. The song soothed me as I rounded another corner to collide with Manuel. My body slammed against the ground. My black baseball cap flipped off. The cheap hair dyes that I had used in the cracked porcelain sink of my mom’s house blended to produce a marsh-gray sweat that dripped from my brow.

“This is the end, little brother,” the melodic singing of the mariachi stated.

I looked up at Manuel. He was a big guy. The people in our high school said that back in Mexico, Manuel’s uncle was a kingpin. When Manuel frowned, his entire face crinkled up like a used brown bag.

“I was just on my way to see you,” I laughed nervously.

“Do not fear, little brother,” the mariachi sped up his playing as his voice raised in pitch.

Manuel growled. He grabbed me by the collar and lifted me to a standing position. “You know how much I hate it when people arrange their own side deals on my turf. I even heard you punched a mariachi!” Manuel let go of the collar of my shirt, and I greedily choked on air.

Manuel leaned over until the pupils of his eyes clouded my vision. His jacket moved slightly, and I felt him rubbing the barrel of his gray gun against me.

“It won’t happen again,” I said, my voice quivering. My heart pumped to the fast-paced rhythm of the gray mariachi’s guitar. My lips trembled as I gathered the courage to speak. “You know I am working on a mixtape. I am good, Manuel. I can make it out of these streets. I just need a little more. Just a little more. Take it. Take it all.” I shoved a stack of bills and bags of drugs into his face.

Some of the bills came loose and fluttered to the sidewalk like empty bubblegum wrappers. My eyes dropped to the green and white money that lay on an unkempt gray lawn. Two hundred bucks. Two hundred dollars was more money than my father ever brought home to us after a serenata.

“You think I just care about the money, payaso?” Manuel threw the money and baggies of drugs to the ground. “You really are a clown, huh? When you mess with the mariachi, you lose respect in the community. They turn against you and me.”

I looked down at the ground while I shook my head. A gangsta talking about respect? Respect for the mariachis? Manuel wasn’t as tough as I had originally thought.

I looked Manuel in the eyes. I couldn’t back down now. The streets would ring with word of my cowardice. If you wanted to hustle, you had to sacrifice. I was prepared to do the things that my father never did. Rest my father’s tireless soul from the cancer. I was willing to pray to the high heavens for Manuel’s bluff. I stuck out my chest. “Do it then. Kill me. Pussy.”

“Let’s go,” he growled.

“Death is like a lover that we sleep next to.” The mariachi’s voice penetrated the stagnant air.

The community had welcomed the presence of night and its chill too soon. I walked in front of Manuel until we reached an abandoned building, an old drug house boarded up and wrapped in caution tape.

Manuel hit me square in the back with the handle of the gun. “Move,” he shouted as I hesitated for a moment.

I walked past the giant weeds that peeked above the overgrown grass on the lawn. The dandelion’s ghostly spores looked like comets in the sky as they pulled apart and dispersed as we trampled by. Manuel practically pulled the door off its hinges and pointed the glistening gun into the dark-gray room.

“Death’s lingering embrace.” The mariachi’s voice filled the house up.

We stood in the center of the room. Manuel pointed his gun at my chest. He stepped closer, and I felt a cold circle against my diaphragm. I closed my eyes and flinched in anticipation.

“When death has you, little brother, your fateful lover …” The mariachi’s voice penetrated my clammy skin. I felt the hum of his words as they coursed through me.

The gun was c****d back. I grabbed Manuel’s hand and pulled the gun, attempting to tug it from his rough, beefy-handed grip.

“Little brother, kiss your lover, gently hold her close, embrace the death …” The mariachi’s voice kept time with the beating of my heart.

Manuel squeezed the trigger. His body jumped back when the gun fired. I felt the bullet as it ripped through my abdomen.

“Dear little brother,” the mariachi’s tempo slowed down, “this pain is worse than any broken heart a woman can give you. The way you suffer is the way your last breath escapes you, the way that your skin pales as warmth leaves it, the way that your mother leans across your open casket.”

I stepped closer to Manuel. I twisted the gun from his grip. I c****d the gun and fired.

I stared into that bright orb and watched Manuel’s pupil shrink down until it was a tiny lifeless mirror of my future. He fell to the ground, taking me with him. I stood up, slipping on blood. I tripped over the steel-gray gun. I sat there, staring at his body for a moment. As a cold sweat began to form over my body, I thought to myself, that is supposed to be me.

For a moment, the world went silent.

I looked down at my white T-shirt, now stained with blood. My shaky hands fiddled with the warm hole in the center of my chest.

A thin layer of dust had already claimed Manuel for the sake of the earth and the life that may spring from it. I reached in my pocket, took out a wad of bills, and placed them at the center of his chest. The money bloomed and brightened in his blood. I folded his stiff graying hands onto his crisp money, a bouquet worthy of his maleficence.

I ran with the low humming of the mariachi’s voice in my heart. I ran even more when I felt as if my lungs were about to burst. I ran to the bright man in the black sombrero. When I stumbled into him, I saw that his face had smoothed out to a creaminess that was reminiscent of an avocado. When he smiled at me, his white teeth glistened. He stooped down to put me and his guitarra onto the ground.

“I don’t know how you saved me, but you saved me,” I panted. The mariachi laughed, and it was as if the whole world shook in joy.

“I told you that that serenata belonged to you, my friend.”

“I don’t believe in saviors and know very little about redemption, but from this moment on, I pledge to change my life.” Sweat was dripping off my chin as the last push of the recent adrenaline rush hijacked my body. I stood up on my shaking legs.

I felt strong and determined to spend this second chance at living a life for the betterment of the community. Maybe I could learn to play the trumpet and be a mariachi, like my old man. I imagined myself in the same black velvet getup as this mariachi.

“Will you teach me? Teach me how to save lives, Mariachi?”

He frowned for a moment, then his face settled into the complacency of contentment.

“Save lives?”

My energy was spent. I licked at my dry lips as I collapsed onto the hard concrete. I stared up at him, enamored. I was dazzled by his charm as he lifted his guitar and pointed his index finger at me while winking.

“Who would say that someone like me saves lives? Taking wayward souls to their rightful place brings life to these old bones of mine.”

I blinked up at him, the smell of incense and rot curling into my nostrils. I coughed while inhaling the poignant aroma. Gray cockroaches swarmed the plaza. Like beacons of light, they shined down into every orifice of the square, birthing color back into the world.

“You have to excuse my insect problem. They are just so attracted to the scents of death and the promise of a good meal.”

I felt as if I were about to faint. I looked down at my ashen hands.

“You see,” the mariachi continued, “you are about to die.” The mariachi waved his hands in the air dramatically as the heart-pumping guitar played on its own. “You are seeing the final moments of a life not worthy of living flash before you.”

I blinked again, taking note of changes. The pizzeria, the hip bone of our community, reflected the evanescent white glow of the moon from its dark windows. The absence of the gringos who laughed and tilted their plastic champagne cups too high pierced the night. The neatly packed cars were no longer boxing in Boyle Avenue. I had a sensation that without the cars, the very concrete that I sat upon could unravel at any moment, and that we could be floating upon nothingness. Lingering commuters who would be looking at their watches or dispersing into the streets to catch a bus or walk home were nowhere in sight. The most noticeable change was the missing mariachis. The mariachi bands who would have ended their night early and were looking to get lucky with last-minute serenatas had not claimed their spaces on the wrought-iron public benches. The mirador with its tan stone and moderately tilted side was neatly fixed up, looking as foreign to me as a dollhouse. There wasn’t even a drunk lingering in sight. The Lucha Reyes statue, with her back turned to the whitewashed walls of the shops, appeared different. Lucha’s gaze rested on me. Her face knotted into a scowl of pity or anger as her red rose-petal eyes made contact with mine.

“Where is this place?”

The mariachi strummed his guitar gently as if he were tickling a baby. His melodic tone continued. “Purgatory, Purgatory.”