Easy nights and a pack of fraos.
Rosendo used to ride the city buses,
scoring phone numbers from rukas he met
at the park or along centrals bus stops
and diners.
Three to five numbers a day, homes. He'd
say by the end of the week I know I'll
get to go out with at least one. Hey,
maybe she'll have her own canton and
I'll drop by with a bottle of wine and
some good smoke.
And he'd laugh, tilting his head back,
taking a long drag from a camel regular.
And then he'd look at me and laugh
again, saying something like
Sometimes
I just don't know about you, bro.
Well, one night I was down at Jack's
shooting pool when the bartender yelled
out that there was a phone call for
someone whose name sounded like mine.
And I was really surprised that it was
for me, you know.
Well, it was this sweet hina from the
west side that I'd met a few weeks
before.
She said that my roommate had told her
I'd be at Jack's. She said she'd been
wondering what I'd been doing and how
come I hadn't called.
She wanted me to go over. I said, "That
sounds great. I want to shoot a few more
games of pool, but I'll come by in a
while."
Not that I was really interested in pool
anymore, but hey, I couldn't let on like
I didn't ever get those kind of calls,
you know.
Not like those vatos down at Tito's
Tavern with faded prison tattoos and
dead aim stairs did. leaning back
against the wall, flirting with their
rukas over the phone, laughing and
teasing while the jukebox play Sam cook
and me sitting there watching and
wondering where I went wrong going
right.
I asked her if there was anything she
wanted me to bring over. Some wine
maybe. And she said, "Yeah, that sounds
good. And could you bring some
cigarettes, too?
So, a while later, there I was going
down the street being all thrush for the
hura cuz I didn't want nothing to ruin
that moida, you know.
Well, I pulled into the kasa grande and
asked for a bottle of easy nights and a
pack of fraos.
And I sat looking through the drive up
window at the poster girls on the wall.
And I started thinking of homes so far
away. And how often times I had nowhere
to go. Wishing I knew some nice girl I
could drop by to visit and watch a mono
with or just to sit and talk to.
It was a rainy night. A beautiful bor
rainy night and the streets were all
black and wet, neon lights reflecting
off of everything and running down the
street in streams of color.
And I thought of Rosendo
and how he was going to laugh and I knew
he was going to want to know everything.
IO Jings Holmes.
No. Serio Rosendo. Her name's Carmela.
Serio Holmes. Simon.
No.
And as I drove away, I saw myself in the
rear view mirror and I started laughing
because hey,
sometimes even I just don't know about
you, bro.