The bar in the heart of their hometown stinks of their teen years. Mezcal and machista cologne smearing the walls, but this is where Munkey wanted to meet Moose. They have not spoken in over a year, having missed each other’s weddings for reasons both legitimate and fabricated. Moose approaches the entrance, readying his ID despite being almost 10 years removed from the last time he was underaged. He still doesn’t know how to think about Munkey’s sudden invitation and is almost disappointed that he remembered his ID to let him into the pub. Still, Moose—almost embarrassingly so—remains hopeful that this invitation is as wholesome as their friendship used to be before El Paisa.
Two weeks prior to this meeting, both Moose and Munkey found out a mortar had killed El Paisa while on tour in Iraq. Moose’s parents forwarded him an obituary, asking if it was the same friend from high school, to which Moose lied, “no.” But when Munkey heard the news from the remnants of his hometown friend circle, he immediately broke down upon learning he’d lost one of his best friends forever. Out of fear that time would take Moose away as well, Munkey reached out for a drink or two to catch up. Moose obliged, figured at worst he loses an evening, at best he rebuilds some bridges with Munkey.
Both felt, after all, they could benefit from undoing the guilt of prolonged silence. When Moose walks in, Munkey waves him down to the bar stools where he has two tall IPAs in front of him—the sweatier one waiting for Moose—and an empty shot glass waiting for the bartender’s attention. Through the hall of old Mexican men drunkenly belting “Volver, Volver” to the heavens, through the tables of cholos speaking loud Spanish and eating hot wings, Moose maneuvers toward his old friend and wears a cautious smile even as they hug.
Men in the bar give the two quick glances, brief judgments for their hug, some curious stares for their fashion, which is more vándalo than everyone else’s caballero chic. Nevertheless, they embrace to feel the best parts of their past return to their fingertips. Moose feels the denim of Munkey’s jacket, the giant patch of Megadeth’s Rust in Peace album cover stitched to the back, the “hecho en Mexico” eagle sewn into the shoulder. When they pull away, Munkey accidentally tugs off both the ACAB and Prince enamel pins on the lapel of Moose’s aged leather jacket. Moose reattaches the pins as Munkey apologizes, complimenting Moose’s now neck-length dreadlocks to extinguish any hints of Moose’s annoyance. Both men sit down, facing one another, and cheers in celebration of finally making this hang out happen.
Moose chokes down the IPA, fights the taste while the alcohol helps him feign delight in being at the bar. Both get comfortable, take off their jackets to reveal four arms splotched with tattoos. A portion of shoulder glossed with a detailed Batman peeks out from Moose’s sleeve; it’s one of the first tattoos Munkey inked onto another person when he started training to become a tattoo artist shortly after high school. At the time, he wanted to believe he gave Moose’s skin a better personality, something to differentiate Moose from other Black guys he and their high school friends knew or knew of, but now he can imagine what the traditional Mexican men think when they stare at Moose: “Is he Black or one of us?”
“Freakin’ excited to drink with you again, dude,” Munkey says, grinning wide as Moose nods cautiously, sipping his terrible beer. “Feel like we haven’t done this in, like, what? A year? Two?”
“My birthday,” Moose says.
“Fuck yeah,” Munkey says. “When you introduced me to Lucy.”
This is how Munkey remembers meeting his soon to be ex-wife, Lucy. Moose, however, distinctly remembers being no such wingman. In a crowd that filled Moose’s then-new apartment, Moose and Lucy stood in the corner and talked the night away as everyone else danced and drank. They’d met in a summer Algebra class during college, striking up conversation because they were the only tattooed punks in the class. Despite their connection and comfort, they never dated. Any romantic feelings were hesitant and kept from one another for years. This particular birthday, the drinks and the new home and Moose’s new year of life gave them more courage than normal to exist in a bubble together.
Munkey arrived late to the party, already drunk, staring holes into Lucy, which Moose noticed immediately. Within moments, Munkey wove through Moose’s crowded apartment and slipped in next to a newly annoyed Moose, touching elbows as they both held solo cups like clichés. Munkey asked if he heard Moose and Lucy talking about music and began to give his two cents on Iron Maiden and Metallica, using Spanglish like a weapon. Oscillating between English and Spanish to Moose’s monolingual frustration, Munkey complimented Lucy’s laugh, her electric blue hair, the fresh tattoo of an Aztec calendar on her chest, peeking out from her The Cure halter top. Several drinks later, after Munkey booted Moose out of the trio by switching the conversation completely to Spanish, Lucy and Munkey kissed.
Through Lucy, Moose learned that she and Munkey went back to his place and had sex that neither found pleasant; Lucy felt guilty about sleeping with one of Moose’s friends, a friend she found too machista for her liking before the alcohol, while Munkey simply struggled to perform. After that night, however, Moose saw them both infrequently, but Munkey and Lucy kept seeing each other, became serious within months, married in a year. Moose ignored the invite to their wedding.
◆
“Did I make it weird with Moose?” Munkey asked El Paisa at Munkey and Lucy’s wedding reception, both men completely drunk from the open bar. The two met in high school, and though Munkey had known Moose longer, he found himself gravitating toward El Paisa—his Mexican heritage, his style, his speech, his machismo, everything Munkey’s own father wanted out of his son. El Paisa, unlike Moose, ignored being biracial, rarely acknowledging his mother’s Salvadorian blood so that his father’s Mexican roots could help him blend in with the brand of manhood their hometown begged of their men. “Comer asada, joder mujers,” El Paisa’s father used to beat into him. “Sé un verdadero hombre. Cerotes no pueden enseñarte eso.”
“Nah, foo,” El Paisa said to Munkey. “You deserve a full-blooded Mexican hyna. Moose is barely half Latino. What was he gonna do with her? Sabes que, if he’s mad, let him be mad. He can find some other mayate to wife.”
◆
In the hometown bar, yo sé perder, quiero volver echoes out of speakers and buzzed mouths, and Munkey is not ready to talk about either Lucy or El Paisa leaving him. He enjoys Moose’s laughter too much; joy bursts from his lungs like it did in their kindergarten days. So much so, they start talking about Batman like they’re five again, still weird looking to the other kids in Southeast LA who took aim at Moose’s high yellow skin, Munkey’s jutting ears, and both of their curly hair. Regardless, both loved Batman, so they talked Batman for decades.
“I still hate the fight scenes,” Munkey tells Moose after reminiscing about seeing Batman Begins in theaters in tenth grade. “The camera moved too fast. Couldn’t see him hit nobody.”
“They implied the fights,” Moose says, trying to play along, trying to quell his aggravation, trying to finish his IPA. “Movie was all about overcoming fears and traumas and using psychology over brawn and all that shit. You don’t gotta be all macho all the time. Don’t gotta use your fists for goddamn everything.”
“Pinche ‘implied’ and ‘traumas’ and shit,” Munkey says mockingly. “No wonder you’re a professor. Always smarter than the rest of us.”
Neither agreed on a whole lot in terms of their specific tastes. At first, they shared a love for aggressive music. Both frequented their hometown’s local punk venues and backyard shows, both joined separate bands among the zeitgeist, gave themselves “punk” names they swore to never grow out of. But over time, “Blacky Moose” and “Dürty Munkey” cut adjectives, claiming brevity and nothing more, and their taste diverged. Munkey worshiped heavy metal and all its brutality, while Moose leaned harder into punk’s political messaging. Their first fights formed during lunch hours at school.
“Punk is weak,” Munkey said in a sleeveless Kill ‘Em All Metallica shirt.
“There’s no substance in metal,” Moose said in a do-it-yourself Bad Brains t-shirt.
“Punk is for white boys, foo.”
“Metal is for meathead rapists.”
Now, at the bar, no one fights. Both men laugh off the Batman disagreements; even Moose’s smile starts to form without effort. Someone puts in some change to keep the corridos rolling. Munkey orders another IPA, but Moose requests something tastier and lighter. Before any remnants of the high school fights surface, before this reunion can be undone by the pasts neither man can let die, Munkey sticks a finger in Moose’s sleeve and lifts it up to see the Batman. He asks Moose how the bat is holding up, admiring how his work continues to live firmly within Moose’s skin. Moose rolls the rest of the sleeve up to reveal an angry caped crusader in a blue-ish cowl, blood cradling his knuckles, teeth gnashed as though biting through an animal’s flesh. It’s still Munkey’s favorite work, and he’s happy it will live on Moose’s body past his own expiration.
“Still one of my favorite tattoos,” Moose says with glee and a fresh Gose. Munkey’s eyebrows furrow at “one of,” but when he tries to ask, what do you mean one of? all that comes out are slurred letters. Moose asks him to repeat what he said, but Munkey waves it off, afraid of losing this moment where he and Moose can share a beer without bitterness weighing on their shoulders. He’s hopeful more beers will help Moose feel the right amount of sympathy when they inevitably bring up El Paisa’s passing. Munkey withholds snark, withholds “you’re one of my favorite friends, Blacky,” because he is still not ready to talk about El Paisa; he is still trying to keep El Paisa beautiful.
◆
Moose never got along with Munkey’s best friend forever, especially in high school. Every time Moose heard the slur thrown at him, it usually came from El Paisa’s mouth, a symptom of the false comfort of knowing a single Black person: access to the word without repercussions. That is how high school boys became friends after all—emotional violence.
Their group thrived on insults—toward moms, distant fathers, clothes, mannerisms, dreams, toward their own culture, toward other people’s cultures. Slurs and slurs and on and on and on because it was harder to be damaged by white people when they spent all their time destroying themselves. El Paisa often led the charge, verbalizing attacks to galvanize his machismo, to flaunt his American freedom of speech as though armor protecting from La Migra. A model citizen by way of self-flagellation.
Despite El Paisa’s love for America, he came to school dressed full chunti every single day—clothes so loud, others around him became faceless. Every day, the brown cowboy hat, the blue long-sleeve button down, the Wranglers, the snakeskin boots.
“Pinche paisa thug over here,” Munkey would say in admiration. Moose never got it, but El Paisa’s faceless friends fawned over El Paisa, his “realness,” his proximity to a manhood learned by watching his Salvadorian mother collapse to his Mexican father’s words and hands. Over time, El Paisa spat on his mother’s flag, believing her blood too weak to survive the hometown. In the few occasions El Paisa owned his Salvadorian half, they were times he called himself a mutt and laughed. El Paisa’s faceless friends wanted his thick skin, his fragile solidarity, especially after seeing how El Paisa treated Moose, whom he referred to as, at best, “my fellow mutt,” and at worst, “the only mayate we like.”
When El Paisa patted Moose on the back and said, “Oh, sorry Blacky. Don’t know if the scars healed yet,” everyone laughed. When El Paisa asked Moose if the charred black gristle underneath the cafeteria stove were relatives, everyone laughed. When El Paisa took some of the guys on a drunken joyride through a pitch-black park deep into a Saturday night and pondered, “We could accidentally run over Blacky and we’d never know,” Moose learned everyone laughed. Moose learned Munkey laughed the hardest.
“Hit us back,” Munkey begged Moose, swearing he could learn to laugh with everyone.
Moose refused for most of high school until after a particularly relentless lunch, he bolted for honor’s trigonometry as the others slowly made their way toward metal shop. The Mexican boys shunned Moose for walking so fast toward class, urging him to stay a little longer and talk more bullshit. Maybe even ditch.
“Come on,” they pressured as Moose walked faster toward class. “Let’s skip out for some burgers or something.”
“Don’t be lame, you gorilla-faced motherfucker,” Munkey laughed.
All the guys “Oh’ed” as though a fight were ready to ignite. Moose stopped and turned toward El Paisa’s faceless friends, all those Mexican boys, staring them down like a duel.
“I’m tryna get degrees, and not tryna to stand in front of Home Depots after we graduate like y’all are!”
The laughter became erupted lava, just as destructive. Pride carved into the Mexican boys like self-harm. El Paisa keeled over in tears, laughing harder than Moose or Munkey had ever heard. Moose walked away with a smirk as a chorus of “oh’s” colored his footsteps, but he still could not laugh with them. The very next time Moose and El Paisa crossed paths, El Paisa put a brotherly hand on Moose’s shoulders to say, “you got us good, Blacky. You got us good.”
◆
“I’m so sorry, man,” Munkey says at the bar after Moose has finished telling a story about some students refusing to take him seriously for the sin of being a young, Black and brown professor with “all the cool tattoos.”
“You deserve respect,” Munkey slurs as another IPA empties into his gullet with a third on its way; Moose enjoys his Gose nice and slow. “You Black, you brown, you still young. Who gives a fuck, right? Fuck. I’m sorry. Shoulda never gave you that Batman tattoo, man. If your skin were cleaner, they’d respect you. But I fucked that up.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Moose asks, amused and scared, slowly reverting to the regret of showing up to the bar. “I love this tattoo.”
“Are you sure?” Munkey asks, clear. “Which tattoo do you love more, though?” he asks, less clearly. Moose asks for a repeat, but Munkey does not oblige. They try to finish talking about work, about Moose’s tenure as a community college instructor, about Munkey finishing his apprenticeship at the local tattoo parlor, but the words are getting lost in the clouds of boozy breath. Moose looks at his beer, measuring how much he has left to drink before he can pay the tab and leave. After Nos dejamos hace tiempo pero me llego el momento de perder croons for what feels like a third time, Munkey croons himself.
“You don’t deserve that shit, man. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Moose does not ask what Munkey is sorry for, dreading it would have anything to do with El Paisa and afraid the vitriol he saved for El Paisa would splash over Munkey. Moose downs the rest of his Gose and reaches for his wallet when Munkey grabs his arm.
“Foo, you’re not leaving yet, right?” Munkey asks, smiling as tears curdle in his eyes. El Paisa is not here, he cannot be here. Moose lets go of his wallet, asks Munkey to stop saying “sorry” and assures him that they are having a good time.
◆
Moose would have preferred the “sorry” during their final high school lunch. Everyone signed yearbooks and talked about futures. Moose was college bound while everyone else had jobs lined up with various friends and relatives. El Paisa signed up for the Marines. His brother, proud, gifted him a sapphire blue balisong knife for protection in case his gun ever failed him. El Paisa spent the lunch bragging about heading to boot camp directly after graduation, then proceeded to show off knife skills he learned from his brother.
The weapon is colloquially known as a butterfly knife because of its dual handles creating a wingspan and the fluttering that precedes its opening and closing. An erudite twist of the wrist unleashes a blade sharpened to open skin; pirouetting handles are a spectacle to distract prey. El Paisa played with the knife for hours upon receiving it—later, it became meditation to pass time during tours. That last High School lunch, he flung the knife around effortlessly; everyone rapt by the blade comfortably under El Paisa’s control. Eyes locked by beautiful violence, his friends waited for each trick, confident in El Paisa to pull them all off bloodlessly. El Paisa did not ruin a single twist, did not botch one toss, his hands clean of knicks, demonstrating how the knife’s acrobatics were more graceful than a butterfly.
No one stopped El Paisa despite white deans walking past their table during the exhibition. With the school year ending, many faculty and staff decided that keeping the students from violence was no longer within their jurisdiction. The bell rang when Munkey still had Moose’s yearbook in his hand ready to sign. Too spellbound by El Paisa to have written anything substantial, Munkey wrote:
“To BLACKY!!!
Yea the bell just rang
so take care.
-Munkey”
After graduation, everyone went their separate ways for entire years until a New Year’s Eve Carne Asada at Munkey’s backyard. The timing aligned with Moose’s return from college and El Paisa’s return from the military. No one had changed much; Moose still wore punk clothes, Munkey still wore metal clothes, and El Paisa wore his cowboy hat over a shaved head. Other friends faceless as ever. Everyone stood around the fire pit as midnight approached. Alcohol flowed freely, and even Moose and El Paisa felt bold enough to trade pleasantries.
“How’s my fellow mutt doin’ these days?” El Paisa asked with mostly a smirk, holding a half empty beer in one hand, blue balisong in the other. “Didn’t get pulled over on the way over here, did ya? Or did you remember to tell them you’re also Costa Rican?”
“I’m still your only Black friend, aren’t I?” Moose asked El Paisa, attempting to reciprocate the humor he never understood.
“All I need is one,” El Paisa said, mindlessly flicking his balisong as he spoke. The blade dirtied with miniscule spots of dark red stained on the steel. Still, the handle flew around in El Paisa’s impatient hand, a moth thirsty for fire. Someone said, “Tell us about how you saved your Commander, foo.” El Paisa smiled, regaling everyone with his version of events.
“Towelhead tried to merc our Sargant,” he said. “I caught the little bitch, gave her a bullet between the eyes. Simple as that.”
Munkey, several tequila shots deep into the night, demanded everyone cheers to El Paisa’s heroism. He slurred “salut!” as everyone raised a glass. An unimpressed Moose kept his beer in his lap, and El Paisa looked down at his flying blade among friends yelling, “Viva El Paisa!” Munkey knew the full story, though, the one El Paisa kept in his chest. Upon returning to the United States for the first time since his initial deployment, El Paisa gave Munkey the details while sitting at the hometown bar, demanding Munkey tell no one. Munkey kept his promise, bending truths in his head until even he believed El Paisa was the hero he pictures now. Still, when his guard is down or his eyes are closed, Munkey sees El Paisa’s balisong fail him.
Fellow soldiers patrolled a bombed building mid-day, and one Marine caught a bullet to the face. The shooter was a middle-aged Iraqi male trying to get his family out of the area and out of sight of the Marines. Upon being spotted, engulfed in fear, the man shot the Marine. The shot only left a flesh wound in the Marine’s cheek that would heal over time and leave a “manly” scar. Their Sargant, less than a moment after the Marine hit the ground, shot and killed the Iraqi.
Then a girl no older than ten—the Iraqi’s daughter, they assumed—ambushed the men. She surprised El Paisa, shoved him to the floor, and snatched his pistol and balisong. She aimed the pistol at the Sargent’s head, but El Paisa regrouped fast enough to fire M4 rounds into the little girl. The force of the bullets spun her around into a violent ballet; her feet twirled on the floor, the balisong fluttering to the ground and contorting like interpretive dance. Her eyes stayed open as she hit the ground, as though capturing the world one more time before death, as though trying to find butterflies she would never catch—ones not made from steel.
El Paisa’s friends, and even El Paisa himself, never hear this version.
Yo se perder
Quiero Volver
Moose finished his beer despite the cheers, getting up to get a new bottle from the chest next to El Paisa, ignoring the countdown. The guys burst into cries of “¡Feliz Año Nuevo!” just as fireworks started shouting into the sky. One particular pop set off by a neighbor’s Roman Candle exploded close to the backyard. El Paisa jumped out of his seat and readied his balisong, pointing the tip inches away from Moose’s face. Everyone froze, then El Paisa laughed the knife away when the fire in the sky dispersed into smoke.
“Just thought you were tryna steal my wallet, mayate,” El Paisa laughed.
Moose did not.
◆
AAAAAHHHHHHHHH HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The jukebox plays “Volver, Volver” again, and Munkey has ordered a fifth beer as Moose inches toward the end of his third. Munkey demands Moose take a shot with him, ordering two shots of Mescal before Moose could answer. Moose sees Munkey slowly leave his own body with every drop of beer, with a cheers so erratic the mezcal flung out of the shot glass and onto Munkey’s pants. He shoots what’s left of the mezcal, orders another shot, shoots that one too. Moose pretends to shoot but puts the glass down when Munkey isn’t looking.
“You, you gotta stay, man,” Munkey begs before slamming Moose’s rejected shot. “We’re having a good time, good good time right now. I owe you, foo. So much. So fucking much. I met Lucy because of you. You gotta stay. Then she’ll stay.”
Moose wants to leave, no longer patient enough to ask Munkey again to translate his drunken slurs. As Moose motions toward an exit—empty glass, shuffling for a wallet, checking for belongings—Munkey again wraps an iron hand around Moose’s arm. Munkey wants his friend, and he wants him here.
“You still play, Moose?” Munkey asks. Moose gives in, slides back into his seat. They try to have a conversation about music, about playing guitar with soul, but Munkey pivots to speed and weight.
“I still play metal, man,” Munkey says. “Metal is fucking big. So heavy. Con huevos. None of that punk shit. No offense. I just can’t stand that ‘Bikini Kill’ fuckin’ ‘girls to the front’ bullshit or whatever. Lucy loves that shit. I know you do, too, but I don’t get it. Where’s the brutality, man? Where’s the guitar solos?”
Munkey plays an air guitar; he plays it fast. Moose’s eyes wander to the tables full of empty glasses as patrons’ drunk singing voices grow louder than before. The PA system does not stand a chance, and Munkey’s sudden, “pongon Mötley Crüe. Pinche ‘Home Sweet Home’!” drowns in the noise. Munkey jams faster, his strumming hand colliding with the bar two or three times. He feels nothing but music no one else can hear.
“El Paisa told me I looked stupid when I play guitar,” Munkey says, his gesticulations quelled by a sudden burst of sorrow, staring off into the distance as though looking for someone. Moose takes this opportunity to move Munkey’s beer away from him, hoping the bartender will see the move and cut them off.
“Last time I saw him,” Munkey says. “Some pinche TGI Friday’s. Was me, El Paisa, and his hyna Mari. He loved her, fool. Full blooded Mexicana. Loved her. But she, like, wasn’t happy the whole time we were there. Fuckin’ ‘Every Rose Has It’s Thorn’ blasting on the speakers and she wasn’t happy? Nah! So, I’m jammin’ out and El Paisa’s all like, ‘tch, foo, you look stupid,’ like I was embarrassing them or some shit. Said he hated that country ass bullshit, but I didn’t give a fuck. So I kept jammin’ out. If I stopped, I woulda saw how fuckin’ unhappy Mari was, which would remind me how unhappy Lucy was. Plus, foo, Mari’s eyes were dark as fuck. Like, she overdid it with the eyeshadow, especially her right eye. Shit was so big it almost colored over this fresh scab on the side of her forehead.
“Moose, I’m not fuckin’ stupid. She was barely able to drink water without the glass shaking like a mother fucker. Every time El Paisa even turned her way, she flinched. But I don’t wanna think about my friends like that. Because my friends are perfect and fuckin’ beautiful. So, I kept jammin’, hoped Mari would start to be happy, that her eyeshadow would go away if I just stopped looking. But El Paisa, every time, ‘Foo, you look fuckin’ stupid.’ And I’m not stupid, I know I’m not, but I didn’t know how to believe that. Lucy is tryna leave me, some shit about needing more or feeling tied down. I don’t fuckin’ know. But I came to El Paisa and Mari hoping their love would rub off on me and fix us. All El Paisa told me was ‘Lucy’s just being a woman. She’ll come around.’ Said women are loyal so long as they are reminded. Said, ‘Foo, if she’s still disrespecting you, find yourself another hyna. She’ll change her tune real quick.’ Then we drank more, and I jammed out until the song ended.”
◆
Moose will see Lucy days after the bar to mediate against a divorce; a drunken promise made to Munkey. Moose and Lucy will meet for pho in a different city to escape the teen years’ stench. Moose in a car, Lucy from a bus. When they talk, Munkey is in neither of their mouths. He is back in the hometown, recovering, hoping Moose will bring Lucy back to him. But when Moose and Lucy sit across from each other by the window where the sun and passersby can see them clearly, they will continue laughing about the same jokes they’d told years ago. Lucy’s blue hair will give way to undyed roots, but her hands will be lighter, her fingers almost weightless, as she moves them with frenetic joy conversing with Moose. Moose will wish he had the weight of her hands, but he stays quiet to make sure Lucy’s words will be uninterrupted, ebullient, and hers. Munkey cannot enter this conversation; he will stand far from the window, cities away, petrified of the cuts that come from reaching through glass too violently.
“Honestly, fuck him,” Lucy will say, telling Moose all about El Paisa’s last few months on earth, truths Munkey would not spit out back at the bar. “Mari told me she came home to find El Paisa with another woman in their bed, still thrusting even after Mari called out in horror two or three times. Fucker didn’t think anything was wrong. No matter what anyone tells you, he put his hands on her first. Wanted to beat his mother out of her. They struggled to the floor next to his pants. She saw El Paisa’s butterfly knife sticking out of the pocket. Said the blue handle’s wings looked like a sleeping bat; El Paisa’s fists got angrier, his knuckles hungry to cave her bones as a lesson, so she woke up the bat to save her life. Grabbed the blue wings, thrust the blade into El Paisa’s abdomen, then his dick. Several times. He let go. Mari escaped. Her wounds will heal, Moose. Gonna give her brand new skin over the years.
“Munkey refuses to believe that’s the story. Refuses to hear anything else about what happened. Never found out if there was a lawsuit or any fallout about the remains of that asshole’s junk. But Munkey cried when he found out El Paisa returned to tour after being medically cleared—whatever that meant. Cried harder when the mortar took him. Blamed El Paisa’s injuries making it harder for him to run. Honestly, I think he was just stupid enough to man the mortar and point it straight up into the air fully believing it wouldn’t come back down because he was invincible or some machista bullshit. Regardless, we went to the funeral. Munkey begged me to go with him, even after I said I wanted a divorce. El Paisa’s mom cried when soldiers draped an American flag over his casket. She’s his only living parents – his dad’s heart stopped working after El Paisa’s first tour—so they flew a Mexican and Salvadorian flag during the ceremony; I watched the wind blow the blue and white coat of arms over the eagle with a snake in its mouth.”
Lucy will finish telling this story. Lucy will not return to Munkey. Lucy will laugh and let Moose laugh with her, as though no one has died, because Lucy is tired of men laughing first; tired of their tears superseding hers. Tired, and will sleep like a bat who finished saving a life.
◆
“Everyone leaves,” Munkey says through ruptured, intoxicated words, the bartender having just told him he’s done for the night. “You left. Then El Paisa. Now Lucy’s tryna split. I can’t let her go. I’m her man. She gotta have her man. She gotta come back. You came back, Moose. Fuck. But El Paisa. Mari ain’t got her man. El Paisa can’t come back.”
Moose cannot understand any of it, attempts to get ahold of Munkey to start leaving the bar, says he’ll walk him to the curb to catch a ride share. Munkey’s limbs hang on marionette strings, and now he sees two Mooses; one brown, one Black. Munkey grabs one shoulder like a brother, but his other hand stays inert on the bar for a few moments, afraid of intrusion and unserved penance. Still, there is enough power to reel Moose in for a hug. Munkey grips Moose’s body like an iron maiden, Munkey’s body shakes from balance escaping his legs. Moose’s arms are trapped at his sides, unable to reciprocate a hug even if he wanted to.
“He ain’t got no dick,” Munkey cries with his first formed words in several minutes. “A man gotta have his dick. Now he’s dead.”
The louder wails draw the bar’s attention once again as Vicente Fernández no longer croons. Munkey’s tears roll down the back of Moose’s jacket; both their eyes are closed, for pain, for embarrassment. Moose cannot reach his wallet. Moose cannot lace his hands around Munkey. Moose cannot ignore the chatter competing with Munkey’s drunken cries, an errant and barely whispered, “pinche negrito y maricón,” hurled their direction. Moose cannot get the picture of El Paisa out of his head; eunuched, disintegrated, his tongue torn apart by warfare – a tongue that lashed Moose’s back for years, a tongue that lassoed a kindergarten Munkey away from Moose, a tongue that laughed and laughed. Now Moose is laughing. His laughter trounces Munkey’s crying, eclipsing all the chatter in the bar. Now all eyes whelm the two. Munkey’s clasp loosens from Moose’s convulsing shoulders, lets go in anger. The laughter does not stop.
“Stop laughing,” Munkey yells. “It’s not funny!”
With a backfired shove, Munkey loses his balance and crashes to the floor along with a couple of empty beer glasses. Munkey’s strumming palm grips pieces of broken glass, but he does not feel a thing. Other men in the bar get up to do nothing but watch the commotion—even Moose refuses to offer a hand to Munkey. On the floor, Munkey stares at his sliced palm, the blood drips like drool. He looks up to see four Mooses: a Black, a brown, a punk, a child.
“Ayudame, Blacky,” Munkey asks Moose, who stands above him with violent laughter tempered to light chuckles, with jacket clean and ready to protect from evening chill. “Talk to my wife, yeah? Ask Lucy to stay with me? I’ll get our tab. You won’t owe me anything.”
“I already know that,” Moose says. “I’m going home, so take care.”
The four bodies vanish from Munkey’s view, but men still crowd around the glass. The broken pieces are stained glass prayers to Munkey’s younger self, sliced into his palms to scab one day and become a reminder; a nice eulogy. For now, not even Chente’s voice protects him from silence as Munkey peels shards of glass from his hand like fleas from fur.