The sun comes up on East Los just like anywhere else in the world. The birds make their noises and the clouds proceed in their idle manner.
It was 1992.
You get the morning din from traffic and the caustic sound of cars starting their engines in the cold air this time of year. Like a sick man trying to get phlegm out of his throat for an hour. A lot of old cars around here so when you’re sleeping at 5 am you can hear a truck on the next block trying to make the engine turn. Some old man who collects cardboard for recycling is getting ready to make his rounds in the back lots of the strip malls, if he could only get the truck started. Not to mention the roosters. Fucken roosters.
When the sun comes out, the sky clears up and the Mexicans come out to play, work, study; or some just sleep in from the cruda.
The tamales vendor starts his song, tahhhhh!-mahhhhhhh!-les!, champuhhh!-rahhh!-dohhh!
Just like everywhere else. Right.
Tamales. Hmmmm. I wish I had one right now.
This morning is different for me, it’s 3am and I am waiting to hear my name called, sitting on a metal bunk bed in Men’s Central Jail. I have these wack ass slippers on my feet ’cause my sneakers disappeared during processing. I never even saw who took’em. I’m glad, because I might of had to defend myself and I’m not a good fighter at all. I’ve been in fights but never liked it.
This place sucks in ways I can’t explain. You have the elite cops and the slum inmates. You have a black market that brings them all together and corruption on both ends. It’s ugly.
Mind you, I’m a kid here, 19. This is my first time behind bars and I don’t ever want to be near this place again. As soon as they call my name I’m steppin’.
You see, I got pulled over for riding my bike through a red light. Bike, as in bicycle, no Harley. Ain’t that a bitch.One cop wrote the ticket while the other one laughed. Then they noticed I had a bench warrant for a jaywalking ticket I got the year before. Fuck! 19 years old, never had a car and already in jail for walking and riding a bike.
I don’t belong here.
“Sanchez, 342…..!”
“Here!”
The sound of metal gears banging reverberated through the building and creating spirals in my mind.
