Unos Marranos + Una Víbora = Romance

By Tommy Villalobos

A novel stuffed with fun, animals, people, food, uncertainty, conflict but with a happy ending. It is carnitas for the soul. And brain.

The story starts with two (2) out of order romances caused by a bunch of smelly pigs and a rattlesnake with a rotten disposition. The sad story then evolves into a grand effort to save Chicano cupid's reputation. The attempt is made by a pudgy primo assisted by a skinny uncle who really isn't anyone's uncle but hangs around anyway.

A tía with the temperament of a dragon with heartburn also becomes involved.

The story swings from East Los Angeles to Pacific Palisades to Pico Rivera to East L.A. then back to Pacific Palisades. The path is well-marked, don't worry.

In between all this, enter one dark and cold beach, plenty of feasting (like chorizo, ham, turkey sausage, panela, pizza, salsa and orange soda, food like that), a whole bunch of senior folks, two parties (one of them, a Halloween one), an agitated and passionate Méjicano gardener, and one frog, domestic.

(I tried to fit more people and animals into the story, but it was becoming a 900-page Russian novel.)

In the end, this is a story of high-sea adventure, fiery love, treacherous animals confronting treacherous people, bodies flying, heroic battles, a grand baile leading to coldblooded maneuvers and catastrophic events, all which guarantee a lot of action and stuff—if you hold your E-book at a certain angle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tommy Villalobos
• Release date: Dec 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9780463422595

Tommy Villalobos

Born and raised in East Los Angeles, I have always loved reading and writing. My goal in life is for people to read what I'm writing and then double up laughing, dislocating something. But modest giggles are OK, too.

Book preview

Unos Marranos + Una Víbora = Romance

Published By Thomas Villalobos At

Smashwords

Text Copyright 2014 Thomas Villalobos

All Rights Reserved

To Lalo Guerrero who showed us how

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-1-

Tío Juan, déjame dicerle algo.

Dígame until you pass out.

What I'm going to say will cause you to go to your room, slam the door and pout.

I never slam. I do close firmly under certain circumstances. I admit to pouting on occasion ifn' things frustrate certain aspirations.

Entonces—

Wait up. I don't know if this has ever happened to you ese or esa, but I have trouble starting a story. That's something you don't want to mess with. You know, setting, character conflict, plot, point of view, all that. You don't get that right, everybody swiftly goes on to twittering, texting, or scratching his or her espalda or someone else's without further thought to you or your scribblings.

Wander away from your point, no matter how early, and the gente will abandon you every time. They make a funny face, wonder about you, then forget you.

So, in relaying my grand chisme about Snorki Lupizando, Mary Ann Folada, my prima Rosa, my Tía Lydia, my Tío Antonio (we call him Tío Tony), el joven Georgie Malván, and Tía's criada María and jardinero Rubén, I think I have covered character. In a big way.

I'm going to have to go back. It all began slowly—like in some movies where you eat all your popcorn and drink all your soda before anything happens—when I took a trip to Cabo San Lucas. If I hadn't gone there, I wouldn't have met La Folada, or bought my big, white cowboy hat; and Rosa wouldn't have met a bartender from Jalisco, and Tía Lydia would not have ever gone snorkeling and endangered all kinds of species.

I guess you could say Cabo San Lucas was the Opening Gate for this horse race.

Órale, I think I found where I am, the I being Arturo Solunaz.

Tío Juan, my live-in guidance counselor, cook and all-around compañero, stayed home, not wanting to miss the Home and Gardening Show. So, I went with Tía Lydia and her hija Rosa. El joven Georgie Malván, Rosa's prometido, was supposed to make the trip but couldn't get off work. He is a lifeguard at a public swimming pool. Tío Tony stayed home because he said they charged too much for everything.

Así es, Tía Lydia, prima Rosa, y yo jammed to Cabo San Lucas around the first part of June.

We stayed at Cabo San Lucas two weeks and, except for the fact that Tía Lydia lost her way from the snorkeling group and was on her way to China before she was retrieved, and Rosa received several marriage proposals and had to be talked out of one (a suave bartender to beat all suave bartenders), we all had loads of giggles.

So, the latter part of June, we all took a cruise ship back to Los Angeles. On the very last day of June, our boat came screeching into San Pedro harbor. With besos and abrazos in every direction, we went our separate ways, they (Tía Lydia and prima Rosa) in Tía's Jaguar to Pacific Palisades, me in my Chevy Impala to East Los to wash up, eat, put on fresh calcos, and step around to the Green Bar for the poor beer and rich company.

After showering, and drying myself, I put on the fresh wardrobe and headed for the kitchen for a loose leg of lamb. While I feasted, Tío Juan slowly munched on a quesadilla chasing it with Oolong tea. We caught up with the latest chismes followed by the usual philosophizing by the barrio's resident sage, Tío Juan. He then, out of nowhere, spit out the name, Snorki Lupizando.

Going from my memory, which my Tía Josefina says is all ready out to pasture, we began to charlar. It went something like this:

Yo: Órale, Tío, here we are como siempre, ¿Qué no creas?

Tío Juan: Símón.

Yo: You know, en la casa, safe and away from all barullo the world throws at your cork.

Tío Juan: Exactly.

Yo: Seems like I was gone unos años.

Tío Juan: At least.

Yo: Did you party away at the Home and Garden Show?

Tío Juan: A toda madre.

Yo: Find a rare deciduous tree to cause Señora Multa across the street to tear her pelo out in extreme jealousy, grey roots and all?

Tío Juan: No, but I did find a rose plant that the seller claims will flourish in L.A.'s winter and smog and survive the most evil dog.

Yo: Has anyone been calling, desperately asking to speak with moi?

Tío Juan: Snorki Lupizando has been calling and calling.

I paused. I think I even gulped.

Snorki Lupizando?

Símón.

You mean, El Snorki Lupizando?

Símón.

Well, smash a ripe aguacate in my face.

I'll tell you why I felt my face smeared with aguacate. I couldn't believe Tío Juan. This Snorki was one of those weirdoes you run into en esta vida who can't stand L.A. He lives somewhere en las lomas lleno de pulgas, not even coming to L.A. for the Roosevelt-Garfield game. When I asked him if he wasn't going crazy talking to himself (not the most exciting company), he said no, because he had his pigs.

I couldn't think of anything that could bring the bato to East Los. Unless a pig disease wiped out his hobby, I could not think of a reason he would be walking the streets here.

¿Estás cierto?

Símón.

Lupizando is the apellido?

Símón.

It's unbelievable. It must be years since he was in L.A. He says the place gives him cold chills. Until now, he's stayed in the hills flanked by and smelling like pigs.

¿Qué?

Pigs, Tío Juan. Señor Lupizando can't get enough of them. You must be familiar with pigs. Those foul-looking things that will butt you but good if you're not looking. Or even if you are.

¿Como qué no? The buscarido member of the genus Sus, within the Suidae familia of even-toed ungulates.

Yeah, them. Well, Snorki keeps packs of them up in the hills. He had four in his backyard all through school. He called them his pets but they were really his friends, his only ones.

Boys usually have rich relationships with varmints of all kinds.

He sometimes walked around the Hood with one or two. Somehow, I always felt it would end up wrong. Like someone who J-walks regularly. His friends, busy chasing girls and other things, didn't really pay attention to the oddball. Maybe we said things like he was entitled to be different but that difference ended where our noses began. You probably know that there was a 'To Be Continued' portion to this story.

You don't say?

Absolutely, Tío Juan. The smells grew on him. The pigs with those conniving, I-know-something-you-don't-eyes had hypnotized him. He came into some coins when some drugged and drunk insurance agent ran into him with her big fat Hummer. He flew half a block then flew into court. He got thousands and a knee that set off metal detetectors blocks away from the deal. With the money, he bought a place far from complaining neighbors or any neighbors in a remote area of Riverside County. There, he gave his young life to the breeding and raising of pigs. By the time he met a chavala who he wanted to pig out with, it was too late. He refused to give up his smelly pigs. And she refused to live like one.

Así pasa a veces.

Yeah. Anyway, after that reject from the feminine front, he has been living down there in Riverside, shuffling through his days all alone, committed to making sure every one of his pigs has enough select feed several times a day while avoiding contact with the Genus Homo, Species Sapiens. That I remember from the Cultural Anthropology class I took at East Los Colegio. That's why I think it is some other bato crazy enough to call himself Lupizando. The homie I know is half-blind, refuses to wear lentes, and has a face even a mother would report to the authorities. Does that jive with your evaluation?

The dude that came to the door squinted like he had concentrated lemon juice squeezed into each eye.

And looked like he was freshly embalmed?

He did have the eyes of parted soul, yes.

I guess it was Snorki. What made him come to L.A.?

Heck, I can tell you that. Señor Lupizando told me why he has come to our pueblo. He came to marry some chavala.

Marry? Chavala?

Yep to you twice.

Like, he came to see some chavala because he might be in love?

Is.

"Well, I'll be jiggered. I mean, jiggered. Jiggered from cabeza to pies, Tío Juan."

And I'm serious, man. Some chistes I can live with. This wasn't one of them.

Then I thought of something else. Even if Snorki Lupizando was operating outside the box falling for some female, why did he pick my chante to report that? I know sometimes a bato needs to share a beer or a dozen with another bato, but why me?

It's not like we were camaradas. We used to hang together, yeah, but in the last two years, I hadn't received one tweet from the dude.

I heaved all this on Tío Juan's aged and bony shoulders:

Strange he comes to my house. But he did, the chump. I have to admit that. He must have freaked out when he saw I wasn't home.

No, Artie, Snorki Lupizando didn't come to see you.

Check it out, Tío Juan. You told me he was doing that, over and over.

He came to see me, Artie.

You? I didn't even know he knew you. Did you?

Yes.

You knew him?

No, by 'Yes,' I was indicating that I was agreeing with your initial reaction of surprise and, in effect, displaying great surprise that the dude would arrive and ask to see me.

By this time, my mind was in San Francisco in a fog, so I tried my best to clear things up by emitting a lame Huh?

It looks like a Gus Tever-Losca whom he knew at Garfield gave me as a reference. Something like a cool adviser slash counselor is what Gus Tever-Losca said. He told him I could fix messes.

Ah, I said to myself sagely. I felt like an observant owl watching a mouse zig and zag below. Tío Juan's reputation as a cultural coach was well known among my dear friends and acquaintances. Gus Tever-Losca had recently been aided by Tío Juan regarding a Ponzi scheme involving synthetic caviar.

Tío Juan should be handing out flyers at the steps of the U.S. Congress, offering his consulting services to the dishonest and the honest who had not yet discovered that they are dishonest. Tío Juan's words were still echoing in Gus's melon so it was an easy step to point Snorki toward the viejo.

So, you're, like, his temporary personal advisor?

Símón.

I see. And I see some more. What is his problem?

Nothing like Señor Tever-Losca's. Gus was trying to evade jail. Snorki is trying to sneak his way in. If you start with the premise that marriage is a cultural jail.

I nodded diagonally.

Oh, sí, the Tever-Losca matter. He got cold feet after eagerly diving feet first into the caviar dish, so to speak. A clear case of cold and smelly feet. I remember you saying it had something to do with a burning lamp and—¿como?—then some dude coming back.

'And while the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return.' An old dicho…a hymn.

Man, amazing the stuff that egg-shaped bald head of yours holds. But Snorki is a whole different matter, dices?

Oranges and plátanos. Snorki's cold feet are irrespective of any illegality. It has more to do with his previous experience with dedicated members of the distaff. He wants her hand and feet in marriage but she will never know because Señor Snorki Lipuzando's own feet are cold.

If he wants to marry her, he has to tell her ahead of time. It's only fair.

You understand the problem perfectly.

I chewed on a dried churro that was unattended on the coffee table.

It was bound to happen, Tío Juan. I never thought this Lupizando would come under the spell again. But if he has, he has.

Right, Artie.

Look at his life.

As we speak.

I don't think he's hit on a girl for years. There's a life's lesson there, Tío Juan—don't go live en las lomas where your only company is a posse of pigs. You can't be an Alpha Male if you go in for that kind of stuff. In this vida, you got to choose. You can seclude yourself in a jacal surrounded by maranos pestosos or you can make yourself irresistibly sexy. One or the other.

One or the other.

I chewed on the churro some more. Like I said, Snorki and I lost contact, but I felt something for the cucumber, like I do for all my homies, near and far. He had the weight of a 500-pound porker on his shoulder.

I remember the last time I saw him. About three years it's been. He had just moved into his jacal in the hills. I took my Impala up there and it heated up coming and going on those steep roads leading to his place. He was all happy, even inviting two of his prized pigs, Pie and Sky, to accompany us while we dined, talking to them as if they were his niños. They grinned and he grinned back until one of them, not sure which one, ate the main course, spaghetti with meatballs, in one huge gulp. I still have that picture in my mind and can't see him courting a chick living that way. Throw in that the gal he is wooing is probably one of those fashion conscious, serious make-up types, with severe eyes and stuffy nose.

Tío Juan, dígame, describe the girl Snorki is chasing.

I haven't met her Artie. Snorki Lupizando brags about her great cuerpo topped by a fabulous looking head. Of course, that could describe any one of his pigs of which he is proud.

Finds her cool, does he?

Yep.

Did he say who she was? I might know her from school or work or some chisme.

She is Señorita Folada, Artie. Señorita Mary Ann Folada.

¿Qué?

Sí, Señor.

I was fascinated. As fascinated as a lowriding homie can get and still be a lowriding homie in good standing.

Órale, Tío Juan. Imagine. It's a small world, ¿Qué no creas?

You know the babe?

Like the back of your Smartphone. You have eased my mind, Tío Juan. All the world is running on all cylinders, none missing.

Really?

Símón. Until you gave me the information, I thought Snorki's chance of ever finding anyone to say 'I do' on the same day and in the same spot were Zero, with a capital Z. You have to agree, he is one weird dude.

Clinically so.

Lady Gaga would call him extreme.

Without stopping to wiggle.

Lindsay Lohan would call him unstable.

In so many bad words.

But he hitting on Ms. Folada is good news. Mary Ann Folada snatches up batos like him while filing her nails.

I better tell you, this Folada chick had been a visitor at Cabo San Lucas. She and Rosa became close friends as only two females can become under the right circumstances. Sometimes when I was agüitado, it seemed like I had Mary Ann Folada's coming out of my ears.

What made it scary, even spooky, is the more I saw of her, the less I could pluck out from my brain anything to say to her.

You know, some girls have that effect. They, like, drain all your spirit. You know, that personality type that causes you to draw a blank every time you try to say something and leaves you wanting to turn and leave. Not to be rude but just to be somewhere else. It was just like that with this Folada woman; there were encounters with her where Arturo Solunaz played with the mobile phone borrowed from Tío Juan, pretending to be texting, or looked up and down an arm as if noticing a gravitating skin disease, feeling like an awkward monkey in a zoo being stared at by folks expecting him to do something real monkey-like but not being in the mood. So, when she split for the States from Cabo, Arturo felt a load was taken off his psyche.

She wasn't a knockout. No. I mean, she was all right, with big, brown eyes that ate you up, and with a pert, upright nose that could lift you up or flip you away. But she was not outstanding.

What caused the problem with a bato who regularly seeks out and cherishes conversation with wandering ladies was her way of thinking and expression. I won't go saying that her words sprang forth from her like a continuous series of lyrical sonnets from the depths of her soul, but she did ask me one time if the sounds of the waves along the beach were not whispers from heavenly creatures assuring us that all was cool, delivering a message from God. That takes a bato out of his regular rhythm.

We were not soul mates or any other kind of mates, guaranteed. But with Snorki, the game was different. The thing that had tripped me up was that the girl was full of far out thoughts reaching out to who-knows-where, all sentimental; but Snorki would nod his head at her words, wearing a look that would be blank to the rest of us but not to Mary Ann Folada.

Snorki had always walked in a dream state, his eyes looking at who knows what. I always thought that one day a delivery truck would cream him, and he would die with the happy faraway look in his eyes.

If ever he could be coaxed to get what he had inside him off his chest, the Folada woman would listen with rapture in her eyes and pigs in her heart. They would make a winning combination just like chorizo con huevos.

Man, it's a match made in a pig pen, I said.

Happy to hear that.

He could listen to her impressions as he sloshes around with his maranos. This is something we should get behind. Use every lobe of your brain, Tío Juan.

Órale, Arturo, said the standup bato. I will jump in, chingasos flying.

At this point, all was cool in the barrio and, therefore, the world, the way I saw it. Positive vibes between proprietor and tenant, everyone all smiley. But then something messed it up. The day darkened, the wind kicked up, howling kicked in, and before I knew it, a cold hand touched my shoulder. This has happened before in the happy Solunaz castle.

The first inkling of the cold hand on my left shoulder, was a grunt from somewhere behind me. While we were chatting, Tío Juan had been checking out stuff I bought down in Mexico.

He was waving something. I knew another cultural clash was about to occur during which I had to make my Solunaz sangre proud, for this viejo was a formidable foe who never accepted or gave quarter.

I don't know if you were at Cabo this summer. Any one who wanted to be noticed, especially by the mujeres, had to be ready to draw their attention, make like he or she wanted attention. My choice was this big, white cowboy hat. I knew it would be a magnet that females would fall for and would leave them at my mercy. All the way home, I thought about what Tío Juan would say.

His idea of style was somewhere back at a long lost decade or two. I had trouble with him once about baggy pants and soft shoes. So, when I strolled around Cabo San Lucas, feeling all self-satisfied and firme, I knew it would be a problem when I returned.

I was going to stand my ground.

¿Pues qué, Tío Juan? I was smooth but if you got inches from my cara, you'd see by jaws were pulsating. I mean, Tío Juan is sharp and all that, but he tends to act like the lord of my castle where he is staying because I let him. And he's not even my tío but some old bato who asked to stay over for one night but then never left. So, looking back at El Gran Señor Solunaz who was present at the Battle of Monte De Las Cruces, marching in the shadow of Comandante Ignacio Allende, I was going to show backbone.

"Dígame, Tío Juan, I said. ¿Qué te pica?"

I think you accidently left Mexico with an umbrella, the kind they use to shade taco carts.

Chale, Tío Juan, I said, girding my chones, the thing you call an umbrella is a hat I brought here on purpose. I actually paid a good price for it.

You voluntarily and willingly carried that on your head, Arturo?

Everywhere.

You're not going to wear that within U.S. territorial boundaries, are you?

We, again, had crossed swords.

Yeah, Tío Juan, I yam.

Pero…

¿Ibas a decir algo, Tío Juan?

You can't wear that.

I can and will, Tío Juan. I'll be the hit of the party topped with this big, white hat. I'm going to wear it to Pete Parrisido's party and expect nothing but smiling nods from the first minute to the last. Don't say anything, Tío Juan. No comments. Whatever makes you sick about this hat, see a therapist. This hat will be on my head.

Okay.

He went to his room to read some book of knowledge, I guess. I dropped it. I had won but a Solunaz doesn't put his foot on a beaten foe's neck. I finished washing up and then went to his room where he was shining his shoes. I suggested he go buy himself a book or two at a bookstore, one of his favorite things to do. You know, trying to smooth things out again.

He grunted. Tío Juan has different grunts, which I have learned to decipher. This one told me that he wasn't moved by my words.

I looked him over, my head tilted.

You look like you're shining calcos for feria.

No, Arturo, I have to hang around here. Señor Snorki Lupizando is coming by.

Snorki's coming? Wish him an early Merry Christmas for me.