Batos & Dolls

By Tommy Villalobos

This is an assortment of short stories—like a box of Amedei Porcelana chocolates—about people like your vecinos and unnamed relatives. Everyone is trying to find romance while groping through the fog they and others create. Okay, two are about just groping through life, in general.

They, hopefully, will make you smile, giggle, sniggle and belt out a laugh con ganas. I also accept tee-hee's.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tommy Villalobos
• Release date: Feb 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9780463199916

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

Batos & Dolls

By

Tommy Villalobos

Published by Thomas Villalobos at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 by Thomas Villalobos

All Rights Reserved

To Raul, Brisenia and all victims of hate

Discover other titles by Tommy Villalobos at Smashwords.com

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Table of Contents

Hard Hearts & Hard Cabezas

Rosa Ortiza, No Bull

Brooklyn & Mednik—Hot Ice

First Client

Where There's Esperanza, There's Hope

Looking For Familia

Artie’s Barrio Barullo

Batos & Dolls

Hard Hearts & Hard Cabezas

Humberto Gillán was riding out the gran lástima—Gladys Letesmo, once his unceasing enchantment, was now a severe X. He sat in Belvedere Park amid forsaken benches, uninspired flowers while hearing soft voices in particular breezes. He reflected on dancing spirits among the shade trees, grassy slopes, and love goddesses who come down to men, stretching out their hands while offering consoling sighs. Time was lost. Mid afternoon, he offered up his lunch at the foot of an impressive tree, looking up in supplication to the tree that stared down in the arrogant indifference of madera.

It was a warm day—June 6—he liked to be certain regarding dates. He even remembered ages, locations and weather of principal events. First fallen tooth, bout with mumps, first pimples intermixed with first chingasos, first love, and first night in jail. They were markers of time that the gods use to change caballos, making batos like Humberto whistle a different tune at intervals down the river of life. He carried on, knowing dictators, celebrities and sports heroes are also puppets on strings held by those malicious puppeteers, the gods, who leave not much behind in their wake save Time, El Healer Famoso, the dude with the scooper.

Jerks, Humberto thought—in reference to these gods—and the caballos they rode in on.

You know, Humberto said to his camarada and confidant Miguel Cinama, I was hoping to call her ‘Vieja’ and her call me ‘Viejo’ well into the future as we wrinkled together in our sala, sipping on canela and chewing on prunes while exchanging coughing fits.

Humberto and Miguel were buying each other the cheap beer at the Pit N’ Bull, a tiny bar located in a remote corner of East Los Angeles. Humberto was doing most of the buying, for he considered Miguel one of the finest batos to ever slide onto a bar stool or fall off one.

No kidding? Miguel said.

Why are you looking at me en ese modo?

What modo?

The one on your face.

Well, I didn’t think you planned beyond the next party.

That’s how I knew it was her, bro. My whole future began to flash before me every time we were together. It was creepy…like out-of-body stuff.

I’m convinced. You fell hard.

Like a sack of papas. I see her face instead of the food on my plate. She flattened me and tore out my innards. Now I feel like road kill with the vultures pecking at my heart and liver. She is a mean-souled chica and a ninny.

What happened anyway?

Nothing. A reasonable woman would have paid little mind to it. I only said that I didn’t know why I loved her. That was it. She then proceeded to turn all kinds of colors like that lizard that lives somewhere. Then she turned as pale as Michael Jackson. How could any girl, except fathead Gladys Letesmo—for that was her name without the fathead—take offense to telling her how I felt?

Miguel scratched his head briskly as if rearranging the grey matter. Women having funny ideas about words. You got to be careful hombre when you string words around them. Women will throw their morning toast at you while it’s still in the toaster if the words don’t come out right.

She won’t get the chance. If I would see her drowning, I would throw her a cement block. Make that two.

How does she feel?

She told me to go the tallest building in L.A. and flap my arms then take a leap toward Long Beach.

Sounds like it’s over.

Over and buried nine hundred feet. She also said she never wanted to see or smell me again. She added that I should go to a big wide street then dash in front of as many beer trucks as I could find.

Two blocks north on Dangler Avenue and one block east on Hammel Street rested Gladys Letesmo in her bedroom. Her face looked as lifeless as a Latina Barbie. The once sparkle in her lustrous eyes had faded. Now her eyes matched those of a frozen halibut. She was caught in that zone of torture where a woman wants to erase a man from her memory bank then has his face come floating in with a ridiculous grin on it. To further her torture, she had always considered herself a one-man woman. She and Humberto were joined at the lips. They had grown up in the same sandbox, throwing sand at each other and pulling each other’s pelo. A forlorn smile came to her. She erased it with a smack to her forehead with the palm of a hand. Humberto was no more, she told herself. She was then vowing never to think about Humberto again, when her doorbell rang which made her think of Humberto again. She suspected he was coming to grovel, getting down on knees and elbows. She would land patadas on key points of his cuerpo then tell him to get himself and his trailing slime off her porch.

She ran to a mirror, brushed her hair, checked her makeup, then smoothed her blouse. She rushed to the door, a smug, toothy smile decorating her face. She flung the door open to her friend Rosa Mientral.

You look funny, Rosa said as she rushed in, like you swallowed a mosca.

It has to do with a mosca, but I didn’t swallow one.

Gladys had met Rosa when both worked as waitresses at El Gallo Amarillo restaurant on south Alvarado. Rosa left when she secured employment in the banking industry, being keen with figures. Gladys left Just because, as she told anyone who would ask.

Why you look like you lost something?

I did.

Good thing it wasn’t Humberto or you would be very sad.

It was Humberto and I’m very happy.

¡No! ¿De veras?

On a stack of Biblias with a roomful of santos around me.

Pero, you and he were like chorizo con huevos.

We ended up like a cata y un perro. I hope he falls down and breaks his back in three parts.

I cannot believe my years. Are you sure it was Humberto?

It was him—same shark eyes, pointed nariz and vanishing pelo.

Gladys invited Rosa to ice tea with Biscotti.

You know what the dingo said? Gladys continued.

Tell me, Rosa said snipping at her Biscotti.

He said he didn’t know why he loved me.

He say that?

He might as well have said he doesn’t know why he even bothers with me.

You weren’t listening to a telenovela at the same time, were you? Maybe you confused one pepino with another.

His mouth was moving. And he was smiling.

Why do those pescados always smile when they think they have said something reel cute. I could kick them all in the teeth, Rosa said reaching for another Biscotti.

There followed moments of silence while Gladys thought of various ways she could afflict Humberto while Rosa worked her way to the next Biscotti. Before their breakup, Humberto had always been a cheerful thought away. Gladys now felt at odds with her feelings. It was as if someone had just informed her she had a twin in El Paso. Or she saw her mother hoofing it on Dancing with the Stars.

You’re looking funny again, Rosa said, working on that third Biscotti, like when that customer at El Gallo Amarillo said he was from some planet long ago and far away and wanted to take you there to live with him.

I always thought I would bury Humberto, him dying in his bed with his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and a few vecinos looking on. I was looking forward to visiting his grave.

You can still do that but you have to wait until after he dies.

I don’t ever want to see him again, alive or buried. You know what I want to do to him, Rosa?

Kick him to Yan Beaver’s lap in Arizona?

I want to pull his remaining hair from the roots, twist his nose in several directions, and then boil him in oil.

"And you and the calabaza were together, like, por años."

Talk about wasted years. Gladys’s voice then melted into a series of sighs sounding like slowing escaping aire from two llantas. It was too late for helpful conversation, Rosa thought. Tears were seeping out of Gladys’s eyes. Rosa wished she were not crying then thought who, alas! can love and be wise at the same time?

Gladys truly did want to be done with him. She thought of him then felt miserable. I don’t love him! she said while thinking, I love him.

As she worked on her fourth Biscotti, Rosa committed to helping Gladys who had helped Rosa with four cumpleaños, two quinceañeras, and one baptismo. She had never met Humberto but she knew that Gladys and Humberto had been together since both were mocosos. The heavens above and the smog below decreed their union. Moreover, Gladys knew Humberto like the back of her smartphone. According to Gladys, Humberto was aware what she wanted him to say before he said it. He knew what to think before she told him to think it. Were they not married in spirit? Rosa asked herself. She went home to scheme.

Her line of attack was to bring them together one more time. With solid refereeing, they could have a no holds barred verbally abusive conversation. They could vent like two neighborly volcanoes then dive into each other’s arms vowing never to do whatever again. ¡Hijole! she said to herself. She might have a career writing lusty novellas. Her eyes sparkled with visions of dólares leading to showy carros and an overpriced casa. Maybe a casa along the beach in Baja, listening to Juan Gabriel while sipping whiskey sours into the night. Who needs love? she asked herself, when you can pawn it off on others and get rich from their gloom. There is big money in love, she concluded, as long as you stay out of the lucha. She would visit Miguel. Although they had never met, Gladys had pointed out his house to Rosa several times, smiling each time.

A few hours later and fewer miles away, Miguel and Humberto were marinated with beer. Both were leaning to and fro, making it hard for the casual observer to determine who was propping whom.

I yam’ na’ goin’, Miguel said.

Na’ goin’ wher? Humbeto said, reeling on his barstool like a sapling in an Arctic wind.

I don’ wan’ you…you brek up, Miguel then said with no little emotion.

Bud ah like been free. ‘Specially from a fadhed. I fel’ like somethin’ lift fro’—hic—ma’ univerze. Ged me?

Miguel nodded his head vigorously as if it were being pumped by hydraulics. Nevertheless, he had no intention to see his friend’s romance wither on any barrio vine. He