Whistle Towards the Graveyard: Out of the Grave

By Robert Noyola

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 28, 2000
• ISBN: 9781469111872

Robert Noyola

Robert Noyola was born August 24, 1937 in Port Arthur, Texas. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1956 where he developed a strong interest in journalism. Robert served in the United States Air Force for thirteen years as a journalist. Attended Woodbury University at Burbank, California. He was later employed by the Los Angeles Times as a translator and information specialist. Mr. Noyola, a retiree, residing in El Paso, Texas.

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Copyright © 2000 by Robert Noyola.

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Contents

AUTHOR’S NOTE

WHISTLE TOWARDS THE

GRAVEYARD

FOR SOCORRO ARCE NOYOLA

You will wander far in safety and not even know the way.

Robert Dufford

Be Not Afraid

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Most of the characters in this book are real people. Some of them are still practicing alcoholics. Others are disabled. A few are living out their last days in mental wards. The lucky ones are dead. Then there are those of us who remember them when they thought they were just happy drunks. I am the only witness to tell you their story.

WHISTLE TOWARDS THE

GRAVEYARD

Reading the Port Arthur News that July day, I glanced over the top and noticed my mother massaging her knees with Mentholatum.

Instantly I recalled back a few years when it had flooded here on the west side. This whole city was flooded. Sticks, mud, and grass floated all around over wood-framed houses. Small animals either climbed aboard something or drowned, later to be found under houses. Other animals, which also lived here, moved about their own backyards. Men with rifles would go out in small boats, in brownish waters, shooting gars, snakes, or an occasional crocodile.

All of the city was wet and cold. Even the walls and floors of our house were sweaty and cold. At night my knees and legs ached from rheumatism. when my mother heard me moaning, she would appear in the dark, sit on my bed, with a jar of Mentholatum and rub my knees, without words, silently in the dark. She must have sat there for at least a couple of hours, but I slept, comforted by strong, warm hands. Her hands guaranteed security, food, and clothes.

I thought sure she would live to be a hundred years, and she did. We always like to think mothers live a hundred years. Mine did. That way we can dispel any fear of the future, knowing that Mom will always be there. She will never get sick or tired. No, she never denies or refuses anything.

My dad built this house; that is, he bought the lot, lumber, and labor to build it with money he suffered for at the Texas Company. When he got paid he would place his green check on the kitchen table for Mom to see. Then after careful calculation, he would go in his 1940 Pontiac and buy food coupon books at Plettman’s store. That was part of my job. Right outside the main gate at Texaco, across the tracks, was the store on Houston Avenue. What a grand store it was! Everything that was needed for the kitchen or the house or the yard was in that one store. We paid for everything with coupons that had been purchased at a high cost of labor.

Once a week we drove to the icehouse. A great big, burly man, who wore leather aprons front and back, worked there. He frowned at everything. Ice picks and an ice tong gave him an even greater look of something menacingly wet in his black rubber boots. Dad held up two fingers, and the wet creature snatched two ice tongs off the wall, opened the igloo, then emerged with two blocks of ice. The old Pontiac lowered some when he dropped the ice onto the rear metal bumper. Dad made a U-turn and sped off.

While he unloaded them into our icebox, Mom was emptying flour sacks into a big blue lard can. She saved the sacks for me. From those sacks she cut a pattern and sewed me two new shirts on her Singer. I was the only kid at Franklin school who wore shirts with blue or orange flowers.

I was a happy kid at Franklin. Took up boxing too. Best of all, none of my teachers laughed at me when I expressed an interest in American writing. For I had seen their credits at the movies. But I guess my courage developed from a familiar tie, especially that kind of emotion that can convey courage across two thousand miles of desert, all the way to Los Angeles. It was that love that sustained, fortified, and comforted me when I was in danger or pain.

Later, at Woodrow Wilson Junior High, my teacher encouraged me to read more serious books and stories. I was a lucky kid to be in the Texas school system. Learning too much, too fast can also be destructive, especially without a strong sense of responsibility. My friends and I learned how to drink, or rather, how not to drink. At Thomas Jefferson High I was really ready to hit the streets and make money or see something that I had already read about.

About this time, too, Mary Karr was scribbling notes in the big Chief tablets for what would become her big, courageous book.

The only supernatural occurrence that took place before I left town was when a grown man sawed himself right off a tree limb. Naturally, he was taken to our Curandera, Senora Maria. She was eighty at the time and lived alone. Her house looked like a store inside, and she kept birds in cages throughout, even in the back yard. Nine cats were scattered about, eyeing the emergency suspiciously, but unafraid.

The tree trimmer had sprained his back and dislocated his shoulder. After he was laid down, I noticed another room where a young woman lay. Curandera explained that she was suffering from Susto, or somebody had given her the evil eye. Underneath the bed was an aluminum pail full of water. Into the water she broke an egg and uttered moans, whispers, salutations, condemnations, and general entreatment. Then she clapped her hands and with a flourish closed the curtains and stepped into the kitchen. Out she came with layers of leaves, soaking wet, on a towel. Then more herbs, lotions, alcohol, and a duster made out of real parrot feathers. Four men held down the patient. She put one knee against his ribs. With both hands, she twisted and pulled expertly as she set his arm back in place. Then, together with the same act as before, the man was relieved and comforted. With a final back massage, she was finished and awaited her pay. Everyone eagerly contributed.

Just as we were leaving, Senora Maria opened the curtain ceremoniously. The young girl’s white dress contrasted with the Curandera’s black robe. She stood there smiling, stretching backwards. She did not look sick at all, but peaceful.

What did she break? I asked Curandera. She looks nice.

The spirit, Curandera answered. Undemonio was after her.

Curandera died long ago, but I never forgot her admonition to be fearful of demons.

Mary Karr and I graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School. While she embarked on a writing career, I started working as a shipping agent for Texaco. As I did not appreciate driving from bank to ship carrying large sums of money and not being allowed to carry a gun, I quit the job and joined the Army.

The Golden Triangle was economically depressed and there was not much chance for a college career at Lamar College. So, at the Federal Building, I signed up, and Mom and Dad took me to the Greyhound station.

On the bus to Houston, I read in the paper that Defense Secretary McNamara was touring South Vietnam. There was a look or horror in his eyes. Satan was also in Vietnam, and this was where I was going. In school I had never even heard of Vietnam.

The narrative that follows is what happened to a soul displaced, allowing Satan to seize upon it, then empowering that soul, bringing it back to life and fullness.

LBJ told the nation: I’ll not be the first president to lose a war. He didn’t; we did. I decided to get away from that Texas-sized myth. I wondered what was happening in Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles, Catalina Gene stood on the corner of Third and Vermont. Traffic was bumper to bumper, like always. Citizens scurried about like ants, made up of mostly Koreans, Thais, Vietnamese, and many Hispanics. On Fridays these people reacted to a sense of urgency and excitement that everything had to be done early and quickly to enjoy the weekend.

There were four bars within five blocks, and they were all Asian, catering to the neighborhood of regulars. Gene was a semi-regular in these bars, and he knew that women did not especially like him. They tolerated him because he spent money, minded his own business, and dressed nicely. Gene had a passion for making money, every day. His presence advertised evil. Some of the girls called him Mr. Green. Nobody ever called him by his real name, because nobody knew it. They knew that he wore green shoes, socks, slacks, belt, watch, and long-sleeved shirt, topped off with an Oakland Athletics cap. His bushy red hair strained from round the cap like red steel wool. He reminded you of a strange vegetable.

Gene looked nervously around, trying to decide how he would spend the next two days until Monday. Two more sober, safe days to go before he could go cash in a winning fifty thousand dollar scratch-off ticket. He had the ticket, with his signature, address and social security number, in his green wallet, and he felt it nervously. Then he decided that absolutely nothing would happen to jeopardize his winnings.

Right then and there he decided to celebrate his newfound wealth with a cold one. He confidently went into the Monte Carlo, and sat alone at the bar, right in front of a huge color portrait of John Garfield. Gene ordered a Miller Lite from a Vietnam refugee named Thui, whom Gene quickly dismissed. He just wanted to be left alone. He wanted to imagine how he would spend the fifty grand. He had always wanted to live on a boat. He could quit his day job, he thought.

Gene was a comic strip porno artist and peddler. The cops knew this and knew him, and also knew that he supplied a great wealth of information about every piece of trash that passed through town.

When you least expect it, evil walks in. Because it was early and business was slow, Thui was busily making conversation with a few regulars who were early drinkers. Gene took notice of Big Nose Joe, sneezing as usual because of his allergy. He was allergic to bars, and he was a bartender. Howie was in there with them, complaining how we should drop the A-bomb on the Palestinians. Howie has never been away from Vermont Avenue. A couple of old-timers were just waking up. Old-timers have to get drunk early so as to get home in daylight. Naked Annie bolted through the curtains. Naked Annie had cut her blue jeans so that she appeared to be wearing only pockets, two in the front, and back, and nothing much else except for a Dodger T-shirt and blue sneakers. She was an expert dancer, perfectly proportioned, an alcoholic by night and a Red Cross worker by day.

She sat down right next to Gene. Hi ya, Green!

Green nodded and stood.

Action tomorrow night, she hissed. She slammed a hand on the bar and said to Thui: Blood Mary with lots of chili sauce and two limes. Then to Gene: I know you got plenty of cash."

Gene smiled. No.

Figures, she answered. "She pulled out a little coin purse from a belt bag and paid Thui with a twenty-dollar bill.

Gene had a little over three hundred dollars.

Naked Annie continued drinking her Bloody Mary. Don’t mind you being into porno and all, she said. It’s the women killers that get to me.

Gene stiffened, as though he didn’t really want to take the risk.

You don’t know nothing? asked Annie.

Gene smiled. No.

It was in all the papers.

Gene understood that she was serious. But there were some things Gene didn’t want to get involved in, and this was one of them.

She finished off that drink and bought another. Everybody buys their own drinks when with friends.

The killer’s going to get his Saturday night. You listening?

Gene smiled and nodded. Today he would drink carefully, drive carefully, and go home carefully so he could cash in and move to Catalina Island, far away from Vermont Avenue. Gene got another Lite and got comfortable. He knew how to mind his own business. He knew how to escape all the Naked Annies.

A couple of hours later, Gene knew it was time to go eat at Norms and take it easy. Gene always walked out without saying a word to anybody. He walked behind Annie like she wasn’t even there. Annie felt hurt. She never got used to it, and that was why it was so easy for her to see someone else’s hurt, someone else’s pain. Annie and Gene did not know now then in less than forty-eight hours they would hook up like passionate lovers for awhile, and only because a lady killer called Gato played his death card and lost.

Gene sped east on Third Street, passed Ralphs grocery store, heading toward Alvarado. He thought he was going to eat Mexican food at El Torito. He never made it. At Westlake Park a black and white turned up. Gene pulled over, both hands on the wheel. It was daylight. Two cops gave him a field sobriety test, which he failed. One cop handcuffed him, and he felt his life slipping away.

Parker Center dominates north Los Angeles streets like a glass house. But prisoners in handcuffs are brought through the underground garage.

Gene was brought in at the back, where numerous police cars were parked uniformly. He felt far removed from Santa Catalina. Quickly he was given a breathalyzer test and failed badly; he was one point above legally drunk. Jailers in khaki uniforms awaited him at the drunk holding cell. He emptied out his pockets, not mentioning the lottery ticket in the green wallet. Eyeing the green wallet, a copy wearing a nugget nameplate signed him in.

The holding tank is twenty by twenty, and always has twenty people in it. Two rows of bars open mechanically from the middle.

Two khaki-uniformed cops stood by as Gene walked in like he lived there. He turned and gave a nod, and the powerful doors met with a slam.

Gene was in the slammer. Beginning then, he was in danger. How he wished one of those cops was with him now. Gene eased his way carefully past the commode and sat tightly in the corner, crossing his legs and arms to support his dropping head. He studied the movements of the other men by watching their feet, not their eyes. He pretended to be half-asleep, but he was half-awake and poised.

The conversations and complaints made no sense. Several drunks asked for the arresting officers’ names. Another drunk was a personal pal of the D.A. and demanded that somebody get his wife out of the house. They never spit in the commode, only on the concrete floor.

Gene knew he would pay a fine; he could handle that. Gene also knew this was his third DUI. He started figuring, started thinking slickly. He knew there were six months to cash in. He knew the commish could slap him with six months at County, picking up used shells and Tom targets. That just wouldn’t do. He had to think super slickly. So he sat still.

Four hours later, he could hear the whispering talk of three crooks. Something about the one that got away. The drunks were tired and settled. Gene strained to listen, but dared not move, not even his closed eyes. Then the solution to his problem came to him like a boat ticket. Something about a killer named Gato. Something about a coach. Gene sucked in a deep breath and remembered Naked Annie. Good, dear, sweet, precious Annie gave him his ticket to Catalina.

Eight hours had passed when a khakied cop called out his name. Gene! Want to get out of jail?

Gene stepped out, turned right, and walked fifteen feet to Officer Haggett. It was still there. When he signed for his personals, Gene scooped them up and wrote two words on the clipboard: Gato and elevator. An electric buzzer opened the gray door, and a black cop escorted him into the lobby and pointed to the glass doors out to the black streets.

Gene fumed to the desk sergeant: Haggett told me to wait.

The cop picked up one of four phones, and Gene heard him say: Okay.

Haggett came through the door, key in hand, opened the elevator and escorted Gene to the second floor, around a maze of glass walls, and finally into a glass room where a youngish blond cop sat at a long wooden table with six chairs.

Gene looked around and saw nothing else to intimidate him. The detective was sitting, looking at his writing tablet, pen and a paper clip. He wore a linen suit with a brown shirt and green tie. The rest of him was pink, except his eyes. His eyes were like those of a fish, with a mouth that reminded Gene of Don Knotts.

Without looking up, the detective said: Sit.

Gene sat opposite him. Haggett stood by the door.

I’m homicide. You got something?

I want to cut a deal, Gene said.

About what?

I can close a case for you. You let me walk, no court, no nothing.

Haggett interrupted. He’s got a ticket, all signed up, worth fifty grand.

The detective stared. I see. You’re looking at six months minimum. Goodbye ticket. Mail it in why don’t you?

They might lose it. I want to walk it in Monday. Tonight I can deliver murder one.

Meaning what? Talk plain.

Several years ago there was a murder, still unsolved. Interested? Gene asked. Something about a dead nurse up in the valley. Want me to keep talking?

Everybody knows about that one. We could send you up for peddling porno, Gene.

When I cash in my ticket, I’ll blow town. You help me, I help you.

What do you know for sure?

Second hand bar talk is out that a vicious lover boy is cracking wise. Lover boy being this Gato fella. Then Gene delivered his punch line. I know where he’s going to be tonight. Have I got a deal?

Who’s your source? the detective asked him.

Tell you tonight. I never was even here.

You can walk, Gene, but if you’re making this up, we still know where you are, don’t’ we?

Don’t worry me none. I’m telling you straight.

How did you come by this information?

Just bogarted somebody else’s conversation.

Reliable?

Very.

Who, Gene?