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Urban Renewal
©Erinn Hertzler, 2007
They’re hanging out by the fence, the boys, Manny and Sal and the big guy Juan.
“Hey!” They shout across the street.
I go over.
“What you think you doing dissing us?”
“I’m not dissing you, man. I’m walking by. I said hi. I nodded.”
“Did you see him?” one asks the other. That’s Manny to Sal.
The big guy folds his arms under his chest and grunts.
“Naw, motherfucker’s lying,” Sal gets up into my face.
“Ain’t you, Mistah Professah of the Neighborhood, Mistah Urban Sociologist?” They’ve seen the article on me in the local paper.
I’m holding a pipe behind my desk, sitting behind a stack of papers. They posed me with a learned look on my face, not quite a smile, a seer’s look. Shit.
“What do you guys want, man?” I say. “I’m on my way.”
“Going where, fool?” His breath stinks terribly.
His drooping eyelids shelter black beads of hate.
“The store. Buy some beer. Watch the game.”
“Who playing, man?” Big Juan asks, as if the right answer frees me.
“The A’s, man, who else?”
“Aw, man, he all right, the A’s playing,” he says.
He picks at his teeth with a long finger. “They playing on the tube,” comes out torturously.
“So what you say to that?” Sal asks me, nonsensically.
Manny backs off, cracking his knuckles under the sun. The spreading rays catch him.
“Let him go, man,” he says. “He all right.”
“Why should I?” Sal says. “He call our neighborhood a ‘interesting specimen of urban renewal.’ I ain’t no bug.” He begins rocking back and forth, coming at me and staying, trying to, clenching his fists.
“But I didn’t, man. I said this was ‘an interesting experiment in urban renewal,’ that’s all. Those reporters always twist things. I don’t know where he got ‘specimen.’”
“Probably from your big book of vocabulary,” he says. “You lying muthafucka. He said it. You said it. Who give a shit what either of you think? This is our fucking hood. We matter. Who asking us?” He reaches back to punch me, but he’s so slow, I dodge him, even as Juan catches his arm and strangles him in a half nelson.
“Go home, man,” he says. “This guy fucked up. Be cool, man, Sal.” He loosens his hold and shoves him off to the side.
I’m going past the houses that are better than mine but not by much, and then the worst. I’m going back up the street towards home. I’m telling myself, “Urban renewal, man. Specimen? Experiment? Did I say that? What did I say?”
Behind me Sal is standing in the street shouting out. “Don’t take my word, man! The whole street think you full of shit! Yeah, go ask them! Ask anybody what they think of you, you upscale yuppie fool!”
“Okay, I’ll do that!” I don’t know why I say that. I need not to be so cowardly. I’m shaking so hard I can barely stand.
“Yeah, you do that, fool!” Then Sal is cartwheeling down the street. He’s so drunk it’s a miracle. But with one hand up in the air, he spins forward and plants his palm on the asphalt and cartwheels once, twice, three times to land on his feet and greet his two buddies catching up to him, laughing.
They’ve forgotten about me already, I think, going away laughing, slamming into each other and horsing around. The last words I hear are “Urban renewal! Urban renewal!” and I go inside to watch the game without my beer and chips and brood on my situation.
“Some sad specimen I am,” I say to myself, “the cool Professor of Guerrero Lane.” I uncork a bottle of wine.
I study the label. Pinot Noir. Napa Valley. Just up the street, a neighborhood I can retire in.
“But I’m not so sad,” I think, “they’ll respect me tomorrow.”
I turn on the TV louder. A big man at the plate slams a homerun into the left field bleachers, and I’m on my feet dancing: “That’s baseball! That’s baseball!"
©Stephen D. Gutierrez, 2008
Stephen D. Gutierrez (Summer Institute '94) has new work coming out in Fiction International and ZYZZYVA. In addition, he has a second collection of stories forthcoming with Bear Star Press, tentatively scheduled for early 2009. He directs the creative writing program at Cal State University, East Bay.
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