What We Are (35 page)

Here comes their fear: I lift my eyebrows.

“Wassup, uso!” Talofa
, man!” “All right, homes.” “How come you didn't say shit,
uso
?” “Wassup, eh?”

“Wassup,” I say.

“You want a beer, homes?”

“Nah, I'm cool.”

“How about your homeboy?”

I speak for McLaughlin, just like I should. “Nah, he's cool. Thanks, dog.”

“I feel like I did time with you before, eh.”

“Yeah, Smiley. I seen you before too, homes.”

“Didn't I see you on TV,
ese
?”

I don't look away.

“You're the
vato
who slammed that paisa in downtown San Jo?”

I nod.

“That was you, eh!”

I nod again, know what's coming next: the crown.

“This fool fought five scraps, homie! I saw it right on channel 11, eh!”

“Mutherfucking scraps be getting crazy around here,
ese
! We gotta put those Southerners in check, homes.”

I say, “Eh, we're gonna bounce, bro.”

“Nah, man. We gotta party, homie. Celebrate, eh.”

I hit McLaughlin in the shoulder. “We gotta get him home to the old lady.”

“Well, you're welcome back any times, homes!”

“!That's right,
ese
”

“Stay up, man,” I say, “Let's go, dog.”

McLaughlin follows me and he's breathing hard, as if he, and not I, just played a 7–0 game against the wall. I don't know what to do
with McLaughlin from here on out, but it makes me smile and sad both that he would've fought for me, however defectively, if it went down. That he would've gotten his head busted in for the cause. And it makes me smile and sad both that the hardest people in America will be kind to you after they learn from a beneficent beatdown that you're just like them. Or that you can be just like them. Or that you can act just like them. Or that you can excel at their games. Or that their enemies are your enemies. Or whatever.

But it only makes me sad that I did it while believing it wasn't me, that it ain't. Another stage performance, a role I can play well enough to fool the other actors of this set, soon to foreclose to the next jaded show, whose props are being erected even as I sputter out this sentence.

I
DECIDE
this fine morning to bike out to the all-weather track at Leland High School for a run and a few rounds of shadowboxing. I'm streaming with endorphins, all jazzed up. I pass the old Feed and Fuel, closed down forever, and make a left on Almaden Expressway back into suburban civilization and traffic. This Saturday morning the sun is high in its authority, undeterred by the trees and the houses, cutting right through the morning mist and alighting on the gray vaporous smog of early day. We like to say in the South Bay that our weather is temperate. We never say what that means in exchange. So here it is: We don't see the change of the seasons. The term
all-weather track
is just a fancy way of saying spongy synthetic stuff that's easy on the joints. By virtue of the moderate climate, all commodities of the Silicon Valley are all-weather.

I reach Radkovich, apparently a Serb who made a name in the town, and make a right turn at full speed. I don't get far before I run smack into hundreds of people filling the street, some moving at a pretty good pace, others not, some walking. Most are in runner's shorts, webbed muscle shirts, glowing tennis shoes. Ankle socks with
cotton bells woven into the rim. They've got black numbers on white paper pinned to their chests or the hemline of their shorts and the more creative in the crowd have made hats like a fry cook's headgear, the little paper ships pointed full sail ahead! Some are tired, red-faced, pushing it; some not, casual, taking in the scene; some are talking with one another, bounding out in that ridiculous
Wizard of Oz
swing of the arm (”
We're
off
to see the wizard!
“), most quite happy. Even dutiful. Or so it seems. Is it because they all stay within the orange cones, the ones I'm zigzagging through at the moment? Boundaries for a race of some sort, a fluffy half marathon, 10K with an all-day limit on crossing the tape.

I'm passing the good people of the Almaden Valley, accelerating on the sidewalk. Every now and then, the combination of the strong glare of the sun with an especially thin polyester fabric gives me access to a dark G-string on a tight, tan, athletic, freckled ass, an Indian arrowhead, the upside-down chevron under whose point is the buried treasure, the curse and the cause of man. I'll slow down or U-turn on someone's lawn and come back around at a different angle of light, cruising this time, taking in the wild sights of the valley like any good citizen committed to the ecosystem.

Mostly women, blond, brunette, redheaded white women, being fit for a cause—breast cancer, AIDS—though there are some reps from my gender, blond, brunette, redheaded white men, who pay me close attention as I pass on my bike, though not that way. They think I'm a threat, dangerous. A lone wolf in the sheep pen.

Beware that mangy, red-eyed, crossbreed mutt in a logoless beanie who's got no house, earns a laughable wage, but is a fascist at heart! We all know how wet our women get at the sight of the whip and chain. Dying to be domesticated. For an evening. In our absence. Once or twice a week. On the other end of the valley. Some cheap motel of musky sheets. With a strobe light and Marvin Gaye on a ghetto blaster. Beware!

I round a corner blinded by ivy woven through a lawn-wide trellis and nearly collide with a parked golf buggy. Its occupant is a white guy in a safari hat. “Hey!” he shouts, as I pedal by ignoring him, overturning orange cones, winding up the walk, driving on, “Hey there!” and I know he's setting chase.

Now a real race through the peaceful eventless suburbs of Almaden. I lean forward with my head at a slight downward tilt and work the crank as if I were a feline on the run through the cat delicatessen of Hong Kong. I pretend like demons are on my tail, I pretend like I am a demon, I pretend that getting caught will mean the end of my life, or of my wife's life, whoever she'll be, if ever will be, anyone but La Dulce. I pass house after placid house and turn hard right, then hard left, all the way up the street with the wind wet in my eyes. I pretend this is the last time I will ever ride this bike, and I press down on the pedals with all the power in my quads and hips, one to the other, hear the steady discharge of loose gravel under the tires and I feel so damned free and good on my imaginary run from the buggy authority that I'm off course, I've broken ranks, the race has gone on without me. I look back over my shoulder and the buggy is nowhere to be found, nor are there any runners.

I slow down, get my bearings, and head out to the high school on a back route to avoid the race. A marathon, half marathon, 10K, probably runs from Lake Calero out past Blossom Hill and then who knows from there. I'm excited: the chances of the track being empty this morning are pretty high. Many of the potential runners in the Almaden Valley are probably in that race, wherever it goes and why.

Riding behind the decrepit stands of the football stadium, I'm forced to slow down, nearly stop, my hopes for a running session in solitude dashed. The “all-weather track” is loud and packed as a carnival. Along one sideline and into the end zone are booths with big American flags taped across the rim, twirling down each post, army recruitment signs with alluring slogans like
AN ARMY OF ONE
, as
if you and you alone were all that was required to vanquish a nation. There's a Leland Chargers Boosters booth with lightning bolts on its banner and a squad of stunning cheerleaders bouncing about on their toes. Next to them a PTA booth with mothers just as stunning, just as aware of their spotlight, equally naughty. Copeland's Sports paraphernalia is mainly footballs today, next to a National Football League booth with a thick-necked brotha in a purple tweed suit right off the shelves. A Jamba Juice booth is surrounded by pyramids of oranges blocking out the employees from the neck down, like they were readying for trench warfare with citrus the weapon of choice.

And everywhere the number 42: 42 on every booth, 42 in blue and yellow, 42 in cardinal red, 42 on football jerseys, 42 on shirts, even the finish line—for the race ends here, this is where it ends—has a gigantic 42 stretched across the track and is, upon investigation, marked at the 42–yard line. Just as I figure out what the cause for the occasion is, just as I look up at the stands and see the new name of the stadium painted across the beams of the coaches' booth, I'm taken to task for being here. My non-red white and blue, non-lightning bolt, stark black beanie, my suspicious crankster bike, my T-shirt unmarked by the holy number 42: I stand out.

“You know where you're at, right? He's ours!”

I nod at the assertion. I know enough by now to do that. A white elderly gentleman is steaming this morning, deep frown, squinting gray eyes, steam out the nostrils, out the ears. He's got an Uncle Sam goatee and I want to say: Are you mad you can't find Rosie the Riveter? He's one of the disciples of the valley's and the nation's hero, the posthumous reason for this event: Pat Tillman. He's standing at attention in the newly christened Pat Tillman Stadium, on the very track where Pat Tillman suited up for autumn football practice in the mid-nineties, in the very town that Tillman grew up in—Almaden—with Tillman's gridiron number, 42, on his blue and yellow Leland High School jersey.

I don't know why I'm so fickle, but I'm embarrassed for the old man and his outfit: Isn't it undignified to play dress-up at his age, whatever the cause, the occasion? Aren't the young'uns supposed to be sporting in honor whatever duds he wore to battle on the gridiron? Why isn't he in a Stetson hat and temperate suit with quietude in his eyes, the wisdom of old age?

Old man equals cheerleader. He shouts, “They think he's theirs! But he's not! He's ours!”

I nod again unenthusiastically.

“He's ours! What do you say?”

“I don't know. I say we should keep our hands out of a few honeypots in the world.”

“What does that mean?”

The man in the golf cart is pulling into the parking lot, weaving through the hordes of SUVs, past the gate, bisecting the field, eyes directly on me. Alert as he nears, people step aside; he has some pull. Probably named his dog, his son, and his daughter after the man of the hour.

By now, everyone knows the story of Pat Tillman, the All-American kid with the movie-star jawline. A hard-hitting NFLer, he was so moved by the sight of the Twin Towers imploding that he bypassed millions of bucks to join the Army Rangers. Spent a minute in the friendly fire of media hype, and then was gone to the dunes of Afghanistan to keep the Taliban in check, a middle brother following his lead.

We went on with our lives and Tillman went MIA from our screens for a few tours, returning like a bullet through the brain to TV Land, reported dead in battle on the morn of April 22, 2004. A Silver Star for Valor. Undisclosed details, stay tuned, because everything comes out in the media, like spilled oil coalescing at the water's surface. Bit by bit, month by month, article by article, details get disclosed and Tillman dies again in (yet another) Pentagon scandal: Turns out
the kid was killed on a dune in the friendly crossfire of his own team, aka fratricide. A cover-up by army brass?

And then there's the matter of his unbecoming-an-officer reading list: Chomsky, Thoreau, Hitler's
Mein Kampf
. A short stint as a young pup in county for assault and battery. An article from the other brother, the fellow Ranger, saying big bro Pat warned him of the powerlessness of being an army man. That they'd have to go and fight wherever ordered, be subject to the whims of the people. That the price of seriousness in a world of caprice could be their lives.

Another long-haired brother alludes to weed at the funeral.

What kind of All-American family is this?

In the middle of the big push for Tillman it became clear—to me, anyway—that this Tillman cat was obviously in search of some truth he probably never found, a ballsy cat, a put-your-ass-on-the line kind of guy. And he seemed humble. Not to be deified under the auspices of celebration. The kind of guy who'd avoid a gathering like this altogether. My guess by the look on his mysterious face is that he would've adamantly shot down being simplified.

Everyone here this morning is smiling and excited by the promise of Old Glory rising from the oil-rich flames, and I can see with absolute clarity that it's all for them and what's theirs, not for him, not for Tillman. It keeps them alive, keeps them going, and that's what Tillman's advisory words to his brother were all about. Our heroes now are too smart, too knowing, too aware of the hypocrisy of their role. They can see how paltry the heart of the people really is in the end.

So is this the story for me?

The point of it got lost a long time ago. Too many holes in poor Tillman's head. I say let the guy breathe in his grave. A dying breed in mouthy America, let him rest for chrissake. But it ain't gonna happen. You know what we are, how we do it: suck the marrow out of the kid's bones whether he's ours or theirs, alive or dead.

The man and his golf cart are here. He pushes his safari hat behind his head and its string latches underneath his triple chin. His flattop right out the fifties, Dick Butkus square. He wobbles out of the buggy, a radio pressed to his red, layered, hanging bulldog cheek, now looking away from us even as he's walking toward us, rattling off in some half-ass wannabe cop vernacular about my invasive presence on the gospel ground of Pat Tillman, digging under his belly to tuck in his shirt with the other hand. The T-shirt has a distorted peace sign in the middle of the chest, the word
PEACE
above it, the words
THROUGH SUPERIOR FIREPOWER
below it, the lettering in red, white, and blue. When he's close enough that his
Ten-four over and out
! shouting rattles my bones, I can see why the peace sign is distorted: it's an aerial shot of a B-52 bomber, the long wings spread across the peace circle.