All Tomorrow's Parties

6. SILENCIO

SILENCIO gets to carry. He's the smallest, looks almost like a kid. He doesn't use, and if the cops grab him, he can't talk. Or anyway about the stuff.

Silencio has been following Raton and Playboy around for a while now, watching them use, watching them get the money they need in order to keep using. Raton gets mean when he's needing to use, and Silencio's learned to keep back from him then, out of range of feet and fists.

Raton has a long, narrow skull and wears contacts with vertical irises, like a snake. Silencio wonders if Raton is supposed to look like a rat who's eaten a snake, and now maybe the snake is looking out through its eyes. Playboy says Raton is a pinche Chupacabra from Watsonville and they all look this way.

Playboy is the biggest, his bulk wrapped in a long, formal topcoat worn over jeans and old work boots. He has a Pancho Villa mustache, yellow aviator glasses, a black fedora. He is kinder to Silencio, buys him burritos from the stalls, water, cans of pop, one time a big smooth drink made from fruit.

Silencio wonders if maybe Playboy is his father. He doesn't know who his father might be. His mother is crazy, back in los projectos. He doesn't think Playboy is his father really, because he remembers how he met Playboy in the market on Bryant Street, and that was just an accident, but sometimes he wonders anyway, when Playboy buys him food.

Silencio sits watching Raton and Playboy use, here behind this empty stall with its smell of apples. Raton has a little flashlight in his mouth so he can see what he is doing. It is the black tonight, and Raton is cutting the little plastic tube with the special knife, its handle longer than its short curved blade. The three of them are sitting on plastic crates.

Raton and Playboy use the black two, maybe three times in a day and a night. Three times with the black, then they must use the white as well. The white is more expensive, but too much black and they start to talk fast and maybe see people who are not there. 'Speaking with Jesus, Playboy calls that, but the white he calls 'walking with the king. But it is not walking: white brings stillness, silence, sleep. Silencio prefers the white nights.

Silencio knows that they buy the white from a black man, but the black from a white man, and he assumes this is the mystery depicted in the picture Raton wears on the chain around his neck: the black and the white teardrops swirling together to make roundness; in the white teardrop a small round of black, in the black a small round of white.

To get the money they talk to people, usually in dark places, so the people are frightened. Sometimes Raton shows them a different knife, while Playboy holds their arms so they cannot move. The money is in little tabs of plastic printed with pictures that move. Silencio would like to keep these when the money is gone out of them, but this is not allowed. Playboy throws them away, after wiping them carefully. He drops them down the slots beside the street. He does not want his fingers to leave marks on them. Sometimes Raton hurts the people, so that they will tell the charms that make money come from the moving pictures. The charms are names, letters, numbers. Silencio knows every charm that Raton and Playboy have learned, but they do not know this; if he told them, they might be angry.

The three of them sleep in a room in the Mission. Playboy pulls the mattress from the bed and puts it on the floor. Playboy sleeps there, Raton on the other part of the bed. Silencio sleeps on the floor.

Now Raton has cut the tube and puts half of the black on Playboy's finger. Playboy has licked his finger so the black will stick. Playboy puts the finger in his mouth and rubs the black against his gums. Silencio wonders what it tastes like, but he does not ever wish to speak with Jesus. Now Raton is rubbing his own gums with black, the flashlight forgotten in his other hand. Raton and Playboy look foolish doing this, but it does not make Silencio laugh. Soon they will want to use again, and the black gives them energy to get the money they will need. Silencio knows there is now no money, because they have not eaten since yesterday.

Usually they find people in the dark places between the big shapes at the foot of Bryant Street, but now Raton thinks the police are watching those places. Raton has told Silencio that the police can see in the dark. Silencio has looked at the eyes of the police, passing in their cars, and wondered how they can see in the dark.

But tonight Raton has led them out, onto the bridge where people live, and he says they will find money here. Playboy has said he does not like the bridge, because the bridge people are pinche; they do not like outsiders working here. Raton says he feels lucky.

Raton tosses the empty vial into the darkness, and Silencio hears it hit something, a single small click.

Raton's snake-eyes are wide with the black. He runs his hand back through his hair and gestures. Playboy and Silencio follow him.

SILENCIO passes the bodega for the second time, watching the man in his long coat, where he sits at his small white table, drinking coffee.

Raton says it is a fine coat. See the old man's glasses, says Raton: they are made of gold. Silencio supposes Playboy's are made of gold too, but Playboy's have yellow glass. The man's are plain. He has gray hair cut very short and deep lines in his cheeks. He sits alone, looking at the smallest cup of coffee Silencio has ever seen. A doll's cup.

They have followed the old man here. He has walked in the direction of Treasure Island. This part of the bridge is for the tourists, Playboy says. There are bodegas, shops with glass windows, many people walking.

Now they are waiting to see which way the old man goes when he finishes his little coffee. If he walks back, toward Bryant, it will be difficult. If he goes on, toward Treasure, Baton and Playboy will be happy.

It is Silencio's job to tell them when the man leaves.

Silencio feels the man's eyes on him as he passes, but the man is only watching the crowd.

SILENCIO watches Raton and Playboy follow the man toward Treasure Island.

They are in the bridge's lower level now, and Silencio keeps looking up to see the bottom of the upper deck, its paint peeling. It reminds him of a wall in los projectos. There are only a few bridge people here. Only a few lights. The man walks easily. He does not hurry. Silencio feels the man is only walking; he has nowhere to go. Silencio feels the man needs nothing: he is not looking for money, to eat or to use. This must be because he already has the money he needs to eat or to use, and this is why Raton and Playboy have chosen him, because they see he has the money they need.

Raton and Playboy keep pace with the man, but they hang back. They do not walk together. Playboy has his hands in the pockets of his big coat. He has taken off his yellow glasses and his eyes are dark-circled with the look of those who have used the black. He looks sad when he is going to get the money to use. He looks like he is paying very close attention.

Silencio follows them, looking back sometimes. Now it is his job to tell them if someone comes.

The man stops, looking into the window of a shop. Silencio steps behind a cart piled with rolls of plastic, as he sees Raton and Playboy step behind other things, in case the man looks back. The man doesn't, but Silencio wonders if the man is watching the street in the glass. Silencio has done this himself.

The man does not look back. He stands with his hands in the pockets of his long coat, looking into the glass.

Silencio unbuttons his jeans and quietly waters the rolls of plastic, careful that it makes no sound. As he buttons his jeans, he sees the man step away from the window, still moving toward Treasure, where Playboy says there are people who live like animals. Silencio, who knows only dogs and pigeons and gulls, has a picture in his head of dog-toothed men with wings. When Silencio has a picture in his head, the picture doesn't go away.

Stepping from behind the cart, as Raton and Playboy step out to follow the man, Silencio sees the man turn right. Gone. The man is gone. Silencio blinks, rubs his knuckles against his eyes, looks again. Raton and Playboy are walking faster now. They are not trying to hide. Silencio walks faster too not to be lost and arrives at the place where the man turned. Baton's narrow back goes around that corner, after Playboy, and is gone.

Silencio stops. Feels his heart beating. Steps forward and looks around the corner.

It is a space where a shop is meant to be, but there is no shop. Sheets of plastic hang down from above. Pieces of wood, more rolls of plastic. He sees the man.

The man stands at the back of the space and looks from Playboy to Raton to Silencio. Looks through the round pieces of glass. Silencio feels how still the man is.

Playboy is walking toward the man, his boots stepping over the wood, the plastic. Playboy says nothing. His hands are still in the pockets of his coat. Raton is not moving but is ready to, and then he takes the knife from where he keeps it and opens it, flicking his wrist that way he practices, letting the man see it.

The man's face does not change when he sees it, and Silencio remembers other faces, how they changed when they saw Raton's knife.

Now Playboy steps down from the last of the wood, his hands coming out to take the man by the arms and spin him. That is how it is done.

Silencio sees the man move but only, it seems, a little.

Everything stops.

Silencio knows that he has seen the man's left hand reach into the long coat, which was buttoned before but now is not. But somehow he has not seen that hand return, and still it has. The man stands with his fist against Playboy's chest, just at the center. Pressing the thumb of his closed fist against Playboy's coat. And Playboy is not moving. His hands have stopped, almost touching the man, fingers spread, but he is not moving.

And then Silencio sees Playboy's fingers close, on nothing, and open. And the man's right hand comes up to push Playboy back, and the thin black thing is pulled out of Playboy's chest, and Silencio wonders how long it could have been hidden there, and Playboy falls back over the wood and the rolls of plastic.

Silencio hears someone say pinche madre and this is Raton. When Raton uses the black and fights, he is very fast and you do not know what he will do; he hurts people and then shakes, laughing, sucking air through his mouth. Now he comes over the rolls of plastic like he is flying, with his knife shining in his hand, and Silencio sees the picture of a man with dog teeth and wings, and Raton's teeth are like that, his snake eyes wide.

And the black thing, like a long wet thumb, goes through Raton's neck. And everything stops again.

Then Raton tries to speak, and blood comes on his lips. He swings his knife at the man, but the knife cuts only air, and Raton's fingers can no longer hold it.

The man pulls the black thing from Raton's throat. Raton sways on loose knees, and Silencio thinks of how it is when Raton uses too much white, then tries to walk. Raton puts his hands up to cover his throat on both sides. His mouth moves, but no words come out. One of Raton's snake eyes falls out. The eye behind it is round and brown.

Raton falls down on his knees, with his hands still on his throat. His snake eye and his brown eye look up at the man, and Silencio feels they look from different distances, seeing different things.

Then Raton makes a small, soft sound in his throat and falls over backward, still on his knees, so that he lies on his back with his knees spread wide and his legs twisted back, and Silencio watches Raton's gray pants go dark between his legs.

Silencio looks at the man. Who is looking at him.

Silencio looks at the black knife, how it rests in the man's hand. He feels that the knife holds the man. That the knife may decide to move.

Then the man moves the knife. Its point is almost square, like the real point has been snapped off. It only moves a little. Silencio understands this means he must move.

He steps sideways, so the man can see him.

The point moves again. Silencio understands.

Closer.