Always Running

The Tribe essentially dies along with its president John Fabela, who’s shot in his home by rival gang members. At the time, Joaquín Lopez is already in jail for selling heroin, and the Tribe is losing its influence in the neighborhood. Tribe members relocate to new gangs.

Chicharrón tells Luis that he should join the Lomas, now the most powerful gang in the county. He explains to Luis that the Lomas will “beat on you for about three minutes,” after which time he’ll be accepted into the gang. Luis reluctantly goes to a Lomas party. As the party draws to a close, only aspiring members stick around. A gang leader named Puppet asks “Who’s in?” and Luis stands up. Just as Chicharrón warned him, Luis endures an assault of fists and boots. After three minutes, the gang welcomes him to the Lomas.

Later that night, the Lomas take Luis and the other new recruits out for the second part of their initiation. They stop a passing truck, which appears to be full of decent, hard-working people. One Lomas leader, Ragman, attacks the drivers. Puppet presses a screwdriver into Luis’s hands, points him toward one of the drivers, and orders him, “do it.” Luis does as he’s told, plunging the screwdriver into the driver’s “flesh and bone.” Luis concludes, “the sky screamed.”

By the end of that year, the papers are full of headlines about grotesque acts of gang violence. Luis’s neighborhood is becoming more violent by the day. The local community center is now overflowing with injured gang members who need help. Furthermore, police officers are becoming more brutal.

The year is 1970, and Luis feels “out of balance.” He’s a curious young man, and he wants to learn. Around this time the Bienvenidos Community Center hires a man named Chente Ramírez. Chente used to be a gang member, but he later became a grassroots political organizer. Luis is immediately impressed with Chente. Chente is in his late twenties, and seems calm and wise. He’s also a karate expert, which Luis finds cool. Chente, Luis recalls, “was someone who could influence me without judging me morally or telling me what to do.”

One night, Luis is out playing pool with Puppet and other Lomas. Puppet, Luis has found, rules by fear. Puppet shoots pool while Pila, his girlfriend, gets in an argument with another Loma member’s girlfriend. Puppet is quiet as the argument goes on, and Luis notes that he doesn’t seem to care about anybody.

For a couple weeks, Luis takes karate lessons at the La Casa Community Center. There, he meets Sal Basuto, the center’s organizer (Chente’s counterpart). Sal is frustrated by his interactions with the Sangra. They’re a small gang, meaning that they often sustain horrible losses in their fights with rival gangs. But this only makes Sangra more vicious.

One night, Luis hears a knock on the garage and finds Lomas, including his friend Santos, waiting for him. Tonight, he learns, they’ll be getting revenge on a group of Sangras. In the car, Luis finds rags and bottles, suggesting that they’re about to firebomb a house. The car drives to a quiet neighborhood where an important Sangra member, Chava, lives. Luis and his friends soak rags in gasoline and surround the house. Luis notices that the house looks a lot like his own. But he helps burn down the house, throwing Molotov cocktails into the backyard. The next day, Luis learns that the house burned down, but everyone inside was able to escape in time.

Around this time, Gloria, Luis’s younger sister, has joined her own Lomas crew and begun going by the nickname Shorty. One night, Gloria is at a school dance. There, some Sangra girls notice Shorty and remember that she and Luis are siblings. The Sangras decide to attack Shorty when they get a chance, as revenge for Luis’s involvement in the firebombing. Later that night, Joe gets a call from Gloria, begging him to pick her up immediately. Joe drives to the dance, only to see Gloria running out of the building, chased by armed Sangras. Joe manages to pick up Gloria and drive away, chased by bullets.

As time goes on, life gets worse in Luis’s neighborhood. Rape becomes common, to the point where it’s “a way of life” for some cholos. One night, some Lomas offer Luis and Chicharrón a chance to “get in on this”—in other words, rape a naked, unconscious young woman. Luis says, “I ain’t with it,“ and Chicharrón agrees.

One evening, Yuk Yuk, Luis, and some other friends are leaving a quinceñera (i.e., fifteenth birthday party). In their car, they find another friend, Paco, with two girls, both of whom have been doing heroin. As they drive off, Luis sees Paco groping one of the girls, who’s almost passed out. The girl looks no older than fourteen. Meanwhile, Yuk Yuk begins kissing the other girl. Luis is disgusted. When the Lomas park the car, Luis wanders off to throw up.

Wilo and Payasa move to a new neighborhood, partly to escape the violence. Just before they leave, Luis reunites with Payasa, who’s been in rehab. She seems more energetic than she was when Luis last saw her. She greets Luis and says that she’ll always remember their time together. Luis says goodbye to Wilo, too, adding that he owes Wilo for saving his life. They hug, and Wilo says, “You don’t owe me nothing. Just pay yourself back.” Ten days later, Wilo is killed in a gang attack. Later on, Payasa gets pregnant and ends up “in a prison of matrimony.”

Luis and his friends’ lives revolve around death. They flirt with death by pursuing fights with cops and rival gangs, and by doing heroin and other dangerous drugs. They feel as if they had a “fever … weakening and enslaving us.”

Luis stops inhaling sprays but starts experimenting with meth, PCP, heroin, mescaline, and pills. Luis, Yuk, and Chicharrón work together to steal heroin. Sometimes, he and Chicharrón go to new neighborhoods and pretend to be high school students. There, they meet girls and get into fights.

One night, Luis and Chicharrón go driving around the neighborhood. They pick up two girls named Roberta and Xochitl, promising to take them to a party. They end up driving out to the neighborhood housing protects and making out with the two girls. From then on, Luis spends time with Roberta and Chicharrón starts seeing a lot of Xochitl. Luis has sex with Roberta, and sometimes sleeps over at her place.

Luis eventually finds out from Roberta’s sister Frankie that Roberta “turns tricks.” When he learns this, Luis is furious. He’s even more shocked when he discovers that Xochitl is a prostitute, and Chicharrón has become her pimp. That same night, Frankie kisses Luis, and the two of them sleep together. In the following days, Luis avoids Roberta. He’s fallen in love with a prostitute, but he never wants to see her again. He begins doing more heroin.