Both Sides by Gabino Iglesias

Author:Gabino Iglesias [Pinter, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Polis Books

When they entered they stepped on ragged, vomit-toned carpet. The walls inside bore sparse patches of 70s wallpaper in orange and yellow crescents, and a big-screen television occupied most of one wall. It wasn’t a small wall.

On either side of the TV were enormous speakers, like columns beneath the low ceiling. Children’s toys littered the floor, and a pile of weed centered the glass coffee table. Ruben focused on a Tonka truck near an end-table leg. An oversized black-leather couch filled the room and, when Chino sat, it huffed, the protective plastic crackling the death-rattle of a dying rhino. Chino cleaned the weed, squinting his eyes at the green tufts between his fingers. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, ese. I thought you’d moved on. You know, bigger and better things.”

“You haven’t.” Ruben stood in the center of the room, in front of the TV. “Seen me, I mean.”

“Sure, I get it. Beef with the police? What’d you do, Profesor?” He looked up with a crooked smile on his face. “Forget to return your library books?” He laughed and the dog barked in the backyard and Chino laughed louder still, and then barked too. Ruben did not laugh and Chino’s face went blank. “Serio homes, you? You didn’t do anything, did you?”

“Where’s Toro?”

Chino plucked seeds from the shake on the coffee table. “Chingón.”

“Where?”

“Stay the fuck away.” He pinched some seeds into his mouth and rolled them along his inner lip. “Whatever it is, ain’t worth it. You shouldn’t be messing around, Profesor. Ain’t you got rich white kids in Mex-i-co to teach?”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m just being real here. You ain’t seen me in years and now—”

“Toro beat my son. My son.”

Chino set his elbows on his knees and leaned forward as if to see Ruben’s face better in the dim light. He sighed in the stillness. “What do you want from me, ese?”

Ruben said, “Go for a ride with me.”

“I don’t go for rides no more. ‘Specially not with people like you. If you got too much to lose you bound to lose it, hermano. Every time.”

“No one changes much.”

“Yeah, well I ain’t gonna stick around to see you prove it.”

“I did enough—back when. Where were you to kill those doubts, then?” Ruben dropped his arms to his sides. His fingers opened and closed. “You don’t have to come now, but I’ve done worse for you. Just tell me where to find him.”

“Fine.” Chino lowered his head and shook it. “I’ll get the guns. You ain’t going alone.”

“No guns.”

“Fuck you, no guns. You think I’m going for moral support? You want that shit you take your wife.”

Ruben grunted.

Chino stepped off into a short dark hallway. Ruben watched him stand before a dresser. Chino took a gun from beneath his shirt and another from a drawer and set one on the dresser. He began to load them with a jeweler’s finesse.

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