Page 21 of Dirty

Without looking up, she responded. “All the time.”

“Really?”

She looked at me as if surprised I asked. “Do you know any of them?”

I shrugged. “A few.”

“Really? Who?”

I thought of the names I’d heard at their clubhouse. “Lefty. Pee Bee. Let’s see. One’s name is Smokey. And Cholo. Oh, and Crip.”

She nodded. “I know all those guys. Well, except for Cholo. Unless he goes by something else.”

I shook my head. “Not that I know of.”

“Don’t know him,” she said. “But yeah. I know the others. A few more, too. They’re nice. Rowdy, but nice.”

“Rowdy? How?”

She tossed the piece of lobster into the Styrofoam container. “Not with the girls. They just get into a lot of fights. Well, not a lot. But. I don’t know. They just don’t take any shit. You know how bikers are.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”

Having a friend like Sandy was going to be fun. I could already tell we were going to get along just fine.

She picked the piece of lobster up again. “I think bikers are hot.”

“Yeah.” I choked on my laugh. “I do, too.”

SEVEN

Cholo

Most thirty-one-year-old men didn’t spend a lot of time with their mother, but I did. I loved her dearly, but the amount of time I spent with her wasn’t all by choice. She was more demanding of my time than I was willing to offer her by choice.

In her eyes, I was the man in the family.

I took a sip of coffee. “Do you remember Lucy?”

My mother was always cooking something. It was her way of relaxing. She spread masa on a cornhusk, sprinkled pork on top, and then added a few thin slices of green chile. She rolled it methodically, and then glanced over her shoulder.

“Lucy? The little puta across the street?”

Puta meant whore in Spanish. It didn’t surprise me to hear my mother say such a thing, but I was shocked to hear her say it about Lucy.

“Mother,” I howled. “She was--”

“She had a baby, and they said it was her little sister.” She shook her head. “We knew. I saw her when she was embarazada.”

“You knew Alexandra was her daughter?”

“Was that her name? Alexandra? A pretty name for the daughter of a--”

I glared at her. “Don’t say it.”

She grinned. “Whore.”

My mother was the daughter of Mexican immigrants who had both become US citizens. She was raised by Spanish speaking parents who did their best to instill traditional Hispanic values in her.