![\"BULL#4covershot\"](\"http:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/BULL4covershot.jpg\")
<\/a><\/h3>\nIf I had money, I\u2019d go to Mexico. Not Tijuana or Ensenada, but farther down, real<\/i> Mexico. Get my ass out of L.A. There was this guy in the Army, Marcos, who was from a little town on the coast called Mazunte. He said you could live pretty good there for practically nothing. Tacos were 50 cents, beers a buck.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do they feel about black folks?\u201d I asked him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t care about anything but the color of your money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I already know how to speak enough Spanish to get by, how to ask for things and order food. Por favor<\/i> and muchas gracias<\/i>. The numbers to a hundred.<\/p>\n
The Chinese family across the hall is always cooking in their room. I told Papa-san to cut it out, but he just stood there nodding and smiling with his little boy and little girl wrapped around his legs. The next day I saw Mama-san coming up the stairs with another bag of groceries, and this morning the whole floor smells like deep-fried fish heads again. I\u2019m not an unreasonable man. I ignore that there are four of them living in a room meant for two, and I put up with the kids playing in the hall when I\u2019m trying to sleep, but I\u2019m not going to let them torch the building.<\/p>\n
I pull on some pants and head downstairs. The elevator is broken, so it\u2019s four flights on foot. The elevator\u2019s always broken, or the toilet, or the sink. Roaches like you wouldn\u2019t believe too. The hotel was built in 1928, and nobody\u2019s done anything to it since. Why should they? There\u2019s just a bunch of poor niggers living here, Chinamen and wetbacks, dope fiends and drunks. Hell, I\u2019m sure the men with the money are on their knees every night praying this heap falls down so they can collect on the insurance and put up something new.<\/p>\n
The first person I see when I hit the lobby\u2014the first person who sees me<\/i>\u2014is Alan. I call him Youngblood. He\u2019s the boy who sweeps the floors and hoses off the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, D, morning, D,\u201d he says, bouncing off the couch and coming at me. \u201cGimme a dollar, man. I\u2019m hungry as a motherfucker.\u201d<\/p>\n
I raise my hand to shut him up, walk right past him. I don\u2019t have time for his hustle today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re cooking up there again,\u201d I say to the man at the desk, yell at him through the bulletproof glass. He\u2019s Chinese, too, and every month so are more of the tenants. I know what\u2019s going on, don\u2019t think I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, I talk to them,\u201d the man says, barely looking up from his phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a safety hazard,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, yeah, okay,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, yeah, okay to you,\u201d I say. \u201cNext time I\u2019m calling the fire department.\u201d<\/p>\n
Youngblood is waiting for me when I finish. He\u2019s so skinny he uses one hand to hold up his jeans when he walks. Got fuzz in his hair, boogers in the corners of his eyes, and smells like he hasn\u2019t bathed in a week. That\u2019s what dope\u2019ll do to you.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on, D, slide me a dollar, and I\u2019ll give you this,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
He holds out his hand. There\u2019s a little silver disc in his palm, smaller than a dime.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is it?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a battery, for a watch,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what am I supposed to do with it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on, D, be cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right then the front door opens, and three dudes come gliding in, the light so bright behind them they look like they\u2019re stepping out of the sun. I know two of them: J Bone, who stays down the hall from me, and his homeboy Dallas. A couple of grown-up crack babies, crazy as hell. The third one, the tall, good-looking kid in the suit and shiny shoes, is a stranger. He has an air about him like he doesn\u2019t belong down here, like he ought to be pulling that suitcase through an airport in Vegas or Miami. He moves and laughs like a high roller, a player, the kind of brother you feel good just standing next to.<\/p>\n
He and his boys walk across the lobby, goofing on each other. When they get to the stairs, the player stops and says, \u201cYou mean I got to carry my shit up four floors?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll get it for you,\u201d J Bone says. \u201cNo problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chinaman at the desk buzzes them through the gate, and up they go, their boisterousness lingering for a minute like a pretty girl\u2019s perfume.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho was that?\u201d I say mostly to myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s J Bone\u2019s cousin,\u201d Youngblood says. \u201cFresh outta County.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trouble. Come looking for me again…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/h3>\n“A couple of grown-up crack babies, crazy as hell. The third one has an air about him like he doesn\u2019t belong down here, like he ought to be pulling that suitcase through an airport in Vegas or Miami<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-richard-lange"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11476"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12108,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11476\/revisions\/12108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}