Chuco Has A Bad Day

Crime Fiction by J. Marquez Jr.

The world is an anthology full of short stories and small clips. Everybody has a story to tell and everyone has something to say. But not everybody tells their story. The majority cruise through life creating interesting stories that they eventually take to their graves.

 Alike the world, I am also an anthology with short stories and small clips, only at a smaller scale—much smaller. I also have a story, or two, up my sleeve that I refuse to take to my grave. There’s the one about the $500 grand prize I won at the county fair poetry contest for the poem I wrote for a high school sweetheart. It later became the lyrics to a popular song performed by a 90’s-era boy band. That one’s, however, quite a tedious bore. You probably wouldn’t want to endure it. We can go a bit dim and sit through the one about the stolen car chase I led the Ganesha Hills Police Department on. This one ended with tens of thousands of dollars in property damages, an innocent bystander getting shot in the shoulder by the crossfire between the police, the fuming remnants of what was once a Honda Civic and a seven-year prison sentence slapped on me by a Superior Court judge—what’s that? No? What? Not dark enough? Boy, you are quite the cynic.

It’s a good thing I am a walking anthology full of short stories, some cheerful while others are sketched and etched in several degrees of dark, so dark that they trail behind me like a moonlight shadow in a poorly lit and deserted mid-city alley. Let me tell you the one about the ill-disciplined Chuco, a short and dark story that takes place during my seven-year sentence in the infamous D-yard of Patty’s House as the inmates refer to Calipatria State Prison, home of California’s finest and incorrigible miscreants.

***

The word on D-yard was that he was talking too much. One of the proverbs in The Book of Prison Wisdom states that “out of an open mouth trickles the air of the raft that keeps a man afloat. Shut it.”  Chuco had one of those mouths that seemed to run by a small unstoppable motor. He told and retold the stories he lived, the stories he witnessed and the stories he heard to anyone who cared to listen—and even to those of us who didn’t. In other words, Chuco’s mouth was that leak on the raft that kept him afloat in the body of water that held him and hundreds of other inmates deep in the belly of a Southern Californian desert. Chuco’s motor mouth had become a liability to himself and to the others. First Smiley got busted then Beto. So when Frankie approached me at the penitentiary library and handed me the tiny quadrilateral note, neatly folded, I had a general idea of its contents. The affair was a silent one. It lacked any sort of pleasantries, greetings and minimal words were exchanged. The eyes did the majority of the talking. Our mouths were mere witnesses in support of the mischief the eyes conspired. Being that Frankie and I were long-term guests of the California Department of Corrections, we were both fluent in such language. 

 The note was literally the torn corner of a notebook paper, folded into a square-inch kite with calculating and caring hands. The weight it carried, however, was almost unbearable, and there was nothing caring about the message it held. I had no choice in the matter. I clutched and held it around in my pocket were it burned like a smoldering cigarette on the side of my thigh until I got back to my cell. Once back in the privacy of my cell, I pulled the pin off this paper hand grenade and validated what I already suspected. The explosion that followed the blinding flash was swift upon my face. The message simply read, “Chuco’s gotta green.”

Chuco had a loud, obnoxious and traitorous mouth. The loudness and obnoxiousness of his mouth, however, wasn’t the problem. We all knew he had it. The danger lurked on how traitorous it became when he was telling the stories he witnessed and heard in a loud and boisterous tone trailed by his hee-hawing laughter. Both Smiley and Beto fell victims to it and, in turn, disturbed the silence and subtleness of the criminal activity that took place in the yard. His mouth became a trip-hazard that nobody else wanted to stumble on. The faceless ones, who heard every whisper and every creak from the cells that confined them somewhere in the depths of the penitentiary, ultimately decided his fate. Chuco had to go and I was their tool to remove him. There was no appellant court to overrule this or complaint department to turn to. Through the contents of a weightless, one-inch note, I was both, made victim and appointed executioner without a campaign or consent. In spite of its diminutive length and its grammatical error, the commandment written in three words was thorough and carried the same authority a long list of laws chiseled on stone tablets carried. For the second time that day, I had no choice in the matter. I was left with a task, I did not know when and how to accomplish. Although I was a nineteen-year-old convict, serving a seven-year stretch, I was still an inexperienced and clueless non-violent offender, who feared for his life and the consequences he faced whether he obliged or declined.

There was never a doubt whether I’d do it or not, however. Being a resident, I was subject to the laws of the house. In spite the many questions like how I’d do it, when I’d do it and, most importantly, why I’d been mandated to do it, one thing was for sure: I would do it. I vowed, as I flushed down the torn corner of notebook paper that bestowed upon my shoulders the heavy cross I would bear the following week, that Chuco was going to have a bad day.

***

Although I personally knew Chuco—had been a victim to his dull stories my share of times—I was not entirely confident I had the ability to carry out the job solo. There were several obstacles to remove and dilemmas that needed attention. To begin with, there was my lack of experience.  I was green and raw to this sort of play. I was barely on year number two out of the seven-year sentence I was issued for refusing to heed to a trail of police sirens that pursued me through fifty miles of sightseeing around Los Angeles on a stolen Honda Civic. There was the lack of courage. Although I was labeled a criminal, then treated like one by being swept and collected in a concrete box full of them, it takes a different type of courage than the one it takes to go joyriding in a stolen car to execute a mission like the one I had been assigned. In addition to the lack of experience and courage, there was the lack of having an upper hand on Chuco. Another unwritten proverb in The Book of Prison Wisdom stated that “the predator should never see eye to eye with its prey.” Although I had the advantage of a surprise attack, I needed to assure myself that the mission would be completed on the first try. This was a production that offered no rehearsals, retakes or remakes. Once the curtains parted, I’d be live onstage.  I needed a partner.

I gave myself a week to collect the courage, draw up the plans and carry out the mission. But it took me seconds to select an old acquaintance from the neighborhood I grew up in as my partner: Chino.

Chino grew up with Chuco’s younger brother, Jessie. In elementary they played endless games of tag. In middle school they played endless games of basketball and handball. By the time they reached high school; however, Jessie and Chino became criminally active, dropped out of school and played endless games of robberies, assaults and drive-by shootings. The last robbery they committed together tragically ended with Chino serving a life-term in prison and Jesse a life-term six feet deep in a grave. Jessie’s family was devastated about the incident but kept quiet. Not motor mouth Chuco. He said some bad things about Chino in the heat of the moment but deflated as time gave way. That’s just how Chuco was, all bark but no teeth. Chuco soon forgot all those bad things he’d said. Chino never did. Years later, the stars collectively aligned in the heavens and frowned upon Chuco by putting him, Chino, me and an order of execution with his name, in the same prison yard. Given the history behind the story and the reason behind the history, Chino was the perfect partner. In addition to the personal dispute and the resentment he held toward Chuco, Chino was a sucker for mischief. What I offered Chino was, not only fulfillment to this resentment but, a treacherous dance to the song of mischief. And this dance I saved for Chino would pin one more badge of honor on his lapel. Chino accepted. Unlike Chuco, and unfortunate for him, Chino had teeth with his bark—razor, sharp teeth.

Through cuts, clips and snippets of the common day in prison life, the blueprints to Chuco’s demise came about. Our scheming took place during vocational training, in between mouthfuls of the mystery meat we were served for chow and throughout the long walks we took around the track that surrounded the field during our awarded yard time. The plan was for Chino to walk with Chuco around the track three times. I would wait behind the handball courts for the duo to complete the second lap and upon the third lap, once they approached my vicinity, I would come out from hiding and we would both attack Chuco with our jailhouse shanks, the infamous weapons inmates are known to arm themselves with. Mine was a six-inch piece of rod cut off the chain link fence that separates the chow hall from the library. Once meticulously sharpened to achieve jagged perfection, I anxiously waited for D-day.

***

D-day came to D-yard and the desert sun tag-teamed with the citizens of California in assisting with the discipline and punishment of inmates by angrily hurling UV rays and heat waves of over 115 degrees at them. Life in the penitentiary moved smoothly beneath it, however, in its usual casualness. The blacks squabbled and bickered over a basketball game on the basketball courts, only to resume playing another game. The whites held the tables scattered across the field and squabbled and bickered over Pinnacle card games, in order to resume playing more games. The Hispanics squabbled and bickered over handball games that took place at the handball courts on the north-west corner of D-yard, only to resume dodging and finessing that two-inch  rubber blue ball. Meanwhile, I took my place behind them and waited for the show to commence.

The stage curtains eventually parted when the countdown began.

With the eyes of a jungle cat I watched discreetly from behind the handball courts and began to count the laps my prey strolled around the yard with Chino. I could see a fleck of insecurity betray Chino as he briefly made eye contact with me upon the first lap. Chuco, however, did not miss a beat in his stroll and scarcely paused to grasp the necessary intakes of breath between the words he transformed into the sentences he utilized to fabricate the cheap stories that fled out of his unstoppable mouth. Unbeknownst to Chuco, that yapping and flapping mouth lured him into this predicament and had become his own distraction from his soon-to-be demise. I wondered if a fleck of insecurity did not also briefly betray me before the eyes of Chino. I tightened the grip on my shank inside my pocket.

Frankie stopped by for a dose of conversation like he always did when he saw me. He talked of the same worn out topics and the same tattered stories that circulated around the prison yard in the same manner Chino and Chuco circulated around it today. Like the rest of the inmates in D-yard, “he was unjustly tried and convicted by a decrepit and inadequate judicial system mended with stitches and barely held together with duct tape.” Like always, I agreed with Frankie when prompted to, I synchronically timed my wows with perfection and even giggled at his punch lines. But this time, I did not listen to a single word he said. Instead, I tightened the grip on my shank again and like a jungle cat, my hungry eyes remained on the prize.  

Upon the second lap, Chino and I briefly made eye contact again. This time, however, the fleck of insecurity was no longer on his face and I wondered for the second time if Chino saw anything sketched upon mine. Trepidation? Hesitation? Perhaps a spark of apprehension? If he did, his expression did not reflect it nor confirm recognition. For the undeterminth time, I tightened the grip while squeezing the life out of the six inches of sharp Tetanus I held in my pocket. I then mildly released its stranglehold only to tighten its grip once again, an action that began to rhythmically resonate in my head. In spite of Frankie’s cheap stories like the ones Chuco told Chino, the wheels were in motion. It was inevitable. The third lap was coming.

Upon the third lap, I vaguely made out Chuco’s laughter beneath Frankie’s outburst of grievances he had over “California’s broken, perverted and corrupted Criminal Justice System.” Seconds later, I had a visual on the mark. Although Chino still walked beside him, I no longer had the ability to see him. All my senses gradually became subservient to the omnipotent fear I generated and completely wiped him from my sight. I scarcely heard Innocent Frankie fume about “being framed by some notorious LAPD cop from the Rampart Division.” The only noise I heard was the earsplitting moaning between my fear and my tenseness as they waltzed back and forth to the thumping rhythm my pulse made as it fed gallons of blood unto my insatiably thirsty heart. Somehow it was melodically in tune with the rhythm of the pressure-on-pressure-off—chokehold and release, chokehold and release—motion my sweaty right hand did over my shank.

Once Chuco and Chino were within reach, the adrenaline took hold of my strings and like a puppet master, it pulled and it yanked them with a vehemence directed toward the speaker of mischief, Chuco.

Frankie was abruptly forgotten forever.

The jungle cat crouched low to the ground then silently went for the kill.

The first two steps I took toward Chuco were more like crossing a river on top of stones. My arms flailed. The only difference between the two was the hand that grasped the sharp piece of fence that would soon find its new home on Chuco’s neck. My river-crossing dance soon became a three-step jog that halted about twenty-four inches away from the mark. Chuco’s eyes flashed. If they would have had vocal cords and a larynx, they would have screamed with surprise. Chino then pushed Chuco toward me as I dug the six-inch collection of jagged rust into the side of his neck. I could feel my knuckles comfortably rest against the soft mattress-like horseshoe gap within Chuco’s jawbone. The thrust was funded by 170 pounds of bone and sinew, in addition to the momentum my puppeteer created with every move of the wrist and the fingers that, in turn, pulled on the strings that controlled me. I thought I heard Chuco gurgle a scream. He fell back on his butt. Chino and I clung on like a fishnet. I pulled the knife out, only to inject it back into his neck again and again. Chino was performing the same act of violence on a different part of Chuco’s body with his own version of a prison-made knife. Chuco uselessly kicked, wriggled and squirmed underneath the punishment Chino and I delivered upon him. In the midst of it all, my bloody fist clutching the shank had moved away from Chuco’s neck, worked across the top of his right chest and dug its way into his shoulder. I looked at Chino and with that same clandestine language the eyes speak, we both consented to immediately terminate the carnage. Chuco weakly shifted and groaned on the blistering asphalt. I remember cynically wondering if Chuco was attempting to tell another one of his stupid stories as I shuffled away from ground zero and parted from Chino. If so, it was never followed by that jackass laughter I’d grown to detest.

By the time I got back to the field, I was a bit more in control of myself, though my hands still had a mind of their own. Burying the knife unto the soil proved to be quite the task with hands that refused to be still. But I managed to do so. I buried the shank close to the handball courts, walked to the shower stall on the opposite side of the yard and scrubbed Chuco’s DNA as best I could. It was a process that took a little over a minute but had the effect of taking a little over an hour. I then sat down on the curb that separates the field from the track, hid my face between my knees and wept. Somewhere in the distance (as Act One’s stage curtains were closing), Calipatria’s slumbering sirens abruptly woke up.

***

The world is a massive book full of short, but interesting, stories, written by the shreds and tatters of the lives of those who inhabit it. And like the world, I too am a book with short stories dipped in different shades of black ink. Although the shade of the latter was written in dark ink, the shreds and the tatters within my anthology got even darker through time. What started as a seven-year prison term, at the age of nineteen, on D-yard in Calipatria State Prison, became the countdown of borrowed days on D-row in San Quentin State Prison. I never left prison. In fact, seven years became a life-sentence and a life-sentence became a death-sentence. I am now forty-seven years old, sitting on death row, Chino is two cells to my left, for acting out plays like the former and writing the scripts to other short stories I’ve collected throughout the years. Would you like to hear another one? How about the one that details the failed attempt to escape Patty’s House? It begins with me and four other inmates barging into the Correctional Officer’s control center with spears made from broom handles but concludes with two dead inmates, one dead Correctional Officer and the death penalty for me. I swear it’s rather dark—what’s that?  No? What? It’s too dark for your taste? Boy, you are quite the softy. It’s a good thing I am an anthology with options. Let me tell you the one about the poem I once wrote for my high school sweetheart.

---

Bio: J. Marquez Jr. has never been interviewed before. However, if he’s ever interviewed, he will be happy to divulge that he likes Pink Floyd. One can find some of this riffraff on recent issues of The Literary Hatchet and/or here at The Yard: Crime Blog. He sends his regards from Los Angeles with love. You can read his work in The Literary Hatchet, HERE and HERE

Cover Photo by pexels/Engin Akyurt

Read more Criminal Fiction on The Yard: Crime Blog

Follow us on:

Looking for another book to read? Try our Bookstore.

If you like our work, support The Yard through Patreon

Be safe with a cell phone alarm. This thing will set off a personal alarm, then email your emergency contacts with GPS coordinates. People get attacked and go missing all the time. This could give you or a loved one the chance to escape and start a trail for police to follow. Check it out through affiliate button below.

Dogs are our best friends. They provide companionship and security. But, they have a tendency to get away from us. It is nerve racking wondering where your fur baby is. Get your buddy a collar with an airtag tracker, so you can find them. Checkout tracking collars through the affiliate button below.