Family Reunion
Short Fiction by Adam Padilla

I was an art major in a time in which it wasn't good to be one. There didn't seem to be any schools that actually taught kids how to draw anymore. After all, I gained all my artistic skill and knowledge from decades-old books by the likes of Andrew Loomis and George Bridgman; nothing from any art class. In their day, they drilled you on construction and technique. Style and expression came after you had the skill to show it. However when I was in school, things were backwards. Students wanted to express themselves without any thought on how to compose themselves. 

For example, the instructor's first assignment last month was to "create something that's a window into your soul" or some other vague hippie nonsense. Naturally I created a self portrait, but at least three other students completed canvases with paint arbitrarily splashed onto them. Literally, it was just a mess of colors. The class' token goth chick even covered the entirety of her canvas in solid red paint, and that piece found its way into the museum. Ludicrous. 

It was yet another day of frustration. Trendy sensationalism once again got attention over heartfelt technique, which I refused to abandon no matter how tempting the attention was otherwise. On the bus rides back home I had plenty of time to wonder why I even tried anymore. That day I slipped into my usual fantasies, thinking of ways to employ my skill without any real credentials. I always wondered how comic strips like The Duplex and Foxtrot found their way into papers across the country. They're not particularly funny and they're poorly drawn to a T. I guessed I could do that. I also thought of ads, book covers, or maybe even a full-blown graphic novel. The possibilities I considered lit a dim light at the end of the dark tunnel I was in, but it was interrupted by the sudden gaggle of people getting on board. See, I took the bus from one end of the city to the other and was a lone rider until the route came close to downtown. The others who rode along ran the gamut of colors that mixed in this melting pot of a city. Several languages were struggling for volume and soon the noise made me feel as though I was in a zoo full of panicked animals.

This daily safari was all something I grew accustomed to by rote. That day however, one language in particular managed to catch my attention: Ebonics. Only, rather than being the usual mix of Jive and a lapse of up-brought linguistics, this example of street parlance sounded forced. My gaze found its way toward the mouth that was speaking it and recognized it. The young man's gelatinous chin wore a familiar milk chocolate complexion. It bounced happily as the bone chin above it moved excitedly to the sounds spewed from the mouth it housed. I knew that mouth. I knew that nose. I knew those eyes. I was estranged to that entire face for over a year, hoping to never see it again, but Chris was there right behind me. I hoped to stay estranged too. So while he was busy chatting with his new friends, oblivious to our quiet reunion, I faced forward again and sat among the cries of the animals once more. 

Like everyone else on board, I attempted to mind my own business. My mind found its way back to the daydreams of futures that would never be. It was natural to desire things that I could never have or achieve. So impossible, fanciful goals lofted through my subconscious before a raspy, senile voice pierced my thoughts. 

A bum with a horrifyingly hirsute face, who was resting a few seats away, carried only the clothes he wore and an elderly radio on his person. Chris felt entitled to approach the old man and yank his trusty tuner from him, to which the bum voiced the best raspy, senile hey! he could muster. Chris emptied the radio of its batteries and aimlessly tossed it back to its owner. The radio collapsed under the force of its own crash, and the old man mourned over the loss of his most prized possession. Chris returned to his friends with the batteries to power his own ghetto blaster and drowned out the zoo of speech with dime-a-dozen gangster rap. And it wasn't the classic kind either. It was the modern kind in which they don't rap so much as they do mumble and scream. The driver seemed to pay no mind to any of this. 

"YEAH, BITCH! YEAH!" Joe's radio said.

It just occurred to me that, as I had suspected with others, Chris's taste in music was such that it was just conspicuously symbolic of his lifestyle. He may not actually like the stuff.

"GET OUT MY FACE HO! GET OUT MY FACE HO! GET OUT MY FACE HO! GET OUT MY FACE HO!" 

I couldn't fight my disappointment any longer. My lungs let out a heavy sigh as my head shook itself in disgust. Chris and his crimson-clad friends took note of this and surrounded me. Their clothes, all nearly identical uniforms of oversized red shirts and Dickies shorts worn (I assumed comfortably) around the thighs, could barely contain the bulging bodies they covered. They completely boxed me in with their adipose anatomies. Chris stood blocking the most immediate route out of my seat and looked me in the eye. He wore a black baseball cap ornamented with a scarlet Sharks logo. The hat was slightly raised off his head and turned to the most acute of angles. This positioning of headwear seemed overly meticulous, but I guess he thought it looked cool. I thought of how to break the ice with these guys, contemplating over deciding to recognize Chris before he recognized me, but he took a crack at it first. His contemptible scowl eased itself into a more familiar expression of warmness once he took a better look at me.       

"Primo!" he smiled.

"Uh... Cristóbal!" I replied.

"Whoa! Easy with my name, primo. Just Chris remember?" 

"Yeah."

Chris took no remorse in the whole battery thing and expected me to do the same as he friendlily continued, "So what you doing here primo? It's been hella long since we met up! Last time I saw you was last... uh-"

"Year."

"Year? Damn, it's been that long already? Shit, man, watchyubeenupto? You still getting up on those drawings?"

"No. It's just, you know, school, work. Nothing you'd be interested in," I tried not to get back into a conversational basis with him. When I last saw him, he was beginning to take on a stigmatic quagmire of a personality that was quite unlike himself. He changed for acceptance but didn't take into discretion who was accepting him. In those days I did what I could to sway him the right way, but he wouldn't listen. Seeing him on the bus saw all my fears for him come to pass, as there was an eerily untrusting air to him, "Well, this is my stop," I lied, "I'll be seeing ya!" I lied again.

"Aw yeah? Mine too!" I guess it was just as well. I wouldn't have been able to squeeze past Chris and his plump posse.

I followed them out the back. Fortunately city hall was right across the street, so I could make up some bullshit about having business there right then, "Well Chris..." I thought for a moment, "Nice seeing you but, fuck man, duty calls," I motioned to the needlessly postmodern building as I was already walking toward it, "Take care!"

"Leaving just like that? Naw primo, we'll go in with you." They tailed me across Sixth.

"No... well, you can't. It's a sexual harassment training for employees only."

"It's cool. I'll wait."

"For an hour?"       

At that moment a group of marchers proudly chanting sí se puede was passing by across the street. My attention left Chris's eyes for a moment as I noticed them. The sheepish gaze of Chris and his friends followed suit. I then noticed that the bum from the bus followed us all the way there and used that moment of distraction to snatch Chris's radio away in replacement for his. Unfortunately, he was not as spry as he was brave, so, as difficult as it was for my cousin and his friends to move that much girth at that speed, his attempt at repayment only won him a taste of Chris's fist and a trip into unconsciousness.

Chris nonchalantly turned back to me, breathing heavily, "I'm sorry," he inhaled to finish, hands on his knees, "you were saying?"

I motioned to the marchers, who, after seeing what had just happened, now stood watching in silence, "You know, you're really not helping them."

"So?"

  " So ?" 

"They're not my problem." The garb draped over his body was a woeful mix of conflicting imagery. His gargantuan t-shirt displayed a graphic of the Señora de Guadalupe under the words one eight seven . My eyes couldn't help but roll.

"Then what's with your shirt?"

"It's... our culture." 

"No it's not! They are!"

He grew silent, then closer, "You don't like who I am?" 

My patience ran thin, "I don't think you even know who you are anymore. What happened to you? The funny guy? Why are you a goddamn follower now?"

"I ain't following nobody. We got each other's backs. Nobody never gave me that before. I mean, shit, look at you, what do you got?"

"At least I got my head on straight."

"Who cares?"

"And I'm not the one spitting in the face of my parents and everything they stood for!"

At this, Chris's arm reacted. It launched into a hook I didn't see coming, smashing his fist into my face. It was enough to send me to the floor. I scrambled to my feet, dukes up, noticing that the marchers were watching as Chris came at me again. With a drunken gracelessness, his arm swung again but found only air. 

"Wiry motherfucker. Forgot about your fancy moves."

I didn't want to fight back, not like last time. He was family after all, my younger cousin. But my back was quite literally against the wall, the wall near the parking garage. The only way out was through Chris or his homies to my sides. I knew their pack mentality would soon take over, so I looked for an opening. Chris swung again. Chris missed again. With the opening, he took my fist to his chin, but a glass jaw he wasn't. His chin was shielded by an unusually soft and absorbent double, even for someone as obese as him. Unaffected, Chris stepped closer. I dodged again and tried my luck with a blow to his belly. My fist sunk inside, but it didn't seem far enough to knock any wind out of him. Chris pushed me back and into the arms of his friends. They grasped me in place as he came closer, grinning and breathing heavily, too exhausted to fight. He drew a knife to make up for it.

"Jesus Christ, Chris! Primo, we're family. OK, so we disagree on some things, but hell, you're not a killer!"

The onlookers decided to become participators. A few of the marchers came to my aide and a fray ensued. As I tried to fight my way out it just grew larger as disenfranchised youth in the area noticed the commotion and jumped in. I was caught amongst the throng of brawling humanity until the police decided to join the fun as well. 

The sense of relief I felt was quickly replaced with dread. With my pigmentation matching all those around me, the police saw little difference between me and the troublemakers so they tased me along with them. My aching wrists, along with the wrists of those who tried to help me, soon felt the cool touch of metal.

I spent the rest of the night in a place where I found that my individuality was dreadfully detrimental.

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