Sunday Ride

Every Sunday, man. Every Sunday I’d hop o the train to see my abuela. Not the regular train—the hoochie-mama midnight express that felt like it would break the tracks if it were going faster. Nah, man—the nice train. You know my abuela was a mujer especial and lived the last days of her life with the ricos. And even with all the gang-banger talk and cutting from school to deal blow—I was a good hijo, an honest hombre, the only family member sober enough to step onto a train on a Sunday morning, much less stand with my abuela in a church for a sweaty hour.
So I put on a belt and rolled down the sleeves of my button-up shirt to cover my tattoos for abuela. And I would hop onto the platform of the commuter train—the track was always deserted. What motherfucker was traveling from the shitty party of town to the ricos on a Sunday? This motherfucker was. And I always bought a ticket. They almost never bothered to check but I bought one because I knew that my little abuela would throw her head back and her eyes up to the Lord if I didn’t. Nieto sucio. I always bought a ticket for her even though they didn’t usually check and she would never know if I didn’t. That shit would burn a hole through my pocket like holy water on a devil. Like one good gesture could tear the legitimacy right off the ink across my chest. It burned and it itched my ass, sitting back there and I couldn’t sit because of it. Can you believe it? Rico train, totally alone, sweat tingling in the air-conditioned car and I couldn’t sit my ass on the carefully pleathered seat.
A fucking trip hombre. I would stand in the automatic doorway with my eyes darting left to right, trying to follow the world outside of the window. The train bastards would walk back and forth behind me. They didn’t give a shit if I had the Willy Wonka golden ticket in my pocket. A latino on a train on a Sunday? They were just glad I wasn’t out there with my wife beater on and a baseball bat in my hand—doing whatever the brown people do where the ricos couldn’t see. I never looked back at them. All those weekend trips to my abuela’s I never saw another mother-fucker’s face on that train. I just looked out my window, gripping the metal pole next to me like it was life, and felt them pass behind me. Closer and closer to my back pocket with the ticket. I wanted them so bad to turn one click to the left, on click to the right, to where I was standing and ask me for it. I wanted them to spidey-sense that shit and straight-up take the motherfucker from my pocket en fuego with legitimacy.
That’s how much I wanted a fight back then. I would fight the ricos for something I did right.