McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales - Michael Chabon [46]
“Carlos Huntington Webster, that’s all of ’em.”
“It’s a lot of name for a boy,” Frank Miller said. “So you’re part greaser on your mama’s side, huh? What’s she, Mex?”
Carlos hesitated before saying, “Cuban. I was named for her dad.”
“Cuban’s the same as Mex,” Frank Miller said. “You got greaser blood in you, boy, even if it don’t show much. You come off lucky there.” He licked the cone again, holding it with the tips of his fingers, the little finger sticking out in a dainty kind of way.
Carlos, fifteen years old but as tall as this man with the ice cream on his mustache, wanted to call him a dirty name and hit him in the mouth as hard as he could, then go over the counter and bulldog him to the floor the way he’d put a bull calf down to brand and cut off its balls. Fifteen years old but he wasn’t stupid. He held on while his heart beat against his chest. He felt the need to stand up to this man, saying finally, “My dad was on the battleship Maine when she was blown up in Havana Harbor, February 15, 1898. He survived and fought the dons with Huntington’s Marines in that war in Cuba and met my mother, Graciaplena. When the war was over he went back and brought her to Oklahoma when it was still Indian territory. She died having me, so I never knew her. I never met my dad’s mother, either. She’s part Northern Cheyenne, lives on a reservation out at Lame Deer, Montana,” saying it in a voice that was slow and calm compared to what he felt inside. Saying, “What I want to ask you— if having Indian blood too, makes me something else besides a greaser.” Saying it in Frank Miller’s face, causing this man with ice cream on his mustache to squint at him.
“For one thing,” Frank Miller said, “the Indian blood makes you and your daddy breeds, him more’n you.” He kept staring at Carlos as he raised the cone, his little finger sticking out, Carlos thinking to lick it again, but what he did was toss the cone over his shoulder, not looking or caring where it would land.
It hit the floor in front of Junior Harjo just then walking in, badge on his tan shirt, revolver on his hip, and Carlos saw the situation turning around. He felt the excitement of these moments but with some relief, too. It picked him up and gave him the nerve to say to Frank Miller, “Now you’re gonna have to clean up your mess.” Except Junior wasn’t pulling his .38; he was looking at the ice cream on the linoleum and Mr. Deering was calling to him about his mother’s medicine and about raiding stills and Frank Miller was turning from the counter with the Colt in his hand, firing, shooting Junior Harjo and stepping closer to shoot him again.
There was no sign of Mr. Deering. Jim Ray Monks came over to have a look at Junior. Frank Miller laid his Colt on the glass counter, picked up the cash in both hands, and shoved the bills into his coat pockets before looking at Carlos again.
“You said something to me. Geronimo come in and you said something sounded smart-aleck.”
Carlos said, “What’d you kill him for?” still looking at Junior on the floor.
“I want to know what you said to me.”
Frank Miller waited.
Carlos looked up, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. “I said, ‘Now you’ll have to clean up your mess.’ The ice cream on the floor.”
“That’s all?”
“It’s what I said.”
Frank Miller kept looking at him. “You had a gun you’d of shot me, huh? Calling you a greaser. Hell, it’s a law of nature, you got any of that blood in you you’re a greaser. I can’t help it, it’s how it is. Being a breed on top of it—I don’t know if that’s called anything or not. But you could pass if you want, you look enough white. Hell, call yourself Carl, I won’t tell on you.”
Carlos and his dad lived in a big new house Virgil said was a California bungalow, off the road and into the pecan trees, a house that was all porch across the front and windows in