Nothing else, no explanation. But no explanation was necessary—at least not to anybody likely to be found drinking in the Silver Dollar. The customers are locals: Chicanos and barrio people—and every one of them is acutely aware of what happened in the Silver Dollar on August 29, 1970.
That was the day that Ruben, the prominent Mexican-American columnist for the Los Angeles Times and news director for bilingual KMEXTV, walked into the place and sat down on a stool near the doorway to order a beer he would never drink. Because just about the time the barmaid was sliding his beer across the bar, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy named Tom Wilson fired a tear gas bomb through the front door and blew half of Ruben Salazar’s head off. All the other customers escaped out the back exit to the alley, but Salazar never emerged. He died on the floor in a cloud of CS gas—and when his body was finally carried out, hours later, his name was already launched into martyrdom. Within twenty-four hours, the very mention of the name Ruben Salazar was enough to provoke tears and a fist-shaking tirade not only along Whittier Boulevard but all over East L.A.
Middle-aged housewives who had never thought of themselves as anything but lame-status “Mexican-Americans” just trying to get by in a mean Gringo world they never made suddenly found themselves shouting “Viva La Raza” in public. And their husbands—quiet Safeway clerks and lawn-care salesmen, the lowest and most expendable cadres in the Great Gabacho economic machine—were volunteering to testify; yes, to stand up in court, or wherever, and calling themselves Chicanos. The term “Mexican-American” fell massively out of favor with all but the old and conservative—and the rich. It suddenly came to mean “Uncle Tom.” Or, in the argot of East L.A.—“Tio Taco.” The difference between a Mexican-American and a Chicano was the difference between a Negro and a Black.
All this has happened very suddenly. Suddenly for most people. One of the basic laws of politics is that Action Moves Away from the Center. The middle of the road is only popular when nothing is happening. And nothing serious has been happening politically in L.A. for longer than most people can remember. Until six months ago the whole place was a colorful tomb, a vast slum of noise and cheap labor, a rifle away from the heart of downtown Los Angeles. The barrio, like Watts, is actually a part of the city core—while places like Hollywood and Santa Monica are separate entities. The Silver Dollar Cafe is a ten-minute drive from city hall. The Sunset Strip is a thirty-minute sprint on the Hollywood Freeway.
Whittier Boulevard is a hell of a long way from Hollywood, by any measure. There is no psychic connection at all. After a week in the bowels of East L.A., I felt vaguely guilty about walking into the bar in the Beverly Hills Hotel and ordering a drink—as if I didn’t quite belong there and the waiters all knew it. I had been there before, under different circumstances, and felt totally comfortable. Or almost. There is no way to ... well, to hell with that. The point is that this time I felt different. I was oriented to a completely different world—fifteen miles away.
My first night in the Hotel Ashmun was not restful. The others had left around five, then there was the junkie eruption at seven ... followed an hour later by a thundering, low-fidelity outburst of wailing Norteño music from the jukebox in the Boulevard Cafe across the street ... and then, about nine thirty, I was jerked up again by a series of loud whistles from the sidewalk right under my window, and a voice calling, “Hunter! Wake up, man! Let’s get moving.”
Holy Jesus! I thought. Only three people in the world know where I am right now, and they’re all asleep. Who else could have tracked me to this place? I bent the metal slats of the venetian blind apart just enough to look down at the street and see Rudy Sanchez, Oscar’s quiet little bodyguard, looking up at my window and waving urgently: “Come on out, man, it’s time. Oscar and Benny are up the street at the Sweetheart. That’s the bar on the corner where you see all those people in front. We’ll wait for you there, okay? You awake?”
“Sure I’m awake,” I said. “I’ve been sitting here waiting for you lazy criminal bastards. Why do Mexicans need so much fucking sleep?”
Rudy smiled and turned away. “We’ll be waiting for you, man. We’re gonna be drinkin’ a hell of a lot of Bloody Marys, and you know the rule we have down here.”
“Never mind that,” I muttered. “I need a shower.”
But my room had no shower. And somebody, that night, had managed to string a naked copper wire across the bathtub and plug it into a socket underneath the basin outside the bathroom door. For what reason? Demon Rum, I had no idea. Here I was in the best room in the house, looking for the shower and finding only an electrified bathtub. And no place to righteously shave—in the best hotel on the strip. Finally I scrubbed my face with a hot towel and went across the street to the Sweetheart Lounge.