didn’t need to fight one another, Paupau had also said. If they did, the world would be wracked with even more wars than it already was.
It was only eight thirty when Jay crossed the street to the pool hall, but he still expected El Tigre to be inside. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the best time of day to go talk to a drug lord. If you believed the stereotypes found in videos and movies, Flores should still be in bed, or only just getting to bed after a long night of partying and doing business. He wouldn’t be in this pool hall at this hour of the morning, hanging out with his gangbangers.
But Paupau had been available to anyone who needed to see her, night or day—it was part of her responsibility to her clan. No one made an appointment. She simply knew when they were coming and would be waiting for them before they were able to ring the bell to her apartment or enter the restaurant where she held court in a corner booth.
So El Tigre would be here. If he wasn’t, then he wasn’t a spiritual force. He was just a gangster with a provocative nickname. Considering that possibility, Jay felt the muscles in his shoulders tense uncomfortably when he put his hand on the door.
There were over a dozen people in the pool hall and they all turned to him when he stepped inside. Jay had expected the gangbangers to be Mexican, and most of them were, but there were also a couple of blacks, a white, and even a guy who looked East Indian. They all had gang tattoos on their forearms—some also had them on their necks and faces—and they wore their red-and-green bandas colors: scarves around their wrists or on their heads or dangling from a back pocket. Red or green T-shirts. Red or green baggy pants. Though most of them looked to be in their late teens or early twenties, there were also three adults.
There was the fat guy sitting behind the counter at the back of the room who was obviously the owner or manager, and a lean, handsome man playing pool who stood up from the shot he’d been about to take. They were both Mexican. The third was an attractive Native woman who sat at a corner table by herself, her dusty tooled-leather cowboy boots propped up on a second chair. She wore a choker with a large turquoise stone and a straw cowboy hat that hid her eyes until she tilted her head to study him.
A funny thing happened when Jay looked at the woman and the man by the pool table.
Over the years, Paupau had often told him various parables and what Buddhists called jataka stories—the kind that you were supposed to contemplate until you gained some small flash of enlightenment. But she had little practical advice. Direct questions were always answered with evasions. His supposed heritage—this spiritual burden and gift of the Yellow Dragon Clan—was something that could only be approached from the side, she claimed, never directly. He would learn what he needed only when he needed to know it. Until then, he had to trust that this would be the case.
For instance, once she told him that they shared the world with many other spiritual beings whose strengths were rooted in various animal clans. That as he went out into the world, he would meet them and immediately know them, as they would know him.
“How will I recognize them?” he’d asked.
“How could you not?” was her unhelpful reply.
He hadn’t understood then, but he did now. Looking at the man by the pool table and the beautiful woman with her straw hat and cowboy boots, he felt an odd ping in his mind—as though a bell had sounded, but its tone was made up of colors rather than sound—and he knew that they were more than what they seemed.
“You sure you’re in the right place, kid?” the fat man behind the counter asked.
Jay blinked. He realized he’d spaced out.
“I’m here to see Mr. Flores,” Jay said. “I’ve heard he’s looking for me.”
Jay pushed back his hoodie as he spoke. Two of the gangbangers started to move forward.
“Wait,” the man by
It was only eight thirty when Jay crossed the street to the pool hall, but he still expected El Tigre to be inside. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the best time of day to go talk to a drug lord. If you believed the stereotypes found in videos and movies, Flores should still be in bed, or only just getting to bed after a long night of partying and doing business. He wouldn’t be in this pool hall at this hour of the morning, hanging out with his gangbangers.
But Paupau had been available to anyone who needed to see her, night or day—it was part of her responsibility to her clan. No one made an appointment. She simply knew when they were coming and would be waiting for them before they were able to ring the bell to her apartment or enter the restaurant where she held court in a corner booth.
So El Tigre would be here. If he wasn’t, then he wasn’t a spiritual force. He was just a gangster with a provocative nickname. Considering that possibility, Jay felt the muscles in his shoulders tense uncomfortably when he put his hand on the door.
There were over a dozen people in the pool hall and they all turned to him when he stepped inside. Jay had expected the gangbangers to be Mexican, and most of them were, but there were also a couple of blacks, a white, and even a guy who looked East Indian. They all had gang tattoos on their forearms—some also had them on their necks and faces—and they wore their red-and-green bandas colors: scarves around their wrists or on their heads or dangling from a back pocket. Red or green T-shirts. Red or green baggy pants. Though most of them looked to be in their late teens or early twenties, there were also three adults.
There was the fat guy sitting behind the counter at the back of the room who was obviously the owner or manager, and a lean, handsome man playing pool who stood up from the shot he’d been about to take. They were both Mexican. The third was an attractive Native woman who sat at a corner table by herself, her dusty tooled-leather cowboy boots propped up on a second chair. She wore a choker with a large turquoise stone and a straw cowboy hat that hid her eyes until she tilted her head to study him.
A funny thing happened when Jay looked at the woman and the man by the pool table.
Over the years, Paupau had often told him various parables and what Buddhists called jataka stories—the kind that you were supposed to contemplate until you gained some small flash of enlightenment. But she had little practical advice. Direct questions were always answered with evasions. His supposed heritage—this spiritual burden and gift of the Yellow Dragon Clan—was something that could only be approached from the side, she claimed, never directly. He would learn what he needed only when he needed to know it. Until then, he had to trust that this would be the case.
For instance, once she told him that they shared the world with many other spiritual beings whose strengths were rooted in various animal clans. That as he went out into the world, he would meet them and immediately know them, as they would know him.
“How will I recognize them?” he’d asked.
“How could you not?” was her unhelpful reply.
He hadn’t understood then, but he did now. Looking at the man by the pool table and the beautiful woman with her straw hat and cowboy boots, he felt an odd ping in his mind—as though a bell had sounded, but its tone was made up of colors rather than sound—and he knew that they were more than what they seemed.
“You sure you’re in the right place, kid?” the fat man behind the counter asked.
Jay blinked. He realized he’d spaced out.
“I’m here to see Mr. Flores,” Jay said. “I’ve heard he’s looking for me.”
Jay pushed back his hoodie as he spoke. Two of the gangbangers started to move forward.
“Wait,” the man by
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