John Martinez and The Quest For the Purple Bandana
“Your cousin Mike told me you were good people. But do you really have what it takes to become a Blazer, holmes?”
John Martinez stood in front of the Avenue P Liquor Store in East Los Angeles, the Blazer Gang’s main hangout. This was it. The moment Martinez had long been waiting for. It had been his dream to become a Blazer, since he was a twelve-year-old kid, accompanying his mom to the store, seeing them outside, flaunting their main color--purple, gunning their engines, and raising all-around hell.
“Of course I do,” John said. “Whatever you want me to do, your wish is my command.”
The crew leader, Ortega Gonzalez, smiled, exposing silver teeth. “Good call, ese. Your words sound good. But I’ve got to see your actions, you know?” Gonzalez peered around furtively a few times, then he faced Martinez again. He handed John Martinez a de-serialized Uzi, of unknown make and model.
“Quick, hide that under your jersey, ese.”
Martinez did as told, stuffing the Uzi inside the crotch of his pants. Gonzalez smiled. “Now it’s time for initiation my friend. Many people are good at talking, but not so many are good when it comes to doing. Understand?
Martinez didn’t mince words. “Look, man. I’ve been aspiring to be a Blazer all my life. It’d be, like, the highest honor ever. Whatever you want done, Ortega, consider it done.”
“I like your attitude, Martinez. But like I say, you gotta prove yourself to us. You can’t just say you belong to us. You have to show us you are our property, not anybody else’s. You have to prove yourself. Are you ready to prove yourself, to show the world that you were born a Blazer and that, damn it, you’re going to die a Blazer?”
John Martinez looked at Ortega. He truly was a intimidating specimen, with his mouth full of metal, his huge biceps, his tattooed forearms, and his malevolent face, which seemed to always be posed in a perpetual scowl. “I’m ready, Ortega. How many times I gots to say it, man?"
Ortega bunched his thumb and forefinger into a circle. He jutted his middle finger out, and then he held it up, exposing it to car passersby. He was showing Martinez, of course, the Blazer’s official sign: “P,” for purple. The gang’s trademark symbol.
“Flash our sign to as many cars as you can. If they respect us, they move on. They won’t contest the gestures. If they’re against us and flash us their own symbols, that means they’re against us. It means they don’t respect our territory. If that should happen, blow the disrespectful suckers away. You understand what I’m saying, Martinez?”
Martinez nodded his head
“Remember,” Ortega said somberly, “Only shoot at the rival gang members. They’re the only wants who won’t respect our signs. It’ll probably be that pesky gang from Oxnard, the Taggers. If they should contest our symbols and our authority blow every last one of them to hell. Then split before the po-po arrive. Got it, my friend?”
John Martinez was ecstatic. However, he knew better than to show it. He wanted to look professional, composed; not young and undisciplined. He simply nodded his head and then said, “I ain’t going to let you down, Ortega. You just watch. I ain’t afraid of nothing, hombre."
Ortega got inside his 2005 Taurus, with silver hubcaps, and zoomed off, leaving Martinez in a cloud of his exhaust, gagging.
Well this is it, Martinez thought. The moment of Truth. The moment I show the world what I’m really made of.
Martinez faced the traffic on the mainstreet and began walking, his face to the traffic, his thumb and fingers extended into a crude “P.” He kept walking, looking each driver in the eye, as he/she drove past.
The first driver: She appeared to be a woman. Pretty, so far as he could tell. There was a young girl, about 12, beside her in the passenger seat. She didn’t contest the symbol. She was not even dignifying him.
She was free to go.
The next driver: He was an older gentleman, wearing a cowboy hat, driving a Dodge pickup truck. He, too, passed by, without making eye contact with Martinez. The message was clear: He respected the Blazers. He did not wish to wage war with them.
He was free to go.
The third car was a different affair altogether. The occupants of the four-door Sedan: They were a little harder to make out, but they were gesturing, all of them! They mostly consisted of males, however, one the passengers was clearly a female.
This was it--the moment of truth. Martinez yanked the Uzi from his pants, aimed it at the Sedan as it quickly approached, popping it full of lead. The car veered off the road wildly, and collided into a bicyclist.
A woman screamed. An unseen man shouted in terror, “Quick--somebody call the police!”
Martinez unloaded the rest of the clip into the Sedan. He must have shot a total of fifty bullets into the vehicle. Bye bye, Taggers, he thought to himself, as he ran with all his might back towards the strip mall, past the back alleys, and over the fences of residential houses.
The sound of faraway sirens became clearly audible, but by this time, John Martinez was less than a block away from home--his mother’s house, a small little three-bedroom home, with chipped blue paint and a rusted basketball hoop decorating the driveway.
***
The next day Martinez met Ortega Gonzalez in front of the Avenue P. Liquor Store. The designated rendezvous location.
Ortega was just standing in front of the P., with a newspaper in his hand, pacing the front entrance of the store.
John was overjoyed.
“I see you’ve read the newspaper, ese. Did you read about how I wasted all them Taggers? Man, it was crazy. Like, I saw them all pointing at me, defying our symbols, so I blew them away, straight to hell, you know?? I’m so glad I did the right thing. See, I act, I don’t just say. Say, where’s my purple bandana at? I can’t wait to try on my colors, bro.”
“You’re not getting a bandana, or any membership with the Blazers, my friend,” Ortega said harshly.
Martinez was confused. “But why? I did everything you asked me to do. I killed off an entire rival gang. You should be giving me a medal, my friend!”
Ortega shook his head repeatedly. Then he handed Martinez the newspaper. The headline read: Five Deaf and Dumb passengers murdered in the carpool lane, brutally, while communicating via sign language.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Martinez?
“Whoops,” John Martinez said. “My bad.”
About the author: Jack Bristow's writing has most recently appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, The Huffington Post and Mystery Weekly Magazine. You can follow him, @realjackbristow.
