They all laughed. No one wanted to see Ruben’s abuela because she was older than dirt and meaner than sin, which a propsensity to smack people with her chanclas indiscriminately. She had been the daughter of an Adelita in the Mexican Revolution. The first years of her life were had been spent following the army on trains and in battle before her parents had booked it from Guanajuato and moved to L.A. She was a tough old bird and imagined disrespect everywhere. She wore a big cloth apron with lots of pockets, and in them, she kept old chanclas, which she would whip out and smack people with at will. While she’d been at the forefront of the battle with the aliens, and they admired her chancla-throwing skills, they didn’t like it when those chanclas were aimed at them.
“Wonder which one of us gets the first chanclaso,” Smiley said.
“I’ll put five bucks on the Dopester,” Ruben said.
Dopey flipped him off.
Early the next morning, the trio was at Ruben’s abuela’s crooked little house on the ass-end of Highland Park. Not wanting to get smacked, Smiley had made a pot of menudo the night before, and made Ruben stop for fresh bolillos at the bakery on York. For good measure, she’d bought conchas with pink sugar tops, puercitos, gingerbread cookies shaped like pigs, and two dozen tamales from the local tamalera.
“Abuela,” Ruben shouted as he rang the bell.
Sara Carbajal didn’t trust her doorbell. Her family knew you had to ring it and shout so she knew who was at the door. She would hear no arguments about it, saying only, “It could be anybody, hasta espaceman cabrones or pinches Jehovahs.”
They didn’t know who she hated more – aliens or religious folk that banged on her door, rang her bell, and tried to get her to read their tracts. Once, the cops were called because some Jehovah’s caught her watering her grass and tried to step into the yard. She’d doused them with the hose, beat them with chanclas, and cursed up a blue streak. The cops didn’t know what to do. Here was this wizened apple of an old lady, fiercely waving her chancla and screaming invectives in Spanglish, while the two drenched and bruised grown men stood there accusingly. Finally, the senior cop said that they were trespassing and it was her right to defend her property. The men blustered, but the cop stood firm, earning Sara Carbajal’s devotion. Every morning she went to the station in her beat-up old Ford Fairlane that Dopey kept running and took Officer Garcia freshly made burritos. She called him Officer Chulo and cackled that he was her boyfriend. Officer Chulo was both the envy and the laughing stock of the station. He didn’t care because her burritos were the bomb and she always included lots of her salsa negro, a black, smoky salsa that scalded you all the way down to your toes, but was so rich, earthy, and flavorful you couldn’t help but suck it down.
“Ahí voy,” the homies heard. “Cálmate, cabrón.”
They laughed and waited, hearing her chanclas flopping on the tiled floor, the seven locks being unchained and unbolted, and her muttering to herself about shitty brats that were in a hurry. The door finally opened and standing in front of it, chancla in hand, was Ruben’s grandmother, her iron grey hair, tightly braided and wrapped around her head like a crown. She wore a faded cloth flower in her braid, a neatly ironed skirt and blouse, and a cloth apron with pockets. Smiley looked at the pockets and noted they weren’t bulging with chanclas, so she stepped forward.
“Buenos días, Doña Sara,” she said, thrusting the big pot of menudo forward. “I brought some menudo.”
“Did you make it or buy it from La Llamarada,” the old lady asked.
Smiley grinned. “La Llamarada’s menudo is okay, señora, but I made this for you. I would never bring you menudo that wasn’t homemade.”
“Hmph,” the old lady said. “Con patas?”
“Claro que sí,” Smiley said. “My mom would kill me if my menudo didn’t have *patas *in it.”
Doña Sara smiled, her brightly painted red lips revealing surprisingly good and white teeth. “Good girl,” she said.
“Y tu, cabrones? No saluden?” She slapped Ruben with the chancla on his shoulder and glared at Dopey while Smiley smirked over her shoulder.
“Sorry, abuela,” Ruben said. “Buenos días.” He thrust the box of Mexican bread into her hands.
Dopey was smarter. He bowed and kissed her hand like an old Spanish gallant.
“Buenos días, Doña Sara,” he said. “How beautiful you look this morning. Como una flor de mañana.”
She giggled like a girl, fluttering her still lush eyelashes, and Ruben rolled his eyes. Dopey produced a gardenia from behind his back and she giggled even more. She was pleased, even though she knew he’d plucked it from her own gardenia bush near the fence.
At Doña Sara’s kitchen table, the guys sat while Smiley and Ruben’s abuela gathered bowls and silverware to set the table. Smiley served the men first, then Doña Sara, and finally herself. On the table were warm corn tortillas in a cloth-covered container, small bowls of oregano, dried chile flakes, diced onion, cilantro, and a larger bowl filled with quartered lemons. The smell of the porky menudo and accompaniments made Dopey’s stomach growl loudly as Doña Sara gave the blessing over the food, and they all laughed and said “Amen” before digging in.
“So, what brings you cabrones to my door so early?” Doña Sara said, swiftly rolling a corn tortilla into a tight tube with a deft one-handed movement, then dipping it into her menudo.
“I wanted to go looking for our family over at Calvary and didn’t know where to start,” Ruben said.
“Ah,” the old woman said. “Well, it was a long time ago. I was just on my second husband when we stopped burying our people there. I don’t know why, but later everyone wanted to be buried at the Mission.”
“Do you think this ancestor was buried there, abuela?” Ruben asked.
“How many husbands did you have, Doña Sara?” Smiley asked.
“Pues,” she said. “Let’s see.”
The old woman began counting on her beringed and wrinkled fingers.
“There was Pablo, that was that son of a bitch that hit me, but he got hit by a truck and died. He’s at Calvary, el buey. Then there was the mariachi, Santos. Dios mío, he was good in bed.”
“Abuela!” Ruben sputtered.
She ignored him, still counting.
“Then there was Fidencio, the jeweler,” she wiggled her fingers, showing off her rings. “I married him after Santos died in a bar fight. Fidencio had a heart attack.”
Smiley’s eyes were shining. She loved hearing these stories.
“So, three then?” she asked.
“No,” the old lady smiled. “I’m just warming up. There was Hipolito, who was the house painter. He disappeared. Then there was Ruben’s grandfather, Ponciano, who died of a stroke. Then there was that tax guy in Boyle Heights, what was his name, oh yes, Tommy. He died at his desk.”
“Good Lord,” Smiley said. “That’s six!”
“Don’t blaspheme,” the old lady told her. “Not six, I had eight husbands. The other two were Frank, who got shot in a robbery, and Tino, who just died two years ago from old age.”
“You outlived them all,” Smiley said.
Sara nodded. “I don’t know why. They were all strong men. I don’t like wimps.”
Ruben was shaking his head, and Dopey just shook with silent laughter.
“Anyway, the family is buried near the mausoleum where Lou Costello is interred. Lots of Carbajals there and my own family, the Reinosos. You can find your great-grandfather Mario’s grave there.”
“Lou Costello?” Ruben asked. “The comedian dude?”
“Yes,” said Sara. “Lots of important people are there. But past the big mausoleum, go around it to the Downey Road side and in section Mary Mother of Mercy, near some trees, you will find the familia. Take some flowers; no sean malcriados.”