A Dying Breed

DanielEscobar · August 6, 2023

The mirror rattled in its metal frame fastened to the crumbling concrete wall.

Angela's face blurred; distorting the dark stripe of eyeliner she was attempting to thicken from over the bathroom sink. A resounding boom, boom, boom from the club's speakers nearly shook the liner pencil right out of her hand. Angela could hardly hear herself think – much less touch up her half-baked attempt to blend in with the dark-eyed, scantily-clad women parading around the club.

Perhaps a more subtle approach would've been safer.

Angela leaned back and blinked her heavy lashes back into place. Just under the bassline was the faint whimper of two young women tucked in the back of the bathroom. The youngest was huddled against the wall with blue-black streams cresting across her cheeks. The eldest girl loomed over the slender frame slumped in the corner, jabbing a finger in her face as curses slurred their way past her lips. Angela didn't dare turn to face them. She kept her eyes fixed on her own complexion, watching it tremble with every hit from the muffled subwoofer.

The floor of the women's bathroom was sticky; littered with at least a weeks’ worth of grime and refuse. Old plastic cups primed with brightly colored liquids buzzed around the dirty tile floor like insects, bumping into crumpled shreds of toilet paper and spent tubes of lipstick. Angela was having an impossible time trying to strike a balance between looking the part, and not catching the heel of her stilettos and crumbling to her knees.

The older girl spun around and glared at Angela as she turned to face the bathroom door.

“You fuckin' need somethin', white girl? Go. Go!”

The girl's finger was now aimed at Angela – her gaudy acrylic nail glinting under the harsh yellow light. Angela did what she could to keep her composure. She quickly trotted towards the bathroom door and swung it open, stepping into the hallway. The cacophony was now accompanied by the heat of a hundred bodies packed into a concrete box.

Down a narrow and equally cluttered hall stood a gaping doorway; dark, yet full of motion. Angela could only make out the figures crowded on the dance floor through quick, bright flashes from the strobe lights above. She grew closer to the churning shadows, and with every step her eardrums pinched at the sides of her head. A rush of hot air gave life to her silk top as she stepped through the empty door frame and back into the club. Sweat and spilled liquor clung to her breath, and gloomy red spotlights hardly cast enough light to find a path through the dark shapes crowding every corner of the room. At least out here, in the heart of the chaos, no one seemed to pay her any mind.

Angela hung a left after stepping out of the hallway. She did what she could to memorize the layout of the old warehouse turned nightclub. Two lefts to the bar... One left, then one right to the door. A whisper of confidence filled her chest when she melted into the crowd. In this day and age, in this place – she was hardly even a fly on the wall. Angela felt safer surrounded by strangers than she did in the bathroom with one furiously drunk Chicana nipping at her heels.

Angela knew all her fear and hesitation was constructed behind the baggage she brought with her. The cackling women clinging to their boyfriend's arms and spilling their drinks had no idea what this place used to be. The men with sweat beading under their overpriced dress shirts wouldn't be able to stomach the hours of paperwork she sifted through back in her earlier years at the Times. Angela felt as if she was reliving a memory she never knew she had; pieced together from crime scene photos and paperwork from the coroner's office. Angela's nightmarish renditions had become a reality; repopulated with brutish men and belligerent women.
The Emerald Club was very much alive.

The undulating crowd on the dance floor was lost in the relentless tones and rhythms of electronica, entranced by the lights as they flashed in tandem with the beat. The DJ perched above the dance floor gave them no respite.

Poised behind the dance floor was the only viable option for escape: a crowded lounge area with worn, sprawling couches and a small aisle between them. As Angela pushed through the crowd, she began to take note of the faces framed under the hellish red glow. Both couches on either side of the aisle were packed with huddled bodies encircling a pair of short cocktail tables. To the blurry-eye patron, the two groups appeared no more suspicious than any other band of club-hoppers heading into East Los for a night on the town.

Angela knew more than most, and her fear allowed her no ignorance. Years of scrolling through mugshots kept her painfully tuned to the symbols and words peeking out from under their shirt collars, or etched into the back of their hands.

To the right was a large U-shaped couch tucked between two concrete pillars. A sea of freshly shaven heads and deeply sunken eyes tracked the crowd with unwarranted, paranoid suspicion. Tattoos in the shape of lightning bolts adorned many of their brows, and even in the club's stagnant, humid air the men still sported thick black bomber jackets. Angela noticed the sharp angles of a Swastika crossing the throat of a man seated near the middle of the group; his hands clutching two dented cans of Coors Banquet Lager.

“The Whites,” Angela thought to herself, making a mental note of the heavily tattooed young man in the middle of the group. She blinked the sweat from her lashes as if to take a picture of the man's face from behind her eyes. Whether the Skins were enjoying themselves was a mystery – most of the men seemed preoccupied as their hands trembled in the quest for another cigarette; their eyes darting from person to person in a drug-induced frenzy. It was no business of Angela's either way. Not here for them.

Angela pushed her way forward, shrouding her face from the men behind another group in passing. She glanced at the other side of the aisle – the adjacent booth bordering the dance floor.

Perched atop another disheveled couch sat four young men, and three women. The young man in the center of the group laughed boastfully as he prodded the woman to his right. He rocked back and forth on the sofa, hooking his finger through the woman’s large hoop earring and tugging at her like a child pining for his mother’s attention. The young woman slapped his hand away, cursing at him in Spanish. A dull, metallic glint near the young man’s waist caught Angela’s eye.

As the group squabbled and slapped at one another, it became clear to Angela this too was no ordinary group of drunk youngsters. The men’s arms were steeped symbols, numbers, and landmarks found within East Los. Heavy backpacks sat under their seats, and the unmistakable outline of a handgun could be seen protruding from the bottom edge of their white T-shirts.

Angela stared for a moment too long. The man in the middle caught her gaze and sprung to his feet with a boyish grin.

He reached out to grab her wrist as she took a step back.

“Ay, wassup’ mija? Why don’ you come sit down, have a drink? C’mere… You can have her seat!”

The woman to his right filled her fist with the end of his baggie shirt.

“Shut the fuck up, Krim’! Stop actin’ like you all smooth n’ shit. That huera don’t want nothin’ to do with you anyways. Mirala; she ain’t getting shit from me!”

Angela didn’t know whether the young man’s confidence or the girl’s colorful vocabulary knocked her more off balance. Kriminal tugged at her wrist, trying to coax her towards the couch.

“Don’t trip, chica. She’s all talk, y’feel me? You look a lil’ outta place. We don’ bite on this side, sit. Sit!”

A faint, nervous giggle is all she could muster. For a former reporter, she hated being the center of unwanted attention. She twisted her wrist free from Kriminal’s grasp, blending her escape with a gentle shrug of her shoulders.

“M-maybe another time, yeah?”

Angela took another healthy step backwards, her cheeks flushed with blood.

Kriminal waved her off as Angela slunk back into the crowd.

Pull yourself together: you’re a fucking disaster.

Angela turned her eyes to the floor and fumbled towards the bar. The crowd grew thicker, swallowing her footsteps while she wriggled towards the bar at the back of the club. She reached out and grabbed the edge of the counter, pulling herself from the weight of the mob.

The young woman behind the bar spun in place, splashing shot glasses full and tossing pairs of plastic straws into cocktail cups like harpoons. She shot Angela a quick, dismissive nod; revealing a cheek full of unfamiliar tattoos that climbed to her brow.

“Hey girl, what ya’ need?” she asked shortly, sliding a few over-filled glasses down the bar.

“Ah… Jus-just a shot, your Vodka. Something quick.” Angela replied.

The woman reached back and grabbed a bottle off the shelf. She rocked it back and forth in front of Angela’s face.

“This all we got left. Only clear on deck is Tequila – you good with that?” The woman tested Angela with a pair of raised eyebrows.

She nodded, reaching into her purse and tossing a crumpled pair of bills onto the counter. The bartender glanced at the money and pinched another shot glass between her fingers.

“Take two, girl. Looks like you need it, eh?”

The woman cackled through a quick smirk as she pulled the bills across the bar. Angela reached out for the shot glasses, immediately bringing one to her lips.

The woman behind the bar stiffened – freezing her fluid motion in an instant. Angela watched the woman’s halted posture from over the top of her shot glass.

A heavy hand landed on Angela’s shoulder, gently pushing her to the side. She looked down at the meaty fingers now directing her every move. Lines of faded black ink were interrupted by calloused wrinkles crossing the back of the man’s hand. Angela choked down her burning mouthful of Tequila and turned to look at the figure behind her.

“S’cuse me chiquita, Let me get in there real qui—”

The man paused. leaning back on his heels. His face twisted into a skeptical frown as he studied Angela’s face. His hand remained on her shoulder, keeping her rooted to the floor.

“You… know this chick, Oso?” The bartender asked the man, who was now completely lost in thought.

“…Nah, nah,” He said, slowly shaking his head from side to side. His hand slipped from Angela’s shoulder shortly after.

“Ain’t you that—? Nah. I’m trippin’, Jessie. Forget about it.”

Angela’s eyes darted between Jessie, and Oso. She slid her second shot of Tequila off the counter and held it close to her collar. Oso’s eyes settled on Angela as he sauntered towards the cash register. He was suspiciously unconvinced.

Big Oso... He was here.

Angela’s legs went numb. She suddenly felt the twinge of every hasty decision leading her to The Emerald wash over every inch of her body.

She was out of place. She didn’t look the part. She wasn’t fooling anyone.

She was still the enemy.

Jessie continued to work furiously as patrons slumped against the bar – but a sliver of her attention remained set on Angela as indecision pinned her in place. Angela came here for Oso – if for no other reason than to see if what she heard was true. Despite fear bringing every nerve in her body online – Angela knew she couldn’t let this opportunity fade into another drunken, regret-filled fervor.

I want my fucking interview.

Angela tossed back the remaining shot of Tequila and pressed up against the bar. She leaned over the edge of the bar top and raised her hand in Oso’s direction. He looked up from the register screen with an unmoving stare.

“H-hey, excuse me! Oso! I was wondering if I could spea– ”

Angela’s request was cut short by a blurry figure and a warm, damp palm slapping against her face. Slender fingers gripped her temples, sending veins of white light through her eyes.

“Back the fuck up, homegirl!” Jessie spat as she shoved Angela back across the bar. She stood between Angela and her prize.

Angela was shocked back into place, stumbling backward as she knocked the prying hand from her eyes.

“He said he don’t know you like that! Raise the fuck up outta ‘ere!”

Oso slowly counted the bills tucked against his palm – his eyes more wary than ever. Jessie stood between Angela, the bar, and Oso – her arms planted atop the counter as if he was waiting for the journalist to make a second advance.

Angela tucked a lock of sweaty hair past her ear in search of her last ounce of self-respect. The bass began to pound with the rhythm of her pulse, ears aching with a familiar adrenaline-infused sensation.

Jessie threw her hand from the bar and shouted something in Angela’s direction, waving her hand frantically towards the club’s entrance. People began to take notice, and the crowd distanced themselves from Angela while the bartender uttered her final warnings.

Time to go. Now.

Angela turned on her heels and hurtled herself back into the crowd. Whatever concerns she held about blending in evaporated behind her latest confrontation. She slid past the dance floor, stumbling past the shapes writhing under the pale flashes of light.

The Emerald’s entryway bottlenecked at an old bay door retrofitted into a man-door. Angela squeezed past the security guards with a small sigh of relief and lunged towards the front entrance.

The knob rattled beneath Angela’s shaking fingers, and a warm breeze greeted her as she swung the door open. The music faded into the sound of distant sirens and muffled voices. Angela ran a finger under her eyelids, wicking the sweat from her cheeks.

The door slammed shut behind her, catching the attention of the two figures leaning on the railing between her and the parking lot.

Almost there.

A small blonde woman was nestled next to a hunched, gaunt figure; his arms hanging lazily over the other side of the railing. The woman muttered something in his ear while her eyes watched Angela’s pointed heels click across the concrete. She brushed her hand against the figure’s shoulder in an attempt to draw more of his attention.

The warm air froze in her chest. The woman turned to face Angela, tilting her head to the side. She taunted the bewildered journalist.

“Evenin’,” she muttered playfully, crossing her arms over her red cocktail dress.

The woman’s pale, slender figure stood in stark contrast the with man’s oversized flannel and jet-black hair.

The man needed no further introduction. He glanced over his shoulder at Angela, revealing a

sharp jaw framed with weathered, yet ornate script. A deep scar ran down another tattoo etched across his cheekbone, concluding its journey somewhere behind a waxy, well-trained mustache. Angela’s arrival warranted nothing but annoyance. He didn’t bother to face her.

An unexpected introduction.

A cascade of mugshots and case file photographs spun like a camera reel behind Angela’s tired eyes. She knew the marking on the man’s face very well, yet his weathered, ghoulish complexion was absent from her memory. Angela feigned her final smile of the night as she shuffled behind the woman and the old man. The weight of their gaze slowed her escape, and she muddled her way through the parking lot towards an empty taxi. The tequila began to blur the last moments of her return to The Emerald Club.

The Detective was right. East Los spat her out without a second thought. She had failed.

As the vacant taxi coasted forward to meet her raised hand, the old man’s voice pricked at the hairs on the back of her neck.

“Welcome back, Senorita—”

Angela kept her eyes on the taxi’s back seats.

“—after all these years… did you think we would forget?”

Angela popped the passenger door open and spared a glance over her shoulder. The old man’s silhouette loomed over the railing. A vulture withered with hunger.

“Good to see you alive and well… Padrino.” Angela retorted with a semblance of composure. She slid into the back seat of the taxi and slammed the door shut; her final farewell to The Emerald Club.

“I’m sure I’ll be seeing a lot more of you soon.”