Boy learned about mob or gang behavior when he was in the 8th grade.
The mob formed suddenly that fall with the launch of the TV show “That Girl,” starring a young woman from the country who’d moved to the big city. While That Girl didn’t make it big in the city, she always seemed to be coming upon and surviving existential close calls. The rucas in the Southside couldn’t really grasp the nuances of most of those close calls, but they were enthralled with That Girl because she was on her own and always won. All the rucas in the Southside wanted to be That Girl.
What this meant to the vatos in the Southside was that the rucas came to see them as the opposition. And to win, they disengaged from the vatos and hung out only with each other.
At first, this behavior manifested as the rucas acting like an exclusive crowd. It soon turned into a matching of wits and back-and-forth put-downs and lavias between the rucas and vatos. The rucas always won cuz the vatos didn’t really know they were competing.
Then by Christmas break, the collective behavior among the rucas became that of non-engagement with the vatos, with a strict code of conduct being enforced within the mob. No ruca was allowed to be on her own with a vato, else they got mean looks from the mob. The vatos didn’t know what was happening. They naturally kept to themselves and did vatos things, like wrestling and fancy knife throwing.
It wasn’t until Valentine’s Day approached that they began to detect that the world had changed.
What was apparent was that the rucas had decided that only the vatos from the St. Anthony’s church barrio were OK to talk to.
Boy wasn’t from St. Anthony’s, but he had cousins who were. It so happened that one weekend they invited him to a party where there were a lot of rucas from the mob. When he arrived, he noticed the rucas acting differently than when they were at school. They were friendly with his cousins and, because he was among them, him too. Boy liked it, but he couldn’t ignore it was strange.
The next Monday, Boy got friendly smiles a from the mob. At lunch, a ruca passed on a rumor to him that someone wanted to be his huisa.
“Yes or no meet her at St. Anthony’s next Sunday?” he was asked by a go-between.
“What for?” Boy asked.
“No you live by there?” she asked.
“Chale. I live on the other side of the Southside,” Boy replied.
The ruca clammed up and walked away.
By the end of school, nobody was smiling at him. He got only scorned looks from all the rucas.
The rest of his life he wondered which ruca wanted to be his huisa.
