Hailey's War

Part III

twenty-seven

SEPTEMBER 26

A Saturday night, after dark, Serena driving us east of the city, to a small ranch property where my initiation was to take place. The landscape around us was dry grass, pale almost to whiteness in the light of the full moon. The poles of power lines were dark silhouettes against the deep cornflower of the sky.

Gravel crunched as we pulled into a long driveway. Up ahead was a low, one-story house, and around us were split-rail fences, delineating paddocks, but I could see no livestock in them.

“Who lives here?” I asked.

“Risky’s tio, Sergio. He’s not here right now,” Serena said. “So we can use it.”

She pulled around back, parking in front of a small paddock with tubular metal railings instead of wood. The gate was held open by chain wrapped tightly to the nearest post. Inside, the dirt was hard and packed, dust stirring a little in the air displaced by the car’s approach.

Serena cut the lights, but we didn’t get out of the car yet. We were early.

She said, “They’ll be here soon.”

I nodded.

“You want a drink? I’ve got a bottle of vodka in my bag.”

“No. Maybe after.”

She’d offered me the choice: Fight one of the guys from Trece, or get jumped in the more popular way, by being beaten by her girls as a group. There was supposed to be a third option, fighting Serena herself, but we’d both known that wasn’t going to happen. If I won in front of her girls, she’d lose too much face.

A few more moments of silence passed before we saw lights on the road, traveling toward us like a comet or a meteor. The car turned down the driveway and resolved into an old Buick.

More cars were pulling in now. Thug cars: an old Monte Carlo, an Oldsmobile, a Chevy Cavalier. Then an Econoline van. With a slamming of doors and a mixed chatter of Spanish and English, the sucias acknowledged Serena, throwing up their signs to her.

Then I noticed that there were guys from El Trece present as well. It wasn’t typical for them to take interest in a girls’ initiation, but this was different. This was Warchild’s old friend La Rubia, the one who’d nearly become a soldier. This was, even for the guys, an event worth watching.

I shucked off my hooded jacket and began to walk in a circle the way I used to do before fights, rolling my shoulders, ignoring the guys who were watching me. I needed to loosen up. I wasn’t just here to get beaten. I was expected to fight back, to prove my mettle. I would honor the gang by striking back at my sisters-to-be, our shared wounds creating a bond between us.

Blood makes the grass grow, drilling soldiers used to chant.

Hitting back was going to hurt my not-yet-healed little finger, of course. I’d wrapped it and the ring finger with extra tape, but that wouldn’t help much. The impacts would do fresh damage. That’s why they call it the vida loca. Once you’ve committed to it, lots of things you do don’t make sense.

“You ready, Hailey?”

Serena’s voice brought me back to myself. I looked over and saw that seven, no, eight girls had crowded into the paddock and were waiting in a rough semicircle. Several others had climbed up to sit on the railing and watch. The young men leaned against the fence like farmhands. The one closest to the gate was smoking a cigarette. Its red eye glowed as he dragged on it. He stared at me openly, without animosity, but without any sympathy, either.

I walked into the paddock. Had this been a true multiple-assailant attack, my instinct would have been to get the paddock railing against my back. But in an initiation, that could be interpreted as cowardice, so I walked right into the center. The girls moved around me as I advanced, making the semicircle into a circle.

I had technique on my side, but eight was too many. I was going to sustain damage.

They had stripped off unnecessary clothes, like I had. They wore sports bras and strappy tank shirts or loose V-neck undershirts. They had taken off their earrings, but a few had heavy, chunky metal rings. Those were going to hurt.

Trippy was among them, of course. But also Heartbreaker, who I’d thought might stay out of it to protect her good looks, and little Risky, too. Other girls I didn’t recognize. All of them had faces like hard masks, appraising me from under heavy bluish eyeliner. Serena alone, outside the pen, was looking at me like she was on my side.

She nodded at me, and I nodded back. Ready.

Serena said to her girls, “Go.”

There’s no way to describe something like that unless you’ve been through it: bright stars exploding in the periphery of your vision, your vision itself shaking like an old filmstrip coming off the reel. You feel impact more than pain. The pain follows.

For a few seconds, I didn’t know how long, I was all right, rolling with it, striking back as best I could. But I’d known eight was too many. One of the girls landed a blow on my nose. I felt the nasal passages swell instantly, then tasted blood in the back of my throat. I fell to one knee, hands up to protect my head. It was instinct.

That’s the lie referees always have to say, in the ring: Protect yourself at all times. It’s a lie because you can’t. You came to fight. If you were really interested in protecting yourself, you’d get out of the ring and go home.

The sucias had closed in, raining blows.

Hailey, do not protect yourself. Get up. Fight back.

I shot for the legs of the nearest girl and successfully took her down. There was a mixed sound of surprise-you don’t see a lot of wrestling moves in these kind of fights. It bought me enough space to get to my feet. I no longer cared that I was outnumbered. I wanted to do damage.

There was howling and yelling all around me as we engaged. From the girls who were fighting. From above, the spectators on the railing.

Then the gunshot echoed into the night, and we all went still.

“I said, That’s enough.” Serena’s voice, calm. Her nine-millimeter was smoking. She’d fired into the air to make us stop.

It was as if we’d all been awakened from a dream. It seemed to take Heartbreaker a second to realize that she was holding on to a fistful of my hair and to let go.

I didn’t remember dropping to my knees, but the girls were extending their hands to me, lifting me up. “Stand up, Rubia,” one of them said, and there was no mockery in the old nickname.

Serena jumped off the fence and the girls parted to let her through. I fell onto her neck and we embraced.

“You did good, prima,” she whispered.

I’d hit one of the sucias, the fat girl with permed hair, hard enough to make her nose bleed, like mine was. She wiped it gingerly with the back of her hand. Then, sounding totally unconcerned, she said, “We need to party.”

All in a day’s work.

Fifteen minutes later, I was in Tio Sergio’s living room, sitting on the couch with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Throbbing beats from the sound system filled the air. Some of the girls and guys were dancing. Others were in small knots, talking.

To my surprise, the girls who’d looked at me so coldly before the initiation now wanted to know if they’d hit hard enough. Maybe it really had sunk in when Serena had told them about West Point and my boxing there. Now