El Escritor

by Daniel Chacón

Bino was pissed that in the entire works of Shakespeare there wasn't a single Chicano.

"Are you sure, ese ?" he asked, squinting his eyes distrustfully, like I was deceiving him.

Husky and muscular, he stood with his feet firmly on the ground. If I had run into him from a hundred yards away with all my might, I wouldn't have gotten him to budge, not only because of my small size, but because of his strength. My roommate Juan had told me that Bino had been a Green Beret, a black belt who could kill with two fingers.

"What do you like about him?" Bino asked, jerking his head up as if we were about to fight.

I stuttered my answer: "...a certain universality..."

"Fuck him," he shot. "I hate that white asshole."

Students who were walking along the path had to step on the lawn to get around him. He towered over me as I stood, shifting my feet as if I had to go to the bathroom. I was trying to figure out what he wanted from me, why he had stopped me as I was walking out of the library. He had never paid any attention to me before. I didn't even know him, except to know that he was Albino Duran, a seventh-year sociology major. Some days, in the free-speech area, he'd make impromptu diatribes against the racist administration or the federal or state governments. His words were so strong - "Uncle Sam is the KKK!" he'd say - that he attracted crowds. White people, figuring they were entering an intellectual debate, happily argued with him. He only let them talk for about five seconds before he went nuts, sticking his thick pointing finger into their faces, calling them racists. He riled up the Chicano students so they looked like they were about to start turning over cars and blowing up buildings....

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Daniel Chacón is an English instructor at Modesto College. His collection, Chicano Chicanery, will be published by Arte Publico Press next Spring. E-mail: soychacon@aol.com