My last memory of Maximilian is from a couple of years later. I was thirteen. Maximilian was in his twenties. He was home from Germany, on leave because his mother, my aunt Lola, had died.

As sick as my aunt Lola had been, her death was mostly unexpected. In just a few weeks her cancer had gone from manageable to terminal. The last time I saw her was two days before she died. She was back in St. Luke’s Hospital and when I said hi to her she could only look in my eyes. Her look scared me. It was the kind of look that needed a voice to explain itself.

My aunt Lola was a generous woman. The months I lived with her she always had a steaming bowl of frijoles waiting for me when I came home from school, two or three thick tortillas waiting to be dipped and sucked from like summertime paletas. My aunt’s most remarkable feature was her bridge, which she would pull from her mouth and set on the armrest of her La-Z-Boy as she sat and watched TV. When she dozed off I would try to put the bridge in my own mouth. As my months of living there wore on, I used to steal her bridge and move it to some other location, in her bedroom or on the kitchen table, then wait for her to wake and be forced to speak, her pink gums showing through her fingers as she asked if anyone knew where her bridge was.

Her wake was held at Zefran Funeral Home, on Damen and Twenty-Second Street. There were masses of people there, cousins I didn’t know I had. Though I loved my aunt, and loved the frijoles she used to leave me, at the wake I felt no need to cry. Flowers were placed on her chest, blessings delivered to her open casket. At one point a boy standing next to me, a boy who had been introduced to me as my cousin, began to cry. He turned and gave me a hug. I wasn’t sure what to do. So I patted his back. “I know,” I said to him. “She was a good woman.” The kid raised his head and looked at me like I was at the wrong wake.

After the viewing we packed into cars and lined up for the funeral. The procession was long, too long for our family. My uncle and his daughters were behind the hearse, riding with my father in his black, windowless work van. A few cars back, Maximilian and I rode alone in his Chevy Celebrity.

We were silent as we drove down Pershing Road. Maximilian had placed our orange FUNERAL sticker on the top of the passenger-side windshield, and for me it was like a sun visor even though the day was overcast. The tick of the Celebrity’s hazards matched our engine speed, lagging as we braked, then racing when we sped to catch the car in front.

At Oak Park Avenue we slowed for a red light. Our hazards were on. Our orange sticker displayed. We followed the car in front of us into the intersection. Suddenly a red pickup took off from the crosswalk. The pickup broke through the procession just in front of us, then continued south down Oak Park. There was a short pause. Long enough for me to consider what an asshole the pickup driver was for cutting off the procession. We were on our way to a funeral. I had that much in my head when Max threw the Celebrity into a left-hand turn so sharp my temple knocked against the passenger-side window.

We chased the truck for three blocks, the Celebrity’s hazards clacking so loud they seemed about to explode right through the dash. Finally the driver of the pickup pulled to the curb.

Through the rear window of the cab I could see the man jerking around. He looked out of his mind, yelling to himself. As we pulled up behind him his shoulder heaved and he threw the truck into park. His taillights flashed to full red. He kicked open his door.

We were in front of a bank parking lot. It was the middle of the day but the lot was empty. Black screens covered the plateglass windows as if the bank was closed for good. Trees lined the street. I felt a million miles from home.

The truck driver slammed his door shut as Maximilian was stepping out of the Celebrity. The truck driver yelled something. He was a big man, white, potbellied. He was wearing a flannel shirt. His neck seemed like one big chin and his jeans seemed too tight at the waist. Each one of his steps had a little bounce to it, as if he had learned to walk on his toes.

The man continued yelling as Max moved forward. Maximilian didn’t say a word. He simply continued to close in, his feet looking small, his shoulders broad, his tight waist neat with his tucked-in dress shirt. His tie was draped over his shoulder.

As Max got within arm’s reach the truck driver raised his hand and pointed to my cousin’s face. The man’s mouth was still going. He was looking down at my cousin. He was giving him a deep, mean look, eyebrows pointed in, teeth showing as he screamed. I think he thought Max was going to stop and start yelling himself. Max simply kept on moving, and just as the man was ending a word, drawing his mouth shut, my cousin lit into him with a flush right hand that sent the man staggering backward. Even in the car, over the now practically dead heartbeat of the blinkers, I heard something snap, the man’s jaw, his neck, my cousin’s wrist. The man fell to a seated position and Maximilian bent over him and hit him three more times, solid, deep-looking punches to the left side of the man’s face. The man fell sideways and was out cold. His short arm flopped over his thick side and landed palm up on the street. Maximilian turned and started walking back to the car. His face was red now, swollen. He was crying. He looked like he wanted to yell, to scream, but couldn’t get anything out. The Celebrity’s hazards had stopped dead. The car had died. I wished we were back in the procession. I wished there was somewhere, anywhere, for us to go.

Ask him where he learned to do that stuff and he’d say, “Sonora, God’s Country.” Chuey had never been to Sonora. He spent every day of his life right there in Pilsen, just like the rest of us, playing ball, jumping the freights. We thought maybe he’d resurrected some witch doctor’s memories of being in Sonora. I mean, he resurrected everything else: dead cats, dogs, finally a human being. So when people asked us how he learned to do the things he did, we said, “He learned it all in Sonora, God’s Country.” There seemed to be no other explanation.

He was fifteen when he found out he had the gift of life. It was one of those mornings we skipped school. It was early, right around the end of first period.

“Poor fucks,” Alfonzo said, looking to the high school, the kids transferring classes. “I’d be in algebra right now.”

“English,” I said.

“I’d be in gym,” Marcus said.

“Booo,” me and Alfonzo answered.

“No, man,” Marcus said. “Gym this early is a drag. All sweaty afterward. All sweaty for Brenda Gamino second period.”

“Damn,” Alfonzo said. “You have Brenda Gamino in a class?”

“Second period,” Marcus said. “History.” He pulled out the joint he had in the inside pocket of his leather. We were standing in front of the Pilsen YMCA, just across the street from Juarez High School.

“We’re going to get busted,” Alfonzo said. He said this as a matter of fact. That year, our freshman year, we’d been caught skipping three times by December. The limit was five unexcused absences per year. Our parents had been called. We’d been reasoned with by Mr. Sanchez, the school social worker: “So if you get expelled, what kind of job are you going to get?” We didn’t know. We didn’t care. The only thing that seemed to matter was that the thought of school made us literally, physically ill.

Marcus pulled out his tiny Bic lighter. He lit the joint and took a deep, early-morning drag. He passed the joint to Chuey, who hadn’t said a word all morning. Marcus exhaled.

“Want to walk to Speedy’s?” he asked.

Collectively, we began to move.