El Camino

Make: A Chicago Literary Magazine
Summer 2005 Issue 1

Fiction: El Camino
by Aaron Michael Morales





First, a confession: I was handed a copy of Make Magazine by the fiction editor. Yes, I went to high school with him. Well, sort of. Summer school. One year. He was an aquaintance. That said, by scout's honor and my grandmother's grave, I promise this review isn't the result of cronyism, favoritism, or sexual favors.

I heard through the grapevine that he started up a literary journal and I was both curious and deeply afraid that it would suck, that it would be some sort of basement effort by a sloppy chucklehead with too much money to spend at Kinko's.

Fortunately, my fears were unfounded. It's a beautifully produced journal on 8 1/2" x 11" glossy paper, and the content is high quality. It's heavier on poetry than I like, but most of the poems share a gritty urban sensibility that reminds me a bit of Charles Bukowski. (who wrote the only book of poetry I've ever bought) I even liked most of them.

The story I'm going to praise is "El Camino" by Aaron Michael Morales. It tells of two Latin Kings in Tucson who try to save a baby from a burning car. Let me begin with an excerpt:

"One driver, Cesar Valdez, wouldn't have stopped if someone had offered to pay him because the flesh on his arms and face and chest was still scarred from two summers earlier when his car had overheated in a Circle K parking lot and he had lifted the hood and pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around his hand, then used it to grab the radiator cap and twist, thinking at the last second that maybe he should've let the car cool a bit, having forgotten his father's warning to always test the radiator first because he was rushing to get home to his new girlfriend who liked to greet him at the door dressed in skimpy black lace lingerie and a set of handcuffs dangling from one wrist, which still pleased and baffled him-..."

That's less than half of that sentence. It goes on for a long time, as do many in this short story. If told that, without having an opportunity to read the story, I would assume the writer lacked focus, an editor, and tended to wander aimlessly. Not so. The structure served to draw me in. By screwing with my mental reading rhythym, I began reading faster and faster. In one particularly suspenseful passage late in the story, I wanted to yell at the magazine: "Please, stop fucking with me, just tell me what's going to happen!" Instead, the play by play sequence builds pressure up to exploding point, just like the El Camino itself. I was impressed by this simultaneous tempo build within both the narrative and the style.

The characters and setting add a lot to the story, too. Chuey and Peanut, the Latin Kings, are horny arrogant little gangstas who become heroes because they see the desperate mother's sky blue panties as she bends in to rescue her older children. A gun Peanut carries is used to save a baby instead of shoot a rival. There are several potential cliches, both character traits and props, that are used in unexpected ways, serving to add color and humor to this unique story.

Get a copy of Make. They're only $3 an issue. I don't have any cover art to display above, so I just put up a favorite Chicago picture of mine, since this is a Chicago literary journal. It's well worth your time, folks. Go here: Make: A Chicago Literary Magazine