“Of course I’m on the job. I’m the one who’s been trying to keep you on the job. Make sure you finish what you start.” Lupe turned from me and asked Raul something. Her eyelashes fluttered. He looked around as though checking to see where Tony Guerrero was before crossing the room to get a glass of the sticky punch for her.

“Tommy, the red-haired guy,” whispered Lupe. “He’s an electrician who works at a studio. He must be the one who met Cathy Vega and brought her here. That’s all I’ve found out so far.”

“Didn’t you ask him if he knew her?”

“Of course not. I’m subtle.”

Maybe she was going to meet him again. I felt the knot in my stomach again. Chairs scraped across the floor. Someone coughed. People were taking seats. The lights went out, but twilight seeped in around the edges of the window, which was visible from the roof across the street. Tony Guerrero got up, his face like carved mahogany in the near dark, and said something in Spanish. Then he explained it in flawless English.

“What you are going to see is all true.” He paused, allowing some late arrivals to find seats.

Raul came back with the punch, and Lupe took him by the arm, leaning into him as she thanked him. She sat down in the last row, motioning for Raul to sit next to her. I took the seat on the aisle.

The video began, black and white, no sound. Little kids with balloon bellies, close-up pictures of flies crawling on old people’s faces, barbed wire, a burned corpse. A pregnant woman who had been stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen. Raul was transfixed, staring at the screen, his jaw clenched.

I closed my eyes. Tony Guerrero was providing a narrative in Spanish, his voice rising excitedly. I imagined Cathy Vega sitting here on this same hard metal folding chair watching one of these movies. Cathy Vega, who couldn’t get a job in white Hollywood making larger connections between her life and the images up on the screen. Cathy Vega, who spoke Spanish, identifying with the urgency of Tony Guerrero’s words. And she couldn’t have failed to notice how handsome he was. Cathy Vega, who tried to save one homeboy from heroin. Who tried to get out of the barrio and up on the silver screen. Resorting to trying to sleep her way somewhere with credits and residuals. Passed over for a skinny blonde with a flat chest and whiny voice after the acting coach promised her, Cathy Vega, Cathy Star, the lead in his production. After she loved him, fucked him, sucked his cock, believing it because she wanted to believe it, because she had to believe it. There are a lot of ways to get even in Dogtown.