The piole searched for Salomón in the alleys in the Southside. They had no idea where he might be nor why he was out there alone, but they figured he’d respond to their whistles.
“Whistle a rollo that tells everybody we’re looking for him,” Chabelita told Gueevy.
With that, Gueevy let out a long rhythmic anthem.
“Salomón. It’s your friends. Salomón, we’re looking for you. Salomón, whistle where you are, ese. Salomón, come toward us,” Gueevy whistled repeatedly.
No reply.
The piole kept walking. When they got to the rough part of the barrio, Gueevy started adding a few lines of friendly greeting.
“Hey, no trouble. It’s just us looking for a friend. Just looking for a friend,” Gueevy trumpeted.
Eventually they came to a place where somebody answered.
“Don’t walk over here. We just washed our car and don’t want you kicking up dust,” somebody at the other end of an alley warned.
“What he say?” Chabelita asked.
“He warned us not to come closer,” Gueevy answered,
“Pos I don’t like that. Tell’em we’re coming anyway. That if they don’t want trouble, they better get out of the way,” Chabelita ordered.
“Chale. I’m not going to do that. I don’t want to get in a fight,” Gueevy said.
“Pos then you tell’em, Ishmo,” Chabelita told Ismael, the youngest in the piole, a sutterer who stuttered uncontrollably.
“Bad idea,” Gueevy said.
Ishmo complied, but it went as expected, choppy and out of rhythm.
There was no reply for a long time.
Eventually a short response came back.
“We don’t understand. We don’t understand,” somebody whistled back.
“What’d he say?” Chabelita asked Ishmo.
Ishmo didn’t say anything.
Chabelita then turned to Gueevy.
“I told you so. He said they didn’t understand what he whistled,” Gueevy said.
“Ah, forget it let’s go the other direction, toward Magnolia,” Chabelita said.
They didn’t get too far down the alley behind Magnolia, when Salomón appeared.
“Órale, ese. Where you been?” they asked him at once.
“Was looking for something and finally found it,” Salomón said.
“We heard you had susto,” Chabelita said.
“There’s no such thing, just superstition,” Salomón said.
“Pos you sure looked like you had susto back in OJ when you saw that marionette,” Chabelita challenged him.
“Simón. Was thinking about it a lot. But your whistling drove it out of my mind, like a dog being called home,” Salomón said.
It was a cryptic response, but they let it pass. They were happy to have him back.
