Always Running

Resurrection Cemetery is the Catholic cemetery where, as Luis says, “most of the barrio dead were buried” (205). This includes many gang members, and hence, many of Luis’ friends as well as his enemies. On one visit, Luis recalls the number of funerals he has witnessed in this place. He describes the grieving mothers who “beseeched to be buried with their son or daughter” and the “girls with harsh makeup and, sometimes, infants against their shoulders” (239). Resurrection Cemetery stands as a symbol for the true cost of gang warfare. Gang violence takes away the lives of young people, like Luis, but his description of the cemetery shows the sheer scope of those victimized. Parents suffer the loss of their children, grandparents suffer the loss of grandchildren, girlfriends and wives are torn from their partners, and children grow up fatherless. Even Luis, who loses no family members, but many friends, is brought to tears simply by walking through the cemetery. He too, is a victim. 

In Chapter 6, two of Luis’ friends steal a 1969 Chevrolet and then are involved in a fatal crash. Both boys are killed, “‘practically disintegrated’” (156) in the fiery crash. The next day,