The Lowriders

A short story about young Mexican Americans in zoot suits in WWII Los Angeles – published in 2013 in the anthology Last Exit to Murder.

Salvador Bernstein stepped in front of the bathroom mirror. It would be his final check of his appearance before taking the long concrete staircase that wound down to La Palma Avenue from his home on the hilltop overlooking Chavez Ravine. His dark brown hair, long on top, clipped above the ears, gleamed from the oil he’d raked through it. Tonight he wanted to impress the other fellows and especially the girls with his white tie and lavender shirt, and the black calf-length coat that squared and widened his shoulders so that he could pass for a man of twenty-five years and not a child approaching seventeen.