Chapter 4: Cholo

Cholo---I don’t know what “Cholo” means where you are from but here in my country it means “half-breed”. That describes me perfectly. My mother was a pretty Latina girl. She got involved in drugs at a young age and turned to prostitution to feed her habit. Soon she was pregnant, and I was born. She had no idea who my father was, but one thing was certain. He was a black man!

She named me Cholo and called me her ‘Cholito’, meaning ‘little half-breed’. She supported me and her habit by selling her body for the first twelve years of my life.

One day I came home from school and found her sitting at the kitchen table with a needle in her arm. I ran to a neighbor’s apartment and the police were called. Of course it was too late. One of the cops asked about my family and was told I had no one except my mother. He called an orphanage and a priest showed up and took me with him. I was given a bed with clean sheets in a room with other boys. We were served three hot meals a day. That was something I was not used to! This priest did take me to Momma’s funeral and to where they buried her.

The next four years were normal for an orphan. School, studying and doing various chores around the orphanage was my day. I grew up big. I mean big! By the time I was sixteen I was 6’ 2” inches tall, weighed maybe 175 lbs. and strong as an ox. That was how I got my first job.

Gomez Construction hired kids from the orphanage in the summer. I was hired and assigned to where they were building an apartment complex. I did whatever the foreman told me to do. Sweeping up after the carpenters, hauling blocks for the masons, anything. I love to work! I never complained and this made an impression on the bosses. The next year I would turn 18, graduate high school and be out on my own.

After I graduated, I was hired by Gomez Construction. I consider myself to be lucky. I was not that good a student, but I passed. This construction job is going to keep me out of trouble. A lot of the boys I graduated with joined a gang. Most will end up dead or in jail. I wanted something different out of life. My own apartment, a car maybe, and a wife and kids. That’s my dream!

I have worked on a couple of different projects for Gomez over the past two years since leaving the orphanage. I live in an apartment at the workers camp so I can save money. I have a bank account! I am a sub-foreman with three men working under me.

Then I made a big mistake.

It was 10 pm at night and I was a little hungry. I had just finished watching “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” Sister Felicity had gotten me hooked on American Westerns years ago and I had a collection of them on DVDs. Watching James Stewart serve those pan-fried steaks had made me hungry. I walked down to a local pizza restaurant and ordered my favorite, a medium size with plenty of anchovies and black olives. On my way back I cut through an alley to get home quicker. Big mistake.

As I turned into the alley I saw them, the Gonzales brothers. I knew them from the orphanage. They threw an older man and woman out of the side door of a van. A well-dressed man got out of the van and walked over to the people laying on the ground.

“Your arrogance caused this. If you had just sold me the property all this could have been avoided. Now I will end up with it anyway. I’ll buy it from your estate!” He was laughing.

The old man on the ground replied, “Fuck you Fabio Lasso and fuck your strip mines.”

Fabio Lasso was well known. I knew the name anyway. He owned the strip-mining operations in the mountains. I guess he wanted this old couple’s property, and they would not sell it.

Then Fabio Lasso took out a gun and shot the old woman while her husband watched. Lasso then turned the gun to him. Both were dead in seconds. I had witnessed it all from behind a dumpster!

Lasso ordered the brothers to take all the jewelry, watches, necklaces and the old man’s wallet. He said it would look like they had been mugged. They left the bodies and got back in the van and drove off. I ran up and looked at them. There was nothing I could do. I dropped the pizza on the ground and ran home. I could not sleep that night. I cried then prayed. What should I do?

The next morning, I saw John O’Malley (John O’Malley from “The Guard”) arrive with the change of the security guards. He can help me!

I asked to speak to him, and he says, “Go ahead.”

“No, not here. In private.” I am about to cry!

He gets a worried look on his face and takes me into his office. “I saw what happened last night to those two old people in the alley.”

“What did you see Cholo?”

“I saw two brothers I know from the orphanage throw them out of a van. Then Señor Fabio Lasso shot them for not selling him their land.”

“Are you sure it was Lasso?”

“Yes! The old man even said, ‘Fuck you Fabio Lasso,’ just before he was shot.”

I was sitting in a chair in front of his desk. He was staring at me about to say something when the phone rang.

“Yes. No, he is here with me. Okay. I’ll be right there.”

“Cholo, you sit here. Do not open the door for anyone. Do not use the telephone. I am going to lock my office, but I will be back. You wait here, understand?”