All I know is Katrina and Terri ain’t on that list, you feel me? I’m not saying it because we’re cousins, and all. And not to come off like a Trumpelstiltskin perv, but if we weren’t related and raised up together, I’d smash either one of those two.
The Robles twins are this spicy mixto of Louisiana hot sauce and Cholula Salsa Picante. The mother is a tall south side Chicago sister, looks like she could have played WNBA. The father’s a fly-ass Mexico City chilongo, the one I was named for. This man saved my ass before I had an ass to save. He’s been saving it ever since. To me and my siblings, he was Tío Papi. I know, “Uncle Daddy” doesn’t make sense, but that’s what we always called him.
Eduardo isn’t my uncle or my father. He’s my second cousin once removed. Dude’s
almost old as Mami so I can’t be all, “yo, primo!” up in his face. You got to give an OG his respect.
Both of Tío Papi’s daughters are supermodel tall with bangin’ bodies like porn stars. Katrina was vain enough to be a model for sure, though she gained some weight with the baby. Terri had the brass balls to be a puta, if that was what she wanted. With la policía for a mother and un abogado for a father, that was never going to happen.
Both of them went into the family business, Terri into the Chicago Police Department and Katrina into law. Eventually they wound up as private detectives, which nobody expected from either of them. And that’s a story to tell, compañero. I know because I was there. It seems like a long time ago, but it’s only been a few days.
Let me tell you how it started.
3
So, here’s where I come in, Lalo Enrique Rodriguez. If you’re a Lalo and a Mexican, then you must have started out as Eduardo. That’s the name I was born with.
I read Obama’s bio when I was locked up. Homeboy came on out with it. I used to smoke weed when I was a teen. Oh yes, and I snorted cocaine. His enemies had nothing to dig up on him. They had to make shit up.
I’m taking a page from Dreams of My Father and dropping a dime on myself. There’s a whole lot wrong with me, and it’s worse than some ‘dro and blow.
For one thing, I’m short as shit. People think I’m a teenager before they see these hard lines in my face. Take off a couple inches and I could have been one of those “Little People” on TV. I never liked being pint-sized, but a homey don’t make himself. The things in life that I could get right, I didn’t always do.
I’m a convicted felon and a recovering addict. I been banging and slinging from the age of seventeen, dropping out of school when I started swigging cough syrup. But there were a lot more cholos out there that were better at thugging than me.
I never raped no woman, mugged no old lady or molested nobody’s kids. I had my share of fist fights, for sure. I dodged my share of bullets. But I never shot nobody, at least not to hit the target. I don’t care what that pinche prosecutor said, I never jacked no car. Yeah, I might have taken somebody’s ride, but not when they were in it.
When Mami left Mérida, she was seven months pregnant with me. My older brothers’ father had a wife and another set of kids. Mami was his side chick. When she left him for another man, Oswaldo Colón tried his best to beat that bastardito out of her belly.
One “little bastard” turned out to be two—me and my sister, Ashley. Twins run in the family. I never knew my real pops but he might have been Maya. “Chinky midgets” is what my half-brothers used to call me and Ash. We might be small and dark with slanted eyes, but at least we don’t look like birds of prey. It’s obvious where they got it from. The proof is in the pudín.
I never met their father but I seen the pictures. That man is so butt ugly, you’d have to call him bugly. If you’re gonna be fat, go ahead and do that. If you’re gonna be skinny, be skinny. But thin, thin with a triple chin and a Santa Claus belly? That shit don’t even look right. Oswaldo’s bald head, beaky nose and long neck made him look just like a vulture.
That cabrón beat up my moms and tried to kill me and my sister before we were born. I think about going down to Mérida, looking for Oswaldo Colón and kicking his buzzard ass.
My mother Imelda was first cousin to Terri and Katrina’s pops. Tío Papi found out what was going down and got Mami and my brothers fixed up with visas and airplane tickets. He even moved them into the first floor apartment of their two flat building on the East Side.
Ash and I were born just a month after they got to Chicago, the family’s first U.S. citizens. Otherwise, I could have been deported just like my brothers when they started getting in trouble. I’d be raising hell down in Mérida with Carlos and Big Snake.
Ashley is the only one who made it out safe and sound. When the boys in my family took to the streets, the girl took to the books. I guess it’s because my sister got that gringa name. If Mami had named her boys Christopher, Jordan and Edgar instead of Carlos, Jesus and Eduardo, maybe we’d have turned out better. And then again, ¿quién sabe?
4
If that hen hadn’t been pecking my nuts, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have left home that day and everything would still be bueno.
My old lady was riding my hairy ass like she was a jockey and I’m a Galiceño pony. All right, I’m overexaggerating. Isabella Esposito ain’t did shit to me. I was the one in the wrong.
When she got home from night shift at the nursing home, I was eating a bowl of cereal and watching Jerry Spring. Izzy stopped by the TV, her stomach blocking my view.
“Your daddy wasn’t the Invisible Man,” I complained. “You know I can’t see through you.”
She shifted to the side and put a hand on her belly. “This baby’s coming soon, Lalo. You still looking for a job?”
“Hell, yes. Got an interview out South in a couple of hours. I better go get ready.”
Yeah, I know that was wrong. I shouldn’t have lied to my girl. She was handling the bills and all, putting the food on the table. Izzy didn’t like my smoking so she wouldn’t buy no squares. I had to scrounge for loosies, but I was trying to quit anyway.
I just wasn’t holding down the household like a man’s supposed to. I felt real bad about it. When you come out the joint with “felon” tatted across your forehead, nobody wants to know your real name. You knock on doors and they’re slammed in your face. A homey gets depressed. Sometimes you just want to sit and chill, watch your TV and eat your Cheerios. Because if you go to the streets for your coins, there’s bound to be trouble.
I found the job-hunting outfit Izzy got on sale at Burlington. Those stiff pleather shoes always pinched my toes. Instead, I put on my black Chuck Taylors, went out the door, got on the El at Logan Square and set off for Chi-Raq. I wasn’t scared of no South Side. Aunt Lori used to tell me this story when I was a kid: A fox caught a rabbit, but bunny tricked fox into throwing him into the bushes. Born and bred in that briar patch, zorro. Born and bred.
I represent the Wild Hundreds, Illiana side of the city. When people talk about the barrio they think Pilsen or Little Village, Humboldt Park or Hermosa. But Mexicans been on the East Side for 100 years. We’re sitting right on Lake Michigan, sandwiched between White Indiana and Black South Chicago.
I wasn’t headed to home grounds though. I got off the Green Line at Garfield to catch the eastbound #55, shocked as shit to see a crowd of college kids on the bus. The ‘hood had changed a lot since I’d been away. You used to couldn’t find a gringo west of Cottage Grove.
It wasn’t until I got to Hyde Park that a thought came into my head. Maybe popping up at Terri’s wasn’t a great idea. She’s the little cousin that once looked up to me. The last time I seen her she was looking down like I was pile of caca she had just stepped in.
I took out the cell phone Izzy had bought me and dialed my cousin’s number. Either Terri wasn’t there or she wasn’t taking my calls.
5
I walked up to the Hyde Park Bank and Office Building finishing my last loosie. I pinched out the butt and put it back in t
he empty pack. Cigarettes cost too much to be throwing away the dog ends. When I collected enough of them I could make me a rollie and save a couple bucks.
I was pushing through the revolving doors when I saw the two girls walking up 53rd Street. They came into the building and got into the elevator after me. The take-out bags they had were smelling good and spicy.
My cousins were lost in their own little world, talking all that chick-talk. Neither of them noticed me in the corner of the elevator.
“I can’t wait to lose all this baby fat.” Katrina complained. She looked into the mirrored elevator wall, sucking in her gut.
“It’s just post-pregnancy bulge,” Terri told her. “You don’t call it baby fat unless the baby’s fat. Which Señor Apetito definitely is.”
“Don’t make fun of Gustavo and don’t be talking down to me. Like you would know about post-pregnancy anything.”
Terri shrugged. “All I know is, sucking it in won’t help. You need to hit the mat and do some crunches.”
“If you’d ever had a c-section, you’d realize it takes forever to get back your abs.” Katrina muttered “skinny bitch” beneath her breath, just loud enough to be heard.
“Oh, you don’t want none of this skinny bitch,” Terri snapped. “I guarantee you that.”
Katrina let her stomach sag. They got off on the seventh floor with me following behind them. They still didn’t notice me. That’s what I like about Converse. They don’t squeak when you walk.
I watched my cousins moving down the hallway. I had to scamper to keep up with them. Both of them had legs for days, but you could tell the difference between them. Katrina was styling and profiling in a tight pencil skirt, a red silk blouse and a pair of “fuck me” heels. Terri was dressed down to the ground in a black T-shirt, holey jeans and a pair of Doc Marten boots. But the difference wasn’t just wardrobe.
Terri was even more buff than when she was CPD. Katrina, not so much. If Teresita Robles was fit as a fiddle, then Katrina Amrani was broad across the butt as an acoustic bass. Okay, that’s a little shady. Let’s go with “chubby as a cello.”
“Terri, did you notice that elevator smelled like cigarettes?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Well, this is a nonsmoking building. And you know what? I can still smell it.”
“All I smell is jerk chicken,” Terri shrugged.
“When we get back to that broom closet you call an office, I’m calling management.”
My eyes were watering from pepper fumes. I don’t know how Katrina could smell cigarettes behind all that. I took my pack of dog ends and sadly tossed it in the trash.
The girls stopped in front of a wooden door. Terri shook her head at a printed sign taped there.
T. Robles & Associates
“Your ethnic detectives”
(The world’s first Afro-Mexican team of private investigators)
There was a clip art image, sister-girl in a trench coat with a magnifying glass. It looked something like this:
I know, right? Tacky.
I knew these girls since they were born so I could guess what they were thinking. Terri was frowning at the sign. This wasn’t her idea. Katrina was smiling, so she must have put it up.
Terri fished a key from her pocket and began fiddling with the lock. “Ooh, this thing always sticks. It gets on my last nerve.”
“If a crook was following you, girl, you’d never get away.”
And if I was the crook I’d have them both by now.
Terri finally turned the key, then looked at the sign and shook her head. “This is false advertising.’ Your ethnic detectives?’ Sounds like we’re rounding up colored folks.”
Katrina rolled her eyes. “Colored? That is so politically incorrect, it’s almost a slur. I don’t think detectives like us should be saying shit like that.”
“Trina, you’re not any kind of detective. You’re a bored, rich housewife hanging around and getting in my hair.” Terri tore down the sign and crumpled it. “And I’m not a private eye, I’m a digital investigator.”
“I hear you, Terri,” I finally spoke. “And that gumshoe cartoon is whack.”
“What the fuck?” they hollered in unison, wheeling around to face me. Terri dropped her take-out bag, assumed a fighting pose with her key as a weapon.
“¿Que paso, Double Trouble?” I picked up the bag and handed it to her, hoping the food had survived.
Katrina gave me a sideways hug.“Nada, primo. What’s good with you?”
Terri looked down at my feet. “Nice Chucks.”
“Thanks, cuz. You’re rocking that pair of Docs.”
I leaned forward to give Terri a hug. She ignored my open arms. “Lalo Rodriguez, America’s Dumbest Criminal. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
So that’s how we were playing it? Oh, I could match her bourgie for bourgie. “As a reformed detainee and a father-to-be, I desperately need a job.”
6
Okay, yes. I was stupid. I wasn’t good at the game, I was good at getting caught. I still don’t think it was fair for my cousin to call me America’s Dumbest Criminal.
So, this was back before I got myself locked up. I probably should have asked Tío Papi to borrow his garage, but I didn’t want to bother him. I knew he was busy taking care of his wife— retired from the Force when she got sick, Aunt Lori was still recovering from her mastectomy.
I didn’t even have to jimmy the lock. I still had a garage door remote from when I used to live there. Nobody ever parked in the garage so I knew we’d have space to spread out. A raccoon had spooked Tío Papi back there so he started parking on the street. Eduardo was scared of anything with fangs and fur. He would scream like a girl if he saw a mouse in a trap.
Me and my partner weren’t trying to bother nobody. We just needed someplace to work on that Chrysler 300 junker Freddy had got. He wanted to break it down to sell the parts. He promised me two bills in cash to help him out. I needed money for my rojo and didn’t ask no questions.
We had just got all the doors off the frame when I heard cars easing into the alley. Even when they stopped, I wasn’t worried. I figured neighbors had come to park in their garages.
Then somebody started shaking the door. Freddy opened his mouth to holler. I held a finger to my lips, warning him to chill. If we stayed real quiet, maybe they would leave.
Shit, that didn’t work. I heard my cousin Terri’s voice, the same twin who used to follow me around when she was little. Katrina was Ashley’s mini-me. Teresita was mine.
“I’ll give you to the count of three to open that door. One…two…”
The door started rolling up. I should have known Terri would have had her own remote. A cruiser with lights flashing was sitting outside. An Animal Control van was parked behind it.
Freddy saw Terri standing with her service revolver drawn. He dove to the ground like an Olympic springboard champ and crawled behind the Chrysler. I stood my ground. Family is family.
“Hey, little Terri Sunshine. What brings you out this way?”
“What do you mean, what brings me here? This is my family home.”
“Well, I’m family, too.”
“We’ll see about that,” she sneered. “Daddy called and said he heard something bumping around back here. He thought it might be raccoons knocking over paint cans.”
“My bad, prima. We’ll try to keep it quiet. Me and my partner are leaving as soon as we get this work done on his hoopty.”
Terri looked at the Chrysler and narrowed her eyes. “Who do you think you’re fooling? Stevie Wonder could see what’s going on back here. Turning my parent’s garage into a chop shop, Lalo? This is stupid even for you.”
“Terri, you don’t mean that.”
“The hell, I don’t! And who’s that cretin back there? Hey! I see you trying to reach up and open the trunk. Come out here with your hands up. Don’t make me have to shoot you.”
> “Freddy Flintstone, for your information.” He came out with both hands raised. “You don’t have to be calling nobody out by his name.”
“Dude, you just said your name was Fred Flintstone. I think you’re the one that’s calling yourself out of your name.”
Once he saw that Terri had things under control, a white dude got out of the animal control van with two big cages. His uniform had an IWS badge to match his vehicle—Illinois Wildlife Services. “What’s up, home-brays? These the zombie raccoons your dad called in about, Officer Rubbles?”
“That’s Robles,” Terri holstered her weapon. “And shut your hole, McInerny.”
I don’t know why a fine female like Terri joined the Force in the first place. Those Chicago Police Department clothes don’t do shit for a chick with a shape like that.
“Breaking and entering.” Terri unhooked the handcuff ties. “I’m going to have to take you in.”
“Why you gonna do me like that? Familia es familia, verdad?”
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you…”
I heard the sound of police sirens. Backup was on the way. Terri was saved the shame of hauling her cousin down to the precinct.
When CPD impounded the stolen Chrysler, they found a backpack in the trunk with two unlicensed guns. One of them had been used in a drive-by two weeks before.
Look, you got to believe me. I would never bring no murder weapon to my family’s spot. I didn’t know caca about those firearms. That was Freddy Flintstone’s deal. That is what I told the judge, but I still wound up catching a case.
Both Sides Page 19