by Jack Davis
Alvaro was eighteen at the time and had already been part of the Latin Kings for ten years. In those years he had become very familiar with women. To him, the opposite sex had one primary purpose and multiple secondary ones, all menial. Looking at the gorgeous young girl in a plain white dress with red trim, those thoughts would never cross his mind again. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He was mesmerized and couldn’t take his eyes off her. For the first time since puberty a member of the opposite sex was making him nervous. If he could have thought about anything other than the angelic vision walking across the enclosed church courtyard, he would have realized he had put his life in danger with less anxiety.
By the time Alvaro summoned the courage to approach the object of his fascination, she was standing thirty feet away with her back to him. She was talking with an older woman, who from the resemblance, Alvaro guessed, was the girl’s mother. She was the one who saw Alvaro first. A stern, disapproving look came across her face and she said something to the younger woman, who reflexively turned around, and smiled.
Alvaro’s machismo and self-assurance vanished, as did his tough-guy opening line. He was left with, “Hola, mi numbre es Alvaro.”
“Hello, I’m Maria, this is my mother.”
Alvaro found it hard to look away from Maria, but managed to make eye contact with Mrs. Orantes. “Hello, it is nice to meet you.”
He received a less than enthusiastic “Hello” in return. Mrs. Orantes pulled her dark, horn-rimmed glasses down slightly to look over the top at Alvaro. Then in what Alvaro could only imagine was her attempt to convict him of crashing the party for the free food, she asked, “Who are you here for?”
“My cousin Pipa was confirmed today.” Alvaro scanned the crowd of young faces milling about, and finding his cousin, pointed her out to the still wary sentinel. He waved, and the smiling young girl waved back, apparently verifying his story sufficiently.
“I know Pipa,” said Maria enthusiastically. “She is so sweet.” Then, as if for good measure, “And very smart.”
Alvaro, who hadn’t seen his cousin since his mother’s funeral years prior, confirmed the assessment. “Yes, she is.”
“Do you live close,” asked Mrs. Orantes, still apparently probing.
“Not too far, but even if I did, I wouldn’t miss little Pipa’s confirmation,” said Alvaro, parrying the thrust. “And you?”
This attempt for critical information was thwarted. “Not too far either.” She smiled. “Do you belong to this parish? I haven’t seen you at Mass.”
“No. I belong to Our Lady of Sorrows,” replied Alvaro, using the name of the only church he could remember, then, in the hopes of stopping the current line of questioning. “My mother’s burial mass was held there.”
He saw Mrs. Orantes’s shoulders droop. “I’m sorry to hear you lost your mother.” She’d been beaten, for now.
“Thank you. It’s been three years.” Alvaro tightened his mouth as he thought about his mother. “Thank you.”
Alvaro, while happy to have blunted the mini Spanish Inquisition, had turned the mood somber. He had to change it. “My mother loved Pipa; she wouldn’t want us to be sad on her special day.”
Success. Smiles returned to everyone’s face.
“Do you want something to drink,” asked Maria, seeming to want to move on also.
“Yes, thank you.” Alvaro was doing his best to show good manners. No yeahs, or yeps, and always please and thank you in front of as important a person as Maria’s mother.
When Maria turned back, still smiling, and handed Alvaro a plastic cup half filled with a syrupy-sweet concoction, he’d finally come up with a compliment that seemed appropriately benign. One without too much focus on Maria’s appearance. “Your dress is very pretty.”
Maria looked down and her cheeks flushed slightly. The, “Thank you,” was subdued. It wasn’t until months later that Alvaro learned that the dress was a hand-me-down, too big for Maria, and frayed in spots about the collar and sleeves. She was slightly embarrassed by the dress, but the family had no others.
Maria looked at Alvaro again, her perfect innocent smile making his soul weak. Suddenly, he had a yearning to protect her, although he couldn’t say from what.
“Mrs. Orantes.” The call came from across the courtyard. Alvaro looked and saw what he could only attribute to divine intervention, a priest calling Maria’s mother.
The woman was obviously torn. She looked at the priest, then at Maria.
“Mrs. Orantes, can I speak to you?”
Again, she looked at Maria, then to Alvaro, then back to Maria. “Don’t leave the courtyard.” The tone was severe.
“Yes, Mother.”
As the older woman hurried away, Alvaro could focus all his attention on Maria. He was in heaven.
Among the first things that struck him was how innocent Maria seemed. Over time he would discover that it was not an act, she truly was innocent. He found that trait, coupled with her beautiful almond eyes and shy smile, an unbelievable combination. It may have been because none of the other women he had met were even remotely shy. At most they played hard to get, but they were not genuinely shy. Most were the exact opposite. They tried everything they could do to make men notice them. From hair, to makeup, to clothes, every other woman he had known—from fifteen to fifty—wanted men to notice them. They advertised themselves like billboards. Tight clothes, bright colors, too much jewelry and makeup; everything gaudy. They were loud. Maria was tranquil. The contrast between her and what Alvaro was used to in the others of her gender was incredible.
Maria didn’t wear any makeup; she didn’t need any. Her thick dark hair was pulled back in a braided ponytail that ended halfway down the small of her back. At five-four she was the only woman other than her mother who wasn’t wearing high heels. To Alvaro, she was a vision.
He spent the rest of the party talking to her. Mainly listening, wanting to know everything about her, and maybe trying to limit what she knew about him.
When the party ended Alvaro asked if he could walk her home. Maria crossed the courtyard and asked her mother, who was in a discussion with several other mothers.
Based on the length of the conversation and the repeated shaking of Mrs. Orantes’s head, Alvaro knew Maria was having a difficult time. Finally, there was a slight squeal. Maria threw her arms around her mother’s neck, kissed her, and rushed back to Alvaro, smiling broadly.
The setting sun cast irregular shadows down the narrow street lined with three- and four-story tenement houses. Alvaro walked along, listening to the effervescent young girl who’d stolen his heart. The six blocks from the party to Maria’s doorstep, under the scrutiny of her mother and two aunts, went by too quickly.
“I would like to see you again,” said Alvaro, sick at the thought of having to part from Maria.
“You could walk me to school tomorrow morning.” Maria smiled.
The apparent confirmation that Maria wanted to see him as much as he wanted to see her made him gasp. He’d never felt anything close to this in his life. “What time?”
“Seven-thirty, classes start at eight.”
“I’ll be here,” said Alvaro.
“Promise?”
The question, and the innocent manner in which it was asked, made Alvaro’s knees weak. “I do. I promise.”
“Good,” said Maria, then she stunned him when she reached up and kissed him. He couldn’t have been happier. A blushing Maria turned and rushed up the stairs and through the door. Once closed, she looked through the window curtains and smiled.
Alvaro was helpless. He smiled back and then realized he had to pass Maria’s family members.
“Good evening, Mrs. Orantes. Good evening,” he stammered, not knowing how to refer to the aunts, “Ma’am,” nodding to both. He stepped off the sidewalk and let them pass. The aunts smiled, but Mrs. Orantes, stern faced, hurried after her daughter.
Alvaro was far happier than he had ever been, happier than
he ever thought he could be. He walked up the street with no particular thought of where he was or where he was going. All he could think of was when he could see Maria again. What should I bring her? What should I wear? When he realized he was thinking about what he would wear, he knew he had a problem; he laughed at himself. For the first time in his life he realized what love—real love—felt like. What he didn’t realize was the implications.
It wasn’t until later, as he lay in bed unable to sleep because visions of Maria’s smile and her kiss whirled through his head, that Alvaro came to a shocking realization. It scared him and made his stomach uneasy. It was when he thought back to his first feelings when he had met her. His first instinct had been to protect the sweet, innocent creature. Now he realized what he had wanted to protect her from: the person he had been the minute before he met her.
Alvaro’s obsession with Maria kept him awake deep into the morning, but it didn’t stop him from getting up early, taking a shower, putting on his nicest clothes, and being at her house in time to greet her when they left for school. She was noticeably happy to see him.
As he walked and talked, Alvaro felt a joy that was all-consuming. The previous day, if someone had tried to explain the feeling, he wouldn’t have believed them, or thought they were weak. As it was, everything about Maria made him happy—her voice, her name, the smell of her hair, the way she shyly looked down after they kissed the second time—everything.
That evening Alvaro made sure he finished what he had to do with the Kings early enough to walk Maria home. As they neared her house, he saw a short stocky man with a bushy mustache and weather-worn features sitting on the stairs outside the building. The man was obviously waiting for something, or someone. Alvaro knew it was Maria’s father as much by the way he eyed Alvaro as any resemblance. As they drew closer, Maria saw him. “Papi!” Releasing Alvaro’s hand, she ran to embrace him.
Alvaro was jealous; another first for him. The act of Maria letting go of his hand to be with another man, even if it was her father, bothered him. Then, as Maria introduced Alvaro to her father, for the second time in two days Alvaro was nervous. He was nervous because he realized how much Maria loved her father.
Alvaro Lopez, a captain in the Latin Kings and a leader of almost two dozen hard-core gang members, was nervous in front of a person he normally would have seen as an ignorant laborer. A man, who from the looks of his hands, face, and neck, worked outside picking crops or gardening. Weren’t they all gardeners for God’s sake? This was the type of man he would normally stare down or beat down if he didn’t look away quickly. This little laborer, who Maria obviously cared for so much, made Alvaro nervous. He was self-conscious about the tattoo teardrops on his face—another first. He assumed the old man knew what they represented, even if Maria didn’t. If he were Maria’s father, he wouldn’t want her to even talk to someone like Alvaro, let alone hold his hand.
Alvaro was polite and respectful. Even though this was what Maria had expected, it made her visibly happy. In her naïve little world, the two men she cared most for appeared to like each other. Later that night, Maria couldn’t help telling Alvaro how happy she was that he liked her father. Alvaro didn’t have the heart to destroy her illusion. He didn’t say anything and let Maria talk about her father. A combination of being truly in love for the first and only time in his life, and the love with which she spoke about the old man, made Alvaro want her father to like him. At the time, he couldn’t know that over the next twenty-three years, he would grow to love the man too, and for the same reasons as Maria. For now, it was enough that the man with the bushy mustache and leathery features didn’t dislike him enough to try and come between them.
Along with the all-consuming joy, two other emotions now cropped up with an intensity he had never known: fear and jealousy.
The fear was of losing Maria. For the first time in his life, Alvaro had something that was irreplaceable. Something he was sure he could not live without. Something that truly was more important than life itself. Alvaro could not cope with the thought of living without Maria. It terrified him.
Jealousy was not an emotion he had ever had to face before, and he was completely unprepared for its level of intensity; so too were two MS-13 gang members who made the mistake of staring too long at Maria. They compounded the problem and increased the savagery of their beating when they made a lewd comment. All that kept the two from a trip to the hospital was the sound of police sirens. Maria and Alvaro ran from the park and didn’t stop until they were blocks away.
When Maria caught her breath, she told Alvaro he was being silly. Dabbing a cut over his eye with a tissue, she smiled. “Alvaro, you can’t beat up every man that looks at me.”
“Yes I can.”
“I know you can, but I don’t want you to. It will ruin too many nice days like this.” She kissed him. “Do you want me to beat up all the girls who look at you?”
Alvaro laughed at the thought of his little angel fighting.
Maria continued. “Men can look all they want; I belong to you. I will only be with you for the rest of my life…as long as you aren’t mean to me.”
Alvaro melted. “I will never be mean to you. I will never leave you. Don’t ever leave me—ever.”
“I won’t, so don’t fight anyone up for looking at me. If they touch me, then I want you to beat them. Only you can touch me.”
In the next moment, Alvaro saw the playful side of Maria that he loved so much. Her face went stern she rolled her shirt sleeve up to her shoulder, tried to make a muscle, and declared, “And if girls try and touch you, I’ll handle them.”
Alvaro could only laugh and wonder how much more he could love the cherub in front of him.
Alvaro and Maria were married the month of her seventeenth birthday. Alvaro realized his life had changed, but he didn’t realize just how much he would change. When he had no one else to live for, he could take chances. If he were injured or killed no one would care. He was the only one who had to deal with the consequences of his actions. He had the freedom to be as reckless, bold, and ruthless as he wanted. It was those qualities, along with intelligence and quick wits, that had propelled him up the ranks in the Kings. That had all changed. Now every decision involved something more important than his personal safety. For the rest of his days, Maria would be the most important part of his life, and his future would revolve around her.
Within eighteen months of marriage the couple had a daughter, Rosalinda. Guillermo came a year later. All the while Alvaro’s inner turmoil grew. While he had changed, life in the Latin Kings hadn’t. Alvaro knew he couldn’t let anyone know he was different. It would be seen as weakness, and in his world, weakness was always exploited, usually with deadly consequences.
At twenty-three, he was in charge of eighteen other full-time Kings who ran dozens of others who had not yet fully graduated into the gang. He had people to control, problems to take care of, people to report to, and now a family to support. Nothing could appear different, or his life and his family’s future would be in jeopardy. Over time, some of Alvaro’s closest friends saw signs, but to everyone else, he was still someone to be feared, respected, and obeyed.
Alvaro knew better than anyone the world he lived in and the substantial risks it posed to his family. He also knew there were no easy ways out of gang life. There were very few old gang members. The standard script ended with life in prison; some debilitating, traumatically induced injury, or an untimely death. Knowing the final scenes of the movie, Alvaro struggled to alter the script.
He briefly considered picking up and moving. There were significant problems with this alternative. Besides what he currently did, Alvaro had no other skills, so he would be limited to physical labor. While that prospect didn’t bother him, the only places where he could find this type of work the Kings would either have chapters, or relatives of gang members would live there. Any relative would immediately recognize his ink and report him.
Worse, if anyone susp
ected he was looking for a way out, their first thought would be that he was going to the authorities—US of course—to try and make a deal. That would quickly lead to a painful inquisition, possibly involving Maria, to find out if he had said anything to anyone. The one-sided conversation would end with a bullet in the face or his throat being cut, or both. It would be as much a lesson to others as a protection measure. Kings killed people for much less. They would never take that chance. Knowing how this scenario would play out precluded Alvaro from asking anyone, even his closest friends, for help or advice.
Alvaro was on his own, and try as he might he could not come up with a viable solution that could save his family from the danger of his world. Maria said she would support her husband in whatever he did, and chiefly concerned herself with praying. She prayed fervently for some miracle that would get Alvaro away from this lifestyle and off the streets.
In mid-2007 Maria’s prayers were answered…in a fashion, when Alvaro was incarcerated.
15 | Off the Streets
Mexico City, 05-08/2007
Among the similarities between the Latin Kings and other profit-motivated organizations was the fact that as individuals moved up the chain, they were often viewed as a threat or at best, a rival. And also like most Fortune 500 companies, rivals sometime went to extreme measures to eliminate threats.
In Alvaro’s case the rival was Philippe Vasquez, a peer who wasn’t content with his share of the Latin King pie. Vasquez decided to remove Alvaro and expand his own territory all in one move. Since killing a fellow King without permission was out of the question, Vasquez opted for the next best thing. For a small amount of money to the right police officials and a little effort by a few underlings he trusted, he had Alvaro arrested and falsely convicted of stealing a truck full of televisions. A ten-year sentence was handed down, and with life expectancy in a Mexican prison just over four years, this was the equivalent of two and a half life terms. With Alvaro effectively out of the way, Vasquez stepped in to fill the void. He set in place a plan to slowly consume all of Alvaro’s former territory and personnel.