Once a King, Always a King: The Unmaking of a Latin King

by Reymundo Sanchez

  Marilyn, in her quest to understand me, unknowingly opened up wounds within me that had until then been reserved for drug- and alcohol-induced violent attacks on other gang members. The release of these demons in a clean and sober atmosphere, coupled with my paranoia about being left alone, led to situations that neither Marilyn nor I could control. I suddenly found myself totally sober, and in the presence of someone who genuinely cared for me, yet acting like the animal I had been on the streets. The big difference was the obvious afteraffects. Where in the streets I’d revel in the glory of being a badass gang member, with Marilyn I would go into deep states of depression. Where in the streets I committed violence against individuals I didn’t know, didn’t care for, and would probably never see again, with Marilyn I had to face the realities of my actions. The only good thing that came out of the situation was that I no longer had nightmares.

  There were times when I’d stare into nothing for hours on end. I would snap out of it, telling myself I was through with these periods of nothingness, only to fall back into the same state moments later. The brunt of all my bouts with confusion fell on Marilyn, who was trying to deal with her own demons.

  18 Release of Pain

  ABOUT A WEEK after my visit and three days after we had last spoken on the phone, I found Marilyn waiting for me when I returned home from my job at Kroger. It was Saturday night, and she was watching television as she waited. I was so happy to see her there that I started to cry. Marilyn got up and hugged me. We kissed and held each other, then proceeded to make passionate love to each other for the first time in almost a month and a half. It was the first time since our first days in Dallas, close to four months ago, that I felt happy to be in Marilyn’s company. The next morning I went in and worked at Kroger until two in the afternoon and walked back with Marilyn, who had come to the store to see me. We talked about our mistakes and agreed that we should buy a car, which would allow us to get around so I could find a better job and also get therapy. We would also use that car to move ourselves to California once we decided it was time to move on.

  In the week that followed, I shopped around for a car, and our relationship seemed to be in better shape. Our sex life returned and the arguments cooled. In actuality, we didn’t argue because we didn’t touch on any subjects that were really affecting us. We didn’t talk about the violence that had taken place, or how we felt about it. We stopped talking about my feelings toward my mother and about hers toward her father. The reality was that the things we did talk about had no substance. Our conversations always revolved around our displeasure with what we thought of as the phony sticky sweet ways of the people in Dallas, and about the moronic guests on the Jerry Springer show, which we watched religiously.

  The following weekend I purchased a car and resigned from my part-time job at the children’s clinic so that I could have time to search for other employment. I was excited about finding a fulltime job. I decided to take advantage of the seeming lack of bilingual employees in this state where the majority of people seemed to be Spanish-speaking only. In Texas, most of the Hispanics who were born there were forbidden to speak Spanish by their parents in order to decrease their chances of being discriminated against. The result has been generations of non-Spanish-speaking Hispanics who denied their Mexican heritage, and had names such as William, Charles, and Cody with Spanish last names they pronounced as if they were English.

  I took full advantage of this and applied at a local college that was in need of a bilingual clerk to work with students applying for English-as-a-second-language courses. With my background working at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I was called for an interview and then a second interview that really put into perspective the feelings some people in Dallas had toward Hispanics.

  The college called on a Friday afternoon while I was working at Kroger. Marilyn answered the phone and was told that I was one of two finalists for the job and that I should come in for a second interview on Monday morning. I was to bring two forms of identification so they could make copies of them to have on record if I ended up being the chosen candidate.

  On Monday morning I dressed in what I deemed acceptable, professional attire—dress slacks, white shirt, and a tie. I dropped Marilyn off at work and headed for the interview. The first interview was with a woman who would be the supervisor of the chosen candidate; the second was with the assistant director of the adult continuing education department.

  I walked into the office of the assistant director fifteen minutes before my scheduled interview and introduced myself to the receptionist. The receptionist asked me to sit while she notified the assistant director that I was there and offered me a cup of coffee. I took a small Styrofoam cup filled with coffee from her and sat in a chair that was located directly across from her desk about ten feet away. Five minutes after I sat down a woman dressed in a white skirt and jacket with a bright red silk blouse came out of her office and greeted me. The assistant director had white hair, which she wore up in a stylish bun, and spoke with a deep southern accent. She spoke softly and moved in a way that said, “I’m all woman.” Diamonds sparkled from her ears, neck, wrist, and fingers. She was the classic rendition of a southern belle as I had always imagined them to be.

  “Mr. Sanchez,” she said as she stretched out her hand to greet me. “I’m so glad you’re here. If you don’t mind I’d like to get started early.” “Yes, that’s fine,” was my response. She asked me to give my driver’s license and visa to the receptionist so that copies could be made, and then we could begin the interview. After that she turned around and walked back into her office.

  I was puzzled why I was being asked for a credit card but hesitated to say anything. Just before the assistant director went back into her office I called out to her. “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said. “I don’t have a credit card,” I told her as she walked back toward me. “Oh, we need a copy of your green card,” she said, laughing softly. Her request only served to further confuse me. The only green card I had knowledge of was the one given to welfare recipients to get medical care in the state of Illinois. “I’m sorry, I’m not on welfare,” I told her with a puzzled, worried look on my face.

  There was a moment of silence. Time seemed to stand still while two very confused individuals looked at each other. Finally the receptionist broke the silence by asking me if I had not been given the message to bring two pieces of identification with me to the interview. “Yes,” I said as I turned to her. “I have a driver’s license, social security card, and my birth certificate.” “Well bless your heart, that’s all we’ll need,” the receptionist said as she made her way from behind her desk. The assistant director assured me that I was in good hands with the receptionist and retreated into her office.

  The receptionist took my identification and reviewed it. I explained that I had not yet traded my Illinois license for a Texas license because I had not started driving in Texas until recently. She asked me about my place of birth as she looked at my Spanish-language birth certificate from Puerto Rico. I explained that Puerto Ricans were born U.S. citizens and that I had lived in Chicago since I was six. “Puerto Rico is part of the United States?” she asked. “It’s a commonwealth,” I told her. “It is so beautiful there,” she responded. As she walked out of the office she told me that she was off to make copies of my IDs and would return shortly. I sat back down and waited. When she came back she handed me my IDs and led me into the assistant director’s office so that the interview could begin.

  The assistant director asked me to sit down in a chair in front of her desk. We talked about my work experience at the University of Illinois at Chicago and about my proficiency in reading, writing, and speaking Spanish. After about fifteen minutes the interview was over, and the assistant director told me that I would know by the end of the week whether I was the chosen candidate or not. I assured her that if I was hired I would be ready to start work at a moment’s notice. She expressed her pleasure with my enthusiasm and eagerness and a
ssured me that I would be called sometime that week.

  I WALKED OUT of the college and drove home feeling positive about my chances of getting the job. If I was hired, I would be making the same amount of money working eight to five, Monday through Friday, that I made working ten to twelve hours, seven days a week, at Kroger. I would also get medical and dental insurance. Since I was no longer working at the clinic, I was able to go into work at Kroger earlier and sometimes get out earlier. I would take Marilyn to work in the morning and she would ride the bus back home in the afternoon. I never gave their request for a visa a second thought until two days later. We sat in front of the television watching the news, waiting for Jerry Springer to come on, when there was a story that shocked me a bit. A police bust somewhere in East Texas had taken place, where half a dozen people were selling counterfeit Immigration Service identifications referred to as visas. All of a sudden the questions at the college regarding my identification made sense. They thought I was Mexican and that I was a resident alien of the United States, not a citizen.

  That evening I told Marilyn about the episode at the college, and she became enraged. For the next half hour I listened to her go over why she thought every known evil in the world was a product of white people. She went from the mass murder of Native Americans to slavery and ended with the Ku Klux Klan, who were, ironically, Jerry Springer’s guests that evening.

  Marilyn believed that some form of sympathy and support for the beliefs of the KKK lived in the hearts of the majority of white Americans. She felt that even those whites who preached the rhetoric of racial harmony would have no issue with returning to the days of old when whites were allowed to do as they wished to nonwhites. In Marilyn’s opinion it was very easy to imagine that the great majority of white Americans would be content to see the nation return to slavery.

  As I listened to Marilyn, I began to realize that she felt more contempt for white people than I had ever witnessed. I knew that, like myself, she thought that some whites gave up their stereotyped views of nonwhites only when it benefited them. But that’s where the similarities between her beliefs and mine ended.

  I challenged her theories with my own experiences. I asked her if she felt that my descent into gang life had more to do with racist attitudes of whites toward Puerto Ricans than the abuse I’d suffered at home. She stated that she thought it was a combination of both. She explained that no one but my mother could be held responsible for the abuse I had suffered, but that the rampant gang activity within the Puerto Rican community had a lot to do with racism. She pointed out how freely illegal drugs and guns are allowed to flow in and out of the Puerto Rican community and how police are in many ways directly involved with the trafficking. In contrast, she said, gangs would never be allowed to operate so openly in white neighborhoods. “Do you think it was just luck that you had so many suburban white customers when you were selling drugs?” Marilyn asked.

  I sat quietly thinking about what she said and how much sense it made. White kids who wanted to pursue extended gang careers did end up living in the neighborhood and being just as lost as the rest of us, whereas those whites who left after fulfilling their curiosity were welcomed back and their brief forays into gang life were blamed on inner-city minorities. Still, I didn’t think it was white conspiracy that explained why gangs existed, so I continued to dig into Marilyn’s theory.

  I asked her how she thought whites were responsible for the drug problems in the Puerto Rican neighborhoods if there weren’t many whites there. “Don’t be stupid, Rey. Stop thinking that just because for the majority of your life the only place in the world that existed was Humboldt Park, there aren’t any outside influences there. How many Puerto Ricans do you know with gun licenses? How many of your ‘homies’ manufactured or had the means to bring the drugs they sold into this country? You should know more than anyone that there would never have been a war on drugs had young lily white kids not started dropping like flies from overdoses. It’s ignorance like yours that keeps our communities brainwashed into believing that we are our own victims,” Marilyn lectured.

  I found it hard to argue with what Marilyn said—it made absolute sense to me. I could have debated her theory, but the only thing that I really heard from her lecture was that she thought I was stupid and ignorant. Maybe I was, regardless of how right I thought she was or how much sense her argument made. I still felt a need to defend myself.

  “My Puerto Rican mother kicked my Puerto Rican ass, so I joined a Puerto Rican gang and got all kinds of guns from Puerto Ricans, who I freely killed. I continued to do it because I loved being considered a macho badass Latin King, and I liked the fact that others feared me. Along the way I did not run into one white person other than cops, who by the way feared me as well,” I told Marilyn. I paused and waited for her reaction. When I didn’t get one, I continued.

  “Maybe just because you got your little diploma you think that the rest of us are stupid and ignorant. I personally don’t think that Puerto Ricans are so damn stupid as to let themselves be manipulated into destroying themselves. Maybe, just maybe, it’s the greed, and the widespread child abuse disguised as discipline and child neglect in our communities, that created the gang and drug problems. But then again, maybe you’re right. Maybe you were one of the hand-picked Puerto Ricans allowed by whites to educate themselves in order to show that we’re all not bad. If we all only just learned to conform to white ways like you did, then everything would be so much better.”

  Marilyn was now noticeably aggravated, and she looked at me with anger in her eyes. She questioned what she thought was my defense of white people, and reminded me that if it were up to the people at the college where I had interviewed, I would be deported to Mexico even though I was Puerto Rican. Then, out of the blue, Marilyn accused me of wanting to be in a relationship with white women because of their interest in wild sex instead of emotional happiness. I asked her where the hell she got that idea, but she ignored my question and continued her angry onslaught on white women.

  Marilyn said that all cultures had been methodically brainwashed to embrace the classic European features and mannerism as the measure of beauty and grace. She said that men routinely sought out and appreciated women of all races with light eyes, stringy hair, and thin faces and bodies as a way to convince themselves that they had a white woman. Even if a man found those features in a woman of color, Marilyn thought, any man of color would drop her in a second if the opportunity to be with a white woman presented itself.

  Marilyn’s tirade made me chuckle and wonder what was really bothering her. I told her that the things she described as being “classic European features” were simply things that made a woman attractive. That comment did not sit well with her. She got up angrily and went into the kitchen. Then she asked why I wanted to be with her if I didn’t find her attractive. I didn’t answer. She came back into the room saying that she didn’t have light-colored eyes, stringy hair, and a bone-thin body, so I shouldn’t be with her. I realized that she had taken my comment as a personal attack, so I kept quiet and let her vent. Marilyn scanned through the channels of the television looking for women of color to show me that they had white-girl features. They were either born with them or had surgically created them, but they all had the light eyes, stringy hair, and thin faces and bodies. Finally she settled down to watch Jerry Springer, and all was quiet. I didn’t tell her that I did notice that most women on television shared the same physical makeup regardless of their skin color.

  Our discussion of racial biases served to further shape my way of thinking. This kind of discussion was the thing I loved most about being with Marilyn, but lately the enlightening conversations had been very few. Marilyn was still wrestling with feelings she had no one to talk to about. She therefore took my every opinion as a personal attack. After the show was over, she quietly retreated to the bedroom and suddenly wasn’t in the mood for sexual contact again.

  I didn’t bother pursuing sex that night or for the ne
xt few nights after that. I didn’t want us to get into the situation we had been in before. I instead decided to let Marilyn get over her current animosity toward sex.

  On that Friday, just before I left for work at Kroger, I got a call from the college extending an offer to come work there. I readily accepted and told them that I would be there bright and early Monday morning. I went to Kroger and gave notice. Later that night I told Marilyn the news, expecting her to be happy for me and to be up for some celebratory sex. That wasn’t the case.

  Marilyn said that I was selling out by going to work for people who she thought obviously found me racially inferior. She asked me how I felt about being the token minority in their office. “It’s a fuckin’ job,” I responded, “just a fuckin’ job.”

  I reminded Marilyn of our ultimate goal and said that it shouldn’t matter where or with whom I worked as long as I was making decent money. Marilyn questioned the need for us to pursue any kind of goal together and then locked herself in the bathroom.

  I lay in the bedroom staring up at the ceiling with a million thoughts filling my head. I’d go from thoughts of forming a Latin King section in Dallas to getting back into the profitable drug business to working my way through college and becoming a teacher. I also had thoughts of beating Marilyn senseless for thinking of abandoning me. These were desperate thoughts. Her comments felt like a butcher knife cutting me into pieces. My head felt like it was going to explode with all the different thoughts going through it. Finally, I conjured up an imaginary woman, in whose eyes I knew all and did nothing wrong. I fell fast asleep fantasizing about her.