A Short Story
Alejandro E. Barajas Sanchez
Unfinished Version
Her name was M’Angel. We went to school together well through our toddler days and into my adolescence. She was the type of Already-A-Woman kind of person, usually leaving you feeling like a special someone you could call late at night before going to bed just to wish you a Goodnight and Sweet Dreams. She was very attune to my needs, a real friend. Don’t get ahead of yourself, I was too nerdy at first to have the capabilities of asking someone out.
I hung out with her through my transition between middle and high school. We were buds, the type where, you know, we both are aware have a crush on each other but still, you never expose it because you’re way to shy. That’s the type of connection we conduced.
The cool part about M’Angel were her “Thuggish-Ruggish” ways. She gang-banged some color from Cali-Red, if I recall right. Homegirl moved to El Valle for family, ending up stationed a few streets down The Barajas Territory, rode the bus for total of two-whole-freaking-hours. Anyway, she ended up catching my attention real hard and I flipped.
I had just broken out of my shell when she was introduced into my reality. Since I had just defeated a trail of wolves restraining me from attaining my goals as a young Casa Blanca, she happened to reinforce the idea I would be someone like that one day, a warrior, you know, a gangster.Not a Casa Blanca, of course. More like a genuine go-getter that knows exactly what he wants from life. After all, us First-Generations follow the steps of Map Dreamers, our families who traversed deserts for weeks. Not only that, we must surpass those dreams; not because we HAVE to, but because our Raza deserve it.
Anyway, let me get back on track. Like I was hopefully conveying, I was truly feeling the transformation. I was 14 and had already lost my virginity. I went from being unable to talk to the opposite sex, to mastering the French Orchestra of women in just a few months, the months I would call The Best Summer Ever, circa 2004. I remember sporting a mean tan from working that summer season under The Valley’s Cherry Trees, a tan dope enough to claim Epidermic Capital in my Future World.
Point is, being a Cholo was the cool thing to do in The Valley of fruits. All of us Gente del Ranchero grew up together with this mentality that being Cholo is prideful and respectful to in the community’s generational reflection. In a sense, that is, considering our Familias never approved the Gang-Bang Life while the youth revered it as the only way to find some connection among a social movement for communal power.
Go ahead, think about it: The difference in opinion is divided by generations here. The young ones of course become the artist of their environment, as I witnessed growing up. The old frost with every winter of the storms brought by youth in a complicated time of life. Just remember times were different before each day before your existence.
Now that I think about it, claiming you kick it with the Cholos was comparable to becoming the Warhol of Your Barrio, a new and different identity which made you feel like some sort of superman but from Triple Worlds. I know because everyone sought for this feeling even if it meant injecting Lucifer inside the body’s veins.
Some of us live without ever knowing. Some of us love without ever showing. At the end of the day what matters, is the fact you tried your hardest to never surrender. I know it sucks and all, but working hard is part of the job. At least that’s how my folks taught me. Never let go of where you come from: adversity.
©2016 Alejandro E. Barajas Sanchez “Lucifer’s Arrival”
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