Property of Fjm

By FJM

This is a story that is not just about getting from one point in your life to another. It's about the Journey.
It covers how emotions can be a vehicle of light in your life no matter the emotion. It can be Admiration, Greif, Love, Happiness, Embarrasment, Anger, and that Spark that a person can have inside. The Sky is the limit type of attitude.

The contents of this book will offer a different approach to life. Some call it the easy way, some will be indifferent to this way of thinking, but if you are anything like this author you will find it fascinating and learn that you can have it all if you have that desire. Do you have that Fire Inside you?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669822769

FJM

By his 23rd Birthday, FJM became a world traveler, networking abroad and emerging himself in other cultures. He enjoys listening to all genres of music and has a deep appreciation of song lyrics and melody. He is an avid movie lover and has a particular liking for movies within the realm of drama. He is a fan of American Football and trying new recipes in his kitchen or outdoor grills. A favorite past time is taking in new restaurants with recommendations from Chefs. An adventurist at heart, FJM enjoys ATV riding with his son when traveling in Mexico and he loves to explore new places while vacationing on cruise ships. He is a concert lover and a friend to All dogs. FJM appreciates living a fun filled and passionate life. Yet he knows his journeys have not ended and has much more to experience and write about.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by FJM.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/27/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

840265

Contents

Intro

Chapter 1 The Early Years

Chapter 2 No More Daddy

Chapter 3 Emptiness in My Life

Chapter 4 Fending for Myself

Chapter 5 High School

Chapter 6 Huasca, the Magical Town

Chapter 7 Time for Money

Chapter 8 A Different Profile

Chapter 9 International Connections

Chapter 10 Climbing up the Ladder

Chapter 11 Sammy and Me

Chapter 12 My Beatdown

Chapter 13 Original Equipment

Chapter 14 Big Ben and the Rabbit

Chapter 15 Hiding Out Our Way

Chapter 16 Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter 17 Right Here Right Now with Plush

Chapter 18 Opening the Flood Gates

Chapter 19 The Order That Changed It All

Chapter 20 Cigars, Anyone?

Chapter 21 Ave Maria

Chapter 22 Times A-Changing

Chapter 23 From Guatemala to Guatepeor

Chapter 24 You Choose My Soulmate

Chapter 25 The Proposal

Chapter 26 Time to Play the Game

Chapter 27 Summertime Fun

Chapter 28 Get Outta Dodge

Chapter 29 A Rooster Fighter Is Born

Chapter 30 The Holidays

Chapter 31 Sweet Home Chicago, Open the Red Door

Chapter 32 On the Run Again

Chapter 33 The Evolution of the Rooster Fighter

Chapter 34 The Champion and the Drug Dealer

Chapter 35 A Plastic World

Chapter 36 Validation

Chapter 37 Setting the Record Straight

Chapter 38 New Gig Equals New Partner

Chapter 39 Mary Ann That Little Judas

Chapter 40 The Not Guilty Plea

Chapter 41 Peaceful Times

Chapter 42 One More for the Road

Chapter 43 Developed a Sweet Tooth

Epilogue

Intro

There are so many of us that wonder what it would be like to be that sharply dressed man that has nice cars, girls, homes, and money. Society has shown us common ways to achieve this life. This story will give you another view of how you can go as high as you want to. You just have to be willing to get there and have those nerves of steel to make it possible. It’s about not allowing anyone to control your destiny. We make our own destiny. It is common to allow ourselves to think that the opinion of others matter. For example, in the yearly review most of us receive at a workplace, most of us come out of there unsatisfied with the outcome and have to ask ourselves, Who the hell are these people to review my work, to review me as a person, to judge me and my life. The answer is absolutely no one.

This book’s contents will offer a different approach to life. Some call it the easy way, some will be indifferent to this way of thinking, but if you are anything like this author, you will find it fascinating and learn that you can have it all.

We all have a story inside of us. It could be about how we scored the winning point or won an award, but for some of us, it‘s about the journey we took to get glimpses of the achievement that we call life.

We meet and leave so many people in our lives. It is truly difficult to be able to know the true outcome of situations. We leave a lot of carnage just as a bad storm passes by. At times, we are quick to judge a person or a situation, but in the end, we never really know. We are just left speculating. This story gives insight to those involved with me, at one point, how life wound up and what they thought they knew turned out to be completely wrong. There are many winding roads ahead, so let’s begin.

Chapter 1

The Early Years

My father Francisco was an educated man who served in the Mexican Military. He met and married my mother in Huasca de Ocampo, a small beautiful town in the mountainous region of Mexico. My sister was born three years later. To make a better life, he legally crossed to the United States and soon my mother followed. A couple of years later, I was born in June 1969 at 6:00 p.m. I was exactly twenty-one days late. Maybe this has something to do with the way I chose to live my life.

Francisco found a job at a pizza restaurant named Pizza House Inn while my mother worked in a shoe factory. Regular paychecks started to come in which allowed them to rent a small attic apartment in the town of Cicero, Illinois. After a year, they made him a supervisor of the pizza makers. He worked many hours and was really good at producing a large number of pizzas on a daily basis. At times I would be brought into the kitchen to meet the owner, Nick. He was a jolly Italian man that would swoop me in his arms, walk me around the kitchen, and he would give me small pizzas called snack packs to take home with me. Nick was a happy soul, and he had a way of making you feel special. My father was sending a majority of the money they earned back to Huasca so my parents could buy land to construct a home. The idea was that we would eventually all return and make our lives in Mexico.

My father was a bit selfish, but I have plenty of happy childhood memories with family always around. There were many aunts and uncles already living here in Illinois and more that were arriving. Unfortunately, I have few memories of him that I could describe as good father-and-son moments. He didn’t take much interest in my daily life or activities. I really never learned much from him, but I never passed judgment against his parenting style either.

I recall on a trip to the hardware store. I found the flashlight that I wanted. My father struck a deal with me. He’d buy me the flashlight if I joined a tae kwon do school. Of course, I took the deal.

While at karate, I noticed that he was paying more attention to me. At family parties, he always wanted me to show the family what I learned. I enjoyed his attention but not performing on demand. I would give the family full demonstrations of all the moves I was learning.

My father took great pride in my karate because I was good at it. I was given an opportunity to perform a karate demonstration on a show called The Ray Rainer Show in Chicago and was constantly on a local TV channel.

Then the novelty wore off. My father was responsible for taking me to class, but he would just drop me off and disappear. Sometimes he’d forget to pick me up altogether. I found out it was because he would go visit his girlfriend that lived three blocks away. Eventually I earned his trust, and he showed me that you could be married and still have girlfriends. In the Hispanic culture, it is very common, but like all cultures, the wife better not find out. Soon he’d take me to visit with her. She was a Polish woman and not his only girlfriend. I’d get to meet a couple more.

I didn’t understand his relationships with other women because they were not my mother. I just knew never to breathe a word of it to her, and I kept his secret. His girlfriends all treated me very nicely. They cooked for me and kept me happy with little toys and treats.

I think that my mother knew something wasn’t right because she was always angry with him. Perhaps this was why my dad was with other women. They seemed pleasant at times to be around, but my mother was hard to live with. I just didn’t pay too much attention to their relationship.

As time passed, there was a change in my father. My parents’ relationship started to fall apart. He became distant and indifferent to my mother, then to us. We began to feel invisible, like to him we did not exist. A few times a year, he’d go to Mexico. Sometimes we would go with him. When he went alone, he’d stay there for almost two months at a time. When we all went, we would come back with my mother within two weeks, and he’d stay another two weeks alone.

During one trip to Mexico, he took me to my first rooster fight. My uncle was fighting one of his roosters, a white claret, against a colored rooster. The opposing rooster hit the white claret with a deadly strike. Blood was gushing out of its wound, and I began to cry. My father looked at me and said, Don’t cry. That is the life of these types of roosters. You can put one on one side of a huge field and another on the other side. When they find each other, and they will, they will fight until one is dead. At times, both die. I was five years old, and it was a lasting impression on my life.

During our entire childhood, our parents sent us to a Catholic elementary school. They tried sending my sister to a public school, but the children were mean and cruel to her. We were living in an all-white neighborhood, and we were the only Mexican family in the entire town of Cicero. The kids picked on her constantly because her skin was darker than theirs. That was the one thing my father would not tolerate. She was his princess and no one was allowed to pick on her. I would be so upset that I would ask my mother to point out the children that were mean to her because I was going to beat them up.

Our Catholic school was everything you hear about, mean nuns that would hit students for the smallest issue. In first grade, the entire class was told to clean out our desks. I cleaned my desk but did not think to clean my cigar box which was where all my pencils, crayons, and erasers were stored. Sister Catherine was my teacher and was about thirty years old. She appeared to be a generally happy teacher, but when she inspected my desk and saw that my cigar box was not cleaned, she slapped me hard across my face twice. Only pride kept me from crying. When I went home, I didn’t say a word because I was too embarrassed. My hatred for nuns started that very day.

The next year I had one of the meanest nuns around. She was sixty years old, but she could pack a wallop with her hand. She was a hitter. Everyone in the class was hit that year by Sister Thomasina. My bitter feelings toward abusive nuns just kept increasing.

I became an altar boy in the third grade. The duty of an altar boy was to attend mass every Sunday, and if it was your turn to serve 9:00 a.m. mass, then that meant you had to serve mass every single day that week at 8:00 a.m., including Saturday. It was a big responsibility but being in the church actually gave me a sense of peace. I enjoyed it. I liked to visit with God, and my favorite time was during Christmas. It was the way the church was decorated. When all the lights were off except for the Christmas lights, they looked beautiful and gave a warm feeling to my heart. I stayed and talked with baby Jesus on the manger for hours. Going to church was a normal part of my life. I was drawn to it even to masses where they spoke a different language like Lithuanian. I did not understand a single word. The parish was Lithuanian, but I felt comfortable talking to God about anything and everything. I’d even give my parents a hard time for not going to church on Sunday.

Since my father had become distant from us as a family, he was very good at not issuing any type of discipline. On occasions, he would raise his voice, but those instances became rare.

In third grade, my teacher Sister Beatta asked us for answers to a quiz. She walked around the classroom and pointed to a student for the answer. It was my turn. What is the answer? she asked. I didn’t know. What is the answer? she yelled. I told her that I did not know. Since I did not know the answer to the question, she called my mother at work during my recess time to tell her that I was not paying attention in class, misbehaving and that I was being disruptive.

During the last five minutes of the class, there was a knock at the classroom door. It was my mother, and she did not look happy. She came into the classroom and walked right up to me and slapped me in front of the entire class. I was so embarrassed. During the ride home, she continued to hit me and say berating things to me and yelled at the top of her lungs. She told me that I had embarrassed her in front of my teacher. I kept thinking, How? What did I do? Later I learned it was the phone call and that she had to leave work early to address this situation. In the entire car ride home, I just kept quiet and did not say a single word to her. I was waiting patiently, just a few minutes from unleashing a beast upon her, my father.

When the door to the house opened, I ran up the stairs and into my father’s room as he was sleeping because he had to work within a few hours. In tears, I told him everything she did to me and everything she said to me. The look on his face went from sleepy to being surprised and finally to the look I was hoping to see, the look of anger. He hugged me quickly, kissed my forehead, and got out of bed.

He walked into the next room and smacked my mother so hard she was floored. He yelled and threatened her with what would happen to her the next time she ever did anything like that to me again. He made me promise in front of her that if she ever did that to me again, I would tell him and he would take care of her. I felt so vindicated and happy that he stood up for me. Then a feeling of fear came over me. I just realized my father would be going to work in an hour. Crap. I was going to be left alone with her and my sister. To my surprise, she did not say or do anything to me. The house was just quiet that night.

During one of my father’s trips to Mexico, he met and fell in love with a lady named Guadalupe. One year on our family vacation, we noticed a young girl on this ranch that my father and his brother Valentine bought. She came over and my father introduced her to us. My mother’s face was full of disgust. She wasn’t taken aback. She just knew that she had just met my father’s mistress face-to-face.

In Mexico their relationship deteriorated. He would not come home. He was probably staying with Guadalupe every night. There were talks of divorce, but somehow after all they had gone through, they decided to give it another try. The four of us went back home to Chicago, and he stayed with us for a couple more weeks.

Every Sunday, we would do something as a family. We would go to church and then to a movie. At times, we would visit with family but always something together. It was not until we would come home and our father would drop us all off and he would go off on his own. He would be gone for hours and would not return until 11:00 or 12:00 a.m. I always missed him at that time but already knew he was going to see his girlfriends.

Since my father was always going to Mexico, the managers at Pizza House Inn got upset because of all the extra time off he took. Since they did not take so much time off, they started giving him a hard time. There was one manager that was equal to my father Eddie. Only this man lived at Pizza House Inn. He was always there, giving 100 percent of himself and was a very dedicated employee. He told the owner Nick if my father took one more time off where he leaves for a month at a time, he would resign. He gave the owner an ultimatum and in the end when my father asked for more time off, he was let go.

He tried to work for other pizza places, but it wasn’t the same. He found work as a janitor for a couple of months, but he was miserable. I remember him stealing cases of paper towels and toilet paper that would last us for years to come. He always dreamed of owning his own pizza place so what better time to make it happen.

When he returned from Mexico, he and my uncle Valentine found a cheap rat-infested building with real live gypsies as upstairs tenants. The location was good and we spent many weekends cleaning it up. We all pitched in. My father was still working in pizza restaurants to make ends meet, but he had submerged himself in rehabbing that place and making it into a respectable pizza joint. It was actually turning out to be a nice place. Home Inn Pizza was its name. Deep down I knew just in the name that he was trying to give the folks at Pizza House Inn, his I’ll-show-you moment. He had the original recipe for their meat, sauce, and dough for their pizza. The grand opening was soon approaching. A huge sign was in the window, and everything was in place ready to go.

Only with a month to go before the big grand opening, all of a sudden my father started feeling really sick. He went to see a doctor and got a diagnosis. Cancer, they told him. The doctor informed him that a warmer climate might do him some good. That was all he needed to hear. Back to Mexico he went within three days of his diagnosis. As children, we were kept in the dark about the seriousness of my father’s health. Obviously my mother was upset. This time when he left, they decided to separate.

My mother was working in the kitchen of Pizza House Inn. At that time, she was working sixteen to eighteen hours a day, seven days a week to support us. She was determined to become self-sufficient without having to depend on my father for help. There was a fire inside of her and we could see it.

This left my sister and me alone a lot. We depended on each other, but sometimes we would go to an aunt’s house to play with our cousins. They were more like brothers to me. We were very close. My cousins Alberto and Oscar were brothers and from my father’s sister, my aunt Laura. My cousin Adolf was from my other father’s sister, Aunt Irma. Aunt Irma also had two girls, my cousins Leticia and Irma. We all got along really well.

On days when it was just my sister and me, we both felt very alone. The landlord of our small attic apartment Mrs. Albano was recruited to become our babysitter from time to time.

We lived in a predominantly Italian neighborhood. Sometimes our landlord would take us to work with her at an Italian corner store. It had the typical customers, but then it also had men dressed in fur coats and sharp suits, who all drove some sort of Cadillac or Lincoln. They paid for their sandwiches with twenty-, fifty-, or one-hundred-dollar bills, and many of them would tell Mrs. Albano just to keep the change. I wondered, Where did they work to get money to buy all their nice things? My fascination began.

Time passed and life without my father was becoming normal. I always felt like he’d come back. Even though he wasn’t in my life, he was someplace where I could always find him.

Chapter 2

No More Daddy

One day while in the bedroom I shared with my sister, I was listening to the transistor radio my father had given me. My father’s mistress Guadalupe called my mother and told her that we needed to go and see him in Mexico. He had been asking for his children because his health had deteriorated. My mother asked to speak with him, but he could barely speak. Our plane landed within a week of the call. We packed enough for a week since my mother intended for us to come back right away. We went from the airport straight to the hospital where Guadalupe greeted us. My mother asked us to wait outside his room while she went in first to see my dad. Fifteen minutes later she came out and escorted us to see our father.

The door to his room swung open and I saw a frail older man that looked like he had been torn apart. My father was skinny with yellowish skin. He looked like he was in a great deal of pain like how Christ looked on the cross. What’s wrong, Papi? I asked. When are you going to get better?

Soon, he said, but something doesn’t feel right. That was the day I learned he had something called cancer. I was too young to know the meaning of the word yet understand the disease. All I knew was that there was a chance he might not live much longer.

We stayed with some aunts in Mexico City because it was close to the hospital. They were all sisters that lived together. They kept my sister and me occupied while my mother stayed at the hospital. My aunts were very nice to us, but it was just very strange being there.

I just wanted to curl up and be at my grandmother’s house. She was familiar and safe to me. My mother was very occupied with everything going on in the hospital. She told my grandmother that we would be staying with her. It was obvious that we would be staying longer than originally planned, so my mother enrolled us in school.

Attending an all-Spanish school made me very nervous because I only knew how to speak Spanish and not read or write it. I was only nine years old and in fourth grade.

Most of the kids in my class were very unkind to me. The children all knew that I was an outsider, and they treated me as such. It didn’t help that they heard of my father. He had both good stories and bad ones.

He had already built a reputation in that region for being a hell-raiser with