Born Savage: Tale of the FatKat

By Rey G

A True story about surviving trauma from childhood to adulthood and how it affects the transformation of resilience to turn tragedy to triumph. From the dangers of the city, to life in a small Texas town, the story is a Deep look into the background of a young man who began to lose his roots and identity, being driven from one home to another in an effort to find who he really is, and what he is capable of. Through experiences of sex, drugs, and violence built on foundations of generational trauma and family curses. The book takes you on a journey of introspection, and insightful redemption of a young man trying to overcome circumstances of deep seated violence to not only survive, but to thrive. Showing the reader that we are all BORN SAVAGE.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798988180418

Book preview

Chapter 1

As a child growing up in a fairly progressive and small city of Denver, it was never an issue of being Chicano in a working-class neighborhood because of the diverse nature of the city itself. Really, my family was indigenous; Mexica. The people of the long stretching remnants of the Aztec Empire that were broken up and scattered like ashes and burning embers carried off by the wind. Falling and settling wherever we landed, still burning hot with roots not really known, but never forgotten.  I think that was really my first trauma, an unconscious sorrow that I had no idea I even had until I got older. The trauma and pain of having a lost and buried identity, not really knowing where I belonged or where I came from until I heard my first beating of the tight deerskin of a Pow-Wow drum.

The city and communities still had a sense of who they were, and where they came from…The working class. It was a small metropolitan city and the skyline in the late 1980’s was just a few tall buildings in the distance that always silhouetted in our picture window early in the morning while I got ready for school.

My family lived about 10 minutes from the actual downtown, which back then was far from impressive and only seemed to provide shade for the winos and junkies that frequented the strip of bars and motels along Colfax, Alameda, and 38th Avenues.

Gangs were everywhere fathers weren’t. It was amid the war on drugs, the Free lunch programs, paper food stamps, and just say No Campaign. I remember being in one of the first D.A.R.E. programs at school, which looking back as an adult was just cultivating a youth informant program.

They would send a burly veteran of the Denver police department, usually the drug unit, in to coerce elementary students into snitching on their parents. So, in exchange for pencils, shirts, and COOL STICKERS, they tried to get as much info as any gullible little kid could volunteer…Sometimes it worked; But me?? Shit, my mom told me she would’ve beat the bejesus out of me, then DARED me to call the cops.

Even when I got a shirt from them, a bright red D.A.R.E splashed across an all-black shirt, she would not let me wear it out in the neighborhood, and she threw it right in the trash. What we do in this house, is NOBODY’S BUSINESS…! she’d say while stuffing that black shirt as far in the bin as she could, making sure that it was deep in that trash can.

I was always taken care of; clothes and food and things I never went without. But I also think that I was jaded to the domestic violence, the drugs & alcohol that was not ever very far, along with all the parties. To me, it was a normal thing.

My father was an alcoholic. It wasn’t that he drank every day, but when he did drink, he would often spend his entire check at the bar with my uncles as soon as they got paid. Many times, he had to be carried home and put to bed with his work boots still on. Even though my mother had a really good job with the IRS, and regardless of how many hours she put in, we still seemed to struggle at times to be in a comfortable home.

I remember sometimes waking up early Saturday mornings to watch cartoons, but instead of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ThunderCats, and Transformers, I woke up to the tension of my parents arguing. This would often lead to my mom, who despite being very petite in size, having a very big problem with my dad spending all their money the night before.

At the time, my dad was making around seven hundred to a thousand dollars a week laying brick and block, which back then was pretty decent money. As the arguing escalated, the insults deepened, and eventually my mom battered and bruised my dad’s ego, so he felt he had to do the same to her physically.

He was never a match to battle wits with my mother, especially with the Budweiser and John Wayne still in his head. John Wayne is what our uncles had called Jim Beam, because when they had found out he died, they drank to him shot after shot of the strongest, most cowboy rotgut the bartender would serve them. Ever since that day in the little bar, that’s what we all called it to bond and get drunk with, To John Wayne!  It was down the hatch and the closer we got to having a family tie.

My dad towered over my mom and outweighed her by a good buck and a half. And even though she put up a hell of a fight and was tough as a Texan, she always got the short end of the stick on that one. It was hardly ever a fair fight, but she was a gladiator that showed no fear, entering the arena even knowing it was an inevitable defeat.

My older brother tried to keep me away from all the tussling and fighting, but even hearing it through the door while he blasted his music with us barricaded in his room was always hard for a 6-year-old kid to hear. It was especially hurtful to hear my mom’s cries and pleas for help and watching as my brother and I were helpless to go to her… to help her.

I remember my brother sitting on the edge of his bed staring at the door while tears rolled down his cheeks and no sound came out of his blank face. I think those were some of the only times I had ever seen my brother cry, and even as a grown man, I can count on one hand how many times I saw the vulnerable side of him.

A lot of times, incidents like that when the crying and calls for help got loud enough, we’d get knocks on the door from the Denver Police, so often in fact that eventually they knew my parents by name.

It was like having somewhat polite neighbors come ask if you could, please turn your music down, we have a sleeping baby. Only these neighbors had guns on their hips and badges that said protect & serve which since those times, always seemed like an inside joke they thought of to fill space on the badge.

Almost all those visits ended with If we have to come back here tonight, we’re gonna have to take someone to jail.  This just left our household with either make-ups, or just more quiet fist fights… Sometimes the officers that made the calls were the same ones that would give my dad police escorts home when he was too drunk to drive but still did.

Rather than fill out paperwork for some drunk blue-collar guy after a hard week of work, they usually just followed behind him making sure he made it to the house without plowing into any late-night joggers or kids breaking curfew.

Of course, as soon as they got him home, they made sure my mom got the keys, and had him promise not to drive for the rest of the night. These were the types of interactions that shaped the way I looked at what police did, and what they were there for…NOTHING.

As we got older the fights were just a normal part of life. So eventually my mom became resilient in her situation each of the 15 years that they stayed together. Every time she was broken, she healed stronger and tougher, so much so that my dad would hesitate and think twice about wanting to get physical with a 4’10" badger of a woman.

Soon though, things got to where my dad wasn’t coming home at all, to save himself the trouble of having to enter the arena just because he wanted to drink all night.

He’d be gone at the weekends, and we’d rarely see him during the week. When he was there, our parents were like ghosts to each other. They could be in the same room, and it was like they didn’t even know the other was there, much less what us kids were up to.

Mom put herself in her work, leaving at 6 in the morning and not getting home until 5, sometimes 7 o’clock at night. My brother was put in charge of me during these times and sometimes he was home, sometimes he wasn’t. I was a latchkey kid by 3rd grade and even though I walked to school with friends, I would leave an empty house at 7:30 in the morning and come back to an empty house at 3 in the afternoon.

My brother would be out hoeing’ around or at the Villa Italia mall with his friends. But this did give me a lot of time with my friends and a lot of time to get into trouble. Which I did, and it was also around this time that my brother started gang bangin’.

My mom and dad started growing farther and farther apart and the locked door to their room became more frequent, as the realization of problems really sunk in. My brother and I were way too old to be lied to. We knew exactly why our parents spent so much time in the room on the weekends, after payday, which was usually the only time they got along.

They would come home with resentment and contempt for each other, go to the room, and come out lovey-dovey ready to be a family behind glassy-eyed smiles. I guess my dad had figured if he couldn’t go out and drink, he’d rather spend his check on something else, and at least he could keep my mom somewhat happy in the process.

Eventually though, there wasn’t enough self-medication in the world that could fix a broken relationship. My dad started to fall back to his old ways and the fighting started up again, this time even worse than before, and almost daily.

The more my dad was gone, the more my brother had free reign to go ahead and do whatever he wanted to do. Including terrorizing me. He put me through a little brother boot camp. I guess preparing me to follow in his footsteps one day of gang bangin’ and fist fights. Or maybe it was because I reminded him of my dad; the person who caused our mom and family so much pain. I really don’t know. He’d give me chesties, Charlie horses, pinch me, bruise me, choke me—ya know…normal kid stuff. 

My mom was always at work and sometimes afterward she would go out with friends. I always remembered feeling especially sad waiting for her to come home, because for some reason, I believed my mom wouldn’t come back.

Every time I heard a car drive down the street or a car door shut, I would run to the window hoping to see her. But when she wasn’t there, it felt like I was in a deep, dark hole—a pit; waiting in the abyss to hear footsteps above me, hoping someone would look down and notice me to lower a rope and get me out. Soon, that was the constant feeling every time she walked out the front door.

She would get home in the evenings, she would either cook dinner, or sometimes just pick something up on the way home. But I do know a few times I had to eat miracle whip sandwiches, which to be honest I still kind of like to this day.

Not that she didn’t take care of us, but it was hard to remember all the details, and take care of a household, along with two boys. She tried as best as she could to raise us to be men. But there were no examples of what we were supposed to do to become men, or how to handle life to be independent and dependable.

My mother was very intelligent and always raised us to be thinkers and good people, but I just think that sometimes she felt she needed to take care of herself. You know like whenever you’re on an airplane, and the stewardess always shows you the pamphlets telling you to secure your oxygen mask before you try to put on anyone else’s. My mom just needed oxygen.

As we got used to my dad only being there a couple days a week, I remember sometimes going with him to the bar. I’d sit on the high-backed stools with him. He'd order me cherry cokes with extra cherries; him Budweiser and Jim Beam. Back then, if you had your kid at the bar, they just wanted to make sure you didn’t bother the customers. God-forbid you scare away the drunks from spending money in a place that smelled like cigarettes and piss mixed with a hint of regret and bad decisions. But my dad would play pool and gamble; betting drinks and twenties like he was Tom cruise in the Color of Money.

It was really different back then for kids. I could recall after spending the day with him at a place that was lucky enough to have a few arcade games to keep me busy, a guy at the end of the bar that looked like the drunkest one there, asked my dad if he was good to drive. My dad bobbled his head toward him, glanced at me and said, yeeuuhh.

The man followed my dad’s glance toward me, in the same bobble head swing, he looked concerned. He furrowed his eyebrows and goes, Is your boy ridin’ with you?? My dad nodded his head and almost fell off the stool, but he caught himself with some of the empty beer bottles in front of him. So, the guy leans down to me almost falling off his stool, and with his booze-breath you could probably light on fire, he slurs right into my face, You’re not riding with your dad are you? When I nodded, I turned my head and held my breath to keep from getting a buzz.

He pulled his head back in shock, I thought in his surprise of a man driving drunk with a child, but he just leaned in again with a wink, Hito… you make sure you wear your seatbelt okay. He patted me on the head and turned back to my dad, Ey, you wanna another shot man?

That is just what our adventures were like, father and son. Drunk Cassidy and the Lap-dance Kid. My pops was the best drunk driver I knew back then, shit even today. But there were always bigger and better adventures at home too. Like playing How long can you Keep a secret from mom. Guess who spent the rent again?? I wasn’t very good at that game.

House parties with uncles, cousins, and family; some blood, some not, were a regular weekend thing. The more parties and craziness we were exposed to the more I was able to understand what was really going on in our house.

There was always a line to the bathroom, always 2 or 3 people at a time, and it was always allergy season, because there sure were a lot of red eyes and sniffles. I mean, my mom never hid smoking weed from us, it was always part of our culture as medicine, and drinking with friends, sometimes fighting, was a casual occurrence.

But every now and then their friends weren’t always the most subtle at bringing out the hard drugs. Especially after a few shots of Cuervo; my mom’s favorite. It was one of the times in my life where I always felt alone in a house full of people. I would lay in bed in the dark staring at the ceiling listening to the commotion right outside my door that would rock me to sleep. 

I can sometimes remember falling asleep on strange girls’ laps in the living room listening to the thump of blasting music over loud laughter, card playing, grilling in the back, and some of my brothers’ friends.

It was a task trying to keep all the youngsters out of the kitchen with all the grown folks, begging for beers. I think my mom finally got tired of repeating herself and having to babysit someone else’s teens at our house ‘til 2 or 3 in the morning. She finally would say, Well, if You kids are gonna drink, I’d rather you do it here instead of out there doing drive-bys.

During that time my dad had been seeing his girlfriend who lived on 44th Ave, not far from where my grandpa lived, and he would always visit her when he was fighting with my mom.

To be sure he could be gone for a while without suspicion, he’d just say he was going to visit my grandpa or my uncle, and of course sometimes he would stay at my grandpa’s house. So, my mom thought nothing of it when he didn’t come home from time to time. Plus, by then we were all used to him coming and going’; we kinda looked forward to the peace and quiet of no fighting, arguing, or hateful looks between them.

We just never thought he had a whole other family with a whole other woman. I mean granted her kids weren’t his, but he spent time with them; took them out to eat and do things like families do. Occasionally, he and my mom would argue about taking me with him so I could see my grandpa. She mainly did that though so that she knew at least he would come home.

I felt like an unwanted burden to them, neither wanted to have me around…a pawn that only had meaning when they needed to hurt each other. And that’s when I figured out why my brother was always out of the picture; out gangbanging, drinking and wandering with friends; because he knew better.

When I would go with my dad on his visits to my grandpa’s he would always talk the whole way about how my mother treated him so badly, and that he loved me; and that was the only reason he put up with all her verbal abuse.

He was a victim of circumstance, and now he needed me to be his confidante. Don’t tell your mom about where we go, I don’t want her to talk shit. At first, I was a little confused when we’d head a different way to my grandpa’s. We’re going to grandpa’s house? I’d ask confused... He’d answer me like he didn’t know he was lying until he had to say it out loud.

Well… We’re gonna go stop by my friend’s house real quick okay. By real quick he meant a few hours. He’d usually leave me with her 16-year-old daughter, and I'd wreak havoc with her brother while the grown-ups would go out and drink.

Sometimes they would make it back that night, and sometimes the next morning or afternoon. He thought he was living the life. Single like a dollar bill and getting loose like some change. He just didn’t bank on having to take the son from his first family with him to see his second family, the family that he owed no responsibility to. He didn’t know it yet, but he was about to crap out.

After one of our visits to his other family, we came home, and I was sitting on the couch with my dad. My mom was in the kitchen cooking and asked how my grandpa was. I blurted out, We didn’t see grandpa.

My mom, without looking up casually asked, Oh, well where’d you guys go? and as quickly as she asked, I said, we went to Delores’ house. I don’t know what was going through my head, I think it was just subconscious sabotage, the small dam of lies that was starting to overflow in my child size reservoir.

I couldn’t help myself!! I was an amateur in deception, but a pro at telling my mom what the what and where the when. Because when she asked, I told her. I mean, I was trained to tell her everything! I was raised from a baby to always tell my parents the truth. Backfire!

I heard the spoon drop in the pot, and practically felt my mom’s head whip in our direction. While my dad looked down at me with a look of being stabbed in the back, his eyes called me Judas, but my mom was already on her way over to the couch to start the interrogation."

YOU MEAN YOUR COUSIN MARTINE and DELORES?... DODI and Martine right??" Her eyes locked onto my dad, and he gave me one last look of What the fuck son, I thought we were cool. I’ll never forget that look. It was the look that made me feel like I was the cause of everything that followed.

Her eyes didn’t waver as her steps got closer and she never seemed so tall. The look he gave me said everything she didn’t have to ask. Really Herman?! was the beginning of a four hour argument that ended with my dad walking out, the victim of betrayal and misunderstood lust.  While my mom stayed in her room crying most of the night. It was when the fuse got lit…

A few days later my pops managed to slink back home, I think he already knew their relationship was over. But I don’t think he knew that the conversation wasn’t.

When he came in, there were a few things already packed, and he looked surprised at the garbage bags full of clothes and a couple of beat-up suitcases in the middle of the living room.

He expected that he was just gonna come back and everything was gonna be like it was for the past 15 years. Like she was just gonna forget. But, as soon as he walked in, it all started all over again.

I think mom just wanted to know why. After everything he put her through, all the pain he caused her, why couldn't he just hurt her just one more time and get it over with before he decided to be with someone else.

My dad just sat on the couch quietly, watched TV and didn’t say anything, like she wouldn’t notice him.

He looked shocked when my mother turned off the TV and stood in front of it, arms crossed like she couldn’t believe his ballsy attitude. My dad’s look of astonished confusion as he stared up at her was as patronizing as it was genuinely confused. He was an idiot, like a dumb ol’ dog waiting to be scolded for shitting all over the rug again.

As my mom laid into him, and he actually admitted to cheating on her for the past year or so, her hurt turned to anger at how much he put her through when all he had to do was end the relationship.

He reacted as if she were inconveniencing him with all her "feelings". Like, why couldn’t she just let him live his life. I mean can’t a man just have a girlfriend without his wife getting all sensitive about it??

The physical part started when my mom began throwing his packed stuff out the door, and he refused to leave. She got in his face, figuratively speaking of course ‘cuz she only came up to his chest. She yelled, more hurt than anything, How could you do this? The pain in her voice I’ll never forget.

The fact of the matter was, she was willing to take all the abuse, all his drunken insults, the bruises, stitches, and even forgive every bit of his flaws, the respect for each other had gone long ago. But all she wanted was some dignity.

He gave a dismissive sneer as he pushed her tiny body out of his way to walk down the hall to their room. He was so much bigger than her, she just fell against the wall and slid down to the ground. He paused for a split second not knowing if he should help her up, or just go to the room.

He glanced down at her and then just continued on to the room. I was crying so loud; I couldn’t hear anything else. I screamed for them to stop, but my mom was already on her feet and in front of him pushing on his chest straining to move him back out the hallway toward the door.

She was screaming, GET OUT! JUST GO!. As he pushed her back, I went to get in between them to try and break them up, but it was useless. I was afraid that this was going to be the time my dad would actually kill my mom.

I was so small, and so scared it was like being run over that I didn’t have any effect on either of them. My brother, hearing the commotion, ran from his room to help my mom shove my dad down the hall in an attempt to get him out. Young as he was at just thirteen or fourteen, he got into the tussle of screaming and shouting.

We all stumbled back into the living room, right in front of the huge picture window, where I felt our dysfunction was on display for the whole neighborhood to see.  My dad grabbed my brother and threw him aside onto the floor and started to hit him. As he was bending down struggling with my brother, my mom jumped on his back and pulled at his face.

He shook her off as they all fell on top of me. She lunged at him and bit him right on the upper part of his arm, and I could remember her spitting out a chunk of his flesh. He winced in pain and turned in one motion and punched her in the face.

As she fell to the floor, she started screaming so horribly that as my dad grabbed her by the hair, he wrapped his hand around her mouth so hard blood poured from between her lips and the look on her face was excruciating to me. My mind went numb watching my dad slap and punch my mother. 

With the blood I could see that lined my mom’s teeth through split and broken lips, the hate for a man that I loved so much confused and frightened me even more than the whole ordeal.

My brother jumped from the floor pounding on my dad’s back as he hung around his neck pulling him down to the floor, and finally off me. I ran over to my mom; the side of her face was already starting to swell, and she was bleeding from her mouth. She screamed, and all I could focus on was the blood around her teeth, and the part of her lip swollen and split. I never saw my mom freshly hurt before my very eyes, only the aftermath. My brother jumped up