Good Times: Life With Grandpa Joe

While growing up, I was very close to my cousin Paul. He was two years older than me and that meant we had a lot of fun together. We lived in separate states, so we valued the time we could spend together.

During the summer, Paul would come back to Texas and we’d visit Grandpa Joe. We went to the park, the zoo. He’d take us to movies, too and not the kiddie kind, either. These were movies he wanted to see. Adult stuff like “Cool Hand Luke”, “The Wild Bunch” and “Midnight Cowboy”. Usually, one huge bucket of popcorn for each of us, plus Milk Duds, a box of Jordan Almonds and two uber sized soft drinks and private giggles would keep us occupied…except for that one perplexing part in “Midnight Cowboy”.

After that flick, we asked Grandpa Joe, “What’s a homosexual?”

His response? “Oh that’s a swishy someone named Bruce or Charles who likes to wear lots of leather and shit while doin’ faggedy ass things like messin’ with women’s hair, decoratin’ rooms and such , flower arrangin’ and workin’ in retail. You know, like your Aunt Bob!”

“Oooohhh”, was all we could say.

Understandably, my mother had her issues with her father-in-law. So did Paul’s father. Grandpa Joe was a free spirit and did as he felt, whenever he felt like it—his charges be damned. If he felt a like getting a drink, he went for a drink….and if we were with him, we went for a drink, too! Our parents thought Gramps was a bad influence on us.

In retrospect he was, but so what if Grandpa Joe wasn’t a walking dictionary and lacked a little where the King’s English was concerned?

So what if Grandpa Joe wasn’t up on the latest child rearing facts from Dr. Spock? Paul and I loved being around this man. He was fun. He took great care of us—sort of— and every time we were with him, it was an adventure.

As the consummate Texan, he loved hunting and guns and in the off season, he’d go to the shooting range and yep, he’d take us with him. He made us pick up shell casings. The real fun was in trying not to get burned by the expended cartridges.

Grandpa Joe would also take us to his neighborhood bar.

We’d stay outside in Stumpy’s parking lot most of the time. We’d play tag, hide and seek and see how many different brand of cigarette butts we could collect. Bonus points for finding a Viceroy (this was 1967, by the way).

We’d even earn a little extra money from our grandfather’s friends by running across the busy highway to buy cigarettes at the Stop and Shop. We’d make 25-cents for every pack we bought. Enough to go in to Stumpy’s to buy dinner: two pickled eggs, we’d split a bag of vending machine Cheetos and a club soda set-up.

When we weren’t running cigarettes for bar patrons, we’d play in and around the trash dumpster.

For hours.

After a night of drinking, Grandpa Joe would try to drive us home and he did so with one hand over his eye. I guess this helped him see. Maybe he had a headache.

Sometimes, he’d stop at the corner of Chow and Main and talk to some of the women standing there. Paul and I thought they were gardeners that our grandfather knew because he kept referring to them as hoers. This was confusing—they sure weren’t dressed like people who knew how to hoe the soil or grow tomatoes.

He’d give one of these ladies a ride every once in a while. I guess it was because she was tired. You see, he’d make us get in the backseat while she went to sleep with her head in his lap. Grandpa Joe was a religious man, too because right before she’d wake up…which was about five minutes later… he’d always scream, “OH GOD!! OH GOD!!!!”

Once she woke up, he’d drop her off at the same corner. He’d give her 20-bucks for her trouble.

Good times.

I remember one Christmas, Grandmom Ellen made Grandpa take us to the mall to help him do some gift shopping. He gave us a $20 and told us to go buy something pretty for Grandmom. He’d be at the bar in the T.G.I Friday’s at the other end of the mall. He mentioned something about having to watch a horse race, two grand and a pissed off bookie–whatever all of that is supposed to mean!!

We found a pretty little angel figurine that we thought Grandmom Ellen would like, but it was 25 dollars…five more than what Grandpa Joe had given us.

We asked a swishy sales guy named Bruce to hold the angel for us until we could go hit up Grandpa for more money.

There he was–at the bar. Four empty old fashion glasses with melting ice sitting in front of him. He was screaming at the TV and audibly expressing worry about some bookie’s enforcer named “Rocco”, wanting a piece of his ass.

He gave us ten more bills and we ran back to the store and not only bought the angel for Grandmom Ellen, were were able to have another swishy sales guy named Charles to wrap it up for us. It was so pretty! We couldn’t wait to show Grandpa Joe.

But when we got back to the bar, he was gone! Where was he? Paul checked the men’s room. He wasn’t in there. We asked the bartender of he knew where Gramps went and he said he saw Grandpa Joe leave right after we’d asked him for more money. He was apparently despondent that his horse lost a big race and that his friend Rocco was going to come find him to help him mourn the horrible defeat. Apparently, mourning a loss in Rocco’s world involves a lead pipe and something about both of Grandpa’s knees.

We had no idea where our grandfather had gone, why he left us or how we’d get home. We were a little panicked. That’s when Paul saw a police officer walking through the mall and we felt it best to report our Grandpa Joe missing.

We told the officer that we couldn’t find Grandpa and that we were worried. He asked us a few questions, such as when we saw him last, where we last saw him, what he was wearing and also, the nice policeman asked, “Please tell me kids….what’s your grandfather like?”

Paul answered, “Big titted woman and Scotch, but that’s not important right now!!!   We gotta find Grandpa!!!”

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My Ritual Has An Accent

Every Sunday morning, I do something that’s become a ritual, providing I’m not entertaining a gentleman caller.

Yeah…like THAT’S ever gonna happen again.

I woke up early, threw on something comfortable (READ: anything with an elastic waistband) along with my walking shoes and headed over to a park in SW Houston to  put in a couple of miles.   Now, I actually do this on a daily basis, but early on Sunday mornings it’s even more special.  For one thing, the park is practically empty at that hour and another reason is because it’s very close to one of Houston’s ubiquitous Chinatowns,   Buddhists or Buddhist wanna-be’s, take over a gazebo built on top of a duck pond.  About ten people sit in the classic Lotus position in the shade it provides and they meditate to music from a sitar and a few other instruments from the Lute family.  

I’d join them, but  I feel waaaaaay too Occidental and unenlightened to do that, so I get my “contact zen” on by standing nearby and feeding the ducks stale crackers or whatever I have in my pantry that since I’ve been on this major weight loss kick (right at 40 lbs now, by the way) I can no longer eat.    The ducks quack a bit initially, but stop once they realize there’s enough food to go around.  I don’t think it bothers those meditating.  Their bodies are in Southwest Houston, but mentally, they’re a million miles away.

Once I’ve emptied the crumbs from the wax paper container, I toss the bag, then go for my two-mile walk.   Mornings are the coolest part of a summer day in Houston.  The humidity doesn’t start to get insultingly oppressive until after nine AM which is why I get my miles in as early as I can, but like an idiot every Sunday morning,  I undo all the good  my brisk walk has done by going to  a nearby Mexican restaurant for a typical Mexican breakfast.

It’s what I do every Sunday.  

And I order practically the same thing every time:  a bowl of menudo (if you don’t know what this is, I don’t have the heart to ruin your stomach by  telling you of what it is comprised) and Huevos a la Mexicana…. scrambled eggs made with diced jalapeño, onions and tomatoes…which come with grilled potatoes, refried beans and soft, fluffy flour tortillas.    They are delicious, cheap (around $5 for a huge platter of the stuff) and a great way to start your morning with a piquant little kick.

So, I arrived at the restaurant, sat down and ordered in Pigeon Spanish, my typical breakfast.  Minutes later it arrived and I sat there adding cilantro and onion to my menudo which always comes as a first course  and I started to look around me.  I was the only person in there, save for a family. 

A very interesting family of four.

They were a young couple–I’m guessing early 20′s and the mother was a short, somewhat heavy-set, dark-skinned Latina and the father was tall and thin with lighter colored eyes.  He was tattooed all to hell and back and through his gray colored wife beater T-shirt, I could read that he had the surname ‘Hernandez’  tattooed in old English lettering across his back.  As last names go,  Hernandez is like the Spanish equivalent to Smith.

He also had numerous tattoos up and down his arms including one of the  Virgin Mary (decked out like El  Virgen de Guadalupe) but she had a skull in lieu of a face and this  was a big tat  that ran the length of his arm, from shoulder to wrist.   On the other appendage was a coat of arms, an  homage to Spanish heraldry I suppose, but I couldn’t tell what was in it, though from my vantage point, it looked like (and this is odd)  an image of the old, but  venerable Houston Astrodome.    

And then the topper?  He had two tattooed tear drops under one eye.    See the photo example to the right.    Restaurant Guy’s tear drops were large enough for me to see two tables over.

Now, I haven’t been a reporter in a while and I ain’t so current on my gang symbolism but I remembered what THAT  signified:   the wearer had killed before; a teardrop per victim.   Mr. Hernandez had two tear drops.   I scanned my memory banks and remembered a news report I saw not too long ago.    The skull and Astrodome were earmarkings  that this cat was a member of a Houston-based gang formed in various Texas prisons about a decade ago, to serve as a unified front (a defense, if you will)  against  inmates who belonged to tougher, larger and better organized gangs  such as the Texas Syndicate and The Mexican Mafia.    These guys call themselves Tango Blast or Houstones and their tats signify where they’re from.   If  a rival member sees the Astrodome on an  arm or a tat of the Houston Texans’ logo somewhere, he automatically knows he’s up against a Houstone.  So do the cops.  The tattoos are identifiers of allegiance.

And based on Mr. Hernandez’  teardrop tats, one or both of  The Texas Syndicate or The Mexican Mafia are down two members. 

This man was pure Bad Ass.    He was scary looking and emitted an essence of violence through his skin.    I quickly went back to eating my meal.     Staring would be rude and not to mention a death sentence,  though I’d steal glances when and where  I could.

But I have to tell you;  what struck me most about this man was how tender he was to his children.   He spoke to them softly in this odd salad of English and Spanish, telling his young son who had the damnedest name for a little Latino male child— ”Curtis James”, that he loved him…not just once, but several times.    He’d laugh with his son and help him eat his meal.   His daughter wanted more orange  juice and I watched  him tell her, “Claro” (which means “of course” in Spanish) while gently brushing the hair out of her eyes.

A few minutes later, he wiped his young son’s face clean of all breakfast debris,  then he picked him up to carry him over to the juke box where he entertained the child who was growing increasingly restless, with the way it exhibited CD cases of the music selected.     His wife or baby mama or girlfriend or whoever the woman was in his life, stayed at the table with the daughter and in perfect Spanglish, discussed an upcoming shopping trip.

There was something amazingly normal about this man and the family dynamic he’s created…this, in spite of robberies he committed last last night or the drive by shooting he has to perform later today.   I’m not defending the social order of gangs by any means, I just observed this nuclear unit with a man at the head of it who  under all those tattoos, that  tough guy image and what I can only imagine is a criminal  rap sheet so long it would rival War and Peace, seems to be loving and devoted family man.

Was he a poseur?  Maybe, but that’s awfully risky to merely play the role of a gang banger.  Perhaps he was an ex-gang member who for various reasons, can’t rid himself of the markings that indicate who he once was and the dangerous life he lived.    Perhaps, he’s a current member who can kill a man execution style behind some warehouse, while  loving his children in all the ways he wasn’t.  

The truth is, I don’t know and I didn’t stop to ask.   I just found it all to be  very interesting dichotomy, all things considered.   And yes, while gangs usually only kill other gang members because of turf and territory issues,  by standers who are just minding their own business often get caught in the cross fire.   The reality is these  are no-nonsense guys.  Like their Sicilian brethren, they too take an omerta of sorts.    They’re hard-core loyalists to “la familia” and will shoot to kill and if anyone gets in their way, so be it.   Murder and mayhem are all in a day’s work; even if that day begins with an intimate breakfast with the family.

So, just  to play it safe, the names in this blog post have been changed to protect the innocent.

Namely ME.

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