It got to the point where my sordid little gig started being run like a real business.
Marcela kept my appointment book, made hotel reservations at my preferred spots, and handled all the on-the-ground logistics. I dealt directly with my clients, picked them up at the airport, and made sure they were nice and safe while I arranged for them to be elbows-deep in chicas. And, on occasion?especially in the early days?I?d have to physically save them from whatever craziness blew their way.
One time, I got slashed in the chest carting off a crazy girl and her coked-up boyfriend who stalked a client and tried to rob him the day after an appointment. Another time, a client called me in a panic from his suite?s bathroom, convinced that the girls he had hired for a four-on-one orgy had drugged him and were planning on kidnapping him.
But, usually, everything went smoothly. The best way to handle this business is to be on everyone?s side, making sure that everyone got what they wanted from the deal, making friends whenever possible, but also assuring the world that it would be a big, big mistake to ruin our friendly little arrangement.
When things went perfectly, life was a big party. Gringos threw cash around, chicas partied like rock stars, and I made bundles of pesos making everything happen, negotiating prices and terms, keeping everyone safe to sin. And most of what I made went to my two great addictions in life?morphine and boxing.
* * *
?No va a ver pelea (There won?t be a fight),? Old Man Chucho told me at the scales laid out alongside the ring.
I had brought some of my kids to fight in a neighboring small town. It was shitty pay?mostly 4 rounds for 400 pesos?but it was the kind of experience you can?t get in the gym. Small town Mexican fans are especially crude and rude to the fighters and this particular town was famous for being a rough place to fight. Last year, I was part of a judging crew that scored against a hometown favorite and touched off a full-scale riot.
Chairs flew, brawls broke out everywhere, even the guys in the concession stands were roughed up. It got so bad that the local police chief urged the promoter to change the decision for the sake of public safety. After a good, long bit of chaos, the promoter got on the public address system to announce that the scorecards had been tallied incorrectly and that the bout was really a draw.
But, for a young fighter, fights in the badlands were real baptisms by fire. Mostly off the books?unregulated by any sort of sanctioning body and only marginally regulated by the local athletic commission (which also handles the lucha libre shows coming through town)?these were cards where fighters with an eye on bigger things could make some money and pick up some pro experience without risking an ?L? on their official record.
However, on this particular day, it looked like my main guy, Ponce?a ditzy, but talented 5 ft. 9 super featherweight, who was closer to pro-level than anyone else in the gym?was not going to fight. His opponent had not shown up to the weigh-in and two other fighters near his size had refused to step up one division to fight him for the peanuts being offered.
But I was desperate to have Ponce fight. It would?ve been his first bout in front of a ?real? crowd and I knew that the adrenaline of a big win would?ve nixed the ?I?m not making any money, my cousin told me to come to El Norte to work at his carpeting business in LA? talk I had been hearing in the gym the last few weeks.
Old Man Chucho was promoter/manager/gym owner/half-owner of the bull ring we were standing in and half-owner of the liquor store across the street and, at the moment, he was owning me.
?Si tu chavo quiere pelear, tiene que bajar a los 57, y ya (If your kid wants to fight, he has to get down to 57 kilos, that?s it).?
?No manches, Don Chucho (Come on, Don Chucho),? I pleaded. ?Vamos hablar (Let?s talk).?
For the next several minutes, I followed the bald, old man with acne scars around the dirt floor of the bull ring as he adjusted chairs and made sure things were ready for tonight?s show. I?m not sure if it was my fake story about Ponce?s mom in a wheelchair needing money to pay the light bill that did it or the offer to show him a good time the next time he came to town, but Old Man Chucho, very uncharacteristically, gave in and cut a deal. Ponce would have to drop half a kilo in an hour?s time and give up a quarter of his 600-peso purse, but he could fight.
I rushed around, trying to find Ponce and tell him that he would be fighting after all, only to find the kid sitting in the stands with some girls, three-tacos deep into a four-taco platter, downing his second 600 ml. Coke. My wheeling and dealing was for naught; he wouldn?t be able to make the weight or fight the fight. Four weeks later, Ponce was in LA, laying carpet with his cousin, making ?real? money.
It was on the way back from that disappointing little excursion that I got a call from a desperate ?monger? who read my whore mongering writings religiously and had shown up in town, convinced that he could do everything on his own. What he found, instead, was a feeding frenzy at his expense with a hotel that overcharged, taxis that doubled their fares, and one trip to a strip club where the girls where charging him more for one lap dance than what I could find him for a whole hour of no-limits sex.
John was a Chinese national working for a Wisconsin power company as a consultant. He was gifted a two-week vacation to wherever he wanted and he chose my city, solely based on the sex tourism research he had conducted online the last few weeks.
But a little Chinese guy with so-so English skills and no Spanish whatsoever was only going to go so far in my world down here, where most people still didn?t quite know what to make of foreigners?especially foreigners who weren?t gringos.
Soon, John found himself, literally, lugging around a huge wad of Mexican cash with an entire population of people rushing to take pieces of it from him and a sick feeling that somebody badder than a shady taxista or unscrupulous bell boy would be coming for him. That?s when he gave me a call.
And, oddly enough, this would be the call that brought me my biggest monetary score to date, opened the door to my first real boxing promotion, and, kinda, sorta, got me killed in the process.
(Continued?)
