Our Meeting

May of 2007 I was single again and living in Laurel Apartments. I had just gotten done with a dramatic relationship of cheating, drugs, tequila, jealousy, and overall crap. My longtime friend Berenice had been seeing a guy named Nino off and on for a while and had some strange urge to introduce me to all his friends that no one wanted. The last 2 men were much older than me and horrendous drunks. To be honest I was enjoying my freedom. Every weekend my kids were with their father and I was out going to bailes (Mexican Dances) getting wasted.

Money wasn’t an issue either, I was selling a good amount of meth to support myself and my kids. I had my crew of other single girls that loved to go out, I mean I had money to throw around. Who wouldn’t want to party for free? I had the car that we could take, they just had to take turns driving. I had quite the reputation of a party girl with money to blow and the stuff you need to do it all night long.

For weeks Berenice kept telling me about this man she wanted to introduce me to named Jose Luis. She went on and on about how cute he was. She told me he was tall, light skinned, worked and had his own car. I kept telling my friend no because of the men she had introduced to me in the past. If I wanted a drunk piece of crap I could just go out to the parking lot of my apt complex. Berenice kept telling me about him and how I better meet him soon because some other woman named Summer had an interest in him. To me that was even more reason not to be interested, if Summer wanted him then he must be some sort of tweak. I just didn’t want to go there and be disgusted. 

I think we ran out of beer and ran to the store for some. Later on I was supposed to be going to a Los Inquietos baile and wanted to get my buzz started early. We were in my 98 burgundy Ford Expedition. I was in sweats, no make-up, and hair pulled up in a ponytail bun mess. I took the alley from the store back to the apartments, there was usually someone we knew in that alley and we were such social butterflies. Plus I was always trying to hustle a couple of extra bucks.

At the end of the alley was a small 4 unit apartment complex. In the parking lot was 2 Mexican men bent over under a hood working on dark blue Volvo. I don’t remember who was talking to Berenice on the passenger side, but all of sudden the guys working on the Volvo popped their heads up to discuss something. I don’t know what it was about him but all of sudden I just blurted out “Damn he is hella cute!” really loud. I mean loud enough that the man heard me over my music, over his music, and loud enough to stop Berenice’s conversation.

Something in that moment happened, something just clicked. That man kind of popped his head around the hood to see where the voice came from. With a devilish smile on his face he walked right up to the driver’s side of my truck.  It wasn’t just a regular walk, it was a walk with machismo, confidence. I mean I was so uncomfortable when he approached. I felt so vulnerable, like he was already imagining all the things that the future held for us.

He stood about 6’1 with a thick, muscular build. His eyes were hidden behind his obviously cheap flea market sunglasses, but he wore them with such pride that you didn’t notice the knock off brand name on the temples of them. All the man wore was a white tank top that we call Wife Beaters and baggy brown Ben Davis pants that hung off the tops of his hips. With his almost shaved head you would automatically assume he was a cholo, however as he came closer his tattoos clearly showed a story of Mexican pride with pictures of a Indian warrior, Indian princess, and other various tattoos crawling down his left arm down to his fingers.

He wiped off his hands and reached in through my window to shake my hand. I genuinely felt like I was naked, that is how uncomfortable I was. I knew my face was flushed and my hands were sweaty. I was frozen, glued to his eyes after he put his glasses on his head, it was if he had total control over me, I couldn’t look away. Then all my insecurities started rolling around in my head, I don’t have make up on, I am in my pajamas, my hair is a mess, there is no way he is going to be interested in me looking like this. When he shook my hand I think I even trembled in excitement a little. I cannot recall ever having that feeling before when meeting a man.

We exchanged small talk and then the moment I had been praying for in my head came; he asked me for my phone number and gave me his. I couldn’t believe that he would show any interest in any woman that was in my kind of Just Rolled Out Of Bed condition.

 A dark cloud came over in my mind, what if he knew who I was and was just in it to get free crystal, what if he didn’t care what women looked like as long as he could have sex with them, what if he just saw me as a bank account? Such a good looking guy with such confidence surely had wife or girlfriend somewhere so why would he have an interest in me? What are his intentions? Why can’t I just be happy that he is interested and not be so pessimistic?

All of sudden my moment frozen in time was broken by Berenice’s laughter and when I looked over she was laughing at me. The man introduced himself as Jose Luis but informed me that most people just call him Guero. My dorky self told him my name is Rebecca but most people just call me Guera. It was true, however the timing couldn’t have been cheesier. Berenice laughed even harder and I knew it was time tie up this little conversation.

However before I left I told Guero about the baile and invited him. His eyes lit up, like he was surprised that anyone would have wanted to invite him out so quickly. He told me simon (Spanglish slang for yes) and that he would call me later. Finally he gave me my hand back, oh how I wanted him to keep holding it.

When I drove away I could see him standing in the parking lot watching me with his devilish grin, talking to his friend. Berenice finally stopped laughing. I asked her what she was laughing at, “Pendeja that is Jose Luis, I wanted to introduce you to him before but you didn’t want to meet him cabrona”.

Instantly I knew that destiny meant for us to meet, for our paths to cross, for our lives to collide in to each other. Over a course of 6 years we had our ups and downs, good and bad times. In 2011 my luck finally ran out and my house was raided by the police. Luckily I was not there, but Guero was. He told the police that the meth and scales that were in the house were his. As a result he spent 1 year in prison and was deported. On the flip side I was able to continue a life with my children. Soon after Guero was released back into Mexico, I lost my real job. When I told him what happened he asked that I go back to school so that I did not have to return back to the lifestyle that I so luckily survived. He didn’t want me to be like him, to ever go to jail. A few months later I enrolled into school and changed my future forever.

Guero’s real name was Jose Luis Cazarez Avina. He was born December 7, 1974 in Mexicali right on the border of the United States and Mexico, but was raised in Atacheo, Michoacan. Ironically he died July 2, 2013 in the same town he was born leaving behind a daughter, two sons, and many women who truly loved him. He lived a hard and fast life of drugs, alcohol, and women. It was as if he was always running away from some sort of inner demon no one could understand, with an unsatisfiable hunger for something that could not be defined, lost in his own forest of life. Even though he is not here on Earth, I know that he is looking down on me and is proud.