by Danilo Lopez

Created on: May 11, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Chino Morales' Last Stand

"We found him here" the policeman pointed to a spot on the grassy ground besides the road from Managua to Masaya. It was a ditch about ten feet off of the pavement. There were no signs of blood or anything like that.

"The sun, and probably the dogs, erased all traces of him being here" he added almost apologetic. I watched the site pensive. Standing in the open at midday with not one cloud in the sky was making me sweat profusely. I took out my handkerchief from my back pocket and wiped my forehead and neck.

"He wasn't stiff anymore; if it wasn't for the piece of paper in his pocket with your mom's name and phone number on it, we would have sent him to a common grave. We do that all the time with homeless people or youngsters we find in the garbage yards along the lake".

I didn't want him to be that graphic. We went back into the car and headed to the station. I left him there and thanked him again for his help. He rejected my offer to take him to lunch. "No, no, I am on my shift now; but do say hello to you mom, she is a very nice and loving lady. And you dad too."

On my way back I started to piece together what little I knew about my father in law. Long conversations with him while alive, with my wife, her siblings and my mother in law, endowed me with a pretty complete picture of his life and times. I will try to impress them on this paper. Think of it as a kind of homage to a fighter who made the same mistakes that famous people commit all the time, whether in rich or poor countries. Fame and riches are just a momentary fad.

* * *

The barrio is Cosiguina, circa 1920. One of the oldest in the city of Chinandega, Nicaragua (for those who don't know it, this nation, which reached 6 million inhabitants in 2007, is located in the mere center of America, or as we were taught in elementary school geography, Central America, South of Mexico and North of Panama). On one of the back roads was the bar-billiards saloon of La Tajona, The Whip (it should be written tahona, with an H if it was written in good Castilian, but Nicaraguans have made their own language precisely with the purpose of differentiate themselves from the conquerors' tongue, confuse them, mock them).

Mercedes Morales, better known as Kangaroo because of her inclination to beat up drunken customers and the permanent apron with large pockets filled with bills, is the absolute owner and commanding mistress of the locale. No man has conquered her, save Luciano, no last name known, who

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