El Johnny
A notable son of Limpia who went to the games of the Southside teams in the Beer League de West Texas y Southeast New Mexico was Johnny Telles. A vato de aquellas who was friends with everybody, funny but also very arranque. He wasn’t racliento and picked fights, but he’d step up fast to any bronca that came his way.
Johnny’s weak spot was his discoloration. He started out in life with olive skin and brunette hair but then began to sprout white spots and grey hair in his 20’s. By his thirties, he’d wear dark sunglasses to cover up the white spots around his eyes and greyed out eyebrows and eyelashes. By his forties, it was his original complexion had become spots on his albino skin, and people began to stare at him, which made him mad. If you said El Pinto where he could hear you, which the raza did behind his back, you got combate right away.
After a few notorious fights over this slight, including one where he picked up and threw out of the baseball stands a vato who said that slur out loud in the middle of a Dorados game, Johnny did his onda in peace at the baseball games relying solely on his reputation and intimidating swagger.
His onda? Raffling tequila bottles.
“Órale, raza, we’re again raffling a tequila bottle for one bola per ticket,” Johnny announced to a big crowd of fans at the start of a doubleheader in the Southside between the Southside Dorados and Los Internacionales of Alpine.
“Pa’ qué?” an Internacionales fan in the crowd shouted.
“To pistear,” Johnny shouted back as he walked toward the vato.
The vato bought a ticket.
When he’d sold 25 tickets, Johnny walked to home plate between innings followed by a child he’d recruited from the stands to draw the winning ticket from a hat.
“Number 1021,” he announced.
“That’s me, the Internacionales fan shouted.
“Here you go,” Johnny said as he walked to the vato.
“Thanks, ese,” he said to Johnny and put the bottle under the bench where he was sitting.
Johnny didn’t move. The crowd hushed.
“You’re supposed to open and share it, mamón. The whole point of the raffle’s so we can all drink tequila for a dollar a shot,” Johnny said, staring at him through his sunglass.
“That’s communism,” the vato protested.
“Nel. Socialism. We share the bottle and the cost,” Johnny said, now leaning forward in the vato’s face.
The vato winced but relented.
“But first I wanna share with my cuatche here,” he said.
“That’s communism. But órale, us socialist don’t mind,” Johnny said.
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