Chongo And The Squirrel(A History Lesson)

Everyone in my little universe has not-so-secret code names. It's just something I have done ever since I was a little kid, writing stories about my family and the people that surrounded me as my mind began to take shape. Most of these code names are easily deciphered, but that's just how it goes 'round here.

This is a little history lesson, a story about some of the events and people that led to my homelessness, and some of the retardery that transpired in that period of my life.

I hope you enjoy it…


I used to work at this family-run Euro-deli type place back in Phoenix. They'd been around forever, and at one point had multiple locations throughout the city. A garnish friend of mine had landed me the gig, as a sandwich maker/delivery driver. This was after I had been laid off from some other job managing a deli that had been sold. I was in my early twenties, just out of the service. I was renting a really secluded apartment for an obscenely low amount of money, so working for a shitty wage was totally acceptable at that point in my life. The relationship I had just been in had crashed and burned, with my girlfriend moving out to live with a mutual friend of ours.

She even took the cats.

The day she left was the day I met Chongo. I was working, and he had come to our joint to help out, since we were short-staffed for some reason. He worked at the smaller version of the store, in a building downtown. I was out back sneaking an unauthorized smoke-break, when he rolled up on me. He asked me for a smoke and I reluctantly gave him one. He looked totally ridiculous – he had a bandana/doo-rag thing on his head that was trying desperately to cover up some ill-fated attempt at cornrows (Mexicans should never try to put their hair in cornrows, they end up looking rat-tastical). I tried really hard not to start laughing at him, but I ended up cracking a smile and semi-snorting at him.


He sorta looked like this, but not really.


Once back inside, I kept on trying to call my apartment, to talk to my still-girlfriend, but the phone just rang and rang and rang. Chongo noticed a dour look on my face and asked me if everything was "cool". I told him I knew she had moved out, since she must have taken the motherfucking answering machine with her. It was his turn to laugh at me now.

From that point on, we pretty much became inseparable.


Like motherfucking Tenspeed and Brownshoe, bitches.

I always knew Chongo was a little off. Late at night he would always talk about seeing some magical "Black and White Lady" if he closed one eye and stared at the ceiling in a certain way. He had this habit of constantly bouncing his head to some beat only he heard in his head – as if he suffered from some hybrid form of autism that allowed him to put on the air of being semi-normal. He would burst into fits of really loud and nasal laughter whenever he felt intellectually threatened by anyone. He also had a habit of exaggerating and lying, which I felt a lot of empathy for since my entire childhood was all about that. Some of them were pretty entertaining, while others would careen out of control and have a life of their own, leaving a path of destruction in their wake.

One night, pretty close to the beginning of our friendship, Chongo showed up at my house around midnight. I was already reallyfuckinghigh, and kind of lying on the floor, lost in thought/lamentation about my former relationship. He had this great idea to cheer me up – he had decided to take me to the strip club. Once outside, I noticed he was driving a mini-van that seemed a bit beat up and haggard. I asked him where he got it, and he said "my family went out of town, so I get to use the van". I didn't really think anything of it, until we got pulled over by the police five blocks from my apartment. They asked us to get out of the van with our hands in the air, and they had their guns drawn. It was then that I noticed the steering column was shattered and Chongo had a small screwdriver wedged into the ignition.


It looked sorta like this, but not really.

This would not be the last time that I felt like I was going to end up in prison hanging out with this motherfucker.

The police established pretty quickly that the van did indeed belong to his parents. He had taken it, without their permission, and they had reported it stolen. His father (who in my opinion was one of the coolest people I have ever met) drove over in their other car, and told the police it was some kind of "misunderstanding", and that they should let us go. After some bantering back and forth between them, that is exactly what they did. Chongo's father gave him a cold stare for a minute, and then got into his car and drove off without saying a word to his son.

Of course, we continued on our journey to the strip club, and it did cheer me up a bit.


I never negotiate with terrorists.

In the beginning, there were lots of little red flags flying about this kid I had befriended. The Euro-deli we worked for got robbed one afternoon, while we were all working. This was after the other location he had originally been working at had been hit three days earlier. Both times he had some kooky alibi that let him worm out of the spotlight of suspicion. Things were always showing up missing in my house – CDs, clothes, and sometimes my marijuana would all disappear into thin air. The only thing that was constant was his presence, and his overall air of benevolent weirdness. I was pretty sure he was not only guilty of these things, but also the craziest person I had ever known. He never used the front door; he opted to always come into my apartment unannounced, usually through a window.

A lot of strange things went down in those hazy summer days. I was high all the time, and I was pretty lonely from my break-up. No matter how much weird shit followed Chongo around, I still managed to justify my friendship with him. Even though he was bizarre he was pretty goddamn loyal. Maybe his loyalty was his way of making up for his stupid behavioral bullshit, I'm not really sure. But what I am sure of, is that years later my friendship with this kid was a catalyst for my spiral down into homelessness and uncertainty.

There was a three year period where I removed myself from my friendship with Chongo. He had slipped pretty deeply into some odd psychosis; one where he began to draw pictures on his face, telling people they were "angelic freedom writing ". He also began to wear nothing but white clothing, usually flowing robe-like stuff. He was dating a girl at the time that I called The Tiny Dancer, and there was an incident one early morning that was the last straw for me.


What kind of kook paints pictures on his fucking face*?!?!

Around the time the sun was starting to make its way up and into view, there was a pounding on my front door. When I got to the door, The Tiny Dancer was there, fuming and crying. She was begging me to let her in, screaming between sobs about something horrible Chongo had done to her. Upon letting her in (and pissing off the girl that was staying with me at the time), she unloaded this ridiculous story, about how he had confessed to her (post-coital) that he had slept with a one-legged prostitute earlier on in the evening. The poor girl was trembling and sobbing, asking me if I knew about this part of his personality, if this was something he did all the time. Of course, being the honest cat that I am, I had to tell her the truth, and tell her that I had known about Chongo's predilection for hookers. He loved them, and this was something he had been doing for quite some time.


*The same kind of kook who fucks one-legged hookers - that's who!

That was the last I saw of The Tiny Dancer.

He showed up at my door later on that afternoon, banging on it and screaming my name at the top of his lungs. I let him bang and scream for a while, because I'd already made it known to him earlier that I needed for him to take some steps to help himself in order for me to keep being friends with him. I had told him that getting some kind of professional help was not only in his best interests, but everyone's around him as well.

When I opened the door, he was wearing those crazy white and flowing robes, looking more and more like some zoned-out disciple of a charlatan Swami than the goofy Mexican kid that I knew. He just stood there staring at me, like he wanted to say something. I reminded him that I already told him he needed help, and that I just couldn't help him anymore. That's when Chongo really bugged the fuck on out. He just stood there, eyes huge and watering, screaming at the top of his lungs "TATANKA!!! TATANKA!!! YOU AND I ARE FRIENDS!!! TATANKA!!!"


He called the man's name three times - like you didn't think he would arrive?

I kind of stood there, baffled, shocked, and a little bit terrified. I mean – if his only way to relate and communicate with me was through some retarded Kevin Costner movie, obviously it was time to close the door, both in reality and figuratively.

So I did. I didn't see him for almost three years after that. I heard stories relayed through people who knew the both of us. At one point he was renting a dilapidated storefront in a seedy part of downtown Phoenix, leaving the doors unlocked so that the transsexual Navajo hookers that worked the area had a place to go and hang out (supposedly they were giving him freebies). He also continued drawing the "angelic freedom writing" pictures on his face, and told people he was an Aztec Warrior. He bought a rickshaw, and spent his evenings running people from bar to bar all over downtown Phoenix. None of it surprised me, as I was quite sure he was capable of doing anything he wanted to do. Somewhere inside my head, I kept on hoping that he was getting something out of all of this, or at least getting a small bit of help from somewhere.

I ran into him again, right before he embarked on a journey he thought might free him. And when he came back, for some reason I decided to let him back in. I realized that shunning him the way I had, probably fucked up his ability to trust people. And on top of that, I couldn't help it. I really wanted to help the crazy motherfucker. His family had pretty much cut his monkey ass off for good, and I knew what that felt like.

I never thought that my empathy would end up leading me to Los Olivos Park.

Chongo had at one point moved up to Portland, deciding that he was going to be a famous artist, and doing so in the cradle of the Rose City was his best shot. He had moved up there with his girlfriend, a seventeen-year-old kleptomaniac that I called "The Squirrel", for her ability to store so many ill-gotten spoils on her person. She was a butcher of the English language, a product of a meth-addled biker father who blamed America's downfall on "them Nip bastards". Things had not gone well for them up in Portland, as they came running back to Phoenix (and eventually - my apartment) within three months' time. They looked horrible, like they had been victims of some medical experiments gone awry.


Sorta like this, but not really.

The only thing that was truly haywire was themselves.

These two lovebirds thought of themselves as some kind of sick and twisted Bonnie and Clyde petty crime team. They couldn't go anywhere without jacking something, anything. They stole from stores. From people they knew. From random people who were sitting around aimlessly, not paying attention. They would steal from little old ladies if they had something The Squirrel coveted. Hell, she even got herself a job at a clothing boutique just so she could steal fucking clothes. Half the shit they'd steal, they'd try to take it back to stores they stole from, claiming they had lost their receipt. Most of the time this worked, since The Squirrel certainly looked like an innocent seventeen-year-old. Once a store got wise to them, they'd move on to a new target and milk it for all it was worth to them.

You might be asking yourself what was I doing while all of this was going on, right?


Pretty much this, yes.

I was just observing. Paying attention to the things they were too high to notice. Because stealing - just like lying, gets you fucking high as hell. I'd witnessed the rush come over them so many times. I could feel them buzzing and vibrating like a cheap motel-room bed after they'd scored. Chongo and I would rap at great length late at night while The Squirrel would be crashed out, clutching whatever high-ticket item she'd snatched that day as if it were her childhood teddy bear. We'd talk about the immoral nature of what they were up to, and about how I wanted no part in any kind of thievery – my karma was already fucked enough in my opinion. He'd just nod his head, because he knew there was no way I was going to steal. Half the time, whenever they tried to give me something they had stolen, I'd just give them the blank stare.

I might be a lot of things, but a thief is not one of them.

Chongo and The Squirrel ended up living with me, after they had an incident with some crazed crackhead they were letting sleep on their floor. Supposedly he had threatened their lives, and they decided they would be better off hiding out in my crib with me. I was in a rough spot anyway, about to be evicted because I couldn't pay my rent. I had given up my job to try and help my father and his wife get sober, and they had just moved to Santa Fe. I was living in an apartment complex that my father used to run for this old man named Walter, and I was able to slip by for a bit without getting booted. I was pretty low-key, and nobody really noticed my comings and goings.

Well, that's how it was until Chongo decided to start selling weed out of my apartment.

All kinds of mouth-breathers were showing up at my door. Some of Phoenix's finest dolts would inexplicably find their way to my apartment at all hours of the day and night. Half the time I was the only one home, trying to write in the little bits of solitude I could find. Whenever one of these morons would come to the door, I would let them know never to come back, or else I was going to beat them to death and take their money. Most of them never came back, and Chongo couldn't understand what had happened to his business. I reminded him that it would be better for all involved if he started slinging his wares away from the apartment, because all of the needless attention was bringing us closer to the inevitable eviction process. It also didn't help that on any given night he would bring back a crew of ten to fifteen kids in their early twenties to watch movies and hang out. Some of these kids have ended up being some of my closest friends on the planet, but at the time I wanted them all to die fiery deaths in single-car accidents.

I ended up finding a way out of the situation, albeit a temporary one. A friend of my sister had just got divorced, and needed someone to help her with her son. She offered me free room and board in exchange for being a "manny". I had a decent sized guesthouse all to myself, and it was in a pretty isolated part of town. I packed up my cat and hit the road.


Sorta like this, but not really - I ain't no fucking hippie, man.

I had no idea that this part was going to be just as fucking insane and unpredictable as it was having Chongo and The Squirrel living with me. They went to live with her aforementioned gem of a father, about ten miles away. On an almost nightly basis, Chongo would get on his stolen BMX bike and pedal his monkey ass over to my hut, to get high and wax philosophical about some crazy art gallery he wanted to open. We both knew my situation living where I was had an expiration date that was fast approaching, because my sister's friend had this ridiculously jealous boyfriend who felt threatened by my mere presence there. He took every chance he had to try and intimidate me or make me feel uncomfortable with the situation, always running his mouth and talking shit. Most of the time I would just laugh at him, and go back into my little hut/house in the back.

One night I'd had enough, and just broke that motherfucker's jaw. I left the next day.


TOTALLY like this, because that's how a motherfucker like me rolls.

Chongo and The Squirrel had been working an angle to try and get us all an apartment in a historic building in the downtown arts district, The Westminster. We moved in there after a week of couch surfing. The apartment was huge. There was plenty of room for the three of us, and I was actually going to be able to have a bit of privacy. The plan was that I would get a job at one of the restaurants downtown, and pay a third of everything. I was excited, because it seemed like things might finally settle down for me, and ultimately for all three of us. Chongo and I spent a lot of time planning and plotting on the top of what was then called Squaw Peak (changed to Piestewa Peak after a female Native American soldier killed in an ambush in the beginning of the Iraq War). We would climb the mountain daily, and sit on the State Seal of Arizona either passing a joint back and forth, talking about the future, and how we were going to get our collective shit together.


This is the view from Squaw Peak - we were usually waaaaaaaay HIGHER than that hippie and his mom.

All those plans came crashing down when Chongo slipped one past the goalie.

When he told me he had impregnated The Squirrel I was terrified. How could she possibly raise a child when she said things like "vo-lump-two-us", and "furr-gina"? I was sure the kid would always have stolen designer clothing to wear, I knew that much for sure. Everything else was too fucking unpredictable, and it seemed to me as if The Squirrel was starting to get a little bit too big for her britches. She was snapping at everyone around her, and even began barking these mad crazy orders at Chongo and myself. She had even begun to get some of the girls who hung around to start doing her stealing for her, because she told them "I'm gonna be a mommy and mommy's do not go to jail".

There was one night that I came home a little late from playing an acoustic set at a coffeehouse. When I came into the apartment, The Squirrel was sitting on the couch with one of her mouth-breather friends. Out of nowhere, she started yelling at me, telling me shit like "you're pathetic and everyone hates you and your gee-tar playing – you need to get out of my house". I kind of laughed her off until she started throwing dishes from the kitchen at me as I walked through the living room. I figured she was having some kind of power trip thing go on, because she wanted to impress her friend, or maybe her hormones were bugging out on her. I decided that I would just step out of the situation, and go for a walk.


She looked sorta like this, but not really.

It seemed at the time like the smart and rational thing to do.

When I got back an hour or so later, I was locked the fuck on out. All the lights were off, and all the doors were locked down. The only key I had was to the back door, and there was a brand-spanking-new deadbolt put into the door that I had never seen before. I tried to call Chongo's cell, but it went straight to voicemail. I wasn't pissed (yet), so I walked to an all-night diner and just hung around drinking coffee and scribbling on napkins. None of my calls were being returned, and everyone that we knew was just shrugging their shoulders at me when I would ask them if they'd seen the two of them.

After about four days of this, I realized I was now homeless.

And that, is another tale entirely.


And if you behave yourself, I might tell some more, you lovely motherfuckers.