A few nights ago, el Venado IM’ed me frantically claiming he had heard a loud pop downstairs in his apartment. It wasn’t just a pop, but something that sounded like a gunshot, and it was nearby. I first I dismissed it. After all, el Venado and his roommates live in East LA and gunshots are regularly heard there. However, then things got more serious and I kept getting worried since el Venado would only give me updates in intervals of several minutes. I didn’t know if he was alive or had been shot by some cholos trying to break in and steal his PlayStation. En serio. But then, things turned from scary and intense to downright silly.
El Venado’s roomate, el Pocho (pictured to the left), has recounted the story below. He sent it out to a group of mutual friends. I can imagine the literal “LOL’s” as they read this in their offices at work. I have the IM conversation saved too. It’s quite hilarious as well. I wrote a short piece at blogging.la, but it it’s not nearly as entertaining as el Pocho or la Guera’s (the third roommate) account.
The Naco Who Cried Wolf (based on a true story)
by el PochoIt was late last night [Tuesday evening], or early this morning (12:30am) and I was deep asleep, when my slumber was suddenly interrupted by a loud knocking on my bedroom door. The voice behind the door was muffled, and after a few attempts I understood what was being communicated to me. It was el Venado, and he whispered nervously “Pocho, you have to get up!!!! Someone is breaking into our apartment!!!!” There is no better way of getting my ass out of bed from a deep sleep than the threat of being shot at or stabbed, so I quickly ran to the door and opened it, where I found el Venado standing.
El Venado was visibly scared, so I asked him what he heard. He told me that he heard something that sounded like someone broke the sliding door downstairs. After a few minutes, I reluctantly went downstairs with el Venado to check out the situation (honestly, I would rather close my eyes and pray the Ave Maria ten times and make it go away). We were going downstairs to get a knife from the kitchen, when from our living room we heard a loud popping sound that seemed to come from our back patio. We did the only thing we could do in this situation… we ran as fast as we could upstairs, turned off the lights, and locked our doors. El Venado implored, “Call the police. My cell phone is downstairs.” Being the paranoid fuck that I am, that is exactly what I did.
Since I told the police that I thought I heard gunshots downstairs (well, that is what el Venado supposedly heard), they were in front of our apartment in less than 5 minutes!!! We barely had time to wake la Guera up and let her know what was happening. I received the phone call that the police were downstairs and to meet them down there. I opened the door and ran as fast as I could to the pigs for help (and I hate to admit this). There were like 10 of them with their guns drawn with that little red light that shows where they are aiming. They went to our back patio and the hills in the back to check out the situation, and in the process waking up all our neighbors and causing a scene. After scoping the place, they left when they did not find a single threat, with our neighbors puzzled at the ruckus that woke them up.
El Venado and I came back to the apartment, feeling somewhat relieved. Then, when we were about to go back to sleep and turn off the lights, we heard a loud popping sound again. With a sense of confidence, el Venado surveyed the back patio from behind the shutters. After not finding anything, he decided to get a drink from the fridge. And what does he happen to find inside the fridge?
The frozen 2 liter bottle of Diet Rite that he put in the refrigerator before he went to sleep, shattered, having exploded into different pieces. It was like a bomb went off in our fridge. El Venado started cracking up knowing that he had found the culprit and he turn to me and said “Case Closed!!!!” I felt like kicking his ass for having woken me up and scaring the shit out of me, as well as waking up la Guera and half our block, having guns drawn practically on us, etc…
I have never felt like such a stoner (from the paranoia that I suffered as a result of a Diet Rite) despite being sober.
What a Naco!!!!
Lesson to be learned? Soda is bad for you.
Great, great story. I could almost see these guys in the dark peeking downstairs (praying las Ave Marias Purisimas) hoping that it was all just a bottle of Diet Rite in the fridge.
I invision the guys all huddled close by arguing about who should go to the window and peek down below at the patio…
“No, I went last time, you go!”
LOL – too funny…
LOL. This story is too funny, I am in tears over here.
Btw, on the serious side, word of advice, I am a strong believer that every honest and decent person that lives in the hood should own a gun. As the old saying goes, “I’d rather have a gun and not need it, than need a gun and not have it”. When I was in Compton, it was just me, my mom and my lil sister, so I had my own personal gun since the age of 14. I was so responsible with it that my mom didn’t find out about it until I was 16, and even than, she let me keep it, as long as I kept it unloaded (as I always did), and the bullets in a different drawer.
Seriously, having a gun by your side is a great way of keeping you calm and protected, atleast until the police arrive, which, atleast in Compton, could be anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours.
This story is too funny. It reminds me of my old neighborhood, too. There were always some form of drive by’s and shootings. Very good reason for suburb kids to stay in the burbs. JAJAJAJAJA!
This is what happens when suburban Xicanos gain their “Xicano experience” in college. Not to mention when good suburban boys try to be “down” by moving back to the “hood.” The gentrification of East LA is now official and self imposed. My tia just sold her house in City Terrace, where gunshots were a common experience, to similar types of Xicanas. On the one hand at least it wasn’t some gueros (see Echo Park). On the other hand, she told me “I don’t know why they paid so much, but I was glad to get out of there. I never have to hear the cholos fighting again.” She now lives a comfortable middle class existence in Rancho Cucamonga.
lol..it would be even funnier if El Venado had a gun and started shooting the fridge thinking that the culprit was inside.
Too funny. That crazy Panamanian! Oh and HP: How funny would this story have been if Roomate 1 heard the blast and popped a cap in roomate 2? And how funny would it have been if Cops showed up and saw two brown brothers with a gun, and asked questions later?
LOL! Too funny! Omg, that’s hilarious!
That’s why I stick with diet soda.
They still make Diet Rite?
EMC,
I can see el Pocho and el Venado telling this to their grandkids several years down the road. The kids will be laughing at their abuelitos, but they’ll love it.
Joel,
I have a great picture of both of them that would have gone perfectly with this post. However, I’m too paranoid about el Venado and his privacy so I had to leave it out.
Julissa,
It’s even funnier when you’ve known everyone who lives in the apartment for 7 years and can imagine their expressions through all kinds of situations.
HP,
Okay, since when were you ever an “honest and decent person”? Really. Is there something else you want to tell us about your past?
Santiago,
I’ve never been in that kind of neighborhood. It’s a really good thing this didn’t happen on a weekend, or else I would have been caught up in the whole mess. I would have hidden in the closet like the chicken I am.
El Grito,
I’ve had the gentrification discussion with el Venado before. It’s odd because he sent me a link to a story about new developments in Boyle Heights (the old Sears Tower) that will be targeted to people like us, college-educated professionals. Yet, we’re still brown. Anyway, I tell him he’s part of the problem because his household income (3 young professionals) is way over the Boyle Heights mean.
Gustavo,
Nah, I don’t really see him doing that.
Nebur,
I bet it was Panamanian side that forgot about the Diet Rite. Hehe.
CAD,
It’s really hilarious after the fact. I’m not sure I was laughing as he was giving me updates over AIM.
Pedro,
It was the diet soda that caused the loud ass pop/explosion! All soda is bad!
Oso,
Apparently. I didn’t even know such a thing existed.
Nebur,
How funny would this story have been if Roomate 1 heard the blast and popped a cap in roomate 2? And how funny would it have been if Cops showed up and saw two brown brothers with a gun, and asked questions later?
This is a response I have always had a hard time understanding. After all, I could also respond in kind and give an alternate scenario, for example, ‘how funny would it have been if the situation turned out to be just as they expected, and someone was trying to rob their house and cause them harm’.
You see, the only difference between your scenario and my alternate one is that to protect myself from your scenario depends on me, yet, to protect myself from my alternate scenario depends on others. Given those options, and the high stakes involved (quite possibly my life, and that of my family), I would always rather depend on myself, than on others. Add to this the overwhelming fact that my scenario is much more probable in bad neighborhoods than yours, and it’s an easy choice.
Gangsters, drug addicts, home invasion robbers, rapists, and everyday criminals will always have guns; the only thing that good decent citizens accomplish in not owning guns themselves is giving them an even bigger advantage. Refusing to own a gun may be a viable option in San Francisco, but it could be the difference between life and death in the everyday streets of Compton, and hoods throughout LA.
My scenario’s dad can beat up your scenario’s dad.
Oh, your right. for some reason I thought I read something else! funny story though.
Suddenly NYC doesn’t look too bad… We didn’t even make it into the 10 worst cities (crime wise) in the U.S.
The story was funny as hell, and thank goodness it was only the soda.
crazy! that shit is hard to clean up, bueno, pa que se les quite lo …….
a very funny story!!!!
c/s
that is funny. but perhaps just owning a baseball bat to swing with is safer than hp’s suggestion. pepper spray works wonders too.
It all depends on ones comfort level and the odds they like to have. Pepper spray and especially bats, have large shortcomings compared to guns.
Besides, were not talking about good decent children here, were talking about good decent adults. I could count many instances of family after family on my block that owned a gun (families with kids, families with all females, etc), and not one of them had an ‘accident’ because of the gun, on the other hand, I know of instances where crime (and possibly worse) was prevented because the families had guns, and a story or two about how crime was not prevented because the family did not own a gun.
In other words, had every family owned a gun, everybody (but the criminals) would have been better off.
hey cindylu! oh my gosh, this story was so funny, I started laughing out loud at work, and my co-worker just looks at me like what? then i told her and she started laughing too! hahaha, tell el venado that his story made me laugh!!!
Well, i hope you’re doing well, and have a good break!
*diana*