EL COMPADRE ENAMORADO: CRUISING DOWNTOWN BROWNTOWN

"El Compadre" or "Just The Way I Like Them”

By Juan Montoya

Ricardo and Justino were compadres.

Justino had known Ricardo for almost two decades since Ricardo had moved from Mercedes to make his home in Brownsville, or Browntown as locals called the border city.

They weren't really compadres in the traditional sense of having baptized each other’s children, but after some 20 or more years of friendship and weekend pedas, both considered each other to be as close as friends could be, in other words, compadres de peda.

They had discussed baptizing Ricardo’s daughter Cristina when she was just one year old, but that was blind-sided by a series of mishaps that eventually led to Justino to cool his heels in the county jail for a week.

Justino and Ricardo agreed to be compadres while they sat in Ricardo’s back yard sipping on some beers one Sunday afternoon. Since Justino was not living with a woman at the time, they agreed to ask Julia, Ricardo’s sister-in-law to stand in with Justino as his daughter's madrina, or godmother.

Julia was married to Adan Beto, an old lawyer who sometimes sat in as a judge in the local county courts. When Beto found out that the friends were going to be compadres and that his wife was going to stand in as a comadre with Justino, he took matters into his hands.

Justino had been convicted of a drinking while driving under the influence violation about a year before and was on probation. When a probation revocation hearing was held on Justino’s case for missing an appointment, Beto got his chance.

When Justino appeared to what he thought would be a routine hearing where he would get a chance to argue that he had made up the missed appointment the next day, the affair turned instead into a disaster. Since his lawyer hadn't arrived, he told Beto about the made-up appointment.

“I didn’t ask you to make excuses,” Beto fumed at Justino. “If you don’t comply with the terms of the probation, you go to jail. We'll give your lawyer a chance to speak for you when he gets here, if he gets here."

Justino should have seen it coming. In the case right before his hearing, a clean-cut young man in a suit was ending his two years of probation for writing bad checks. His pretty wife and new baby sat in the benches behind the defendant’s table.

“I have made full restitution in cash to each one of the persons who got the checks,” said the young man. “I don’t even have a checking account any more. I am married now and we just got a new baby. I have learned from my mistake, judge. I have a job and the district attorney has also agreed that probation should be ended by this court.”

“I didn’t agree with anybody about any probation,” shot back Beto from the bench. “Bailiff, put him in a cell.”

The audience sat looking on in stunned silence.

"And I’m next,” thought Justino, looking around to the rear of the courtroom to see if his attorney Luis Chueco had arrived . He was late as usual, and told the court he had a previous hearing at the Federal Court down Harrison Street. Water was still dripping from his hair and he looked as if he were nursing a horrible hangover.

“I only care what happens in this court,” Beto retorted. “I’m going to revoke your client’s probation. Put him in jail, bailiff.”

That effectively cast a wet blanket on the baptism for the would-be compadres. Pleas to Beto that he release Justino fell on deaf ears, The more Justino’s friends and political acquaintances called Beto, the more recalcitrant he became.
“If anyone else comes and talks to me about that case, I’ll increase the sentence,” he told a local county commissioner who interceded in Justin’s behalf. Same with the county judge and sheriff.

And so, Justino cooled his heels for a full two weeks before Beto relented and released him.
From there on, Ricardo and Justino acted as if they were really compadres, even though Cristina was never formally baptized.

One of their favorite pastimes was girl watching as they drove along Elizabeth, the city’s main street Saturday afternoons. Ricardo would slow down as they passed pretty girls on the sidewalk and would tell Justino, “Look compadre, just the way I like them.”

Justino knew his compadre’s likes because he had heard them so often. “Lithe, brown-skinned, with long black hair and brown eyes. That’s the way I like my women, compadre,”Ricardo would tell him.

On one Saturday afternoon, they drove along the city’s main street and doubled back along the neighboring street ogling at the scores of young women dotting the sidewalks. This was way before the pandemic and on Saturdays the border town was crawling with people, many of them residents of neighboring Matamoros, Mexico. The friends then walked into a lounge to get out from under the scorching heat.

It was so hot that the pitch of light posts melted in pools at their base. Justino ached for the summer he had spent working in a salmon cannery in Petersburg, Alaska.

“There sure are a lot of good-looking women out today,” Ricardo told Justino as they sat down at a bar stool. “And...”
“I know. I know. Just the way you like them,” Justino completed his sentence.

The afternoon turned into evening before the friends walked out of the lounge and headed for a club in the city’s seedier side. Not a few of the women at these bars were on the more daring side, and if you played your cards right, something else might happen after closing time.

However, despite his talk, Justino had never seen his friend connect with any of them. Usually, they would often end up driving home after closing time to sleep in their respective homes.

Nonetheless, Ricardo never lacked optimism that he could snag a babe. What he lacked in looks, he feigned in bravado.

“Look compadre, just the way I like them,” he would tell Justino as he elbowed him to get his attention. As the night dragged on, the smoke in the bar soon drove them away from the taverns and they started for home.

Justino was driving that night and he took Ricardo home. As he turned in his friend’s driveway, the front porch door came on. Behind the screen door, he saw Ricardo’s wife standing resolutely in the doorway. She was not a happy camper, and she held something long, round, and menacing in her hands. It was a sight to make grown men cringe. Ricardo reluctantly alighted from his friend’s car.

Justino couldn’t help himself, even if it was his compadre.

“Look compadre, just the way you like them,” he said as he drove away laughing watching the unfolding scene through his rear-view mirror.