By José Dominguez, January 30, 2020 — Having a small business in Ciudad Juarez downtown was very crowded, dangerous, and amazing. Our store was full of shoes, sneakers, baseball caps, T-shirts, underwear, etc. and the front part near the sidewalk was 100% open so the clients could enter or exit at will.
We were surrounded by businesses that offered the same merchandise to the public, so the competition was very hard and sometimes violent. In front of us across the street, there was a small restaurant, a store of electronics, and in the corner an ice cream business. And in front of his lollipop store, there was a newspaper and magazine stand. The person in charge was a small woman, Dolores, who was a hard-working woman. Her husband Pedro was a tall, corpulent, good-for-nothing violent, crazy, drug addict.
One of those days at noon I was speaking very freely with one of my neighbors who happened to own a drugstore and I called him ‘Doctorcito,’ or little doctor. We decided to stand in the street in front of my store to take the sun and [were] joking with no preoccupation at all. Our innocent time ended when Pedro the crazy drug addict crossed the street and walked toward us armed with a big stick. It looked little in his huge hands, but it was 4 feet long and 3 inches wide.
As soon as he arrived, he yelled, “So you think you are very important people because you own a business, I’m going to break your bones just to show you what you are.” The threat was very serious because 2 weeks before I saw how he attacked my friend ‘El Abuelo” with the same stick and now The Abuelo ended up in the hospital.
I was in a panic, but no word came from my mouth and no movement indicated to escape. Suddenly my friend El Doctorcito spoke with a clear and conciliatory voice. “No Pedro, you are not going to hurt us, you know why? Because we are friends, we are equal, everybody is equal to everybody and we live like a family because we are family.” Pedro was waiting for something else and was perplexed about Doctorcito’s speech. He cursed, frustrated, and returned to his corner.
I praised the Doctorcito’s intervention and told him, “If you didn’t intervene for sure we [would] at this time be in the hospital.” We laughed and continued saying jokes.