Zona Norte nights are dark. The alley we were walking was dark and a bit dangerous. Lots of drugs and alcohol. Long smelly walls filled with dirty graffiti.
Young Freddy was relieving himself against the wall when he saw us; quickly zipping up, he turned and while extending his wrist to me said "Grandpa!!!"
He smiled and hugged me. (In Mexico, if your hand is wet or dirty, you extend your wrist.)
Freddy is eleven and weighs about 200 pounds. He’s, well ... he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. A heavy naive kid who bangs around Zona like the big ball in a pin-ball machine.
Everyone knows Freddy.
It hurts his feet to walk so he stands a lot.
To be honest Freddy is unlovely, and because he is unlovely, he’s unloved and ... just maybe a little unlovable.
On the outside he looks like a happy animated clown, laughs a lot. Fortunately he is slow and unaware of those making fun of him.
Or, maybe, by now, he just doesn't care.
"Grandpa, sit next to me while we play this game", Play-station. Soccer. I sat. I watched. "I was his cheer-leader!" I had a chance to study him and his street friends and their strange dark world.
Freddy is just one of hundreds of unloved and worthless kids roaming the night streets of the Zone.
Kids, each night, playing the dangerous game of tag with Satan, the lord of darkness.
Does anyone care about Freddie standing on the corner ... existing the best way an overweight eleven year old can, in the darkness of Zona.
Only eleven years old. And ... alone ... lost.
Spending the night leaning against a darkened wall of cold graffiti, He waits the long night for a friendly face but only the Zona parade of drugged people with blurred eyes pass by.
Sometimes an opportunity comes his way for a little extra cash ... by being used a short time by an inebriated man of passion!
Mother? Father? You're kidding!
Who would want a kid like Freddy?
Does anyone dare love the unlovely ... standing alone in the shadows?
