'Apa is old now, ya esta viejo. He tries not to look it, definately doesn't act it, and positively denies it. Even now, with my sister about to pop her kid, he refuses to be called a 'viejo'. He even gets mad when I say he's a grandfather now. "Que abuelo ni que la chingada," he growls when I say it. "Todavia no nace el huerco chingado, �o s�?"

My father has never really been that for me. Mi 'Ama has carried out all those functions. I'd say ever since my parents split up back when I was four, but for me, it's actually been before. It was always Toty that was closer to him. Always, I lingered by my mother's side. That's why I'm most like her, I believe. But I'm going off track.

'Apa disappeared from my life from the age of four to about the age of nine. When he reappeared, he was a wreck of a human being, a distorted ghost of the man he used to be. He was head of the church choir back then, and a prominent lecturer. He formed a group of men from church that helped out the community, gave out food for the needy. When I met him again, he had already been to jail three times in those five years of absence. He was an alchoholic, living where he could, no permanent job, sometimes sleeping outside in allyways or on park benches. He used to be a carpenter; he could build houses from the ground up, and made designer furniture worth a nice bundle. I still have an old wardrobe he made when I was born. It's 21 years old and still sturdy as a rooted tree. One of the drawers broke when we moved to this new house, though, about three years ago. But it's a minor thing, nothing that he couldn't have fixed back then, and even now. He's lost none of his skill. Only his strength.

'Ama was furious at his return in such a deplorable state, but she never objected to him seeing my sister and me. He would promise us so many things in those years, so long ago... and he never failed to disappoint. Those were very troublesome years for my family, especially for my sister, Dud, Totita linda. She always was closest to him when he still lived with us. She couldn't help but blame him for all the troubles and hardships we'd gone through all those years without him. We, too, had gone down in satus in our old neighborhood. We were bastards now, fatherless scum. 'Ama had to work in whatever she could, sometimes taking long walks with a neighbor and scourging dumpsters for suitable clothing, maybe a toy or two. I never knew designer clothing, and came to loathe it. I still do, even now that I can afford it and could get some, if I wanted to. We eventually had to move out of the tiny three-room shack that had been all I had known of home since infancy and began to live in government housing complexes. Toty became rebellious, lashing out at me and 'Ama for no particular reason as she entered into troubled adolescence. She even tried to strangle me, once, pinning me against the refrigerator, tears of confusion, pain and fury streaming down her pretty face. Over a bunch of dirty dishes. I remember it well. I could see the sorrow in her eyes, knew she didn't mean it, even as I fought for breath, and I didn't fight her. I could've knocked her out of my way with one fist, but I've never been one to resort to violence. I loathe that as well. I just let her strangle me and vent, panting and crying until she let me go at last, and told me to go to my room and leave her alone. She didn't want to see me, she said. But I know she meant she didn't want to see him, my father. I've always looked like his side of the family. Poor Dud struggled with her poisonous anger for years, eventually succumbing to bulemia. She told me once that she wasn't sure where it started, when it was that she decided that throwing up her food was a good way to nurse her soul, but I think it came about from one time 'Apa came over to see us, half-drunk, with some Church's chicken. Toty didn't want to see him, didn't want to eat anything that came from him, but 'Ama made her do it, and by the end of the evening, there was an arguement, as usual. Toty stomped upstairs to the bathroom, and then came down looking a lot happier. There was no more arguing, and when my father had staggered out and home, she told me, with a mischievious grin but a sad pallor in her eyes, that she'd thrown up her food without 'Ama knowing. She had learned to purge herself from our father. And I don't think she stopped ever since. There have been times, even, when she calls me over the phone, especially when she argues with her husband or when he was gone oversees and she felt homesick for the Valley where she grew up - she calls me and tells me how much she wants to go into her bathroom and puke. But she's fighting it. She's a beautiful girl, a good girl, and I couldn't have asked for a better sister, or a better friend. For even as she strangled me she loved me, and I embrace that moment wholly, and hold no grudges.

Dud finally came to speaking terms with 'Apa when she was 17, and came back from Basic Training for the National Guard. I don't know of all the things that happened over there, for she wouldn't go into detail. But she said it was a real eye-opener for her, and so she decided to give our father another chance. [I had resolved I would write about my father tonight, and I notice it it mostly about my sister. But people don't understand. It is impossible to speak fully about one without mentioning the other.] Their relationship has been rocky ever since, with 'Apa screwing up just when he's fixed so much to make up for his past, and then Dud struggling for months with herself and her vomit and anger before allowing him another chance. She was even dubious as to whether to let him meet and be around her baby, who's yet to be born.

My relationship with my father, however, has been wholly different. To me, my mother is, and will always be, my father. I take her out to eat both in May and in June. Don't get me wrong, I do love Pifas, but it's just not the same. He is a... no, not a stranger to me, not in the entire sense anyway, but there is very little that I know of him, I feel. And that's still a lot more than anyone else knows of him, I'm sure. For I even know my father better than my mother does, or did, at one point in her life. 'Apa trusts me for some reason I can't explain, that I don't think he can explain himself. He lets me in on his 'Negocio', his self-made employment. See, my dad's a narc. On a smaller scale, but yes, I feel he's a narc. No, he doesn't sell drugs. Not yet, and not the illegal ones, anyway. But he has set up his own cantina inside his house, an illegal bar where he has his own select clients. His house has been shot up before. He's also been to jail a couple a more times since he came back into my life twelve years ago. This last time, I'm the one who went to bail his ass out.

I'm the only person who knows where in the house my dad keeps his money. And believe me, he's got money. Cash. He doesn't believe in credit bullshit. According to financial government records, he doesn't exist. Trust me, I've checked. I've worked in a collection agency before and I had the resources to look him up at my fingertips. His name don't pop up on any records. He's dead, he's invisible, he doesn't exist.

I know most of my dad's clients. I know who owes him money, I know where they live and how to get them to pay their dues. Whenever my dad owes anything, I know who he owes, how much and so forth. I know how he works with the local police to catch petty theives around the area so they'll turn a blind eye on his 'negocio'. My father's got contacts all over the place, from lawyers to police to the very theives he turns in. Drunks, homeless people, mechanics, store owners, electricians, plumbers, you name it, my dad knows someone in almost every branch of career. And most of those he knows, I know as well, for he takes me along for the ride. Yes, I do say this a bit proudly, and shamefully at the same time. Dud jokes around that when 'Apa dies, I'm gonna inherit the 'family business'. But I don't like to think about his death. It's gonna come too soon for me, and I don't know if I'm ready to face it.

Because I don't hate my father, the same way I don't hate my sister. I hold no grudges, didn't I say? Not when it comes to family. La familia, la sangre, siempre viene primero. Someone's gotta fuck up big time for me to kick 'em outta my blood. If you're family, I'll put up with you as much as I can, and I'll forgive over and over and over again. Because 'Ama and I, we're alone here in this country. All the blood family's in Mexico, same with 'Apa. In fact, my mother and father are my only blood relatives in this damn city. Dud's far away in Virgina, 'Ama's got a sister in Houston, and I'm pretty sure I've got some cousins somewhere in Dallas. Still, it's too far away. My mother and father are all I've got. My mom may be proud to a fault, y mi 'Apa puede ser cabr�n, but they're still my only family here. 'Ama's always told me, because of this, that family's the most important thing there is in this world. Yes, more important than love. That's why, I think, despite all the shit he's done, Dud still calls dad to see how he's doing, why she's letting that drunk old man near her baby when that baby's born, why 'Ama lets 'Apa have a copy of the key to our house, why he worries over my mother and I when we get ill, why he buys the groceries, why the three of us just sat around the table less than an hour ago to share a meal.