Oral History: My Brother

Ivan Flores is my older brother. He is a brother, a son and a father of two. Spent his first couple of years in Mexico, but was born and raised in Chicago. After dropping out college a while back he is currently taking online courses. Loves being a father, also enjoys consuming large amounts of alcohol. Ironically we are in our parents’ house drinking beers before going to a Cubs game where we will more than likely drink more beers. My brother and I are very similar in some ways and yet so different in others.

I really don’t remember spending like two years in Mexico, but we have always laughed about that’s where I learned to love spicy food and hot peppers. I remember you would hate anything spicy, but I was going around eating everything because they taught me or forced me at a young age to eat the stuff. I don’t know if I’m glad I came back though. I love Mexican culture, food, clothes, music; it’s in my blood. However, I also know that we got it good here in the States, because life can get pretty tough out there. Especially these days, our uncle owned that butcher shop as far back as I can remember now he wants to close it down and come over here, for what? To get some crappy job with some crappy pay? It’s a damn shame. The war? The way I see it, if they want to hurt us and this country my two kids will gorw up in then kill them all. The bad guys that is. Kill them before they kill us. Since you, my brother, went to war you know I will never speak one bad word about it. What needs to be done needs to be done. War is fucked up, but necessary sometimes and I'm glad you came back in one piece. Thinking about that makes me want to drink some more. It seems as though drinking is a big part of everyone's life. What do people do for fun? What do people do to relax? What do people do when they go out dancing or while they watch the game? Drinking its everywhere and I fucking love it. I know damn well you do too. I do regret times where I drank way too much and acted a fool, but what am I supposed to do, stop drinking? Yeah right, don’t hold your breath. Hey I’m trying, I have a job, I take care of my kids, and I’m now trying to go back to this school thing. If I want to get drunk, you better believe I am. Yeah we grew up poor and in bad neighborhoods, but thank god our parents tried their hardest to keep us doing good. I mean I know we fuck up, but without them we could've ended up reald bad. I remember they would allow us to only hang out in our alley, and not any farther. What they didn't know was that our back alley supplied everything we needed even at a young age. Girls, alcohol, drugs, fights, and all that fun stuff. I mean we didn't spend all our time getting wasted just most (laughs). We put a crate up on the light pole to play basketball, we would put two garbage cans at each end to mark as goals for soccer, and you remember we loved our football. Then we had the bad games we made up. Catch and kill where we beat the crap out of each other. Then side wars, which was pretty much training us for the gangster life. Ah the good old days, right? My kids, damn I love my kids. If it weren’t for them, my life would really have no meaning or purpose. God knows what kind of shit I would be in if I didn’t have my little boy and girl. My name is Ivan Flores, I was born and raised in this city, and I’ve been there and done that. Whether you like it or not, I really don’t care. Oral history? Man I hope you get in trouble for this shit.