MY UNCLE CHECO

by Miguel Matias

One cold winter day in December, I was playing my uncle. I was about 9 years old and my uncle was 17 years old. He was a big guy, he was bold and kind of chubby, and he had dark brown eyes.

He was playing with me in the snow. We were throwing snowballs at each other; it was fun because when I was with my uncle, we always used to have fun together. Suddenly, a black car full of gang bangers passed. The guy that was driving looked like a grown man and his friends were in the passenger’s side and in the back. They yelled at my uncle, they cursed at him. When my uncle heard them, he threw a snowball right at the car.  The guy that was driving said he will be back and supposedly he was going to kill my uncle.

“I’ll be back for you Checo, just watch. You think you’re so tough huh?  Okay, just wait for I’ll be back.” 

When he threw the snowball, the guys were too scared to get out of the car because they had no knives, guns, bats, or other dangerous weapons. If they had had any weapons, they would have gotten out of the car in a hurry. They just screamed out that they would be back to get back at my uncle.

It was night and my uncle was still out in front of his friend’s house. His friend lived just a couple of houses away from my uncle and I lived. My uncle was still waiting for the guys to come because my uncle was tough he didn’t take anything from anybody.  I was outside of my house sitting quietly on my stairs, my arms crossed across my chest, moving my legs from side to side, when I heard gunshots and people running to the scene.  They were crying a lot. I got up and ran to the scene from my house.

When I got there, my uncle was shot and I started crying.  I knew right there my uncle was gone forever.