Alejo was born in
Columbia some time in 1964, the exact date is not known, there being no record.
Although those who believe in astrology will forever be in the dark, they likely
would be in agreement that he was born under a good sign.
Some people don't believe in luck, it being just a matter of taking advantage
of one's opportunities when they come. Sure, sometimes the ball bounces one's
way on occasion, but over time good and bad fortune is something that should even out. Alejo is
someone who lives far outside that bell curve.
He has lived in California for 20 years, settled into a comfortable
life with his first child recently arriving. Although he works sporadically
himself, his wife -- 10 years his junior -- has a successful career with a salary
that approaches six figures.
It is a far cry from what his life appeared destined to be at birth.
When he emerged into the world, he was blind, had six fingers on one hand and
both his feet were deformed, pointing essentially backwards from the ankles. He
would tell people years later that he had been diagnosed with polio. He was left at an
orphanage, presumably with little future if he was to survive at all.
His first bit of good fortune started at age one-and-a-half when he was adopted by a Peace Corps family, more at the behest
of the wife who recently had lost a sickly child born to spina bifida. She had
been told by a doctor that Alejo could be cured and it may have been that she was
trying to rectify her loss. It turned out the blindness was the easiest problem
to fix, it being due to malnutrition, a not uncommon ailment in that part of the
world. The extra digit was removed by surgery with no complications. The feet,
by far the greatest challenge, also were restored to some normality, leaving
just two toes on his left foot crossing each other. It took several operations
but by the time he was five he was walking.
"My parents said as soon as
I started to walk, I just never stopped," he says.
Remarkably he would go on to being the All-American boy. Growing up in Toledo, Ohio,
he played quarterback in football and guard in
basketball. Though not religious -- and despite his father being Jewish -- he served as an
altar boy at a Catholic church primarily to fit in.
Good fortune continued to follow him throughout his youth in
other ways as well. He remembers getting hit by a car once, flying through the
air and hitting the pavement forehead first and walking away with nothing more
than stitches, a small scar barely visible today. When it came to playing games,
while Alejo might at times profess his success to be skill, his friends were
more apt to notice he was lucky. Dice games almost always rewarded him with the
best rolls and card games the best hands. "That's why I always liked games of
chance," he admits. "I've always thought I had good odds." That he carried
himself with a confidence believing luck was on side, a psychologist might say likely helped as well.
By the time high school graduation neared, he was not
feeling quite as blessed. Life in Toledo seemed stale and he was bored. The
neighborhood was not great. His
family life had never been particularly stable. His mother had emotional
problems and there had been physical
fights with his father. Police raided his house once after discovering the mother
had kept human bones, they turning out to be those of her lost
child. Still, Alejo, being more of a choir boy than one to
fall in with the bad lot of which Toledo certainly offered, emerged well
grounded and to the outside world at least appeared unflappable. He could see
the city offered him little future and when his senior year rolled around, all
he knew was that he wanted to get out of there but he had not made any
particular efforts to do so.
It was then that he received another stroke of good luck, perhaps every bit
as unlikely as a deformed child being adopted into the U.S. from a third-world
country. It was one day late in his senior year that he received a letter
notifying him he had been accepted to Boston University. It came at considerable
surprise since he had never applied. In fact, he had not paid much
attention to applying to colleges at all. He had gotten good grades, mostly As,
but had not been a particularly good student. Throughout grade school he had
been a regular at the principal's office and in high school was frequently truant
(a trait that would later follow him in his work life as well).
It was a running joke among his classmates that he only seemed to show up on
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and, at one point in his junior year, he had
been told that if he missed one more day, he would have to repeat the year
over.
Amazingly, the acceptance letter offered a full scholarship and Alejo,
noting, he "would have gone anywhere" and had no other plan, took it. When he
arrived at BU, he asked his counselor how he had come to be accepted. The counselor
retrieved his file and found an application form that was blank except for Alejo's name written in pencil at the top.
Intriguingly, for someone who seems to be blessed by one, Alejo has never been
one to believe in angels. Faith is too abstract a concept for him. His view is
scientific and that concrete type of thinking works just as well as religion
does for some in keeping him stable during times of turmoil. "I always felt
there was a purpose but I'm not very religious," he admits. "Every once in a
while I look back and say why am I still here but maybe it isn't about purpose,
it isn't about destiny, life is just life, you just live it and that's just the
way it is." Besides, as his college buddies remind him, if an angel was looking
out for him, it would not have been Boston University that he got sent to.
While
the move got him out of Toledo, Alejo was nonetheless ill-prepared for college
and when his family began to break up back home, he went into a depression. He took
the strong silent approach instead of seeking counseling and while he was able
to tough it out, he was unable to keep up with his schoolwork. Still, despite
dropping out, he managed to live in university housing for a year for free
before anyone discovered.
He found a job and remained in Boston for several years though he never took
to the city. Although Hispanic on the outside, he had grown up in a white
environment and Boston was the first place he encountered racism. Though as a
working adult he would later go on to a series of sales, customer service and
management positions, in Boston he recalls applying for a waiter position and
being told he was a better fit for the kitchen while watching two preppy types
get the job instead. He also was refused entrance to swank
clubs and encountered police harassment on a couple occasions.
One incident that bears mentioning involved him and two college friends
walking around Boston one night. They were mostly nerdy types, as original a trio as one will ever see to be sure - one Hispanic,
one square-looking white kid barely five feet tall if that, and a goofy-looking
Jewish kid who stood about 6-foot-2. All of a sudden, they were accosted
by cops, one of whom threw the tall kid into the wall a couple times. "Where are
the skis, where are the skis," the cop yelled. Confused, the kid replied, "They
keys?" The three were then put in a paddywagon and driven several blocks. Upon
reaching an alleyway, they were taken out and paraded before a couple who apparently had seen three men steal skis from their car. When no positive
idea was made, they were released. It was then one of the cops explained to Alejo what had happened. "He said the description happened to match us exactly."
It is something he still shakes his head about.
The incidences made him realize that his luck was only going to get him so
far in the city, Boston to him probably being no less a dead end than Toledo, so
he left in 1989 to move to San Francisco.
When he arrived in the city he scored an apartment in an upscale neighborhood
of San Francisco which the mostly absentee landlord from
some reason has chosen to not up the rent, he and his wife currently paying
about 40% of market value. The apartment came with free cable television, that
is for 18 years at least, before the cable company discovered the snafu. There
isn't anyone in the city who wouldn't say he found a sweet deal and it has been
a mostly smooth ride since.
