An American Family: Living on the Verge

The boyfriend, whose name was George, was good-looking, charming and a gang member with a tendency to hit women. What he did have to recommend him was a warm and accepting mother, a Salvadoran woman named Maria who came to the U.S. without papers, spoke no English, and supported her four kids by cleaning houses for rich gringas in Pacific Palisades for a gross take-home of $110 a week.

Francis loved Maria, who taught her to cook and provided her with her first real family. As a result, she put up with George’s cyclical brutality. She had Estephanie by him when she was 17, followed by two more babies in quick succession. She left only when the hitting got so bad she worried for her own and her kids’ safety. After that there was another guy, and another baby. And then, finally, there was Luis.

Francis and Luis first got together just before Christmas of 1999 when, two weeks after he was initially released from prison, a friend brought him over to Francis’ house for a party. At first, she wasn’t even remotely interested. “We were from the same gang, so I knew him from back in the day,” she says. “And I hated him. He was such an a-hole. Everyone was scared of him back then.”

Francis was startled to find she liked the post-incarceration Luis a lot. “It’s like he was a different person,” she says. “He was so polite, and so, I don’t know . . . nice.” Still, she regarded him as little more than a fling at first, and refused to let him meet her kids. “I never let them see guys I went out with,” she says. “My kids come first, everybody knows that about me.”

Francis had been dating a police officer when she started up with Luis, and one night the cop cruised by when Luis was there. Claiming he was merely being protective, the cop called his rival’s name in on radio, and found he was on parole. “You know, I could bust you for even being here,” he told Luis, meaning he could report him for gang association, since Francis was a homegirl who lived smack in the middle of Tiny Boys territory. Luis didn’t blink. “I guess my life is in your hands,” he said. “But you got to know that, whatever happens, I’m not going to stop seeing Francis.”

Living in L.A.: Another mile, another worry

For the most part, Francis and Luis balance each other well. Francis is the family’s magnetic center, the locus around whom everyone else circles for bearing. Luis is the source of ambition and focus. “He has long-term goals,” says Francis. “And he’s serious about them. He’s not just blowing smoke. Like when we first got together, he said if we were still together at the end of a year, we’d get married, and then we’d buy a house. And then he went out and did both of those things, just like he said.”

Indeed, in January of 2002, after they’d been together 12 months, Luis told her it was time to set the date. He suggested February 7, his own birthday, “So I’ll never forget our anniversary,” he joked. But before the ceremony could take place, Luis got arrested on that first parole violation. At his insistence, they got married anyway. Francis went on her own to the small wedding chapel in Inglewood, then brought papers to Luis for his signature when she was next allowed a visit. The marriage certificate officially states Luis and Francis were married, as promised, on February 7, though they were nowhere near each other at the time.

A year later, Luis achieved his second goal of buying a house through a peculiar stroke of luck. It seems Luis’ twin brother, Carlos, was serving time at Pelican Bay on a robbery conviction and was shot by a guard while handcuffed after one of the infamous so-called gladiator fights, staged battles between inmates that caused a spate of prison scandals in the mid- to late-’90s after several inmates died. A lawyer got hold of the case and talked Carlos into suing for damages. They won $25,000, which Carlos split with the attorney. Carlos had never had any money in his life, and decided he had no need of it now, so he offered his half to Luis. “Do something good with it,” he said.

Luis and Francis found a two-story, Eastlake-style Victorian house just south of César Chávez. Built in 1896, it was not in the greatest shape. Its gingerbread wood façade had been covered in stucco, and it had been turned into a duplex in the ’70s. Then, in a more recent incarnation, it had morphed into a meth lab. “I guess there was a little guesthouse in the back of the property that exploded,” says Francis. But the lot was big, and the house itself seemed structurally sound. Furthermore, although it was priced at $220,000, the bank was willing to take a minuscule 1 percent down of $2,200. That meant an onerous monthly mortgage payment of $2,131. But if they rented out the bottom for a thousand, that left only $1,131 to cover on their own, a number Luis figured he would manage, now that he was out and working again. When he was arrested on the second parole violation a few months later, Francis was frantic, afraid that without Luis she’d lose the house. He told her not to worry, that she could use what cash remained of the original $12,500 to cover the mortgage for the 10 months he was away.