This is a man who recently spoke to middle school students in Midland, Texas. Moving story of how finding God can change anyone!
PAST MIGHT CATCH UP WITH ROBERTO FLORES
Roberto Flores scans the menu.
Pan Roasted Veal Chop $40
Smoked Chicken & Rock Shrimp Pasta $26
Flores checks the money in his pocket again.
14 OZ. New York Steak $33
Coffee Rubbed Filet Of Beef $38
Flores looks down the table. It's filled with educators -- superintendents in pinstripes and administrators in business attire at an education conference. None seem fazed by the prices.
Back in the day -- back when he was doing wrong -- Flores would have bought dinner for everyone at the table. He would have pulled up in a limo, flashed hundreds around the table. The suits' eyes would have been on him.
But that life is over. No one cares about the stories of an ex-drug dealer. No one is interested in the changes he's tried to make.
Now, he's sitting at the corner of a long brown table in a restaurant in Visalia, Calif., with $25 in his pocket -- not enough to buy a burger after tip and tax -- trying to wiggle out of the room.
Flores leans over to his friend, David Bustamante, another former drug dealer.
We need to get out of here, Flores says. Bustamante agrees.
They make up a vague explanation about Bustamante's diabetes and excuse themselves. The men leave the restaurant and walk across a bridge, to the side of the city they had been warned not to go. It was too rough, they were told.
Bustamante and Flores go anyway. They quickly spot paramedics attending to a shooting victim.
This is where I'm supposed to be, Flores thinks. Maybe I can do some good tonight after all.
'A person from my past' Roberto Flores' face is familiar to many in Aurora. His story is not. Most who see him meeting with city officials, leading marches, talking at schools or coaching youth soccer don't know about his past. He's not hiding it -- they'd just never guess, never assume he's been anything else.
Really, when does it occur to ask: Have you been shot? Have you made million-dollar drug deals? Did you ever meet Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord?
Flores says he has done all these things in a life that's full of extremes.
First, he was all bad.
"If I didn't like you, I would hurt you," Flores says of himself back when he was an international drug dealer. "If I didn't want to dirty my hands, I'd get one of my guys to do it. If I didn't like the way you looked at me, something was going to happen."
Back then, Flores was Don Beto, a powerful man who was powerfully angry.
Don Beto had money and muscle. Don Beto sat in the front row when the Bulls were winning championships and lived in the same building as Oprah. It took more than bullets to kill Don Beto.
But after Don Beto died -- was killed really -- all that was left was Roberto Flores. And nobody, least of all Flores, knows exactly who that is or who that's going to be. He's at least trying to be someone who's all good.
He has big dreams for himself and his community, but making them happen is tough. Flores lives in a modest home in Aurora. He works sporadically. He has three daughters, a wife and a probation violation. He has no idea how he's going to take care of any of them.
And even if he can't afford a hamburger sometimes, he might be content.
"Am I happy?" Flores says, pausing for a long time to consider the question. "I'm happy because I don't have to look over my back. I don't have to worry about people kicking down my door. I don't have to worry about getting involved in a business deal that's going wrong.
"I'm not Don Beto anymore. That's just a person from my past."
'I wasn't a kid' If the death of Don Beto is still a story being written, the birth of Don Beto is a common one, inspired by anger and greed. Flores was born in Joliet to first-generation Mexican Americans. He was close with his mother, but he and his father constantly fought.
Flores says his father's abuse forced him out of the house. At 13, Flores left without a plan or a place to stay.
These were Don Beto's first steps.
Flores ended up at a local bar, where the owner let him stay upstairs. The bartender had a profitable side business selling cocaine to regulars. Enlisting the sales help of Flores was perfect. He was eager, energetic and wouldn't be prosecuted as an adult.
At the bar, Flores learned how to cut cocaine, how to make a subtle sale that wouldn't attract attention. The first night, Flores says he brought in around $500. To a teenager, it felt like a million.
"I grew up really, really quick," Flores says. "I wasn't a kid."
Flores became a small business owner specializing in cocaine. He was the opposite of the lazy, sloppy junkie. He was organized, enthusiastic.
He also had an instinctive knowledge of business tactics -- dominate supply, establish brand loyalty -- and applied his knowledge with ruthless force. In the first semester of high school, he brought a gun to shoot a rival drug dealer in school.
"I didn't want to become a gang member because I would be locked into one organization," he said. "I didn't see black and gold or any of these colors. The only color I saw was green. If you got enough of it for me, I'll take care of you."
Flores was kicked out freshman year, but returned to school because it was full of customers.
It became a highly lucrative and illegal lemonade stand, and Flores was ready to franchise himself. He needed a brand name.
It had to be something that commanded respect, something with a ring of The Godfather.
He became Don Beto.
And business continued to boom.
By 18, he had a personal limo driver that Flores says he paid two grand a day. He could afford it. He estimates he was making $65,000. A week.
In 1985, Flores says he moved into Lake Point Towers, the distinctive curvy building near Navy Pier in Chicago that has attracted celebrity residents, including Oprah Winfrey, Tom Selleck and Sammy Sosa. Flores lived on the 46th floor. The entire 46th floor.
Flores won't talk much about the specifics of his business, but to give a perspective on how big he was, Flores says he once got to meet the man who was his hero back then: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, once considered the seventh wealthiest man in the world.
Flores's Joliet lemonade stand had become a million-dollar addition to a drug cartel run on threats and violence.
Of course, it couldn't last forever.
'Do you want to see trees?' Flores and Bustamante had been sent to the education conference by the East Aurora School District to learn strategies for teaching kids how to stay out of gangs. During the introduction to the seminars, they had been warned not to cross the bridge. Flores didn't need a warning -- he knew it was the bad side of town. But strangely, seeing the shooting victim being loaded into an ambulance made him feel at home.
Flores knows these people, knows how they think. This is a place where his background is an asset, not an anchor.
Bustamante and Flores walk past the medics and head into Iglesio DeCristo Church. They find a pastor, a short Hispanic man with bushy hair.
"Is this a church that goes into the community or is it one that stays in its four walls?" Flores asks.
The pastor says they're trying to be a church that goes into the community. But the community doesn't want to hear it. The neighborhood is too far gone. There is no hope here.
Flores starts telling his story, about the drugs, about Don Beto, about where he is now. The pastor gets excited. Says his neighborhood needs to hear about this. The pastor asks if Flores and Bustamante can come back the next night. Promises to make up fliers. Promises to bring free Popsicles -- people like Popsicles. Free Popsicles couldn't hurt.
Flores and Bustamante are supposed to see the giant redwoods the next day.
Do you want to see trees?
They did not want to see trees.
Flores and Bustamante go out and knock on doors. Knock on everyone's doors. On the doors of people the church is afraid to approach.
"Come hear this story about a guy I used to know," Flores tells them. "He died, but come hear his story."
People give him a skeptical look. Flores mentions free Popsicles. It couldn't hurt.
'Wanted to try something different' Throughout his life there were hints that Flores wasn't comfortable with who he was, where he was. He says he came back to his high school graduation and sat in the bleachers. He cried as he watched former friends graduate. Then he got in his limo and went home.
In 1997, he quite suddenly joined the Army. Even now, he's at a loss to explain why -- "I wanted to try something different in my life" -- but a water-cooler psychologist can read through the lines.
He had power and money. But he had no respect. His neighbors couldn't know what he did. He told them he was a music promoter. Left the details vague. If they knew the truth, they wouldn't have been impressed.
He got kicked out of the Army for selling drugs. The money was too good.
It was going to take something more than money to get Flores to make a change. Like a bullet. Or a woman. Or -- since he's incredibly stubborn -- both.
'Why did you save me?' The picture is disgusting. The face is bloated, bruised, blue and purple. It is a picture of the start of Don Beto's slow death. Two men had surprised him during a drug deal. They had come to take over Don Beto's business and they shot him three times to make sure he retired.
The picture was taken by police officers who thought they were about to have a dead John Doe to identify. Against the odds, Don Beto survived.
At the hospital, officers wanted to know who did it. Don Beto said nothing. He got robbed, that's all. He'd take care of it himself.
Later, a nurse helped Don Beto into the bathroom. Through the bloated, bruised, blue and purple face, he caught a little glimpse of Roberto Flores in the mirror.
"Why did you save me?" Flores asked.
At that moment, a tiny -- but monumental -- pinhole opened in Don Beto's heart.
"Maybe there's a time for something else," he thought.
The thought didn't leave, but it didn't exactly flourish, either. Don Beto called his limo driver and walked out of the hospital. He stayed in Mexico for a year, planning his revenge. But something was wrong.
Flores swore he saw his grandmother -- a woman who cared for him as a child but died years before -- in the room when he was shot. The story is still hard for him to believe; the image was difficult to shake. Flores was getting older and reality was making the macho act harder to pull off. He was not invincible, and he had two daughters from his first marriage.
"I didn't want them growing up without their dad."
So despite the horrible things he had done, God did not let him die. And it frightened Flores to think there might be a reason.
He won't talk about how, but he left the cartel. Walked away from the money, the connections. He had two guns and a cell phone. He went to his mom's house in Joliet and started going to church with her.
He got a job in a factory. The first paycheck was $300. A joke. So, Flores decided to make a compromise with God. He knew that he had been doing wrong before. Now, he'd do less wrong. He would sell fewer drugs, but just enough to pay the bills.
'Do you know who I am?' In April 2000, Flores spotted a gorgeous woman at a dance club in Chicago. She wanted nothing to do with him. He sent a limo to pick her up, sent her a dozen roses every day. Friends warned her about Flores -- said he was a dangerous man.
But Flores assured her that he was in construction. His truck was filled with blueprints. He drove around all day. She almost believed him.
But she saw a man wanting to change. A man with a brutal exterior hung on a good heart. So she finally gave him a chance. Of course, he burned her.
After nearly a lifetime of selling drugs, Flores was convicted for selling drugs for the first time in 2002. It was a small deal, less than 15 grams of cocaine.
Xochitl Flores, his new wife, screamed at him.
"Don't you know who I am?" he bellowed back. "I'm Don Beto!"
Then Flores slapped her.
That's when something unexpected -- unprecedented -- happened. She hit him back. Right across the face. Left scratches across Don Beto's cheek.
"I don't care who you think you are," she said. "You're not nobody."
The bullets didn't do it, but the slap was the shot that finally killed Don Beto. Roberto Flores was reborn.
But who, exactly, was Roberto Flores? And what was he?
'He made a change' There are many people -- guys he still runs into -- who don't believe Don Beto is gone. These guys compliment Flores on the job he's done passing himself off as a good guy. Soccer coach for championship kids' team. Member of the Latino Engagement Council. Community activist. Motivational speaker. Active member of Progressive Baptist Church. Aspiring college student.
Others -- like Aurora Police Chief Bill Powell -- don't believe he would donate all those hours as an act.
"Guys like Roberto and ( community activist ) Andy Williams--the advantage for these guys is they carry credibility in our community," Powell said. "It might be better for these young bucks to hear them say: Don't do what I did."
Flores' dream is to pay the bills by telling his story and, hopefully, helping others. He looks to people like Willie Lopez, a gang member turned medical technician who travels the country talking to groups.
Lopez, who came to Aurora in September, believes Flores could have a future as a speaker.
"I admire him for this part: There was time in his life when he had a whole lot of money," Lopez said. "The potential for that is still there. He has the ability to come up with 100, 200 thousand dollars. He could do that. That tells you this person is serious when he made a change."
For now, Flores is facing the reality that he has no money. Flores lives off temporary jobs, the generosity of friends and his wife's modest paychecks.
It's a new world that Flores is negotiating and one where he's often lost and confused. Subtlety is not his strength, but it's needed when dealing with city officials or co-workers. He used to rely on intimidation or aggression, but that's useless in a work setting where clever politicking and delicate maneuvering are more effective.
Society had no use for Don Beto, but what about Roberto Flores? Can we benefit from his past, his experiences? Or has he used up all his credit with society, taken too much from too many people?
And should he even be allowed to leave Don Beto behind? Just because the legal system has squared with him, does that mean the public has to forgive?
A guy I used to know After a day of knocking on doors in a neighborhood where he knows no one, Flores stands at the front of Iglesio DeCristo Church. The flier said the presentation starts at 8 p.m. At 8 p.m., six people are in the church.
The pastor apologizes.
"If it's one person or if it's a thousand people," Flores says. "If that one person needs to hear our message, then that's fine."
Flores starts.
He shows a picture of a bloated, bruised, blue and purple face. "This is a guy I used to know..."
At 8:05 p.m., kids start showing up. And adults. And more kids. The church brings in more chairs. Families show up. Finally, the church is filled. Those Popsicles didn't hurt, after all.
For more than an hour, everyone sits silently, listening to the story of Don Beto's death and Roberto Flores's rebirth. A story that's unfinished, a work in progress. A story with no ending, no easy answers.
But it's a story with a blossom, a bud of hope.
"If I can change, then anyone can change," Flores says. "Don't think that every guy who carries a gun or is a drug dealer, they're not hurting on the inside just like I was. I know these guys are the same way. They want better for their kids; they want better for their families."
The church applauds. Maybe Flores has made a difference.
An uncertain future If the world were simple, the story would end there, with Roberto Flores standing in front of a church, reaching out to strangers who need to hear his story. Life is not that easy. It has its peaks and it has other days, like Thursday, Oct. 24, when Flores had to go back to Kane County court.
That drug conviction from 2002 has hung around Flores's neck since he pleaded guilty. The fine is too much for him to pay. Flores got called back into court. Failure to pay $1,345.
On Oct. 24, he pleaded guilty to a probation violation for failure to pay his fine. The judge says he can avoid going to jail -- if he pays his fine by Dec. 27.
Wearing a gold tie, black shirt and black suit, Flores tries to keep his composure after hearing the deadline, but he's clearly on the verge of tears.
"I'm very confident they'll close the case," Flores's lawyer, Ed Gil, tells him in the hallway outside the courtroom. "But you gotta get that paid."
Flores nods.
"You say that so easy," Flores says, as Gil walks toward another client in another courtroom.
Flores heads to the basement of the court building. He slides into a chair at a bland lunch table with a clear view of the new county jail. He sits silently, wiping away a few tears.
"I got to figure out a way to do that on top of everything else I got to take care of?" he says, slamming the folded pink court order onto the table. "How am I supposed to take care of my rent? It's like -- what do I do? Do I pay the rent or do I get thrown in jail?"
In the last month his phone, his water and his power have all been shut off. The construction job he had fell apart when the foreman decided to cut back. Temporary work probably won't pay enough in two months. Flores tries to steady himself, but the future is so unclear.
"I'm not gonna make a mistake," he says. "I'm, not gonna ( mess ) up and go back. That's what the system wants me to do. I'm not going to give it the satisfaction. I'm going to rely on my faith."
The man who once made $65,000 a week -- but gave it up to go straight - -- may have his good efforts undone by less than $2,000. He could flee, go to Mexico. He could get the money the wrong way. The thoughts cross his mind.
"From what it looks like, my future depends on $1,345," he says. "And you know what? I'm worth more than that."
