Metamorphosis of a Bully/and Other Stories

This is a continuously moving story taking place in a barrio across the US-Mexico border in the 1950s. It takes the reader from one crucial scene to the next with no digressions or unnecessary pauses. From the start it introduces a fearless sailor who suddenly appears in the barrio and metamorphosis into a fearful bully of the town. He is a streetfighter with predisposition to fight. He makes his presence known when he provokes a cowboy from Oklahoma and gives him a vicious fight leaving him hanging to his life in a hospital.
After this terrible fight, he continues to elevate his presence and soon has a stranglehold on the young pachucos from the barrio by attacking them when they cross his path. Still not satisfied, he goes after two of their friends because he hates their reputation of being fearless when provoked. One of them is a younger guy who runs his family’s store. The young man gives him a good fight and this infuriates him so much that every time he sees him on the streets, he provokes him to fight and warns him to leave town or else. Later he’s angered when his sycophants tell him that the young man hasn’t left town, and decides that next time he sees him he will kill him.

After this story, four short stories follow complicating and complementing little crumbs left through the events of the main story. Each subsequent story, therefore, is a complete epic with its own beginning, middle, and end.