Sorry to break up the ghostwriting series, but a newsflash came across my desk via my old pal Tony from Pittsburgh, along with the local follow-up.

I know I’m going to take heat for this, but I’m going to say my piece anyway. Seems that from now on I should stop calling a particular town “Andoshen,” to honor talented local writer Daryl Ponicsan, and go back to something more well-known in the coal region and more appropriate, such as “Zulu Town” or “Chendo, da fuck; 462 fuck you, fuck you.” Actually, the Zulu tribe is a very fine culture and associating their name with Chendo is an insult to them.

This formally all-white town now has a new minority. The old minority were people with an IQ in triple digits. The new minority are Hispanics.

On one of my last visits to Lantenengo County, I was informed that Chendo was having “a Mexican problem,” and did we have one down here at the Jersey shore?

No, we do not have a “Mexican problem” where I live. I can vividly recall when the influx of Hispanic men began mustering near the railroad station on the west side of Red Bank. On rainy days, neighbors would bring them umbrellas. When someone noticed they’d been standing an awfully long time without anyone offering them work, they’d bring them sandwiches. Yeah, that’s the kind of “problem” we have down the shore. There are a lot of churches on the Westside, though not as many as in Chendo, which has one on almost every corner. The difference is that the people in Red Bank seem to actually listen to the sermons.

Chendo has always been like this. I can recall driving through there before I could afford a car with air conditioning. Passing through with your widows down, you’d dread coming to a stoplight. Inevitably, a bunch of knuckle-dragging cement heads standing on the corner would shout, “You wanna fight?” And I wasn’t even Mexican.

Unlike most of the rest of the region, this is Chendo’s legacy. Yes, like many young men who grew up in the coal region, I can actually recall being pulled out of said car window by a gang of troglodytes as they flailed away at me. The fact that Louis Ramirez was stomped to death by such a gang does not surprise me. No one from Chendo would ever have the guts to take on someone in a fair fight, one-on-one. They say some of the assailants were on their “beloved football team.” I don’t know who loved them; they always sucked because football is a game that actually has to be played by rules.

The most cringe-worthy part is where “authorities claim the attack was not racially motivated.” Yeah, a crew of mouth-breathers beat a guy to death while shouting racial epitaphs and that’s not a hate crime. Only in Chendo.

There is no question in my mind that justice will not be served in a place like this. The federal government should come in to prosecute this as a civil rights case, which they have the ability to do, because no local jury will ever drop the hammer on a bunch of “local lads.” Of course, we will have to wait until the Exxon/Mobil administration is out of office and the American people retake the White House before we have a Justice Department that cares about civil rights in this country again.

Some of the more morally outraged local denizens are shouting for the death penalty. I say nay. I would rather they do life … in a Mexican prison.