Читать книгу Berserk. The Shocking Life and Death of Edwin Valero онлайн

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The brothers also worked in a bicycle shop owned by a former fighter, Dimas Garcia. When Edwin said he would like to be a boxer someday, Garcia told him the business was too dangerous.

But Valero had known danger from a young age. Though El Vigia was a sophisticated city, it was a haven for pickpockets, kidnappers, and drug dealers. Like many poor boys from the country, Valero was drawn to the city's dark underbelly. When he wasn't selling fruit, Valero was running with kid gangs. He had become a little criminal. His mother couldn't control him. Edwin was a wild, dirty child, unwilling to bathe or wear shoes. Yet Eloisa never believed Edwin was as bad as his friends. She alleged that his new pals had even killed people. Edwin, she said, “was not a bad boy. Just a little bit off.”

Valero started drinking at age nine and using drugs at eleven. At thirteen he dropped out of school and enrolled in a tae kwon do academy. When his mother claimed the classes were too expensive, he quit and went back to selling garlic. Valero would later describe these years as “work, work, work.”