Reyes vigorously denies the accusation. "I didn't say that. Maybe I said, 'I've got bigger fish to fry,' but more in general. I just didn't need that fight. In December I do 40 events in 25 days. That little eight-hour period is not my biggest problem. As for working with kids, nobody pays me to do that. I don't have a 501(c)(3). I just do it because it's what I want to do."
According to Reyes, his wish to get out of the truck and into the cab was more about safety than money. He says that years before the end came, he told Villarreal he was getting too old to stand in the back of a pickup truck all day, that it was too dangerous. Reyes says the Cadillac is much safer and more comfortable.
And so, after 16 years Reyes was out. Reyes says again and again that Villarreal made a "business decision," albeit one he still can't understand. He says Taxis Fiesta frequently helped Latin Fantasy over the years, got them floor space at the George R. Brown Convention Center for a car show, bought and donated the trophies to others for years and years. Villarreal says he has no problems with them; it's just that he doesn't want his toy drive becoming "their" event.
Reyes says that Villarreal suspects him of raking in "beaucoups" of money, and Villarreal backs up Reyes's claim. "He's gotten grants, he's gotten all kinds of stuff, but where is it all going? When he got sick" — Reyes survived a heart attack a few years back — "he went on the news and was saying he was in a bad spot. Somebody cut him a check. Where does it go? When he was with us, he never bought a single toy."
That bit about the toys is true, even if Reyes denies everything else. "He never asked me to buy toys," he says. "My job was to hand them out." As for the money, he says that in addition to the $25,000 he gets yearly from Taxis Fiesta, he also gets $10,000 apiece from Mambo Seafood and Union Pacific. Reyes says the railroad believes that bringing him aboard brings them goodwill in the train-track-streaked East End. (Reyes also makes some of his living from Pancho Claus, and according to his Web site, his band gets paid $1,000 to appear at corporate gigs and clubs; nonprofits get a 20 percent discount.)
Still, those who would claim that Reyes is a barrio Trump have the wrong idea entirely, Reyes says. "I never owned a house until Taxis Fiesta hired me," he says. "And when I had my heart attack a couple of years ago, I might have died without the insurance they gave me." He adds that he still has no office or staff for any of his charitable endeavors.
"Vato Richard Reyes from the 'hood would not take kindly to this kind of talk, but a man in my position cannot talk or speak irresponsibly," he continues, and sighs. "You can do good things for years and years, and all it takes is one person to start badmouthing you."
Indeed, other than Villarreal, it's hard to find Richard Reyes haters in Houston. Frank "Mr. Telephone Road" Motley has known and worked alongside him at various events for decades and says he's always been a straight shooter. In a statement that would make Villarreal seethe with rage, Macario Ramirez, owner of West 19th Street Mexican folk art gallery Casa Ramirez, says that Richard Reyes is the embodiment of Christmas in the barrio.
Filmmaker, writer and activist (and former Pancho Claus manager) Carlos Calbillo baldly states that he would take a bullet for Reyes. "He is honest to a fault, has great personal integrity, is one of the most respected persons in this city and he has always been straight up not only with me but with everyone I know," Calbillo adds via e-mail. Calbillo questions why the Houston Press would even deign to write a story that could possibly reflect negatively on Reyes.
Which brings us to Villarreal, the lowrider genius whom some see as Pancho Claus's most resentful elf.
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Shorty's Hydraulics is 49-year-old Villarreal's lowrider shop. It's tucked away on a side street off Crosstimbers a little east of Northline Commons. Villarreal is a master of his craft. The vintage cars and trucks he and his son John Villarreal have made to dance and hop have won whole cases full of trophies, and not just in Houston and elsewhere in Texas, but also in Las Vegas and California — wherever the lowrider competitive circuit took them, even all the way to a win on TLC's Junkyard Wars.
The last few years have not been easy for him. Lowrider culture is ebbing these days, merging with hip-hop car culture; it might make yet another comeback, and it might not, but for now, gone are the days when Lowrider magazine could be found next to every taqueria cash register from Little York to Harrisburg, and past are the times when every vato on every corner could afford to tank up their rides and jet to California, Arizona or Nevada for big national car shows. Even within the lowrider world, the art of hydraulics — Shorty's specialty — is no longer as important as it once was. Some riders are now using air bags to drop their cars.
