3 out of 4 stars
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Gringo: My Life on the Edge as an International Fugitive by Dan “Tito” Davis takes the reader on an amazing thrill ride. Detailing the life of “Tito” Davis, “adventurous” hardly does justice to the man or the series of experiences the book captures. Tito wrote his own story while in prison, and then hired the talented Peter Conti to put his words into a more publishable format. Tito is quoted as saying, “he needed a real writer to make [his story] work,” so he hired Peter Conti for the job, and the rest is history.
Tito was born in Pierre, South Dakota where he says everyone knew everyone. He seemed to have mostly a quiet and “normal” childhood, minus his interesting high school experience working as a jockey at a local horse track. This led him to do anything (including eating laxatives) to control his weight.
But it was in college when Tito really got his adventures going. It all began with his first experiences dealing drugs. He figured out that White Crosses, which everyone called speed, were actually ephedrine, which he learned was derived from a Chinese herb. The important detail for Tito was that ephedrine was technically LEGAL. So, feeling safe that he wasn’t getting involved in any wrongdoing, he swiftly became one of the biggest White Cross dealers in the country. Though he made tons of money dealing these legal drugs, he also got briefly involved in cocaine trafficking. Soon thereafter, he was busted and ended up doing some time in prison. During this period of his life, Tito was also married, and his first child was born right before he went to prison. Very tragically though, the baby died of SIDS.
When he went into prison, he was rich. When he got out, the government had seized everything. His wife had left him for another man, too. He was broke, and he needed to make money. So he started selling marijuana. He made a good living for awhile, was less flashy about his money than he had been before prison, and even remarried. He says this was probably the happiest time in his life.
But then an old friend from school entered his life again: Marvin Schumacher. Marvin wanted to get into the marijuana business. Tito decided to help him. One thing led to another, and Marvin ended up getting busted. During his interrogation, he ended up not only ratting Tito out (as the person who gave him the pot), but also framed him for a bunch of meth that wasn’t Tito’s at all. Because of Tito’s background, he knew they’d put him away for a very long time for this. So, he left his wife (and her child, who he loved like his own) and fled as a fugitive to Mexico.
Thus began a 13-year adventure roaming Latin America and fleeing the law for a crime he did not commit. Ironically, with a nickname like “Tito,” Dan didn’t speak Spanish very well at all. His major goals while on the run were to learn Spanish, get papers to make him official (passports, etc), and of course, to not get caught. During his many years on the run, Tito was involved in remarkable things. He lived with a drug cartel family in Colombia, was tutored by an assassin from Pablo Escobar’s crew, started a legal real estate business in Venezuela, and had a number of wild brushes with the law. During these years, his second wife left him, and he was not proud to admit that he didn’t handle the break up in the respectful way he believes he should have.
Still, Tito managed to fall in love again, and this time, the Venezuelan woman he married was “the one.” Indeed, at the time of the writing of this book (2016), they were still married.
I feel compelled to say a number of things about my impression of this story. Number one, it was riveting. I seriously couldn’t put the story down. It was like I NEEDED to know what was going to happen next to Tito. For another thing, Tito is a super likable character. Even though he technically was a drug dealer, he felt so respectful and genuine and smart, that he was quite redeeming for me. Also, I was really glad that Peter Conti included his prologue. In it, he details his first impressions of Tito and a little bit of the backstory. Without this, I would have felt slightly cheated at the end of the book when it almost abruptly ends with the details of Tito’s eventual apprehension after 13 years on the run. But Conti’s prologue fills in some of the gaps beforehand, and I was grateful for these details later on, when I had gotten to know Tito.
My biggest impression was feeling really impressed with Tito’s general demeanor and the respect he commanded from so many different people around the world. The more I got to know him, the more I felt awestruck and intrigued by his life story.
My only real complaint about the story was the grammatical errors. I found so many that I stopped keeping track after a couple dozen. There were enough to be distracting, and though I hate to do this so much, I feel forced to give this book 3 out of 4 stars simply because of the grammar. However, please trust that had it been better edited, I wouldn’t have hesitated to give this book the best possible rating. Ultimately, I very highly recommend this book to readers who love a riveting adventure and enjoy thoroughly getting to know interesting and compelling characters.
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Gringo
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