Like the lost Angelenos who sprang to life in his imagination, George Hatcher grew out of the competitive barrios of East Los Angeles and lives at least two lifetimes before his twentieth birthday. As a fresh ten-year old bilingual boy fresh off the bus in Los Angeles, he introduces his Spanish-speaking mother to the man who will become his stepfatherr, chases business and girls and falls so passionately in love that he marries three times in his first two decades. He lives by one truth: he doesn't settle. The first book of his life spans up to the mid-sixties, in which time he moves from trimming lawns to the navy to a Mexican ice cream parlor to auto body and paint shops in Los Angeles, between brushes with the law and government tax agencies along the way. Thanks to the adventurous heart of a gambler, a gift of gab, and an uncanny ability to reinvent himself time and time again, Hatcher climbs the ladder of dubious success, falling down time and time again, but always getting back on his feet and coming back fighting.