Part 2: I Found a 4-Year-Old Boy Sitting Alone on the Curb of a Gas Station in Lubbock, Texas, on a 102-Degree Afternoon in July of 2009. He Had a Note in His Lap. 15 Years Later He Graduated from Texas Tech School of Law — and the First Case He Took on Was Defending a Biker Who Had Been Wrongly Arrested
I want to tell you about the gas station.
The Pilot truck stop on the south side of Lubbock — at the intersection of I-27 and 50th Street — was, in July of 2009, exactly the kind of large twenty-four-hour interstate truck stop that you would expect in west Texas. Twelve diesel pumps for the trucks at the back. Sixteen gasoline pumps at the front. A small fast-food restaurant attached. A convenience store with cold drinks, snacks, fishing tackle, and the kind of small inexpensive toys that travelers buy for kids who have been in the car too long.
I had stopped at the Pilot at approximately 1:41 p.m. on the afternoon of Friday July 17th, 2009.
I had been on my Harley. I had been on my way back from a small jobsite in Tahoka, Texas, about thirty miles south of Lubbock, where I had been finishing a small piping job that morning. The temperature had been 102 degrees. The humidity had been low — west Texas July low — but the heat had been the kind of heat that bakes a man through his clothes when he is on a motorcycle.
I had pulled in for fuel and for a cold drink.
I had filled the bike at pump 8, on the west side of the gasoline pump island.
I had walked into the convenience store. I had bought a bottle of Powerade and a small bag of pretzels. I had paid in cash. I had walked back out at approximately 1:47 p.m.
I had been about to swing my leg over the bike when I had noticed, in my peripheral vision, a small figure sitting on the curb at the edge of the parking lot, on the small concrete strip that separates the gas station property from the southbound feeder road of I-27.
The small figure had been about thirty feet from my pump.
I had not, in the four minutes I had been at the pump, noticed the small figure walking up. He had been there, by every measurement I could later make from the timestamps on the gas station’s outdoor security camera footage, the entire time. The footage, which I would later see when I cooperated with the Lubbock County child welfare investigation, would show him sitting on that curb continuously since 12:48 p.m. that day — fifty-nine minutes before I had pulled in.
He had been a small white American boy. He had been about four years old. He had been wearing a small blue cotton t-shirt with a faded cartoon dinosaur on the front, small light-blue shorts, and one small white sneaker on his right foot. His left foot had been bare.
He had been holding, in his small lap, a single folded piece of yellow legal-pad paper.
He had not been crying.
He had been sitting very still, in the 102-degree afternoon sun, looking down at his bare left foot.
I had walked over to him.
I had crouched down on the concrete about four feet from him — the slow, careful, mountain-sitting crouch big men do when they do not want to scare a small child.
I had said, “Hey, buddy. You okay?”
He had looked up at me.
He had had brown eyes. He had had short dark brown hair. He had had a small careful intelligent face that did not look as scared as a small boy in his situation should have looked.
He had said, “Mister. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”
I had said, “Buddy. That’s a really good rule. Where’s your mama or your daddy?”
He had thought about that for about ten seconds.
He had said, “Mister. My mama said she’s coming back. But she said it would take a while. She said don’t go anywhere. She gave me the note.”
He had held up the small folded piece of yellow legal paper.
I had said, “Buddy. May I see the note? You don’t have to give it to me. You can just hold it up so I can read it. I’m — I’m gonna get the people who work at the gas station. They can help us figure out where your mama is.”
He had said, “Okay.”
He had held the note up.
The note had been written in cursive, in blue ballpoint pen, on a single page torn from a yellow legal pad.
The note had said, in full:
To whoever finds him.
His name is Mateo Daniel Calderón. He is four years old. His birthday is May 14th, 2005. I am his mother. I am twenty-two years old. I cannot do it anymore. I am not coming back.
Please do not give him to his father. His father is named on the birth certificate but his father has been gone since Mateo was eight months old. His father is not a good man. I am asking you, whoever you are, please do not give him to his father.
Please give him to a kind person. Please give him to a person who will love him. He is a kind boy. He is smart. He has been my whole heart for four years. I cannot keep him alive. I am sorry.
— Esperanza Calderón
I had read the note twice.
I had stood up, slowly.
I had walked, very deliberately, into the convenience store. I had asked the young woman behind the counter — her name tag had said Brittany — to call the manager. The manager had been a kind woman in her late forties named Mrs. Janet Kowalski, who had been at the Pilot for sixteen years.
Mrs. Kowalski had come out from the back office.
I had told her, very quietly, what was sitting on the curb at the edge of the parking lot.
Mrs. Kowalski had walked outside with me. She had crouched down next to the small boy. She had introduced herself. She had told the boy that she was going to call some people who could help him.
She had called 911 at 1:54 p.m.
A Lubbock Police Department patrol car had arrived at the Pilot at 2:08 p.m. A child welfare emergency response worker from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services had arrived at 2:31 p.m.
I had stayed at the Pilot for the entire interview process — almost three and a half hours.
I had given the responding officer my full statement. I had given the child welfare worker my full statement. I had explained that I was the man who had found the small boy sitting on the curb, that I had read the note, and that I had asked Mrs. Kowalski to call 911.
The child welfare worker — a kind woman in her early thirties named Mrs. Reyna Ortiz — had taken the small boy with her at approximately 5:14 p.m. that afternoon. He had been placed in emergency foster care that evening.
I had been told, at the time, that I would not have any further role in his case.
I had ridden home at 5:42 p.m.
I had not been able to stop thinking about him.
I had called Mrs. Ortiz at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services on Monday morning, July 20th, 2009, at 8:14 a.m. — the first business day after the Friday I had found him.
I had asked, very specifically, whether there was any way for an unmarried forty-one-year-old man with no biological children, no prior foster care experience, and a clean criminal record to apply to be considered as a potential placement for a four-year-old emergency foster case.
Mrs. Ortiz had been quiet on the phone for about ten seconds.
Then she had said, “Mr. Calloway. The short answer is yes. The long answer is that you are looking at a six-to-eighteen-month process of background checks, home studies, training, and licensing — and there is no guarantee at the end of it that the specific child you are asking about will still be available for placement, because we work as fast as we can to find permanent placements for kids in the system. The child you found on Friday has, as of this morning, no relatives we have been able to identify. The mother gave a name on the note. We have not been able to locate her. The father named on the birth certificate has an active warrant in Bexar County and is not eligible for custody under any circumstances. The child’s situation is — Mr. Calloway. The child’s situation is the kind of situation where a private guardianship or foster-to-adopt placement, if a qualified adult can be found, is the most likely permanent outcome.”
She had paused.
She had said, “Mr. Calloway. May I ask you a personal question. Why did you call this morning. Most people who call after an incident like Friday’s call out of guilt, or out of curiosity, and they do not follow through with the licensing process. The licensing process is expensive, slow, and intrusive. Why are you calling.”
I had thought about it for about thirty seconds.
I had said, “Mrs. Ortiz. He looked up at me on the curb on Friday and he asked me if I was the kind of person who was supposed to talk to strangers. He had been sitting in 102-degree sun for an hour with one shoe and a note from his mother that said she could not do it anymore. He was four years old. He was — Mrs. Ortiz, he was the most polite, careful, intelligent four-year-old I have ever met in my life. I cannot stop thinking about him. I want to do whatever the system needs me to do to be the kind of qualified adult you are talking about. I do not know whether at the end of the process he will still be available. I am calling because I want to be qualified by the time he is, in case he is.”
Mrs. Ortiz had said, “Mr. Calloway. I am going to email you a packet this afternoon.”
The packet had arrived at 3:22 p.m. that day.
I had filled out the first form on Tuesday morning.
What I had done in the next eleven months — and what had happened on Wednesday June 9th, 2010, when Mrs. Ortiz had called me at the small jobsite where I had been working — is what the next four sections of this story are about.
I will not walk you through eleven months of Texas foster licensing in detail.
I will tell you, in summary, that the licensing process for an unmarried forty-one-year-old man with no biological children and no prior parenting experience is, by every measurement I have ever made of any complex bureaucratic process I have ever navigated in fifty-eight years of life, the most thorough and the most invasive process I have ever been through.
I had, between July of 2009 and June of 2010:
Submitted to a full federal and state criminal background check, including fingerprinting at the Lubbock County Sheriff’s office.
Submitted to a Texas Child Abuse and Neglect Registry check.
Submitted to an FBI fingerprint clearance.
Submitted to a complete medical examination including drug screening, blood work, and a tuberculosis test.
Submitted to a full mental health evaluation conducted by a licensed psychologist contracted by Texas DFPS.
Completed thirty-five hours of mandatory pre-service training in foster parenting, child trauma, age-appropriate discipline, cultural competency, attachment, and grief.
Submitted to four separate home studies conducted by Mrs. Ortiz and a licensing supervisor.
Modified my small two-bedroom rental house to comply with Texas DFPS safety standards — including installation of safety locks on all kitchen cabinets containing chemicals, installation of safety latches on the toilet, removal of the small Smith & Wesson revolver I had kept in my nightstand drawer for fourteen years to a locked gun safe in the garage, and replacement of the small wooden coffee table in the living room with a soft-edged version.
Provided three personal references — my chapter president Glen “Tex” Hallenbeck, my pipefitter foreman at the time Mr. Carl Strickland, and my next-door neighbor Mrs. Dolores Ramirez who had known me for nine years.
Provided full financial records demonstrating my ability to support a child, including W-2 forms, pay stubs, bank statements, and a written statement of intent regarding college savings.
Submitted a written statement of intent regarding the role of the Caprock Riders MC in my life and my plan for ensuring that any placed child would be in a safe, age-appropriate environment at all times.
I had completed all of it.
I had been formally licensed as a single foster parent on Wednesday June 9th, 2010 — eleven months and three weeks after I had found Mateo on the curb.
Mrs. Ortiz had called me that morning at 9:47 a.m.
She had said, “Mr. Calloway. You are licensed. Effective today.”
I had said, “Mrs. Ortiz. Thank you.”
She had said, “Mr. Calloway. I have one piece of news for you. I had been holding it until you were licensed because I did not want to influence your process.”
I had said, “Mrs. Ortiz. What.”
She had said, “Mr. Calloway. Mateo is still in temporary placement with a kind couple in Levelland. He has been there for the entire eleven months. The couple has been wonderful. They have asked me, every two months, whether they should consider applying to adopt him. I have told them, every two months, that there is a man in Lubbock who has been working through the licensing process specifically for Mateo and that I would like to give that man the opportunity to take placement first if they would be willing to wait. They have, every two months, said yes.”
She had paused.
She had said, “Mr. Calloway. Mateo can be placed with you, on a foster-to-adopt track, as soon as next Tuesday morning. June 15th. If you are still ready.”
I had stood at the edge of a small jobsite in Slaton, Texas, in my hard hat, with my cell phone pressed to my ear, and I had cried in front of three of my pipefitter coworkers for about ninety seconds.
I had said, “Mrs. Ortiz. Yes. I am ready.”
She had said, “Mr. Calloway. I will see you Tuesday. 9:00 a.m. At my office.”
She had hung up.
Mateo had been placed with me on Tuesday June 15th, 2010, at approximately 10:14 a.m.
He had walked into my small two-bedroom rental house off Frankford Avenue, in the small light-blue t-shirt and small dark jeans and small white sneakers that the kind couple in Levelland had dressed him in that morning, holding a small worn brown stuffed dog he had named Frijol and a small brown grocery bag of his clothes, and he had looked up at me, and he had said, “Are you going to be my dad?”
I had said, “Yes, son. If you want me to be.”
He had said, “Okay.”
He had walked into the house.
He had not, by Mrs. Ortiz’s careful later assessment, looked back at her once.
Mrs. Ortiz had stayed for about ninety minutes that first day. She had walked me through the standard placement paperwork, the required Texas DFPS check-ins for the first ninety days, and the small careful logistical questions about pediatricians, schools, and the small things a man without a wife had to figure out about how to wash a four-year-old’s hair and how to make a four-year-old eat vegetables and how to sit through a four-year-old’s first night in a new house.
She had left at 11:42 a.m.
I had been alone in the house with my son for the first time at 11:43 a.m. on Tuesday June 15th, 2010.
He had been four years and one month old.
I had been forty-one years old.
I had had no idea what I was doing.
That afternoon — on his second day in the house, on Wednesday June 16th, 2010, at approximately 4:14 p.m. — Mateo had been sitting on the small wooden front porch of my rental house with me, on a small folding lawn chair I had bought for him at Walmart the week before, drinking a small cup of apple juice.
He had said, “Dad. Can I ask you something?”
I had said, “Of course, son.”
He had said, “Dad. The guys with the motorcycles. Are they your friends?”
I had said, “Son. Yes. They are my brothers. They are my motorcycle club. They are called the Caprock Riders.”
He had said, “Dad. They have vests. Like you.”
I had said, “Son. Yes. We all have vests. They are called cuts.”
He had thought about that for a long moment.
He had said, “Dad. When I grow up, I want to be a lawyer.”
I had said, “Son. A lawyer? That’s a big job. Where did you hear about lawyers?”
He had said, “Dad. The lady at the placement house — Mrs. Annette — she watched a TV show with lawyers. They wore suits. They talked in court. They helped people who were in trouble. I want to do that.”
I had said, “Son. That’s a fine job. You could be a lawyer.”
He had said, “Dad. The first case I take has to be for one of yours.”
I had said, “Son. What?”
He had said, “Dad. The first case I take when I am a lawyer has to be for one of your motorcycle brothers. If they get in trouble. I want to help them. Because they are your friends. That means they are my friends. That means I have to help them first.”
I had stood on the small wooden front porch of my small two-bedroom rental house off Frankford Avenue, with a small four-year-old boy in a folding lawn chair drinking apple juice, and I had cried for about three minutes.
He had said, “Dad. Are you sad?”
I had said, “Son. No. I am — I am very happy. I am very happy that you are my son.”
He had said, “Dad. I am very happy that you are my dad.”
He had said it in the way four-year-olds say things — like he had decided it, and like the decision was settled, and like there was no further conversation needed.
I had hugged him on the porch for about five minutes.
That had been the day, Wednesday June 16th, 2010, that Mateo had told me what he was going to be when he grew up.
He had told me at age four.
He had been right.
Mateo’s adoption had been finalized on Tuesday October 18th, 2011 — sixteen months after his placement with me.
He had taken my last name. Mateo Daniel Calloway, formerly Mateo Daniel Calderón.
He had kept his middle name.
He had asked me, at age six, on the morning of the adoption day, whether he could keep his birth mother’s last name as a second middle name.
I had said yes.
His full legal name, today, is Mateo Daniel Calderón Calloway. He uses Calloway on his Texas State Bar registration and on his driver’s license and on his school records. He uses Calderón Calloway on private documents and on the small handwritten signature he uses in personal correspondence.
I had wanted, from the beginning, for him to keep her name.
I had wanted him to know that I had been the man who had picked him up off the curb at a Pilot truck stop on a 102-degree afternoon, but that I had not been the woman who had carried him for nine months and raised him for the first four years of his life and made the absolutely impossible decision, at age twenty-two, to leave him at a gas station with one shoe and a folded note rather than continuing to try to keep him alive on her own when she had not, by every reasonable assessment of her circumstances at the time, been able to.
I had wanted him to know that the woman who had written the note had been his mother first.
I had wanted him to know that I had not, in any way, replaced her.
I had wanted him to carry her name.
We had also, between 2010 and 2018, made approximately fourteen attempts through various legal channels to locate Esperanza Calderón.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services had attempted to locate her in 2009 and 2010 as part of the standard parental rights termination process. They had been unable to find her.
A small private investigator I had hired in 2014, a kind retired Lubbock Police detective named Mr. Henry Vasquez, had attempted to locate her between 2014 and 2017. He had not been able to find her either.
She has not, as of this writing in November of 2025, ever been located.
We do not know whether she is alive.
We have, at every age-appropriate stage of Mateo’s growing up, talked about her. Mateo knows what the note said. Mateo has the original note — yellowed and folded carefully — in a small wooden keepsake box on the desk in his apartment in Lubbock, where he is now in his second year as a junior associate at a small Lubbock-based law firm called Whitfield Sandoval & Associates that handles primarily criminal defense cases.
Mateo has told me, more than once, that if his birth mother is ever found, he wants to meet her. He wants to tell her, in his own words, that she had made the right decision, and that he had been raised by a kind man, and that he had grown up loved.
She has not been found.
We continue to look. Mr. Vasquez — who has agreed to keep the case open despite his retirement — checks every couple of years for new public records that might lead to her.
She might still turn up.
We hope she does.
Mateo had graduated from Coronado High School on the south side of Lubbock in May of 2022 at the age of seventeen, having skipped the third grade and the seventh grade based on the accelerated track placement decisions made by his elementary and middle school principals in coordination with my own input as his single father.
He had attended Texas Tech University from August of 2022 through May of 2024 — a single twenty-one-month bachelor’s degree in political science, with a 3.97 GPA, completed in three semesters of full-time study and two summer sessions.
He had entered Texas Tech University School of Law in August of 2024 at the age of nineteen.
He had completed law school in an accelerated program in three semesters and had graduated in December of 2024 — sixteen weeks of intensive coursework on top of his already-accelerated track. He had been the youngest member of his graduating class by approximately three years.
He had passed the Texas bar examination on his first attempt in early December of 2024.
He had been formally licensed by the State Bar of Texas on Tuesday December 7th, 2024.
He had taken Bear Engelhardt’s case, pro bono, on Saturday December 14th, 2024 — seven days after being licensed.
The events of that case — the cell tower records, the gas station receipts, the GoPro footage from a brother’s helmet camera, the careful timeline that had placed Bear at six different verifiable locations between Waxahachie and Houston on the day of the alleged assault — are the part of this story that Mateo has asked me not to detail in writing, because he is a young attorney with a long career ahead of him and he does not want any specific tactical decisions he made in his first case to be public record in a way that affects his future practice.
The charges had been dismissed on Tuesday March 4th, 2025.
Bear Engelhardt had walked out of the Brazos County Jail at 4:14 p.m. that afternoon as a free man.
Mateo had been at the gate, in his suit, with his briefcase.
I had been two feet behind him, in my black leather Caprock Riders MC cut.
Nineteen patched brothers from three chapters had been at the gate behind me.
What Bear had said when Mateo introduced himself, what Mateo had told Bear in the parking lot afterward, and what we had all done that night at a small steakhouse on the south side of Bryan, Texas, where the Caprock Riders MC and the Brazos Valley Riders MC had held a joint impromptu dinner that was officially listed by the restaurant as “a private party of fifty-two,” is the part of the story I am going to tell you in the next section.
I want to tell you what Mateo had told Bear in the parking lot of the Brazos County Jail.
After Bear had hugged him, and after Mateo had told him about the dismissal, and after Bear had asked him why he had taken the case as his first one, and after Mateo had pointed at me and said “My father is in this club, Mr. Engelhardt,” and after Bear had asked me to tell him the story about the boy on the curb at the Pilot truck stop fifteen and a half years earlier — Mateo had let me finish the story.
He had stood there, at age nineteen and seven months, in his suit, holding his briefcase, listening to me tell Bear Engelhardt about the morning of Friday July 17th, 2009.
When I had finished, Mateo had said, “Mr. Engelhardt. I want to add one thing.”
Bear had said, “Son. Yes.”
Mateo had said, “Mr. Engelhardt. I have been in the Caprock Riders MC family since I was four years old. The brothers in this club have been my uncles for fifteen and a half years. They have, over fifteen and a half years, picked me up from school when my dad was on shift. They have come to my middle school orchestra concerts when my dad was traveling for work. They have helped me move into my freshman dorm at Texas Tech. They have put up money — quietly, without telling my dad — for my law school books. I do not know which specific brothers contributed what, because they did it through a small private fund that the chapter ran for me from my eighteenth birthday onward. But I know that at least twelve different brothers have, in some small way, helped raise me.”
He had paused.
He had said, “Mr. Engelhardt. When I told my dad, on the porch, on the second day after I came home from foster care, that the first case I took as a lawyer would be for one of his brothers — I had meant it in a small four-year-old way. I had been four years old. I had not really known what a lawyer was. I had said it because I had wanted my dad to know that I was on his side.”
He had paused.
He had said, “Mr. Engelhardt. I had said it again, with more understanding of what it meant, at age seven, when I told my elementary school principal that I wanted to be a lawyer. And again at age eleven, when I told my middle school career counselor. And again at age fifteen, when I told the Texas Tech admissions office. And again at age eighteen, when I applied to Texas Tech School of Law.”
He had paused.
He had said, “Mr. Engelhardt. I have been preparing, for fifteen and a half years, to take the first case for one of my dad’s brothers. I have been preparing for whatever that case turned out to be. I have been preparing for whoever that brother turned out to be. The case turned out to be a wrongful arrest. The brother turned out to be you. I am sorry the case had to be a wrongful arrest. I am very glad the brother turned out to be you. I have, in ten weeks of working on your case, come to know what kind of man you are. You are a heavy-equipment operator in Waco. You are sixty-eight days short of a perfect Caprock-and-Brazos-Valley joint charity ride attendance record over twenty-six years. You are the kind of man who, when the public defender’s office was ready to plea you down to time served and a misdemeanor, told them no, because you had not done it, and you would not say you had.”
He had paused.
He had said, “Mr. Engelhardt. You were the right brother to be my first case. I would not have had it any other way.”
Bear had stood there, in the cold March wind outside the Brazos County Jail, and he had cried.
He had cried for about a minute.
Then he had hugged Mateo again.
He had said, “Son. You are a credit to your father. You are a credit to your mother. You are a credit to whoever raised you in foster care for that year. You are a credit to every brother in your father’s chapter who has been your uncle for fifteen years. I am — Mr. Calloway. I am — I am out of words. Thank you, son.”
Mateo had said, “Mr. Engelhardt. You are welcome. There will be no bill. The case was pro bono. The case was always going to be pro bono. The case is closed.”
Bear had nodded.
He had walked over to me.
He had hugged me.
He had said, “Stretch. Brother.”
I had said, “Bear. Brother.”
We had stood in the parking lot of the Brazos County Jail at 4:18 p.m. on Tuesday March 4th, 2025, with nineteen patched brothers from three chapters around us, and we had not said anything for about a minute.
Then Bear had said, “Brothers. I’m hungry. Where are we eating.”
We had ridden, in formation — twenty bikes, plus Mateo in his car following behind because he had not, at that point, started taking riding lessons from me yet — to a small steakhouse on the south side of Bryan, Texas.
We had stayed at the steakhouse until 9:47 p.m.
We had eaten well.
We had toasted Bear.
We had toasted Mateo.
We had toasted the kind woman named Esperanza Calderón who had written a folded note in blue ballpoint pen on a yellow legal pad on a 102-degree afternoon in July of 2009.
She had not been there to hear the toast.
But all fifty-two of us, by Mateo’s careful insistence, had stood up at the table and raised our glasses to her.
“To Esperanza. Wherever you are. He turned out okay. Thank you.”
We had drunk.
We had sat down.
The dinner had continued.
That had been the night.
Mateo is twenty years old.
He is a junior associate at Whitfield Sandoval & Associates in Lubbock. He primarily handles criminal defense cases, with a specialty — by his own quiet determination — in cases involving wrongful arrests, eyewitness misidentification, and low-income defendants who would otherwise be stuck with overworked public defenders.
He has, since taking Bear Engelhardt’s case in December of 2024, taken on twenty-three additional cases.
Eleven of them have resulted in dismissal of all charges.
Six have resulted in plea agreements that he has personally judged to be fair.
Three are still in progress.
Three have gone to trial. He has won two of those three trials.
He is, by every measurement his senior partners have made, the most promising young criminal defense attorney they have hired in twenty-two years of operation.
He still calls me every Sunday at 6:00 p.m.
He still rides on the back of my Heritage Softail with me on long Sunday rides, when his caseload allows.
He has, this past August of 2025, formally been invited by my chapter to begin the prospect process toward becoming a patched member of the Caprock Riders MC.
He has not yet decided whether to accept.
He has told me, over a small dinner at his apartment in October of 2025, that he is leaning toward accepting, but that he wants to think carefully about whether his role as a young defense attorney specializing in criminal cases is fully compatible with patched membership in any motorcycle club, even a small careful one like the Caprock Riders.
He is, by his own honest assessment, going to make the decision sometime in the spring of 2026.
I have told him I will support whichever decision he makes.
Whatever he decides, he is my son.
He is going to be my son for the rest of my life.
I will tell you the smallest version of this story, in case you skipped to the end.
I found a four-year-old boy sitting alone on the curb of a Pilot truck stop on the south side of Lubbock, Texas, on a 102-degree afternoon in July of 2009, with a folded note in his lap from a woman named Esperanza Calderón who had written that she could not do it anymore.
I had been forty-one years old. I had been a single man with no biological children. I had been a member of the Caprock Riders MC for ten years.
I had spent the next eleven months becoming licensed as a single foster parent.
I had brought him home on Tuesday June 15th, 2010, at age four years and one month.
His adoption had been finalized on Tuesday October 18th, 2011.
On the second day after I had brought him home, on a small wooden front porch in west Lubbock, with a small folding lawn chair and a cup of apple juice, he had told me at age four that he was going to be a lawyer when he grew up, and that the first case he took had to be for one of my brothers.
He had been right.
Fifteen years and seven months later, in March of 2025, he had defended a Brazos Valley Riders MC brother named Marcus “Bear” Engelhardt against a wrongful arrest for aggravated assault, and he had won the dismissal of all charges.
He had been nineteen years and ten months old.
He had been the youngest attorney in the courtroom.
He had been the right attorney.
His birth mother has not been located.
She might still turn up.
We hope she does.
Until then, he is my son.
His name is Mateo Daniel Calderón Calloway.
He is twenty years old.
He is a credit to her, to me, to the kind couple in Levelland who held him for a year, to the twelve patched brothers in my chapter who have been his uncles for fifteen and a half years, to a child welfare worker named Reyna Ortiz who held a placement open for eleven months and four weeks, and to a kind woman named Esperanza Calderón who wrote a note in blue ballpoint pen on a yellow legal pad on a 102-degree afternoon in July of 2009 and made the absolutely impossible decision to leave her son at a gas station rather than continue to try to keep him alive on her own.
The note is in a small wooden box on his desk.
He reads it, by his own admission, about once a year on his birthday.
He is going to be reading it for the rest of his life.
That is the entire story.
If this story moved you — follow the page. There are more men out there who picked up small boys at gas stations on 102-degree afternoons. More twenty-two-year-old mothers who wrote folded notes on yellow legal pads because they could not do it anymore. More four-year-olds who told their adoptive fathers what they were going to be when they grew up — and meant it. There are more stories the world doesn’t see — and I will keep telling them as long as someone keeps reading.
