Jesus in a Mullet

The other full-time staffer is Rob Avalos, 23, a wiry Latino with a wispy goatee who studied computer graphics at a local technical college. Last year, he was working construction at D/FW airport, unable to find a job in his preferred field. "I would get the interviews but I would never get the job," he says. When he dropped off his résumé at Bajito Onda's former location, just down the street from his grandparents' house, he expected more of the same. Instead, Hendrixson called and hired him sight unseen. Avalos maintains Bajito Onda's Web site and does much of the design, though he is less comfortable with training others. "Sometimes you really have to explain things word by word," he says. "I try to just keep working."

Vital as their support is, much of the load still falls on Hendrixson's shoulders. What she hopes for most is to find someone to succeed her as a manager so she can concentrate on outreach programs and Bajito Onda's presence abroad. Yet there is a real question whether she could bring herself to relinquish the reins.

"Del has what is known as 'founder's syndrome,'" Gary Ivory says. "She feels she has to be involved in every aspect of the business. Founder's syndrome is a common ailment at start-up nonprofits, which often are created by one person with a compelling vision. Most of Bajito Onda exists only inside Hendrixson's head. "I wish she would put more structure in her program," Hallman says. "I think you use Del to sell it, but you need somebody else to draw it up."

Recently, Hendrixson thought she had at last found the right person, a quiet African-American volunteer named Theo. Hendrixson met Theo on August 14, a Sunday, and by August 16 she is convinced she has found her successor. "It's almost like we have the same brain," Hendrixson gushes. "His brain talks to my brain. It's like my brain has a friend. I'm serious--my brain is lonely having all this stuff in it, and it can't really relate with other people."

Hendrixson doesn't press Theo too hard on his background once she has established the vital fact that he, too, has had trouble with the law. "He successfully completed his probation," Hendrixson says. "So he kind of qualifies. He kind of fits in with what we're doing." For the remainder of the week, Theo's obvious competence has Hendrixson delighted--but on the following Monday, he is nowhere to be found. She doesn't hear from him again for a week.

Hendrixson sends Theo packing when he eventually reappears. "I'm very demanding," she says. "I invest in you, I expect you to invest in you. I can't invest in an empty hole in the ground." Yet her capacity for investment seems limitless. "I think Del's idea is, 'I save your life, you stay here and work with me and we'll keep this place going,'" Hallman says. "But these aren't people that can help Del. These are people like Del."

Jessie "Chuco" Chavez is one of those people. On one steamy evening last month, the 32-year-old Chavez sits in his front yard, visiting with Hendrixson. He is in obvious pain, but his instincts won't let him relax. At any sign of movement beyond the chain-link fence surrounding the yard of his family's small Oak Cliff house, Chavez tenses in his wheelchair, his eyes probing the darkness. "Sorry, man--paranoid," he says after one such interruption.

Chavez has good reason to be paranoid. His legs have been paralyzed since a bullet lodged in his spine when he was 17, just one of nine different times he says he's been shot. Chavez never let his disability hinder him in his duties as a gang leader, however, either in prison or on the outside. "He'll go after them right out of his chair," Hendrixson says in a respectful tone. Now though, Chavez's body is betraying him. During a recent hospital visit for a nagging infection in his thigh, Chavez fell from his chair and broke bones in both his weakened legs. Occasional tremors, either from fever or pain, course through his body.

Chavez and Hendrixson have a friendship that at times seems more of a mutual admiration society. Chavez is impressed that Hendrixson seeks out company that would give most middle-aged white ladies nightmares. Hendrixson, in turn, is awed by Chavez's grim determination to earn respect from the world at any price.

Chavez heads to his trailer behind the house to get a piece of his artwork for Hendrix to copy. It is a breathtaking, brooding ink drawing of the Stations of the Cross that he did in prison. Before rolling back to the door, Chavez points to a small cross propped in a dish. "See that?" Closer inspection shows that the cross is actually a thorned, gray metal "T" with an overlaid "S," a blood-red stone in a claw-like setting at the center. "Texas Syndicate," Chavez says--a much-feared prison gang. "That means I'm a general. Guys that know, they're shitting their pants when they see that."