Drowning Tucson (16 page)

Transgressions?

Like sins, wrongdoings. Things you know are bad but refuse to give up because the Devil has convinced you that you’re right.

Davíd thought hard about the man’s question. Was there really something out there that could save him? How could it be real when he knew those fags who sneaked into the restroom during the service were supposed to be Christians too? They sang and prayed right along with the rest of them. Davíd felt the man place a hand on his back and almost punched the fucker in the face, no man ever touches me like that. The guy was looking Davíd straight in the eyes and saying I can tell, brother, that you hurt inside. Christ can relieve that pain. He will ease the burden you feel each day. He will make it all okay. You have a place in heaven.

A place in heaven. Davíd thought about heaven. Would his father and brother be there? Or would they be in hell because they hadn’t been Christians? Would there be naked chicks and more food than he could ever hope to eat? What the hell was there to do in heaven for the rest of eternity? he asked the man. Well, the Word of God says that in heaven there are many mansions. And we will worship God for all eternity. There will be no more sickness. No sadness. No death. All the aches of this world will be absent, and we will truly be able to enjoy the presence of the Lord.

How much fun could that be? Worshipping the Lord for all eternity? It didn’t sound that appealing to Davíd. But the idea of no more pain sounded nice. No more fear and poverty and always having to look over my back to see if someone’s going to shove a knife in it or blast me upside the head with a brick. That wouldn’t be so bad. He was tired of living in fear. Tired of always having to be a fuckin macho who couldn’t love or cry or do anything because he’d just be a bitch if he left the gang and tried to go to school or anything else that all the people in his neighborhood felt meant you were trying to be a gringo. Trying to be a gringo was one of the worst crimes you could possibly commit in his neighborhood. Be a busboy your whole life. Fix cars or pick fruit or be a drunk, but NEVER be a gringo.

So what do I have to do? The man said, come down to the altar with me and give your heart to Jesus. Ask Him to come into your body and cleanse your soul. Ask Him to save you and you will be born again. You will be given a fresh start on life. You will no longer be guilty of all the sins you’ve committed in your life. You will be free. You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. The man gestured toward the bandshell. Will you come? Will you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

Davíd said yes.

He couldn’t believe he was doing it, but he figured why the hell not. Why not just try it and see? The worst thing that could happen is the churchies could all be full of shit and I’ll be in the same place I’m in already, so fuck it. His brothers weren’t there to make fun of him. The Kings weren’t around because there were too many cops in the park when the Jesus freaks came around. Got to protect the gringos from the
crazy beaners. In fact, Loudermilk was fewer than fifty yards away, standing over by the parking lot, leaning on his car and smirking at the churchies. Davíd said yes and the man took him by the hand, Davíd using all his willpower to keep from punking the sonofabitch in the mouth, and they walked through the crowd toward the bandshell, where the preacher was beckoning for sinners to come forward and give their lives to Christ.

Davíd almost bailed out several times on the walk to the stage. He felt as if everyone was watching him, this hardcore vato, and wondering what the hell he was doing. I mean, I’m wearing a bandana and my zoot suit pants and an undershirt and it’s obvious to these people that I’m in a gang. He looked over at Loudermilk, but the cop was looking at his fingernails and didn’t notice Davíd coming forward to be born again. He was glad about that.

They reached the front of the stage, where several people were kneeling in prayer, and the man gestured for Davíd to kneel down. Davíd knelt. The man draped his arm around his shoulder and said you are about to make the best decision of your life. You will be a new man. Davíd nodded and felt a strange buzzing in his chest. Davíd, the man said, repeat after me. Okay. Lord Jesus. I know I’m a sinner. I know that you came to Earth two thousand years ago as a sacrifice for my sins. I ask you to accept my prayer. I beg you to come into my heart. Come in and wash away my sins. Jesus, I understand that you paid a debt you did not owe. That you gave your life for me so that I might be forgiven and have eternal life. I want to serve you. I want to be free. Please, Lord, take this burden from my shoulders. Accept me into your kingdom. Lead me into the Promised Land. Davíd said all these words and began to cry as he felt a great burden lift from his shoulders, the weight of his sins, the many people he’d hurt, the pain he’d brought upon his own house, and he wanted to call every girl he’d ever screwed and tell her I’m sorry, I know you’re a human and more than a piece of ass and if you’ll forgive me I’d like to make it up to you because I couldn’t help having sex with you and never talking to you again unless you’d come hang out with the Kings so we could all have you anytime we wanted—don’t you see? this is the way things have been around here for so long
that it’s completely out of my hands, and if it wasn’t me fucking you and sending you home after maybe giving you a joint or something in return, then it would’ve been someone else, maybe someone who didn’t believe in using condoms, someone who would’ve gotten you pregnant and wouldn’t have had the money to pay for an abortion so he’d have to call up Smiley and have him do his operation, and then things would’ve been so much worse because you would have to choose between having your first kid at fifteen or risking Smiley’s operation and maybe dying all because you fucked a King. Davíd wanted to call all the women he’d laid in life, the ones he’d bragged about to his brothers and the other vatos, and tell them sorry, sorry, sorry. But he could only remember a few of their names. He could barely recollect their individual features, since most of the time he bagged them in the dim bedrooms of various Kings, the girl usually so high she could hardly move when he climbed on her and pulled up her skirt or wrestled the skintight jeans down her legs.

Davíd began to sob and the man next to him patted him on the back and said it’s okay brother—glory be to God—that’s right, let it out. Davíd bowed his head and closed his eyes and was assaulted with images of all his wrongdoings. The robberies. The rapes. The beatings. Killing his very own brother. Oh God, please forgive me—and the grief he alone had caused his mother made him feel that he deserved nothing short of hell. He wept more. He wanted to find the families of the other boys he had killed or injured. To walk up to their front doors and knock and tear the shirt from his back and say here I am, the person who stole your child from you before he even had a chance to live, and maybe the father of his victim would kick him and beat his head against the porch floor and the brothers and sisters would come rushing from their rooms and join in, taking out all their anguish on the person who stole their brother from them, and the mom would come and beat him over the head with flour-covered hands until she tired and then she would run to her room and throw herself on her bed thanking God for the opportunity to avenge the loss of her baby, who had been so young and had so much to live for, so many years ahead of him to find a nice girl and a job and have some kids, happy deep down inside for finally
being able to exorcise the anger and sadness that the punk lying beaten on the porch had brought on her household.

Davíd wished he could replace everything he’d ever stolen, take back every punch he’d ever thrown and every curse he’d ever uttered. He knelt at the altar, before hundreds of people, and shed tears. The man next to him gave thanks to God for bringing another sheep into the fold, rubbed Davíd’s back and offered him his understanding. I used to be a gangbanger too. But I’ve been saved, just like you. And the Lord has forgiven us both. Yes. Yes, Lord. Sensing the intensity of Davíd’s remorse, the man decided to leave him alone to allow the Lord to purify the new convert’s heart. He walked away, praising the Holiest of Holies, and Davíd knelt back down to grieve more, to unburden all of his sins at the altar so he could leave the park with a fresh start on life. A new man. He bent forward and placed his head on the cement sidewalk that skirted the stage. The cement was slightly eroded and the uneven surface of pebbles poked into the soft flesh of his forehead. It hurt him a bit. But he pressed his forehead harder into the cement and as the pain became greater he cried even more, not for his suffering, but for that which he had brought on so many other people. The ache increased as he cried and pressed his head harder to the ground, moving it back and forth and wincing each time the rough surface broke through the skin. It hurt, but it was nothing compared to the families who’d lost their sons at his hands. He knew his pain didn’t compare to the heartbreak he’d caused countless women who had lain beneath him, drugged eyes glazed and gazing at nothing while he thrust himself inside and ignored their whimpering and the click-whir of Peanut’s Polaroid documenting another bitch to add to the Latin Kings’ hall of fame.

Davíd stopped grinding his head into the cement. He knelt quietly with his face to the ground, his blood trickling onto the sidewalk, and opened his arms to hug the earth. When he finally lifted his head, the lights on the bandshell were already raised and many of the believers had begun to pack their belongings and round up their children. He removed his bandana and wiped the dirt and drying blood from his forehead. The blond man who had witnessed to him returned, smiling, and welcomed
Davíd as a new believer into the flock, telling him where the church was located and when they held services. Davíd promised to attend.

He walked over to a trashbarrel a few feet from the bandshell and, making sure Loudermilk was watching, he wadded up his bandana and lit it with his lighter, holding it between his fingers until it burned too close to bear, and then he blew the flame off the scrap of cloth that remained and dropped it into the trash. He looked at Loudermilk, who was confused by Davíd’s actions, and then he smiled at the cop, who instinctively went for his gun then stopped, hovered over the leather holster, ready to grab his weapon and fire it at Davíd if he made any sudden movements. But Davíd only smiled and shook his head, understanding that Loudermilk was simply playing his role in the game, the role of the man who had been commissioned by the city to protect its upright citizens. He smiled because he knew that Loudermilk didn’t know he was out of the game. He had given up and he felt such relief he wanted to go home and hug his mother and tell her the exciting news of how he’d given his life to Christ—she’d be so proud. He wanted to sit on her lap while she rocked him in her rocking chair as she had done when he was young, rubbing his head and pressing it into the warm comfort of her chest while he would knead the rolls of fat on the sides of her torso. He wanted to run home and explain how he’d been thinking about maybe buying some paint and repainting the outside of the house for her. He knew it would please her to watch her son working on the house the way his father used to do after work or on weekends. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Right after I find that preacher and thank him for bringing God’s message to the park for all these years.

Searching the stage for the preacher amid the crowd of stagehands rolling up extension cords and packing equipment, Davíd finally spotted him in the corner. A young couple stood next to him, shook his hand, and walked away with their arms around each other and smiles on their faces. Davíd hopped up onto the stage and walked toward the preacher, extending his hand and telling him his name and being told mine’s Pastor Warren, the pastor speaking much softer and more pensively than earlier, which surprised Davíd, who told Pastor Warren how he had just wanted to shake the hand of the man who’s crazy enough
to come here, to this fucked-up—sorry, messed-up—neighborhood, because it was just what I needed to hear and you never gave up, man, thanks for never giving up, squeezing the pastor’s hand a little too vigorously, but the pastor allowing him to shake his hand, knowing how to play this game and realizing sometimes it means putting up with some poor gushing bastard who’d hit bottom because they might not be good for much money but it all adds up, and the pastor wanted the blathering idiot to just leave him alone so he could take the night’s money, break off a piece for Carl, who’d agreed to do the cancer-daddy bit for a cut of the offering money, and after this pepperbelly finished gushing he could meet Carl for a drink on Miracle Mile and give him his cut and they’d toss back a few beers and talk about the fine women who had been at the park—they just keep getting better and better—and they might even plot out the next place they should take the revival, maybe Agua Prieta, or that Ciudad Juarez place where all those chicks are being killed, they’ll eat the shit up cause they’re probably scared to death, all of em, and on and on until Carl’d had his fill and headed home to his wife, shit, I’ll have to remember to tell Carl, that hilarious sonofabitch, how he was killing me tonight with that whole convulsing thing, brilliant how those dumb brokeasses wanted so badly to think the whole thing’s real, and he could barely contain his laughter at the thought of it and was relieved when the sorry prick shaking his hand finally let go and walked away, and he wheeled down the makeshift plywood ramp some suckup guy at the church had made for him, wheeled to the back of the bandshell where his car was parked, and he collapsed his wheelchair and placed it in the back, pulled himself up and into the driver’s seat, and stretched his legs while he warmed up his car and thought about picking up some whore on the Mile—maybe Rainbow or Satin is working tonight—since his wife was out of town again.

When the car was warmed up, he slammed his foot on the gas and drove west to meet Carl.