These aren’t the days I’m living for.
Dalton terminates our chat by kicking me in the ribs. Then he and Cassidy turn around and stalk off. Dazed, I manage to roll over and sit upright. El Pueblo’s red Christmas lights silhouette me as I telegraph a message to my feet: we need to get the hell out of here.
The growing twilight is perfumed with smog, the opalescent moon a sliver tacked in the soot-gray sky. Women and men attired in formal evening wear are passing through the Mill Street checkpoint on their way to a holiday pageant at the Orange Show grounds. I slink by the shuttered Crest Theatre, recalling the night I saw Brewster McCloud. Bud Cort starred as a kid who built a pair of wings so he could fly.
I’m not a star. That’s painfully self-evident. Life isn’t pretty without lipstick. Yet I’ve paroled out of prison. And I have a paying job. I also entertain dreams—no matter how flimsy those dreams are, they guide me through shoals of fear and self-hatred. But getting my ass whipped by Dalton is a homicidal truth: I’m boatless in limbo.
A letter from Blessed World awaits me at home. I rarely get mail. I’m surprised by the letter. And I don’t like surprises. I take the letter over to the wingback chair. I plop into the seat, the cushions squeaking under my bruised cheeks. Using my thumb, I tear open the envelope. Out slides a single typed page:
this notice is to inform you that your services as a donations solicitor are no longer required by our organization. the personnel department has reviewed your file. they have determined you are morally unfit for the position you occupy. we have discovered you are a felon with a prison record. your name has been removed from the priesthood’s rolls. you have been defrocked. please come by the main office to return your uniform. you are responsible for its condition. any damages will be deducted from your wages. god bless you.
I read the notice two times. I drop my head, blinking back tears. I’ve been drummed out of the priesthood. And defrocked. Those assholes. Those rotten bastards. How could they do this to me? After all I’ve been through? Fuck that noise. A sole question repeats itself over and over in my mind: are you going to let them get away with this shit?
For real: I have anger management issues. I have impulse control problems. I suffer from conduct disorder. But the answer is no, I’m not going to let them get away with it.
I have been called epithets. Leech. Faggot. Fuckhead. I’ve been spat on, punched, and kicked. I have been chokeholded.
It’s my uniform, not theirs.
I’ve earned those colors.
Like the Hells Angels earn theirs.
I keep circling back to that conclusion because I don’t know what else to think. Naturally, I’ll take my post on E Street tomorrow—my station is as important to me as the uniform is.
But what if the administrators at Blessed World engage in legal action against me? What if they have me arrested for not returning the uniform? Legally speaking, I don’t have a leg to stand on. I touch my neck—it’s hot and swollen. Dalton can screw himself.
□ □ □
The Devil Canyon fire is climbing the mountainside tonight. Jags of heat lightning boomerang off the valley floor, bleaching the sky from Rialto to Mount San Gorgonio. The answering machine unexpectedly lights up after midnight. I listen to the incoming message:
“Pick up the phone, cabrón. It’s me, Alonzo. I want to talk to you. And tell you the things I didn’t say the other day. I used to respect you. But you’ve changed. And I don’t dig it. Begging money for Blessed World? That shit doesn’t wash with me. You’ve become a sellout. And you know what? I saw you today on E Street. You sad little pendejo. Banging on that pinche tambourine. Rudy from Muscoy was with me. He said you’re a goddamn chump. Don’t you know nothing? Look at the people in the street. Just a bunch of hoodlums and ghosts. Who among them is gonna give you a penny? Nobody, that’s who. That’s basic economics. And besides—”
Exercising its own quirky logic, the machine cuts him off.