by Matt Mendez
Grampá pulled another tallboy from a cooler Juan hadn’t even noticed on the ground outside the Imperial; he looked over at Juan and handed him the beer before reaching for another. Juan tried not to look surprised, just popped the tab, and took a long drink. It felt good going down. He wanted his head to become light and for the buzzing feeling to come quickly.
“No one is waiting for me. I always tell people that she is, but that’s to make them feel better.”
“So what, you think she’s in hell?” Juan chugged again, not looking at Grampá after asking.
“Cállate. What I’m saying is that I don’t think she’s in heaven or hell. What she is, is dead. There is no such thing as Santa Claus, mijo. Didn’t your mother tell you?”
Juan shifted uncomfortably in his seat, now really not wanting to look at Grampá. “Do you believe that because Grammá died?” Juan had heard his má say that before. That after her mamá died she’d quit believing, at least for a while. She asked how God could do that to a person, slowly waste them away, even after all the time they’d spent praying. Begging. Wasn’t that what Juan had just done? Begged for a scholarship?
“No, your grammá dying has nothing to do with it.”
“Then why?” Juan never went to church, wasn’t sure what religion he belonged to, if he belonged to one at all. He was certain he’d been baptized—he was Mexican, after all. But he knew for a fact that he’d never made his first Holy Communion, and he didn’t know what came after that. JD complained all the time how his mother made him go to church every Sunday and on saints’ days, how he had to go to catechism every year. JD liked to pretend he didn’t believe, always pointing out contradictions or references to slavery in the Bible, but Juan suspected JD liked belonging somewhere. Having a tribe. Juan didn’t have that luxury. Religion and faith were just two more things Juan was born without.
“Because of Noah’s ark,” Grampá said. “That is why.”
“Oh, because no way did all those animals fit on one boat?” Juan guessed, taking another drink. “And how come no one has found the boat? And if we all came from Noah, then how come we’re not all white people? Or Middle Eastern or whatever Noah was? I saw some shit about it on the History Channel. It does sound like bullshit.”
“What are you talking about?” Grampá said, now eyeballing Juan. “If you can believe in God, then you can believe all that. That’s easy. That’s just faith.”
“What, then? Because he forgot the dinosaurs?”
“No seas pendejo, Juan. Why don’t you take anything serious?”
“C’mon, Grampá. You’re asking me to take a kid story serious.”
“That is no kid story. That cuento is about a God who murdered every man, woman, kid, and baby in the whole world.” Grampá took a long pull from his beer and scooted closer to Juan; his eyes were bloodshot, droopy. “Imagine the never-ending piles of drowned bodies left to rot when the sun dried everything up. And just one family, forced to live through a planet being completely annihilated.”
“That would suck,” Juan interrupted, hoping to stop the conversation, but Grampá wasn’t having it. He poked his finger into the middle of Juan’s chest.
“In the Bible, mijo, it says God flooded the world because mankind is wicked. But if a man drowned his wife and all his kids because they were no good, but saved all their pets for his next not-wicked family, we wouldn’t be worshipping the dude. No mames.”
Grampá slid back to his side of the car and studied Juan, looking irritated. “Mira, if we’re wicked, it’s because God’s wicked. That’s what I’m saying. If God’s real, then sooner or later we’re gonna flood the world. We’re gonna destroy everything. We are made to be monsters.”
“Holy fuck, Grampá,” Juan said, feeling drunk himself and wondering if he was made to be a monster. If he was at least part murderer.
Grampá reached over, put him in a headlock, and pulled Juan toward him, his hot breath radiating on Juan’s face as he rested his head against Juan’s. “God has to be a big fake because I just don’t buy that. . . . And besides, you’re right about the stupid boat. No way could all the animals fit on that shit.”
• • •
Coach Paul left the back doors to the practice gym open this time. Eddie had beaten Juan to the court again and was already inside shooting jumpers. Racing back and forth after misses and makes. Juan had just finished exercising his ankle and popping ibuprofen, both to keep the swelling down and to help with the hangover he hadn’t anticipated having from hanging out with his grandfather. Má had come home from work early and gone straight to her room, and Grampá had passed out in the Imperial—Juan had taken him some blankets during the night after he’d refused to go inside. He’d walked to the school and examined his ankle, which finally looked like an ankle, the bruising still there but fading, discoloring from deep purple into orange and dingy yellow around his toes. He’d been on it way too much, but there was nothing he could really do about that; he had no car. Now, from the bleachers, Juan eased his foot into his basketball shoes and gently laced them. He didn’t plan on playing, but he wanted to shoot. To keep from losing his jumper. To put the ball in the hole. He was aching to put the ball in the basket.
Eddie had a good-looking jumper, fluid, with a high release. He followed through without staring down the shot, looking to rebound instead of waiting for the ball to whip through the net. He was taller than Juan. Bigger and probably stronger. Juan wanted to hate the motherfucker and his game but couldn’t. It would be stupid not to want him on your team after watching him shoot and dribble and move on an empty court. But if the floor was clogged with nine other players, the game gummed up with plays and tactics and shit talk, Eddie’s game would jam. Coach Paul had it wrong: Eddie wasn’t too dumb to learn the plays. His problem was lack of vision. Eddie knew all the assignments, where everyone needed to be, in every set. What Eddie couldn’t see was the game itself. When a defense they hadn’t practiced for appeared, when JD or anyone else missed an assignment and there was no place to pass the ball, or when the opposing point guard called him a scrub-ass bitch, Eddie froze. These were the moments Juan loved, and he knew that’s what separated him from players like Eddie. If a set broke down, Juan didn’t panic, didn’t pick up his dribble or rush to call time; he improvised. Sometimes he called for a screen, wanting a pick and roll or a pick and pop, but mostly he drove into the teeth of the defense and let them know he’d be in their grill all night.
“What time you get here?” Juan said, walking toward the court.
“Six,” Eddie said.
“Shit, why so early? I thought we said eight. That’s early. I’m early. Hungover but early.”
“You’re hungover again? Do you and JD get drunk every night?”
“No. I got drunk with my abuelo.” Eddie quit shooting. The echo of the bouncing ball stopped, the gym now an eerie quiet.
“You drink with your grandfather?”
“You don’t gotta say it like that. ‘You drink with your grandfather? You have a porcelain doll collection?’ The shit ain’t that fucked up.”
“That shit’s pretty fucked up.”
“Well, at least I’m too old for dolls.”
“But you’re not old enough to drink. . . . Just saying.”
If only Eddie knew the shit Grampá was talking the night before, he’d flip out. Juan had already been having nightmares about the dudes in the Cutlass; the last thing he’d needed was the image of drowned bodies in his head. Last night he’d dreamt he was floating beside them, awake but unable to move as they drifted submerged among car parts and crushed beer cans.
He snatched the ball from Eddie’s hands and dribbled around the court. He took it slow, crossing the ball over and going behind his back, his body remembering how it was done. He pulled up around the elbow and floated a jumper, the rotation of the ball lifeless, the arc flat and hard. The ball thudded against the side of the rim.
“You need to square up,” Eddie said, retrieving t
he ball.
“You never said why you got here at six,” Juan said, wanting the attention off his terrible shot. Maybe they could go back to talking about drinking with Grampá. “You don’t suck that bad.”
“It’s Sunday. I have church at noon, and I’m better than you, at least for right now.”
“Oh. Well, let’s get started with the practice, then. I don’t want to make you late. And we gotta work on your shit talk.”
Eddie bounced the ball between his legs like he wanted to take Juan off the dribble.
“You can come if you want, to church. You can show me more of Coach’s offense on the way.”
“I don’t think so,” Juan said. “I’m not really into that.”
Eddie tossed him the ball. “So, what are you into, besides basketball?”
The whole scene depressed Juan, how cliché it was setting up to be. He knew, depending on his answer, a list of inevitable questions would follow: Did he want something more out of life? Did he feel trapped or unloved or hopeless or pathetic or stupid or motherfucking worthless? Did everything he did, no matter what, always seem to turn out bad, so why not give this a try? Fuck, he was recruiting himself. And, of course, the answers to those questions were all yes.
“Drinking,” Juan said at last. “Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“That’s probably why you suck so bad at basketball.”
Juan raised his arms in the air, gesturing toward the empty bleachers. “Eddie’s got jokes, everyone!”
Standing at the free-throw line, he decided he would shoot for two. If he made them both, he would go to whatever church Eddie went to. If he made one of two, he would stay at the gym after they practiced, work on his free throws and jumpers, and try to rebuild his game before the one chance he had passed him by. There was no way he was missing both. He purposely tried not to think about Arizona. A scholarship. He shot the first ball. It felt awkward but dropped right through the net. Eddie tossed the ball back to Juan. He didn’t ask Juan any more questions, seeming to sense that Juan was working something out. Juan spun the ball in his hand; he’d missed the feel of the waxy skin, and realized he’d never gone more than a week without playing since, like, forever. Without the game he’d been unraveling. He squared his shoulders, extended his arms, and released.
BELIEVE BELIEVE BELIEVE
(CHAPTER THIRTEEN)
Eddie was the oldest of five: him and three sisters, each about a year apart, and a baby brother still in diapers. His parents smiled welcomingly as Juan jumped inside the busted minivan, helping make him, oddly, not feel like he was in the way as he took Eddie’s seat and Eddie rode in the narrow trunk. They asked about his ankle, how it was healing. Thanked him for helping their son. Eddie’s mother wore a dress that flowed all the way down to her ankles. Eddie’s sisters were dressed exactly the same and looked like those little egg-shaped dolls that fit inside each other from smallest to biggest.
Eddie’s old man drove, jumping on the freeway. He was dressed sharp in a white shirt and tie, his face serious. “Michael or Kobe?” he asked, seemingly to no one.
“Kobe!” Eddie shouted from the trunk.
Juan felt cheap compared to Eddie’s family, still wearing his basketball clothes, smelling like sweat and booze. Eddie had changed into black slacks and a white polo shirt at the gym.
“Not you,” Eddie’s father said. He glanced at Juan in the rearview mirror. Cars zipped out from behind them to escape the van’s black exhaust, then cut sharply in front of them, the van putting along. “I already know you’re wrong. I’m asking Juan.”
“Jordan,” Juan said. Of course he’d never seen Jordan play, only watched old clips on YouTube. But everyone knew that answer. “Kobe’s great, but all his moves are stolen Jordan moves.”
“I like this kid,” Eddie’s father declared. “And Magic is greater than both of them.” He turned back to look at Juan, momentarily taking his eyes off the road. “He’s the greatest player of all time.” They were only going forty miles an hour but the engine was revving hard, all sorts of warning lights illuminating on the dash.
“Whatever, Dad.” Eddie’s voice came from the trunk. “LeBron is the best ever.”
“Diablo.” Eddie’s father crossed himself. A semi truck roared past, shaking the van. “LeBron James is good, pero he’s not even better than Kobe. Who was not better than Bird. Who was not better than Dr. J.” They kept driving, the van’s engine sounding ready to seize—or even explode—the vehicle making noises he was sure not even Grampá could explain. He pictured Eddie squeezed in the trunk, bouncing around and seeing the cars zooming up behind them from the big back window. No one seemed to notice the crazy amount of traffic but Juan.
“Are we getting close?” Juan asked. A pair of SUVs pulled up beside them, both crowding into their lane. Eddie’s mother smiled at Juan, probably thinking he was eager for church. The sisters squirmed in their seats, and Juan wondered if maybe they thought they were moments from crashing too.
“You should be more like this kid!” Eddie’s father hollered to his son. Thankfully they pulled off at the next exit. Juan’s back was slicked with sweat, his legs tired from thumping up and down the entire ride. He was done with freaking out about crashing, worrying about Eddie in the trunk getting smashed and dying.
“So, who do you think is the greatest?” Eddie’s father asked, turning to Juan. “Magic?”
“For sure,” Juan said, not really caring and just glad to be off the freeway. He focused on the church in the distance, trying to calm down. The building could’ve been a multiplex, a new stadium for some minor league soccer team, or a fancy museum, if anyone in El Paso had ever cared enough to build fancy museums.
• • •
Inside “the Center,” beyond the huge front hallway and the extending corridors lined with closed doors, was a theater. And this was an actual theater, with stadium seating broken into three huge sections before a stage with three no-shit movie screens suspended in midair. All of them flashed inspirational quotes and churchy memes like †HRIVE and GOD IS ON YOUR SIDE and THIS WAY TO HEAVEN.
Sitting in the middle section and surrounded by people dressed almost exactly like Eddie and his family, Juan felt ridiculous in his basketball shorts and NO BLOOD, NO FOUL T-shirt. While he’d always thought JD bitched too much about church, it had always sounded kind of nice to him, a quiet place. But the Center seemed to be something else entirely. Like maybe a smoke machine would be involved. There was no art on the walls inside the theater, no confessional booths or burning candles. Juan liked those things.
Not long after they sat, the lights dimmed and music blared seemingly from everywhere, even under their seats. Behind them a guy on a soundboard was busy turning knobs, getting the rock music—not the good kind, something like 3 Doors Down, only downier—to sync with flashing lights and the new images now racing across the three screens from left to right: BELIEVE! BELIEVE! BELIEVE! = = =
The pastor came on stage. He was an old white dude dressed in a polo shirt and blazer, a pair of jeans. The vato seemed pretty casual, even in the way he walked toward the podium, a bounce in his step, head bobbing. The motherfucker definitely had swag and probably went by Pastor Ricky or Pastor Bobby. Everyone clapped and cheered as he approached the mic, and Juan was sure no one at Our Lady of Guadalupe gave it up when Father Mumbles took the pulpit. Eddie’s family clapped right along, all except for Eddie, who seemed preoccupied. Juan had ended up next to Eddie’s father, and he was somewhat glad, able to avoid Eddie and not have to pretend one way or another about what he thought was happening.
Pastor Cool wasted no time getting started. “What do you do when life doesn’t play nice? When all the things you want to have happen to you, don’t? Where do you turn?” Now this seemed like some convenient bullshit, a message designed specifically for Juan. Juan couldn’t help but look over at Eddie, who wasn’t paying attention at all, instead sneaking peeks at his phone. Eddie’s father noticed his son too and snag
ged it, the image on his screen a headshot of Magic Johnson and what looked like career stats.
The pastor went on, quoting from the Bible, interpreting the quote—even explaining the Hebrew translation. He told stories about his life and the lives of his friends, about people who had turned to him when things had gone shitty. Juan thought this was illegal or maybe should’ve been; JD had once told him that anything said during a confession was totally confidential. Point for the Catholics. The pastor then explained how shitty the Apostle Paul had had it following Jesus. “In Corinthians the Apostle Paul tells us: ‘Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.’
“Now,” the pastor said, as if nodding at Juan. “If all this can happen to the Apostle Paul and he can still keep the faith, he can still feel the love of our Heavenly Father, then why can’t we? No matter how trying our lives become?”
But hearing how shitty Paul had it made Juan feel worse about the world. Pastor Cool seemed to have it wrong. The apostle never mentioned love, only anxiety about the future. Juan thought about Grampá and his Noah story. About monsters. About his father.
“Can I get an amen for that? An amen for the love of our Heavenly Father?”
“Amen! Amen! Amen!”
Juan knew his má had at least two letters from his father. He wanted to read them, to know how Armando ended up on death row. What did it mean to have a murderer for a father? As your God?
Pastor Cool continued prowling the stage, selling everyone on being just like Paul, on suffering their way to heaven.
