Read Online Chango's Fire by Ernesto Quinonez - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ernesto Quinonez
Ads: Link
about.â
Maritza sighs heavily. She has taken off her usual pastor gown and put on a dress that outlines the shape of her breasts. As she impatiently sighs, her breasts slowly rise and fall in unison.
Maritzaâs attention shifts to the scared girl. She whispers something quick and loving, with something about God at the end, and then pulls me aside.
âWhere you going thatâs so important?â I ask Maritza, whose hair is always kept short and kinda of moppish and raggedy. If she were a petite girl, sheâd be considered perky and cute. But because sheâs tall, taller than me at five-eleven, what her hair tells you is that Maritza is too preoccupied with matters she deems more urgent to care what her hair looks like. So she just keeps it short and out of the way.
âJust drop us off at the clinic, just drop us off. We got two hours before the service is over, come on.â
I think I know whatâs happened.
âIs that all, cuz you always have something else in mind.â
âThatâs all, letâs go. Come on, this poor girl is getting married next week.â
She gives me a desperate look. Maritza knows that I can never refuse her anything; though Iâve tried, I could never do it. For years Iâve tried to shake her loose, and like a pit bullâs jaw I canât let go. She commands me to do this or that, and I always complain, but in the end I always give in and do what sheâs asked of me.
Like now.
I drive her and this scared girl to a clinic in Queens, where during the entire trip no one says anything. Complete silence, except for the girlâs sobs and sniffles. I take the FDR Drive along the Upper East Side.
In the silent car, I think about how the Upper East Side always reminds me of when I was a teenager and I started to realize I was being lied to. I believed in âThe Truthâ back then, and these people walking around the Upper East Side were people who were destined to be destroyed by God. These rich people were sinners and didnât love their children, because they were not walking in the ways of Jehovah God and their thoughts were not His thoughts. They didnât know the Bible and they didnât read it to their children every day and they didnât preach the good news of the Kingdom. They were part of the physical world. The governor of their world was Satan, and all those shop windows with Rolex watches and silk dresses, and all those penthouses, and all those cars and good furniture were material things that were there to entice us into the world. Our reward was Heaven.
Yet I walked around the Upper East Side and saw how these people, too, had churches and they, too, believed in God, and they, too, took their children to church. They called their God the same name as we called ours, and He, too, had a son, his name was Jesus, and he, too, died for all sinners. The churches and synagogues on the Upper East Side were big and wealthy. They had real wooden pews, not folding chairs, like ours, and their rugs were clean, not gum-stained. Their worshipers didnât wear the same two or three good dresses they rotated every other Sunday. They bought their children presents, real expensive ones, like trains and cars that ran on batteries. These people were Christians like me, believed in the same Christian God as I did. The Upper East Side and Spanish Harlem were two neighborhoods that existed back to back and were like the prince and the pauper. But our Christian God was the same. And our God was supposed to love us the same. Our God was supposed to bless us the same. We were supposed to live by His word and take part in the same blessings. But thatâs not what I saw. I remember how, when we were teens, Maritza made fun of me one day by saying, âThe Upper East Side God can beat up the Spanish Harlem God.â
My mother kept saying that itâs only a matter of time, and that the more years go by the closer to
Maritza sighs heavily. She has taken off her usual pastor gown and put on a dress that outlines the shape of her breasts. As she impatiently sighs, her breasts slowly rise and fall in unison.
Maritzaâs attention shifts to the scared girl. She whispers something quick and loving, with something about God at the end, and then pulls me aside.
âWhere you going thatâs so important?â I ask Maritza, whose hair is always kept short and kinda of moppish and raggedy. If she were a petite girl, sheâd be considered perky and cute. But because sheâs tall, taller than me at five-eleven, what her hair tells you is that Maritza is too preoccupied with matters she deems more urgent to care what her hair looks like. So she just keeps it short and out of the way.
âJust drop us off at the clinic, just drop us off. We got two hours before the service is over, come on.â
I think I know whatâs happened.
âIs that all, cuz you always have something else in mind.â
âThatâs all, letâs go. Come on, this poor girl is getting married next week.â
She gives me a desperate look. Maritza knows that I can never refuse her anything; though Iâve tried, I could never do it. For years Iâve tried to shake her loose, and like a pit bullâs jaw I canât let go. She commands me to do this or that, and I always complain, but in the end I always give in and do what sheâs asked of me.
Like now.
I drive her and this scared girl to a clinic in Queens, where during the entire trip no one says anything. Complete silence, except for the girlâs sobs and sniffles. I take the FDR Drive along the Upper East Side.
In the silent car, I think about how the Upper East Side always reminds me of when I was a teenager and I started to realize I was being lied to. I believed in âThe Truthâ back then, and these people walking around the Upper East Side were people who were destined to be destroyed by God. These rich people were sinners and didnât love their children, because they were not walking in the ways of Jehovah God and their thoughts were not His thoughts. They didnât know the Bible and they didnât read it to their children every day and they didnât preach the good news of the Kingdom. They were part of the physical world. The governor of their world was Satan, and all those shop windows with Rolex watches and silk dresses, and all those penthouses, and all those cars and good furniture were material things that were there to entice us into the world. Our reward was Heaven.
Yet I walked around the Upper East Side and saw how these people, too, had churches and they, too, believed in God, and they, too, took their children to church. They called their God the same name as we called ours, and He, too, had a son, his name was Jesus, and he, too, died for all sinners. The churches and synagogues on the Upper East Side were big and wealthy. They had real wooden pews, not folding chairs, like ours, and their rugs were clean, not gum-stained. Their worshipers didnât wear the same two or three good dresses they rotated every other Sunday. They bought their children presents, real expensive ones, like trains and cars that ran on batteries. These people were Christians like me, believed in the same Christian God as I did. The Upper East Side and Spanish Harlem were two neighborhoods that existed back to back and were like the prince and the pauper. But our Christian God was the same. And our God was supposed to love us the same. Our God was supposed to bless us the same. We were supposed to live by His word and take part in the same blessings. But thatâs not what I saw. I remember how, when we were teens, Maritza made fun of me one day by saying, âThe Upper East Side God can beat up the Spanish Harlem God.â
My mother kept saying that itâs only a matter of time, and that the more years go by the closer to
Similar Books
