BLESSING OF THE CARS

Tio never got too excited about the Blessing of the Cars, except that it was an annual event which included a marvelous street party. He always enjoyed that which lent stability to his life in this forever new country. Christmas, of course, was the same as in La Tlapa, but the host of new holidays were completely foreign to him. Going around the calendar, there were only eight: New Year’s Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then the cycle began anew.

What amazed Tio most was the absence of fiestas outside the barrio in the Anglo culture. Of the eight official holidays, only five included some sort of party. No wonder, he thought, as he ran his hand down a candy-apple red feathered paint job on a sixty-three Impala, no wonder so many of the gringos went crazy. In La Tlapa, every saint’s day offered a chance to celebrate. During the feast of Santiago del Campostella, the entire town basically shut down for at least three days in honor of St. James, Jesus’ younger brother. During those heady days, everything became different. Rudolfo and his brothers played a trombone, a clarinet and an old wooden bass in the streets, while the women danced, or went back to cooking festive food.

True, during the Blessing of the Cars, much of East Los transformed itself as well: Music, lots of traditional Mexican mariachis, and homegrown bands like Los Lobos serenading the throngs of onlookers as they passed the main stage. And, while in La Tlapa the women would prepare wild turkeyin a special thick mole sauce, here tamales were the festive food of choice, but there was also posole with thick-cut cubes of pork and spicing that Tio never really got used to. The feeling of the fiesta reigned for a few short hours: Happy people forgot their problems. They forget themselves in the moment, as they lined Alameda Street, waiting for the tricked-out rides to slowly crawl along.

In La Tlapa, the procession always included a large statue of Santiago, as well as one of the Virgin Mary. It was considered quite an honor to hoist the heavy wooden replica onto a six-man platform, and then carry it through the caramel-dirt streets of the town. But the honor on Cesar Chavez Avenue stayed in the ride, itself.

Actually, he would not have come had it not been for Rosy, his adopted daughter. With the parade, the food, the music, and the cholo pride, it was considered just hip enough to draw in the unruliest teenager.

In a line now, they came, all machismo, turning over their engines so that their fuel injection fairly screamed. The pachucos crept all in a line, each car club trying to outgun the other, but in a friendly rivalry, not a blood feud. For on this day all of the Saturday Night Specials, all of the Mexican Mausers and the machete switch blades stayed either in the trunk or in the glove box with the lock turned up.

Tio moved his index finger all the way down the flank of this Nineteen Sixty-Two Cadillac El Dorado, way back until his finger touched the chrome finish on one of the gigantic fins. So much to know, so much to understand, and he pushed down for just a moment on the sharpness created by the fin’s end.

Now the boys began pumping their hydraulics, a dozen vatos in wife-beaters jammin’ fluid into the rear end, so that this maroon-and-glossy-pearl Chevy looked more like an edgy sprinter ready to come off its blocks, un primo coche. Boom boxes, complete with the super bass, thumped the pride of each ride; the chavalas showed it off, too. Plenty of skin today, plenty of sexy.

When Father Pablo Gonzales de Jesus finally appeared, the crowd was more revved up than the hottest chrome Hemi. A spot had been reserved right on the boulevard with a gold rope, and it was into that spot Chico parked his ride: a Nineteen Sixty-Seven Ranchero, midnight blue with fire red streaks on each flank. Chrome double pipes got the announcing done; red naugahyde tuck-an’-roll and two fuzzy mirror dice completed the package.

“Bless me father, for I have sinned,” Chico cried loud enough for the club tohear as de Jesus approached. This brought a frown to padre’s face, but he kept walking closer with a vessel of holy water in his left hand, and a golden wand in his right.

“Hey,” hissed somebody in the large crowd behind the rope. “That’s not cool, man.”

The three security guys pasted a steadied look in the distraction’s direction, then back at Chico. In the event’s twenty-nine year history, nothing violent had ever happened. They decided it was routine.

Normally, Chico wouldn’t stand for a challenge from anyone, much less some sissy maricon on the street, but today was a little different. Fiesta rules included total amnesty. Safety for everyone.

Chico stared back at the little Twinkie with his close-cropped black hair and his oversize gold crucifix. He sported plenty of earring piercings and a hard silver nugget that protruded right below his lower lip, so that it competed with the sliver of black fuzz growing there.

“Right, you want cool? This, this right here is cool. Ain’t it, padre?”

From the look on his face, it was evident that de Jesus didn’t loathe anyone in this world more than Chico. But, he forced a smile, just the same. Holy water may bring many things, but it cannot quell the rage inside a man’s heart.

“There you go, my son,” the priest offered as he extended his hand and holy water three times over the hood, droplets beading immediately on the intensely waxed surface. They formed and then seemed to sit in time, glistening in the sun.

“Nice, padre. Gracias. I’ll give a dime on Sunday, but there’s a little problem,” Chico said more to his muchachos -- his boys -- than to de Jesus.

The priest, who always expected trouble from this one, began to back away, closer to the crowd for protection.

“I’ve got another two hundred and sixty-four cars to go, Chico. What is it that you want from me?”

The crowd alternated between having a good time and being serious and respectful -- many were devout Catholics. But now everyone held a silent that radiated like the heats waves wafting off the asphalt. They sensed the same thing as the priest.

“Oh, not much, padre. I just want you to take one of your long sleeves there and dry that shit off my hood. You know, I spent a long time shining it up so that she’d look sweeter than Bennie’s or Aurelio’s. So, come on, be a priest and shine it off. Then, I’ll let you go take care of your business.”

The vatos looked stunned, some staring back hard at Chico, some trying to find their shoes below their baggies. It wasn’t good to insult a priest, especially after he just did you the big favor of blessing your ride. Not cool.

Some people just needed an excuse to get something started, while others were justplain fearless. The sissy boy lived in the latter camp. Swiftly, he sprang between the two guards nearest him and under the rope to confront Chico and shield the priest.

“My son,” de Jesus whispered in a shaky voice, waving the boy off. “There’s no need for this. I’ll just wipe down his hood with my sleeve ... .”

“Just like Jesus would have done,” smirked Chico.

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Boys, hold on. Wait, this is a peaceful event! Please ... .”

The shots echoed like muffled firecrackers, so tiny it was almost as if a miniature popgun had gone off. Maybe like one of those small cannons, the kind that can pop two caps at a time; the kind toy soldiers rolled onto the battlefield when you were a kid, and aimed at your evil, conspiring enemy.

But, although the sound was quiet, two round patches of blood poured from where the sissy boy’s brass knuckles connected with Chico’s right temple. Even though the boy got in a good shot, he now lay on the ground. No blood showed.

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph, what have you done?” de Jesus cried, forgetting himself.

Chico nursed his head, while his boys formed a semi-circle around him, as well as the body. The boy’s unmoving frame appeared smaller than it had, with a fragile quality, like a light cream-colored bird that had suddenly plummeted from the sky.

“Son of a bitch tried to kill me,” Chico yelled at the crowd that receded from the violence like a strong tide, leaving only the curious -- and the angry.

“Hey, no guns, you stupid shit. Let us in to see. Let us in to see!”

Three fat and aging security guards were no real match for a crowd of several thousand, but still they pushed back halfheartedly. Who knew? That Saturday Night Special might not have made it back into the glove box, yet. Behind and down several yards, otherclubs fidgeted, getting antsy. One guy found the horn on the mini-chain steering wheel and let it roar.

“Come on, dude. What’s the problem?” he asked, straining to see what was going on.

De Jesus dripped in an icy sweat. The boy didn’t appear to be breathing, but it was odd that no blood appeared on his tiny frame.

“Somebody, call 911! Hurry!” he shouted, looking directly at Chico.

“You’ll pay for this!” he spat at him, forgetting his fear. “This time, you will pay.”

“Self-defense, padre, like I say. With witnesses.”

Without looking away from Chico’s hateful eyes, de Jesus felt another body move close to his. Tio smiled at the priest’s face, asking a simple question without saying a word. Father de Jesus was reluctant to answer, but a murmur already pulsed through the crowd.

“Tio is here.”

“Tio can do something about it.”

“Is he dead? Tio will bring him back to his mother.”

“The Virgin has blessed him.”

The priest stood between the two men he most despised in the entire barrio, one who caused him endless trouble because he was insane, and the other who caused the church endless worry because the people believed him to be a miracle worker.

“Tio, this is not really the time. Can’t you hear the ambulance coming for the poor boy?”

“There’s no need for an ambulance, Pablo,” Tio replied. “Just more heart.”

The diminutive man placed his two petite hands over the boy’s chest, just to the left of center. He became silent, bowing his brow. After a few moments, Tio’s graying head inclined slowly toward the boy’s unmoving body, slowly to the spot where you would expect to see blood, but there was none.

“I’ve had enough of this shit. I want to get back in my ride and split ... .”

But now the security guards had found some courage in their shoes, and circled Chico onto the hood of his car, which now pressed hot against his stomach and right cheek.

Tio muttered to himself, lamented to himself, shaking every so often. A profound change of emotion engulfed the scene, again like those fierce summer heat waves rising from the pavement. Even Chico sensed something going on, and tried to break free from the biggest guard’s grip.

Tio maneuvered the boy’s large crucifix so that he had the end dangling from his lips. Mysteriously, the chain came unfastened from the unmoving neck.

“If you but have faith, you can move a mountain,” Tio said in Spanish, standing to face the crowd, dropping the cross from his mouth. If you have but faith, all things will be given to you.”

He held the cross over his head now, so that a woman in what had become the front row screamed.

“Aiiiieee, it is the face of the Virgin!”

From her vantage point, she saw that the two bullets had imbedded themselves deeply into the cross. The slugs appeared as Mary’s face in profile. Like an electric charge, the news swept through the crowd that the little vato was ... alive!

The boy held the priest’s hands as he struggled to his feet. Dazed, but breathing, he stood.

“You, you must have the luck of all the saints combined!” De Jesus exclaimed as he moved his fingers down the boy’s shirt. “If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would not believe it.”

Tio handed the boy back his crucifix and then warmly embraced him. “Is it luck when you do not die from an assassin’s bullet? You be the judge, my son.”

The boy wept now as he handed Tio back the crucifix.

“The best luck you can ever have is to realize the truth.”

Another electric charge sizzled through the crowd.

“He’s alive. It’s true! Aaaiiieee! Tio has brought him back from the dead.”

Police arrived, breaking their way through the crowd. Tio smiled at de Jesus, but he was already engaged with the lead officer.

“Can we keep this quiet? It would be a shame to break up the festival just because of one bad seed.”

The lead officer towered over the priest, who looked out over the gathering.

“Seems to me, padre, the crowd’s got something else on its mind.”

And as they both gazed outward, a vast flood of human bodies streamed forward, past the squad cars, past the gold rope, past the security guards, even past the glowering Chico, who used the sheer momentum of a thousand bodies to float away from his would-be captors.

“It’s a miracle!” they shouted with a force that drew their voices in unison, in harmony, with the moment.

“The boy lives. He lives!”

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