Far ahead he saw the steeple of a small church reaching above the tops of a cluster of live oak. How fitting. He said a prayer of thanks and continued down his path. At the crest of a small hill, a silvery lump shimmered on the hot asphalt. As he got closer, he could see it was fresh roadkill, a possum turned inside out, its face intact and grinning. Tough luck, he thought. He squatted to look at the thing, now a mass of pulp and fur. “Boo!” he said and grimaced back at the stinking creature, overrun with flies. He dragged the possum by its ratty tail and laid it to rest in the grassy ditch.
A paunchy man in his fifties edged the church house path with a weed whacker. He wheezed with exertion and focused so intensely on his task that he didn’t see Manny standing in front of him. Manny waited. The man wore a clerical collar on a sleeveless shirt, and when he looked up and saw Manny, he yelled.
“Holy shit!”
Manny hadn’t meant to startle the man, but as a boy he had loved to hide behind corners and jump out at people as they passed by. Loved seeing the horror on their faces, the panicked breath, the animal twitch. It was a thrill to see the masks of politeness fall away. Nothing was more honest or lovable than terror. These were the times when he felt closest to them.
Manny chuckled and removed his hat in easy reverence. The man killed the motor.
“Didn’t mean to catch you off guard, there, Father.”
“You can call me Pastor Tom. How do?” They shook hands. Pastor Tom seemed friendly but circumspect.
“Raised Catholic, Pastor, old habits die hard. My name is Manny Romero.”
“How can I help you, sir?” the pastor asked, wiping grass clippings stuck to the sweat on his arms.
“I’m looking to work.”
“Okay, where you coming from?” Tom asked. Manny knew most people could sense a lie, and he’d found the more truthful he was, the more people trusted him.
“I just served over a decade in state prison and am hoping for a new start.”
“I see,” Tom said soberly. He rested his folded hands atop his belly. “What were your crimes?”
“Armed robbery and aggravated assault. Guilty as charged. I’m not proud of what I done, but I served my time and hope to make it up.”
“Make it up to who, son?”
Manny laughed humbly. “I guess I don’t know yet. There is a girl . . . But I don’t think she’ll have me.”
“You’re to reckon with God before any woman or man. Hard work is a good enough place to start. Can you clean?”
“I could make a prison toilet sparkle.”
“Are you a drinking man?”
“I was prone, yes. But not since prison. I much prefer a warm woman, to be honest.”
“You are honest, I’ll say that.” Pastor Tom buffed his head with a hankie and seemed to consider the request. Cicadas chattered in the lull between the two men. Manny waited patiently.
“Well, unless there’s something else you want to tell me, I’m happy to have you. I can’t pay you enough to live on, so you’ll need another job, but my wife can feed you. Lord knows I could spare a second helping,” he said and swatted his gut. Pastor Tom handed Manny the weed whacker.
“Welcome.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you much.” Manny put his hand on Pastor Tom’s shoulder. “Pastor Tom, could we pray?”
Surprise verging on alarm colored Tom’s face, but he nodded and bowed his head. By initiating a prayer, Manny knew he was encroaching on the pastor’s role as spiritual leader. He couldn’t help toying with the man’s ego, but he made a note to back off until their rapport was more secure. If he could win over the pastor, he’d have the good graces of all of Pecan Hollow.
That Sunday, Manny went to the church and stood outside the open doors, assessing, as always, the exits and variables within. The thin windows of the church house vibrated with the hymns of a motley choir in shiny purple gowns, passably in tune, invigorated by the Holy Spirit. The pious congregation swayed and clapped, singing by heart a song of Jesus’ boundless love. A little girl in big glasses cried into her elbow, confused and overwhelmed by charismatic fervor. Pastor Tom presided with pinched brow, keeping time by patting the side of his thigh as he paced in front of the narrow pulpit. Manny buffed the dust off his boots on the backs of his calves and walked through the doors.
The eyes of the congregation swept across him, and heads turned to consult with their seat mates. He wondered what they must think, these plain country folks, of his striking features, his kingly carriage. He had always savored the way his looks ruffled people like a kind of magic. He tried to connect with Pastor Tom, but the pastor was at the pulpit collecting his thoughts. Manny tucked himself into a pew in the middle of the sanctuary. An elderly couple in front of him craned their heads around and stared, yellow-eyed and unfriendly. When a woman with a starchy-looking beehive saw him sit next to her, she cast an ugly little glare, crimped her purse, and slid her giant rump down the pew.
It occurred to Manny that the woman was giving him berth not out of deference, but out of fear. He scanned the room, hoping this response was an anomaly, but could see from the slant-eyes and pursed mouths that they were all, to a man, suspicious of him. Manny was as shaken by his inability to read the situation as he was by the rejection itself. And in this holy place. He felt compelled to revise their wrong impression of him but was too unnerved. He had had so little experience with rejection, he found it nearly impossible to bear. He opened the hymnal, hot at the neck, not seeing the printed word.
In the middle of the first reading, the double doors opened, letting in a harsh light, and Sandy scurried in with a woman who appeared to be her mother. She looked embarrassed, and her mother trembled. The older woman seemed freshly high. They took seats in the last row of pews, near the aisle. Sandy had pulled her stringy hair back tight, showing pink rows of scalp. She wore what appeared to be a secondhand dress, her nicest one no doubt, which was better suited for a bar than for a church. Her mother had a Sunday hat high on the crown of her head and slightly askew. She stuck her bedroom-slippered feet into the aisle and slumped into a morbid, asthmatic sleep.
Manny ducked out of his pew and went to sit between them, relieved to see a kindly face.
“What are you doing here?” Sandy whispered, delighted.
“I never miss a Sunday service,” he said.
She blushed and tucked down her chin. “You sure look nice,” she said.
Manny looked over the spandex dress and glitter rubbed across her breasts. “Thanks,” he said. When her face sagged a little, he added, as a token, “You too.”
The song ended and Pastor Tom raised his hands aloft and people hushed as they waited for the sermon. A teenager stood and ushered a squirmy flock of children to Bible School in the adjacent building. Sandy nestled against Manny and he slipped his hand down the back of her dress. She raised her lips to his ear and whispered humidly, “You’re bad, Mr. Manny.”