A state of disobedience

Dei Gloria Mission, Waco, Texas

If anyone among the boys of the Mission held a position of leadership, under the father, it was Miguel Sanchez. Need to rebuild a shed? "Miguel, see to it." "Si, padre." Need to put up a fence? "Miguel, see to it." "Si, Padre. Julio, come on and help me."

Did a field need plowing, a tree need pruning, a boy need "counseling"? "I'll take care of it, Padre."

With the father now lying broken and battered, head bandaged where a policeman's baton had cracked it, much of the day-to-day running of the mission fell to young Miguel, under the guidance of Sister Sofia, the mission's sole nun.

But if anyone, besides the father, held leadership over Miguel, it was not Sister Sofia, but little, thin Elpidia. She had so held since about three days after she and the baby arrived at the Mission.

For her part, Elpidia liked Miguel well enough, as well as she could be expected to like any normal male after the life she had led. But her heart belonged to the priest.

* * *

"How old are you girl?"

"Old enough to work," she answered.

Shaking his head slightly, the priest provided his own answer. "Fifteen? Fourteen? Fourteen, I think. This is no life for you, child."

"It is the only one I have, Padre."

"Parents? Family?" he asked.

"None, Padre. Just me and my baby, Pedro, and the man I live with, Marco."

"He sends you out to do this and you still call him a man? We shall see. Get in the car. Where do you live?" asked the priest.

Will overborne, Elpidia entered and gave directions. Following these, the priest drove through narrow back streets and side alleys, past garbage and trash long uncollected. At length the car arrived at the girl's—Shabby? "Shabby" would have to do, though it was much worse than that—apartment.

"Padre, what are you doing?"

"Taking you and your baby to a better life," he answered, without further elaboration. He exited the car, walked around and opened the door for the girl—no one had ever been so polite to her before—and asked, "Which one?" At the girl's hesitantly pointed finger, he ordered, "Lead on. I will follow."

The sound of a squalling baby and the smell of soiled diapers hit them even as the girl opened the apartment's cheap door. There was another smell too, one the priest recognized from days long past.

Sprawled on the couch, a man—Marco—scruffy, unkempt, filthy, slack faced, smoked a pipe. He looked up as the door opened. "Hope you made some goddamned money tonight, bitch." The man saw the priest as he stepped around to stand beside the girl. "Get the fuck out of my house, old man."

The father ignored the dope smoker. "Get the baby, Elpidia. You might want to gather up its things, too. Neither you nor he will be coming back here."

Doped Marco certainly was. He was not, however, so drugged that he didn't recognize the imminent threat to his livelihood. "You ain't goin' nowhere, you little slut." He stood to bar the way to the baby's unutterably filthy closet. When Elpidia tried to go around him he slapped her to the floor.

Marco was never quite sure, thereafter, how it was that he found himself suspended above the floor, back to the wall and a grip of iron about his throat. He kicked for a little while, his bare, filthy feet impacting on some stone-seeming wall that he knew had not been in the apartment before. With his vision fading, blood pounding in his ears, he dimly heard the priest repeat, "Get the baby, girl."

"Where's Pedro, Elpi?"

"He's sleeping, Miguel."

"Oh. Too bad. I wanted to play with him. Cute little critter."

He looked at Elpidia and said, "You're a good mom." Then he asked, shyly, "Do you think I might make a good father someday? Before he was hurt Padre Jorge told me he had been talking to his friend, Jack, about maybe finding me a decent job with the Guard once I turn eighteen."

"That would be so good for you, Miguel. How is Father?" A tear escaped the girl's eye.

Miguel shook his head angrily. "The same. He can barely walk. But did you see him fight them? It took fifteen of them to beat him to the ground. Fifteen! What a man!" exclaimed Miguel, who had himself once made the mistake of fighting the father. That was the last mistake he had ever made—or wanted to make—where the priest was concerned.

* * *