Page 5 - The Truth Is

My moms flicks the lights that are already on. “¡Despierta,
levántate y brilla! Thank God for a new day. Wakey-wakey,”
she sings, opening and shutting my bedroom door fast.
I hurl my chancla at the door. Mornings to me are like holy
water to the devil.
Standing up, I trip over the baseball bat that my mother
has always insisted I keep by my bed. What can a bat do against
a bullet?
A holographic Jesus screensaver watches over me from
across the room. I gasp. “Ma! What the hell?”
“You toss and turn so much,” my moms shouts from the
kitchen, where the rich aroma of coffee calls my name. “He’s
protecting you from bad dreams.”
I scowl. Hurl my sheet over the computer, making Jesus a
ghost. Fling open the door. “So let me get this straight. Like
the white dude in the dress with the giant thorny bleeding heart
glowing out of his skin is going to get rid of my bad dreams?”
I know Mami is signing the cross: “Forgive her smart-ass
mouth, Lord. She gets it from her father.”
Anything that’s right with me comes from my mother’s
side, anything wrong from my dad’s.
I lock myself in my bathroom and shed my favorite vintage
West Side Story T-shirt that I will wear until it disintegrates.
Ah—cough, gag—she’s been burning incense again. Patchouli.
To protect me from bad spirits. With all this protection, I’ll be
lucky if I don’t die of asphyxiation before I leave the house.
Modern Christian music blares on the kitchen radio. Dudes
are full of uber emotion singing about Jesus. I wish I could feel
all pumped up like that about religion. But like how long has it
been since Jesus has been here? Two thousand years. I remem-
ber waiting for my dad on the porch for hours when he didn’t

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