Read an Excerpt
Righteous Road
By Jimmie Martinez
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 Jimmie Martinez
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-3189-4
Chapter One
I'm a Sick Old Bastard Hoping to Die
Father was a Catholic priest, my mother a Hopi Indian, and I was born a bastard child. After reading an old journal I wrote as a child, I discovered these crucial facts about myself. Most people could recall who their mother and Father were, but regrettably I'm not one of them. Looking at the pictures in a family album, memories flooded my mind. It's funny when I hear songs, see a place, read something, or look at a picture, old memories pop in my mind. It's as if somewhere deep in my brain, where memories are stored, something is blocking them from rising up to my consciousness. The dam is springing small leaks of memory, but it's still holding back most of my past.
Who I am?
I recall growing up in the 60s. Father, a Catholic priest, didn't approve of the hippie movement, the Age of Aquarius, or the sexual revolution. Although he eventually gave up the collar and ended up marrying mom, his pious attitude about life didn't change. Since I didn't share his belief in God or the church, we fought a lot. He thought everything I did was evil, and I thought he was a stupid hypocrite. It was hard to take seriously a man who had willfully impregnated an innocent, unmarried young woman seeking moral guidance from her parish priest.
I picked up a picture of our family, taken in front of the Saint Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Dressed in a dark suit and looking self-righteous, Father seemed dull, while Mother looked radiant. Standing next to both of them, age ten, I looked small and lost. I was a confused child, unwanted by my father but adored by my mother. For a short time before she died, I did see happiness in my mother's eyes and felt it in her touch. On the other hand, Father had sinned by having me. It showed on his face and the way he treated me.
Putting down the pictures, I picked up the first journal I wrote right after we took the picture and began to read. Throughout my diary and life, I addressed the priest who impregnated my mother by his church title, "Father." I guess I never felt he was my dad. Dads played catch with their sons, went to movies, and fished. Not him. He believed that if his family prayed together, that would somehow atone for his mortal sin of having me. We prayed a lot together. Mostly I prayed for him to leave home, and I'm sure he prayed that I had never been born.
In the journal, I wrote about an incident where I had asked him questions to understand his faith.
"What happened to all those good Catholics who ate meat on Friday? Did they go to hell?"
"What do you mean?" he replied.
"If they ate meat on Friday before the church changed the rules and they died, are they now in hell because they sinned?" I asked innocently.
"You will go to hell thinking like that," Father said, storming out of the house.
Father didn't like such questions. He preferred to believe that the church was perfect and that we should all think so too. On the other hand, I had always believed that when all men thought alike, no one was really thinking.
Like the hundred or more million other Catholics, he believed the church to be infallible. Tell that to the thousands of Muslims who centuries ago died in the Crusades, the innocent people persecuted during the Spanish Inquisition, or the young altar boys molested by pedophile priests. One must not forget the Irish Catholics killing the English Christian Protestants in Ireland. What did that Christian say in Belfast right before he pressed the trigger to kill his Christian brother? "My Jesus is perfect and yours is not?"
I remembered that as a young man I had more doubts about God. Not wanting to antagonize Father with another question, I asked my eighth-grade Catechism teacher, "Do you really believe that the unleavened bread given at Holy Communion is the body of Christ?"
"Why, yes, my son. Don't you?"
"Not really. I got the recipe from a baker around the corner. You want to see it?" Needless to say I was sent home and punished.
Maybe there is a God. Wouldn't that be great? I have no real opposition to such a ludicrous idea. If someone wants to believe in myths and ghosts, that's fine with me. What makes me mad is when men believe that their invisible God gives them the divine right to kill, steal, molest, hang, rape, behead, stone to death, and persecute others who fail to believe exactly what they do.
Being raised by a priest who thought my birth was a sin he had to endure didn't exactly make me feel welcome in this world. Father seemed to live a life of remorse, trying to repent for and correct his one mortal sin by raising me to become a Catholic priest. I guess you can see, we never agreed on much.
When I was in my late teens, my mother died. What can I say about my mother? Her name was Ella Mae. She was beautiful, funny, a full-blooded Hopi Indian, and the most important person in my life. She was life itself. The air I breathed and my reason to live. My life was empty without her. Except for Father, I was alone. Come to think of it, I have always been on my own.
My mother was also a very religious person. She embraced the great powers of Mother Nature and the natural world. She incorporated Mother Sky, Father Earth, the moon, fire, and rain into her Christian beliefs. She looked at the beauty of nature all around her and saw the splendor of God.
I, on the other hand, was indifferent to God, the church, and Mother Nature, but not to human nature. In fact, I studied human nature and spent a lot of time using that knowledge to manipulate others into doing my bidding. As a result, I made a fortune as an adult.
When she died, all I could think of was what I had done to deserve such a loss. Dealing with her death was difficult. At my mother's funeral, standing by her coffin, Father put his hand on my shoulder and told me, "If you believe in Jesus, you will find comfort knowing that God promoted your mother to live with him in heaven for eternity and that's a good thing." He then quoted John 11:25-26: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."
I pulled his hand off my shoulder and looked at him. "How can you say that my mother dying was a good thing? Are you delusional?" I then ran away crying. After crying a lifetime of tears and at the age of eighteen, I never cried again.
Six months after my mother's death, Father rejoined the church. I guess there was no statute of limitations prohibiting a former fornicator from rejoining the church. I felt no emotions about him becoming a celebrant. To me, he always belonged to the Jesus bunch.
I never wanted to offend him or what he believed in. But I loathed men like him and the religious organizations that they belonged to, who preached that they were the only vehicle to a God that didn't exist. He and his kind sold fairy tales about invisible beings for charitable donations.
He had always loved the church more than my mom or me. I was incapable of feeling anything for him or anyone else. People got sick, died, and then decayed. Once I realized that certainty, I knew that caring for others was the recipe for heartache and pain. I had become emotionally dead and lacked basic human feelings. Faking my way through life, I cared for little. It is a powerful thing to not care. I always had the upper hand in relationships, and it was my way or the highway. People love to be shit on. Tell someone you don't want him or her and that person will do anything to convince you that you should want him or her. It's human nature.
I closed my eyes. I was tired of reading about my sad life and seeing pictures of my childhood that stirred up bad memories. There had to be something in my early life, besides my mother, that made me happy. It suddenly came to me. My mother had one brother. I strained to think, and then I saw his face. He was also an Indian. Like me, he had lost his mother early in his life. His sister, my mother, had attempted to raise him when they were both young. He was wild, unpredictable, and nothing like Father professed to be. He saw my father for the hypocrite he was. Uncle Jimmie, on the other hand, was not a fraud. He embraced his immoral behavior. He gambled, drank, chased women, and lived a life that the priest sermonized against but failed to follow. Preaching once in church didn't make Father a good man any more than standing in a garage made him a car. My uncle Jimmie was no hypocrite. He taught me that everyday life in New Orleans could be a party and that sex was not the answer. Sex was the question and yes was the answer.
New Orleans gave a young man the opportunity to live a happy, hedonistic life. Great food, great drinks, and dreamy women could be found everywhere. The Big Sleazy was and still is Disney World for sinners. As a young man growing up in the French Quarter, I heard all kinds of music floating on the soft, warm breeze blowing from the river. I had it all in a city that asks few questions and where love was for sale twenty-four hours a day on most street corners. My uncle showed me how to enjoy the soul and spirit of a poor city where people who had survived hurricanes, floods, wars, and yellow fever partied daily, not just on weekends or special occasions.
The old saying that Indians shouldn't drink because it makes them crazy is true. My Uncle Jimmie lived a life proving the adage. Back then he was in his thirties, divorced, with young children of his own. Naturally, I wanted to get to know him better and embrace his lifestyle, so I became his shadow and apprentice. To say that the good Father objected to my newfound relationship with my uncle was an understatement. But who listens to the advice of priests anyway? How could I refuse a lifestyle where there was no invisible hand of God prohibiting me from enjoying life's pleasures? Uncle Jimmie taught me how to drive fast cars, drink, play cards, throw dice, and get laid. You know—all the important things in life. When he turned forty-three, he finally slowed down. It was a beautiful funeral. The last thing he told me before he died: "Boy if you really want something and you can't get it, don't give up. Just take it. You see this new convertible we riding in?"
"Yeah," I said with the wind blowing my hair.
"If I asked your Father's God for this car, we would both be walking. His God would never grant such a worldly possession to sinners like us. So I stole it, and if I find out later there's a God, then I'll ask for forgiveness." I loved the man for being so practical and wise. After my uncle died, I kept the car.
Growing up on the streets of New Orleans made me one of the coolest kids at General Francis T. Nicholls High School. The school was named after a Southern Civil War general (Go Rebels). Remember, it was the 1960s and segregation was the law of the land. Come to think of it, not much has changed, except now the school's mascot is no longer Johnny Reb but a bobcat. The school's name is Thurmond Marshall High. It was once all white and it's now all black, and the drug of choice is probably no longer marijuana.
I remember seeing Elvis at the Municipal Auditorium in New Orleans, and I had many impure thoughts about Ann Margaret in the movie Bye Bye, Birdie. I acted on most of my carnal impulses, but I never did drugs.
My uncle also taught me that life is cruel and the world is a violent place. To survive, you have to rely on yourself and not some nonexistent God.
"Have you ever seen a baby being born?" he once asked.
"Why would I want to see that? It sounds gross with all the blood and other stuff."
"You are right—being born is messy and violent. Babies are brutally ripped from the bloody womb of a mother and the infant comes into the world traumatized. As newborn babies, we scream and holler wanting to return to the comfort and safety of our mothers' bodies."
"I don't understand."
"The point is from the first day of life to the last, we experience the brutality of the world alone, without the help of a fictitious God."
"Then why do so many people believe in a God, even though he lets cruel and horrible things happen to people?"
"People are fools; they believe what self-proclaimed wise men tell them. They are told that God and the devil are real and they are fighting for our soul. One can give us back the safety and comfort we lost when we entered this cold world, while the other will torture us for eternity when we leave it. Since I don't believe in either, I'm not sure which does which. One thing that I'm sure of is that the rich man with clout who lives in a large house doesn't need anybody and has the real power over life and death, not God."
I saw the wisdom of my uncle's words. From that day on, my goal in life was to protect myself from the cruel world by becoming independently rich and not count on God or anyone else.
Now I'm in my mid-60s, dying of brain cancer. You're probably thinking that explains a lot about my rambling and lack of memory. Now that I'm facing death, I know I should be sad and repentant, but I am not. It is not because of what my priest Father said: that death is a promotion we should welcome. No, it's just that I am bored and tired of living. I have been in the game of life too long, and I am looking forward to the nothingness of eternity.
I have taken all the chemo treatments I can stand. When I asked the doctor what's next, he smiled that all-knowing smile and said I should get my things in order. So I am in pain, waiting to die. The sad part is I have neither goals nor desires left. My body is worn out, and my mind is mush. I'm always bone tired and haven't slept well in months. Thinking of my death makes me happy. Ironically, although my body has worn out and I am dreamless, I don't feel old inside. My mind now wanders. The doctor says the chemo has prolonged my life, but at the cost of losing some of my mind. Now my memory is so bad that sometimes I can't remember my name and people have to finish my sentences. My chemo brain locks up, and I just look up into space.
In the morning, as I picked up my first hot cup of instant Community Coffee, I marveled at the chemical concoction. The caffeine laden brew with artificial sweetener shocked my brain like the chemo treatments never could. Science is truly great, I thought as I continued to pour the hot liquid down my throat.
I heard a rumor that there was a prostitute who lived in the French Quarter who got up every morning and ground up coffee beans to make fresh coffee for her customers. The woman was black and weighed over three hundred pounds. She enticed her clients not with thoughts of wild, passionate sex with a hefty black woman but with the knowledge that they had earned a fresh cup of strong black coffee by sleeping with her.
Like most citizens of New Orleans, I too like a great cup of brew in the morning. I sat holding the paper, wondering if I could go to bed with anyone of her proportions. Suddenly the very same woman appeared in front of me. I gasped at the large, very black woman, dressed in spandex tights, spiked heel shoes, and brightly colored red sequin top as she stood in my kitchen.
"Are you real?" I asked, staring at her in amazement.
"As real as rain and just as wet," she said with a laugh that shook her enormous body. "If you knows what I mean, sucker."
"I'm too sick. I can't have sex," I said pathetically. "Can we skip the sex and just have the coffee?" I asked.
"Although I got a fine McMuffin, I ain't any McDonald's restaurant. I sell sex and give the other shit away to my customers as lagniappe. You got to does the deed first. Do you wanna?"
Being the degenerate I was, I concluded that if this was real, I would try to fake an orgasm to get a real cup of coffee. In the past, I had known many women who faked orgasms while I was faking a relationship. Faking a relationship was hard work. How hard could it be to fake a climax? Before I could answer yes, I was alone again in my kitchen. The woman had disappeared, along with any chance that I would have a good cup of coffee today. I must explain how her appearance, followed by her sudden departure, didn't blow my feeble mind. I have been seeing things for months that were never there. With the medication I'm taking, the doctor told me to expect hallucinations.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Righteous Road by Jimmie Martinez Copyright © 2011 by Jimmie Martinez. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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