From Sinners To Saints
Part I
The Wooing Begins
It was probably a couple of weeks after the outreach group from the little church had shown up at our house to begin active recruitment of my mother and father. After that first visit they began showing up quite regularly as the hot summer went on and on in Houston. Uninvited, they would vary the times of their visits (but always on Saturdays) to try to catch both of my parents at home at the same time. By now my father had figured out that he was on the church’s “must see and save” list, and so he reverted to his old but successful tactics, gingerly sprinting out the back door just as they were arriving in their little station wagon. A couple of times, while napping off a bruising hangover, he came precariously close to being caught at home as they were walking through the front yard. But alerted by an uncanny sixth sense, his head would suddenly jerk up, as if pulled by an invisible puppeteer, and he’d be out the door, cursing as he struggled to pull his pants up and trying not to fall off the back porch.
When my mother had told him about the group’s first visit he had gone absolutely berserk, wanting to know what they wanted and threatening to “cuss them out” if they decided to visit whenever he was home. Her response was notable for its lack of passion and conviction.
“Do whatever you feel like doing, Bob,” my mother said as she turned and walked away.
You know, whenever he made his pants-tugging and shirttail-flying escapes out the back door, I was never really sure where he went exactly, but I assumed he ended up going over to my Aunt Janie’s—two houses away. My aunt, and her then-husband Buster, were Catholics and thought the Pentecostals were weird anyway. They would’ve been my choice for sanctuary if I was on the run from the “holy-rollers”, but alas, if I happened to be trapped in the house when they came visiting I would have to sit there and endure the histrionics quietly.
Forced to sit through these sessions I would let my mind fly away into “Jerryland”, and would try to keep it there as long as possible until rudely yanked back by the sharp pain of my mother’s not so subtle pinch and a dark stare that said: “Listen!” I guess it wouldn’t have been so bad but at that age my attention span was pretty short, and my interests did not include spending time with old (everyone older than me was really old to me at that age) Mexican people who dressed strangely and smelled kind of dusty. The worst part of the visits that I was made to sit through was the mind-numbing repetitiveness. Everyone was identical, and all the dialogue was almost as if it had been scripted. It was as if they believed that if something was repeated often enough it would surely come true.
“Señora DeLeón,” they would say, “if you let Jesus come into your life, and you accept Him as your personal savior, all your troubles will disappear. He will take your sins and wash them away. Your life will be new. Your husband will soon follow and you both will be happy, but you have to have faith and take the first step.”
The group would tag team my mother—each taking their turn testifying to their own previously wretched life and eventual salvation. They would quote verses from the Bible or open their dog-eared copies to read from a yellowed onionskin page.
Finally after an hour or so, one of them would suggest that they needed to pray over this matter, then they would all stand and gather into a circle for a group prayer. My mother, probably not knowing what else to do, would timidly rise—usually assisted by one of the women—and meekly lower her head.
The prayer would center on the theme for that particular visit and was usually led by one of the men. He would start by addressing the Holy Being by one of several titles. Sometimes “Señor” or “Cristo”, and other times “Santo Dios”, he would start low and slow and accelerate into high drama with volume to match. Yes, the Pentecostals believed in loud and dramatic prayers. Not just bowing their heads or closing their eyes, or intertwining of the fingers for these folks—no sir! When they prayed they made sure God, or whoever, heard them—literally…and for added measure also anyone within two city blocks of our house.
“Let’s call on the Lord to guide us in His holy word,” he would usually say up front.
Then, just for a second or two while everyone closed their eyes and bowed, there would be quiet. Slowly, he would begin to lift his arms. Then he would start to tilt his head upwards until he looked like someone who was being robbed at gunpoint by a guy glued to the ceiling.
“¡Señor!”, he would begin quietly. Then he would go into a few lines thanking the “Señor” for a multitude of things like life, health, breath, well-being, the house he was in, the people he was visiting, the temperature—and so forth, and so forth. Taking on a deeper baritone the volume of his voice would begin to increase. By now the rest of the group would start to voice their agreement by whipping out a “Sí, señor”, or “alleluia”, or maybe a “Gracias Padre” or two.
Next he moved on from the “thank you” phase right into the “bless them” phase. Really getting into the spirit of it now, his neck and forehead would began sporting some pretty impressive arteries, and sweat would start beading and streaming. Booming now, he was making damn sure that if God was busy elsewhere, maybe saving some little kids from sure death at the hands of monsters and villains, well, He would have to just drop everything and listen.
Leaving the “bless them” phase he moved smoothly into the “save the sinners” phase. This was my favorite. See, to the Pentecostals everyone on earth is a mortal sinner. Infants, old people, blacks, Jews and Catholics (especially Catholics); and they were all destined to spend eternity in the fiery inferno that God had created just for them. It didn’t matter what anyone did while living their lives out on earth, if they didn’t follow what the Pentecostals considered the right path—that is, go to Pentecostal church and have their souls washed in the blood of Jesus—they would experience the afterlife in a perpetual and eternal state of fiery agony.
Then it would get personal. At a near fever pitch now, and bolstered by the growing chorus of affirmations from the rest of the group my family quickly became the main subject of his loud and fanatical supplications. Sinners wandering in darkness and evil, the DeLeóns were in dire need of salvation and redemption. Then the crying would start.
One of the many things that remain forever fixed in my memory on the peculiarities of this particular religion was the propensity of its members to launch into a frenzy of hysterical crying and wailing during their time of prayer. I’ve seen them launch into a tear-spurting, saliva- spewing, teeth-gnashing rant while saying grace over a meal, for God’s sake. So, taking on something as serious as trying to convince God to save the rotting, putrid, sinning souls of a pair of back-sliding ingrates, along with their skinny son, would fire up the water works but good. And to them, this was extremely serious business.
By now the whole group would have their hands up, waving and shaking, crying and begging God and Jesus, and the Holy Ghost for good measure, to have mercy on these people and make them see “the way”. Having formed a semi-circle, with me and my mother roughly in the middle, they’d slowly begin to close in around us. All of them with eyes closed, arms lifted and heads high, yelling and crying, tears and spittle flying, encircling us not unlike a pride of lions encircling their prey.
During this stage of their visit, and when not peeking quickly to observe the antics playing out before me, I would usually keep my head down and stare at the floor. A couple of times I would dare to steal a quick glance at my mom to see what she was doing. My eyes meeting hers, she would glare, wrinkle her brow and purse her lips. This was mom-speak for, “STOP IT”; and I would pop my head back down and wait for the show to end.
Finally, after having endured a few of their visits an extraordinary and telling event forever changed everything for me. This particular visit had been no different than the rest of them, right up to the wailing and crying. I, my head down as usual, raised my eyes fully expecting my mom’s usual pinched frown. But what I saw shocked me. My mother had her left arm timidly raised, palm up, and her head…bowed. On her face she wore a pained sorrowful expression that I had never seen, but that I would sadly get to know, ever so well, from that moment on.
On that never-to-be-forgotten day, and unbeknownst to anyone, my mother began her slow and torturous mutation from the crazy, mood shifting, vibrant, fun loving and wildly affectionate woman that I had fearfully adored, into the unhappy, dejected, empty, bitterly heart-broken shell—who, after slipping into a six month coma, finally breathed her last breath of life—sad, bloated and alone on a sunny November morning in 1971.
Her remaining son, too far away and too busy with his own life, and her husband now long into the habit of living with another woman and not coming home except to wash his clothes, along with the Pentecostal Church, who having cruelly abandoned her soul in its time of greatest need, looked over its shoulder, shrugged its indifference and marched away. Her heart, tortured and broken for so many years, quietly stopped.
Bob’s Resolve Dissolves
My grandparents on my father’s side finally stopped producing children after having had five boys and one girl between the years 1908 and 1915; Roberto being the youngest of the five boys, and the girl, appropriately named Dolores (translated as “pain, grief or sorrow”). The elder boys had been given stately or saintly names: Louis, Joseph, George and Francis, but their parents seemed to be caught by surprise and appeared totally flummoxed when my father was born. In a fit of overkill they named him, Roberto Alberto Francisco.
It is my belief that when the first four boys were born, my grandparents, still influenced by the traditions from which they had recently left, chose names for their children that were popular during that time in Europe. But by the time Roberto and his sister, Dolores, were born, the family, living in poverty-stricken neighborhoods and surrounded by dirt poor Mexicans, a few displaced Jewish families, and not-so-far-removed from slavery blacks, had finally assimilated completely into a lower-class economic life. Most of their friends and acquaintances living in the neighborhood spoke Spanish, and any English that was spoken was done so in a heavily accented Jewish-Hebrew brogue commonly used by working class Jews. The De León children, who preferred to communicate with their friends and each other in Spanish or the brogue, had mostly abandoned French—now only spoken at home regularly by their parents. As they sank deeper into this poverty-stricken, classless society, and perhaps looking for a bit more societal acceptance, the spelling of their family name slowly mutated from the French, “de Léon”, to the Spanish/Mexican, “De León”.
Struggling to survive in a city that itself was striving to establish its own identity—given its lack of navigable roads, humid climate, and its abundance of marshy wetlands and mosquito-infested bayous—the young and over-burdened family toiled courageously everyday to earn just enough to feed and house themselves. Having been relatively financially comfortable in Europe, they found that not being able to speak English fluently, and probably most importantly, not possessing a marketable skill, restricted their earning potential gravely. The mother, homebound with the children, took in washing and sewing occasionally; and only when able to buy enough ingredients, baked bread and pastries for the children to sell at a nearby market on weekends. The father, now reduced to handy-man status, left each day and traveled to the more affluent Houston neighborhoods, tools in hand, to knock on doors and ask if there was any repair work that needed to be done.
As soon as the De León children were able, they would be sent out to do odd jobs around the neighborhood for a few pennies a day. School was an afterthought, but by the time that Roberto was five the family was stable enough for him to be enrolled in the neighborhood elementary. He would continue his education through the seventh grade when the lure of the streets and the dream of easy money would put him firmly on a path filled with booze, cigarettes, bloody fists and loose women. His extremely high intelligence and his ability to learn quickly turned his penchant for fast and flashy automobiles into an extremely marketable skill: repairing, painting and delicately detailing show cars for the Houston affluent. Dolores, the least encumbered of all the children, went on to earn her high school diploma—and many years later, after having met and married a successful railroad company executive, retired from a long and fruitful career as an accountant for Sears and Roebuck.
When Roberto (now commonly referred to as “Bob”) and his new bride Evelyn set foot in the little Pentecostal church in Houston during the pre-war years, he was smoking two to three packs of unfiltered Camel cigarettes a day, and was known to consume the better part of a fifth of hard whiskey in one sitting. He was quick with his fists and did not shy away from using the .38 caliber handgun or the .22 caliber lever-action carbine he religiously carried under his car seat whenever someone stoked his volatile temper. Always a snappy dresser, he favored dark felt fedoras and blood red ties when he was out on the town, and sharply creased khaki shirts and pants when working as a specialty auto painter.
Probably initially attracted to the church by raw curiosity, and maybe sensing the opportunity to impress the mostly lower-class Mexican congregation with his quick wit and good looks, he nonetheless quickly became bored when he discovered that all they really cared about was saving his soul and eventually making him a tithing member. In that he saw no advantage. He was fine with his soul the way it was, and he sure wasn’t about to let go of his hard-earned money to some brown-skinned Mexicans to use in the name of God.
But I truly believe that as short as his exposure was to that church, and the Pentecostal religion, somehow a small seed must’ve been planted deep inside his soul. And now—probably after all the disappointments and failures in his life, the unmanageable medical debts, and the unexpected birth of my brother—now he was just tired; and that fatigue coupled with realization that his life had gone nowhere now provided the fertile ground the seed needed to come to life. Maybe.
Then…on a punishingly hot and humid late summer evening in 1953, it finally happened.
***
Coming home from school that Friday afternoon and walking into the stifling little frame home, I was surprised to see that my mother was not wearing her normal plain thin cotton dress, but instead had donned a dark blue skirt topped with a white silky-looking blouse with puffy short sleeves, whose collar was gaily decorated with little red flowers on intertwined green stems. Her jet black hair, freshly washed and pinned up into a tight shiny bun, gave off a sweetly scented fragrance as she scurried about hurriedly putting the finishing touches on a rich saliva-inducing meat and potato stew gently bubbling on the gas stove. And, she had on makeup.
Seeing me, she stopped in mid-step and curtly told me to hurry up and get ready to take a bath.
“Really?” I asked, a bit confused. “A bath? Why?”
“Because you need to be out, dressed and ready to eat when your father comes home.”
“Mom, he doesn’t get home for another two hours and it’s only 3:30! Anyway, why do I have to take a bath and get ready before he comes home? What’s going on?”
“Well, as soon as he gets home he’s going to take a bath, we’re gonna eat, then we gotta leave.”
“Leave? And go where?”
“Church!” (Of course she pronounced it chursh)
“What church? We never go to church!” Thinking that we may be going somewhere really fun (which we never did anyway, but still hoping), I persisted, “OK mom, where are we really going?”
“CHURSH!! Now get into the tub.”
Going to church? Huh? Not wanting to irritate her anymore, I put my books down and started for the bathroom. But why in the world would we be going to church on a weekday, plus at night, and most puzzling—why was my father going? He never went to church! Heck! WE never went to church! I wondered if Robert or his grandparents had something to do with this. After all, besides the disastrous visit my mom and I had made to the Catholic Church, Robert had been the only other person I had ever gone to church with.
Easing my worn brown oxfords off my feet and stepping out of my still stiff denim jeans I turned the squeaky faucet on the yellowing tub.
Wait!
“Hey, Mom!” I yelled. “I can’t take a bath. There’s no hot water in the tub.”
“Cállate!” She yelled through the closed door. “Open the door, I got it here on the stove.”
“Is it hot water?”
“Ay, que estúpido. Of course it’s hot water. I put it on right after I finished my bath. Open the door!”
“Wait, I’m in my shorts.”
“So? ¡Abre la puerta pronto!” (Open the door, quick!)
“OK!” I opened the door hiding my lower body behind it while she shuffled in with a large steaming pot of water.
After my bath I came out wrapped in my towel. “Mom, what am I supposed to be wearing?”
Looking over her left shoulder as she stood over the little gas stove nursing yet another large pot of water next to the simmering stew she said, “Mira, I already ironed your nice pants and got the white shirt ready too. When your father gets home he’ll help you with the tie.”
Still not really believing that we were going to church I asked, “So, what church are we going to? It’s not that Catholic one, is it?”
“¡No, tonto!” She was getting a little testy. “The chursh that you went to with Robert, and the one where those brothers and sisters have been visiting from. You know, that one.”
I was stunned! For the past couple of months whenever the scruffy little group had visited, my father had bailed and scurried out the back door not to return until the group was long gone. I was the one that had been made to stay and endure the seemingly endless prayers, Bible quoting, and their tortured bawling. How and when did this happen?
“Mom,” I asked as I dressed by the chester drawers, “are you sure that dad is going too?”
“OK, Pancho! Like I told you when you came home. We are all going to chursh tonight. Your dad and I talked about it last night and he said he wouldn’t mind going. So, hurry up. He’ll be home any minute!”
Inspecting my worn-out brown shoes and wondering how they were going to look with black pants, I said, “I didn’t hear anything last night.”
“¡Ay, yai yai! ¡Ya no te voy a decir otra vez! (I’m not telling you again!) Get ready! I don’t have time to explain everything to you. I still have to get your brother ready! ¡Ándale!”
It would be many years before my mother talked to me about their conversation that fateful night—and when she did it was almost anti-climatic. She told me that as she was drifting off to sleep my father had gently touched her arm and softly asked, “Vieja, ¿crees que si regresamos a la iglesia Dios nos pudiera ayudar con estas cuentas? Ya no se que hacer.” (“Old lady*, do you think that if we return to the church God would help us with these bills? I just don’t know what else to do anymore.”) When I heard that, my first thought was that if he’d stopped spending all his money on his drinking sprees he’d made quite a dent in the bills. I guess he needed help doing that too.
***
We were instant celebrities. No sooner had we pulled our old 1936 Dodge coupe into the dusty little parking lot and screeched to a shuttering stop, when a clutch of church members, who’d been milling about chatting, practically ran and surrounded us as we stepped out. I instantly recognized them as some of the ones who had paid many tearful visits to our house.
“¡Bienvenidos hermanos! ¡Ay, que bendición!” (Welcome brothers! Oh, what a blessing!). This from sister Sánchez, who had rumbled up to the driver’s side of our car pushing and shoving lesser sized brothers and sisters out of her way. “¡Y Frankie también!” (And Frankie too!). With that, she grabbed me by the neck as I was closing the back door, pulled me towards her, and put me into a smothering bear hug—shoving my face unceremoniously between her more than ample breasts and really messing up my carefully coiffed, Crown Royal-ed up, pompadour.
As I inhaled lilac intermingled with baby powder, and afraid to open my eyes, she continued breathlessly, “¡Miren hermanos, estos son los hermanos De León: Avelina, Roberto, y aquí,” pulling my head out and turning it towards the now enthralled group, “…está Frankie!”
Not really knowing what to say, but grateful to have been given the opportunity to breathe the gloriously smoggy Houston air again, I said, “Hey!” The group grinned and one of the men tipped his slightly lopsided hat.
My father, stepping out of the car while casually repositioning his black fedora and making sure the front brim was stylishly raked over his left eyebrow, gave the group a quick once over and firmly shook the extended hand of the closest brother: a short squatty man who could’ve passed for sister Sánchez’s twin. “Evening,” he coolly said, “thanks.” Looking over to where my mother was now walking around the front of the car he tilted his head toward her and said, “and this is Evelyn, my wife.”
“¡Ah, sí. Hermana Avelina,” sister Sánchez squealed, “¡Qué bueno que pudo venir!” (Sister Evelyn, how nice that you were able to come). Releasing me, she bounced over to my mother and proceeded to put her into a bear hug.
The brother who was still pumping my dad’s hand said, “Oh, you no speak el espanich?”
My dad gave the brother a smirk (the kind that Elvis would later popularize) and said, “Of course. Why?”
Stuttering, the brother mumbled, “Oh, no, quiero decir…bueno, que bueno.” (Oh, I mean…good, really good). “Yo soy el hermano Rodrígues…Seferino Rodrígues.”
“Roberto De León,” my father announced, “pero usted me puede llamar Bob.” (…but you can call me Bob.)
With that, sister Sánchez released my mother, brother Rodrígues dropped my dad’s hand, and the group closed in around them both peppering them with questions and compliments. I was left alone, standing in a small pothole anxiously trying to reform my now totally destroyed pompadour.
Instead of entering the church through the main front doors the group escorted us through a small side door—the one that I had seen Pastor Villa use when he had exited the church one Sunday morning and gotten into his new Buick. That door provided access to front of the auditorium and the large area between the first pew and the altar/stage. Turning left at the center aisle we were shepherded to the second pew on the right side of the auditorium and directed to sit directly behind the special pew where Rev. Villa and his wife usually sat. Apparently, this pew was just a notch below “royal”, and was reserved for dignitaries and special guests. The people who had already entered the church and were scattered about in little knots cheerfully chitchatting suddenly grew eerily silent as we were seated. The little group escorting us dispersed in all directions after having given each of us paper fans (the ones with Jesus bleeding on one side and “Crespo Funeral Home—where your loved ones would go, if they could…” on the other) to whip up the hot air around us.
Since this was a Friday night, the service was designated as “El Servicio de los Hermanos” (male brotherhood service), and was ranked as the second most important service of the week—right after the Sunday night service. We had picked a good one.
A few members, both male and female, came over to greet us and welcome us to the service. Mostly, they seemed to be sizing us up. Since I’d been there before my greetings were limited to a welcome back and most of the more probing questions and comments were reserved for my parents. My father, having removed his hat and placed it on the pew next to him, sat quietly; his arms crossed over his chest unintentionally and slowly pushing up the open pack of Camels that he’d placed in his breast pocket when we left home and had forgotten to leave in the car. The camel’s head was peeking out discreetly when my mother noticed and hastily whispered something into his ear. Again, flashing the Elvis smirk, he casually uncrossed his arms, letting the pack slide back down into his breast pocket and out of sight. Then, he coolly crossed his legs and quietly cleared his throat.
My mother was as nervous as my dad was cool. After the last of the church members had paid us a welcoming visit, and the congregation had settled down to await the start of the service, my mother suddenly became a bundle of nerves. Fanning herself furiously, crossing and recrossing her legs, primping her hair, and making soft sucking sounds as her tongue searched for that last fibrous strand of stew meat jammed stubbornly between two back molars, she was a blur of motion and sound. Finally, my dad leaned his head next to hers and said, “Stop that!”
Stopping all movement suddenly she turned and gave him her patented death stare.
“Oh you!” It was as all she could come up with but she delivered it with a sharply hissing breathy whisper. I hoped to high heaven that a full-fledged argument wouldn’t break out now, because if it did then the brothers and sisters would have quite a show to watch and a whole new foreign tongue to experience. Besides, at the moment I was pretty much entertained eyeballing Joni on the piano and secretly enjoying those pleasant little throbs of hot energy deep inside my groin that not too long ago had started waking me up late at night. (To be continued….)
*My parents regularly called each other “vieja” (F) and “viejo” (M). Loosely translated they mean “old lady” and “old man”, and are usually used as terms of endearment.
