Más Burro Que’l Burro

OMG

by Rafael Chávez Mx

The first time I saw God, él todo poderoso, I must have been about three years old.  Mi familia and I always attended church every Sunday without fail.  Siempre como todo mexicano de rodillas, standing, praying, kneeling some more, singing aleluyas and vaya con dios, y vaya que aburrimiento. Going to Sunday service was not exciting to say the least, so in order to tame our childish urge to play in church, nuestra jefita discretamente nos daba unos tiernos pillisquitos underneath the arm with such shocking beelike stinging effectiveness that we would calm down momentarily, but as soon as the pain wore off there we were again at play. 

One day she came up with a grand scheme to calm us down at church, she pulled out the “God” card.  My old fashioned jefita pointed out that God was watching us from the altar and mentioned in a discreet whisper that it was a sin to play in church as she blessed herself with the sign of the cross. She emphasized that it was a mortal sin that would more than likely land us in the fires of hell with the devil tending to us with a pitchfork in hand, loteria style. She pointed at the cross where a petrified crucified Jesús stared back at us.  Then she indicated that if were bad in church,  Jesús had the power to summon la famosa llorona with a blink of an eye, and allow her to take us to a cave where el Satanás would be waiting for us somewhere in Veracruz.

But there was a problem with my mother’s scenario, you see, death, the divine, the supernatural, and hell pretty much meant nothing to us, for places like these did not exist in our innocent child minds.  As my mother kept going on and on about the holy crosses, the fires of hell, tortured Jesus, heavenly God, and the evil evil devil my attention was perked up by the man up on the altar holding up what I thought to be a tortilla (but really the host). I thought that must be “God”, the one my mamá was speaking about, but he was wearing a dress (in reality a priestly robe). My mother’s “God” I mistakenly misconstrued for the priest because in all logic, he was the only animated thing up there in the altar. Hence, my three year old mind deduced that dude in the dress holding up his hands in prayer, was “God” himself, so my inquisitive natured self became determined to investigate up close this “God” in a dress.

During the midst of religious solemnity, while my parents prayed with their eyes closed, I lured my brother into going up to the altar to gaze upon the countenance of “God” himself.  Despasito, a pasito, we snuck away from our jefes and made it front row, center stage, a few steps away from “God”, and stared just as he was raising his big copota de vino into the sky as some bells rang.

Every now and then church goers have seen children curiously go up the altar and stand there and stare.  Then, right behind them like always, an embarrassed parent rushes up to collect their child and quietly and meekly walk back to their respective pew. Well, that was precisely what happened to us, but with an added bonus, my father got involved. 

For my father to get involved in childish mischief was of no laughing matter.  He humbly walked up to the altar grabbed his two star-struck boys, who were busy contemplating the white countenance of “God” and quietly marched them to the rear of the church, outside, into his green 75 Ford LTD.  Once in the car, he quickly and methodically with a few intertwined profane bad words I dare not state, he unfastened his belt, y nos dio una chinga de perro bailarín. We immediately got the message, no staring at “God” from up close.  After we stopped crying, he then took us back into the church, where we sat quietly, ever so quiet, with the understanding that if we ever went up to see “God” again, we would have to face my father’s holy inquisition also once again.

From there on after I came to comprehend to two things; one that God does not save as I have proven in the aforementioned.  Secondly, there is no power greater than my jefitos belt. I tell you, that pinche cinto hurts so bad that all my father had to do was discreetly tap it with his fingers and we would immediately understand the warning we just received whenever we were breaking one of his many rules..  It was some sort of an ominous Morse-coded subliminal message that my father developed to instill the fear of hell itself onto our childhood minds. Any kind of wrongdoing resulted in ass-whipping like no other, even if it were in the house God.

After that initial visit with “God”, my brothers and I never left our seats again.  As for God, he never did come down to saves us from my father the inquisitor; he just stayed up in the altar in the distance where he belonged, petrified. Furthermore, la llorona never did come for us which leads me to believe that maybe religion, el Diablo, los santos, God and his son Chuy and anything else in relation cannot be more truer than the cuentos de niño my mamá use to tell us.  The only truth of it all was the all mighty power of my jefes fajo, my respects, because not even God ever came between it and my nalgas.