As a priest, I know what the Church teaches about God and man.  But I’ve learned little about the deeper meaning of existence.  I believe life to be a conduit between this world and the great beyond and what we receive while here, is our reward.  The world is neither kind nor good.  It is a stage of sorts.  We humans are placed here to play our part in the drama we call life.  To be sure, it is in our power to make decisions.  No matter how rational or studied a decision is, it’s still a decision.  For these man is made to account.  The fortunate few choose wisely, while the unlucky travel that crooked road that makes its way to hell.  Earthly life is given to some for a long period of time and taken from others early on.  None of us knows the why or the when of it.  

My friend, Michael Aragón’s love for God and country and his fall from grace is a story worth telling.  His strengths and weaknesses were the same as other men.  But what truly matters is what he chose to do with them.  He built the House of Aragón, the Brotherhood, La Eme.   That black tapestry of his life’s work was his creation and his legacy.  That group of Chicanos who made up the Brotherhood came together out of a need for survival.  Forging a secret crime syndicate, they killed for money and power.  Later, these vatos locos or crazy guys, took what they felt was theirs, creating La Eme, that crime syndicate.  How Michael went from patriot war hero to protector of the barrio and then became a barrio gangster, only God knows.  Perhaps it was written in the wind.  Maybe it was his destiny.  In the end, he paid for his folly.

This is the story of the Aragón family, Michael, the children, and his beautiful wife, Anna.  Michael’s son, my precious Kenneth, later presided over the Chicano gangster empire.  He was trained by his father to be the leader of La Eme.  But it was fate that finally drove him to become its Don.  Their love and friendship brought me joy.  

Upon my arrival at my new parish on that cold January morning in the winter of 1940, Michael Aragón’s parent’s, Anastacio and Amalia Aragón, were the first to welcome me.  I was a middle aged inexperienced priest who had mastered Church politics but had never spoken to a parishioner.  I was able to quote Shakespeare and Plato but I’d never heard a confession.  As a priest, my education allowed me to argue the finer points of philosophy.  But as a man, I couldn’t share in the glories of the sacraments.  A lost sheep among lost sheep, my new job as a parish priest was difficult to say the least.  They were my constant support and always willing to lend a helping hand.  Michael’s parents introduced me to barrio craftsmen and handymen who kept my impoverished parish running.  These fine people understood that the parish had precious little money, though it was rich in the necessary talents of craftsmanship.  There were plumbers and masons among my flock.  Mr. Gomez was a master electrician.  Mr. Hernandez, a ditch digger, spent weekends digging trenches to Mr. Gomez’s exact specification.  Mr. Rivera was a painter, an artisan really.  I soon found he could produce a fresco that rivaled those in the Sistine Chapel itself.  

Once my parish flock understood that they were wanted, each was more than willing to help.  These fine parishioners were contented to be rewarded by God.  The dear souls never asked for pay.  Many worked their twelve-hour day jobs and arrived afterwards at the parish, working long into the night.  Their wives brought them supper and stayed to work alongside their husbands. My parishioners gave and they gave.  Soon, I had a gardener donating his services.  Mrs. Martinez did my laundry weekly.  Also, Mr. Mendez, the wood finisher, completely restored the confessionals to their original beauty.  These good people had only to be asked and they were there to assist.  No job was too small or too great.  

Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish had come alive again.  Within the first two months, the parish flock had tripled in size.  I had several new alter boys and an abundance of ushers.  Attendance at Mass had increased but the offerings were still meager.  

My knowledge of the Spanish language was non-existent.  I had no knowledge of the language or its origins so I asked Mrs. Robles if she would tutor me.  Instead, she sent Mr. Johnson, an Anglo, married to a kind and loving Mexican woman.  His marriage to a non-English speaking immigrant forced him to immerse himself in Spanish.  Johnson’s conquering of the language made his marriage a success.  He once explained that grammar wasn’t the issue.  It was the way one spoke the language.  Accent and local colloquialisms made the grade in the barrio.  The saint of a man endeavored to teach me.  But the going was tough.  Johnson insisted that I remember my Latin as I spoke.  “After all,” he said condescendingly, “it is the root language.”  It took months of pain and anguish before I attempted a conversation.  It was poor Mr. Gomez who was my first victim.  When trying to explain his errors with an electrical outlet, I tortured him with my crude conversational Spanish.  He was kind explaining that he wasn’t a Señora, which was the feminine expression.  Rather, he was a Señor, which denotes a male.  I was greatly embarrassed.  Thereafter, I took Mr. Johnson’s lessons to heart.  

Before my assignment to the parish my work had always been administrative.  I learned the rudiments of life outside the Church from my flock.  They taught me compassion, discipline, humility, and above all, the meaning of honor.  Having been treated as a White Nigger in Ireland , I could feel the pain of my flock.  We Irish understood hatred and prejudice only too well.  These Chicanos were a dispossessed people.  My people too had been dispossessed just as the Mexican-Americans had been.  Their lands had been stolen and their culture demeaned.  They had been relegated to the lowest stations in life and forced to take positions at the bottom of the social ladder.  What the English did to my people over religion, the Anglo-Americans did to the Mexican-Americans because of race.  In fact, these Mexican-Americans became a non-existent people, yet they endured.  These Chicanos are a people of great honor and give of themselves without questioning.  

My parishioners loved America despite her rejection of them.  As their parish priest, I learned humility from these fine people.  To maintain one’s dignity in the face of constant abuse is a wondrous thing.  Those in authority had stolen their future cheating them out of life’s promise.  The barrio was proof of this.  Understanding injustice as a dilemma without attaching it to a person or people is a selfless act of courage.  But to ask God’s forgiveness for reacting unfavorably to injustice is sainthood.  These good families were abused and treated with malice by the people who had stolen the land and its promise.  But still they persevered.  I learned to love their courage and ability to forgive.  I admired their generosity of spirit and their faith as a people.  

Before my assignment to the barrio much had been told to me of the patriarchal nature of the Chicano family.  I found this to be an illusion.  Looking back on my early days in the barrio, I realize the importance of the word, “Respect”.  As I came to know my flock, their respect for the authority figure was the reality.  It was curious how these people who had so little and who had endured so much still respected authority.  To these Chicanos respect meant everything.  They revered both authority and respect.  This made it easy for Michael and his family to respect the Church.  In fact, the Church and its power were respected by all of the barrio people.  

In Michael’s home one showed respect by every word and action.  During those first weeks as a parish priest in East Los, as they called it, I quickly found that respect was the cornerstone of their Chicano culture and their families.  Respect suggested to them one thing, unconditional compliance.  That word had taken on an almost mystical value.  Respect for authority had been ingrained very early in the heart and soul of each Chicano child.  There was no room for discussion or abstract analysis; all practiced blind adherence to the concept.  

I found it curious that these Chicanos never used the expression Mexican-American, preferring instead the slang word Chicano.  My parishioners were Chicanos and proud of it.  They wore the name as a badge of honor.  Perhaps it was because they were a unique cultural mix derived from both America and Mexico .  Or maybe it was a last vestige of Indian rebellion against European injustice.  Their culture had been forced to accept the outside world, the White Man’s world.  Dictating total compliance, they were isolated in the barrio by the Whites.  Chicanos were prevented from renting in Anglo neighborhoods.  The outside world was brutal in its delivery of that message--Mexicans were not wanted.  In such a world the only thing that counts is the family.  No one else cares or helps except the Church, and it could do little.  

From the moment the Spaniards conquered and enslaved the Indian peoples everything they held sacred was demeaned and ripped from them.  Once conquered, their lands were stolen and they became strangers on their own continent.  As the Spaniards bred with the Indians the Chicano came to be.  Once the Holy Mother Church was transplanted onto the fertile soil of the Americas she endured and flourished.  For two thousand years the Church has been in existence.  History has guaranteed our success.  Those who challenged the new authority were butchered and brutalized by the soldiers.  Soon, the Church Indians were properly socialized.  Our God became their God.  There was no other.  For this people the Church and its power have always been here.  It has dominated the lives of this mixed race of poor lost souls for hundreds of years.  The Chicanos were taught that God had ordained their subjugation and they believed it.  The Holy Catholic Church had found a permanent niche in the Chicano heart predisposed as it was to authority.  We priests and nuns represent the embodiment of God's authority on earth.  

Our church building with its strong bell tower, confessionals, cavernous halls, and statues of the Virgin Mary all lend themselves to this grand vision of a power.  The Church’s sacred altar covered with beautiful gold leaf represents a thing of beauty and strength in their barrio.  The Chicano homes while spotlessly clean are old and rundown.  The few barrio businesses are housed in ancient buildings scarred by graffiti.  Everywhere the streets are unkempt.  The Parish is their one thing of beauty.  

Looking back on this notion of respect, I’ve come to accept its power.  Slowly and silently it crept into every part of Chicano life until it smothered the natural need to rebel against tyrants.  As their priest, I thanked God for it.  It saved them from the destruction that could’ve come about had they challenged Anglo authority.  One had only to look at the despair of the Indian reservations to understand what good came of rebellion.  

Life in the barrio was only made tolerable when those silent enemies, individualism and independence, were kept at bay.  Respect took away the sting of poverty and hopelessness.  When fathers and mothers were continually out of work, they still had respect.  If the Anglo world outside wouldn’t allow access to power or success there was always the family with its blind adherence to respect.  It was a guarantee, a safe harbor.  For Chicano men the family provided dignity.  The outside world chose to view them as either Don Juans or banditos never honest, simple, family men.  It didn't matter.  Their families with their blind adherence to the law of respect provided a safe haven.  

But as time went on, I saw the barrio transformed into a place of hopelessness and despair.  The Chicano gangs and their ownership of the young took root and flourished.  These gangs became the thorny vine entangling itself under, around and through the hearts and souls of many of the barrio young.  Soon, they could no longer confess their sins.  Deep down inside they knew the things they did for the gangs couldn’t be shared with me or even with Father Gonzales, the old priest revered by all.  Even he, who had always been so close to them and their families, couldn’t help.  To the gang members his pleasant smile and soft hands became only a faded memory.  

Still, I know the Catechism will be with them always.  The memories of their first Holy Communion presided over by the Bishop will always somehow remain.  It did with me, even after I strayed from the path.  The statue of the Virgin Mary, the image of Christ nailed and hanging on the cross, and the Eucharist will never go away.  Mother Church will always be a part of them.  Even today, knowing what I know, I feel good when I think of these precious symbols.  But for me, their priest, the answers were too difficult.  The beliefs these gang members held in their childhood somehow had no relevance to their life outside of the Church.  God was always there and yet not there.  Their prayers for help from the Blessed Virgin somehow went unanswered.  She was deaf to their pleas.  Her answers to prayer were as cold as her marble form.  Unable to take away life’s pain or offer shelter from the world outside, the Church wasn’t part of the answer.  It was only a brief means of diversion.  As their priest, I saw them as precious spirits given by God and placed in these vessels we call bodies.  I had known them from their earliest years and I came to love them as my own.  Through the years, I heard their confessions and understood their confusion.  The Church saw my flock as souls in need of saving.  I saw them as souls who had been wronged.  

How does one explain the unexplainable?  The barrio is an island of sorts.  As an outsider, I viewed them as a people cut-off from the rest of the world.  Neither Mexicans nor Americans, they were an odd mixture of both.  The outside world called them Mexican-Americans.  They called themselves Chicanos.  This hybrid race of Spanish and Indian blood was never truly accepted by their American brothers.  The world outside the barrio wouldn't let them in.  Jobs were scarce and those that could be found were backbreaking; these Chicanos have a hard life.  The families have little money; their wealth is the capacity to love.  The Church helped many to understand and cope with the Anglo world outside.  This was done through faith in God and the Virgin Mary.  But many couldn’t accept the hostile Americans.  The insults and poverty proved to be too much for them.  Later, they abandoned their Roman Catholic faith.  

Separate and apart, the Chicanos created a world unto themselves.  As outcasts, the barrio of East Los Angeles became their world.  It is the wall that separated them from those who hate them.  Over the generations, the gangs have learned from their predicament.  In the White Man’s world, he makes all the rules.  In the barrio the rules are made by those who count.  And those who count are the Family.  This is East Los’ largest and most powerful gang.  This is where La Eme began.  The gangs created their own world.  They remain apart from both the Anglo world and their Chicano brothers.  Gangs were formed much as tribes were.  They call themselves “Vatos” or “Cholos”.  As tribesman, they protect their territory and women.  They have their own rules, their own reality.  Unfortunately, these have always been written in blood.  

It began with the understanding that the gangs were to defend the barrio at all costs, if need be with their lives.  Duty often called them to defend the honor of the Family, La Familia.  Honor became the glue that held the Family together.  Belonging to a barrio tribe the Vato Loco lives by the gang code.  The code is rigidly enforced.  In his world, the vato does whatever is right according to the code.  In the end, he is the code.  His purpose is to live the code and to die for the code.  The Family is a close knit group.  In the world of the vato, the Family is everything.  Giving him respect and a place to stand, it’s his reason for being.  The tribe becomes his world, a reason for living.  Years of sharing the code, hanging out together, and protecting the barrio from outsiders creates a bond that most will never understand.  To an outsider these ideas can never be understood or appreciated.  Their’s is the world outside.  They enjoy the opportunities of society; life is full of the future and new ideas.  To the vato, life is closed and limited to the barrio.  The outsider looks forward to a future of travel, football games, summers at the beach, college, and later, a cozy corporate job.  For the vato, these doors have long since been closed.  The vato’s life is given to the Family and his future is to serve the Family and protect the barrio.  For the vato loco there is nothing else.  

Of course, not all Chicanos belonged to the world of the vato.  Those who don't join in their world are almost as foreign to them as the Anglos.  The code of La Familia is the barrier between the Chicano brethren.  My parish has always been a place where those separated by the code can come.  For years, they came on Sundays and holy days.  Speaking in hushed tones, this is the sacred building where all come to be forgiven in the confessional.  But all that has changed.  The Church has become a place for only the very young and the very old.  Of the few teenagers that do attend, most are enrolled in the Catholic school as well.  Dressed in their dark blue sweaters, brown corduroy pants, or plaid skirts, the Catholic school clothes set them apart from the vatos and cholas.  

On weekdays, the vatos and cholas watch them playing behind the Catholic school’s high protective fences.  But there is something bigger than the fence separating the two sides.  Softer and less coarse, the Catholic school kids haven’t been corrupted by the gangs and their code.  While at school they are protected by the nuns and priests.  At home their parents see to their welfare.  These good Catholic kids are the fortunate ones.  These children speak and walk differently from the gangs.  Theirs isn’t the crude and exaggerated act of the gangster.  

How different life is for the gangs.  When the vatos and cholas leave the cool dark church, the barrio sun is blinding.  Only with difficulty do their eyes adjust to the glaring sunlight.  When able to focus, they see the same rundown barrio with its filthy streets.  Graffiti painted houses and buildings clutter their vision.  The sidewalks haven’t changed.  Everywhere there remains cracked and broken.  Oil from ancient, battered cars stained the streets leaving its harsh and familiar odor.  The punishing sun brings out the stench of the garbage thrown onto the ground.  This is the world that the Virgin cannot fix.  This is the place that the Family calls home, the barrio.  

There are other reservoirs of power.  The first official act of the Anglo world was to prohibit the use of the Spanish language, the mother tongue.  English is the only language that need be spoken.  The Anglo teachers and White Man’s schools are also a power to be unconditionally respected.  These keepers of knowledge come into the barrio to spread the gospel of respect and the inevitable logic of compliance.  They’re outsiders who come into the barrio, do their job, and leave before dark for the outside world.  At night, they go back to their safe world of clean streets and manicured lawns.  

For the barrio kids the schools are much like the Church.  It is a place to be sent, a place only for the moment.  The teachers from the outside can never really understand the barrio.  The teachers remind the gang members of, we priests, always an easy smile and a soft hand.  It is as if the teachers know something and don't want to share it.  Maybe they have the answers the Virgin Mary refuses to offer.  Then again, maybe they’re as cold inside as she has proved to be.  It doesn't matter; the teachers are civilians in this war.  And for the people of the barrio, the war is never ending.  It started long before I came to the parish.  These young gang members are just soldiers following orders, orders given by the heads of their gangs.  

Over the years, my life became intertwined with my parishioners.  But I became closest to Michael and his family.  I first came to know Anastacio and Amalia, his parents, and later, him.  I was often a guest in their home.  Later, Michael’s wife, Anna, was one of my favorite parishioners.  Doña Anna, as she came to be called, was the love of his life.  Beautiful and gracious, she molded his life into one of greatness.  She had little ambition for herself.  Anna dreamed great dreams for her children.  Anna wasn’t the birth mother of the two boys.  But Anna was much more.  From her soul came the gifts of love and caring.  Her life was dedicated to them.  Only her daughter received more love and compassion.  

Michael's family was his life, his reason for being.  His sons, Kenneth and Benjamin, were his pride and joy.  Christina, his golden haired daughter, was the apple of his eye; he spared her nothing.  The children became as my own.  Much in the same way, La Eme, his creation, wasn’t just a mafia it was more.  Michael had lived for it and later, he died for it.  

Many years later, when the Aragóns became wealthy, if I did leave the barrio it was to visit one of Michael’s homes.  On any given weekend, I would drive up with Anna to one of their splendid weekend retreats.   In the evenings, Aragón would join Anna and me.  Rolf Grover, our long-time friend would join us and we drank and smoked cigars while playing cards into the early morning hours.  Michael’s friends enjoyed watching him cheating at cards; he loved to win.  We all knew he was a poor poker player, so we let him believe that we didn’t know he cheated.  Those were good days.  By then, I’d stopped preaching at him.  I, his priest, had accepted his life as a gangster.  Michael and I reached an understanding.  He limited certain activities in the barrio and I stopped publicly humiliating him.  

Rolf Grover is terribly German.  He’s strong, very reserved, and little escapes his notice.  A very complex man, he spoke little and listened intently.  His dry sense of humor wasn’t frequently displayed.  But when it was, he brought the house down.  Rolf’s intelligence was surpassed only by his wisdom.  When he laughed it was sincere.  Very little about him was manufactured; he was his own man.  A soldier by trade and a businessman by necessity, Rolf took little joy in his gun shops and Beverly Hills target range.  His large security firm took most of his time.  Rolf’s list of clients graced the pages of Vanity Fair and GQ.  Those he protected could be found on Hollywood ’s “A list”, as well as Washington ’s beltway.  Rolf knew many Fortune 500 CEOs and Wall Street barons on a first name basis.  Only later did I find out about his connections to American and European security agencies.  He was what Michael called, connected.  If power was what he aspired to, it was his.  If wealth was his life’s dream, he’d amassed it.  

Rolf carried himself with the ram rod posture of a career soldier.  It made him appear taller than he was.  He’s medium height, perhaps six-foot tall, with strong wide shoulders and a muscular frame.  His hair is sandy blonde and thinning.  A broad Germanic nose that had been broken several times gives him the appearance of a boxer.  His jaw is strong and cleft, eyes blue-green, the color of a Nordic fiord.  He’s remained fit and strong his entire life.  Rolf’s daily regiment of calisthenics and bodybuilding is his religion.  He reminds me of a large deadly jungle cat.  One that’s powerfully muscled and swift, with the intelligence to easily stalk and kill its prey.  Early on, he’d mastered the martial arts, holding a black belt in Karate.  He was in the end an Aryan soldier.  

From the time I met him, so many years ago, he was a fixture in the Aragón household.  We two became adopted uncles to the children.  Spending weekends, holidays, and vacations with the Aragóns, their family became our own.  Their home was our home.  Rolf was dedicated to Anna and never far from her.  When away on business, he had his men discreetly follow and protect her.  She never knew.  These men were professionals.  Only once did he fail to provide that protective net, an act he would live to regret.  This lapse of discipline cost him his best friend in life.  Rolf was intimately involved in both Anna’s family and business affairs.  He counseled her on investments and ventures.  When needed, Rolf used his vast network of contacts to obtain insider information for her.  His devotion to her was clear to all those who knew them.  Later, it extended to Michael’s three children.  Over the years, I had hoped that Rolf would find a woman who could fill the emptiness of his life.  I tried many times to play matchmaker but to no avail.  Anna also made many uncomfortable introductions of women friends to Rolf.  But none met his high standards.  He enjoyed his solitude and times of reflection, it wasn’t loneliness.  Rolf had more obligations than time to fulfill them.  He had no room for a woman.  And of course there was always his doting on Anna.  

Michael understood their relationship and never discouraged it or stood in the way.  For his part, Michael welcomed the security of mind it brought him.  He loved his wife more than life itself.  And he knew that Rolf was always there as a shield for her.  This brought the two men closer.  There was never competition for her love.  Each knew of her love for him.  And both understood their place in her life.  Rolf’s role was that of the much loved and trusted older brother.  Michael was the love of her life, her knight in shining armor.  The three together had become the sum, each a part of the whole.  And I was the fourth wheel of a very fast moving automobile.  We raced through the decades together traveling quickly around the track of life.  

Michael and I knew many of the same people.  Through their confessions, I learned much about his life and business activities.  What I didn’t learn from Michael, I learned from his family and friends.  A priest is much like a policeman knowing things he wishes he never knew.  As a parish priest, I heard confessions twice a day, seven days a week, and twelve months a year.  Over these past fifty years, I’ve heard thousands of confessions.  As they confessed their wrongs to God, my parishioners were honest in their pleading.  They needed to be free of their guilt and shame.  It weighed heavily on them.  Through me, they told Him what they’d done and why.  They gave God every detail.  Having been told the most intimate details about their sex lives, longings, needs, and desires I knew more things about those parish families than a person should.  Many men I’ve known have broken their marriage vows as often as they’ve changed their trousers.  Some have told me of the people they’ve killed.  The taking of lives was done for truly unimportant reasons; love, money, and power.  I tried not to judge them, but I did.  Keeping my priestly vows, I never shared what was said to me in the confessional.  As a simple conduit, my body was God’s temple here on earth.  What I heard was not for my ears.  Their confessions were to God not to man.  Yet, it helped me to understand.  As their priest, I held a privileged position in their lives.  Sooner or later, they all came to me.  Their burdens were too great, and their sins too many.  Coming to me to plead their case and gain forgiveness, nothing was too terrible a deed.  The Church had always forgiven.  It was God’s forgiveness I questioned.  

It is through their confessions that I can tell you about Michael Aragón and the others involved in his business interests.  His days as a warrior came to me through the many letters he sent.  At times they arrived weekly.  Afterwards, he told me much in the confessional.  My dependence on him and his family grew in the later years of our friendship.  As I matured and understood myself better, I gravitated toward them like a moth to a bright flame.  Only then was I comfortable enough with who I was to share with others.  As I grew older, the rectory became less a place of solitude and more a place of despair.  My demons haunted me day and night.  I needed the company of my friends.  I enjoyed the laughter and bantering.  I welcomed Michael’s practical jokes, Rolf’s dry German sense of humor, and Anna’s passion for life.  They brought rich colors to the otherwise blank canvas of my life as a priest.  My world had become quite different from the earlier days.  For many years, I never left my flock for very long.  Not daring to leave the safety of this barrio, my parishioners became my life.  I was always there for them.  I was close to Michael’s family and friends.  

My youthful indiscretions and barbarity became a curse for me.  The thought that I would be found out haunted me daily.  As night fell, the phantom called to me from the shadows.  I awoke in the early morning hours with the fear of being found out.  My IRA past was that fear, an ever-present demon.  In those lonely gray predawn hours when the fear is the greatest and the world slumbers, you wait quietly, patiently, for the dawn to break.  It’s then that the mind plays its tricks.  Taunted by threats of my being unmasked and humiliated, I prayed for a distraction.  I requested relief from God, something, anything that would fill the void in my mind where the demons traveled.  He sent me Michael, who became my burden.  My life’s work, he was the challenge of a lifetime.  When the sun rises and the earth is filled with light, you know you’ve survived to suffer another day.  This is how life was for me.  

The phantom of fear followed me wherever I went, even into the confessional.  That demon never accepted my priesthood.  He laughed out loud as I said the sacraments.  Calling to me from behind the pulpit he chastised me.  The evil being whispered insults at me as I said mass.  Always the taunts were the same.  “You who have done so much evil, how can you save these little ones?  Priest, you carry the blood of innocents on your hands.”  None could hear him but me.  His shrill laughter mocked my very existence.  The thing knew me for what I had been.  So I drank the sweet red wine, drinking until I drowned out the phantom’s voice.  Only then could I sleep.  Over the years I drank more and cared less.  My world had become a nightmare of condemning voices from the shadows.  The only salvation for me was God and He eluded my grasp.  The Lord placed in front of me a bridge that was too far away and the road leading there was too dangerous for me to travel.  There was no protection on any side.  I could be found out at any moment.  But beyond the bridge lay freedom, God’s house.  The price I must pay for passage was my unmasking.  Or I must forgive the English and their evil deeds if I wish forgiveness for my own sins.  This I can never do.  That simple act is beyond me.  

In those years, my life revolved around the barrio and its people.  My faithful flock became my reason for being.  I remained on this island leaving its safety only when I had no choice.  They became my family and a few became my life-long friends.  As their padre I shared their pain and sorrows.  I married them and buried them, counseled them and comforted them.  I accepted their gifts and gave them my love in return.  As a shepherd guards his sheep I prepared my flock for eternity by baptizing them and their children.  Blessings came through these barrio people I served.  These fine parishioners gave me a reason to believe in the possibility of redemption.  Their humility and faith allowed me to think that one-day I might summon up the courage to take the journey along the road to freedom.  In a sense, they kept my meager hope alive inside me.  Honoring me and loving me, they asked for little and gave much.  They were simple children of the faith and believed without question.  They were humble and yet so full of strength.  How I envied them.  My parishioners asked few questions and accepted the Church’s teachings and our Lord’s gift of salvation.  Even when the world outside despised them, they still believed.  When wronged for their race they asked only for forgiveness in the confessional for their anger and hate toward those who had injured them.  

It has been difficult for me to be both a priest and a man.  As a man, I have needs.  But as a priest I’ve taken an oath to deny those needs.  As a man I’ve found these brown skinned women a delight to the eyes.  The exotic blend of Indian and Spanish blood had brought forth a beautiful race of people.  The thick, lush, dark haired manes of these women is a mantel for their sensuous faces.  And yet, God has spared me the temptation to please myself by taking one of these delightful creatures to my bed.  He took pity upon me and gave me the nature of a father.  The urge to partake of these beauties was supplanted by a need to serve them as parishioners, daughters of my parish.  

The Aragóns were my most loyal parishioners.  They never refused my requests or uttered a complaint.  They took joy in the Lord’s work and gave generously of their time and money.  Nothing was too difficult for them when called upon.  Michael, their son, was both my greatest joy and vexation.  He believed but only in what he could see and touch.  Questioning everything he could never still that inquisitive mind.  In the early days, Michael came to the confessional weekly.  In the late afternoons and evenings I taught him chess.  He was one of those who dreamed of a better life.  My sin was reaffirming his dreams.  I should have known better.  The world outside was not then ready for this young Mexican-American boy.  Yes, he was strong and handsome, bright and capable.  But he wasn’t an Anglo in a world where Anglos dominated everything and everyone.  It was a world that would only tolerate him, never nurture him.  The treachery of this world would inevitably put him at odds with the teachings of his God.  Like so many others before him, it would make him an outcast, leaving him to his own devices.  

In those early years, we were close.  I loved Michael like a younger brother and was proud of him.  We shared much time together.  As his dreams were crushed under foot one-by-one, I was angered.  I wanted only the best for Michael.  I shared his hurt and disillusionment.  When the world left him with no dreams and only the harsh realities of prejudice I mourned the loss of his innocence.  The day he turned away from the Church and its teachings I took it as a personal slight.  It was as if he had turned his back on our friendship.  Only now, so many years later, do I understand.  He was no different than me.  Michael Aragón couldn’t forgive the Anglo interlopers so he found a way to live with the occupiers of his country.  

It all began on that black morning of December 7, 1941.  Michael and his parents heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor over the radio.  The family was eating breakfast in the small cramped kitchen.  The aroma of the thick Spanish coffee, rich with sweetened milk, filled the room.  Papa and Michael read the newspaper and talked about the boxing matches of the night before.  As Mama served her men the heavily buttered tortillas, eggs with cheese, and steaming hot refried beans, Papa bit down hard on his small yellow Jalapeno chili peppers.  With each bite came the stinging hot burn of the chili causing him to gulp down the strong coffee.  It was his morning ritual.  Michael was taking a bite of eggs when they heard the news flash.  For a moment they were silent.  None of them wanted to believe what they’d just heard.  Mama Aragón quickly made the sign of the cross.  Turning to Papa, she placed both hands over her mouth and in a frightened tone breathed the words, “Dios Mio, My God”.  Arturo Aragón, her eldest son, was stationed at Pearl Harbor .  At the very moment of uttering those words Mama sensed something dark and foreign within.  At first it was as if she were lost, almost as if she had been abandoned.  As the minutes passed her motherly intuition began to move from deep down in her soul into her subconscious.  Finally, it crept beyond the protective subconscious walls, flooding into her conscious mind.  Cold gray vapors of terror and emptiness floated through the shadows of her mind and down into the pit of her stomach.  She feared the worst.  Frightened, she would wait for Papa to tell her what to do.  He always knew what was best.  For an eighteen year old the news was overwhelming for Michael.  

Father stood up from the breakfast table and walked over to the small window above the sink facing the front yard.  Standing there with his back to them, his slender, muscular frame became rigid.  Michael stared intently at his father noticing his slight build.  Papa was no taller than five foot.  With close-cropped hair still jet black after these forty-five years, he was a handsome man.  Staring into the street Papa found all was quiet.  The grass in the yard was brown and dying.  The neighbors were still slumbering secure in their pleasant dreams.  A lone dog stood there in the street its light brown fur dull and dirty.  Patches of fur were missing on its back and hind legs.  The hungry dog was clearly sick.  Father studied the half-crazed animal in silence trying to sort out his feelings.  He watched for several minutes as the dog overturned a trashcan in search of scraps of food.  Both Mama and Michael sat quietly, respectfully.  Each frightened and both waiting for father to comfort them.  It seemed an eternity as they waited for Papa to make a pronouncement on the matter.  “This is an evil act by cowards who have no honor!”  He shouted.  His husky voice was filled with disgust.  While spitting out the heavily accented words his facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.  He was barely able to control his anger.  Papa’s Adams apple bobbed up and down in his throat as his dry mouth swallowed in hopes of finding saliva to sooth it.  

Papa Aragón was then quiet for a time as he continued peering out the window.  The mangy dog was tearing hungrily at the brown paper bags full of table scraps.  It shook the contents of the torn bags out onto the dirty, gray, cement sidewalk.  Papa’s eyes followed the wind blown trash as it flew along the cracked and jagged curb line.  The trash was then blown down the desolate street by the strong winter winds and clung to the chain link fences.  Father’s thoughts were of the many young men who were killed that morning.  The unnecessary deaths of all those young boys overwhelmed him.  As he turned toward the two, he had tears in his eyes.  Mama was also now crying and praying in a hushed tone as she held her light blue rosary in her tiny hands.  Running the rough fingers of her right hand along the string of cool smooth beads, she counted each one as she recited her prayers.  

Michael understood that something terrible had happened.  He felt the importance of it, but didn't quite know what to do.  At barely eighteen, he felt that this thing would change his life forever.  

His eyes tightly shut; father was suddenly unable to support the weight of his fears and the sense of loss tearing at his soul.  As he dropped to his knees the fingers of his large callused hands left stiff from many years of hard labor wrapped together.  Papa then began to pray to the God of his fathers.  Offering the Lord’s Prayer both Mama and Michael joined him on their knees.  They prayed in unison.  Their words ran together as a chant taking on a life of their own.  The words spoken from the hearts of the Aragón family traveled through their bodies becoming alive, pregnant with faith.  Each was lost in the experience and all were thinking of Arturo.  Having made their way to God and his saints in heaven the life in the prayers dissipated.  Then the family rose to their feet and moved uncomfortably from the kitchen to the living room.  All were feeling the same sense of loss.  But none wanted to speak of it.  Father looked at Mama and opened his outstretched arms to her.  He gathered her frail body to him and held Mama tightly as her tiny body moved into his.  By this act, he was protecting her from the world that had robbed them of their first-born son.  They both began to sob.  Instantly, Michael knew why.  His brother Arturo was dead.  Michael moved by the pain of it, entered into his parent’s embrace, placing his strong arms around his Mama and Papa.  At once, he was comforting and being comforted.  He also began to mourn his brother's death.  

Their knowledge that his brother was dead was inexplicable.  How could they have known?  How could anyone know or feel someone else’s passing to the great beyond?  After all, Arturo was several thousand miles away from Los Angeles in Honolulu .  Michael was confused.  His brother couldn't be dead, he tried to reassure himself.  He was a sailor on a large battleship.  Surely a ship the size of the Arizona couldn't be sunk.  It was too large, too well protected.  But deep down inside his inner voice was sure.  That strange cold sense of loss in the pit of his stomach was real.  The loss of his brother was there.  

His parents were feeling it as well.  As he left his own thoughts and returned to the present Michael could see his parent’s helplessness and grief.  There they stood holding onto one another afraid to let go.  Neither wanted to face the truth alone, both sobbed as tears streamed down their faces.  Michael watched as Papa and Mama rocked slowly from side to side.  It was as if they were once again gently rocking their baby son Arturo to sleep.  This moment would always stay with Michael.  He watched as they did the slow dance of death and remembrance.  As Michael stood there looking in on his parent’s private grief he realized that he could do no more for them.  He left them to their sorrow and walked back into the kitchen.  There he sat for a few moments alone and confused.  He knew he had to talk to someone.  So he left for the parish.  

The early morning sun was pleasant and warm as he made his way to the parish.  The loud sound of birds chirping could be heard from the trees.  Yet inside he felt as cold and gray as a wet winter day.  Looking up, Michael noted that the strong winter winds had died down leaving a cloudless sky of deep blue.  At that moment a gentle breeze rustled his hair.  It was odd that life could be so full of contradictions.  The world could be so beautiful and yet so cruel.  Michael questioned how life went on so easily after a good person died.  His brother was dead and yet the world outside was so beautiful and full of life.  How could God allow the world to be so calm and pleasant while his heart was in such turmoil?  

When he finally reached me at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, I was alone with only a game of chess and my thoughts.  I sat there in the rectory garden at a lawn table and studied the chessboard intently.  When he first called out to me, I didn't hear him.  I was startled by the noise coming from the rusted iron gate as Michael forced it open.  As always, I was happy to see him.  His easy smile won him many friends and his engaging personality made him many more.  Always level headed and honest the harshness of the world hadn’t yet intruded upon this young man's simple life.  He was unlike most of the other barrio boys.  There was still that look of innocence in his eyes.  Many of the young boys were already hardened by the cruelty and unfairness of life.  Michael was one of the few that had remained in school.  His graduating from high school had been that past June.  

Like other young men of his age he was at the peak of his physical prowess.  There was a youthful freshness about him.  He was tall standing well over six feet.  His muscular frame was toned and strong.  A site to behold, Michael was handsome with striking chiseled features, clear healthy skin and a strong jaw.  His high intelligent forehead and deep-set green eyes gave him the aura of the actor, Rudolf Valentino.  Michael's light brown hair was thick and well-kept.  Being born a Mexican-American in the White Man’s world was Michael’s only failing.  From the very beginning he was doomed in his pursuit of the American dream.  That dream was exclusively available to real Americans, Anglos.  

Earlier that morning, I’d heard the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio.  I retreated into my chess game.  I needed time to think.  As the parish priest I knew that members of my flock would seek me out that day for divine guidance.  But I had precious little to offer.  Not having the words I needed to think it all through.  Thinking about what to say and how to say it, I’d been staring off into the distance when Michael arrived.  I could only smile and offer him a chair.  As he sat, I could see the pain of his churning emotions in his eyes.  We talked about the Church and Christmas fiestas that were soon to take place.  Neither of us was ready to discuss anything of a serious nature so we talked about my love for the game of chess.  I shared the importance of thinking several steps ahead of an opponent’s actions by anticipating future moves.  He listened passively and said little as I explained the art of winning through countering an opponent’s moves.  

Michael was the first to broach the topic of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor .  I listened patiently to his concerns about his brother.  We discussed what had happened earlier that morning at his home.  He described the raw emotions of those hours sharing with me the sense of loss that each had felt.  Then Michael spoke of the words his father and mother hadn’t said.  He told me of his knowledge of his brother’s death.  When he finished, Michael sat quietly waiting for my words of comfort.  Many times a priest finds himself at a loss for words.  This was such a time.  I needed to collect my thoughts.  These were questions that went to the heart of all spiritual and Biblical dogma.  In such cases, it is best to say nothing rather than taint a parishioner’s spiritual understanding with pagan beliefs.  

The moment demanded clarity of mind and spirit.  So I stood up from the lawn table and made my way over to a nearby rose bush.  As I plucked several red rose petals Michael sat with his head hung low waiting impatiently for an answer.  Holding the petals to my nose I drank in the sweetness of the flower before returning to him at the table.  I first asked him if he really believed his brother to be dead.  Then I probed the sincerity of his feelings.  He sat and listened carefully to the questions I posed.  Again, Michael shared his feeling of emptiness.  He spoke of the cold feeling at the bottom of his stomach.  He repeated to me how his initial sensation was a feeling of being lost.  The boy was frightened.  When Michael spoke of the feeling of emptiness in his heart, his voice cracked.  Later, he recounted how his thoughts of Arturo seemed to be sent out to his brother, much as a mental signal, but nothing returned.  He believed his thoughts of Arturo went off to nowhere, into nothingness.  Then he asked me what this all meant.  His voice was shaky.  Michael was panicking.

Even now as an experienced priest, I’ve never heard the feelings so well described.  I’d felt the same feelings long ago, that night that my brother Patrick and father were taken from me.  I remembered that sudden emptiness which came upon me as I awoke from a fitful sleep.  Upon hearing the shouting of the soldier’s voices outside my home, I felt the same cold spot in my stomach.  There was also the same experience of the cutting of the psychic ties to my brother and father as they went into the great void beyond.  And finally, there was the utter sense of loneliness that came over me.  Thinking back to that day long ago when young Michael sat there in front of me at the rectory lawn table, I realized how much alike we were.  There was pain and fear written all over his face.  At that moment, we became kindred spirits connected on a level most can never share.  Suddenly, I knew this young man as never before.  Twenty-six years before our meeting at the rectory I had experienced the same sense of psychic loss for my loved ones.  

Thank God our Virgin Mary gave me the words to share.  Sitting down next to Michael at the table, I placed my hand on his shoulder.  Then I summoned up all the courage I had.  We talked about the fact that all men would someday face the mysteries of death.  I assured him that death was the greatest mystery of all.  As his priest, I shared with him the reasons Christians take to heart what our faith promises, namely that God awaits us all beyond that void we call death.  As we discussed the possibility of Arturo having survived, I reassured Michael that if his brother was still with the living his family’s prayers had been answered.  I also assured Michael that had Arturo made the journey to heaven, he would have been greeted by our Lord.  In that case he was with our Lord and at peace.  With nothing more to say, I sent him away to his prayers.  As he departed into the church, I promised Michael that God would show him the way.  That morning he made his intercession with God, praying for his brother and the others on the great battleship.  He asked God to keep his brother’s soul safe and close to him.  Michael then prayed for Mama and Papa.  Finally, he prayed for God to show him the way.  

During his communion with God, Michael made one of the most important decisions of his life.  The Japanese had struck the first blow he would now strike the second.  Michael Aragón decided to join the United States Marines.  He enlisted because of the rage that he felt toward the Japanese for attacking Pearl Harbor and to avenge the death of his only brother.  

Later the following week, he came to the rectory and sought my blessing.  I counseled him and we agreed that to fight for one’s country was an honorable thing to do.  Then, we prayed together there in the garden.  After the prayer Michael left to tell his parents of his decision.  They too blessed him.  The following day he reported for duty.  This was to be the beginning of his march into manhood and the end of his innocence.  The devil’s own world was to shape him into what he would become.  

The world Michael was about to enter had already been molded for him by a young American officer who had served in China .  This man would lead Michael and others against the Japanese.  This Marine and his fellow officers were men of strength and vision.  Destiny had prepared them for the great struggle that lay ahead.  Michael would learn the ways of war.  He would taste Japanese blood and become an efficient killing machine.  Raised to believe in the honor of his country, Michael would fight against a worthy foe, the Japanese soldier.  This generation of American warriors would become the greatest soldiers of the twentieth century.

01/20/2015 09:04 AM