Tales from the
Jesus Christ R.V. Park

First off, let me tell you I love Jesus. Really. I love Him with all my heart. He is my savior, and I owe my immortal soul to Him. He is my shepherd and I am a sheep. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for Jesus, and I like to find new and exciting ways to praise Him each and every day. This is why I was so excited when I finally got my WWJD wristband. I had been wanting one for so long, and I couldn’t believe my good fortune when I stumbled upon a bin of them at the Wayward Flock, our local Christian bookstore. I quickly grabbed one (hot pink with bright green lettering, the perfect colors for salvation!) and took it up to the register. Mabel, the cashier, complemented me on my youthful devotion, but I laughed it off and told her any good Christian would do the same thing. She rang up the price for me. Seven ninety-five?! Jesus be praised! I had been expecting to pay twice that much for a thing of this quality! I guess true faith really does pay off. I got out of the store and removed the bracelet from the bag. My, how it glowed in the sunlight! It’s heavenly radiance almost made it seem as if God himself had touched it. I gazed upon it with pride. Little did I know that this small piece of nylon would soon end up saving my soul! You see, I was walking down the street, not two blocks from the bookstore, when a man in a long, black trench coat jumped in front of me. At once I became nervous. My pastor had warned us about people like this in bible study. I knew at first sight this man was an agent of the Devil! "Get thee behind me, Satan!" I yelled at him, but it did no good. He whipped open his coat and exposed himself to me! "Heathen!" I screamed, and lashed out at him with my new wristband. I guessed I must have hit him, because he started squealing like I’ve never heard a man squeal before. Then I looked down, and to my horror and amazement, saw the nylon had wrapped itself tightly around his member, viciously squeezing it like a snake that has caught a rodent. Needless to say, I didn’t stick around to see what happened. In fact, I ran until I got to my church, where I fell on my knees and praised the Lord God almighty for His wisdom and resourcefulness. Then I went home and watched my tape of Jerry Fawell’s Greatest Hits. And that is how my WWJD wristband saved my soul.

Erik T., Flagstaff, Az

It was late and I was tired. Tired of it all. The long days, the worthless nights, the sun, the wind. Every day the same - sunny, windy,hot. I hadn't seen the American side of the border in two weeks and I didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing was different in the northern side of the border; it was all the same, save a few marked improvements in sanitation road maintenance. But nothing really changed. The sun won't change. The wind won't change. The heat won't change. I won't change. No, sure as all hell, America was but a cosmetic makeover on a layer of sin and sand, I thought, and no goddamn border jump will ever get me away from that. I was sitting in a dingy bar in some crappy border town, less than two blocks away from the crossing, my white skin burnt dark by the pounding of the sun and the toil of the work I had done. I was toast, caramel, a hundred other delicacies that I no longer had the desire for. But, I thought to myself, I could still cross the border. My eyes still gave my away as a foreigner. An imperialist upon the virgin soil, I was the 21st Century gaucho, rounding up whatever my nation wanted me to round up, playing America's dirty hand on the rest of the world. That didn't bother me, nor did the work itself. It was the quiet moment of reflection, that instant when everything is stripped bare adn you sense that somethig is missing. When you live like I do, after a while, your whole life becomes one of those moments. As my eyes darted around the bar, I felt a yearning inside me. Respectably, glory, a woman's touch - all were so close, all around me, and yet nothing of what circled in the air was for me. I felt angry. I became sick. I cursed every man there. I cursed every woman there. I cursed the country, the bar, I cursed my drink and threw it upon the floor. I cast my gaze upward and Jesus was there, holding his watery margarita and sitting across from me, calm in demeanor but not in temperment. His eyes pierced me as I pierced myself. Goddamn you, I said, struggling to find the words, what are you doing here? Is there no truth anymore, no beauty in anything that even Jesus Himself comes to Nogales on a Saturday night, that even He has nothing better to do than come down to Mexico to get pissed? Is this where hope and faith leads us, $20 All You Can Drink Night at Guantanamera's? Where can humanity go, if this is our end, our highest end? His eyes just stared at me. He was probably talking by this point too, but I had been in the bar a lot longer than He had and thus dictation was not then my strong point. Anyway, I managed to piece together some of His righteous but admittedly sloppy narrative, but evidently it was enough, as I rose to my feet, embued with the power of the LORD! I cast aside the empty bottles and glasses, for like me, they had no purpose. Instead I grabbed the last beer and the last cocktail from the table, and, with some sort of a flailing motion, declared "Hark! I have been saved!" and with this mighty bellow, I kicked over the next table and broke my bottle over some boy's head. "Praise Jesus, everybody, for through Him we can do no wrong, and the alcohol in our veins will turn to virtue, and then back to alcohol again, but of an even stronger sort!" I slammed my cocktail with my left hand, and swept the next drink from the bar with my right, knowing that I was saved, and the true inebriation was about to begin.

Jay M., Tucson, Az

One night I was walking home from the union after a fun night of sober fun playing pool and checkers with my friends from the church. I was tired. I had been standing up all day long, preaching His word in the mall all day. it really makes me feel good to save "lost" souls and make them better, more understanding, like me. Well anyway, I was walking home by all of the fraternity houses when two lads approached me saying "Wow, is that the new WWJD bracelet you're wearing?" "Yes," I said proudly. Having just bought it earlier that day I was glad someone was noticing, it must have been His will... "Could you come over here so we could be it better?" one of them asked. "I'd be happy to," I cheerily responded, things were looking up, maybe they'd even be willing to come to mass with me tomorrow. So I went over to give them a better view of my... no His... bracelet. As I got closer all I remeber is a thudding noise a pain in my head and some laughing. The next few hours were a blur, I vaguely remember faces, no not the boys I saw before, new ones, scarier ones. I see some laughing faces, lots of them. I am in an alley of sorts, my face shoved up against the wall. Everone is yelling something like "when is my turn?" And then the pain, over and over, behind me like a steam locamotive trying to push its way through me. I think I screamed. That only made it worse, they panicked thinking I was truly conscious again. More pain, all over my body. I woke, presumably hours later, in a pool of vomit, feces, urine, and semen. I half staggered, half waddled home. That night, for the first time in my life, I drank. I put on my cowboy hat and drank. Drank till it didn't hurt anymore, drank till it was funny, drinking somehow made it better, somehow put it into perspective. Then I noticed it was gone, my new WWJD bracelet. It came back to me then, a part I had previously forgotten. After the first hour or so I regained consciousness and looked around. The boys were there, laughing throwing things at me, bottles, cans, cordless phones. They said they were going to kill me. I was scared. I begged for my life, they said I had nothing to worry about I was going to heaven. (Here it is fuzzy my memory serves me wrong for I seem to remember saying something like "Fuck God, I want to live asshole!" But I wouldn't say that, God is my shepard.) So anyway, they beat for a while longer and said, we only took you in because of that fuckin' bracelet, so take it off and we'll let you go." I, of course did not. It is not my way to relinquish my faith. But sure enough it was gone when I got home. It must have been god removing it in a miracle and giving to the head guy Vince, to save my life. He works in myterious ways. Hmmm, what to do tonight? I think I an going to go play some pool, I guess that means I'll have to go by the frats again... oh well...

Steve V., Madison, WI

Sometimes we do wicked things that may be justified by the circumstances involved. This happened to me once. It happened as follows: I was sitting on the beach drinking spiced rum very slowly when a melon-headed man walked by. He passed once, gazing out to sea, and then ran by again squawking at some birds. He came back and sat next to me in the sand and announced in reference to the seascape, "Nice, huh?" "Yeah, nice," I replied. It was obvious that his and my relationship here on the beach had begun poorly. He had disrupted my solitude, which was irritating, and furthermore he happened to have had a very ugly head. It was large and fruit shaped-misshapen, that is, with large ears sticking out too far and high forehead and hairline. He was also, if you'll excuse me, a bastard. In one breath he was able to describe to me his worldly affluence and extraordinary artistic sense, which I didn't believe that he had. Introspection told me that he was an idiot, probably a crass and leering one, who had an inflated ego around his self-assumed peers and a nervous tic around pretty women. He told me about the merits of chess and how they contrasted with the debauched sin of card playing. This was followed by an analysis of the various types of sushii one could eat while reviewing the daily stock quotes. I asked him why he was in the Caymans, he replied, "Pleasure, not business. Ho ho," and he leered at me and winked. He was cold, like a real son of a bitch. Men like him have no soul, I hated him. Fruit-head sat next to me throughout the duration of the afternoon. He told jokes about queers and polocks and established every single way possible that he was trash with money. His arrogance, stupidity, and ugliness were cumulatively more than enough to convince me that his was in fact evil and wicked in every sense of those words. I thought, "What is the base of evil if not for arrogance, stupidity, ugliness?" This may have been a trifle unfair, but is, I feel, sorely poignant. I considered leaving him there in the sand, but I resisted that at once when I considered that this man had invaded my beach: mine because I had a sense of passion with which to enjoy it, unlike him, the lecherous dog. This man had entered paradise and made it foul. He threw a shopping cart into the gleaming, magnificent steel cogs of my dream works. The sand and the waves were poisoned by his presence, and these in turn were poisoning me and my spiced rum. I thought, "You are the manifestation of all that is bitter and sorrowful, and of everything that lacks beauty, integrity, and righteousness. If a creature exists who is deserving of eternal, fiery torment, then it is you, Fruit-head." Unfortunately, that last phrase was accidentally spoken aloud, and I offended him. He looked quizzically at me. then he sneered and said, "Are you poor, friend? Because that pineapple that you're eating looks almost as rancid as your face." "Oh, really?" I said. "You mean this one-here, in my hands?""Yes," he said, "that one there." He moved as if to rise but I smashed him in the face with my pineapple. He dropped, bleeding from his nose and lips, and I hit him again with it and then sawed it across his mouth. For the next thirty minutes I brained him with my fruit and he may well have been dead before I stopped, but I couldn't tell. When I finished the sand was spattered with blood and my pineapple was no longer edible. I finished the bottle of rum and walked away, leaving red foam in the incoming tide.

Brian G., Flagstaff, Az.