No Salvation
(1461 Words)
Jesus looked at the weathered chapel. Everything seemed in place. About twenty figures were standing still within the walled enclosure awaiting his next move. Jesus sensed that they were looking to him for salvation. He was, after all, their only hope. But if they were, they were about to be let down. For Jesus had no intention of saving any of them.
Outside the chapel compound the besieging army was drawn up in formation, awaiting orders to storm the defenses. Jesus had foreseen what the outcome would be. He knew he could alter that outcome, that his actions could deliver the defenders from their predicament. But he would not offer them salvation. No, it was time to right some wrongs.
* * *
Jesus Morales had been born and happily raised in Monterrey, Mexico. But then one moonless night, just over a year ago, his father, Manuel -- a poor man with only five dollars and a forged Green Card to his name -- swam with his wife and young son across the murky waters of the Rio Grande to begin a new and uncertain life in the United States.
His parents were able to make a hard and meager living at a variety of transient jobs. Jesus, on the other hand, was having a much more difficult time adjusting to his new surroundings. His poor command of the English language and his parents’ frequent moves had made it very difficult for Jesus to fit in with the other kids in the Texas public school system.
Although he had always been a bright student, his grades now suffered. And although he formerly had been an outgoing child, he had become withdrawn and made few friends. Jesus found himself surrounded by Anglo children who didn’t seem to care for him from the very start. He was besieged with homework that he was unable to escape from. And in recent weeks he had been bombarded with a series of taunts from his classmates. It seemed now that every day was a battle for Jesus. A battle that he felt he had no hope of winning.
* * *
Jesus glanced one more time at the chapel. It was about a foot long and made from aluminum which had been painted to look like weathered stone. He looked again at the doomed defenders who he liked to imagine were secretly beseeching him for salvation. Each of them was molded from tan plastic and stood two inches tall. And after appraising the perimeter wall once more (it enclosed about three square feet of his bedroom floor), his eye fell at last upon the plastic gateway to the compound, above which was printed the word “Alamo.”
Manuel was acutely aware of the pain his son was going through. It nearly broke his heart to see how sullen and introverted his once carefree son had become. Especially since he knew at heart that uprooting his family from their homeland was at the root of it. Manuel couldn’t undo that decision, but in some small way he could try to atone for it. So although he could scarcely afford it, prior to Christmas he had taken Jesus to the largest shopping mall in San Antonio and had let him choose any gift he wanted. Since history was one of the few subjects Jesus liked and still did well at, and because it was the only thing he saw which depicted Mexicans, Jesus had chosen an Alamo toy soldier play set. Jesus thought it was the greatest gift he had ever received and was soon restaging the siege of the Alamo almost every day when he got home from school.
* * *
Jesus seemed satisfied that everything was in place. The battle could begin at any time. Twenty tan plastic, two inch, Texans (which included figures representing William Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett) were at their posts, ready to defend the aluminum and plastic Alamo. Outside, fifty blue plastic Mexican soldiers (including one figure representing Santa Anna), with three cannons, were ready to commence the attack.
History has recorded that the doomed Texan garrison heroically defended the Alamo against a Mexican bombardment for thirteen days and inflicted heavy casualties upon the attackers in their final assault before being wiped out. But Jesus had no interest in repeating the perceived mistakes of history. In the battles he conducted almost daily, the Mexicans always won a glorious victory while mercilessly slaughtering the cowardly Anglos. Today’s battle would invariably follow the same general script.
The Texan defenders were surrounded and besieged by the plastic Mexican army. The three cannons were poised to commence the bombardment. Jesus knew it would be a fierce battle - a battle the Anglos had no hope of winning. Using the short, one notch Lincoln Logs to represent Mexican cannonballs, Jesus opened fire.
A merciless and withering fusillade ripped through the Texan ranks. Tan plastic bodies were blasted over and killed. Hits from incoming Lincoln Logs sent their helpless, two inch bodies sprawling. Lethal ricochets within the compound walls cut down many others. William Travis took a direct hit which sent his body spiraling through the air. Jim Bowie was dealt a glancing wound which was still sufficient to knock him over dead. The inert, lifeless bodies of the Anglo defenders were soon scattered around the floor of the compound or piled up against the inner base of the wall in a gruesome heap.
Everything was going perfectly until something happened which caused the Mexican bombardment to suddenly cease. A high arcing Lincoln Log projectile had smashed into the chapel and ricocheted toward the wall, striking the figure of Davy Crockett. Crockett teetered back and forth on the parapet momentarily before tipping over into the compound where he landed on his side. Davy Crockett was dead.
No. This wasn’t right. How could he have caused this to happen? Jesus was unsettled by this turn of events, so he decided to directly intervene and alter the outcome of the battle. Jesus slowly reached his hand down from on high, picked up the lifeless body and raised Davy Crockett from the dead. The few surviving Texans, had they been in a position to do so, would surely have regarded it as a miracle.
Anyone who had seen only this isolated incident would have thought it an act of grace. They may have thought Jesus was offering salvation to the bedraggled plastic Texans under his watchful eye after all. But they would have been wrong. Contrary to the popular Hollywood versions, Jesus knew there were Mexican eyewitness accounts from the Alamo who claimed that Davy Crockett had been captured alive and was executed shortly thereafter. This was the script Jesus intended to follow in his recreation. Crockett had to be captured alive. He had no intention of letting an ersatz Mexican cannonball alter that scenario.
Following the resurrection of Davy Crockett the battle was resumed, but the hostilities quickly culminated with the surrender of the remaining garrison. The Mexicans had not lost a single man. As Jesus had foreseen, Crockett and the other few prisoners were led before the victorious Mexican troops where the two inch blue plastic figures repeatedly ran the Anglos through with their little blue plastic bayonets. This time, Crockett (that American icon and former U.S. Congressman) was really and truly dead.
* * *
Later Jesus lay on his bed thinking about restaging the battle of San Jacinto as a glorious Mexican victory. Had this really happened it would have put an end to the Texan rebellion and, to Jesus’ mind, would have insured that Texas stayed on as a part of Mexico for all eternity. Then instead of being an outsider, this would be his rightful home. But his flights of fancy were driven away by a gentle knocking on his bedroom door.
“Jesus, how is your homework coming?” Manuel asked through the door in a soft voice. “Is everything all right?”
“Si, papa, si,” Jesus answered as he hurriedly sat down at his desk and opened his school books for the first time all weekend.
“English, Jesus,” his father gently admonished him. “You must practice your English. Don’t stay up too late, though. Tomorrow is a school day you know.”
Jesus hesitated for a long moment before responding, “Yes, father. I know.” He tried to study a little, but his restless gaze soon drifted to the remains of the battle still spread out on his bedroom floor. The victorious Mexican armies were still there, standing firmly at attention, along with the bodies of the Texans he had denied salvation. Tomorrow Jesus would have to fight his own battle all alone. And he knew that there was no salvation in sight for himself either.