Category Archives: inmigration

inmigration, love, religion

I SAW THE LIGHT

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[A simply dressed blue-collar type, in his late forties, with stubble beard and a Southern drawl.]

“We weren’t the churchgoing type… but when Pastor Sank arrived, everyone was sayin’ how great he was, how inspiring…

So we started attending most Sundays, the whole family.

The first time I heard Pastor Sank I thought he was too… aggressive, you know, screaming from high up on the pulpit, his face all red, sayin’ that the whole world was going to hell, that our society was rotten… He was big on the idea that all the immigrants were invadin’ our way of life.

Angry or not, his words rang true to us… probably because we had heard the same ideas in the news… and we were afraid.

Then, one Sunday, Pastor Sank announced he had had a vision and the Lord had told him that the world would end two months from then, on October the fourth.

We didn’t believe him right away. Plenty of people been scammed by this sort of thing, you know… but Pastor Sank wasn’t asking for money or anything… all he wanted was for us to follow him around the country, talking to people about his prophecy, warning them, gettin’ them to repent…

Everyone in the parish was on board…  and so were we.

I quitted my job and we sold everything. Used some of that money to fix our old RV so we could join the…. Final Crusade, that’s how Pastor Sank called it.

We drove north along the coast, stopping in every town, talkin’ to folks about the end of the world, trying to save them from the depths of hell….

It wasn’t an easy road. Some looked at us as if we was crazy… others looked on us with pity. But rest assured, if we ever needed anything, directions, or a bathroom for the kids, we could always depend on some stranger’s kindness. Yeah, we got to meet a lot of folks that way. A lot of ’em very different from us… some of ’em even immigrants.

Anyway, October the fourth came… and went… and nothing happened. Pastor Sank said it was a miscalculation; that the rapture would happen in two weeks instead…

Enough was enough.

We went back home… broke and jobless.

It took some time for us to bounce back from that slump.

But despite all that, I have no regrets… Thanks to Pastor Sank, we had a chance to see beyond our little town, to discover other people and understand how they think…

You could say we stopped being scared of the world after that trip.

We also stopped going to church.”

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 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2016

inmigration, politics

BORDER LAW

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[A man of thirty, military type, with muscles and a crewcut. He expresses himself with pride and confidence, but his eyes reveal doubt.]

I was always very much “by the book,” you know? Follow the rules. Respect the Law. That made sense to me. We’re given a set of instructions to live by so everything is clearly defined, good and bad, right and wrong…

My father thought the same way. He was a border patrol agent, and proud of it. Just as proud as I was of him, which is why I became one too.

I don’t want to come off as soft, but I hope people can understand we also feel bad for some of the illegals we detain at the border… mothers with babies, kids too young to be on their own…. we realize most of them are just trying to make a living, provide for their families.

But there’s a law. And someone needs to enforce it.

Still, I admit there are some…“special cases”.

Like this guy we caught about a year ago. Sergio was his name.

Homeland Security was holding him indefinitely. The guy had crossed the border one too many times before, and they suspected he might be in cahoots with something bigger… maybe terrorism or whatever.

He swore up and down he was just a cook though.

It was hard not to like the man; he joked around a lot and cracked everyone up… even the guards.

Anyway, about a week later, they said he was free to go. He was clean.

The night before the deportation, he offered to cook for us. He said he wanted to thank us for treating him so well…

We let him use our kitchen and even kept it secret from the higher-ups.

He made ribs. We all pitched in to buy them.

I swear you’ve never tasted ribs like those. Juicy, smoky, tangy… Dad would turn over in his grave if he heard me say it but, they were better than his… And my old man was as proud of his ribs as he was of his badge.

Everybody got a taste, including the other detainees. It turned into a party of sorts. It was fun…

The next morning Sergio was chaperoned back across the border, and all the time I kept thinking, how can doing the right thing feel so wrong?

Don’t get it twisted, I’m still an agent. I still believe in the Law.

But something in me changed that day.

I know because, last week, I stopped off at a random restaurant and ordered some ribs.

I immediately recognized the flavor.

So I ate, paid, and left… before I ran into the cook.

Are you an actor or director interested in using this monologue? Contact us in ABOUT MONOLOGY!

 Copyright Abel Gonzalez 2016