The Ultimate Sacrifice
By
John Tures
Pedro glanced over at Precious while she scraped the last of the mashed potatoes for the final person waiting in line at the soup kitchen. That’s when he saw the drop of blackened liquid trickle down her cheek from the bandana tied over her head.
“Precious!” the new youth minister exclaimed. “You’re bleeding from your head!”
A look of shock splashed across the pretty girl’s face before it was hastily masked by her wide smile. “Oh, that’s just my new hairspray. Guess I used too much again!”
Pedro Baca shook his head. “Precious, I used to box in Golden Gloves in high school. That’s a head wound.”
Precious responded the way she usually did in a crisis, by making a beeline for the back exit. But the cook, Faith Shivers, blocked her way. “Precious,” the older woman commanded. “Take off the bandana.”
“N-no Miss Faith,” the girl wailed. But now, four more drops of blood snaked down from the cloth tied over her head. One came by her long eyelashes, mixing with newfound tears. It was the eye that wasn’t purple and puffy, which she claimed had resulted from bumping into her boyfriend’s car door last week. A dark stain was growing on the bandana over her head.
“Let me take it off,” Faith insisted.
“P-please, no Miss Faith!” Precious’ lips were quivering.
“You let me do this, Precious, or I’m callin’ the cops again.”
“No!” The girl cried out. “He’ll beat…” She clapped her hands over her mouth. It was too late. She finally admitted what everyone now suspected.
With her hands not protecting the bloody bandana, it was easier for Miss Faith to untie it and pull it off. Some of the black liquid, and part of the scab came with it. The rest was…
#
Pedro stumbled to the bathroom as fast as he could, tripping at least once. Up came the beef and potatoes and green beans, most of it into the toilet. By his fourth heave, only bile was left.
By the time he returned to the kitchen, Faith had made a makeshift bandage and was fitting Precious with a new bandana, one without a stain. But nothing would ever make him forget the image of her split skull, the giant trench just off the center of her head covered in what looked like tar on her scalp, but what was clearly a dried bloody scab.
“Precious, let me drive you to the hospital,” Pedro began, wiping the last of lunch from his lips.
“Oh no, Mister Pedro,” she pleaded. “I can’t pay….”
“I’ll pay,” he promised.
The youth minister at Epiphany United Methodist Church didn’t earn too much, but he’d find the cash somehow.
“Okay,” Precious promised. “Just let me go to the ladies’ room first. I really have to pee.”
So Pedro nodded, then waited by the front door, eyeing his Chrysler in the parking lot, knowing it would probably need detailing after taking his passenger to Langford Hospital.
One by one, all of the soup kitchen patrons passed him, until the church was empty of guests.
As Faith approached, Pedro asked “How long is Precious going to take in the bathroom?”
The cook put her hands on her hips. “Your degree’s from Duke, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you just fell for the old ‘ladies’ room’ trick. She split out the back door 10 minutes ago.”
The youth minister smacked his forehead as Faith elaborated. “She gone back to her boyfriend, Ray-Man.”
Pedro Baca cracked his knuckles with his massive fist. “I might have a talk with Mr. Ray-Man.”
“Hope you shoot well,” Faith shot back. “Because he’s always packin’ heat. I’m guessin’ you ain’t.”
Pedro nodded. “But the cops have guns.”
Faith shook her head. “Precious won’t dare testify against him. He’s got her locked up in a mental cage. Before you came last year, this Epiphany United Methodist Church rented a house for her, so she could be safe. Well, she let him in. He trashed the place and broke her arm. Even if she did go to the cops…bam!”
Pedro’s fist slammed into his hand, making a whack that the custodian cleaning up the tables outside the kitchen could hear. “Well, what the hell are we supposed to do—let her get beaten to death over time? That Ray-Man guy must’ve hit her in the head with an axe!”
The cook pointed at the youth minister. “Think you’re the only one who has been trying to figure that out? Why don’t you put that Duke Divinity School education to good use…maybe ask that guy on your cross around your neck.”
Pedro looked down at the wooden crucifix his mama gave him. The Jesus figure had his arms outstretched. Then it hit him. He knew exactly what to do. He balled up his fists and looked at Faith. She shuddered at his expression.
#
Pedro Baca looked up at the aging two-story structure not far from the church downtown. It looked like one of those Gilded Age Mansions he learned about in college, but that house had clearly seen better days. It dwarfed the other shotgun shacks in the neighborhood surrounding it. The small dwellings that were once homes for mill workers were clumped around the owner’s house, separated by the remains of an iron gate crumpled into twisted metal. Though it was evening, a few residents shuffled along the broken sidewalks nearby.
The youth minister stood in the grassy area separating the giant house from the street. He took a deep breath, cupped his hands to his mouth, and yelled “Hey Ray-Man! I want to talk to you!”
Lights from inside the house now provided some illumination. Lamps switched on in several nearby houses, a sharp contrast with the dark skies. A door opened from the balcony on the second floor, and a figure in a hoodie stepped out.
“Who the hell wants to talk?” Hoodie yelled.
“I work at the Soup Kitchen with Precious,” Pedro replied, then paused. Working up his courage, he added “I want to talk to Ray-Man about what he’s doing to her.”
But even before Hoodie went back in from the balcony to talk to his boss, you could hear banging sounds coming from inside the house. What sounded like a troupe of elephants clambered down the stairs.
The youth minister trembled a little as the front door flew open. A young man in a t-shirt and shorts came stomping down the steps, flanked by several hulking companions.
“I’m gonna fucking blow your God-damned head off,” said the guy who Pedro supposed to be Ray-Man. Sure enough, he had a piece in his hand. The youth minister recognized it as a P228 SIG-Sauer. “Stand your ground and all that, you know. I won’t even get processed. My lawyer will make sure of that.” He marched toward the young pastor on his lawn.
Pedro peeled off the leather jacket, revealing massive biceps and strong forearms now exposed by his t-shirt. “I’m not armed, Ray-Man. Care to settle this like men, without guns?”
Ray-Man paused. He looked back at his underlings, who were all carefully watching him. So did a crowd that had gathered, keeping their distance outside the lights from the front of the house.
“You from that church?” Ray-Man snapped. He handed his pistol to another gang member. “Well, preacher boy, I can mess you up with my fists, just as bad as I could with a gun, ‘cept it’ll take longer for you to die.”
He threw a punch, which Pedro easily dodged. The second fist he swung also missed. Then Ray-Man threw a right-cross. This time, Pedro held his position. The blow from Ray-Man nearly knocked him off his feet. His knees buckled slightly, but he returned to a full standing position.
“No!” screamed a woman from the house.
Ray-Man ignored Precious’ cry and swung again. This one caught Pedro in the chest. He staggered back, but drew himself back up, ready for more.
Another scream followed as Precious bolted from the house in a bathrobe. A bandana was still on her head, Pedro grimly noted.
“Don’ hit him, Ray-Man!” she wailed. “Please! You’ll kill him!”
“That’s the idea, bitch!” Ray-Man laughed. So did his toadies.
The crowd now seemed to swell, as though the whole neighborhood was there.
“Fight back!” Precious pleaded as more hits landed on the youth pastor. “Run away! Do something! Don’t just take it!”
Eyes swollen, blood on his cheeks, nose probably broken, Pedro locked eyes with Precious for a moment, then turned to Ray-Man.
“Prepare to meet your maker,” Precious’ boyfriend growled, rearing back his fist for a haymaker. The punch caught Pedro in the jaw, launching him off the ground. The youth pastor landed on his back, arms outstretched in both directions, eyes shut, chest inert.
Precious screamed then dove to his side. “No! No! No! I’m so sorry, Pastor Baca. Don’ die. I’ll tell the cops everything this time! I promise!”
Ray-Man roared with laughter. “You won’t tell them nothin’ you coward. You’ll keep your mouth shut, just like everyone else here will. I own you!”
“Tell us what?” A black cop said as he and his white partner emerged from the crowd.
“He beats me!” Precious shrieked, pointing to Ray-Man, leading to audible murmurs from the crowd. “He did this to me!”
She ripped off her already stained bandana. The white cop took one look at her head wound, then knelt on the ground, repeatedly dry heaving. His partner whipped out his pistol. “Raymond Willis, you’re under arrest for assault and battery, attempted murder, and…”
“Ain’t gonna stick,” Ray-Man shouted defiantly. “My lawyer will have me back out by midnight. And Precious, you’re gonna wish you never…”
“Ray-Man’s got all his cash from the drug sales hidden in the couch cushions, an’ some of it’s on the tables and chairs,” Precious announced.
The cop cuffing Ray-Man glanced at his white partner. “Spivey, go retrieve that money and call in Narcotics for a big drug bust.”
Ray-Man’s eyes wildly darted about, a cornered animal. “Hey Gabriel,” he stammered to the black cop. “You can’t do this to me. I seen that show “Law an’ Order”. You ain’t got no warrant!”
The cop named Gabriel laughed. “Did that NBC show cover ‘probable cause’ too?”
Ray-Man played another card. “Innocent until proven guilty!”
Spivey ducked his head out the door. “Civil Asset Forfeiture laws say this money is now ours.”
Gabriel leaned into his shackled prisoner. “Whatcha gonna pay that fancy attorney with now, Ray-Man? Or does she work for free?”
Ray-Man’s gang seemed to melt away as sirens filled the air with their screeching sound. The prisoner was roughly led away by Gabriel. More cops and ambulances were now maneuvering their way toward the mansion. Faith emerged from the crowd now that her cell phone recorded everything. She knelt by the youth minister’s side, even though he hadn’t moved in minutes.
“My son’s taking Precious to the ambulance,” she told Pedro. “They’re coming here to get you too, unless you need a morgue or something.”
“Is she gone?” came a faint whisper.
The cook fell over backwards, landing on her butt. “What the…you’re still alive!” she exclaimed. “Yeah, she’s in an ambulance. They’ll try to save you too, if they can.”
“I told you I used to be a boxer,” he groaned. “This is almost as bad as when Tommy ‘Two-Fist’ Warner knocked me out. Definitely gonna need that stretcher though, and a few weeks off to recover.”
Faith struggled to her feet, frantically waving over the medics. As they tended to him, she asked “But how…why…”
“It…was…your idea” Pedro gasped through bruised ribs. “You…said Duke and…the crucifix. In college, we learned that v-victims of abuse h-hate themselves but still love others. I was counting on it when trying to save Precious.”
He turned his head away from Faith and spat out some blood.
“But you could have died!” Faith insisted as medics put him on the stretcher.
Pedro clutched the crucifix in his hand, still miraculously around his neck. “T-then it would have been…the ultimate sacrifice.”
Dr. John A. Tures began writing for the El Paso Herald-Post in high school. He wrote for his college paper at Trinity University in San Antonio and at Marquette University. He earned his doctorate at Florida State University, analyzed data in Washington DC, and is now a Professor at LaGrange College. He writes a weekly column for newspapers and magazines. He has published a number of short story mysteries and thrillers. His book Branded was just published by Huntsville Independent Press (see free chapters here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/nfdmpqmn91). He thanks family and friends for listening to his stories. His author site is here: About the Author.
By
John Tures
Pedro glanced over at Precious while she scraped the last of the mashed potatoes for the final person waiting in line at the soup kitchen. That’s when he saw the drop of blackened liquid trickle down her cheek from the bandana tied over her head.
“Precious!” the new youth minister exclaimed. “You’re bleeding from your head!”
A look of shock splashed across the pretty girl’s face before it was hastily masked by her wide smile. “Oh, that’s just my new hairspray. Guess I used too much again!”
Pedro Baca shook his head. “Precious, I used to box in Golden Gloves in high school. That’s a head wound.”
Precious responded the way she usually did in a crisis, by making a beeline for the back exit. But the cook, Faith Shivers, blocked her way. “Precious,” the older woman commanded. “Take off the bandana.”
“N-no Miss Faith,” the girl wailed. But now, four more drops of blood snaked down from the cloth tied over her head. One came by her long eyelashes, mixing with newfound tears. It was the eye that wasn’t purple and puffy, which she claimed had resulted from bumping into her boyfriend’s car door last week. A dark stain was growing on the bandana over her head.
“Let me take it off,” Faith insisted.
“P-please, no Miss Faith!” Precious’ lips were quivering.
“You let me do this, Precious, or I’m callin’ the cops again.”
“No!” The girl cried out. “He’ll beat…” She clapped her hands over her mouth. It was too late. She finally admitted what everyone now suspected.
With her hands not protecting the bloody bandana, it was easier for Miss Faith to untie it and pull it off. Some of the black liquid, and part of the scab came with it. The rest was…
#
Pedro stumbled to the bathroom as fast as he could, tripping at least once. Up came the beef and potatoes and green beans, most of it into the toilet. By his fourth heave, only bile was left.
By the time he returned to the kitchen, Faith had made a makeshift bandage and was fitting Precious with a new bandana, one without a stain. But nothing would ever make him forget the image of her split skull, the giant trench just off the center of her head covered in what looked like tar on her scalp, but what was clearly a dried bloody scab.
“Precious, let me drive you to the hospital,” Pedro began, wiping the last of lunch from his lips.
“Oh no, Mister Pedro,” she pleaded. “I can’t pay….”
“I’ll pay,” he promised.
The youth minister at Epiphany United Methodist Church didn’t earn too much, but he’d find the cash somehow.
“Okay,” Precious promised. “Just let me go to the ladies’ room first. I really have to pee.”
So Pedro nodded, then waited by the front door, eyeing his Chrysler in the parking lot, knowing it would probably need detailing after taking his passenger to Langford Hospital.
One by one, all of the soup kitchen patrons passed him, until the church was empty of guests.
As Faith approached, Pedro asked “How long is Precious going to take in the bathroom?”
The cook put her hands on her hips. “Your degree’s from Duke, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you just fell for the old ‘ladies’ room’ trick. She split out the back door 10 minutes ago.”
The youth minister smacked his forehead as Faith elaborated. “She gone back to her boyfriend, Ray-Man.”
Pedro Baca cracked his knuckles with his massive fist. “I might have a talk with Mr. Ray-Man.”
“Hope you shoot well,” Faith shot back. “Because he’s always packin’ heat. I’m guessin’ you ain’t.”
Pedro nodded. “But the cops have guns.”
Faith shook her head. “Precious won’t dare testify against him. He’s got her locked up in a mental cage. Before you came last year, this Epiphany United Methodist Church rented a house for her, so she could be safe. Well, she let him in. He trashed the place and broke her arm. Even if she did go to the cops…bam!”
Pedro’s fist slammed into his hand, making a whack that the custodian cleaning up the tables outside the kitchen could hear. “Well, what the hell are we supposed to do—let her get beaten to death over time? That Ray-Man guy must’ve hit her in the head with an axe!”
The cook pointed at the youth minister. “Think you’re the only one who has been trying to figure that out? Why don’t you put that Duke Divinity School education to good use…maybe ask that guy on your cross around your neck.”
Pedro looked down at the wooden crucifix his mama gave him. The Jesus figure had his arms outstretched. Then it hit him. He knew exactly what to do. He balled up his fists and looked at Faith. She shuddered at his expression.
#
Pedro Baca looked up at the aging two-story structure not far from the church downtown. It looked like one of those Gilded Age Mansions he learned about in college, but that house had clearly seen better days. It dwarfed the other shotgun shacks in the neighborhood surrounding it. The small dwellings that were once homes for mill workers were clumped around the owner’s house, separated by the remains of an iron gate crumpled into twisted metal. Though it was evening, a few residents shuffled along the broken sidewalks nearby.
The youth minister stood in the grassy area separating the giant house from the street. He took a deep breath, cupped his hands to his mouth, and yelled “Hey Ray-Man! I want to talk to you!”
Lights from inside the house now provided some illumination. Lamps switched on in several nearby houses, a sharp contrast with the dark skies. A door opened from the balcony on the second floor, and a figure in a hoodie stepped out.
“Who the hell wants to talk?” Hoodie yelled.
“I work at the Soup Kitchen with Precious,” Pedro replied, then paused. Working up his courage, he added “I want to talk to Ray-Man about what he’s doing to her.”
But even before Hoodie went back in from the balcony to talk to his boss, you could hear banging sounds coming from inside the house. What sounded like a troupe of elephants clambered down the stairs.
The youth minister trembled a little as the front door flew open. A young man in a t-shirt and shorts came stomping down the steps, flanked by several hulking companions.
“I’m gonna fucking blow your God-damned head off,” said the guy who Pedro supposed to be Ray-Man. Sure enough, he had a piece in his hand. The youth minister recognized it as a P228 SIG-Sauer. “Stand your ground and all that, you know. I won’t even get processed. My lawyer will make sure of that.” He marched toward the young pastor on his lawn.
Pedro peeled off the leather jacket, revealing massive biceps and strong forearms now exposed by his t-shirt. “I’m not armed, Ray-Man. Care to settle this like men, without guns?”
Ray-Man paused. He looked back at his underlings, who were all carefully watching him. So did a crowd that had gathered, keeping their distance outside the lights from the front of the house.
“You from that church?” Ray-Man snapped. He handed his pistol to another gang member. “Well, preacher boy, I can mess you up with my fists, just as bad as I could with a gun, ‘cept it’ll take longer for you to die.”
He threw a punch, which Pedro easily dodged. The second fist he swung also missed. Then Ray-Man threw a right-cross. This time, Pedro held his position. The blow from Ray-Man nearly knocked him off his feet. His knees buckled slightly, but he returned to a full standing position.
“No!” screamed a woman from the house.
Ray-Man ignored Precious’ cry and swung again. This one caught Pedro in the chest. He staggered back, but drew himself back up, ready for more.
Another scream followed as Precious bolted from the house in a bathrobe. A bandana was still on her head, Pedro grimly noted.
“Don’ hit him, Ray-Man!” she wailed. “Please! You’ll kill him!”
“That’s the idea, bitch!” Ray-Man laughed. So did his toadies.
The crowd now seemed to swell, as though the whole neighborhood was there.
“Fight back!” Precious pleaded as more hits landed on the youth pastor. “Run away! Do something! Don’t just take it!”
Eyes swollen, blood on his cheeks, nose probably broken, Pedro locked eyes with Precious for a moment, then turned to Ray-Man.
“Prepare to meet your maker,” Precious’ boyfriend growled, rearing back his fist for a haymaker. The punch caught Pedro in the jaw, launching him off the ground. The youth pastor landed on his back, arms outstretched in both directions, eyes shut, chest inert.
Precious screamed then dove to his side. “No! No! No! I’m so sorry, Pastor Baca. Don’ die. I’ll tell the cops everything this time! I promise!”
Ray-Man roared with laughter. “You won’t tell them nothin’ you coward. You’ll keep your mouth shut, just like everyone else here will. I own you!”
“Tell us what?” A black cop said as he and his white partner emerged from the crowd.
“He beats me!” Precious shrieked, pointing to Ray-Man, leading to audible murmurs from the crowd. “He did this to me!”
She ripped off her already stained bandana. The white cop took one look at her head wound, then knelt on the ground, repeatedly dry heaving. His partner whipped out his pistol. “Raymond Willis, you’re under arrest for assault and battery, attempted murder, and…”
“Ain’t gonna stick,” Ray-Man shouted defiantly. “My lawyer will have me back out by midnight. And Precious, you’re gonna wish you never…”
“Ray-Man’s got all his cash from the drug sales hidden in the couch cushions, an’ some of it’s on the tables and chairs,” Precious announced.
The cop cuffing Ray-Man glanced at his white partner. “Spivey, go retrieve that money and call in Narcotics for a big drug bust.”
Ray-Man’s eyes wildly darted about, a cornered animal. “Hey Gabriel,” he stammered to the black cop. “You can’t do this to me. I seen that show “Law an’ Order”. You ain’t got no warrant!”
The cop named Gabriel laughed. “Did that NBC show cover ‘probable cause’ too?”
Ray-Man played another card. “Innocent until proven guilty!”
Spivey ducked his head out the door. “Civil Asset Forfeiture laws say this money is now ours.”
Gabriel leaned into his shackled prisoner. “Whatcha gonna pay that fancy attorney with now, Ray-Man? Or does she work for free?”
Ray-Man’s gang seemed to melt away as sirens filled the air with their screeching sound. The prisoner was roughly led away by Gabriel. More cops and ambulances were now maneuvering their way toward the mansion. Faith emerged from the crowd now that her cell phone recorded everything. She knelt by the youth minister’s side, even though he hadn’t moved in minutes.
“My son’s taking Precious to the ambulance,” she told Pedro. “They’re coming here to get you too, unless you need a morgue or something.”
“Is she gone?” came a faint whisper.
The cook fell over backwards, landing on her butt. “What the…you’re still alive!” she exclaimed. “Yeah, she’s in an ambulance. They’ll try to save you too, if they can.”
“I told you I used to be a boxer,” he groaned. “This is almost as bad as when Tommy ‘Two-Fist’ Warner knocked me out. Definitely gonna need that stretcher though, and a few weeks off to recover.”
Faith struggled to her feet, frantically waving over the medics. As they tended to him, she asked “But how…why…”
“It…was…your idea” Pedro gasped through bruised ribs. “You…said Duke and…the crucifix. In college, we learned that v-victims of abuse h-hate themselves but still love others. I was counting on it when trying to save Precious.”
He turned his head away from Faith and spat out some blood.
“But you could have died!” Faith insisted as medics put him on the stretcher.
Pedro clutched the crucifix in his hand, still miraculously around his neck. “T-then it would have been…the ultimate sacrifice.”
Dr. John A. Tures began writing for the El Paso Herald-Post in high school. He wrote for his college paper at Trinity University in San Antonio and at Marquette University. He earned his doctorate at Florida State University, analyzed data in Washington DC, and is now a Professor at LaGrange College. He writes a weekly column for newspapers and magazines. He has published a number of short story mysteries and thrillers. His book Branded was just published by Huntsville Independent Press (see free chapters here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/nfdmpqmn91). He thanks family and friends for listening to his stories. His author site is here: About the Author.
