Part 6: El Biker
By Armando Ortiz
Back when my dad had volunteered us to work at the recently purchased church new people began appearing randomly for a moment or decided to stay for a long while.It seemed that the congregation kept getting bigger and bigger, hence the need to move to a larger locale. Relocating to the new church meant a lot of sacrifices for the congregation that was made up of blue collar workers. Some members would end up moving to other churches after the newly acquired church had been restored to a new glimmering sanctuary because they felt that the congregation was no longer homely. The stained glass windows, which were in fact made of some kind of plastic, now filtered light much clearly and one saw strawberry reds, deep metallic greens, and gold chocolate foil.
During the time that was spent restoring the church there came a new member of the church who dressed like a cowboy, well more really like a stockier, taller, and darker version of Wyatt, one of the main characters of Easy Rider. In the film Peter Fonda was a more refined version of a biker/smuggler, Carlos on the other hand was Central American, and his hair was curly and his shirts seemed a bit tight at the waist. I don’t recall much of the person, though he once said he was from El Salvador. There was this one time, while he was working on the chain link fence that some of my buddies and I approached him. We peppered him with questions about all sorts of things. He wore black cowboy boots and claimed he’d been a biker. For the past five years he’d been riding here and there and everywhere. I didn’t pay much heed to what he said, but I thought the boots were cool, so was his belt. Maybe the question arose because compared to all the members of the church who dressed conservatively with their church etiquette, he stood out.
He kept working on the chain link fence that stretched to the other end of the lot, and then pointed to the bike he rode. “I used to ride around with bikers and we’d go up to the mountains and have barbecues.” The bike was black with some orange lettering on the sides of the gas tank. The two piston motor glistened, reflecting the afternoon sun. The handles were slightly lifted and the back wheel was enamel black. It wasn’t new, but it was clean. The front wheel was chrome, and gave the motorcycle a certain character; a certain aura projected that emanated flawlessness. The church brother certainly had taste. “It’s a Harley-Davidson,” he said, “Though if you ever get a motorcycle get a Honda. Ese bolado’s given me many problems, but it’s all mine.” He seemed out of place in the church and out in the real world, but he was being helpful and doing good work.
We once found him playing the piano inside the church, we asked him what he was playing and he said he was playing Sonata Bach. We asked him if it was his girlfriend, and he said it wasn't a woman but a musical piece by a man that no longer was living, but that one day, if we remembered we’d re-discover his beautiful music. That day he wore a leather vest, over a white shirt. He continued playing on the old wall piano. We just stared at the strange cowboy that had appeared out of nowhere. He’d close his eyes, and his fingers dexterously moved left to right.
“Jose!,” someone called out. Marco, the guy supervising the restoration of the church signaled that our help was needed outside. He got up from the stool and headed towards the entrance to the church. The pack of church kids followed behind. Outside the weather was typical Southern California weather, sunny and warm. Two palm trees were on the curbside of Adams Blvd.
One day we were coming back from playing basketball. The adults had set up a half court in front of the church’s parking lot. We’d been called to go inside and help around. We were carrying some stuff to the pulpit where once again we found him sitting on the piano bench. He was having his lunch, Louisiana Chicken, which he’d brought down the street. He squeezed the ketchup package on his food, topping the fried chicken with the red sauce. I asked him why he ate his chicken with ketchup, “That’s how I like to eat fried chicken,” he replied with a smile, looking straight into my eyes. He was a jack of all trades. I don’t recall much after that and it seems that as he appeared from out of nowhere to help in the rebuilding of the church, once the project was done he disappeared in a snap, merging with traffic, either driving east or west on Adams Boulevard. He probably drove west and saw the sunset before he followed wherever his wandering soul took him.
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