American Outlaw - Jesse James [115]
“What the fuck is that?” I asked.
“Air raid, man. Come on, we gotta get inside. Bombs are dropping somewhere out there.”
We were fine, of course. We even joked around in the bomb shelter, just to pass the time. But later that night, I quit joking. Three soldiers had died in the mortar attack, and nine more had been injured.
In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help thinking: that’s what these guys live with every single day. Every time they went out on a mission, they were faced with the possibility that they weren’t coming back. And it kind of made me feel awed and sad at the same time, to know that such young men had made peace with death.
After working all week, we finally completed the Humvee to our lowrider-in-the-desert specifications, but, because of a faulty transmission and our inability to obtain a new one inside of a war zone, the car wouldn’t fire up. Disappointment came, because that was inevitable, but it was short-lived. The mission had so clearly been a success for all of us.
“These guys won’t forget you, Jesse,” Sergeant Major Graham said. “This was one of the best weeks we’ve had here. It really was.”
During their closing ceremony, I was presented with the American flag that had flown over their base during the week I’d spent there. Emotion overcame me, and I had to choke back tears. I’d never felt prouder to be a part of something.
——
My life felt blessed. There was purpose in my work, and family all around me. More and more, I pictured just exactly how great it would be to have Sunny join us. She would have Chandler as a sister, Jesse Jr. as a brother, and me and Sandy as parents who loved her, as well as one another. The custody battle in the courts was taking its own sweet time, however, so I battled constantly with myself, trying to be patient, yet often failing.
As the months passed during our first year of marriage, Sandy and I passed out of our honeymoon period, but without much of a hitch. I think sometimes we both felt the other was a bit too busy, but there was no getting around it, because work was so important to both of us.
“You’re going into the shop on a Sunday?” Sandy asked me sleepily.
“Sunday’s my favorite day of the week to work,” I told her, happily. “No one in there to bug me!”
My workaholic ways hadn’t changed much over the years. I just felt my most fulfilled when I was cutting metal, sweating into my shirt. It wasn’t anything that I could share. That morning, as I drove to the West Coast Choppers shop, I noticed a small church I’d seen many times before. On a whim, I decided to stop by.
The church was a regular-looking house of worship that had likely gone through several incarnations across the years, housing various ethnicities and Christian sects, from Cambodian Evangelicals to Mexican Catholics to Seventh-Day Adventists. Now it was an African-American church. I grinned as I approached the door and heard the pastor firing up his sermon with a vengeance.
“None of us are perfect!” he yelled. “Even at our BEST, we have committed major indiscretions against the LORD!”
“Amen,” came the pleased rumbling of the congregation. “Amen.” The women wore floppy hats and fanned themselves, and the men clapped and nodded. The church was small, but no one was stingy with their applause or affirmations. There was a buzz in there, a vital life energy.
Feeling more curious, I slipped inside the doorway and found myself a corner in the back, where I could observe unnoticed.
“Don’t you ever get so holy you develop AMNESIA!” the pastor cried. He strutted back and forth across the small stage. “Don’t you EVER get so holy, you can no longer remember there was a season in your life when you made colossal mistakes!”
I nodded, digging the guy’s electric enthusiasm.
“I’m talking womanizing! I’m talking stealing! I’m talking living without purpose!”
“Amen, brother,” I said under my breath, laughing. This guy was pretty good. In fact, he seemed like he was speaking directly