A TOUGH DAY FOR A FALLEN ANGEL

By Juan Montoya
Jeanette was despondent.
Nursing the $1 Natural Light 12-ounce beer at a Market Square bar, she complained bitterly of the turn of events in her life.
She had just hustled the beer from a street person who worked Market Square and didn't have enough to get another one. Now she complained to whoever was close enough to listen.
"I went to Pale to see if I could get some rock and he told me that the word on the street es que soy relaje," she fumed. "Yo no soy relaje, ese."
She told of how she had done a brisk business selling crack around downtown for a few weeks before her luck had taken a downward spiral.
"I was selling about 30 to 40 rocks a night," she said. I don't smoke it, ese. I haven't touched the stuff ever since I got out. I swear man. I'm not doing any. I just sell it."
As she told it, the cops were hot on her trail and she knew it. She had a plastic bag with 35 to 40 rocks she had bought outright from Pale. All of it was pure profit. Then, when everything seemed perfect, the cops arrived at the crack house she was using.
"I was renting it for $10 a night," she said. "When they got there, I managed to stick it down a broken sewer pipe before they saw me. I was peeing in the pipe when they got there and they took me away. I lost everything down the sewer."
As if that wasn't bad enough, when she got out of the municipal jail, her supplier was suspicious on how she had been let out so quickly and refused to supply her so she could rebuild her business.
"After all I did for him," she complained. "I probably sold thousands of dollars in rock for him. When I was in the jail they wanted me to put the finger on him and I didn't. He knows I don't smoke it. I even told him that I would smoke some in front of him and let him take a picture with his cell phone to prove I'm not a relaje."

Jeanette wasn't a bad looking woman. But after a few seasons hustling in the downtown bars midlife had started to gravitate toward her torso and the push-up bra encouraged her bust to seek its former grandeur. Her last hair tint must have been a few months ago because the dark roots of her hair had pushed the paint a couple of inches above her scalp. She had a fading scar along her worry lines, the remnant of a scrape she had with the jealous machete-wielding wife of a former client.
After a while, the bartender began to tire hearing of Jeanette's troubles and told her to move on. She did, but shortly thereafter she returned.

"Hey man, there's cops everywhere," she told no one in particular. "You can't even turn a trick because they scare the customers away. You got a couple of quarters so I can get another Natural?" she asked.

Disgusted, she popped the silver can open and hunched over the bar.

The bells of the Immaculate Conception Cathedral rang calling forth the faithful to noon services. But Pesado's electrified brash accordion and bajo sounds drowned out the strains of the church bells. "Loco, todos dicen que me llamo loco..."
On the mean sidewalk outside, pedestrians walked toward the church wrapped up in their beliefs and unaware of the woes that assailed the fallen angel inside the bar.