Free All Due Respect Issue #1 by Mike Miner, Chris F. Holm, Todd Robinson, Renee Asher Pickup, Paul D. Brazill, Travis Richardson, Walter Conley Page B

sisters wore nothing. Her hair shone dark, dark brown, like her eyes. Men pursued her through the jungle, braved the snakes, the jaguars, the deadly river. One man she wanted to pursue her. Men pawed her, mouths drooled, they left money on the nightstand, the room, her room, nasty with the reek of sex and sweat, loud with the sounds of girls sold to men for an hour, and another hour, and another.
    The Madame, her face too close—Ernesta didn’t want to look at her face, at the scar along her cheek, at the blind eye drained of color as if it could not bear to see any more. Be nice to this one, Ernesta. He might just take you away. His hands like hairy spiders crawled up and down her. His breath battled with his aftershave, smelling to her nose like a grease fire.
    Be nice to this one.
    She did not shiver.
    He liked to choke her.
    She let him.
    Liked to tie her up.
    She did not squirm.
    He took her away.
    Later, in the dark jungle, fat with Gabriel, thirsty and worried, she remembered the cruel man, Call me Papi , and she laughed at the snakes, at the jaguar’s yells, at the fish with razors for teeth.
    Laughed at nature’s idea of frightening.

    Every morning she woke to the sound of nuns at prayer, in her simple room, with its small bed, and a wooden desk with a candle and a bible on it.
    The routine of the sisters was easy to fall into. Wake at dawn, a rosary in the room. A hundred sisters prayed at the same time, soft, but together creating a communal, soothing buzz of Our Fathers and Hail Marys.
    Chores. Cows to be milked, gardens to be tended, breakfast to be prepared, children to be dressed and fed.
    Daily mass by a snow-bearded whiskey priest, Father Rodriguez. Father would nod off during the readings. The altar boys, orphans in white robes, would nudge him awake. When he read the gospel, his voice started brittle and cracked like the pages of some forgotten book, but then gained strength as he recognized the words. He would look out at the dim church, no longer needing to read the page, at Mother Superior alone in the front pew, the sisters in the rows behind her, the children behind them, most of their feet not reaching the floor.
    Father’s homilies were rambling, sentimental things, stories of his youth told like fairy tales, nothing to do with the readings. He would mutter until Mother Superior cleared her throat, then look around as if remembering where he was, who he was, an apology on his face, a bow, and he would launch into the Apostle’s Creed.
    After mass, he would listen to the confessions of the nuns. Perhaps it was this that had broken him. Had he thought it would be a litany of impure thoughts, the barely sins of young virgins? He had underestimated his sisters in Christ. Only the small sins of the orphans, the petty theft, the lustful thoughts, the Lord’s name in vain, gave him any relief. Maybe it was the sins of the sisters that drove him to the bottle. Only Mother Superior remembered what state he arrived to the convent in.
    He lived in a small stone house apart from the convent and he did not look the nuns in the eye when he passed them.
    When he gave Ernesta her penance, he had to choke back sobs.
    Once or twice a year, when the weather permitted, missionaries came. They brought food, clothes for the children, sometimes letters, news from the outside world. A world that with every passing year seemed farther and farther away to Ernesta.
    The missionaries often spent the night. Those nights, the name of God was spoken a bit louder in some of the sisters’ rooms, as they got down to the devil’s business. So new orphans were conceived. More sins to inflict on Father’s ears.

    At first glance, the man looked dead, heaped in front of the gates as though dropped by one of the gargoyles. His left hand was missing the smallest finger. This is what the first sisters reported to Mother Superior, but as the news crossed their lips, a hoarse scream arose from the dead man’s throat, a ghostly