Jesus Freaks Read Free Page B

Boston neighborhood. Fed up with a gang of sadistic Russian mobsters muscling into their part of town, the young men embark on a bloody crusade to rid their streets of this imported evil. In the opening scene, the McManus brothers kneel in a back pew of their parish church. It’s St. Patrick’s Day. While a young visiting priest recites the Lord’s Prayer, urging forgiveness against those who trespass against us, the two brothers hear another voice of God, an Old Testament prayer calling out for righteous vengeance.
    â€œOh Lord, here’s my flashing sword which mine hand will take hold in judgment,” says the angry voice of God. “I will take vengeance upon mine enemies. Oh, Lord, raise me up to thy right hand and count me among thy saints.”
    Connor and Murphy (played by Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus) shock the congregation by marching up to the altar in the middle of the priest’s homily. The sermon recounts the demise of a woman stabbed to death in the street nearly thirty years ago. “Shecried out for help,” the priest recalled, “time and time again, but no person answered her calls. Though many saw, no one so much as called the police. They all just watched as she was stabbed to death in broad daylight. They watched as her assailant walked away.”
    â€œNow, we must all fear evil men,” the monsignor concludes, his voice rising. “But there is another form of evil we must fear most. And that is the indifference of good men .” 1
    Like the brothers McManus, Ricky Rodriguez was on a violent mission—a righteous crusade inspired by crimes of the past and an even more maddening frustration with justice denied. Intellectually, Ricky had rejected the violent prophecies of his supposed destiny. Emotionally, he was still playing the misbegotten martyr.
    Before driving to Blythe and checking into Room 109 of the Holiday Inn Express, on the night of January 7, 2005, Ricky set up a video camera in the kitchen of his Tucson apartment and shot his own movie. There were no special effects in Ricky’s film—just a heartfelt video of a guy sitting at a table and talking about his weekend plans while loading Golden Saber bullets into a forty-caliber, semiautomatic pistol.
    Well, hey everyone, this is Ricky, and I’m making this video, um, well, for many reasons I guess. Ah, I suppose, the main reason is that I want there to be some record of the way I feel, um, my ideas, just who I was, really. I wanted to explain some of the things that I’ve been doing and thinking and some of the frustrations that I’ve had. Anyway, I don’t know, just, I guess it’s my, uh, sort of my last grasp at, uh, immortality. I know that I’m not immortal, and I know that this video is not going to make me so, but at the same time, I want to, uh, I want people to know that even though some of the things that I’m gonna try to do are rather shocking and, um, and maybe not right in a lot of people’s books, I want to explain some of the reasons behind them. So anyway, I’m just loading some of my mags here. Uh, hope you guys don’t mind if I do that while I talk. 2
    Ricky loaded the last bullet into the clip of his Glock 23 and set it down on a small table cluttered with other weaponry. There was oneKydex sheath, a concealed holster ordered on the Internet; one Stun-Master, a device designed to incapacitate its victim with 775,000 volts of electricity; and a six-inch K-bar knife, sharp as a scalpel. There was also duct tape, gags, one barbecue fork, a soldering iron, and a large electric drill padded with duct tape for purposes of noise reduction.
    Okay, so—I think I got thirteen in here. The cool thing about the Republicans is their love of guns. They just love their fuckin’ guns, and now that the assault ban has expired, which I credit them for, we have high-capacity magazines. Now, I only have—this is my super cool Kydex