The Story of Norberto Muniz, Citizen: the Picking Game

The punch to his face must have hurt. In the darkness of night shortly after hitchhiking from Arizona, the spirit of darkness came upon him. Violent knuckles cracking against flesh is an inimitable sound words cannot describe. It is a violent thud-sound as a soul violates another soul out of greed against someone who has only one possession which he guards with his life. At first, I had not noticed the purple around his eye as his skin color was burnt like ebony or palo fierro, darkened woods from the hot Sonoran Desert sun. He had an indigenous almost Yaqui character to his face though he said his family came to this country from Zacatecas by way of Matamoros.

The eye was swollen and in the light I could see the injury was not as subtle. But his body swelled not as something visible but rather with an odor, an unmistakable perfume the poor often use to cover up the dense odor of pain, alienation and rejection in their lives. Norberto Muniz, a dark skinned Mexican American, a citizen, a Vietnam Veteran, a former migrant farm worker, had let the wind blow him and his guitar into town last night from Wilcox, Arizona. Norberto said most people call him Robert because it’s too hard to pronounce Norberto. He was there visiting his daughter who has terminal cancer. Norberto had the scars of all his battles beckoning. I told him I liked the name Norberto.

I always wonder how they find me. Me? I am no one important. It’s not like I have the greatest reputation in Wilcox Arizona or even in Las Cruces for that matter. I am not un-pragmatic. I am in fact one of those cold hearts who doubts everything. And yet, somehow this ministry has eroded the granite stone of my heart into impregnable granules of sandstone, so that the cleansing water of Christ’s suffering could come gushing inward. And as to Longinus, the water of Christ’s wounds washed the debris away from my eyes that I might see Him in the person of Norberto, one who reeks of the road, liquor, and the smell of days without bathing.

Norberto: A person, who, like my own son, is a musician and whose life is the joy of music even if he spent last night under a bridge only to be attacked by criminals who did him harm to try to take away his sole possession, his guitar. Some here seemed a bit perturbed that this man would come into the lobby and begin playing his music as a sign he had something to offer and did not come empty handed. I saw tears rolling down Norberto Muniz’ unshaven cheeks as he told me he met Cesar Chavez as a 9 year old boy. He had been in a family of farm workers in the central valley in California when Chavez came to eat beans and tortillas with them. The nine year old could not have possibly understood the significance of that encounter except afterward and now that he recalls how humbled his mother and father were that Chavez would sit with the likes of tomato pickers paid $25 / day. How does a family of 6 even in the early 70′s live on $25/ day? And he spoke about he and his brother joyfully competed with others in the picking race because the more you picked, the more you made. He was joyful about the telling of the many victories he and his brother had over other families in the picking game.

This is the human story. This is not a war of rich versus poor. It is a war within our own selves to “be poor in spirit” when life has given us every advantage to proclaim we are indeed “prosperous” and that is a sign God is with us. To that, I say, beware. Beware that the prosperousness we experience might make us drunk and numb. Our inebriated "prosper-essence" becomes a gray, dullness with the decaying smell of "phosphor-essence." Beware; the time of our visitation is ever so brief. And the clamors of the whirlwind that clothes us in the illusion of security are clamors distracting us from the deep peace of having nothing save Christ and Him crucified. It is upon that short visitation experience that we will be judged. Before I had even met with him in the parlor, I listened to his strum and his singing. I thought of my own son, Joseph and how I had always feared his choice to be a musician might end up in circumstances like Norberto's. I used to tease my son to have a backup career and that I never wanted to see him playing for pennies under a freeway overpass. And despite this comparison with my son, I looked at Norberto as if he had been just as successful as my son, but in a different and ironically in a more powerful way. My heart caved in thinking about Norberto's life as a boy picking tomatoes for cents on the dollar in the migrant farm fields of California. And even still, with the shiner on his eye, he smiled and sang oh so pretty.

At the bus stop, I gave Norberto his ticket. I gave him some cash. (Not Catholic Charities Cash), but rather my own cash lest the bean counters who keep watch on how we spend our money be concerned. I embraced him hard as if it were the last time I’d ever see him. I drew him close so the perfume of poverty could somehow baptize me. And you say, “oh, how heroic”. Stop that. When Norberto began holding me tight, me, who reeks of shameful and stale perfume of pride, sophistication, education, presumptuousness that I own anything, a home, a bed to sleep in, a blanket or even my own freedom; me, a Pharisee, in the company of this great man beaten, and left for dead. Norberto was Francis of Assisi, the troubadour, and minstrel, giving me a visitation to see how I would witness to him the risen Lord.

Finally, I did do one thing that was more a test of my faith than a test for Norberto. I asked him, “Have you been to Mass lately?” Some of you might say, hmmmm, isn’t that proselytizing? My answer is “yes”. It is witnessing that the softened heart that was answering his prayer was not mine own but belonged to the man in the box in the chapel — the incarcerated Christ who awaits so that one day, when He asks “When I was in prison did you come to see me?”, Norberto could say, “yes”. He had been waiting for a witness that made sense as to the importance of the Mass for many years. I could see the reflection of Christ in the tears exuding from his busted and bruised eye. This man could now see.

Norberto will play a song for me on his way to heaven as I fear his life will be in much more physical danger than mine. But, on the other hand, I do not fear for his soul — I often fear for mine own. I'm not certain I did enough. I am never certain. Never. But I will see Norberto again. There will be much to talk about and I will lull into sleep hearing his music.