I had been known to drink a beer once in a while, and on this certain occasion I was extremely bored. This is where I was drinking more than usual. I am a Christian, and I have always had pretty good morals for the most part. I just didn't want to stop drinking. One Sunday evening I was drinking a beer in front of a restaurant with a cigarette in my other hand when it happened.  A young African American man came up to me in front of four or five people and declared that he had gotten word from the Lord.  "I have given many chances to do my will, how many more chances do you need?" he said.

After that, everything is kind of a blur. I remember going home for a couple of weeks, and when I came back there were two other men who had recently been hired.  One was a thief, and the other a hopeless drug addict. They got along really good with each other, and they were a curse upon my life that wouldn't stop.

One day on payday, the drug addict started with me. I had known him all of 3 weeks. He wouldn't stop insulting me telling me that I am nothing and what not. I took it so well, I didn't freak out or get angry. I was just waiting for him to get entertained by something else like he had so many other times before, but this time he wasn't going anywhere. I reached for a beer when all of the sudden he slammed his fist against the patio telling me not to tell him to shut up. I finally got fed up and told him in no uncertain terms to shut up. He came at me, and I came right back at him and kicked him as hard as I could. I was aiming for the head but settled for the chest. He laid there for a couple of minutes, and then when he got up he wanted to fight. I didn't want to fight an old drunk man. He was 15 years older than me. The next thing that happened is that my roommate intervened and basically said to go to bed. The drug addict just stared at me with this immense hatred, and walked off.

Nothing could have prepared me for the next few moments, nor the next few days. I was in the back room going to the bathroom and getting ready for bed. I returned to my room when I heard him walking back to my room. I knew it was a fight, and I had no other choice. Don't tell that to the D.A., but that was the truth. I didn't want to hurt him. Honestly I believe in being innocent and having clean hands. He tried to strike at me a couple of times but I moved out of the way. Finally he connected a couple of times to my face, and I grabbed him by the shoulders and brought him to the ground and put him in a darse position. I really wasn't all that nice about it, and I did apply pressure to the adam's apple so that he'd quit. I was telling him to quit, but he just stayed there playing possum waiting for me to let up. I let loose my guard within a minute, and held him secure to make sure he wouldn't try that again.

After a couple of minutes my roommate and I brought him to his bed. He was snoring. We laid him face down, and then went back to the room for a few minutes. I came back to smoke a cigarette, and I looked at him. He had rolled half way on his back and had the look of intense pain. That's when I knew. I told my foreman who was just getting there to check his pulse. I lit my cigarette, and I don't even think I got a drag out of it when I was being screamed at informing me that he didn't have a pulse. We immediately called the ambulance, and told them we didn't know what happened to him. We had just found him like that.

For a few days I was sweating it, thinking that my time was short before they would eventually figure out what happened. Jail would be my most likely destination. I was about 30, and for the first time in my adult life I had to call my family and inform them that I might be in BIG trouble. My mom told me to pray, but I couldn't utter a word. I read Psalms a lot, but I had no peace. It was clear that I didn't kill the guy, but again a D.A. would argue all kinds of crap that was irrelevant to the case and act as though it were in order to hang me. I wasn't about to go down that road.

They were all supportive, although they didn't take the news well. The autopsy revealed that he choked to death on his own vomit, and that was that and it blew over.  When I was waiting and so not talking to God, I made a promise. I didn't promise to stop drinking. I promised I would get it right with him. All I remember thinking is for the preacher to shut up already. I knew where I had to go. I had to get to that altar. I had to get it right. Finally after seemingly a million years, the altar call was made and I RAN to the altar. I was there and a few were kneeling and the Lord asked me to kneel, and I was good where I was at. Then I said, No I am in this state because I always resist. Then I got on my knees and I bawled like a baby. 

A couple of months later I got on another crew to go work. I had so many miracles happen to allow me to go that it is still hard for me to imagine. Nothing went right. I was about to give up, and in fact I had. Then one day, I decided I had had enough of drinking. No more! That was a year and a half ago. The very next week, I found my church here in the US. In Mexico, I have a half a dozen pastors in my circle. Life has been good, but I will always remember that person who tragically died.  I knew him for almost a month and I never told him one word of Christ.  What an event to shape my life...