Today I sat in the church service near the back of the room, and I felt my own bones as I sat on the cold, metal chair. It felt like the blood in my veins was freezing and congealing in my fingers, so difficult was it to hold the ragged hymnbook so I could tell what everyone was singing. The pianist in the front of the room tinked and pounded on the instrument like a saloon piano player, eyes closed and faced upturned, caught up in the rapture of the barroom sing-along. He swayed forward to lean into the keys and back again, and I thought he might cry. His hair flew and his forehead furrowed in unabridged intensity. And like regulars of this joint, the congregation faced him and joined in his lilting chorus. I looked out the window and wondered what the old man leading his donkey down the dirt road might have thought of this honky-tonk church service. He was most likely a Catholic, because the great majority of Mexicans are, especially the elderly. As such, he probably regarded us as a strange spin-off group of his own religion; as zealots who are too picky about the exact words of things and don’t care for their own Catholic culture. But that’s alright, because it’s probably true. Now in the front of the room everyone is putting away their hymnals under their seats and the pastor is calling all those to be baptized up to the front. It’s two fairly young girls of anywhere from 14 to 17 and a young man of maybe 25 years. The girls are grinning with nervousness and the young man looks like he is awaiting his turn on the gallows. First the youngest girl is baptized. She is clearly of native Mexican Indian descent, and has the angular face of her ancestors. All three are bedecked in their Sunday finest. Aren’t they going to change into a bathing suit or something? It just seems insane that they are going into the water like that. But they do not change their clothes. The pastor descends into the small, tiled pool that had been constructed for this very purpose. The girl climbs the stairs after him and waits at the top, not knowing when she is supposed to get in the water. She turns around and grins at the congregation. The pastor is visibly trying to get her attention and get her to come into the water. Eventually she decides that it is time and descends. He asks her name, tells the congregation (who already knew), and says a few words and then dunks her. I notice that she gasps as the water is closing in on her...it must be terribly cold. She comes up again in a fluster, shaking and blowing and looking around almost frantically. She is still grinning at us as she climbs the stairs again and then comes down, receiving a towel from someone as she does. Next is her friend, the other girl. Her baptism goes a little more smoothly, only she doesn’t receive a towel on her descent from the baptismal. Nobody thought to bring an extra. So she goes back to her seat, in Sunday dress, looking like a half-drowned cat. Finally is the condemned young man. He climbs into the water, solemnly gives his name and is dunked ceremonially. But the freezing water breaks his calm only slightly. He won’t open his eyes now and he’s shivering like the others did, and his thin shirt has gone clear. I wonder why he didn’t at least take off his boots. He climbs to the top of the stairs, but won’t come down. He knows that no towel awaits him, and I suppose he doesn’t want to drip water all over the sanctuary. Or maybe he isn’t sure of the baptism protocol, but either way, he is just standing over the congregation, face down-turned, shivering miserably. The pastor cannot get out of the baptismal because of the young man’s position, so he gives a few words on the meaning of baptism, and we sing our final hymn. The piano rings out a joyous barroom chorus to which everyone sways and laughs and sings, the pastor is leading the singing and counting the beats with the swinging of his hands from inside the baptismal, and the young man stands above us all in ceremonial solemnity, his clear wet shirt clinging to his chest, face turned down and his eyes closed, shivering violently in the cold air.