Warning: there’s some profanity ahead. You can’t write about Liz without vulgarity being part of the dialog.

It had been a cold and stressful morning for Liz Moreno. An aggressive and violent woman, she had done far more ‘ass-kicking’ than usual that day. She had a black eye and several bruises. Her right arm was also severely painful. She tried to deaden the pain with alcohol, more alcohol than her usual allotment, but it had not done anything significant to help. If Liz felt the need to smack someone else today that disrespected or inconvenienced her, she would be at a disadvantage. Normally she was very quick to utilize the city’s ambulance resources but today she had some errands to do before she would spend more of her valuable time in a hospital. She also decided to turn over a new leaf by getting involved with a new religious philosophy.

Liz had never been one to embrace any religion or spiritually. Religion was for suckers she’d often say. With all it’s talk of being kind and good, it was just a way to keep people in their place. Turning the other cheek was for the weak and those who didn’t know how to fight. But her last stint in prison had taught her that churches and temples were good for more than just a free meal or a place to sleep. She had learned many things from another woman there, one who had fashioned her crucifix into a shank. Religious articles were less likely to be taken away. If they did, you could sue, claiming religious persecution, she had told her. Liz couldn’t believe she hadn’t known about this before. So much time had been wasted being unaffiliated.

She went to a second-hand store with a crucifix in mind. She was hoping to fashion a far more superior weapon than the one her mentor in prison had shown her. But the secondhand shop was low on religious articles. It seemed people didn’t like to part with their weapon making materials. The trip had not been wasted, however. She was able to find a Buddha figure and it was made out of a nice heavy concrete type of stone. As she fished around in her bra for the cash necessary to make the purchase, the cashier remarked that her arm didn’t look too good and suggested that she get it checked out. Liz suggested she mind her own fucking business and paid for her new religious representative. But after walking out the store and trying to hold her heavy new acquisition with her damaged limb she had a change of heart and asked the woman to call 911 for her.

“Look! I found God!” she laughed as she got into the ambulance. The crew who was familiar with the perpetually angry woman were a bit leery of this rare display of joy and the newfound love for heavy concrete objects in the hands of a perpetually angry woman. They splinted up her arm and took her to the hospital where she repeatedly told everyone with glee that she had “found God, his name is Buddha.”

Sometime after getting out of the hospital and enjoying her new prescription pain medications, an ambulance was again called for her when she was found unresponsive and barely breathing. “Where’s my Buddha?” she quickly asked when she awoke from her opioid reversal, via Narcan (naloxone). Her new spiritually had already become ingrained into her psyche.

The ambulance people had destroyed her high and she felt justified for lashing out at them. Even thought she always berated them for various perceived infractions this one was very different. She didn’t want to hear anything about ‘barely breathing’. Her prescription was LEGAL. They couldn’t do anything about it. Sure she had taken far more than the bottle instructed but it wasn’t the point. A doctor had given her these medications. She hadn’t gotten high off of something purchased from a man named Angel on the corner of Decatur and Wyckoff. She had done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to be punished for it with Narcan.

As she argued with the crew she was comforted in knowing she now had two weapons-her concrete Buddha and her nifty new cast. “Look,” she showed the paramedics. “It’s like I got concrete stone on my arm too!”

“Nice little advertising billboard, you’ve got there,” said the paramedic.

What was he talking about? She looked to where he was looking. It took some contortions but she could tell something was written on her brand new cast. She studied it with her head bent at an uncomfortable angle.

“BLOW JOBS 75 CENTS – broken arm sale.”

It had been written in large lettering with a thick black marker. And the words faced outwards, like advertising, just as the man had said. You could practically see it from three blocks away. “What? The fuck? Man!” she screamed. Her cast had been on her arm less than 24 hours and someone had already vandalized it.

“When you’re passed out on Oxy worse things can happen,” said the medic, trying to console an inconsolable Liz.

“Shut the fuck up!” she told him. She was going to raise up her concrete Buddha as a warning but she couldn’t grab it in time. The crew had taken it away, out of her reach.

“You’ll get it back at the hospital,” they told her.

Didn’t they know it was a religious article? She was allowed to hold it. Her prison mentor had told her all about it.

“You know, there are some who say that Buddhism isn’t a religion. There’s no deity. It’s really more of a spiritual philosophy. I don’t know if it fits the same parameters,” one of the medics told her.

“What was she saying? What’s a parameter? Can I still sue if they take away a spiritual philosophy figure made out of heavy stone? They must just be fucking with me. If only I had my Buddha, I’d show them,” she thought. But there were other things to worry about. Who had defaced her cast? Who was she last with? That person was going to feel the full, literal weight of her spiritual philosopher.

Liz spent a few hours at the hospital, mostly being lectured about the right way to take pain medication. When she asked for more they gave her Tylenol. Tylenol! Didn’t they know that’s not the same?

The same paramedic crew found Liz a few days later. Someone had called for her when they saw her bleeding and laying on a street corner. Those paramedics thought they were going to her hit with the Narcan again, she laughed, but the joke was on them. She was just drunk. A battered and bruised Liz made her way to the ambulance anyway. At least at the hospital she could get some rest.

The crew had never seen Liz so battle-worn and that was saying something. She looked tired and had cuts and abrasions everywhere. Another tooth was gone from the already sparse lineup and one of her eyes was swollen. They asked her what happened. She showed them her cast. The “BLOW JOBS 75 CENTS- broken arm sale” had been mildly scribbled over with a blue ball point pen. You couldn’t even see that it had been crossed out unless you looked closely.

“I’ve never beat up so many people in my entire life,” she told them. “I got all kinds of mens coming over day and night with their one dollar bills, asking me for change. Fuck them! Who charges 75 cents for a blow job? I do a blow job I want a bag of tar or some blow! You keep your fucking dollar bills to yourself. Fucking assholes. They be throwing quarters at me! Quarters! You believe that? Buddha cracked a couple of skulls, I tell you. That thing is heavy but it do the job. Last thing they worry about now is their pee-pee.”

Buddha too, had gone through some physical changes. A few chips and scratches seemed to under line the story Liz told of her recent encounters. With all the violent karma she had been dishing out lately, Liz’s new religion hadn’t provided her with much peace.