El Regalo de Dios
by Melissa Flores Anderson
Author’s Note: As a movie fan, I’ve seen my share of Westerns where there is a clear good guy and bad guy so I appreciated the introduction to Eagle Pennel whose characters are less clear cut. I watched “The Whole Shootin' Match” and the story of a fellow who is full of get-rich quick schemes reminded me of a character in a story I was working on over the summer. I’ve been working on a series of stories about a multi-generational family with cousins Gil and José who end up in some trouble together. The cousins are not unlike people I knew growing up who felt stuck and tried unsavory ways to get ahead. The theme of the working class trying to get a quick break resonates in Pennel’s movies, and it comes through in my story as well.
Gil dropped his niece at her house and headed to his shift working in a warehouse at the edge of town. He packed envelopes with CD-Rom virus protection software to mail to rich people with computers across the United States. After, he should have headed home to do a paper for history class, but instead he drove to his cousin José’s place. José had the TV on, tuned to Monday night football, but with the volume low. Gil sunk into the flowered couch with the knit blanket on the back, and José passed him a hit.
“The gift from God, home from his dead-end job,” José joked. He punched Gil’s arm as Gil passed the joint back.
Gil’s mother said it all his life. Guillermo was el regalo de Dios. Gil was probably 5 when his cousin José, who was three years older, said what they really meant was he was an accident. The first time José said it, Gil didn’t understand. By middle school, when José told him to do the math, Gil got it. His oldest brother was more than 20 years older than him, his nearest in age sister 10 years older. Accident meant mistake.
José was the only one to be straight with him. José was straight about Mateo, too, said Gil’s older brother was a chump to work at the processing plant doing back-breaking labor while he was taking some night class at the community college, like he was ever going to make the leap to a management job.
“Places like that have one place for guys like us,” José said. “Night shift. We want to get anywhere, we got to get there on our own.”
“Without my job, we wouldn’t have gas money to go to the beach,” Gil said back, grabbing for the remote, even though he knew José wouldn’t let him switch it from his precious Raiders.
“When’s the last time we went to the beach, Ese?”
It was true. Gil spent most of his time at work, at school, at his job, and Sunday mornings at Church with his mother and father. José hadn’t been to church since he guzzled the whole glass of wine at his first communion and the priest suggested another parish might be a better fit for the boy. Gil liked being at José’s, where there were no adults around because José’s mom, Gil’s Tia, worked odd hours as a home health aide and José’s dad was long gone.
Around halftime, José’s friend Freddy joined them with a couple of 40s. Gil sipped because his parents would ground him if they smelled it on his breath. Freddy was 18, a year younger than José and two years older than Gil, but looked 25 with his black mustache and sideburns.
Halfway through one of the beers, José stood up and blocked the TV.
“I got an idea for us,” he said. “A big one.”
Gil leaned forward to listen, but Freddy threw an empty bag of chips at him.
“No, really,” José said. “Up Mantelli, in one of the new housing developments with a gate, people don’t lock their cars. We could lift one and sell it for parts. I know a guy who knows a guy.”
José knew a lot of things Gil didn’t know, like how Gil’s father was visiting his grandmother in Mexico for two months right around when Gil was supposed to have been conceived.
Theft wasn’t a new idea for Josè. The older cousin had always had sticky fingers, starting with lifting candy and gum from the super mercado across the street from their grandparent’s house. When their grandfather found wrappers, José said Gil had taken it, and four-year-old Gil didn’t know enough to deny it. Later José told Gil, he was so little and his Ma was so nice that he knew Gil wouldn’t get in trouble for it.
“Your ma never uses the chancla on you,” José said. “El regalo de Dios.”
José kept taking things that weren’t his, CDs and a discman from the backpacks of classmates, dirty magazines from the liquor store and once a library book he could have checked out for free. He showed off his spoils to Gil each time. Right before José dropped out of school his senior year, Gil heard a rumor of a computer going missing from a classroom, but it never materialized in José’s house so Gil wasn’t sure about that one. But even that was nothing compared to José’s new scheme.
“Lifting cars?” Gil said. “That’s a serious crime.”
“It doesn’t hurt anyone,” Jose said. “Those rich shits have insurance, and they’ll just file a claim and get a new car out of it. So really, we’re doing them a favor.”
“Tell me the plan again, when we’re not so high,” Gil said.
Gil left before the game ended, with a stick of mint gum to mask the alcohol scent. His mother got up from the couch as soon as the door opened, busied herself with making him a plate.
“Not hungry, Mami,” he said. “Ate at José’s.”
“Sit, Guillermo,” she said. “Chips don’t count as dinner.”
He sat, itching to get away from the table, worried his mother would notice he was high. He still had the paper to write for history class. Gil would drop out if he could, but he knew the lecture he’d get from his parents, from Mateo, if he did that.
And Mateo might have taken his car back if he did drop out because the only reason his brother gave him the beat-up white Citation was because Gil drove Mateo’s oldest daughter Valeria to school each day. At school, he pretended Valeria was his cousin because it was embarrassing to be an uncle to someone who was only a couple years younger.
José didn’t bring up the car theft for two weeks.
“I don’t want to do it,” Gil told him, when he mentioned it again. “It’s a bad idea.
“You have to do it. You’re the only one with a car that can make it up that hill,” José said.
Even though Gil thought of the Citation as a beater that embarrassed him every time he drove it into the high school lot, it was the only car they had between them.
“We chop a few vehicles, you’ll have money for something cooler in a few months,” José said. “And you quit that shitty job of yours.”
José worked out the logistics. He picked a night when it was overcast, a neighborhood high up the hill without streetlights, a pickup truck he thought would be unlocked. He gave instructions from the passenger seat.
“You’ll drop me off a few blocks away and drive away without waiting for me,” José told Gil. “I’ll tail somebody in when the gate is open. Five minutes of your time and it’ll be an easy payday.”
José said they would store the vehicle at Freddy’s because he had a garage that his mother never opened until they could get it to the chop shop.
José winded them up the hill, outside the city limits.
“Turn left, turn right, left again. Stop here.” José got out of the car, dressed in dark clothes.
“Go home,” Jose said. “Keep quiet.”
Gil drove half a block and stopped under a big oak tree, next to the canyon side of the road, where there weren’t any street lights. Far off in the distance, he saw the lights tinkling from the homes in the valley, almost like the stars hidden under the cloud cover. He didn’t believe José really knew how to hotwire a car, and it was a long walk back home. José disappeared from the rear-view mirror into the dark up the hill. Gil waited, listening for an engine to start up, watching for a pickup to pass him on a descent.
Instead, a police car went by, heading upward, in José’s direction. Gil started the car, flipped a u-turn, hoping somehow José would see the Citation and know it was a warning. As he drove up the hill back to the place he’d dropped José, he tailed in behind a BMW sedan. On the other side of the gate, he looked for pick up trucks and for José. The glint of broken glass from a side mirror sparkled in the headlights of Gil’s car, but there was no sign of José.
Gil stepped out of his car, circled the sidewalk and caught a glimpse of José rambling through the brush. He walked back to the Citation and just as he turned the ignition, lights blazed in his rearview mirror. He was done for. He rolled down the window and waited.
“License and registration.”
Gil handed everything over, kept his hands on the steering wheel, with his heart pounding.
“What are you doing up here?” the officer asked.
“Dropping my girlfriend off.”
“Girlfriend, huh? What’s her name and what street does she live on?”
Gil’s mind went blank on girls’ names and he didn’t know the names of any of the streets off Mantelli.
“What’s the gate code?” the officer asked.
When Gil failed to answer, the cop asked him to step out of the car.
“We got a call about suspicious activity in this area, attempted car theft,” the officer said. “Know anything about that?”
Gil didn’t answer, his mind turning to who his one phone call should be. His father might be at work. His mother would be disappointed in him, her gift from God. He could call José, but that might implicate him and he wouldn’t know what to do anyway.
From the police station, Gil called Mateo, on the one night his brother didn’t have night class. Mateo arrived an hour later, paid the bail and collected Gil who carried his belongings in a yellow envelope like the ones he packed at the warehouse.
“Tonight you stay at my place,” Mateo said. “I’ll call Mami and tell her where you are. Tomorrow, we figure out how to get the car out of impound.”
Gil shrunk against the doorframe as his brother talked. Mateo had the same thick eyebrows as their father, just darker and more expressive.
“You need to stay away from José,” his brother said. “Get straight.”
Gil nodded and turned the radio up for the rest of the drive.
In the morning when Gil walked home, José was waiting on the front porch.
“What happened, man? I told you to go home, and you weren’t here all night.”
“Got pinched by the cops,” Gil said.
“Dumb shit, why didn’t you listen to me?”
“Fuck off, José,” Gil said.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” José said. “But you know, it’s better it was you than me. I already got that other shit on my record. Whatever they picked you up on, they’ll go easier on you.”
It was true. Gil could take a first hit. José couldn’t take a third one.
“I’ll keep you out of it,” Gil said.
“Thanks, Gilly,” José said. “You’ll probably just get community service. You’ve always been blessed. El regalo de Dios.”
Melissa Flores Anderson has been published in more than two dozen journals or anthologies, and she is a reader/editor with Roi Fainéant Press. She has a chapbook “A Body in Motion” (JAKE), a novelette “Roadkill” (ELJ Editions), and her first full-length short story collection “All and Then None of You” (Cowboy Jamboree) was published in fall 2025. Follow her on Twitter and Bluesky @melissacuisine or IG/Threads @theirishmonths. Read her work at melissafloresandersonwrites.com.
by Melissa Flores Anderson
Author’s Note: As a movie fan, I’ve seen my share of Westerns where there is a clear good guy and bad guy so I appreciated the introduction to Eagle Pennel whose characters are less clear cut. I watched “The Whole Shootin' Match” and the story of a fellow who is full of get-rich quick schemes reminded me of a character in a story I was working on over the summer. I’ve been working on a series of stories about a multi-generational family with cousins Gil and José who end up in some trouble together. The cousins are not unlike people I knew growing up who felt stuck and tried unsavory ways to get ahead. The theme of the working class trying to get a quick break resonates in Pennel’s movies, and it comes through in my story as well.
Gil dropped his niece at her house and headed to his shift working in a warehouse at the edge of town. He packed envelopes with CD-Rom virus protection software to mail to rich people with computers across the United States. After, he should have headed home to do a paper for history class, but instead he drove to his cousin José’s place. José had the TV on, tuned to Monday night football, but with the volume low. Gil sunk into the flowered couch with the knit blanket on the back, and José passed him a hit.
“The gift from God, home from his dead-end job,” José joked. He punched Gil’s arm as Gil passed the joint back.
Gil’s mother said it all his life. Guillermo was el regalo de Dios. Gil was probably 5 when his cousin José, who was three years older, said what they really meant was he was an accident. The first time José said it, Gil didn’t understand. By middle school, when José told him to do the math, Gil got it. His oldest brother was more than 20 years older than him, his nearest in age sister 10 years older. Accident meant mistake.
José was the only one to be straight with him. José was straight about Mateo, too, said Gil’s older brother was a chump to work at the processing plant doing back-breaking labor while he was taking some night class at the community college, like he was ever going to make the leap to a management job.
“Places like that have one place for guys like us,” José said. “Night shift. We want to get anywhere, we got to get there on our own.”
“Without my job, we wouldn’t have gas money to go to the beach,” Gil said back, grabbing for the remote, even though he knew José wouldn’t let him switch it from his precious Raiders.
“When’s the last time we went to the beach, Ese?”
It was true. Gil spent most of his time at work, at school, at his job, and Sunday mornings at Church with his mother and father. José hadn’t been to church since he guzzled the whole glass of wine at his first communion and the priest suggested another parish might be a better fit for the boy. Gil liked being at José’s, where there were no adults around because José’s mom, Gil’s Tia, worked odd hours as a home health aide and José’s dad was long gone.
Around halftime, José’s friend Freddy joined them with a couple of 40s. Gil sipped because his parents would ground him if they smelled it on his breath. Freddy was 18, a year younger than José and two years older than Gil, but looked 25 with his black mustache and sideburns.
Halfway through one of the beers, José stood up and blocked the TV.
“I got an idea for us,” he said. “A big one.”
Gil leaned forward to listen, but Freddy threw an empty bag of chips at him.
“No, really,” José said. “Up Mantelli, in one of the new housing developments with a gate, people don’t lock their cars. We could lift one and sell it for parts. I know a guy who knows a guy.”
José knew a lot of things Gil didn’t know, like how Gil’s father was visiting his grandmother in Mexico for two months right around when Gil was supposed to have been conceived.
Theft wasn’t a new idea for Josè. The older cousin had always had sticky fingers, starting with lifting candy and gum from the super mercado across the street from their grandparent’s house. When their grandfather found wrappers, José said Gil had taken it, and four-year-old Gil didn’t know enough to deny it. Later José told Gil, he was so little and his Ma was so nice that he knew Gil wouldn’t get in trouble for it.
“Your ma never uses the chancla on you,” José said. “El regalo de Dios.”
José kept taking things that weren’t his, CDs and a discman from the backpacks of classmates, dirty magazines from the liquor store and once a library book he could have checked out for free. He showed off his spoils to Gil each time. Right before José dropped out of school his senior year, Gil heard a rumor of a computer going missing from a classroom, but it never materialized in José’s house so Gil wasn’t sure about that one. But even that was nothing compared to José’s new scheme.
“Lifting cars?” Gil said. “That’s a serious crime.”
“It doesn’t hurt anyone,” Jose said. “Those rich shits have insurance, and they’ll just file a claim and get a new car out of it. So really, we’re doing them a favor.”
“Tell me the plan again, when we’re not so high,” Gil said.
Gil left before the game ended, with a stick of mint gum to mask the alcohol scent. His mother got up from the couch as soon as the door opened, busied herself with making him a plate.
“Not hungry, Mami,” he said. “Ate at José’s.”
“Sit, Guillermo,” she said. “Chips don’t count as dinner.”
He sat, itching to get away from the table, worried his mother would notice he was high. He still had the paper to write for history class. Gil would drop out if he could, but he knew the lecture he’d get from his parents, from Mateo, if he did that.
And Mateo might have taken his car back if he did drop out because the only reason his brother gave him the beat-up white Citation was because Gil drove Mateo’s oldest daughter Valeria to school each day. At school, he pretended Valeria was his cousin because it was embarrassing to be an uncle to someone who was only a couple years younger.
José didn’t bring up the car theft for two weeks.
“I don’t want to do it,” Gil told him, when he mentioned it again. “It’s a bad idea.
“You have to do it. You’re the only one with a car that can make it up that hill,” José said.
Even though Gil thought of the Citation as a beater that embarrassed him every time he drove it into the high school lot, it was the only car they had between them.
“We chop a few vehicles, you’ll have money for something cooler in a few months,” José said. “And you quit that shitty job of yours.”
José worked out the logistics. He picked a night when it was overcast, a neighborhood high up the hill without streetlights, a pickup truck he thought would be unlocked. He gave instructions from the passenger seat.
“You’ll drop me off a few blocks away and drive away without waiting for me,” José told Gil. “I’ll tail somebody in when the gate is open. Five minutes of your time and it’ll be an easy payday.”
José said they would store the vehicle at Freddy’s because he had a garage that his mother never opened until they could get it to the chop shop.
José winded them up the hill, outside the city limits.
“Turn left, turn right, left again. Stop here.” José got out of the car, dressed in dark clothes.
“Go home,” Jose said. “Keep quiet.”
Gil drove half a block and stopped under a big oak tree, next to the canyon side of the road, where there weren’t any street lights. Far off in the distance, he saw the lights tinkling from the homes in the valley, almost like the stars hidden under the cloud cover. He didn’t believe José really knew how to hotwire a car, and it was a long walk back home. José disappeared from the rear-view mirror into the dark up the hill. Gil waited, listening for an engine to start up, watching for a pickup to pass him on a descent.
Instead, a police car went by, heading upward, in José’s direction. Gil started the car, flipped a u-turn, hoping somehow José would see the Citation and know it was a warning. As he drove up the hill back to the place he’d dropped José, he tailed in behind a BMW sedan. On the other side of the gate, he looked for pick up trucks and for José. The glint of broken glass from a side mirror sparkled in the headlights of Gil’s car, but there was no sign of José.
Gil stepped out of his car, circled the sidewalk and caught a glimpse of José rambling through the brush. He walked back to the Citation and just as he turned the ignition, lights blazed in his rearview mirror. He was done for. He rolled down the window and waited.
“License and registration.”
Gil handed everything over, kept his hands on the steering wheel, with his heart pounding.
“What are you doing up here?” the officer asked.
“Dropping my girlfriend off.”
“Girlfriend, huh? What’s her name and what street does she live on?”
Gil’s mind went blank on girls’ names and he didn’t know the names of any of the streets off Mantelli.
“What’s the gate code?” the officer asked.
When Gil failed to answer, the cop asked him to step out of the car.
“We got a call about suspicious activity in this area, attempted car theft,” the officer said. “Know anything about that?”
Gil didn’t answer, his mind turning to who his one phone call should be. His father might be at work. His mother would be disappointed in him, her gift from God. He could call José, but that might implicate him and he wouldn’t know what to do anyway.
From the police station, Gil called Mateo, on the one night his brother didn’t have night class. Mateo arrived an hour later, paid the bail and collected Gil who carried his belongings in a yellow envelope like the ones he packed at the warehouse.
“Tonight you stay at my place,” Mateo said. “I’ll call Mami and tell her where you are. Tomorrow, we figure out how to get the car out of impound.”
Gil shrunk against the doorframe as his brother talked. Mateo had the same thick eyebrows as their father, just darker and more expressive.
“You need to stay away from José,” his brother said. “Get straight.”
Gil nodded and turned the radio up for the rest of the drive.
In the morning when Gil walked home, José was waiting on the front porch.
“What happened, man? I told you to go home, and you weren’t here all night.”
“Got pinched by the cops,” Gil said.
“Dumb shit, why didn’t you listen to me?”
“Fuck off, José,” Gil said.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” José said. “But you know, it’s better it was you than me. I already got that other shit on my record. Whatever they picked you up on, they’ll go easier on you.”
It was true. Gil could take a first hit. José couldn’t take a third one.
“I’ll keep you out of it,” Gil said.
“Thanks, Gilly,” José said. “You’ll probably just get community service. You’ve always been blessed. El regalo de Dios.”
Melissa Flores Anderson has been published in more than two dozen journals or anthologies, and she is a reader/editor with Roi Fainéant Press. She has a chapbook “A Body in Motion” (JAKE), a novelette “Roadkill” (ELJ Editions), and her first full-length short story collection “All and Then None of You” (Cowboy Jamboree) was published in fall 2025. Follow her on Twitter and Bluesky @melissacuisine or IG/Threads @theirishmonths. Read her work at melissafloresandersonwrites.com.
