I am Baptized in the Los Angeles River by a Drunken Elvis Impersonator.

It’s ninety-eight degrees outside and I came here for the quiet but instead I watch a group of tourists point at where the Grease cars took off from. 

My hair is wet, sticking to my forehead from when He dunked me, and my neck is sore from where he gripped it, holding it under the surface, and my eyes sting from opening them.

I can already feel the bacteria eating away at my corneas. 

There are worlds down here that I can only see when His large sweaty hand holds my head underwater. There is a fish with three eyes but it only uses one to look at me as it swims past, disappearing into the grime, followed by a dented license plate, and an empty boot. 

There is a mutant tree that has sprouted up from the bank, fuelled by dumped chemicals and bodily fluids. Leaves of fluorescent green, they glow. Evidence of a nuclear imbalance. My eyes still burn. 

The river always smells like a dead body, and there's probably one floating around here somewhere, reaching out for salvation, bloated and lonely, collecting discarded needles like a pincushion. 

The impersonator sings Hound Dog as he wades through the water. He’s leaving me behind, but when He passes the tree, he starts to melt. Leaves start to strobe as He hollers in pain, His skin melting away. Dropping from His face like melted wax. I watch as it turns the water around Him crimson, I won't call for help, I won’t stop the bleeding, I’ll watch as His body dissolves into the stream, exactly like everyone before Him. 

I wash my hands of him in the murky water before struggling back up the concrete siding. Always easier to come than to go, my knees are scratched and bleeding, sliding against the ground again and again. I'll return tomorrow. Watch more tourists, get baptized again, the layer of filth coating my face and my hair all over again. I'll watch men melt until I grow bored, and then I'll pack up and leave.

Drive to Kern County and watch as swimmers break their necks on the rocks.