Chapter 25

When the Department of Defense felt I was thoroughly discredited enough, San Diego Psychiatric Hospital discharged me. They gave me a ticket on Greyhound to anywhere I wanted. I took the bus from downtown San Diego and went back to Las Vegas. Everything looked different when I left the bus depot at the Plaza Hotel and Casino in downtown Vegas. Everything looked so much more ritzy. My mind was in such a fog, but my instincts told me to return to Mom and Dad at their house at the foot of Sunrise Mountain.

It finally dawned on me that a lot of time had passed since I first went to San Diego Psychiatric Hospital as a guest of the United States Department of Defense. "Excuse me, sir," I asked a passerby. "What year is this?"

"2007, and have a nice day," said the man. He gave me a dollar. I calculated from the attacks on Washington, DC and New York City that approximately six years had ellapsed since my imprisonment in the psychiatric hospital. I begged enough people for enough money to take the public bus to the eastern edge of the Las Vegas Valley. I finally reached Sunrise Mountain Road and my old stucco covered beige colored house. I rang the door bell.

A little girl wearing a UNLV Rebels T-shirt answered the door. "Can I help you, sir?"

"What are you doing in my house?" I asked her.

"Excuse me, this is my house," she said to me. "Mom! Dad!" A Latino couple greeted me.

"Can we help you?" said the man.

"I think there's a little confusion," I explained. "Do Mr. and Mrs. Sanglao still live here?"

"Oh, their daughter sold this house to us after they both died," said the Latina woman. My parents had died during my imprisonment at San Diego. My sister sold the house to this family, I realized.

"I'm their son, Michael Sanglao. Could you call my sister?" I said. "Here's her number."

"I'm afraid your sister is dead too," said the Latino man, about in his early thirties. "Her whole family was murdered shortly after she sold us this house. The police never solved the crime. The whole thing shocked the entire city, but nobody could figure out who did it. We're sorry for your loss."

The woman handed me a dollar bill for my trouble. I had only three dollars with me and no home and no family. The rosary bracelet was lost forever. I was officially homeless. I knew that Las Vegas Rescue Mission was near Las Vegas Boulevard and Bonanza Road, so I headed there. I had nowhere else to go. How had I, a military scientist, been reduced to this? My career was in ruins and my family murdered.

First, I had to rebuild my life somehow. The Devil's Champion, as I called the forces working for the ruins of all souls, had defeated me for now. I walked down East Charleston Blvd. toward Las Vegas Blvd., a long way from the rescue mission. I stumbled upon Saint Anthony of Padua Catholic Church. It was open, and I prayed for a miracle, or at least for the voice of the Holy Spirit to return and guide me. Only silence greeted me in the pews of Saint Anthony's Catholic Church.

"Almighty God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, please comfort me now. I don't know what do anymore. I have only blind faith now," I prayed. Nothing happened. I stared at the crucifix with Jesus hanging from the cross. I prayed for hours. Still nothing happened. Finally I decided to leave for the Las Vegas Rescue Mission. When I looked down at the pew, I saw a white rosary bracelet.