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When Boyle asked him to refurbish Homeboy Bakery, he agreed -- though he didn't know the first thing about the baking business. In fact, Rodriguez's secret dream was to run a silkscreen shop, printing T-shirts and other apparel. One night after he'd been working at the bakery for eight months, he and Boyle had one of their talks. "Padre," Rodriguez said, "what do you think about someone else running the bakery and me starting a T-shirt printing shop?""It's a great idea."
"Good," said Rodriguez. From his pocket, he pulled a piece of paper. It was a California retail license for a business called Homeboy Silkscreen. Father Boyle burst out laughing. "What is it you always say, Padre?" Rodriguez said, grinning. "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission?"
It's well over 100 degrees on the shop floor inside Homeboy Silkscreen, but no one seems bothered by the heat. Ruben and Cristina Rodriguez carry armloads of T-shirts toward the loading area, past a muscular, tattooed young man named Gabriel Flores, who's operating a printing machine.
The shop has provided jobs for hundreds of homies, and its full-time staff has grown from 4 to 17. Flores works his machine with a Zen-like half smile, carefully smoothing each shirt onto a wooden base, dropping the silkscreen, applying the paint. He is Rodriguez's most trusted employee, but like many former gang members, his path to success has been rocky.
Flores first met Father Boyle in 1993, when he was 14. The priest had come to say Mass at the juvenile hall where Flores was locked up for running with a gang and using drugs. "Come see me when you get out," Boyle told him. Flores felt drawn to the priest but never got around to calling him.
Four years later, he met Boyle again while in court on an under-the-influence charge. In addition to his other problems, Flores's girlfriend was pregnant. Once more, Boyle asked him to call when he got out. This time, Flores did.
But the roller coaster ride was not over yet. After four years of progress at Homeboy Silkscreen, Flores suffered what he calls his downfall. Found in possession of a handgun, he was sentenced to 16 months in prison for violating his parole.
Rodriguez kept a position, albeit at a lower level, waiting for him. "I was just so grateful," says Flores.
In the five years since his release, Flores has taken on more responsibility than ever before. When Ruben and Cristina are away, he runs the shop floor. He recently received his GED, and his daughter Gabriella, nine, lives with him and attends a charter school.
"The cycle gets broken when kids like Gabriella see their father get up every morning to go to work and come home every afternoon to spend time with them," Rodriguez says, sounding like Boyle. "Maybe in 20 years, Gabriel will mentor someone the way I've mentored him."
Last year, Homeboy Silkscreen did more than $800,000 in sales, and as the business has grown, so has Rodriguez. "Working alongside homeboys," he says, "the stereotypes start breaking down. You see that they're people, and you start caring." Homeboy Industries now offers an array of service programs to members of gangs across Los Angeles County, helping them find work, remove their tattoos, learn anger management and deal with substance abuse. Last year, the organization broke ground on a block-long facility near Chinatown, where many of its businesses and services will be consolidated.
Even for Father Boyle, hope comes in fits and starts. On this August morning, he and a crowd of mourners gather at a grave site. The priest had known Tony, a veterano, since his days on East Los Angeles's streets in the late '80s. Now the former gangbanger, his throat cut in prison, has become the 147th homeboy Boyle has buried.
Earlier in Boyle's career, a death like Tony's might have made the priest question the effectiveness of his work. Today he comforts Tony's loved ones, "Do not let your hearts be troubled." Then family members release eight doves, symbols of peace. The birds, momentarily panicked, flutter up into the mourners' hair and faces, and everyone, Boyle included, bursts out laughing. Soon the tears of sorrow and joy are so intermingled that Boyle can scarcely tell them apart.
This is the kind of thing that always seems to happen in the barrio, he says, and it's why he feels fortunate to have found his life's work here. "People think I do this because it's the harder thing," he says. "But I'm here because it engages your heart completely, pain and joy all on the same day."
He hugs the last of the mourners, then climbs into his dingy Corolla and drives to Homeboy Industries, just down the street from the morgue and the police station. (Rodriguez often tells young homies that the buildings represent their three choices for the future.) Back in his office, where he has calls to return, letters to write, young gangbangers to joke with, comfort and counsel, he says he has developed a "light grasp" of death. "Death," Boyle says, "doesn't even make my top ten worst things that could happen to you."
And he should know something about that: In 2003, he was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, an incurable cancer that is now in remission. Or, as one of his homeboys put it, in "intermission."
"That's right!" Boyle laughs heartily. "It's just stepped out into the lobby to buy some popcorn."
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