Cuento de Mi Id
“The Girls of Winter”
It was half past twelve when the next girl came on stage, which proves that not all scary things happen at midnight. She was a skinny young thing, most likely jailbait, and it hardly seemed worth it for her to take her top off. She staggered about the stage for a while, waving her arms up and down as if they were drumsticks. I could clearly see her ribs beneath her skin and I almost felt sorry for her.
She was promptly booed off the stage -- no doubt as an act of mercy, I thought. She then grabbed her top and scurried off to the back room.
The next dancer was of more conventional proportions but she wore too much blue eye shadow. I quickly lost interest and returned to my drink. The club closed at two and I wasn't looking forward to navigating my way home with a hundred other drunks. However, it was fifteen below outside and I was in no hurry to brave the winter traffic. I came from Chicago myself so snow and ice don't scare me, but trying to dodge fifteen other drivers while trying to avoid a fishtail tends to take all the fun out of winter driving.
In fact, I almost totaled my car making it this far. Some wiseguy in a pickup truck was too stupid to drive at normal speed and made me put on the brakes when he cut in front of me on the highway. When you're driving on ice, that's the last thing you want to do. I managed to get out of it okay -- I always do -- but I must admit that I was really shook up there for a while.
Yeah, a long while.
The next dancer came on stage as I finished my beer. She was a black girl and she reminded me of a girl at the last club I was at. Very friendly that one had been. In fact, she even offered me drinks. Then she started putting her hand on my thigh and I realized that drinks were not the only thing she sold.
Outside, that old north wind must have been howling like a banshee. Perhaps if I put enough antifreeze in my system, I could make it as far as the parking lot, I thought as I ordered yet another beer. The waitress took her time bringing it as if she were being paid to bring it extra slow and I mentally subtracted a large portion of her tip while I was waiting.
In the meantime, I kept looking up at the stage and trying to not act bored but it was hard. After all, there was nothing in the club I couldn't see in a Playboy. And you're not allowed to touch the girls here, either. You're just allowed to get close enough to drop a bill in the old G-string and that's it. How dull.
The next girl on stage appeared to have needle marks on her arms. At least, I thought they were needle marks. Didn't make sense to me. I would have figured that most girls in her profession would be into skinpopping. If this was Canada, I could find out for sure, but they don't allow such places down here in the Bible Belt. Not at normal prices, anyway.
My beer finally arrived but for some reason, it tasted funny. I called the waitress over to order something in its place.
“Want any change?” the waitress asked me.
“What for?”
She gestured at the dancers.
“No, of course not.”
The waitress shrugged and went to fetch me my drink. It didn't taste much better than the last one. I began to think that I had been in the club too long.
I looked around again and saw that the club owners were out in force. Dressed in suits, they looked like members of the local country club but as they clapped along with the music, trying to drum up enthusiasm, they somehow reminded me of guest extras on Miami Vice and I was almost tempted to look for shoulder holsters.
My next drink tasted like it had a dead animal in it and I decided that was it. Time to go.
I threw a twenty down on the table and made my way to the door.
I looked back long enough to see that the girl on stage was now showing off her wrist scars and then I headed out to the parking lot.
The club was supposed to have valet parking but it seemed to be mostly reserved for the suits and the owners of late-model cars. I was neither, of course, and anyway, no one was on duty. So I made my way across the wind-swept parking lot by myself.
That's when I noticed that the parking lot was almost empty apart for a few scattered vehicles -- which was really unusual considered how crowded it had been inside the club. Where the hell did everybody park anyway? Surely they did not all arrive in those few cars like they were circus clowns or something? Or did the creeps who owned the club sell out to a chop shop?
I was thinking about going back inside when I suddenly saw a familiar vehicle. My old red Chevy was parked at the far left corner of the lot. As I walked closer toward it, I could see that it was not in great shape. In fact, it had a couple of dents in it that had not been there this morning. A couple of big dents in it. In fact, the whole left side of the car was caved in.
And that mess on the ice. It looked like blood. At least, some of it did. And the rest of it looked like...
Suddenly I was back on the highway. I was going 35 and my engine was starting to stall. The guy ahead of me was going 15, then dropped down to 0. I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting him, but a pickup got in front of me and in trying to avoid him, I found myself fishtailing on the highway. My brakes locked, the oil light came on, and I found myself heading toward the rear end of the same pickup that cut in front of me.
Then I blinked.
And found myself back in a mostly empty parking lot. The same lot I had been in before. I hurried back inside and didn't think twice when the girl at the door demanded another five bucks to enter the club. Instead I gladly paid it.
I went to the men's room to check myself out in the mirror but saw nothing wrong. But then I had seen nothing wrong before.
Then I went back out on the floor and picked myself an empty table to sit at. One that was near the stage. I ignored the other customers which was just as well since even in the half light of the club, they didn't look so good. But I wasn't paying to look at them so I didn't. Instead I stared ahead at the girls on stage until a waitress came up to me to take my order. This time I noticed a scar on her chest that was not quite covered by her uniform, but I said nothing about it. Instead I just ordered a beer.
No, I ordered three beers.
Then I turned to watch the dancer on stage try to pretend that she was not totally out of it. I didn't care if she was or if she wasn't. I was here to forget and that was what I intended to do.
In fact, it's almost one thirty and I'm still here. The drinks are starting to take effect now and I no longer notice the bad taste of the beers. I don't notice much of anything, in fact, except for the girls on stage. And I stopped trying to tell them apart a long time ago.
My wallet doesn't seem to be empty, and I could probably stay here all night if the club owners would let me. But I doubt they will. In fact, it seems like the club is going to end up closing soon.
That worries me. For as much as I try to pretend otherwise, I can't help wondering what will happen to me If I try to stay here past closing time. Or if there will even be a me here past closing time.
And yet I really do not want to go outside again. I really don't.
Showing posts with label Cuentos de Miedo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cuentos de Miedo. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Cuento de Mi Id
“The Sacrifice”
Oh great! The Huntsville Express.
Shut up. The most they can get you for at this point in time is hitchhiking. Just play it cool and everything will be all right.
All right? Half-ounce of sinsemilla in my knapsack and you say everything will be all right?
Of course, it will. Just don’t act suspicious.
But if the cops search my bag?
They won’t if you give them no reason to--and by the way, don’t call them cops--call them policemen.
Well, all right.
It hadn’t been a good day for Martin. The Texas sun had decided to celebrate the Fourth of July early, and that had meant blast furnace temperatures coupled with a nonexistent breeze along a highway where the nearest shade trees were on the other side of the acre-long cotton fields. Not that there was a lot of green stuff to impede his way -- all the plants Martin had seen so far were brown and wilted--but there was no way he could hope to flag down a ride from the shade and he had no intention of walking all day in this heat. Now his first ride of the day had proved to be a cop car and Martin was already envisioning himself behind bars when the driver pulled up besides him and lowered the passenger window.
“Hey there!” said a good-ol’-boy-type in the shotgun seat. “What brings you out this way on such a fine sunny day?”
“Oh, nothing, Officer,” said Martin. “I’m just waiting for a friend.”
“Your friend live around here?”
“Well, no. Not really.”
The white policeman grinned and opened the passenger door. “Why don’t you come on in and tell us all about it?”
“Uh, no, thank you,” Martin replied. “My ride will probably be coming by any second.”
“Suit yourself,” said the policeman. “I wouldn’t linger here too long if I were you. You might get picked up for hitchhiking.”
Martin thought a minute. “On second thought, maybe I can use a break from the sun right now.” He climbed into the back seat almost eagerly, and tried not to jump when he heard the door slam behind him.
Take it easy. You’re just among cops; you haven’t been charged. They still have to read you your rights so don’t worry until that happens.
“You headed down Brewster way?” the first policeman asked as he reentered the vehicle.
“No,” Martin replied. “Dallas.”
“Close enough,” said the policeman, and he signaled to his partner, a short dark Latin man.
The car took off silently and Martin thought it rather nice to be out of the sun for a change. Not only that, but the car had air conditioning too.
Then he remembered where he was and looked up at the cop riding shotgun.
The policeman smiled. “Don’t worry, son. I was young once too. I bet you thought me and Frank here were going to arrest you, didn’t you?”
“Well, the thought did cross my mind.”
“Forget it. Anyone hitchhiking nowadays has enough to worry about with all the weirdos on the road without getting hassled by the cops. Don’t you agree?”
“Well, I’m not exactly in a position to disagree with you.”
The policeman laughed. “That’s great. “ He extended his hand. “My name’s Bob Smith. This here’s my partner, Frank Gonzalez. What’s your name?”
“Martin Lucas.”
“No relation to Henry Lee, are you? No? I didn’t think so. You probably wouldn’t admit it even if you were.”
“No, I guess not.”
“So what brought you to our part of the country in the first place, Martin?”
“Well, my girlfriend and I were driving up from Austin and we had a spat. She took off with the car and left me behind at a rest stop. I’ve been on the road ever since.”
“That’s quite a shame. Don’t you have any kin here abouts that you could have called for a ride or something?”
“No, not really. Most of my folks live in Dallas and the rest live out of state.”
“That’s a real shame. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of your girlfriend coming back for you?”
“Well, if she hasn’t come back by now, I really doubt she’s going to be.”
“That’s a shame. Well, I guess you can always catch a bus from Brewster. Me and Frank are headed that way and we’d be glad to drop you off at the bus station.”
“Much obliged.”
“Oh, think nothing of it. If we can’t help each other out, who’s going to do it for us?” Bob turned and contemplated the view ahead. “Rotten weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” Martin said, “not if you like sun.”
“The folks around here don’t. There’s been too much of it lately--and not enough rain. This here’s farm country. A few more weeks of weather like this and half the folks around here will be ruined.”
“That’s a shame,” said Martin, trying to sound sincere.
“Yes it is. Most of these folks have their whole lives invested in these farms--but you don’t want to hear about that--do you?”
Martin shrugged.
Bob continued “Anyway, at least they’re a lot better off than the Anderson kid.”
“The Anderson kid?”
“Yeah. Virginia Anderson. Prettiest little thing you ever did see. Would have turned sixteen last May.”
“Last May? What happened to her?”
“Went out on a date with the local quarterback. Her first one, oddly enough. Both of them missed curfew so their parents started calling around. Turned out the boy had been killed. Strangled to death.”
“Jesus. What happened to the girl?”
“Well, she was killed, too, but the killer took his time with her. Used her in every orifice, if you know what I mean, and left a few new ones to remember him by. Her parents had to request a closed casket.”
“Jesus,” Martin said again. “What could have made somebody do something like that?”
“There’s no telling, son. There’s a lot of strange people in this world. Like that guy ‘Zodiac’ out there in L.A. He killed all those people back in the ‘60’s to supposedly prevent an earthquake. The cops out there never did catch him Might even have been a her for all they know.”
“Well, how about this guy? The one who killed Virginia and her boyfriend. Did you catch up with him yet?”
“No, not really,” said Bob. He turned to look at Martin. “What makes you so sure it’s a him?”
“I dunno,” said Martin. “I just got that impression from your story. After all, you did hint that the girl was raped.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Girls can rape too; they’re just more creative about it.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose you’re the expert on this kind of thing. Who do you think did it?”
“Well, presently the most popular theory around the stationhouse is that some sort of wandering vagrant did it.”
Martin’s chest tightened. “What makes you say that?” he forced himself to say.
“Well, it obviously wasn’t anyone in town. That girl was so popular that only someone passing through would dare to commit a deed like that and not risk getting caught.”
“Oh, I see,” said Martin. “So you figure some sort of hobo did it?”
“Or a hitchhiker,” said Bob.
“Oh.” Martin started to think fast. It was bad enough to be flirting with a possible drug charge but if the cops suspected him of murder, they’d put him away for sure.
Take it easy. No one’s accusing you of anything yet. We’re living in the post-Miranda era, remember? He can’t force you to admit to something you didn’t do and anyway you were at Padre last May. Take it easy.
Martin tried to tell himself that his conscience was correct. He had nothing to worry about. He had a lot of things to feel guilty about but not murder. Not murder.
He began to relax.
Then Bob asked him, “Do you come up this way often?” and his chest tightened again.
“What makes you say that?” he asked in what he hoped was a casual tone.
“I don’t know,” said Bob. “It’s just the way you spoke of your girlfriend made me think you must be a frequent visitor to these parts.”
“Not me. I can’t afford it.”
“You came down this time, didn’t you?”
“Uh, that was just an one-time-only thing. Actually I’ve never been out this way before.”
Bob’s eyes hardened. “Seems to me you and your girl must have a weird relationship if this is the first time you ever visited her.”
“Well...” Nice going! “Actually she just transferred to UT this fall. Before that, she lived in Dallas.”
“Oh, I see.” The expression on Bob’s face told him he was not entirely convinced but he remained silent.
Martin turned to look at the scenery. They were coming into a different area now. There were more trees now and they came up to within a few feet of the highway. Bob suddenly pointed to something up ahead.
“There’s the spot where we found the Anderson girl,” he said. He turned toward Martin. “Would you like to see it?”
Now what? Martin wasn’t in a position to refuse.
“Okay,” he said without enthusiasm.
Frank pulled over and Bob and Martin got out. Bob let Martin go into the woods ahead of him.
Oh, great! Now Frank’s going to have the perfect opportunity to search my knapsack.
Shut up and act casual! You’ve got more important things to worry about, remember?
“It’s just a few feet ahead,” Bob said. “You can’t miss it.”
Up ahead Martin saw a clearing which looked like the spot Bob might have been talking about. He started to turn to ask Bob if that was it when he stumbled over something hidden in the leaves. A dead log, he thought--and he cursed. He started to get up, gazed at the object he had tripped over…
“What’s the matter, son?” asked Bob, coming up behind him. “Haven’t you ever seen a gen-u-wine murder site befo--Jesus!”
The object Martin had tripped over was a body--a woman’s body. The woman was blonde, apparently in her late teens or early twenties, and the stab wounds on her chest and belly were still oozing fresh blood. From her shorts and halter top, it appeared that she had been dressed for hitchhiking. If so, she apparently did not get too far.
“We better call the police,” said Martin.
Bob behind him nodded.
“Her wounds look recent. There’s probably a good chance we can catch whoever did this while he’s still in the area.”
“What makes you think we didn’t catch him already?” asked Bob.
Martin turned. “This is no time to joke. A girl has been kil--” His voice froze. Officer Bob had drawn his gun and was aiming it straight at him.
“What is this?” he said.
“Looks to me like we caught us a killer.” Bob grinned.
“You’re crazy. I’ve been with you guys all this time.”
Bob chuckled. “Oh, come now. The wounds aren’t that recent. How do I know you didn’t do this before we picked you up?”
“Are you kidding? You picked me up miles away from here.”
Bob shrugged. “You could have walked.”
“Through miles of open country? Why would I establish a stupid alibi like that? Anyone could have seen me. Even you guys--” Martin broke off. A horrifying thought just came to him.
Bob kept grinning, his gun still on Martin. “Come to think of it, you were nervous about something when we picked you up.”
Martin panicked. “That’s because I was carrying drugs in my bag. Would I admit something like that to you if I was really a murderer?”
“You might,” said Bob, and then Martin knew it was hopeless.
“All right,” he said, raising his hands. “I give up.”
Bob smiled. With his gun still on Martin, he took something from beneath his jacket and dropped it on the ground. “Pick it up!”
Martin’s blood turned cold. “You gotta be kidding!"
“Pick it up,” said Bob, and he fingered the trigger. “Don’t make me do this.”
Martin looked down at the object Officer Bob had thrown at his feet -- a butcher knife sealed in a plastic bag, its blade covered with blood. He looked at Officer Bob again and then ran.
If I make it to the woods, he thought, I can beat him. I don’t care if these woods go all the way to Texarkana, I can still outrun him. He can’t stop me. I haven’t touched the knife. There’s no way he can get away with this. No way in Hell--
Just a few feet behind him, Officer Bob cocked his gun and fired….
************************************************************
Frank was still waiting in the driver‘s seat when Bob returned from the woods. “How did it go?” he asked.
Bob smiled. “Better than I thought it would. Not only did he confess to the murders, but he admitted to being a dope fiend, too.”
He got in and Frank started the engine. “Any problems?” Frank asked.
“No, not really.” Bob turned to look at Frank. “You don’t sound too happy.”
Frank shrugged as he pulled onto the highway. “I just can’t help thinking about what’s going to happen if there’s an investigation.”
“Fuck the investigation. We had one last time and they never found out anything. Why should they find out anything this time?”
“Well, suppose they did?” asked Frank.
“Why should they? We’ll probably be public heroes . Who’s going to want to mess with a rep like that?”
Frank frowned. “I just can’t help thinking nothing good’s going to come of all this.”
Bob chuckled and looked up at the sky. “Well,” he said, pointing upwards, “something good’s already happening.”
As the patrol car disappeared down the highway, a parade of clouds began to appear in the sunny sky. Soon they began to darken. As the first raindrops fell, a clap of thunder could be heard echoing across the landscape like celestial applause. There was no lightning to accompany it.
“The Sacrifice”
Oh great! The Huntsville Express.
Shut up. The most they can get you for at this point in time is hitchhiking. Just play it cool and everything will be all right.
All right? Half-ounce of sinsemilla in my knapsack and you say everything will be all right?
Of course, it will. Just don’t act suspicious.
But if the cops search my bag?
They won’t if you give them no reason to--and by the way, don’t call them cops--call them policemen.
Well, all right.
It hadn’t been a good day for Martin. The Texas sun had decided to celebrate the Fourth of July early, and that had meant blast furnace temperatures coupled with a nonexistent breeze along a highway where the nearest shade trees were on the other side of the acre-long cotton fields. Not that there was a lot of green stuff to impede his way -- all the plants Martin had seen so far were brown and wilted--but there was no way he could hope to flag down a ride from the shade and he had no intention of walking all day in this heat. Now his first ride of the day had proved to be a cop car and Martin was already envisioning himself behind bars when the driver pulled up besides him and lowered the passenger window.
“Hey there!” said a good-ol’-boy-type in the shotgun seat. “What brings you out this way on such a fine sunny day?”
“Oh, nothing, Officer,” said Martin. “I’m just waiting for a friend.”
“Your friend live around here?”
“Well, no. Not really.”
The white policeman grinned and opened the passenger door. “Why don’t you come on in and tell us all about it?”
“Uh, no, thank you,” Martin replied. “My ride will probably be coming by any second.”
“Suit yourself,” said the policeman. “I wouldn’t linger here too long if I were you. You might get picked up for hitchhiking.”
Martin thought a minute. “On second thought, maybe I can use a break from the sun right now.” He climbed into the back seat almost eagerly, and tried not to jump when he heard the door slam behind him.
Take it easy. You’re just among cops; you haven’t been charged. They still have to read you your rights so don’t worry until that happens.
“You headed down Brewster way?” the first policeman asked as he reentered the vehicle.
“No,” Martin replied. “Dallas.”
“Close enough,” said the policeman, and he signaled to his partner, a short dark Latin man.
The car took off silently and Martin thought it rather nice to be out of the sun for a change. Not only that, but the car had air conditioning too.
Then he remembered where he was and looked up at the cop riding shotgun.
The policeman smiled. “Don’t worry, son. I was young once too. I bet you thought me and Frank here were going to arrest you, didn’t you?”
“Well, the thought did cross my mind.”
“Forget it. Anyone hitchhiking nowadays has enough to worry about with all the weirdos on the road without getting hassled by the cops. Don’t you agree?”
“Well, I’m not exactly in a position to disagree with you.”
The policeman laughed. “That’s great. “ He extended his hand. “My name’s Bob Smith. This here’s my partner, Frank Gonzalez. What’s your name?”
“Martin Lucas.”
“No relation to Henry Lee, are you? No? I didn’t think so. You probably wouldn’t admit it even if you were.”
“No, I guess not.”
“So what brought you to our part of the country in the first place, Martin?”
“Well, my girlfriend and I were driving up from Austin and we had a spat. She took off with the car and left me behind at a rest stop. I’ve been on the road ever since.”
“That’s quite a shame. Don’t you have any kin here abouts that you could have called for a ride or something?”
“No, not really. Most of my folks live in Dallas and the rest live out of state.”
“That’s a real shame. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of your girlfriend coming back for you?”
“Well, if she hasn’t come back by now, I really doubt she’s going to be.”
“That’s a shame. Well, I guess you can always catch a bus from Brewster. Me and Frank are headed that way and we’d be glad to drop you off at the bus station.”
“Much obliged.”
“Oh, think nothing of it. If we can’t help each other out, who’s going to do it for us?” Bob turned and contemplated the view ahead. “Rotten weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” Martin said, “not if you like sun.”
“The folks around here don’t. There’s been too much of it lately--and not enough rain. This here’s farm country. A few more weeks of weather like this and half the folks around here will be ruined.”
“That’s a shame,” said Martin, trying to sound sincere.
“Yes it is. Most of these folks have their whole lives invested in these farms--but you don’t want to hear about that--do you?”
Martin shrugged.
Bob continued “Anyway, at least they’re a lot better off than the Anderson kid.”
“The Anderson kid?”
“Yeah. Virginia Anderson. Prettiest little thing you ever did see. Would have turned sixteen last May.”
“Last May? What happened to her?”
“Went out on a date with the local quarterback. Her first one, oddly enough. Both of them missed curfew so their parents started calling around. Turned out the boy had been killed. Strangled to death.”
“Jesus. What happened to the girl?”
“Well, she was killed, too, but the killer took his time with her. Used her in every orifice, if you know what I mean, and left a few new ones to remember him by. Her parents had to request a closed casket.”
“Jesus,” Martin said again. “What could have made somebody do something like that?”
“There’s no telling, son. There’s a lot of strange people in this world. Like that guy ‘Zodiac’ out there in L.A. He killed all those people back in the ‘60’s to supposedly prevent an earthquake. The cops out there never did catch him Might even have been a her for all they know.”
“Well, how about this guy? The one who killed Virginia and her boyfriend. Did you catch up with him yet?”
“No, not really,” said Bob. He turned to look at Martin. “What makes you so sure it’s a him?”
“I dunno,” said Martin. “I just got that impression from your story. After all, you did hint that the girl was raped.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Girls can rape too; they’re just more creative about it.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose you’re the expert on this kind of thing. Who do you think did it?”
“Well, presently the most popular theory around the stationhouse is that some sort of wandering vagrant did it.”
Martin’s chest tightened. “What makes you say that?” he forced himself to say.
“Well, it obviously wasn’t anyone in town. That girl was so popular that only someone passing through would dare to commit a deed like that and not risk getting caught.”
“Oh, I see,” said Martin. “So you figure some sort of hobo did it?”
“Or a hitchhiker,” said Bob.
“Oh.” Martin started to think fast. It was bad enough to be flirting with a possible drug charge but if the cops suspected him of murder, they’d put him away for sure.
Take it easy. No one’s accusing you of anything yet. We’re living in the post-Miranda era, remember? He can’t force you to admit to something you didn’t do and anyway you were at Padre last May. Take it easy.
Martin tried to tell himself that his conscience was correct. He had nothing to worry about. He had a lot of things to feel guilty about but not murder. Not murder.
He began to relax.
Then Bob asked him, “Do you come up this way often?” and his chest tightened again.
“What makes you say that?” he asked in what he hoped was a casual tone.
“I don’t know,” said Bob. “It’s just the way you spoke of your girlfriend made me think you must be a frequent visitor to these parts.”
“Not me. I can’t afford it.”
“You came down this time, didn’t you?”
“Uh, that was just an one-time-only thing. Actually I’ve never been out this way before.”
Bob’s eyes hardened. “Seems to me you and your girl must have a weird relationship if this is the first time you ever visited her.”
“Well...” Nice going! “Actually she just transferred to UT this fall. Before that, she lived in Dallas.”
“Oh, I see.” The expression on Bob’s face told him he was not entirely convinced but he remained silent.
Martin turned to look at the scenery. They were coming into a different area now. There were more trees now and they came up to within a few feet of the highway. Bob suddenly pointed to something up ahead.
“There’s the spot where we found the Anderson girl,” he said. He turned toward Martin. “Would you like to see it?”
Now what? Martin wasn’t in a position to refuse.
“Okay,” he said without enthusiasm.
Frank pulled over and Bob and Martin got out. Bob let Martin go into the woods ahead of him.
Oh, great! Now Frank’s going to have the perfect opportunity to search my knapsack.
Shut up and act casual! You’ve got more important things to worry about, remember?
“It’s just a few feet ahead,” Bob said. “You can’t miss it.”
Up ahead Martin saw a clearing which looked like the spot Bob might have been talking about. He started to turn to ask Bob if that was it when he stumbled over something hidden in the leaves. A dead log, he thought--and he cursed. He started to get up, gazed at the object he had tripped over…
“What’s the matter, son?” asked Bob, coming up behind him. “Haven’t you ever seen a gen-u-wine murder site befo--Jesus!”
The object Martin had tripped over was a body--a woman’s body. The woman was blonde, apparently in her late teens or early twenties, and the stab wounds on her chest and belly were still oozing fresh blood. From her shorts and halter top, it appeared that she had been dressed for hitchhiking. If so, she apparently did not get too far.
“We better call the police,” said Martin.
Bob behind him nodded.
“Her wounds look recent. There’s probably a good chance we can catch whoever did this while he’s still in the area.”
“What makes you think we didn’t catch him already?” asked Bob.
Martin turned. “This is no time to joke. A girl has been kil--” His voice froze. Officer Bob had drawn his gun and was aiming it straight at him.
“What is this?” he said.
“Looks to me like we caught us a killer.” Bob grinned.
“You’re crazy. I’ve been with you guys all this time.”
Bob chuckled. “Oh, come now. The wounds aren’t that recent. How do I know you didn’t do this before we picked you up?”
“Are you kidding? You picked me up miles away from here.”
Bob shrugged. “You could have walked.”
“Through miles of open country? Why would I establish a stupid alibi like that? Anyone could have seen me. Even you guys--” Martin broke off. A horrifying thought just came to him.
Bob kept grinning, his gun still on Martin. “Come to think of it, you were nervous about something when we picked you up.”
Martin panicked. “That’s because I was carrying drugs in my bag. Would I admit something like that to you if I was really a murderer?”
“You might,” said Bob, and then Martin knew it was hopeless.
“All right,” he said, raising his hands. “I give up.”
Bob smiled. With his gun still on Martin, he took something from beneath his jacket and dropped it on the ground. “Pick it up!”
Martin’s blood turned cold. “You gotta be kidding!"
“Pick it up,” said Bob, and he fingered the trigger. “Don’t make me do this.”
Martin looked down at the object Officer Bob had thrown at his feet -- a butcher knife sealed in a plastic bag, its blade covered with blood. He looked at Officer Bob again and then ran.
If I make it to the woods, he thought, I can beat him. I don’t care if these woods go all the way to Texarkana, I can still outrun him. He can’t stop me. I haven’t touched the knife. There’s no way he can get away with this. No way in Hell--
Just a few feet behind him, Officer Bob cocked his gun and fired….
************************************************************
Frank was still waiting in the driver‘s seat when Bob returned from the woods. “How did it go?” he asked.
Bob smiled. “Better than I thought it would. Not only did he confess to the murders, but he admitted to being a dope fiend, too.”
He got in and Frank started the engine. “Any problems?” Frank asked.
“No, not really.” Bob turned to look at Frank. “You don’t sound too happy.”
Frank shrugged as he pulled onto the highway. “I just can’t help thinking about what’s going to happen if there’s an investigation.”
“Fuck the investigation. We had one last time and they never found out anything. Why should they find out anything this time?”
“Well, suppose they did?” asked Frank.
“Why should they? We’ll probably be public heroes . Who’s going to want to mess with a rep like that?”
Frank frowned. “I just can’t help thinking nothing good’s going to come of all this.”
Bob chuckled and looked up at the sky. “Well,” he said, pointing upwards, “something good’s already happening.”
As the patrol car disappeared down the highway, a parade of clouds began to appear in the sunny sky. Soon they began to darken. As the first raindrops fell, a clap of thunder could be heard echoing across the landscape like celestial applause. There was no lightning to accompany it.
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Cuento de Mi Id
“Final Vengeance”
(This was my first attempt at writing a short story for publication. I would like to think that I have improved a bit since I first wrote this but I guess that's up to you all, the readers, to judge. Anyway, I hope you all like it.)
The moment Joe Mesey reentered the old neighborhood, he knew that his coming back was a mistake. Not for any foolish, sentimental reasons -- it’s hard to be nostalgic about growing up in a slum -- but because his return was all too easy. He had expected an all-out attack the minute he entered his old stomping grounds; instead, he was simply ignored.
As a member of mankind’s true oldest profession, a self-styled professional assassin who euphemistically referred to his calling as the “retirement business” and who commanded top dollar for a kill, this was a bit of an insult. He had expected a neighborhood crawling with cops -- or worse; instead, he found an area of deserted streets and neglected tenements -- a place seemingly as devoid of life as the dark side of the moon.
It was an eerie feeling. Had Joe been a lesser man, he might have turned the car around and searched for more populous surroundings. But he was on a mission here -- a personal mission. He had returned to this neighborhood to kill a man. A man whom he had killed a long time ago...
**************************************************************************************************************
The room was filled with more candles than a religious shrine and their acrid scent and flickering light made Joe uneasy. He kept peering into the shadows of the old man’s living room as if expecting to see something lurking there. Nothing was there, of course, but the way the old man kept bowing his head and peering into his little grey book made Joe uneasy. And he hated being made uneasy. Especially by a little old man who was destined within a matter of minutes to meet the Maker about which he endless prattled.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the realization that the old man had said something. He looked up at the white-haired figure and smiled inwardly at the idea of this little man in the black suit and skullcap doing him bodily harm. As powerful as he may have once been, now he could not harm a flea.
“Pardon me, he said. “I didn’t hear that last question.”
“I was asking whether you had considered the consequences of your actions, Mr. Mesey,” the old man said in a voice that was stern yet moderate.
“Of course, I have. I simply waste you and then my boss gives me a lot of money. What’s to consider?”
“Hasn’t the thought of punishment ever entered your mind?”
“Not really. The cops won’t be able to prove a thing, and nothing you can do can change that.”
“I wasn’t talking about earthly justice.”
“Oh, really?”
“Doesn’t it ever bother you, Mr. Mesey -- the number of men you’ve killed?”
“Of course not. Why should it?”
“Fear of the dead is a centuries-old tradition,” said the old man. “Some say it dates back to Neanderthal man.”
“Well, that may be the case with some people, but I’m more like a surgeon. I live with death every day. It doesn’t scare me a bit.”
“If I were you, I would be scared. Murder is the supreme taboo; you have committed it not once, not twice, but times beyond counting.”
“You’re one to talk,” said Joe. “Before you retired, you were in the rackets, too. You know how it is.”
“Yes, I know how it is,” said the old man, gazing at his folded hands. “But I never killed anyone directly. And when the ghosts of those I did kill indirectly began to prey upon my conscience, I knew it was time to leave.”
The old man looked Joe in the eye. “But it’s still not too late for you. The powers that be love a repentant sinner as long as he’s sincere.”
Joe smiled. “That’s nice talk for a dying man but I intend to live a long time.”
“Maybe not as long as you think.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I have taken the liberty of making certain arrangements in case my little talk with you should fail.”
“Oh, I see. Like a sealed letter to the D.A. left in the hands of your attorney?”
“Nothing so crude, I assure you,” said the old man. “Besides, I’m sure a man in your profession has sufficient connections to get such a letter swiftly discredited. No, my arrangements are of a more final and irrevocable nature.”
Joe laughed. “If that’s meant to scare me, it didn’t work.”
“It wasn’t meant to scare you -- now.”
“Listen, old man,” said Joe, pulling out his gun. “I’ve had about enough of this Jewish superstition nonsense you’ve been giving me.”
“Jewish? Who said it was Jewish?” The old man’s voice took on a sepulchral tone. “The faith I follow is older than Judaism.”
That’s when Joe’s gun went off. The first bullet hit the old man in the chest; the two followup shots hit him in the belly and the groin. Joe never knew whether his shots were the result of anger or blind panic, but the results were the same. One dead Jew (or so-called Jew, if his last words were correct) who had time to do little more than glare and mumble an inaudible curse before succumbing to the permanent paralysis of death. Hardly the formidable adversary he had anticipated.
“I hoe you prepared well for the afterlife, old man,” Joe said as he stood up. “Because you’re going to have all eternity to enjoy it.”
He left the house quietly, but not before giving some thought to the arrangements the old man had mentioned. However, search as he did, he could find no trace of any hidden cameras or tape recorders in the old man’s residence...
**************************************************************************************************************
The old apartment house where he used to live was boarded up now -- a victim of urban renewal. Gazing at the crumbling exterior brought back many memories for Joe. Memories of living with his old man -- an embittered widower with five children to raise. A man who had sought refuge in a whiskey bottle and who used his youngest child -- Joe -- as a punching bag until the day Joe fought back and caved in his father’s skull with a tire iron. Yes, the place did bring back a lot of old memories -- none of them good.
He smiled grimly and attacked the boards on the front door with a tire iron. As the ancient nails reluctantly began to yield, he once more looked around the neighborhood, expecting any minute to see a cop -- or something -- appear around the corner to question him about his activity. But none appeared. Joe seemed to be the only person around in what should have been a crowded slum neighborhood. It was as if he was in the land of the dead.
Joe shuddered. He was normally not an imaginative person -- in his line of business, you couldn’t afford to be -- yet something about that last phrase -- and the way it popped into his mind, unsummoned -- made him uneasy. Especially when he looked back upon certain recent events...
**************************************************************************************************************
The first clue Joe had that the old man‘s arrangements were not just talk occurred in Chicago. He had heard the old line about being able to meet almost anyone in the world by standing on State Street, but he never expected to see Vinny McCloskey there. And for a very good reason -- Vinny had died six months ago.
When he first confronted Vinny with this information, Vinny seemed as shocked as Joe. His eyes went blank; he appeared to be remembering something.
Then he remembered.
“You!” he screamed. “You’re the one who killed me.”
Within an instant, Vinny’s hands were around Joe’s neck, choking him with the strength of the violently insane and the insanely violent. Vinny was a big man; his hands were the size of steam irons. Killing Joe should have been as easy a task for him as cleaning fish. But it did not work out that way. Joe had been around too long not to be prepared for the unexpected; he freed himself with a blow to the groin -- then pulled his newly-purchased revolver and fired a bullet meant for a prominent state witness into Vinny’s chest.
At this point, Vinny smiled -- the vacant smile customarily associated with the hopelessly insane -- and then he collapsed. For a moment, Joe was aghast. After all, even the most blasé hitman does not meet dead people on the street every day. Then he took Vinny’s pulse. The bullet wound Vinny had just received was not necessarily a mortal one, yet he was already dead.
Needless to say, the witness job was blown. No one had witnessed the confrontation between Joe and Vinny, but that didn’t mean the cops would not be interested if they ever caught wind of it.
And what of the body? Although Joe managed to safely dispose of it without being seen, that still did not account for its presence. Surely he had not just killed the real Vinny; after all, the real Vinny was supposed to be feeding the worms in a South Side cemetery. That meant the man he had killed was an imposter, no doubt made up to look like Vinny with the help of a clever plastic surgeon. But an imposter with Vinny’s height and build? Possible, Joe thought, but not probable. Which meant...
**************************************************************************************************************
The last board came off with an angry screech. Now the door was open and he could seek shelter from the open street. Yet Joe was not satisfied.
If he was right, the man he came to kill would be lurking inside, safe from the summer heat. It unnerved him to realize how matter-of-fact he was handling the whole situation. Had his own boss told him a similar story, he would not have believed him -- even if his life depended upon it. Yet here he was, standing outside his old apartment house, treating his long-dead father as a potential adversary…
He pushed the door open with his foot, holding the tire iron ready in case of attack. None came. Inside the entrance hall was nothing but dust and silence.
As Joe stepped inside, he again held the tire iron ready to ward off a sudden attack. But -- again -- none came.
Perhaps I only dreamed the first incident, he thought. Perhaps I was wrong and the old man’s curse was only a figment of my imagination.
Then Joe thought again and shook his head. For he remembered Frank Lupesco...
**************************************************************************************************************
It had happened at a men’s room in the Miami Airport. Joe was combing his hair before boarding a flight to San Juan when he felt himself being seized from behind. Without warning, he was whirled around and thrown against the opposite wall. Before he could recover, a knife was at his throat, and on the nape of his neck, he could feel the hot breath of the man standing directly behind him.
That’s when Joe moved. Stomping down hard where he guessed his assailant’s left foot to be, he reached up at the same time and grabbed the knife-bearing hand. Its skin felt cold and clammy -- like a dead frog -- but he did not let that prevent him from bending the hand back against the waist until the knife dropped. And the bones broke.
Joe’s assailant was curiously silent for a man who should have screaming in agony.
Instead, the only thing Joe heard was “It’s not that easy, kid.”
The voice was familiar, but not the face. When Joe turned around, he found himself staring into a bleached parody of a human face, the type of scarred and tattered face you’d expect to see on a man who had spent the last seven months on the bottom of the Hudson River, not on a living person.
Then the man smiled -- if you could call what he did smiling -- and Joe recognized the familiar lop-sided grin of his former mentor, Frank Lupesco. It had been Lupesco who had gotten Joe his first job in the “retirement business.” Frank had taught Joe everything he knew. Taught him so well that when Frank retired and decided to turn state’s evidence, Joe was the one chosen to bring him down. And he did. Seven months ago.
And here Frank was, standing before him, smiling as if his broken wrist was a mere scratch.
“This one’s for you, kid.”
With frightening suddenness, Frank lunged forward and grabbed Joe by the throat with his other hand. Pressing his other forearm against Joe’s throat as well, he pinned Joe against the wall and started to squeeze. Joe’s face began to turn blue; he was running out of time. In desperation, he punched his opponent in the stomach. His fist went all the way through.
As Frank let go, Joe was too relieved to do anything but stand and watch Frank’s body collapse in upon itself like a punctured balloon. Too late he thought of questioning him; by then, his body was merely a pile of decaying flesh awaiting disposal.
That’s when Joe realized that the plot against him was more than simply an elaborate scheme of vengeance. Even the best plastic surgeon could not have instilled such qualities into a Frank Lupesco lookalike. The man who did had to be a person who had experience dealing with the supernatural. A man who not only had such experience but who also possessed a grudge against him. Somebody like -- like -- the old man!
By then, the old man’s name had faded away from Joe’s memory, but he still remembered that scene in the room full of candles, and he also remembered the old man’s ominous last words.
At first, it seemed ridiculous -- an old-fashioned curse at work in the twentieth century. And yet it was the only explanation which made sense. If only there was some way to break the curse...
Then it came to him. The curse was operating in a pattern: confront Joe with all his previous victims, in the order of their deaths, and have the attacks increase in intensity. Considering the number of people Joe had killed in his lifetime, such a pattern could easily wear him down before it ended. And sooner or later one of the victims was bound to get lucky and kill him.
But suppose he short-circuited the curse. Instead of waiting for the victims to go after him, he would go after the victims. And the most obvious one to pursue would be the first one -- his father. The only one he had killed for free...
**************************************************************************************************************
The sun was going down now, and there was still no sign of his old man. He smiled at the irony -- the old man had intended to avenge his own death by using Joe’s own old man to kill him. Perhaps he had been counting on the power of nostalgia to prevent Joe from delivering the fatal blow. Well, it won’t work, Joe thought. There was no love lost between him and his father. He killed him before and he could kill him again.
Then it occurred to him -- what if this was exactly what the old man had wanted? For Joe to come up here to New York and face the ultimate challenge? Joe had not been attacked since that day in Miami. The trip up here had been way too easy -- almost as if he was being set up.
He scoffed at this thought. There was nothing to fear. He had a loaded revolver in the highest caliber and absolutely no reason not to use it. Everything he had experienced so far told him that the old man’s walking cadavers were still vulnerable to gunshots. There was nothing to fear.
And then he heard it. A quiet, scraping sound like dead leaves rustling across the sidewalk. No footsteps -- just a quiet, rustling sound. Then the doorknob turned. Joe slowly drew out his revolver and aimed it at the front door. This is going to be easier than I had anticipated, he thought. Then the door opened...
Joe’s first thought was that it was all a trick. That the old man had anticipated his actions and sent a stranger to take him by surprise. After all, Joe might not remember every single man he killed, but he certainly would have remembering icing a woman. Then he looked beyond the woman’s black dress and veil -- recognized a face which he had seen only once before, in a wedding portrait kept by his father because it was the last picture taken of her before she died in childbirth. And suddenly he knew why the old man was so certain that Joe would not be able to kill her.
He had time to say only one word before the first of many blows fell: “Mother.”
“Final Vengeance”
(This was my first attempt at writing a short story for publication. I would like to think that I have improved a bit since I first wrote this but I guess that's up to you all, the readers, to judge. Anyway, I hope you all like it.)
The moment Joe Mesey reentered the old neighborhood, he knew that his coming back was a mistake. Not for any foolish, sentimental reasons -- it’s hard to be nostalgic about growing up in a slum -- but because his return was all too easy. He had expected an all-out attack the minute he entered his old stomping grounds; instead, he was simply ignored.
As a member of mankind’s true oldest profession, a self-styled professional assassin who euphemistically referred to his calling as the “retirement business” and who commanded top dollar for a kill, this was a bit of an insult. He had expected a neighborhood crawling with cops -- or worse; instead, he found an area of deserted streets and neglected tenements -- a place seemingly as devoid of life as the dark side of the moon.
It was an eerie feeling. Had Joe been a lesser man, he might have turned the car around and searched for more populous surroundings. But he was on a mission here -- a personal mission. He had returned to this neighborhood to kill a man. A man whom he had killed a long time ago...
**************************************************************************************************************
The room was filled with more candles than a religious shrine and their acrid scent and flickering light made Joe uneasy. He kept peering into the shadows of the old man’s living room as if expecting to see something lurking there. Nothing was there, of course, but the way the old man kept bowing his head and peering into his little grey book made Joe uneasy. And he hated being made uneasy. Especially by a little old man who was destined within a matter of minutes to meet the Maker about which he endless prattled.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the realization that the old man had said something. He looked up at the white-haired figure and smiled inwardly at the idea of this little man in the black suit and skullcap doing him bodily harm. As powerful as he may have once been, now he could not harm a flea.
“Pardon me, he said. “I didn’t hear that last question.”
“I was asking whether you had considered the consequences of your actions, Mr. Mesey,” the old man said in a voice that was stern yet moderate.
“Of course, I have. I simply waste you and then my boss gives me a lot of money. What’s to consider?”
“Hasn’t the thought of punishment ever entered your mind?”
“Not really. The cops won’t be able to prove a thing, and nothing you can do can change that.”
“I wasn’t talking about earthly justice.”
“Oh, really?”
“Doesn’t it ever bother you, Mr. Mesey -- the number of men you’ve killed?”
“Of course not. Why should it?”
“Fear of the dead is a centuries-old tradition,” said the old man. “Some say it dates back to Neanderthal man.”
“Well, that may be the case with some people, but I’m more like a surgeon. I live with death every day. It doesn’t scare me a bit.”
“If I were you, I would be scared. Murder is the supreme taboo; you have committed it not once, not twice, but times beyond counting.”
“You’re one to talk,” said Joe. “Before you retired, you were in the rackets, too. You know how it is.”
“Yes, I know how it is,” said the old man, gazing at his folded hands. “But I never killed anyone directly. And when the ghosts of those I did kill indirectly began to prey upon my conscience, I knew it was time to leave.”
The old man looked Joe in the eye. “But it’s still not too late for you. The powers that be love a repentant sinner as long as he’s sincere.”
Joe smiled. “That’s nice talk for a dying man but I intend to live a long time.”
“Maybe not as long as you think.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I have taken the liberty of making certain arrangements in case my little talk with you should fail.”
“Oh, I see. Like a sealed letter to the D.A. left in the hands of your attorney?”
“Nothing so crude, I assure you,” said the old man. “Besides, I’m sure a man in your profession has sufficient connections to get such a letter swiftly discredited. No, my arrangements are of a more final and irrevocable nature.”
Joe laughed. “If that’s meant to scare me, it didn’t work.”
“It wasn’t meant to scare you -- now.”
“Listen, old man,” said Joe, pulling out his gun. “I’ve had about enough of this Jewish superstition nonsense you’ve been giving me.”
“Jewish? Who said it was Jewish?” The old man’s voice took on a sepulchral tone. “The faith I follow is older than Judaism.”
That’s when Joe’s gun went off. The first bullet hit the old man in the chest; the two followup shots hit him in the belly and the groin. Joe never knew whether his shots were the result of anger or blind panic, but the results were the same. One dead Jew (or so-called Jew, if his last words were correct) who had time to do little more than glare and mumble an inaudible curse before succumbing to the permanent paralysis of death. Hardly the formidable adversary he had anticipated.
“I hoe you prepared well for the afterlife, old man,” Joe said as he stood up. “Because you’re going to have all eternity to enjoy it.”
He left the house quietly, but not before giving some thought to the arrangements the old man had mentioned. However, search as he did, he could find no trace of any hidden cameras or tape recorders in the old man’s residence...
**************************************************************************************************************
The old apartment house where he used to live was boarded up now -- a victim of urban renewal. Gazing at the crumbling exterior brought back many memories for Joe. Memories of living with his old man -- an embittered widower with five children to raise. A man who had sought refuge in a whiskey bottle and who used his youngest child -- Joe -- as a punching bag until the day Joe fought back and caved in his father’s skull with a tire iron. Yes, the place did bring back a lot of old memories -- none of them good.
He smiled grimly and attacked the boards on the front door with a tire iron. As the ancient nails reluctantly began to yield, he once more looked around the neighborhood, expecting any minute to see a cop -- or something -- appear around the corner to question him about his activity. But none appeared. Joe seemed to be the only person around in what should have been a crowded slum neighborhood. It was as if he was in the land of the dead.
Joe shuddered. He was normally not an imaginative person -- in his line of business, you couldn’t afford to be -- yet something about that last phrase -- and the way it popped into his mind, unsummoned -- made him uneasy. Especially when he looked back upon certain recent events...
**************************************************************************************************************
The first clue Joe had that the old man‘s arrangements were not just talk occurred in Chicago. He had heard the old line about being able to meet almost anyone in the world by standing on State Street, but he never expected to see Vinny McCloskey there. And for a very good reason -- Vinny had died six months ago.
When he first confronted Vinny with this information, Vinny seemed as shocked as Joe. His eyes went blank; he appeared to be remembering something.
Then he remembered.
“You!” he screamed. “You’re the one who killed me.”
Within an instant, Vinny’s hands were around Joe’s neck, choking him with the strength of the violently insane and the insanely violent. Vinny was a big man; his hands were the size of steam irons. Killing Joe should have been as easy a task for him as cleaning fish. But it did not work out that way. Joe had been around too long not to be prepared for the unexpected; he freed himself with a blow to the groin -- then pulled his newly-purchased revolver and fired a bullet meant for a prominent state witness into Vinny’s chest.
At this point, Vinny smiled -- the vacant smile customarily associated with the hopelessly insane -- and then he collapsed. For a moment, Joe was aghast. After all, even the most blasé hitman does not meet dead people on the street every day. Then he took Vinny’s pulse. The bullet wound Vinny had just received was not necessarily a mortal one, yet he was already dead.
Needless to say, the witness job was blown. No one had witnessed the confrontation between Joe and Vinny, but that didn’t mean the cops would not be interested if they ever caught wind of it.
And what of the body? Although Joe managed to safely dispose of it without being seen, that still did not account for its presence. Surely he had not just killed the real Vinny; after all, the real Vinny was supposed to be feeding the worms in a South Side cemetery. That meant the man he had killed was an imposter, no doubt made up to look like Vinny with the help of a clever plastic surgeon. But an imposter with Vinny’s height and build? Possible, Joe thought, but not probable. Which meant...
**************************************************************************************************************
The last board came off with an angry screech. Now the door was open and he could seek shelter from the open street. Yet Joe was not satisfied.
If he was right, the man he came to kill would be lurking inside, safe from the summer heat. It unnerved him to realize how matter-of-fact he was handling the whole situation. Had his own boss told him a similar story, he would not have believed him -- even if his life depended upon it. Yet here he was, standing outside his old apartment house, treating his long-dead father as a potential adversary…
He pushed the door open with his foot, holding the tire iron ready in case of attack. None came. Inside the entrance hall was nothing but dust and silence.
As Joe stepped inside, he again held the tire iron ready to ward off a sudden attack. But -- again -- none came.
Perhaps I only dreamed the first incident, he thought. Perhaps I was wrong and the old man’s curse was only a figment of my imagination.
Then Joe thought again and shook his head. For he remembered Frank Lupesco...
**************************************************************************************************************
It had happened at a men’s room in the Miami Airport. Joe was combing his hair before boarding a flight to San Juan when he felt himself being seized from behind. Without warning, he was whirled around and thrown against the opposite wall. Before he could recover, a knife was at his throat, and on the nape of his neck, he could feel the hot breath of the man standing directly behind him.
That’s when Joe moved. Stomping down hard where he guessed his assailant’s left foot to be, he reached up at the same time and grabbed the knife-bearing hand. Its skin felt cold and clammy -- like a dead frog -- but he did not let that prevent him from bending the hand back against the waist until the knife dropped. And the bones broke.
Joe’s assailant was curiously silent for a man who should have screaming in agony.
Instead, the only thing Joe heard was “It’s not that easy, kid.”
The voice was familiar, but not the face. When Joe turned around, he found himself staring into a bleached parody of a human face, the type of scarred and tattered face you’d expect to see on a man who had spent the last seven months on the bottom of the Hudson River, not on a living person.
Then the man smiled -- if you could call what he did smiling -- and Joe recognized the familiar lop-sided grin of his former mentor, Frank Lupesco. It had been Lupesco who had gotten Joe his first job in the “retirement business.” Frank had taught Joe everything he knew. Taught him so well that when Frank retired and decided to turn state’s evidence, Joe was the one chosen to bring him down. And he did. Seven months ago.
And here Frank was, standing before him, smiling as if his broken wrist was a mere scratch.
“This one’s for you, kid.”
With frightening suddenness, Frank lunged forward and grabbed Joe by the throat with his other hand. Pressing his other forearm against Joe’s throat as well, he pinned Joe against the wall and started to squeeze. Joe’s face began to turn blue; he was running out of time. In desperation, he punched his opponent in the stomach. His fist went all the way through.
As Frank let go, Joe was too relieved to do anything but stand and watch Frank’s body collapse in upon itself like a punctured balloon. Too late he thought of questioning him; by then, his body was merely a pile of decaying flesh awaiting disposal.
That’s when Joe realized that the plot against him was more than simply an elaborate scheme of vengeance. Even the best plastic surgeon could not have instilled such qualities into a Frank Lupesco lookalike. The man who did had to be a person who had experience dealing with the supernatural. A man who not only had such experience but who also possessed a grudge against him. Somebody like -- like -- the old man!
By then, the old man’s name had faded away from Joe’s memory, but he still remembered that scene in the room full of candles, and he also remembered the old man’s ominous last words.
At first, it seemed ridiculous -- an old-fashioned curse at work in the twentieth century. And yet it was the only explanation which made sense. If only there was some way to break the curse...
Then it came to him. The curse was operating in a pattern: confront Joe with all his previous victims, in the order of their deaths, and have the attacks increase in intensity. Considering the number of people Joe had killed in his lifetime, such a pattern could easily wear him down before it ended. And sooner or later one of the victims was bound to get lucky and kill him.
But suppose he short-circuited the curse. Instead of waiting for the victims to go after him, he would go after the victims. And the most obvious one to pursue would be the first one -- his father. The only one he had killed for free...
**************************************************************************************************************
The sun was going down now, and there was still no sign of his old man. He smiled at the irony -- the old man had intended to avenge his own death by using Joe’s own old man to kill him. Perhaps he had been counting on the power of nostalgia to prevent Joe from delivering the fatal blow. Well, it won’t work, Joe thought. There was no love lost between him and his father. He killed him before and he could kill him again.
Then it occurred to him -- what if this was exactly what the old man had wanted? For Joe to come up here to New York and face the ultimate challenge? Joe had not been attacked since that day in Miami. The trip up here had been way too easy -- almost as if he was being set up.
He scoffed at this thought. There was nothing to fear. He had a loaded revolver in the highest caliber and absolutely no reason not to use it. Everything he had experienced so far told him that the old man’s walking cadavers were still vulnerable to gunshots. There was nothing to fear.
And then he heard it. A quiet, scraping sound like dead leaves rustling across the sidewalk. No footsteps -- just a quiet, rustling sound. Then the doorknob turned. Joe slowly drew out his revolver and aimed it at the front door. This is going to be easier than I had anticipated, he thought. Then the door opened...
Joe’s first thought was that it was all a trick. That the old man had anticipated his actions and sent a stranger to take him by surprise. After all, Joe might not remember every single man he killed, but he certainly would have remembering icing a woman. Then he looked beyond the woman’s black dress and veil -- recognized a face which he had seen only once before, in a wedding portrait kept by his father because it was the last picture taken of her before she died in childbirth. And suddenly he knew why the old man was so certain that Joe would not be able to kill her.
He had time to say only one word before the first of many blows fell: “Mother.”
Friday, October 11, 2019
Fanfic Friday
"Dawn at Dusk"
Dawn was still standing by the kitchen sink as she cleaned the gasoline off of her hands when Kennedy came into the house from the back yard.
"Dawn," she asked, "have you seen Spike today? It's almost time for our nightly training exercises and I don't see him anywhere."
"I don't think Spike is going to participate in any more training exercises," said Dawn. "He and my sister had a big fight yesterday and I believe that he's decided to move on."
"A fight?" asked Kennedy. "Was that what all the shouting was about yesterday?"
"Probably," said Dawn with a shrug.
"So that explains all the bruises on her arm," said Kennedy. "He didn't try to -- "
"Well, he tried, but he didn't succeed," said Dawn. "Once again my sister was too strong for him, which is just as well since he'll never be doing that again."
"What do you mean, 'again'?" asked Kennedy. "And how do you know that he'll never be doing it again?"
"Oh, just a hunch," said Dawn. "Buffy is not the only one in this household who has visions. By the way, there's a notebook on the table full of phrases in Cantonese that I found on the Internet. I figured that as long as Chao-Ahn is staying with us, we might as well find some way to communicate with her."
"Why, thank you, Dawn," said Kennedy. "That's so thoughtful of you. But why didn't you let Giles or Willow do that?"
"Because there are some certain things that need to be done that Giles or Willow -- or even Buffy -- can't -- or won't -- be bothered to do," said Dawn. "And apparently that is my job now -- to do the things that need to be done that others seem unwilling to do. Now if you'll excuse me, Kennedy, I need to go clean up the basement."
"Yes, I suppose you'd better," said Kennedy. "It smells like somebody's been burning trash down there."
"Yes, that's one way to put it," said Dawn with an enigmatic expression on her face.
"Dawn at Dusk"
Dawn was still standing by the kitchen sink as she cleaned the gasoline off of her hands when Kennedy came into the house from the back yard.
"Dawn," she asked, "have you seen Spike today? It's almost time for our nightly training exercises and I don't see him anywhere."
"I don't think Spike is going to participate in any more training exercises," said Dawn. "He and my sister had a big fight yesterday and I believe that he's decided to move on."
"A fight?" asked Kennedy. "Was that what all the shouting was about yesterday?"
"Probably," said Dawn with a shrug.
"So that explains all the bruises on her arm," said Kennedy. "He didn't try to -- "
"Well, he tried, but he didn't succeed," said Dawn. "Once again my sister was too strong for him, which is just as well since he'll never be doing that again."
"What do you mean, 'again'?" asked Kennedy. "And how do you know that he'll never be doing it again?"
"Oh, just a hunch," said Dawn. "Buffy is not the only one in this household who has visions. By the way, there's a notebook on the table full of phrases in Cantonese that I found on the Internet. I figured that as long as Chao-Ahn is staying with us, we might as well find some way to communicate with her."
"Why, thank you, Dawn," said Kennedy. "That's so thoughtful of you. But why didn't you let Giles or Willow do that?"
"Because there are some certain things that need to be done that Giles or Willow -- or even Buffy -- can't -- or won't -- be bothered to do," said Dawn. "And apparently that is my job now -- to do the things that need to be done that others seem unwilling to do. Now if you'll excuse me, Kennedy, I need to go clean up the basement."
"Yes, I suppose you'd better," said Kennedy. "It smells like somebody's been burning trash down there."
"Yes, that's one way to put it," said Dawn with an enigmatic expression on her face.
Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Cuento de Mi Id
“Love Among the Runes”
(This was one of my many early attempts to write a proper horror story. It is surprising how dated many of the pop culture references are, which is something I consider weird since I did not originally intend this story to be a period piece. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it.)
“But I love you,” Kenneth said, tugging at her coat.
“But I don’t love you,” said Katherine. “That’s just the point.” She pulled her coat out of Kenneth’s grasp and continued on her way.
“Why?” asked Kenneth. “Why don’t you love me?”
“I don’t know ‘why’ I don’t love you,” said Katherine. “I just don’t. It’s not something you can make happen just like that.” She snapped her fingers for effect.
Kenneth just shook his head. “I don’t get it. I love you. Why don’t you love me?”
Because true love is not like exchanging gifts at the office Christmas party, she wanted to say. But she didn’t say it. Somehow she couldn’t bear to hurt him by being that harsh with him, even though he deserved it. Perhaps she really did love him, after all.
Don’t be ridiculous, she thought. Just because I don’t want to hurt his feelings doesn’t mean I love him, and even if it did, I certainly don’t love him in the sense that he means. In any event, love isn’t something you receive upon demand. How did that song go? “Lose your love when you say the word ‘mine’”? Or was that “you can’t hurry love”? It didn’t matter. The fact still remained that you can’t force someone to love you. Yet Kenneth was determined to violate that basic law of nature.
He clutched at her coat one more time. “Won’t you please reconsider?”
Katherine forcibly pulled the coat fabric out of his hands. “I have reconsidered,” she said. “And the answer’s still no.”
Kenneth started to step toward her again, then reconsidered and stepped back. Good, thought Katherine. He’s learning.
Kenneth’s mouth opened as if he was starting to say something but he apparently thought better of that, too, and closed it. “I hope you never fall in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, Katherine,” he finally said.
“I’m sure I won’t,” she replied.
Kenneth couldn’t resist trying one last time. “I really do love you, you know.”
“Oh, please,” Katherine muttered under her breath. She turned on her heel and stalked off toward the parking lot. If Kenneth wanted to play the role of the tragic lover, that was his business. But Katherine had no interest in sticking around to play the cold-hearted love interest. She had her own life to lead.
Halfway to her way, a cold November breeze induced her to put her hands in her pockets. As she did so, she discovered a small piece of paper in her left coat pocket. Kenneth’s handiwork, obviously. He must have slipped it into her pocket while she was taking to him. No wonder he had been tugging at her coat so much.
She pulled out the piece of paper and unfolded it. She might as well have left it in her pocket for all the good it did her; the note itself was obviously written in a foreign tongue, in letters so strange Katherine could not even recognize what language it was written in. Nice going, Kenneth, she thought. You go to all this trouble to slip your favorite lady a love letter, and you don’t even bother to write it in English. Very impressive.
She crumbled up the note and tossed it away. Within seconds, the wind had caught it, and the note was blown halfway across the parking lot. Perfect ending to a perfect day, she thought. Then she reached into her purse for her car keys…
By the time she got home, there was a blinking red light on her answering machine. No way I’m answering that, she thought. You don’t have to be the Amazing Kreskin to guess who that was.
She hurriedly undressed and took a quick shower. While she was in the shower, she heard the phone ring yet again, but she ignored it. The phone rang yet a third time after she got out of the shower.
She let the machine get it again.
“Katherine,” said the voice on the machine. ”You must call me back as soon as possible. My number’s 972-435-9075. It’s a matter of great importance. Please call me back.”
Katherine sighed. Everything was a matter of great importance to Kenneth. Didn’t he have a life of his own? He probably did, she realized upon reflection. The problem was that at least half of it revolved around dreams of her. As if she was supposed to be flattered that Kenneth picked her to be his dream girl. Face it, Kenneth. You’re no Brad Pitt. And anyway, I don’t want a man who loves only me. I’m not sure what I want, but it’s definitely not you.
She thought about the party she would be attending tomorrow night. The odds were that the men she met there would be no improvement over Kenneth, but there was always a chance. And besides, where is it written that you had to “settle” for second-best? Katherine was always having to “settle” for things. Well, no more. This time she would take control of her life.
The phone rang again. This time she picked it up.
It was Kenneth. “Thank God you’re home. They’ve been watching us, you see, and they must have slipped something in your coat pocket--”
“What’s with this ‘they’, Kenneth?” she interrupted. “Is this another scheme of yours to get me to go out with you? Because if it is--”
“No, it isn’t,” Kenneth replied. “I swear. It’s just that they’ve been following me for the last two days, and just tonight, I noticed that they’re starting to follow you, and--”
“Who’s ‘they,’ Kenneth? Some schoolboy chum of yours?”
“No, they’re this -- Well, you won’t believe me when I tell you this, but I used to belong to this group, see, and they were really into mythology, see--”
“Is this going to take long?” Katherine asked.
“No, it’s not. You see, they’re after you now because they’ve seen us together, and they must think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. Anyway, I saw one of them hanging around the coatroom today and --”
“And then you conveniently remembered that in time to give you an excuse to come over to my house,” said Katherine. “Thanks, Kenneth, but no thanks. I’m not going out with you no matter what silly story you conjure up. And stop flattering yourself. Your friends must be the least observant people on Earth if they think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend because at no time did I ever give you or any third party any reason to think that we were. Now leave me alone before I call the police.”
“But what about the not--?” Katherine hung up on him.
Great, she thought. Now Kenneth was inventing conspiracy theories to get close to her. If this kept up, she might have to seriously consider changing jobs. Surely her current paycheck wasn’t worth this hassle.
The doorbell rang. Katherine checked the peephole. No one on the front porch. Probably high school kids pulling another prank. If she ever got her hands on that Kenneth…
The phone rang again. It was Kenneth, of course, mumbling something about a note in her pocket. If he was so sure someone else had slipped a note into her pocket, why didn’t he tell her about it earlier? He must have seen her throw it away. That’s why he was so upset. Well, he should start getting used to rejection, thought Katherine. She certainly had.
She turned the TV on and sorted her mail by the light of a Cheers rerun. Just bills and junk mail again. She sighed.
At least the sound of canned laughter drowned out Kenneth’s voice. Maybe she’ll get lucky, and he’ll run out of quarters.
The doorbell rang again. Those darn kids again. Or maybe it was Kenneth. Maybe she should get her mace... No, she could handle him.
She peered out the peephole again. The porch was empty. It was kids, she thought. Or was it? Maybe she should start taking Kenneth’s bizarre story seriously. No, that’s exactly what he was expecting her to do. Perhaps he had set this whole thing up as part of some sadistic prank. You never could tell. Sure, Kenneth looked like a nice guy on the surface, but underneath? Who could tell? Remember Jodie Foster? Forget it. If Kenneth thought sadistic pranks were going to drive her into his arms, he had a long wait coming. If he kept it up, she‘d just call the cops on him. She wasn‘t born yesterday, you know.
The phone rang again. She turned the sound up on the TV. There. That showed him.
Then the doorbell rang again. Katherine got her mace. Next time it rings, she thought, I‘ll be ready.
She glanced out the front window. She thought she saw a white-faced figure dressed in black, but it turned out to be a piece of paper stuck on a bush. Then the wind blew, and the paper vanished.
The phone rang. This time she picked it up.
“If you don‘t stop harassing me--” she started.
“Katherine,” Kenneth interrupted, “you must get out of that house. They know where you live.”
“I‘m warning you, Kenneth--”
“No, I‘m warning you. There‘s still a chance if you still have that note. Just give it to me and I can--”
“I threw it away.”
“What?”” Kenneth sounded stunned.
“I threw it away. And I must say that I‘m getting sick and tired of all these pranks you keep pulling, Kenneth. I know you feel rejected, but I thought that you would be a better man than that.”
“But I‘m not -- Oh, I see. They‘re doing it.”
“Who‘s ‘they,’ Kenneth?”
”The guys I told you about. The ones who are into black mag--”
Katherine hung up on him.
The doorbell rang again. This time Katherine strode right up to the door and pulled it open in time to catch a miniature figure kneeling on the doormat.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
The kid looked up. “That man down the street told me to do this.” The kid pointed down the block.
Katherine walked out onto the porch and caught a glimpse of a solitary figure standing beneath a distant streetlamp. Kenneth, no doubt.
“Go away,” she said to the kid.
She locked the door behind her and ran to the phone. That was it for Kenneth, she thought. Now she was going to sic the police on him.
The doorbell rang.
She ignored it.
Someone tapped on her window. She ignored that, too.
An operator answered and put her on hold. Just like a Tonight Show joke, she thought.
The tapping grew louder.
She turned and saw Kenneth at the front window.
The operator came back on the line.
“Come quick,” she said. “There’s a man outside and he’s trying to break into the house.”
She hurriedly gave the operator her name and address and then hung up. Kenneth was gone from the front window. But he could still be outside, she thought.
The doorbell rang again.
“Go away!” she shouted.
Something thin and white emerged from beneath the front door. It was a note. “Get out of the house,” it said.
She crumbled it up and threw it away.
Then the phone rang. She ignored it. She thought about the back door. She rushed back to check on it.
When she got back to the living room, the doorbell was ringing again. She peered through the peephole. There was a cop on the front porch, peering into the bushes.
“Thank God,” she muttered.
She hurriedly unlocked the door. “You wouldn’t believe what has been going on here tonig--” she started to say.
Then the cop turned toward her. The first thing she saw was a face that looked like a crumbled sheet of paper.
“Love Among the Runes”
(This was one of my many early attempts to write a proper horror story. It is surprising how dated many of the pop culture references are, which is something I consider weird since I did not originally intend this story to be a period piece. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it.)
“But I love you,” Kenneth said, tugging at her coat.
“But I don’t love you,” said Katherine. “That’s just the point.” She pulled her coat out of Kenneth’s grasp and continued on her way.
“Why?” asked Kenneth. “Why don’t you love me?”
“I don’t know ‘why’ I don’t love you,” said Katherine. “I just don’t. It’s not something you can make happen just like that.” She snapped her fingers for effect.
Kenneth just shook his head. “I don’t get it. I love you. Why don’t you love me?”
Because true love is not like exchanging gifts at the office Christmas party, she wanted to say. But she didn’t say it. Somehow she couldn’t bear to hurt him by being that harsh with him, even though he deserved it. Perhaps she really did love him, after all.
Don’t be ridiculous, she thought. Just because I don’t want to hurt his feelings doesn’t mean I love him, and even if it did, I certainly don’t love him in the sense that he means. In any event, love isn’t something you receive upon demand. How did that song go? “Lose your love when you say the word ‘mine’”? Or was that “you can’t hurry love”? It didn’t matter. The fact still remained that you can’t force someone to love you. Yet Kenneth was determined to violate that basic law of nature.
He clutched at her coat one more time. “Won’t you please reconsider?”
Katherine forcibly pulled the coat fabric out of his hands. “I have reconsidered,” she said. “And the answer’s still no.”
Kenneth started to step toward her again, then reconsidered and stepped back. Good, thought Katherine. He’s learning.
Kenneth’s mouth opened as if he was starting to say something but he apparently thought better of that, too, and closed it. “I hope you never fall in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, Katherine,” he finally said.
“I’m sure I won’t,” she replied.
Kenneth couldn’t resist trying one last time. “I really do love you, you know.”
“Oh, please,” Katherine muttered under her breath. She turned on her heel and stalked off toward the parking lot. If Kenneth wanted to play the role of the tragic lover, that was his business. But Katherine had no interest in sticking around to play the cold-hearted love interest. She had her own life to lead.
Halfway to her way, a cold November breeze induced her to put her hands in her pockets. As she did so, she discovered a small piece of paper in her left coat pocket. Kenneth’s handiwork, obviously. He must have slipped it into her pocket while she was taking to him. No wonder he had been tugging at her coat so much.
She pulled out the piece of paper and unfolded it. She might as well have left it in her pocket for all the good it did her; the note itself was obviously written in a foreign tongue, in letters so strange Katherine could not even recognize what language it was written in. Nice going, Kenneth, she thought. You go to all this trouble to slip your favorite lady a love letter, and you don’t even bother to write it in English. Very impressive.
She crumbled up the note and tossed it away. Within seconds, the wind had caught it, and the note was blown halfway across the parking lot. Perfect ending to a perfect day, she thought. Then she reached into her purse for her car keys…
By the time she got home, there was a blinking red light on her answering machine. No way I’m answering that, she thought. You don’t have to be the Amazing Kreskin to guess who that was.
She hurriedly undressed and took a quick shower. While she was in the shower, she heard the phone ring yet again, but she ignored it. The phone rang yet a third time after she got out of the shower.
She let the machine get it again.
“Katherine,” said the voice on the machine. ”You must call me back as soon as possible. My number’s 972-435-9075. It’s a matter of great importance. Please call me back.”
Katherine sighed. Everything was a matter of great importance to Kenneth. Didn’t he have a life of his own? He probably did, she realized upon reflection. The problem was that at least half of it revolved around dreams of her. As if she was supposed to be flattered that Kenneth picked her to be his dream girl. Face it, Kenneth. You’re no Brad Pitt. And anyway, I don’t want a man who loves only me. I’m not sure what I want, but it’s definitely not you.
She thought about the party she would be attending tomorrow night. The odds were that the men she met there would be no improvement over Kenneth, but there was always a chance. And besides, where is it written that you had to “settle” for second-best? Katherine was always having to “settle” for things. Well, no more. This time she would take control of her life.
The phone rang again. This time she picked it up.
It was Kenneth. “Thank God you’re home. They’ve been watching us, you see, and they must have slipped something in your coat pocket--”
“What’s with this ‘they’, Kenneth?” she interrupted. “Is this another scheme of yours to get me to go out with you? Because if it is--”
“No, it isn’t,” Kenneth replied. “I swear. It’s just that they’ve been following me for the last two days, and just tonight, I noticed that they’re starting to follow you, and--”
“Who’s ‘they,’ Kenneth? Some schoolboy chum of yours?”
“No, they’re this -- Well, you won’t believe me when I tell you this, but I used to belong to this group, see, and they were really into mythology, see--”
“Is this going to take long?” Katherine asked.
“No, it’s not. You see, they’re after you now because they’ve seen us together, and they must think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. Anyway, I saw one of them hanging around the coatroom today and --”
“And then you conveniently remembered that in time to give you an excuse to come over to my house,” said Katherine. “Thanks, Kenneth, but no thanks. I’m not going out with you no matter what silly story you conjure up. And stop flattering yourself. Your friends must be the least observant people on Earth if they think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend because at no time did I ever give you or any third party any reason to think that we were. Now leave me alone before I call the police.”
“But what about the not--?” Katherine hung up on him.
Great, she thought. Now Kenneth was inventing conspiracy theories to get close to her. If this kept up, she might have to seriously consider changing jobs. Surely her current paycheck wasn’t worth this hassle.
The doorbell rang. Katherine checked the peephole. No one on the front porch. Probably high school kids pulling another prank. If she ever got her hands on that Kenneth…
The phone rang again. It was Kenneth, of course, mumbling something about a note in her pocket. If he was so sure someone else had slipped a note into her pocket, why didn’t he tell her about it earlier? He must have seen her throw it away. That’s why he was so upset. Well, he should start getting used to rejection, thought Katherine. She certainly had.
She turned the TV on and sorted her mail by the light of a Cheers rerun. Just bills and junk mail again. She sighed.
At least the sound of canned laughter drowned out Kenneth’s voice. Maybe she’ll get lucky, and he’ll run out of quarters.
The doorbell rang again. Those darn kids again. Or maybe it was Kenneth. Maybe she should get her mace... No, she could handle him.
She peered out the peephole again. The porch was empty. It was kids, she thought. Or was it? Maybe she should start taking Kenneth’s bizarre story seriously. No, that’s exactly what he was expecting her to do. Perhaps he had set this whole thing up as part of some sadistic prank. You never could tell. Sure, Kenneth looked like a nice guy on the surface, but underneath? Who could tell? Remember Jodie Foster? Forget it. If Kenneth thought sadistic pranks were going to drive her into his arms, he had a long wait coming. If he kept it up, she‘d just call the cops on him. She wasn‘t born yesterday, you know.
The phone rang again. She turned the sound up on the TV. There. That showed him.
Then the doorbell rang again. Katherine got her mace. Next time it rings, she thought, I‘ll be ready.
She glanced out the front window. She thought she saw a white-faced figure dressed in black, but it turned out to be a piece of paper stuck on a bush. Then the wind blew, and the paper vanished.
The phone rang. This time she picked it up.
“If you don‘t stop harassing me--” she started.
“Katherine,” Kenneth interrupted, “you must get out of that house. They know where you live.”
“I‘m warning you, Kenneth--”
“No, I‘m warning you. There‘s still a chance if you still have that note. Just give it to me and I can--”
“I threw it away.”
“What?”” Kenneth sounded stunned.
“I threw it away. And I must say that I‘m getting sick and tired of all these pranks you keep pulling, Kenneth. I know you feel rejected, but I thought that you would be a better man than that.”
“But I‘m not -- Oh, I see. They‘re doing it.”
“Who‘s ‘they,’ Kenneth?”
”The guys I told you about. The ones who are into black mag--”
Katherine hung up on him.
The doorbell rang again. This time Katherine strode right up to the door and pulled it open in time to catch a miniature figure kneeling on the doormat.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
The kid looked up. “That man down the street told me to do this.” The kid pointed down the block.
Katherine walked out onto the porch and caught a glimpse of a solitary figure standing beneath a distant streetlamp. Kenneth, no doubt.
“Go away,” she said to the kid.
She locked the door behind her and ran to the phone. That was it for Kenneth, she thought. Now she was going to sic the police on him.
The doorbell rang.
She ignored it.
Someone tapped on her window. She ignored that, too.
An operator answered and put her on hold. Just like a Tonight Show joke, she thought.
The tapping grew louder.
She turned and saw Kenneth at the front window.
The operator came back on the line.
“Come quick,” she said. “There’s a man outside and he’s trying to break into the house.”
She hurriedly gave the operator her name and address and then hung up. Kenneth was gone from the front window. But he could still be outside, she thought.
The doorbell rang again.
“Go away!” she shouted.
Something thin and white emerged from beneath the front door. It was a note. “Get out of the house,” it said.
She crumbled it up and threw it away.
Then the phone rang. She ignored it. She thought about the back door. She rushed back to check on it.
When she got back to the living room, the doorbell was ringing again. She peered through the peephole. There was a cop on the front porch, peering into the bushes.
“Thank God,” she muttered.
She hurriedly unlocked the door. “You wouldn’t believe what has been going on here tonig--” she started to say.
Then the cop turned toward her. The first thing she saw was a face that looked like a crumbled sheet of paper.
Monday, September 30, 2019
Cuento de Mi Id
“The Harrowing”
It is said that there are seven gates through which one must pass on the way to the underworld and that at each gate, one must discard an article of clothing to demonstrate one's vulnerability to the Ruler of the Underworld. Whether the rules were the same for men as well as for women, Theadora did not know. Nor did she know what became of one's clothing after it was discarded. She only knew that somewhere during the course of her journey, she had evidently miscounted. Either that or the sages were wrong -- there were eight gates through which she must pass.
At the first gate, she abandoned her shoes. The path before her was still strewn with small rocks and pebbles yet she deliberately chose to bare her feet before she bared any other part of her body.
At the second gate, she stripped off her stockings.
At the third, she took off her earrings.
At the fourth, she slithered out of her skirt, and at the fifth, she discarded her blouse.
At the sixth, she unhooked her bra and walked topless into the increasing darkness.
At the seventh, she shivered in the cold as she looked up at what had to be the largest gate she had ever seen in her life. The path was made of smooth stone now but that was not what bothered her. For after she walked through this gate, she would be naked. Not just naked, but butt-nekkid, nude, bare as a baby's bottom, sky-clad, naked as a jaybird, in puris naturalibus, wearing only a smile, clad in her birthday suit, in the altogether, adorned by air, decorated by dew, dressed in nothing and wrapped in emptiness. She had nothing more to abandon.
And yet on the other side of that gate, she came upon an even larger gate.
She rubbed her hands together and felt something on one of her fingers. But of course. Her wedding ring. She mumbled a quick prayer of forgiveness to her departed husband and took off the ring. She would never see this ring again, she thought. As it hit the stone ground besides her, the gate slowly opened and before her sat the Ruler of the Underworld. A figure that few people could view without going mad and that few madmen could view without going catatonic.
In a glacial voice the figure bade her step forward.
Theadora did so, shivering in the dark cold.
She knelt before the figure as the elders had taught her and murmured her prayer.
Then she waited.
After a wait in which every second seemed to take a century to pass, the Ruler spoke.
“What... do... you... want?”
“I want...”
Suddenly her throat went dry. What did she want? Part of her wanted to run away -- to scream and run back through the eight gates before it was too late. But that was too easy. It also seemed too much like the type of thing that the thing on the throne would want her to do.
She looked upon the unspeakable once again. Dared to look it in the eye. The thing was older than old, so wrinkled that Theadora could hardly tell if it were a man or a woman. It wore a wrinkled robe that threatened to fall apart any second and reveal the creature's nakedness. Its hair was just short enough to disguise its gender -- too long for a man, too short for a woman. Theadora got the feeling that the Ruler had been old when the Creator Herself had been young. She then got the feeling that the Ruler might even have once ruled the Upper World in a far older past, before its world was replaced by the present one and its powers confined to the world of the dead.
“I want my mother,” she said.
The Ruler smiled. It was an evil smile, one that hinted at infinite malice, but it was a smile.
Then the Ruler laughed. For centuries it seemed to laugh and then it would pause for a moment and start right up again.
Then it stopped.
“Are...you...sure?” it asked.
“I am,” said Theadora.
“Very...well,” said the figure on the throne. “Come... to... me.”
Theadora walked forward. The figure stood up, dropped its robe, and glanced down at Theadora, no doubt expecting an expression of shock or alarm.
Theadora refused to let the tiniest expression cross her face. Not even when the creature embraced her. Not even when it kissed her. Not even when it thrust its tongue between her teeth and its hands between her legs and pressed her upon the hard ground.
The ruler's embrace was cold. Very cold.
And then...
“Arise...” It said.
It sat back upon its throne and wiped itself with the remnant of its clothing. “Go... back... through... the... gates..."
“By... each... gate... there... will... be... a... piece... of... cloth-... ing..."
“Put... it... on...."
“Do... not... look... back..."
“If... you... ev-... er... re-... turn... here... a-... gain... you... had... bet-... ter... be... plan-... ning... to... stay...”
The ruler seemed to be smiling, but Theadora could not tell.
She turned, dabbed at the liquid between her legs, and walked up to the last gate.
There on the ground lay a ring.
She bent down to pick it up, not caring what sort of view she gave to the figure who sat behind her. As she put on the ring and walked through the gate, the mighty gate closed behind her.
Keep walking, she thought. Keep walking.
At the next gate, there was a scarf.
At the one after that, a pair of earrings.
Wait a second, she thought. I don't like this trend.
At the fourth gate, there was a pair of shoes.
Wait a minute, Theadora thought. It is almost as if it wanted me to stay naked.
At the fifth gate, there was a bracelet.
At the sixth, a pearl necklace.
At the seventh, a bra.
And at the eighth...
At last, she thought. A dress.
She ran forward into the sunlight.
Reached behind the gate to pick up the dress.
The gate closed.
Leaving her in sunlight...
And in the middle of a busy intersection.
“Wait a minute,” she thought. “I didn't enter through here. The Lord of the Underworld tricked me.”
As the eyes of a hundred passersby stared at her, she tried to put on her dress.
But as soon as she put it on, she heard...
“For heaven's sake, Theadora. How dare you act like that in public!”
She turned toward the voice.
Saw a pale figure standing in the middle of the intersection.
Then the gate re-opened and a mighty wind blew the figure away into the darkness beyond.
“Wait!” Theadora shouted.
The gate closed.
Nothing remained to mark its existence but her memory.
She was still pounding on the pavement where it had existed when the men in the white coats arrived.
“The Harrowing”
It is said that there are seven gates through which one must pass on the way to the underworld and that at each gate, one must discard an article of clothing to demonstrate one's vulnerability to the Ruler of the Underworld. Whether the rules were the same for men as well as for women, Theadora did not know. Nor did she know what became of one's clothing after it was discarded. She only knew that somewhere during the course of her journey, she had evidently miscounted. Either that or the sages were wrong -- there were eight gates through which she must pass.
At the first gate, she abandoned her shoes. The path before her was still strewn with small rocks and pebbles yet she deliberately chose to bare her feet before she bared any other part of her body.
At the second gate, she stripped off her stockings.
At the third, she took off her earrings.
At the fourth, she slithered out of her skirt, and at the fifth, she discarded her blouse.
At the sixth, she unhooked her bra and walked topless into the increasing darkness.
At the seventh, she shivered in the cold as she looked up at what had to be the largest gate she had ever seen in her life. The path was made of smooth stone now but that was not what bothered her. For after she walked through this gate, she would be naked. Not just naked, but butt-nekkid, nude, bare as a baby's bottom, sky-clad, naked as a jaybird, in puris naturalibus, wearing only a smile, clad in her birthday suit, in the altogether, adorned by air, decorated by dew, dressed in nothing and wrapped in emptiness. She had nothing more to abandon.
And yet on the other side of that gate, she came upon an even larger gate.
She rubbed her hands together and felt something on one of her fingers. But of course. Her wedding ring. She mumbled a quick prayer of forgiveness to her departed husband and took off the ring. She would never see this ring again, she thought. As it hit the stone ground besides her, the gate slowly opened and before her sat the Ruler of the Underworld. A figure that few people could view without going mad and that few madmen could view without going catatonic.
In a glacial voice the figure bade her step forward.
Theadora did so, shivering in the dark cold.
She knelt before the figure as the elders had taught her and murmured her prayer.
Then she waited.
After a wait in which every second seemed to take a century to pass, the Ruler spoke.
“What... do... you... want?”
“I want...”
Suddenly her throat went dry. What did she want? Part of her wanted to run away -- to scream and run back through the eight gates before it was too late. But that was too easy. It also seemed too much like the type of thing that the thing on the throne would want her to do.
She looked upon the unspeakable once again. Dared to look it in the eye. The thing was older than old, so wrinkled that Theadora could hardly tell if it were a man or a woman. It wore a wrinkled robe that threatened to fall apart any second and reveal the creature's nakedness. Its hair was just short enough to disguise its gender -- too long for a man, too short for a woman. Theadora got the feeling that the Ruler had been old when the Creator Herself had been young. She then got the feeling that the Ruler might even have once ruled the Upper World in a far older past, before its world was replaced by the present one and its powers confined to the world of the dead.
“I want my mother,” she said.
The Ruler smiled. It was an evil smile, one that hinted at infinite malice, but it was a smile.
Then the Ruler laughed. For centuries it seemed to laugh and then it would pause for a moment and start right up again.
Then it stopped.
“Are...you...sure?” it asked.
“I am,” said Theadora.
“Very...well,” said the figure on the throne. “Come... to... me.”
Theadora walked forward. The figure stood up, dropped its robe, and glanced down at Theadora, no doubt expecting an expression of shock or alarm.
Theadora refused to let the tiniest expression cross her face. Not even when the creature embraced her. Not even when it kissed her. Not even when it thrust its tongue between her teeth and its hands between her legs and pressed her upon the hard ground.
The ruler's embrace was cold. Very cold.
And then...
“Arise...” It said.
It sat back upon its throne and wiped itself with the remnant of its clothing. “Go... back... through... the... gates..."
“By... each... gate... there... will... be... a... piece... of... cloth-... ing..."
“Put... it... on...."
“Do... not... look... back..."
“If... you... ev-... er... re-... turn... here... a-... gain... you... had... bet-... ter... be... plan-... ning... to... stay...”
The ruler seemed to be smiling, but Theadora could not tell.
She turned, dabbed at the liquid between her legs, and walked up to the last gate.
There on the ground lay a ring.
She bent down to pick it up, not caring what sort of view she gave to the figure who sat behind her. As she put on the ring and walked through the gate, the mighty gate closed behind her.
Keep walking, she thought. Keep walking.
At the next gate, there was a scarf.
At the one after that, a pair of earrings.
Wait a second, she thought. I don't like this trend.
At the fourth gate, there was a pair of shoes.
Wait a minute, Theadora thought. It is almost as if it wanted me to stay naked.
At the fifth gate, there was a bracelet.
At the sixth, a pearl necklace.
At the seventh, a bra.
And at the eighth...
At last, she thought. A dress.
She ran forward into the sunlight.
Reached behind the gate to pick up the dress.
The gate closed.
Leaving her in sunlight...
And in the middle of a busy intersection.
“Wait a minute,” she thought. “I didn't enter through here. The Lord of the Underworld tricked me.”
As the eyes of a hundred passersby stared at her, she tried to put on her dress.
But as soon as she put it on, she heard...
“For heaven's sake, Theadora. How dare you act like that in public!”
She turned toward the voice.
Saw a pale figure standing in the middle of the intersection.
Then the gate re-opened and a mighty wind blew the figure away into the darkness beyond.
“Wait!” Theadora shouted.
The gate closed.
Nothing remained to mark its existence but her memory.
She was still pounding on the pavement where it had existed when the men in the white coats arrived.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Cuento de Mi Id
“The Tocayo”
“Mar-teen!”
Martin turned to look behind him but there was no one there. Nothing behind or in front of him but shadows.
Must have been my imagination, he thought.
He continued onward.
“Mar-teen!”
Martin turned again. Again there was no one behind him.
My imagination again, he thought.
He started walking faster.
“Mar-teen!”
This time he almost jumped out of his skin. The voice sounded very close that time. Yet he could not tell where it was coming from.
One of the surrounding apartments maybe?
Perhaps but they all looked dark. It was unlikely that anyone was even in one of them. And even if there were, they were probably asleep.
Then who--
“Mar-teen!”
Martin started walking faster. He had no idea who was calling him, but they obviously meant no good if they kept ducking out of sight. Besides he didn’t even know this neighborhood. He normally rode the bus home at this hour. Just his luck that tonight he had stayed after class just a little too long and ended up having to walk home instead.
Still his home couldn’t be too far away. He just wished he knew the neighborhood better.
“Mar-teen!”
Martin circled around, hoping to see someone shouting at him from upon a fire escape or from behind a garbage can. But there was no one in sight. No one at all. Except himself.
“Mar-teen!”
It’s a gang, he thought. They spotted my umbrella and briefcase, and they assumed I was easy pickings. Never mind that I’m probably poorer than they are. They’d probably just make up the difference with bruises.
“Mar-teen!”
If it was a gang, he thought, it was a pretty strange one. And how did they know his name anyway?
“Mar-teen!”
They picked a name at random, he thought. The minute I reacted to it, they knew they had the right one.
He frowned. The thought of having been fooled so easily made him angry. He felt like throwing down his briefcase and umbrella and challenging the mysterious name callers to a fight. He would never do that though. He knew better.
“Mar-teen Gar-see-ah! Doan-dey ess-staas?”
The voice sounded strangely familiar. As if it were someone he knew.
That’s crazy, he thought. He didn’t know anyone in this neighborhood.
So how come they knew his complete name?
Coincidence, he thought. Just coincidence.
“Mar-teen Gar-see-ah! Doan-dey ess-stass?”
The buildings were starting to look more familiar now. He recognized the corner street light ahead and sighed with relief.
He suddenly realized that for the last few feet he had been brandishing his umbrella like a sword and his briefcase like a shield. Pretty foolish of him, he thought. He wasn’t the type to start a fight, and you could fill a thimble with everything he knew about self-defense. Still if he had discouraged someone from messing with him, it was worth it. Even cowards could fight when cornered.
“Mar-teen!”
There he went again. He was beginning to sound nearer. Much nearer. Yet Martin still couldn’t see who was calling that name.
There went the voice again, calling for Martin Garcia. By now he was sure it was a coincidence. After all, he was in plain sight. Why keep asking where he was?
Whoever the caller was, he was obviously after another Martin Garcia. Which was just fine with Martin. He had no intention of getting involved in another man’s business.
Then he rounded the corner and ran into a dark-clad figure. He stopped and dropped his jaw in amazement.
The stranger before him was just a few years younger than he was. Young enough to be a possible gang member.
His hands were empty but there was no telling what he had beneath that black windbreaker. And that face. If it had not been so pale and free of chickenpox scars, it would have almost an exact duplicate of Martin’s own face. A coincidence, perhaps, one worthy of all those dumb TV shows his cousins watched, but it was unsettling all the same.
“Who are you?” Martin asked.
The stranger before him answered, “Martin Garcia.”
Martin scowled. His hands curled into fists. He was tempted to deck the stranger, but he noticed by the boy’s trembling that he was more scared of Martin than vice versa.
Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he too was named Martin Garcia. It was not all that unlikely in this neighborhood.
“You’re kidding, right?” Martin asked, just to make sure.
The boy looked at him as if he was going to throw up.
“No, I’m not,” he said with an effort. “I really am Martin Garcia. Who are you?”
The unknown caller interrupted. “Mar-teen!”
Martin noticed that the boy paled as soon as he heard the voice.
“Who is that?” Martin asked.
The boy replied, “My father.”
“Your father?”
“Yes,” the boy said. “I ran away from home and now he wants me to go back.”
He looked Martin straight in the eye. “But I don’t want to go back. My father did mean things to me when I lived with him. He used to beat me and -- and --” his face blushed. “--treat me like a man treats a woman.”
Martin did not know what to say.
“That’s why I ran away,” said the stranger. “I -- I just couldn’t take it anymore. I tried to fight back but I couldn’t. He was too strong. Besides he’s my own father. So I ran away.”
“I see,” said Martin. Actually he did not see anything, but it seemed the right thing to say. The real scary part was how frightened the boy looked. Nobody deserved to be that scared of his own father.
He’s just a few years younger than me, Martin realized. He even has the same name. A tocayo, he thought. A namesake. There but for the grace of God...
“Mar-teen!”
The voice was louder this time -- and even closer than before. The boy grew paler.
“He’s coming,” the boy said.
Martin looked around. “Where is he?”
“Close,” said the boy. “Too close. He’s been following me ever since I ran away, and he doesn’t ever stop.”
Martin stared at the boy. “Why don’t you go to the police?”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” said the boy. “He’d just get me there. You see, just before I left home, I hit him on the head with a frying pan. I hit him real hard -- and it didn’t do any good. He still follows me.”
“But surely--”
“I hit him so hard his skull broke. I’m sure of it. And still he follows me.”
“Mar-teen!”
The voice sounded like it was just a few inches away now and still Martin could not see a thing. The boy’s eyes, however, were as wide as they could be.
He seemed to be staring at something just behind Martin’s shoulder -- something only he could see.
Then he screamed and ran off in the opposite direction. Martin started to run after him, then stopped and wondered what he was doing. It was then that he heard it. A second set of footsteps running right by him in the boy’s direction. And not a soul in sight.
There but for the grace of God, he thought. He walked hurriedly in the opposite direction.
*************************************************************************************************************
He did not bother to tell his parents about what he had seen that night. He did not tell anyone. He just went straight to his room and buried himself in his homework.
Martin was never so grateful for night school as he was that night. At least it gave something to think about apart from what he had seen. When at last he was through and he retired for the night, he wondered what had happened to the boy. None of his business, he decided. It wasn’t his problem.
Nevertheless, it was a sad case. And lying there in the darkness, Martin could almost hear the same voice he had heard before.
“Mar-teen...”
It must be his imagination, he decided. Or a dream.
Even the sound of pebbles being thrown at his window was just his subconscious’s interpretation of a more mundane sound.
“Mar-teen...”
The voice sounded louder now. The pebbles being thrown against the window sounded louder too. Almost any minute he would see his namesake before him...
Klunk!
Martin sat up in bed. For a minute there, it sounded as if someone had thrown a huge rock at the windowpane. He turned on the lamp on his nightstand and saw that the windowpane was still intact, the street below still empty.
It was just a dream, he decided.
He reached for the lamp switch and brushed against something. It was a human hand.
Before he could scream, another hand clamped itself over his mouth. Then the lamp went out and things got really interesting.
“The Tocayo”
“Mar-teen!”
Martin turned to look behind him but there was no one there. Nothing behind or in front of him but shadows.
Must have been my imagination, he thought.
He continued onward.
“Mar-teen!”
Martin turned again. Again there was no one behind him.
My imagination again, he thought.
He started walking faster.
“Mar-teen!”
This time he almost jumped out of his skin. The voice sounded very close that time. Yet he could not tell where it was coming from.
One of the surrounding apartments maybe?
Perhaps but they all looked dark. It was unlikely that anyone was even in one of them. And even if there were, they were probably asleep.
Then who--
“Mar-teen!”
Martin started walking faster. He had no idea who was calling him, but they obviously meant no good if they kept ducking out of sight. Besides he didn’t even know this neighborhood. He normally rode the bus home at this hour. Just his luck that tonight he had stayed after class just a little too long and ended up having to walk home instead.
Still his home couldn’t be too far away. He just wished he knew the neighborhood better.
“Mar-teen!”
Martin circled around, hoping to see someone shouting at him from upon a fire escape or from behind a garbage can. But there was no one in sight. No one at all. Except himself.
“Mar-teen!”
It’s a gang, he thought. They spotted my umbrella and briefcase, and they assumed I was easy pickings. Never mind that I’m probably poorer than they are. They’d probably just make up the difference with bruises.
“Mar-teen!”
If it was a gang, he thought, it was a pretty strange one. And how did they know his name anyway?
“Mar-teen!”
They picked a name at random, he thought. The minute I reacted to it, they knew they had the right one.
He frowned. The thought of having been fooled so easily made him angry. He felt like throwing down his briefcase and umbrella and challenging the mysterious name callers to a fight. He would never do that though. He knew better.
“Mar-teen Gar-see-ah! Doan-dey ess-staas?”
The voice sounded strangely familiar. As if it were someone he knew.
That’s crazy, he thought. He didn’t know anyone in this neighborhood.
So how come they knew his complete name?
Coincidence, he thought. Just coincidence.
“Mar-teen Gar-see-ah! Doan-dey ess-stass?”
The buildings were starting to look more familiar now. He recognized the corner street light ahead and sighed with relief.
He suddenly realized that for the last few feet he had been brandishing his umbrella like a sword and his briefcase like a shield. Pretty foolish of him, he thought. He wasn’t the type to start a fight, and you could fill a thimble with everything he knew about self-defense. Still if he had discouraged someone from messing with him, it was worth it. Even cowards could fight when cornered.
“Mar-teen!”
There he went again. He was beginning to sound nearer. Much nearer. Yet Martin still couldn’t see who was calling that name.
There went the voice again, calling for Martin Garcia. By now he was sure it was a coincidence. After all, he was in plain sight. Why keep asking where he was?
Whoever the caller was, he was obviously after another Martin Garcia. Which was just fine with Martin. He had no intention of getting involved in another man’s business.
Then he rounded the corner and ran into a dark-clad figure. He stopped and dropped his jaw in amazement.
The stranger before him was just a few years younger than he was. Young enough to be a possible gang member.
His hands were empty but there was no telling what he had beneath that black windbreaker. And that face. If it had not been so pale and free of chickenpox scars, it would have almost an exact duplicate of Martin’s own face. A coincidence, perhaps, one worthy of all those dumb TV shows his cousins watched, but it was unsettling all the same.
“Who are you?” Martin asked.
The stranger before him answered, “Martin Garcia.”
Martin scowled. His hands curled into fists. He was tempted to deck the stranger, but he noticed by the boy’s trembling that he was more scared of Martin than vice versa.
Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he too was named Martin Garcia. It was not all that unlikely in this neighborhood.
“You’re kidding, right?” Martin asked, just to make sure.
The boy looked at him as if he was going to throw up.
“No, I’m not,” he said with an effort. “I really am Martin Garcia. Who are you?”
The unknown caller interrupted. “Mar-teen!”
Martin noticed that the boy paled as soon as he heard the voice.
“Who is that?” Martin asked.
The boy replied, “My father.”
“Your father?”
“Yes,” the boy said. “I ran away from home and now he wants me to go back.”
He looked Martin straight in the eye. “But I don’t want to go back. My father did mean things to me when I lived with him. He used to beat me and -- and --” his face blushed. “--treat me like a man treats a woman.”
Martin did not know what to say.
“That’s why I ran away,” said the stranger. “I -- I just couldn’t take it anymore. I tried to fight back but I couldn’t. He was too strong. Besides he’s my own father. So I ran away.”
“I see,” said Martin. Actually he did not see anything, but it seemed the right thing to say. The real scary part was how frightened the boy looked. Nobody deserved to be that scared of his own father.
He’s just a few years younger than me, Martin realized. He even has the same name. A tocayo, he thought. A namesake. There but for the grace of God...
“Mar-teen!”
The voice was louder this time -- and even closer than before. The boy grew paler.
“He’s coming,” the boy said.
Martin looked around. “Where is he?”
“Close,” said the boy. “Too close. He’s been following me ever since I ran away, and he doesn’t ever stop.”
Martin stared at the boy. “Why don’t you go to the police?”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” said the boy. “He’d just get me there. You see, just before I left home, I hit him on the head with a frying pan. I hit him real hard -- and it didn’t do any good. He still follows me.”
“But surely--”
“I hit him so hard his skull broke. I’m sure of it. And still he follows me.”
“Mar-teen!”
The voice sounded like it was just a few inches away now and still Martin could not see a thing. The boy’s eyes, however, were as wide as they could be.
He seemed to be staring at something just behind Martin’s shoulder -- something only he could see.
Then he screamed and ran off in the opposite direction. Martin started to run after him, then stopped and wondered what he was doing. It was then that he heard it. A second set of footsteps running right by him in the boy’s direction. And not a soul in sight.
There but for the grace of God, he thought. He walked hurriedly in the opposite direction.
*************************************************************************************************************
He did not bother to tell his parents about what he had seen that night. He did not tell anyone. He just went straight to his room and buried himself in his homework.
Martin was never so grateful for night school as he was that night. At least it gave something to think about apart from what he had seen. When at last he was through and he retired for the night, he wondered what had happened to the boy. None of his business, he decided. It wasn’t his problem.
Nevertheless, it was a sad case. And lying there in the darkness, Martin could almost hear the same voice he had heard before.
“Mar-teen...”
It must be his imagination, he decided. Or a dream.
Even the sound of pebbles being thrown at his window was just his subconscious’s interpretation of a more mundane sound.
“Mar-teen...”
The voice sounded louder now. The pebbles being thrown against the window sounded louder too. Almost any minute he would see his namesake before him...
Klunk!
Martin sat up in bed. For a minute there, it sounded as if someone had thrown a huge rock at the windowpane. He turned on the lamp on his nightstand and saw that the windowpane was still intact, the street below still empty.
It was just a dream, he decided.
He reached for the lamp switch and brushed against something. It was a human hand.
Before he could scream, another hand clamped itself over his mouth. Then the lamp went out and things got really interesting.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Cuento de Mi Id
“Werewives of London”
I was awakened by my wife one night when there was a full moon. I felt her move against me as she got up and I opened my eyes in time to see her walking out the bedroom door.
I followed her as she sleepwalked through the house and the backyard. I saw her walk down to the old pond and then strip off her lily-white nightgown. By the time I caught up with her, she had already dived into the pond and little pieces of feminine underwear were scattered about the mud like pieces of a torn snakeskin.
I waited for her to rise out of the water. But the only thing that came out was a naked man who emerged on the opposite side of the pond and then disappeared into the woods beyond.
That was three days ago.
I'm still waiting for my wife.
“Werewives of London”
I was awakened by my wife one night when there was a full moon. I felt her move against me as she got up and I opened my eyes in time to see her walking out the bedroom door.
I followed her as she sleepwalked through the house and the backyard. I saw her walk down to the old pond and then strip off her lily-white nightgown. By the time I caught up with her, she had already dived into the pond and little pieces of feminine underwear were scattered about the mud like pieces of a torn snakeskin.
I waited for her to rise out of the water. But the only thing that came out was a naked man who emerged on the opposite side of the pond and then disappeared into the woods beyond.
That was three days ago.
I'm still waiting for my wife.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Cuento de Mi Id
“Bloodwaters”
It was a hot summer day and the sky was raining blood. Lots of it. A regular gullywasher. I ran inside as soon as it started and stared defiantly at the dark clouds from the safety of my bedroom window. But the blood did not cease falling.
In panic, I watched as the rain continued on and on, creating puddles out of dry patches and ponds out of puddles. The storm drains were regurgitating their unabsorbed contents into the city streets, transforming them into crimson canals... The front lawn became a scarlet lake and as the rising fluid began to pour over the curbs, I suddenly thought about Mom and Dad and how they were supposed to be coming home from work soon.
I ran for the kitchen phone and dialed my Dad’s work number. A busy signal answered so I tried Mom. Halfway through dialing, the phone went dead. So did the lights.
I ran out to the living room to examine the neighbors’ lights, but their houses were just as dark as mine. A part of me wondered idly about the conductibility of plasma and then I remembered the flood outside and how close it had been to my house.
By then, the red rain had reached the front hall. I had never seen rain flow uphill before but then this was not normal rain. I tried pushing it away with a mop but that only seemed to encourage it. So I ran.
I ran to my sanctuary of sanctuaries -- my bedroom. I huddled there on the bed in a panic. I thought idly of climbing out the window and escaping through the back yard but one glance outside showed me that the blood was just as deep out there as it was up front. So, like a dummy, I just sat there and prayed that God would make it go away. But He didn’t.
By then, the rain had begun to seep into my bedroom from beneath the door. I watched in horror as it darkened the nice clean white carpet and in desperation, I took my shoes off and climbed upon the bed, hoping upon hope that I had chosen the highest point in the room. The rain continued to flow in. The carpet by then was saturated with pink fluid and had begun to resemble a small pond. I thought about making a break for it across the squishy carpet but somehow the thought of touching it with my bare feet just seemed too much.
Then the bloodwaters rose higher and the room was covered with rich, flowing blood. I looked around in vain for a dry spot, certain now that I must escape that room or drown. But there was no place to go that was not already shin-deep in blood.
Eventually the fluid reached as high as the top of the bed. I drew back, climbing upon the pillows as if their combined height would save me from the rising tide.
By now it was so high that it was breaking out the window in my bedroom. Some of the fluid flowed out but much more flowed in. So I climbed atop my headboard and made a grab for the overhead light.
My fingers slipped. I lost my balance and fell. The plasma poured over me as I fell into it and when I tried to scream, it filled my mouth.
What will my parents think, I thought as I lost consciousness. What will my parents thin --
*************************************************************************************************************
At that point, the alarm clock rang. I awoke and noticed that there was no blood in my room. The window was still intact and there was no blood anywhere on my person.
I smiled, got up and went across the hall to the children’s bathroom to pee.
The door was open. Something inside smelled. One of my sisters had left her clothes all over the floor and it smelled as if she had forgotten to drain the bathtub after her morning shower.
I smelled something too. Like blood. And pee. And some other odors I wasn’t sure I wanted to identify.
I remembered my dream and shook my head. That had been just my imagination.
Perhaps my older sister Lupe was playing a trick on me -- though how she could have possibly known about my dream, I did not stop to ponder. Instead I turned and opened the shower curtain on the bathtub.
Someone had indeed forgotten to drain the bathtub and it didn’t just hold water. Instead it held Lupe’s naked body, her bloody wrists still staining the water a color that resembled the fluid I had seen in my dreams.
At that point, I opened my mouth to scream. But then I slipped and fell into the bathtub, at which point my sister’s blood started to pour into my mouth.
“Bloodwaters”
It was a hot summer day and the sky was raining blood. Lots of it. A regular gullywasher. I ran inside as soon as it started and stared defiantly at the dark clouds from the safety of my bedroom window. But the blood did not cease falling.
In panic, I watched as the rain continued on and on, creating puddles out of dry patches and ponds out of puddles. The storm drains were regurgitating their unabsorbed contents into the city streets, transforming them into crimson canals... The front lawn became a scarlet lake and as the rising fluid began to pour over the curbs, I suddenly thought about Mom and Dad and how they were supposed to be coming home from work soon.
I ran for the kitchen phone and dialed my Dad’s work number. A busy signal answered so I tried Mom. Halfway through dialing, the phone went dead. So did the lights.
I ran out to the living room to examine the neighbors’ lights, but their houses were just as dark as mine. A part of me wondered idly about the conductibility of plasma and then I remembered the flood outside and how close it had been to my house.
By then, the red rain had reached the front hall. I had never seen rain flow uphill before but then this was not normal rain. I tried pushing it away with a mop but that only seemed to encourage it. So I ran.
I ran to my sanctuary of sanctuaries -- my bedroom. I huddled there on the bed in a panic. I thought idly of climbing out the window and escaping through the back yard but one glance outside showed me that the blood was just as deep out there as it was up front. So, like a dummy, I just sat there and prayed that God would make it go away. But He didn’t.
By then, the rain had begun to seep into my bedroom from beneath the door. I watched in horror as it darkened the nice clean white carpet and in desperation, I took my shoes off and climbed upon the bed, hoping upon hope that I had chosen the highest point in the room. The rain continued to flow in. The carpet by then was saturated with pink fluid and had begun to resemble a small pond. I thought about making a break for it across the squishy carpet but somehow the thought of touching it with my bare feet just seemed too much.
Then the bloodwaters rose higher and the room was covered with rich, flowing blood. I looked around in vain for a dry spot, certain now that I must escape that room or drown. But there was no place to go that was not already shin-deep in blood.
Eventually the fluid reached as high as the top of the bed. I drew back, climbing upon the pillows as if their combined height would save me from the rising tide.
By now it was so high that it was breaking out the window in my bedroom. Some of the fluid flowed out but much more flowed in. So I climbed atop my headboard and made a grab for the overhead light.
My fingers slipped. I lost my balance and fell. The plasma poured over me as I fell into it and when I tried to scream, it filled my mouth.
What will my parents think, I thought as I lost consciousness. What will my parents thin --
*************************************************************************************************************
At that point, the alarm clock rang. I awoke and noticed that there was no blood in my room. The window was still intact and there was no blood anywhere on my person.
I smiled, got up and went across the hall to the children’s bathroom to pee.
The door was open. Something inside smelled. One of my sisters had left her clothes all over the floor and it smelled as if she had forgotten to drain the bathtub after her morning shower.
I smelled something too. Like blood. And pee. And some other odors I wasn’t sure I wanted to identify.
I remembered my dream and shook my head. That had been just my imagination.
Perhaps my older sister Lupe was playing a trick on me -- though how she could have possibly known about my dream, I did not stop to ponder. Instead I turned and opened the shower curtain on the bathtub.
Someone had indeed forgotten to drain the bathtub and it didn’t just hold water. Instead it held Lupe’s naked body, her bloody wrists still staining the water a color that resembled the fluid I had seen in my dreams.
At that point, I opened my mouth to scream. But then I slipped and fell into the bathtub, at which point my sister’s blood started to pour into my mouth.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Cuento de Mi Id
“The Last Day of Summer”
It was the last day of summer, and there was no one else on the beach.
Normally the beach would be quite crowded this time of year but now for some reason, it was empty. Quite empty.
Must be all the stuff that happened in Matamoros that did it, Callie thought. Stuff like that usually scares away the tourists; in fact, it always does.
But not her. She had waited too long for this break, this vacation. Waited too long for this week which was now drawing to a far too rapid end.
She had waited too long for a lot of things. Perhaps that was why she finally decided to kick off her flip-flops, strip off her bikini and plunge into the warm waters of the Gulf.
Not that it mattered. There was no one around to see. No one around for miles. And her friends back at the beach house had their own dates -- and undoubtedly they were already doing things with them that were far more daring.
But Callie did not feel sorry for herself. No, Callie was too good a person to do that. Better to hold it in. To swallow it down. To pretend it did not exist.
She did not need a date. She never did. She never will. She probably would not know what to do with a man even if she did meet one.
But she did know how to swim. She took lessons at the Y. And no matter how depressed she felt tonight, there was no way she was going to emulate that Crissie girl in the Benchley novel. She was much smarter than that.
Just swim to the buoy and back, she thought. Simple. In fact, she could do it dog-paddling. And no one on the shore could see her. No one at all.
There.
She touched it.
Now swim back, she thought.
Quick.
Before the sharks come.
Not that they will come, of course. You don't find many man-eaters in the Gulf. But then there is always a first time.
So Callie closed her eyes to protect them from the salt. And she swam back to the beach, stopping every so often to check for triangular fins.
But there were none.
Told ya, she thought.
Sharks are the world's oldest movie cliché, anyway. Stuff like that doesn't happen to people like Callie in real life. It just doesn't.
But it could.
Good thing she's not having her period.
They are attracted by blood, you know.
But the deed was done. She was through. She was finished.
She stood up and walked out of the water, feeling more than a little brazen.
Imagine me, she thought. Callie Martin, an actual skinnydipper.
She smiled and then glanced toward her clothes.
Only to notice that they weren't there.
But they were just there a few minutes ago, she thought. I know. I saw them.
Then where did they go?
Instinctively, she covered herself. Wrapped her arms around her torso as much as for warmth as for modesty.
The night wind was feeling quite chilly upon her backside and Callie was already beginning to regret her impulsive midnight swim.
Where are my clothes? she thought. Where are they?
She thought of what her friends back at the beach house would say if they saw her now. The inferences they would make and the assumptions that would not be true.
She thought about her parents and her grandparents and the kids back in high school. Kids she'd never thought she'd see again after graduation but who were bound to come into her life again once the scandal hit.
Then Callie saw a young Mexican girl up upon the dunes. She was wearing a red bikini. Her red bikini. Callie knew that much by instinct.
The girl was not facing her, choosing instead to concentrate on a pair of flip-flops she was putting on. Her flip-flops! They had to be.
In spite of her nakedness, Callie ran up to the girl and grabbed her arm.
"Those are my things!" she started to yell. But then the words died in her throat.
The face that looked back at her had once been pretty -- but no more. It was much battered and scarred. Nor did the scars stop at the girl's face. They ran all down her body as if they were seams -- invisible from a distance, of course, but all too visible up close.
If that were the worst of it, Callie might have continued. But she had already felt the girl's arm. Felt the girl's leathery arm. And she also smelled the aroma of something oozing up from the girl's body.
Then the girl grinned. Not a gold-toothed grin but it was quite obvious to Callie that the teeth did not match up with the girl's lips. Nor did the knife which the girl produced from within her bikini bottom's waistband.
Callie screamed but the girl just laughed. A harsh, masculine laugh that could not have come from such a girl under normal circumstances.
Then Callie ran. Not toward the beach house. But toward the sea.
She reached the surf before the Mexican girl did. She dived into it without a moment's hesitation and surfaced only after she had passed the shallow area. Then she swam out toward the buoy.
Only then did she turn around.
Only then did she notice that the Mexican girl was not following her into the sea. In fact, she was quite content to wait for Callie upon the shore with the knife still in her hand.
Callie let go of the buoy and dived into the sea. When she surfaced again, the girl was still waiting for her on the beach. Her arms were crossed this time, but she was still waiting. And as the girl started to sit down upon the sand, Callie suddenly realized that the girl could very well wait there all night.
That's okay, she thought.
I'll just wait her out.
I can swim. I can tread water. But apparently she can't do any of that or else she'd be out here already.
Good thing for me.
Now I just have to wait for dawn to arrive.
As soon as people start showing up on the beach, she'll have to move. Granted, the results might be a little embarrassing for me, but better that than whatever thing that girl had in mind.
Besides, she thought, I'm a lot warmer here in the ocean than I would be on the beach.
So warm, in fact, that Callie never really felt the onset of her period until the first drops of blood hit the water.
And a black triangle started zigzagging its way through the ocean behind her.
“The Last Day of Summer”
It was the last day of summer, and there was no one else on the beach.
Normally the beach would be quite crowded this time of year but now for some reason, it was empty. Quite empty.
Must be all the stuff that happened in Matamoros that did it, Callie thought. Stuff like that usually scares away the tourists; in fact, it always does.
But not her. She had waited too long for this break, this vacation. Waited too long for this week which was now drawing to a far too rapid end.
She had waited too long for a lot of things. Perhaps that was why she finally decided to kick off her flip-flops, strip off her bikini and plunge into the warm waters of the Gulf.
Not that it mattered. There was no one around to see. No one around for miles. And her friends back at the beach house had their own dates -- and undoubtedly they were already doing things with them that were far more daring.
But Callie did not feel sorry for herself. No, Callie was too good a person to do that. Better to hold it in. To swallow it down. To pretend it did not exist.
She did not need a date. She never did. She never will. She probably would not know what to do with a man even if she did meet one.
But she did know how to swim. She took lessons at the Y. And no matter how depressed she felt tonight, there was no way she was going to emulate that Crissie girl in the Benchley novel. She was much smarter than that.
Just swim to the buoy and back, she thought. Simple. In fact, she could do it dog-paddling. And no one on the shore could see her. No one at all.
There.
She touched it.
Now swim back, she thought.
Quick.
Before the sharks come.
Not that they will come, of course. You don't find many man-eaters in the Gulf. But then there is always a first time.
So Callie closed her eyes to protect them from the salt. And she swam back to the beach, stopping every so often to check for triangular fins.
But there were none.
Told ya, she thought.
Sharks are the world's oldest movie cliché, anyway. Stuff like that doesn't happen to people like Callie in real life. It just doesn't.
But it could.
Good thing she's not having her period.
They are attracted by blood, you know.
But the deed was done. She was through. She was finished.
She stood up and walked out of the water, feeling more than a little brazen.
Imagine me, she thought. Callie Martin, an actual skinnydipper.
She smiled and then glanced toward her clothes.
Only to notice that they weren't there.
But they were just there a few minutes ago, she thought. I know. I saw them.
Then where did they go?
Instinctively, she covered herself. Wrapped her arms around her torso as much as for warmth as for modesty.
The night wind was feeling quite chilly upon her backside and Callie was already beginning to regret her impulsive midnight swim.
Where are my clothes? she thought. Where are they?
She thought of what her friends back at the beach house would say if they saw her now. The inferences they would make and the assumptions that would not be true.
She thought about her parents and her grandparents and the kids back in high school. Kids she'd never thought she'd see again after graduation but who were bound to come into her life again once the scandal hit.
Then Callie saw a young Mexican girl up upon the dunes. She was wearing a red bikini. Her red bikini. Callie knew that much by instinct.
The girl was not facing her, choosing instead to concentrate on a pair of flip-flops she was putting on. Her flip-flops! They had to be.
In spite of her nakedness, Callie ran up to the girl and grabbed her arm.
"Those are my things!" she started to yell. But then the words died in her throat.
The face that looked back at her had once been pretty -- but no more. It was much battered and scarred. Nor did the scars stop at the girl's face. They ran all down her body as if they were seams -- invisible from a distance, of course, but all too visible up close.
If that were the worst of it, Callie might have continued. But she had already felt the girl's arm. Felt the girl's leathery arm. And she also smelled the aroma of something oozing up from the girl's body.
Then the girl grinned. Not a gold-toothed grin but it was quite obvious to Callie that the teeth did not match up with the girl's lips. Nor did the knife which the girl produced from within her bikini bottom's waistband.
Callie screamed but the girl just laughed. A harsh, masculine laugh that could not have come from such a girl under normal circumstances.
Then Callie ran. Not toward the beach house. But toward the sea.
She reached the surf before the Mexican girl did. She dived into it without a moment's hesitation and surfaced only after she had passed the shallow area. Then she swam out toward the buoy.
Only then did she turn around.
Only then did she notice that the Mexican girl was not following her into the sea. In fact, she was quite content to wait for Callie upon the shore with the knife still in her hand.
Callie let go of the buoy and dived into the sea. When she surfaced again, the girl was still waiting for her on the beach. Her arms were crossed this time, but she was still waiting. And as the girl started to sit down upon the sand, Callie suddenly realized that the girl could very well wait there all night.
That's okay, she thought.
I'll just wait her out.
I can swim. I can tread water. But apparently she can't do any of that or else she'd be out here already.
Good thing for me.
Now I just have to wait for dawn to arrive.
As soon as people start showing up on the beach, she'll have to move. Granted, the results might be a little embarrassing for me, but better that than whatever thing that girl had in mind.
Besides, she thought, I'm a lot warmer here in the ocean than I would be on the beach.
So warm, in fact, that Callie never really felt the onset of her period until the first drops of blood hit the water.
And a black triangle started zigzagging its way through the ocean behind her.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Cuento de Mi Id
“Blanca”
Blanca is knitting another sweater for me tonight. She knits something new every night yet she never finishes any of them.
Sometimes I joke with her that her mother should have named her Penelope. But she just smiles and glances at me with those ebony eyes of hers.
Arabic eyes, I call them. After five centuries, the long-dead Arabs of Spain still live on in a young woman’s eyes. Blanca’s eyes. The eyes of the prettiest woman in San Narciso.
*************************************************************************************************************
How I first met Blanca, I shall not say. Suffice it to say that as it is with many men of Mexican descent, it was a female relative of mine who saw her first and eventually introduced us. No paseo scene for me. The minute I first saw her entering her mother’s pharmacy, I fell in love with her. And I like to think that eventually she will fall in love with me. In time.
Our first meetings were at best platonic. I would visit her house and say hello to her mother and her younger siblings. Her younger brother would fetch me an apple which I would not eat and a Coke which I would not drink and after a while, we would go upstairs to the living room to talk. Of course Blanca’s brother was always coming up to check on us and I would like to think that in some ways, the little twelve-year-old relished the role of chaperone he was playing. Blanca, for all her beauty, did not look like she dated much, and at her age (27), she seemed an obvious candidate for Mexican spinsterhood. After all, most Mexican women married at far younger ages than Blanca -- even in the States. To make matters worse, three of her younger sisters were already wearing engagement rings. So, needless to say, my courtship of Blanca seemed a welcome event.
Yet Blanca herself seemed strangely reluctant to talk of marriage. Of parties and weddings, yes, but only if they were someone else’s. As for herself, she seemed content to do little more than knit and make small talk.
This frustrated me. I knew by all the framed diplomas on the wall of Blanca’s room that she was not a dumb person, and indeed, she had talked many times of all the sights she had seen when she had visited a married cousin living in San Francisco. Clearly, she was not the type of woman to be content spending the rest of her life in a small town. But she acted like it. Moreover, I knew that she liked me.
However, she always changed the subject whenever I spoke of marriage.
Yes, she was willing to think of a more serious relationship, she would say, but not now.
Had I met her back home in the States, I might have suspected that there was another man involved, but in truth, I seemed to be the only male non-relative involved in her life. Which puzzled me eventually. Could it be that for all her talk of marriage and children, Blanca did not really want to get married. And if so, why not?
A number of unflattering hypotheses came into my mind, but I rejected every one of them, one by one. Blanca showed no signs of romantic interest in her own sex. Nor did she seem destined for the convent. Her mother talked long and admiringly about my computer job in the States, so there were no objections on that front. As for her father, he had passed away about three years ago. Even the novios of her younger sisters seemed to like me. So what was the problem?
I made up my mind to ask Blanca about this one night when we were walking home from a party.
Her brother had come with us as a chaperone, but like most males, he was smart enough to walk a yard or two ahead of us -- enough room to give us privacy without compromising his sister’s virtue too much.
So as we passed through the deserted streets of downtown San Narciso, I gathered the courage to ask Blanca the fatal question: Why?
She glanced at me.
Then she glanced into the windows of a jewelry store.
“What lovely rings they have,” she said in Spanish.
I glanced at her.
“Please don’t change the subject,” I said in the same language.
She glanced at me, then at her brother, still a yard or two ahead of us. “We must not talk about it.”
“We must.”
“No, we must not.” She paused to glance at me, then she continued. “I -- I like you very much, Anton, but I cannot be engaged to you.”
“But why?” The words sounded much more anguished in Spanish.
“I -- I just cannot.”
She glanced into another store window.
“Did anyone in my family ever tell you about my first boyfriend?”
“I didn’t even know you had a first boyfriend. Aside from me, of course.”
She smiled. “This was long ago. When Papa was still alive. Papa never really liked him. In fact, he nearly threw him out of the house one time. He was a real bad sort.” She did not say to whom she was referring.
“So?”
“My boyfriend wanted me to elope with him. He had friends in Guadalajara, and if that did not work, we could always stay with his relatives in Morelia or San Luis Potosí. But I did not do that, of course.”
“Why not?”
She glanced into another store window. “I did not want to leave my family. I was the oldest, of course. And the oldest always has certain responsibilities. So he left without me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. A few months later, he tried the same thing with a girl in a nearby town. Her mother was one of those jealous sorts and had chased away one would-be novio with a gun. I hate to tell you what she did to my boyfriend.”
She smiled and then continued. “As for me, I really did not have much to say about the matter. I got very sick that year and spent much of that fall in bed. At one point, my parents even called in a priest and had him give me the last rites.”
She turned toward me with a smile and pointed to a small circular scar on her forearm.
“But I am much better now.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Don’t be. I nearly died.”
“I’m sorry. I once nearly died too.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “You have told me about the heart operation you had when you were a child. This was different. I really did almost die. Only my father saved me at the last minute.”
“He did? How?”
“With a silver coin. He heated it in an open fire and then placed it on my arm. If he had not done that, they would have buried me.”
“My God!”
“All these years, I’ve always wanted to pay him back for saving my life. But I never got the chance. And he never really forgave me for it either.”
“He never forgave you? But why? It was not your fault. You just said you were sick.”
“No, I did not.”
“But you just said -- ”
“I said I got sick. From taking too many sleeping pills from my parents’ pharmacy. Now do you understand?”
I glanced at her. Surely in this day and age, she could not be that Catholic. And yet something in the way she held her head seemed to warn me. Between her black hair and her light brown skin, she seemed to almost merge into the darkness behind her.
I suddenly realized that her brother was no longer in sight of us. I looked around for him.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “He’s gone home.”
“But why?”
“We have been courting long enough for him to trust us. And he knows that you are a most respectable man.”
“Then why did he accompany us tonight?”
“Because I asked him to. In case I was tempted.”
She walked on a bit. “I can’t ever come back to Dallas with you. And you could never be happy in San Narciso. So it would be best for you to forget me. Go home and find yourself some nice American girl. I am not worth it.”
“But you are,“ I said. “You are very beautiful.”
She laughed. “It takes more than beauty to make a marriage.”
“I know. That is why I want to marry you. Because I do not want just another mindless beauty. I want someone I could spend my entire life with. I want you.”
She looked at me again. “I do believe you are serious.”
“I am.”
She smiled.
“Blanca,” she said, as if quoting. “The woman with a name like snow.”
She smiled again. “My boyfriend made that up.”
“I see.”
“No, you do not. You do not know me that well, Anton. If you did, you would not dream of me. Must I deny you three times before the cock crows? Very well. I’ll show you why you must go back to Dallas and forget me. I will show you right here... right now.”
From out of her purse she took two knitting needles. She held them up before her so that their sharp tips gleamed in the moonlight, then plunged them into her left hand. She never so much as flinched.
“Do you understand now?”
“No. I do not.”
She drew out the needles. There was blood on their tips. Already her hand was bleeding.
I reached over to cover it with a handkerchief.
She pushed me back.
“You are a fool, Anton. A well-meaning fool, but a fool nonetheless. I can never love you. You know that as much as I do.” And with that, she wiped off the needles with a piece of old cloth she had and placed them all back in her purse. Then she drew out a multicolored handkerchief. She covered her hand with it and then disappeared into the darkness.
“You are a fool, Anton,” she kept saying as she disappeared. “You are a fool.”
*************************************************************************************************************
I wish I could say that I went back to the States right after that and forgot her. But as I have pointed out, she is with me now even as I speak.
While I could not influence her, I could influence her mother, and Blanca, as always, was the type of good Catholic girl who always obeyed her mother.
So she sits in the corner of our bedroom, knitting like she always knits, the sun illuminating the side of her face to the point that she almost looks Anglo.
I kiss her every now and then and murmur, “Te adoro.” But she never murmurs “te adoro” back. She is determined to stay with me and be a good girl, but she will not pretend she enjoys it.
If that were the worst element of our life together, I would not object. For aside from her knitting, Blanca has made remarkably great progress in her adjustment to Dallas. Too great.
Every now and then, I see her wear a short-sleeved dress and witness the nail marks on her arms. I think of how few cats I have seen in the neighborhood and of how many pet-owning families have moved out of the neighborhood in the last year or so.
She keeps swearing that she will change, but I swear that her resolutions, alas, are all too much like her sweaters -- easily begun but never quite capable of holding her interest.
This worries me.
For lately, you see, she has begun to talk about children.
She has begun to talk about children a lot.
“Blanca”
Blanca is knitting another sweater for me tonight. She knits something new every night yet she never finishes any of them.
Sometimes I joke with her that her mother should have named her Penelope. But she just smiles and glances at me with those ebony eyes of hers.
Arabic eyes, I call them. After five centuries, the long-dead Arabs of Spain still live on in a young woman’s eyes. Blanca’s eyes. The eyes of the prettiest woman in San Narciso.
*************************************************************************************************************
How I first met Blanca, I shall not say. Suffice it to say that as it is with many men of Mexican descent, it was a female relative of mine who saw her first and eventually introduced us. No paseo scene for me. The minute I first saw her entering her mother’s pharmacy, I fell in love with her. And I like to think that eventually she will fall in love with me. In time.
Our first meetings were at best platonic. I would visit her house and say hello to her mother and her younger siblings. Her younger brother would fetch me an apple which I would not eat and a Coke which I would not drink and after a while, we would go upstairs to the living room to talk. Of course Blanca’s brother was always coming up to check on us and I would like to think that in some ways, the little twelve-year-old relished the role of chaperone he was playing. Blanca, for all her beauty, did not look like she dated much, and at her age (27), she seemed an obvious candidate for Mexican spinsterhood. After all, most Mexican women married at far younger ages than Blanca -- even in the States. To make matters worse, three of her younger sisters were already wearing engagement rings. So, needless to say, my courtship of Blanca seemed a welcome event.
Yet Blanca herself seemed strangely reluctant to talk of marriage. Of parties and weddings, yes, but only if they were someone else’s. As for herself, she seemed content to do little more than knit and make small talk.
This frustrated me. I knew by all the framed diplomas on the wall of Blanca’s room that she was not a dumb person, and indeed, she had talked many times of all the sights she had seen when she had visited a married cousin living in San Francisco. Clearly, she was not the type of woman to be content spending the rest of her life in a small town. But she acted like it. Moreover, I knew that she liked me.
However, she always changed the subject whenever I spoke of marriage.
Yes, she was willing to think of a more serious relationship, she would say, but not now.
Had I met her back home in the States, I might have suspected that there was another man involved, but in truth, I seemed to be the only male non-relative involved in her life. Which puzzled me eventually. Could it be that for all her talk of marriage and children, Blanca did not really want to get married. And if so, why not?
A number of unflattering hypotheses came into my mind, but I rejected every one of them, one by one. Blanca showed no signs of romantic interest in her own sex. Nor did she seem destined for the convent. Her mother talked long and admiringly about my computer job in the States, so there were no objections on that front. As for her father, he had passed away about three years ago. Even the novios of her younger sisters seemed to like me. So what was the problem?
I made up my mind to ask Blanca about this one night when we were walking home from a party.
Her brother had come with us as a chaperone, but like most males, he was smart enough to walk a yard or two ahead of us -- enough room to give us privacy without compromising his sister’s virtue too much.
So as we passed through the deserted streets of downtown San Narciso, I gathered the courage to ask Blanca the fatal question: Why?
She glanced at me.
Then she glanced into the windows of a jewelry store.
“What lovely rings they have,” she said in Spanish.
I glanced at her.
“Please don’t change the subject,” I said in the same language.
She glanced at me, then at her brother, still a yard or two ahead of us. “We must not talk about it.”
“We must.”
“No, we must not.” She paused to glance at me, then she continued. “I -- I like you very much, Anton, but I cannot be engaged to you.”
“But why?” The words sounded much more anguished in Spanish.
“I -- I just cannot.”
She glanced into another store window.
“Did anyone in my family ever tell you about my first boyfriend?”
“I didn’t even know you had a first boyfriend. Aside from me, of course.”
She smiled. “This was long ago. When Papa was still alive. Papa never really liked him. In fact, he nearly threw him out of the house one time. He was a real bad sort.” She did not say to whom she was referring.
“So?”
“My boyfriend wanted me to elope with him. He had friends in Guadalajara, and if that did not work, we could always stay with his relatives in Morelia or San Luis Potosí. But I did not do that, of course.”
“Why not?”
She glanced into another store window. “I did not want to leave my family. I was the oldest, of course. And the oldest always has certain responsibilities. So he left without me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. A few months later, he tried the same thing with a girl in a nearby town. Her mother was one of those jealous sorts and had chased away one would-be novio with a gun. I hate to tell you what she did to my boyfriend.”
She smiled and then continued. “As for me, I really did not have much to say about the matter. I got very sick that year and spent much of that fall in bed. At one point, my parents even called in a priest and had him give me the last rites.”
She turned toward me with a smile and pointed to a small circular scar on her forearm.
“But I am much better now.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Don’t be. I nearly died.”
“I’m sorry. I once nearly died too.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “You have told me about the heart operation you had when you were a child. This was different. I really did almost die. Only my father saved me at the last minute.”
“He did? How?”
“With a silver coin. He heated it in an open fire and then placed it on my arm. If he had not done that, they would have buried me.”
“My God!”
“All these years, I’ve always wanted to pay him back for saving my life. But I never got the chance. And he never really forgave me for it either.”
“He never forgave you? But why? It was not your fault. You just said you were sick.”
“No, I did not.”
“But you just said -- ”
“I said I got sick. From taking too many sleeping pills from my parents’ pharmacy. Now do you understand?”
I glanced at her. Surely in this day and age, she could not be that Catholic. And yet something in the way she held her head seemed to warn me. Between her black hair and her light brown skin, she seemed to almost merge into the darkness behind her.
I suddenly realized that her brother was no longer in sight of us. I looked around for him.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “He’s gone home.”
“But why?”
“We have been courting long enough for him to trust us. And he knows that you are a most respectable man.”
“Then why did he accompany us tonight?”
“Because I asked him to. In case I was tempted.”
She walked on a bit. “I can’t ever come back to Dallas with you. And you could never be happy in San Narciso. So it would be best for you to forget me. Go home and find yourself some nice American girl. I am not worth it.”
“But you are,“ I said. “You are very beautiful.”
She laughed. “It takes more than beauty to make a marriage.”
“I know. That is why I want to marry you. Because I do not want just another mindless beauty. I want someone I could spend my entire life with. I want you.”
She looked at me again. “I do believe you are serious.”
“I am.”
She smiled.
“Blanca,” she said, as if quoting. “The woman with a name like snow.”
She smiled again. “My boyfriend made that up.”
“I see.”
“No, you do not. You do not know me that well, Anton. If you did, you would not dream of me. Must I deny you three times before the cock crows? Very well. I’ll show you why you must go back to Dallas and forget me. I will show you right here... right now.”
From out of her purse she took two knitting needles. She held them up before her so that their sharp tips gleamed in the moonlight, then plunged them into her left hand. She never so much as flinched.
“Do you understand now?”
“No. I do not.”
She drew out the needles. There was blood on their tips. Already her hand was bleeding.
I reached over to cover it with a handkerchief.
She pushed me back.
“You are a fool, Anton. A well-meaning fool, but a fool nonetheless. I can never love you. You know that as much as I do.” And with that, she wiped off the needles with a piece of old cloth she had and placed them all back in her purse. Then she drew out a multicolored handkerchief. She covered her hand with it and then disappeared into the darkness.
“You are a fool, Anton,” she kept saying as she disappeared. “You are a fool.”
*************************************************************************************************************
I wish I could say that I went back to the States right after that and forgot her. But as I have pointed out, she is with me now even as I speak.
While I could not influence her, I could influence her mother, and Blanca, as always, was the type of good Catholic girl who always obeyed her mother.
So she sits in the corner of our bedroom, knitting like she always knits, the sun illuminating the side of her face to the point that she almost looks Anglo.
I kiss her every now and then and murmur, “Te adoro.” But she never murmurs “te adoro” back. She is determined to stay with me and be a good girl, but she will not pretend she enjoys it.
If that were the worst element of our life together, I would not object. For aside from her knitting, Blanca has made remarkably great progress in her adjustment to Dallas. Too great.
Every now and then, I see her wear a short-sleeved dress and witness the nail marks on her arms. I think of how few cats I have seen in the neighborhood and of how many pet-owning families have moved out of the neighborhood in the last year or so.
She keeps swearing that she will change, but I swear that her resolutions, alas, are all too much like her sweaters -- easily begun but never quite capable of holding her interest.
This worries me.
For lately, you see, she has begun to talk about children.
She has begun to talk about children a lot.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Cuento de Mi Id
“Eating Disorders”
“Dammit,” Callie said. “I keep buzzing and buzzing and no one ever comes.”
“They never come,” said Debbie from the next bed over. “Not when you want them to. I should know. I’ve been in this hospital for a long, long time and they never come when I push that buzzer.”
“But this is a hospital,” said Callie. “They’re supposed to come when they hear the buzzer. Suppose someone is having a heart attack or something?”
“They wouldn’t care,” said Debbie. “They’re a pretty heartless bunch around here.”
“I don’t believe that, “ said Callie. “The nurse who attended me in the room I was in last night seemed pretty nice.”
Debbie showed her a closed-lip smile. “Take it from me. The nice ones never stay here long. It’s only the nasty evil ones who hang around here in the long run. So what are you in for?”
“An eating disorder. And you?”
“I guess you might say I have a slight drinking problem.”
“And they put you in the hospital for that?”
“Well, I do tend to go over my limit…”
“But still...Aren’t there private clinics and stuff like that for that?”
“Not for what I’ve got,” Debbie said. “The doctors say I‘m quite an unique case.”
“Well, I’m getting hungry.”
“I thought you had an eating disorder.”
“Well, I do. But if I don’t eat on a regular basis, well, it gets worse.”
“I know the feeling.”
“For years they’ve been telling me to eat more, eat more. Now I’m finally at the point that I’m willing to eat more and now they’re starving me to death.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Debbie. “You won’t starve to death. I won’t allow it.”
“You won’t allow it? Since when do you have any say-so?”
“Since my daddy owns this hospital. He’s quite a rich man. I’m sure the nurses will listen to me once I remind them of that. They’d be crazy not to.”
“Well, my father’s not a rich man.”
“I know.”
“You know? How do you know?”
“They showed me your medical records just before they brought you up here.”
“They showed you my medical records?”
“Is there an echo in here?”
“But how? Isn’t that illegal?”
“Sure, it’s illegal. But then a lot of things that go on around here are illegal. Your suicide attempt, for example.”
“That was quite a few days ago.”
“And the scars still haven’t healed, have they?”
“Well, no…”
“And you haven’t heard from your parents yet, right?”
“Well, I have been wondering about that...”
“That’s because they think you’re dead.”
“They think I’m what?”
“There goes that echo again.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m quite serious,” Debbie said.
“You must be joking,” Callie said. “So why were you looking at my medical records?”
“The same reason I glance through everybody’s medical records.”
“And what reason is that?”
“The same reason you keep glancing at that dinner menu they gave you earlier.”
At that point, Debbie reached up and unhooked her IV with the greatest of ease.
“Wait a second. You’re not really sick.”
“I never said I was.”
“But you said. . .”
“My daddy owns this hospital. I have privileges here you can’t even imagine...Besides, I really did tell the truth before.”
“About what?”
At that point, Debbie stood up and bared her teeth. Two of them were pointed. Very pointed.
“I really do have a drinking problem,” she said.
“Eating Disorders”
“Dammit,” Callie said. “I keep buzzing and buzzing and no one ever comes.”
“They never come,” said Debbie from the next bed over. “Not when you want them to. I should know. I’ve been in this hospital for a long, long time and they never come when I push that buzzer.”
“But this is a hospital,” said Callie. “They’re supposed to come when they hear the buzzer. Suppose someone is having a heart attack or something?”
“They wouldn’t care,” said Debbie. “They’re a pretty heartless bunch around here.”
“I don’t believe that, “ said Callie. “The nurse who attended me in the room I was in last night seemed pretty nice.”
Debbie showed her a closed-lip smile. “Take it from me. The nice ones never stay here long. It’s only the nasty evil ones who hang around here in the long run. So what are you in for?”
“An eating disorder. And you?”
“I guess you might say I have a slight drinking problem.”
“And they put you in the hospital for that?”
“Well, I do tend to go over my limit…”
“But still...Aren’t there private clinics and stuff like that for that?”
“Not for what I’ve got,” Debbie said. “The doctors say I‘m quite an unique case.”
“Well, I’m getting hungry.”
“I thought you had an eating disorder.”
“Well, I do. But if I don’t eat on a regular basis, well, it gets worse.”
“I know the feeling.”
“For years they’ve been telling me to eat more, eat more. Now I’m finally at the point that I’m willing to eat more and now they’re starving me to death.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said Debbie. “You won’t starve to death. I won’t allow it.”
“You won’t allow it? Since when do you have any say-so?”
“Since my daddy owns this hospital. He’s quite a rich man. I’m sure the nurses will listen to me once I remind them of that. They’d be crazy not to.”
“Well, my father’s not a rich man.”
“I know.”
“You know? How do you know?”
“They showed me your medical records just before they brought you up here.”
“They showed you my medical records?”
“Is there an echo in here?”
“But how? Isn’t that illegal?”
“Sure, it’s illegal. But then a lot of things that go on around here are illegal. Your suicide attempt, for example.”
“That was quite a few days ago.”
“And the scars still haven’t healed, have they?”
“Well, no…”
“And you haven’t heard from your parents yet, right?”
“Well, I have been wondering about that...”
“That’s because they think you’re dead.”
“They think I’m what?”
“There goes that echo again.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m quite serious,” Debbie said.
“You must be joking,” Callie said. “So why were you looking at my medical records?”
“The same reason I glance through everybody’s medical records.”
“And what reason is that?”
“The same reason you keep glancing at that dinner menu they gave you earlier.”
At that point, Debbie reached up and unhooked her IV with the greatest of ease.
“Wait a second. You’re not really sick.”
“I never said I was.”
“But you said. . .”
“My daddy owns this hospital. I have privileges here you can’t even imagine...Besides, I really did tell the truth before.”
“About what?”
At that point, Debbie stood up and bared her teeth. Two of them were pointed. Very pointed.
“I really do have a drinking problem,” she said.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Cuento de Mi Id
“The Beckoning Dark One”
(If I wrote this story today, I would write it much differently since I have learned so much about life since then. Then again it is probably just as well I wrote it back then since I doubt that I would have the nerve to write something like this today. I leave it to you all to decide whether or not that is a good thing.)
If every picture tells a story, then just imagine how many a single photo album must tell.
Granted, they are not always exciting stories. Nor even interesting ones. However, you do tend to come across an odd tale or two every so often -- and in the most unexpected places.
Take my family’s photo album, for instance. One picture shows a young toddler -- myself -- laughing in the foreground while a dark, brooding figure in the background frowns at the camera. The figure is my cousin Miranda, of course, and as long as I had known her, I had never seen her take a particular dislike to being photographed. So why was she frowning in this picture? Had the picture-taker interrupted some private ritual between us? And if so, what kind? Cousin Miranda was only two years older than me so the ritual could not have been that private- - but then I was only a very young child at the time -- and I still don’t have all that many clear memories of that era. To this day, my Aunt Eulalia -- Miranda’s mother -- remembers incidents which occurred at that time about which I have absolutely no memory -- even though I was often a key participant in them. And what happened between me and Miranda when Aunt Eulalia and the other relatives were not around I have absolutely no way of knowing.
After all, my earliest memories of Miranda began when I was five years old. And I was obviously a lot younger than that in the picture. In fact, I did not even know that a picture like that had ever been taken until I had spied it in the family photo album just three years ago -- when I was twenty-seven. Which makes me wonder what else happened back then that I might have forgotten...
Ironically, it was Jane’s friend Lisa -- the most inartistic of our crowd -- who first saw it.
Everyone else at our housewarming party -- or to put it more accurately, our apartment warming party -- was too busy drinking, smoking, listening to loud music or else making dumb comments to Jane and me. My friends preferred Z.Z. Top, her friends, the Cowboy Junkies. My relatives kept voting for Aerosmith -- and being half-Mexican, easily outnumbered the opposition. However, one mischievous soul kept sneaking Amy Grant songs into the tape deck, and where the Randy Travis tapes kept coming from, I’ll never know.
Anyway, everyone at the party was engaged in various trivial pursuits -- including an actual game of Trivial Pursuit -- when Lisa happened to glance at one of Jane’s paintings on the wall and asked, “What’s that?”
“Oh, just a painting I did of some scenery I saw out at White Rock Lake a few years ago,” Jane replied. “Do you like it?”
Lisa frowned. “Not really. It looks kinda scary.”
“Scary?” Jane laughed. “What makes you say that?”
“That figure in the corner,” said Lisa. “It looks like it’s watching me.”
“I must be a better artist than I thought,” said Jane. “There is no figure in that painting. That entire area was deserted when I started my sketching.”
“Well, there must been someone there, Sis,” said Mike, my would-be brother-in-law. “I see it, too.”
“So do I,” said another guest.
And another one after that.
“This is crazy,” said Jane. “There can’t be a figure in that painting. I painted that thing myself -- surely I would have noticed a little detail like that.”
I walked over to her to reassure her. I started to put my arm around her shoulder and say something witty. Then I glanced at the painting and my voice died. There was a figure in the painting, all right; it was standing by a tree in the left hand corner. And what was even stranger than that was the fact that it was a familiar figure. But there was no way Jane could have deliberately painted that figure into her painting. Not even subconsciously. It had to be a joke. One of her artist friends playing a trick on her, perhaps. Or even --
“Wait a minute,” said my sister Claudia. “ I know that person. That’s Cousin Miranda.”
And she was right. The figure’s profile did resemble Cousin Miranda’s. But that was impossible.
Miranda had died ten years before Jane and I had ever met.
*************************************************************************************************************
I did not have the heart to mention it again until after all the guests had gone home, but I could tell Jane was disturbed.
“It has to be a trick of the light,” she kept saying. “Maybe if I hung it in another part of the room?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Perhaps you just happened to see her face in an old photo album or something and just unconsciously added it to the painting. I’m sure stuff like that happens to artists all the time.”
“Not outside of the movies, it doesn’t,” she said. “And anyway, I completed that painting three months before we even met -- so I could not have unconsciously added your cousin to my painting even if I had wanted to.”
“Perhaps someone altered it,” I suggested.
“Get real,” she said. “None of your relatives have any talent for art -- at least not enough to pull that off. And no one else that we know even knows what your cousin looked like. Besides, the painting does not look like it has been altered. It looks the same as it always did. Except for that.”
She pointed at the dark-haired figure that had looked so much like Cousin Miranda and I noticed for the first time just how much of it appeared to be in the shadows. Granted, the figure was standing in the middle of a wooded area, but it wasn’t hard to see that it was also standing on the sunny side of a tree. Moreover, the figure itself appeared to have moved. When I first saw it at the party, it was standing on the left end of the painting. Now it appeared to be much closer to the center. That was impossible, of course. But still...
“We’ll figure it out in the morning,” I said. “After all, we have more important things to concern us right now -- like, say, sleeping arrangements.”
“Not tonight, honey,” she said. “I have too much to think about right now.”
And think about them, she did. Staring at that painting the whole time that she did so...
*************************************************************************************************************
The next morning, the figure was still there. It had not moved, of course. But then it did not have to. It had just gotten larger.
“Impossible,” I said to myself.
Then I ignored it.
After all, I had other things to worry about. Bills to pay and all that Harry Chapinlike stuff. So when I woke up the next morning and saw what had happened...
No, I thought. It was just my imagination. Just a trick of the light like Jane had said.
Perhaps the painting had gone moldy while in storage. Yes, that was it. The blotch on Jane’s perfect landscape which we had all thought was my Cousin Miranda was merely an odd-shaped piece of fungus.
Perhaps that’s why the figure seemed to have changed directions. After all, it’s not as if a painted figure can actually turn its head...
The next few days, everything was normal. I wrote -- or at least, I tried to write -- and Jane painted. Everything appeared to be returning to normal.
No one gave the painting a second thought. Why should we? It wasn’t as if Miranda herself was going to jump out of the painting and strangle us. And anyway, Miranda was dead. Ten years dead. And not one of those Other Side of Midnight-type deaths, either, in which the girl falls off a boat one night and ends up being magically resurrected whenever the author wants her to be. No, Miranda’s death was more definite than that.
I still remember the way my mother looked when she first got the news from my Aunt Eulalia.
“Your cousin Miranda’s dead,” she had said. “She died in a car crash. Her and some other girl. The police tried to save them but...”
Miranda was the first real loss I had ever suffered in my life. Perhaps the only one that ever really counted. All my life I had taken her for granted as my one real friend in the universe. The one girl I could turn to when no one else seemed to understand me.
I had even grown conceited about it -- never daring to date any of the Anglo or Hispanic girls in my own school because they always fared so badly in comparison with my cousin. Not that Miranda and I would have ever married. I know now that was quite unlikely. But it would have been nice to have had the opportunity.
Now we were permanently separated. Not even the most fervent letter or phone call would ever bring her back.
But I did not complain too much. Eventually I moved on and now I had Jane. Jane, the perfect opposite of the little Mexican girl I had once fallen in love with. I had never thought I could fall in love with an Anglo girl until I met Jane. After all, the one Anglo girl I had ever tried to court previous to Jane had ended up conceiving another guy’s child. And God knows I did not want to go through that again.
But Jane was different. Jane was more mature. Jane was more intelligent -- and more importantly, she did not feel it necessary to hide that intelligence the way most Anglo girls do. Jane had had her share of bad romances, too -- an unemployed boyfriend who had driven her into debt, a blowhard fiancé who had tried to pressure her into marriage -- even a would-be date rapist. And yet Jane had survived.
I admired her for that. And I admired her more for admiring me. It had not been easy for me to come out of my shell after my last girlfriend. And it was not easy for Jane to summon up the courage to entice me. But she did. And I enticed her. And now here we were -- the perfect survivors of the romance wars now living together in semi-holy pre-matrimony.
But now this thing had started with the painting.
Why now? I wondered. Why not three years ago when I was still chasing after Ms. Shotgun Wedding of 1990?
Was there something about me which attracted such weird phenomena? I doubted it. After all, the one time I ever tested for psychic ability was back in high school and back then I had flunked. So much for that theory.
Yet every morning when I looked at the painting, the figure that looked like my cousin seemed to me to be a little larger. Moreover, it seemed to be changing its shape every time I looked at it. First it would be pointing in one direction. Then the next time, it would be pointing in a different direction. And one time just before bedtime, it appeared to be pointing right at me.
I ignored it, of course. I placed my word processor in a spot where I would not have to see the painting and attempted to immerse myself in my latest work of timeless fiction. But it was no use. Thoughts of Miranda kept creeping into my head.
I kept imagining how she used to look in all her old pictures. Her dark Latin face, her bright ebony eyes, her shoulder-length raven hair, and so forth. Despite Dallas’s own reputation for beautiful women -- and the fact that I was currently living with a girl who put most Barbizon graduates to shame -- Miranda’s face still haunted my memory. Perhaps it was because she was my first real love. Perhaps not. After all, it is always easier to be hopelessly in love with a woman you can’t have. My own experience proved it. And death, after all, was the ultimate barrier. Would I have loved Miranda as much if she had never died? If I had never moved out of my native Chicago? If she and I had gotten married and settled down to raise a family? And what would I have done if I had discovered that I did not really love her? If I discovered that I loved her more as a romantic symbol than as a person? Would I then find myself attracted to someone like Jane?
Questions like that I could not answer. Questions like that I did not want to answer.
Not until the day Jane said she was meeting her friend Lisa somewhere for lunch -- and then Lisa called up thirty minutes later asking to talk to Jane.
“Isn’t she with you?” I asked, not sure what was going on.
“Isn't who with me?” she asked.
“Jane.”
“Jane?”
“Yes, she said she was meeting you for lunch.”
“That‘s funny,” she said. “She said nothing about that to me.” Then she paused for a moment. “Er -- I have to go now. Tell Jane I‘ll call her later.”
She hung up in a hurry -- and I did not blame her. Something was up. I just did not know what.
I glanced at her latest painting. Another landscape. Only this time there was a man and a woman in the background. She and I, I thought.
Then I looked closer and noticed that the man‘s hair was yellow. My own hair was brown. And the girl’s hair was yellow, too. The same color as Jane’s hair. Just a coincidence? I tried to think so.
After all, if Jane was having an affair, she would not be stupid enough to leave such a vital clue in front of me. Or would she? Perhaps this was her way of flaunting her infidelity. Perhaps -- but no. I was being stupid. Jane obviously loved me. I had seen proof of that many times. And she had gone after me. Not vice versa. So it had to be a coincidence.
Even if the figures in the paintings were holding hands, that did not mean anything. It could have been some other people she was painting.
So why did the blonde girl look so much like Jane?
I left the apartment and proceeded to get stinking drunk at the nearest bar. When I came back, Jane was still gone and the figure of my cousin had grown even larger. But I pretended not to notice and fell upon our double bed in a drunken stupor...
When I awoke, I heard Jane whispering to someone in the next room. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but it was something like “te quiero, te quiero.” Now where would she have learned that? I had never told her I loved her in Spanish -- I only told her so in English -- and of course, I had never taught or encouraged her to learn Spanish. Nor did any of my relatives. And in high school, Jane had taken French, not Spanish, for her foreign language requirement.
“Honey,” I said.
The whispering immediately grew silent.
“What is it?” she said.
“Who are you talking to?”
“No one,” she replied.
I could swear I heard a giggle from the other room.
I got up and went in. No one else save Jane was there. She was standing in front of Miranda’s painting in the same blue dress she had worn to lunch, and she appeared to have a guilty expression upon her face.
“Who were you talking to in here?” I asked.
“Why, no one,” she answered.
I resisted the urge to slap her face.
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
She seemed sincere. But then so had that other girl I had once dated. And the one before her. And the one before her...
I decided to go out.
“Wait,” she said.
But I did not turn around.
*************************************************************************************************************
After that, the arguments grew frequent. I’d accuse her of seeing someone else, she would accuse me of being irrational, and we’d both start throwing things at each other. And that was on a good day.
It seemed quite obvious to me that we were never going to make it to the wedding altar. Hell, we hadn’t even lasted ten weeks in the same apartment. And the worst part about it all was that she was right. I had no right to be jealous of her. It wasn’t as if we were married. Yet in a way -- in my mind -- we were. Then this had to happen.
The final straw happened on November 1. Miranda’s birthday.
Jane had gotten mad at me again and she had stormed out. Then I had started to storm out. Then I glanced at Miranda’s painting again.
I hadn’t looked at the painting for days. But there was no mistaking it now. The figure in the painting had changed -- but it was still Miranda. Only now she was almost a hand’s length in height whereas before she had only been the size of a man’s thumb. In addition, she was looking straight at me. And beckoning in my direction with her left hand.
I turned away and ran out. I knew that I needed a drink -- and bad. My own troubles with Jane were bad enough -- but when I looked at my own dead cousin’s image in a painting and saw her fingers begin to move...
Yes, I needed a drink all right. Several, in fact. So many that I was staggering by the time I decided to return to the apartment. Only Jane had gotten there before I did. And once I saw her there, I really did need a drink.
She had hung herself from a light fixture. She had made a noose from her pantyhose, tied one end of it around her neck, and then jumped off a chair. Just like that. The ultimate reprimand to a jealous lover.
But that was not the worst part. The worst part was glancing at Miranda’s painting and seeing not one but two figures standing among the trees. One was blonde, the other brunette -- and both were female.
I eventually found the other paintings Jane had done. The ones she had never shown me but instead hidden away in the hope that I would never see them. The painting I had seen with the blonde man had been a mistake. The man was obviously a woman with her hair cut short Sinead O’Connor-style. As for the other woman in the painting, her hair too was altered. Jane had changed it from yellow to black. Miranda’s hair color.
Of course, the clues had been there for me to see all along. Jane’s trouble with men. The way Jane had been so obsessed with Miranda’s image. The fact that Miranda had died in the company of another girl -- not a boy. The way Jane had said “I love you” when she was all alone with the painting, and so forth. But that did not make it any easier to take.
Worst of all was the questions that keep echoing in my head. Was it really the picture-taker Miranda had hated in that snapshot I had described earlier? Or was it me?
And if not, why take Jane away from me?
For that matter, if Miranda was going to come back from the dead for anybody, why not me? Had not Miranda and I been friends? Or was that part of my life just one big mentira?
Of course, there is only one way I will ever find out the answers to these questions. That is why I am writing this manuscript. I need to leave behind some record of what happened so that if anything goes wrong, someone will be sure to read it and take the appropriate action.
I hope Mike does it. I have always liked him and I know he can keep his mouth shut. And if not him, then Claudia.
Not that it matters to me exactly who does it. Just as long as it gets done and the painting ends up destroyed.
As for me, I do not really intend to stick around and see what happens. I already got the noose around my neck and any minute now I will be stepping off the same chair that Jane used.
And it is such a perfect day to do it, too.
November 2.
The Day of the Dead.
“The Beckoning Dark One”
(If I wrote this story today, I would write it much differently since I have learned so much about life since then. Then again it is probably just as well I wrote it back then since I doubt that I would have the nerve to write something like this today. I leave it to you all to decide whether or not that is a good thing.)
If every picture tells a story, then just imagine how many a single photo album must tell.
Granted, they are not always exciting stories. Nor even interesting ones. However, you do tend to come across an odd tale or two every so often -- and in the most unexpected places.
Take my family’s photo album, for instance. One picture shows a young toddler -- myself -- laughing in the foreground while a dark, brooding figure in the background frowns at the camera. The figure is my cousin Miranda, of course, and as long as I had known her, I had never seen her take a particular dislike to being photographed. So why was she frowning in this picture? Had the picture-taker interrupted some private ritual between us? And if so, what kind? Cousin Miranda was only two years older than me so the ritual could not have been that private- - but then I was only a very young child at the time -- and I still don’t have all that many clear memories of that era. To this day, my Aunt Eulalia -- Miranda’s mother -- remembers incidents which occurred at that time about which I have absolutely no memory -- even though I was often a key participant in them. And what happened between me and Miranda when Aunt Eulalia and the other relatives were not around I have absolutely no way of knowing.
After all, my earliest memories of Miranda began when I was five years old. And I was obviously a lot younger than that in the picture. In fact, I did not even know that a picture like that had ever been taken until I had spied it in the family photo album just three years ago -- when I was twenty-seven. Which makes me wonder what else happened back then that I might have forgotten...
Ironically, it was Jane’s friend Lisa -- the most inartistic of our crowd -- who first saw it.
Everyone else at our housewarming party -- or to put it more accurately, our apartment warming party -- was too busy drinking, smoking, listening to loud music or else making dumb comments to Jane and me. My friends preferred Z.Z. Top, her friends, the Cowboy Junkies. My relatives kept voting for Aerosmith -- and being half-Mexican, easily outnumbered the opposition. However, one mischievous soul kept sneaking Amy Grant songs into the tape deck, and where the Randy Travis tapes kept coming from, I’ll never know.
Anyway, everyone at the party was engaged in various trivial pursuits -- including an actual game of Trivial Pursuit -- when Lisa happened to glance at one of Jane’s paintings on the wall and asked, “What’s that?”
“Oh, just a painting I did of some scenery I saw out at White Rock Lake a few years ago,” Jane replied. “Do you like it?”
Lisa frowned. “Not really. It looks kinda scary.”
“Scary?” Jane laughed. “What makes you say that?”
“That figure in the corner,” said Lisa. “It looks like it’s watching me.”
“I must be a better artist than I thought,” said Jane. “There is no figure in that painting. That entire area was deserted when I started my sketching.”
“Well, there must been someone there, Sis,” said Mike, my would-be brother-in-law. “I see it, too.”
“So do I,” said another guest.
And another one after that.
“This is crazy,” said Jane. “There can’t be a figure in that painting. I painted that thing myself -- surely I would have noticed a little detail like that.”
I walked over to her to reassure her. I started to put my arm around her shoulder and say something witty. Then I glanced at the painting and my voice died. There was a figure in the painting, all right; it was standing by a tree in the left hand corner. And what was even stranger than that was the fact that it was a familiar figure. But there was no way Jane could have deliberately painted that figure into her painting. Not even subconsciously. It had to be a joke. One of her artist friends playing a trick on her, perhaps. Or even --
“Wait a minute,” said my sister Claudia. “ I know that person. That’s Cousin Miranda.”
And she was right. The figure’s profile did resemble Cousin Miranda’s. But that was impossible.
Miranda had died ten years before Jane and I had ever met.
*************************************************************************************************************
I did not have the heart to mention it again until after all the guests had gone home, but I could tell Jane was disturbed.
“It has to be a trick of the light,” she kept saying. “Maybe if I hung it in another part of the room?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Perhaps you just happened to see her face in an old photo album or something and just unconsciously added it to the painting. I’m sure stuff like that happens to artists all the time.”
“Not outside of the movies, it doesn’t,” she said. “And anyway, I completed that painting three months before we even met -- so I could not have unconsciously added your cousin to my painting even if I had wanted to.”
“Perhaps someone altered it,” I suggested.
“Get real,” she said. “None of your relatives have any talent for art -- at least not enough to pull that off. And no one else that we know even knows what your cousin looked like. Besides, the painting does not look like it has been altered. It looks the same as it always did. Except for that.”
She pointed at the dark-haired figure that had looked so much like Cousin Miranda and I noticed for the first time just how much of it appeared to be in the shadows. Granted, the figure was standing in the middle of a wooded area, but it wasn’t hard to see that it was also standing on the sunny side of a tree. Moreover, the figure itself appeared to have moved. When I first saw it at the party, it was standing on the left end of the painting. Now it appeared to be much closer to the center. That was impossible, of course. But still...
“We’ll figure it out in the morning,” I said. “After all, we have more important things to concern us right now -- like, say, sleeping arrangements.”
“Not tonight, honey,” she said. “I have too much to think about right now.”
And think about them, she did. Staring at that painting the whole time that she did so...
*************************************************************************************************************
The next morning, the figure was still there. It had not moved, of course. But then it did not have to. It had just gotten larger.
“Impossible,” I said to myself.
Then I ignored it.
After all, I had other things to worry about. Bills to pay and all that Harry Chapinlike stuff. So when I woke up the next morning and saw what had happened...
No, I thought. It was just my imagination. Just a trick of the light like Jane had said.
Perhaps the painting had gone moldy while in storage. Yes, that was it. The blotch on Jane’s perfect landscape which we had all thought was my Cousin Miranda was merely an odd-shaped piece of fungus.
Perhaps that’s why the figure seemed to have changed directions. After all, it’s not as if a painted figure can actually turn its head...
The next few days, everything was normal. I wrote -- or at least, I tried to write -- and Jane painted. Everything appeared to be returning to normal.
No one gave the painting a second thought. Why should we? It wasn’t as if Miranda herself was going to jump out of the painting and strangle us. And anyway, Miranda was dead. Ten years dead. And not one of those Other Side of Midnight-type deaths, either, in which the girl falls off a boat one night and ends up being magically resurrected whenever the author wants her to be. No, Miranda’s death was more definite than that.
I still remember the way my mother looked when she first got the news from my Aunt Eulalia.
“Your cousin Miranda’s dead,” she had said. “She died in a car crash. Her and some other girl. The police tried to save them but...”
Miranda was the first real loss I had ever suffered in my life. Perhaps the only one that ever really counted. All my life I had taken her for granted as my one real friend in the universe. The one girl I could turn to when no one else seemed to understand me.
I had even grown conceited about it -- never daring to date any of the Anglo or Hispanic girls in my own school because they always fared so badly in comparison with my cousin. Not that Miranda and I would have ever married. I know now that was quite unlikely. But it would have been nice to have had the opportunity.
Now we were permanently separated. Not even the most fervent letter or phone call would ever bring her back.
But I did not complain too much. Eventually I moved on and now I had Jane. Jane, the perfect opposite of the little Mexican girl I had once fallen in love with. I had never thought I could fall in love with an Anglo girl until I met Jane. After all, the one Anglo girl I had ever tried to court previous to Jane had ended up conceiving another guy’s child. And God knows I did not want to go through that again.
But Jane was different. Jane was more mature. Jane was more intelligent -- and more importantly, she did not feel it necessary to hide that intelligence the way most Anglo girls do. Jane had had her share of bad romances, too -- an unemployed boyfriend who had driven her into debt, a blowhard fiancé who had tried to pressure her into marriage -- even a would-be date rapist. And yet Jane had survived.
I admired her for that. And I admired her more for admiring me. It had not been easy for me to come out of my shell after my last girlfriend. And it was not easy for Jane to summon up the courage to entice me. But she did. And I enticed her. And now here we were -- the perfect survivors of the romance wars now living together in semi-holy pre-matrimony.
But now this thing had started with the painting.
Why now? I wondered. Why not three years ago when I was still chasing after Ms. Shotgun Wedding of 1990?
Was there something about me which attracted such weird phenomena? I doubted it. After all, the one time I ever tested for psychic ability was back in high school and back then I had flunked. So much for that theory.
Yet every morning when I looked at the painting, the figure that looked like my cousin seemed to me to be a little larger. Moreover, it seemed to be changing its shape every time I looked at it. First it would be pointing in one direction. Then the next time, it would be pointing in a different direction. And one time just before bedtime, it appeared to be pointing right at me.
I ignored it, of course. I placed my word processor in a spot where I would not have to see the painting and attempted to immerse myself in my latest work of timeless fiction. But it was no use. Thoughts of Miranda kept creeping into my head.
I kept imagining how she used to look in all her old pictures. Her dark Latin face, her bright ebony eyes, her shoulder-length raven hair, and so forth. Despite Dallas’s own reputation for beautiful women -- and the fact that I was currently living with a girl who put most Barbizon graduates to shame -- Miranda’s face still haunted my memory. Perhaps it was because she was my first real love. Perhaps not. After all, it is always easier to be hopelessly in love with a woman you can’t have. My own experience proved it. And death, after all, was the ultimate barrier. Would I have loved Miranda as much if she had never died? If I had never moved out of my native Chicago? If she and I had gotten married and settled down to raise a family? And what would I have done if I had discovered that I did not really love her? If I discovered that I loved her more as a romantic symbol than as a person? Would I then find myself attracted to someone like Jane?
Questions like that I could not answer. Questions like that I did not want to answer.
Not until the day Jane said she was meeting her friend Lisa somewhere for lunch -- and then Lisa called up thirty minutes later asking to talk to Jane.
“Isn’t she with you?” I asked, not sure what was going on.
“Isn't who with me?” she asked.
“Jane.”
“Jane?”
“Yes, she said she was meeting you for lunch.”
“That‘s funny,” she said. “She said nothing about that to me.” Then she paused for a moment. “Er -- I have to go now. Tell Jane I‘ll call her later.”
She hung up in a hurry -- and I did not blame her. Something was up. I just did not know what.
I glanced at her latest painting. Another landscape. Only this time there was a man and a woman in the background. She and I, I thought.
Then I looked closer and noticed that the man‘s hair was yellow. My own hair was brown. And the girl’s hair was yellow, too. The same color as Jane’s hair. Just a coincidence? I tried to think so.
After all, if Jane was having an affair, she would not be stupid enough to leave such a vital clue in front of me. Or would she? Perhaps this was her way of flaunting her infidelity. Perhaps -- but no. I was being stupid. Jane obviously loved me. I had seen proof of that many times. And she had gone after me. Not vice versa. So it had to be a coincidence.
Even if the figures in the paintings were holding hands, that did not mean anything. It could have been some other people she was painting.
So why did the blonde girl look so much like Jane?
I left the apartment and proceeded to get stinking drunk at the nearest bar. When I came back, Jane was still gone and the figure of my cousin had grown even larger. But I pretended not to notice and fell upon our double bed in a drunken stupor...
When I awoke, I heard Jane whispering to someone in the next room. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but it was something like “te quiero, te quiero.” Now where would she have learned that? I had never told her I loved her in Spanish -- I only told her so in English -- and of course, I had never taught or encouraged her to learn Spanish. Nor did any of my relatives. And in high school, Jane had taken French, not Spanish, for her foreign language requirement.
“Honey,” I said.
The whispering immediately grew silent.
“What is it?” she said.
“Who are you talking to?”
“No one,” she replied.
I could swear I heard a giggle from the other room.
I got up and went in. No one else save Jane was there. She was standing in front of Miranda’s painting in the same blue dress she had worn to lunch, and she appeared to have a guilty expression upon her face.
“Who were you talking to in here?” I asked.
“Why, no one,” she answered.
I resisted the urge to slap her face.
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
She seemed sincere. But then so had that other girl I had once dated. And the one before her. And the one before her...
I decided to go out.
“Wait,” she said.
But I did not turn around.
*************************************************************************************************************
After that, the arguments grew frequent. I’d accuse her of seeing someone else, she would accuse me of being irrational, and we’d both start throwing things at each other. And that was on a good day.
It seemed quite obvious to me that we were never going to make it to the wedding altar. Hell, we hadn’t even lasted ten weeks in the same apartment. And the worst part about it all was that she was right. I had no right to be jealous of her. It wasn’t as if we were married. Yet in a way -- in my mind -- we were. Then this had to happen.
The final straw happened on November 1. Miranda’s birthday.
Jane had gotten mad at me again and she had stormed out. Then I had started to storm out. Then I glanced at Miranda’s painting again.
I hadn’t looked at the painting for days. But there was no mistaking it now. The figure in the painting had changed -- but it was still Miranda. Only now she was almost a hand’s length in height whereas before she had only been the size of a man’s thumb. In addition, she was looking straight at me. And beckoning in my direction with her left hand.
I turned away and ran out. I knew that I needed a drink -- and bad. My own troubles with Jane were bad enough -- but when I looked at my own dead cousin’s image in a painting and saw her fingers begin to move...
Yes, I needed a drink all right. Several, in fact. So many that I was staggering by the time I decided to return to the apartment. Only Jane had gotten there before I did. And once I saw her there, I really did need a drink.
She had hung herself from a light fixture. She had made a noose from her pantyhose, tied one end of it around her neck, and then jumped off a chair. Just like that. The ultimate reprimand to a jealous lover.
But that was not the worst part. The worst part was glancing at Miranda’s painting and seeing not one but two figures standing among the trees. One was blonde, the other brunette -- and both were female.
I eventually found the other paintings Jane had done. The ones she had never shown me but instead hidden away in the hope that I would never see them. The painting I had seen with the blonde man had been a mistake. The man was obviously a woman with her hair cut short Sinead O’Connor-style. As for the other woman in the painting, her hair too was altered. Jane had changed it from yellow to black. Miranda’s hair color.
Of course, the clues had been there for me to see all along. Jane’s trouble with men. The way Jane had been so obsessed with Miranda’s image. The fact that Miranda had died in the company of another girl -- not a boy. The way Jane had said “I love you” when she was all alone with the painting, and so forth. But that did not make it any easier to take.
Worst of all was the questions that keep echoing in my head. Was it really the picture-taker Miranda had hated in that snapshot I had described earlier? Or was it me?
And if not, why take Jane away from me?
For that matter, if Miranda was going to come back from the dead for anybody, why not me? Had not Miranda and I been friends? Or was that part of my life just one big mentira?
Of course, there is only one way I will ever find out the answers to these questions. That is why I am writing this manuscript. I need to leave behind some record of what happened so that if anything goes wrong, someone will be sure to read it and take the appropriate action.
I hope Mike does it. I have always liked him and I know he can keep his mouth shut. And if not him, then Claudia.
Not that it matters to me exactly who does it. Just as long as it gets done and the painting ends up destroyed.
As for me, I do not really intend to stick around and see what happens. I already got the noose around my neck and any minute now I will be stepping off the same chair that Jane used.
And it is such a perfect day to do it, too.
November 2.
The Day of the Dead.
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