Maybe Marisol was right. Maybe he’d turned his back on them.
If he’d been honest with Memo he would’ve admitted that since Vico died, he kept looking over his shoulder as if there were someone right behind him. It was a scritching at the back of his mind that he’d thought he’d finally silenced.
He jumped up, grabbed his keys, and left his apartment just as the sky began to lighten.
He drove around for hours thinking, just driving randomly for once and not worrying about wasting gas. In the old days he would always end up in front of his dealer Omar’s building, no matter where he’d originally been heading, like he was caught in a loop.
This time his car found its way to the church rec center where he worked, just after nine thirty. He pulled into a space in the church parking lot and let go of a breath he’d been holding since the text had come in about Memo. He’d beaten the temptation “just for today” as they said in his Narcotics Anonymous meetings.
There was a group of some of the smaller kids he mentored shooting hoops in the pockmarked basketball court. Shreds of rope basket hung from the rusted metal hoop like entrails. He made a mental note to try to get a local sports store to donate a new one. His kids deserved better.
After a flurry of fist bumping and “What up, Javi?” Javier made his way through the side door and into the dark, cool bowels of the church basement.
Padre Sebastian was filling up file boxes in his office, the sleeves of his black shirt rolled up, the white of his collar stark against the walnut brown of his skin. He’d been in the middle of a huge office reorganization for weeks now. Months, actually. Javier suspected the man was just moving files from one spot to another. He never threw anything away.
The priest seemed to be ignoring him, so Javier coughed into his hand.
“What’s the matter, Javier? Coquí in your throat?” The priest asked in his melodious Jamaican accent as he fit the cover on the now-filled box. When he finally turned to Javier, his locs swung like palm fronds, the long coils eventually resting over his wide shoulders.
Padre Sebastian was pretty young, like thirty-five, and he was about the coolest priest Javier had ever met. Actually, he was the only cool priest Javier had ever met. It was probably why the local players were so willing to listen to him, why Javier listened to him.
“Hey, Padre.”
“Javier. I heard about Memo. I thought I might see you this morning.” His voice was gentle, his accent adding soft music to his words.
Javier swallowed hard, hoping to hold back the tears that had been building all morning.
“I’m sorry, Javier. I truly am. Memo made some very bad choices for a smart boy, but he didn’t deserve this fate.”
“No, he didn’t. It’s just, Vico, now him. Padre, I’m…”
Sebastian walked over and put his hands on Javier’s shoulders, looking deep into the boy’s eyes. “Scared?”
Javier looked away.
“Not only is it okay to be scared, I don’t blame you one bit. I’m scared.”
Javier’s head shot up at that.
Padre Sebastian walked over to the cracked window that looked out over the parking lot and pointed to the kids outside. “I’m scared for every one of those children out there. The older they get, the less likely we can lure them away from the temptation of the streets. Not many people are strong enough to face their demons like you have.”
Javier wasn’t sure facing his demon had been enough. In fact, he wasn’t sure the demon was gone at all. “I don’t feel very strong.” He thought of how much he’d wanted to use that very morning. He didn’t want to disappoint Padre. He didn’t want him to know that he was still battling.
As if reading his mind, the priest said, “You’re strong, m’ijo. I have faith in you.”
Javier smiled sadly. Padre Sebastian always made him feel better, but there was still a pressing against his chest. “There’s something about the deaths, Padre. Memo even tried to tell me he thought something weird was going on. There’s a connection between them, but I can’t figure out what it is.”
The priest crossed his arms. “What kind of connection?”
“I don’t know. Something … old.” Javier shuffled from one foot to another, unconsciously picking up Memo’s habit, wishing for some kind of relief from the storm that was building in his chest. He knew this feeling and it never ended well. “I think they were killed by the same person. Or something.”
“Memo fell, Javier. The building was under construction and he fell through a hole into the basement.”
“I know. I know I’m not making sense. It’s just…”
The padre watched Javier fidget for a while. This was one of the things that Javier loved most about him. He listened. Really listened. “Javier, both those boys were on dangerous tracks.”
Javier held his head in his hands. “I know, I know. But Padre, do you remember when I told you about the darkness I felt following me?”
“Yes, the feeling that started when you were a teen and stopped after you started going to meetings.”
Javier nodded. “Yeah.”
“What about it?”
Javier swallowed. “It’s back.”
Sebastian eyes widened. “You’re not using again, are you?”
Javier shook his head so hard he felt his eyes rattle. “No! Nothing like that. It’s like it’s following me again. Like, right around the corner behind me, and when I whip around, it’s gone. Know what I mean?”
“I do, m’ijo. I do. But couldn’t it be that two of your old friends just died? That would be devastating to anyone.”
“Maybe. I just wish I could shake it. I did it once, thanks to you.”
He pointed at Javier and smiled. “Ah no, you did that yourself! Hmm. When I don’t know what to do, I look back, see where I’ve come from to try to understand where I’ve ended up. Why don’t you go back to where it all started? The time and place of your life when the shadow first appeared?”
Going back. Just the thought of it made his skull feel tight, but he wouldn’t talk to Memo about the past and look what happened. He owed it to him to explore. He should go back to where things had started to change, go dark. “You mean go back to Amapola?”
“If that’s what that means for you, then yes.” The old-style black phone started to ring and he made his way around the desk. “And while you’re there, give my regards to your mother, will you?”
Javier narrowed his eyes at his mentor.
“Ah c’mon, give her a break. She’ll come around.” He picked up the phone, lowered his body into the office chair, and nodded goodbye to Javier.
* * *
Javier turned the corner at the old Sanchez house with its overgrown front lawn and crumbling graffiti-covered walls. Back in the day it had looked nice, like someone cared. All the houses did. Until the neighborhood started to change. The island’s economy tanked, middle-class families took off for the States, abandoning their homes, and the drug dealers spread out from El Norte and moved in to the better neighborhoods to fill the void. Javier remembered when his mother told him he couldn’t play ball in the street anymore, tilting her head toward the most recent arrivals, a group of slick-haired guys with cigarettes dangling from their mouths.
Javier drove by a row of run-down houses with ratty laundry strung in front like forgotten garlands of a holiday long past and parked in front of his mother’s house. He could see the edge of the flamboyán tree in the backyard. It was in full bloom, the dark orange blossoms impossibly bright in the morning sun. As he looked toward the backyard, Javier remembered the annual birthday parties they used to have, all of them together, the cangrejos, their mothers and siblings. Creamy tres leches cake and guava cookies, games in the backyard, balloons. He smiled as the years of festivities ran through his memory. When had they stopped having those parties? He had some faint memory of los cangrejos hidden in the shadows of the tree under the Amapola moon while their mothers chattered in the house. When was that?
The flamboyán blooms looked like blood in the darkness, that he remembered. They had gotten in trouble for something that night. It was weird, like the memory was shrouded in black gauze. Now two of los cangrejos were dead, their blood splattered in two different corners of San Juan. Maybe his mother remembered something more. He had to try; it was too important.
Within her front gate everything was immaculate, as always. Neat rows of flowers surrounded by the perfect-length grass. Everything in its place, that’s the way his mother liked it. Javier stopped and stared at the recent addition to the garden, a smiling frog holding a sign that said WELCOME. He considered kicking it across the yard.
Javier rang the bell and ran his hands through his hair. He thought about getting back in the car before she could answer. What the hell was he doing here anyway? A wild theory about going back to figure things out was not enough to justify putting up with his mother’s shit that early in the morning. Christ, he hadn’t even had a coffee yet.
Before he could move, the door whipped open and his mother appeared behind the gate in her bright designer clothes. “Mi hijo querido, what a wonderful surprise!” She unlocked the gate with her ring of keys, pulled him in, and kissed his cheeks, bringing with her a cloud of gardenia perfume. “Come in, come in. I was just about to have my morning café con leche. Please join me.”
Javier stepped into the pristine living room and saw that she had set out her best china, sugar in perfect square cubes filled a delicate glass bowl, and a single Maria biscuit sat on a thin, white plate. Where the hell did she even buy sugar cubes? Did they make them anymore? The world could be falling down around her, zombies from the apocalypse knocking at the door, and she would continue to set up her little coffee service. Hell, she’d invite the zombies in for biscuits and cafecitos.
“Let me get you some coffee, mi amor,” she said, already rustling in her linen toward the kitchen.
“No, Mamá, nothing for me. I just want to—” But she was gone.
“Nonsense. You have to have some coffee and galletas with your mother. I can only imagine how little you’re eating, living on your own … and so young!” she called from the kitchen.
Javier just stood near the coffee table in silence. Silence was pretty much the only option around his mother. There was no oxygen in the room left for anyone else. It used to work to his advantage when he was getting high; no matter how stoned he was when he stumbled in she didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy playing house, pretending Dad hadn’t left, that her son wasn’t snorting, shooting, or swallowing any drug he came across. That their home wasn’t broken. There was a constant stream of cheery words accented by the clinking of silverware and china.
“Sit, sit, mi amor.” Javier jumped as his mother reappeared carrying a tray in her perfectly manicured hands, the large golden citrine ring his father had given her when they were first married glinting on her finger. His father used to say the golden stone looked gorgeous against her Spanish olive skin. Dad was so proud of how European she looked. God forbid she have darker Caribbean skin. Bigot. Why did she still wear that ring?
“Tell me how you are. Did I tell you about Marianna’s new grandchild? You know, the woman who lives on Calle Martínez near your cousin Eudice? The baby was two weeks late, can you imagine? Two weeks in this heat. Well, Marianna—”
Javier put his hands up, hoping to stop the barrage. “Mamá. I really need to talk to you about something important.”
His mother stopped abruptly and gathered the fabric at her neckline in her bony fingers. “I see. Important.” She started rearranging the pale blue and white Lladró figures on her end table, placing the Madonna and child just a bit closer to the dancing Spanish lady. “I suppose you don’t really want to hear about the minutiae of an old lady’s life, what with you being all grown up and living in the city. I mean, I’m only your mother.”
Javier sighed. There was no talking when she got like this, no talking about real life when she was too busy focusing with her rose-colored gafas. “I’m sorry. I just have something important I need to talk about, and you’re the only one I thought to turn to.” There, that would do it.
She sat up straighter, releasing the linen at her neck. “Why didn’t you say so, mi amor?” She reached over and put her hands over his. “You know I’m always there for you. Dime, tell me.”
“Do you remember the birthday parties you used to throw when I was a kid? When we used to get together with our friends from the neighborhood? The other mothers and all my friends?”
Her face lit up. “Of course. Oh, what wonderful parties we had. The games in the backyard, trips to the park and the beach. Remember that year when you and Ludovico dressed up like Don Quixote and—”
He cut her off. “It’s Vico I want to talk about. I’m trying to figure out what happened to him and Memo.”
Her hands stopped moving and the smile bled from her face. “Yes, well, I don’t really want to discuss that.” She made the sign of the cross. “God rest their souls.”
“Why did we stop having those birthday parties? What happened the night of the last party? I think we were turning … thirteen?”
His mother jerked to her feet and started to clear away the full cup of coffee in front of her.
Javier grabbed her wrist and coaxed her back to the couch. “Mamá, it’s important. There’s something weird going on. I feel like someone or something is stalking us.”
“I don’t have time to talk about such fantasies.” She started to stand up again, but he wouldn’t release her wrist. Her eyes darted to the door to the kitchen, the front door, any way to escape.
“I need to figure out what’s going on.”
She stared in his eyes now, her shoulders square with growing anger. “You’re hurting me, Javier. Let. Go.”
The quiet power in her voice made him shudder a bit and Javier released her. It was weird how she could do that. One minute she was a crazy old woman living in some kind of Mary Poppins stage set, and the next she was stormy and fierce. He wished she had been this way more often when he was growing up, particularly with his father.
His mother stood up, pulled the bottom of her jacket down to straighten it, and tossed her head. “I’m not going to sit here and be interrogated by you. It’s unfortunate that your friends passed on so young, but nothing we did at that last party had anything to do with it.”
Javier paused. “I never said you did— Wait, who’s we? What happened?” But she ignored him and kept going.
“It was a long time ago and all of us mothers were doing the best we could with what we had. That’s all you need to know.”
Javier sat there, confused, as his mother pulled the untouched coffee cup out from underneath him.
She piled the plates and their uneaten galletas on top of one another. “¡Basta ya! I have things to do. You can show yourself out.”
Javier watched her march out to the kitchen. He wondered if he should feel bad for getting her upset, but he quickly dismissed it. His mother had two modes, righteous fury and totally oblivious. Both were in full force that morning.
He was no closer to understanding what was going on with his friends, or what the darkness was that followed him.
July 7, 4:00 A.M.
Lupe
LUPE COULDN’T SLEEP. Her uncle still hadn’t come home and she could hear her aunt puttering in the kitchen. Clearly nobody was sleeping this morning.
As she lay in bed, she decided to do some research on Izzy. She didn’t expect to find much since he wasn’t on any social networking site, but while doing an image search, she froze. There was Izzy, looking out at her with a smirk as if he’d been waiting. He was wearing a baseball cap and a denim vest that showed an arm of intricate black tattoos and six-pack abs.
When had he gotten those?
And when did Izzy become such a badass? Dare she say it? He was hot. Weird.
Speaking of hot, who was that guy he was with? The caption read Reggaeton star Papi Gringo and friend Is
adore Rivera at the Nuyorican Café in Old San Juan.
Lupe searched Papi Gringo. “Whoa,” she said as she scrolled through the results. His real name was Carlos Colón, and he was from Amapola. Wasn’t that where her father was from? Made sense.
She dug deeper. He was a Cancer, liked to surf, and had become a vegan when he was fourteen. “Blah, blah, blah.”
Wait.
In an article about a lawsuit regarding some lyrics or something, there was a quote from his lawyer.
Tere Dávila.
Lupe’s cousin.
“No, seriously?” She laughed. “How small is this island?”
There was a link to his latest music video. A song called “El Cuco.” As the video loaded she felt like someone was watching her and her head snapped toward the window.
Idiot, you’re on the second floor. She chuckled, but it sounded false to her own ears.
The video began, the setting a dark street, shadows following Papi Gringo as he walked toward the camera. Lupe soon found herself hypnotized by the throbbing pulse of the reggae-style beat, by the percussive rap lyrics.
Retribution, El Cuco will find you
Retribution, it begins inside you
Retribution, he sees all you do
Retribution
Every night I pray for you
El Cuco doesn’t prey on you
Your fate is under your control
Don’t let him find and bind your soul
Conscience is growing evil
Life’s pumping through a needle
Your mother’s words fade to black
El Cuco’s cure will conjure that
It’s retribution that rules the night
La madre’s fateful words were right
Retribution.
Retribución.
She jolted up in bed. The old woman in El Rubí. She’d said something about retribución, and how “he’ll come for” Izzy.
What the hell?
She opened her contacts and was about to call her uncle when she stopped.
Five Midnights Page 6
