by Tiana Laveen
And then, he was swallowing her cries as he bent down to claim her lips, tasting the wine she’d been drinking. He ran his hand along her back, his other hand still at her waist, then cradled the back of her head, bringing her impossibly closer. He moaned before pulling away. She smiled up at him.
“You’re a good kisser.” She touched her mouth with two fingers, pressing into the soft flesh. “Thanks again for tonight.” Leaning to him, she gave him a peck, then opened her front door wider.
“It’s a long ride back to my place. Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he joked, making her cheeks plump.
“You are a trip, man. Call me tomorrow, okay?” She grabbed the flowers and stepped inside… but slowly.
“I’ll do that. Sleep tight. Don’t let the Viper bite…”
She giggled and closed the door. He heard it lock, then jogged down her steps, a bit of pep in his step. He was thankful that his back was towards her, so she couldn’t see the big ass, corny smile on his face. It practically split him in two…
CHAPTER TWELVE
He Watches Over You
Viper could feel his eyes twitching, but he was caught in the dream. No matter which way he attempted to turn in that big, empty bed to wake himself, it didn’t work. He remained trapped in his own mind. He kept hearing his own voice, saying the words aloud. Who was he talking to? All he needed to do was ride it out… Perhaps his own subconscious was trying to tell him something?
There is such a thing as sacred ground…
There were places you didn’t go and stir the pot. Things you didn’t say, and things you didn’t do. Sometimes, it’s a mix of these, such as things you didn’t do or say if you happened to be in that place considered sacrosanct. Where you were born was your womb. Home was blessed, no matter how bad of a place it may have been. You don’t shit where you eat. We’d all agreed when we were much younger, my King brothers and I, that some things could never occur on Little Havana soil. Sin odio entre cubanos.
The prayers of our dead ancestors from Cuba are written above our heads in the clouds. They’d prayed to be here, to get freedom from Castro, while others revered him and would split someone open if they spoke ill of him. Some of our ancestors were forced to come to America against their will. Others willingly made a life here, starting all over from nothing. Marielitos. Their sacrifices were the blood, their work, the sweat, and their ambition, and faith, the tears shed to get to this place whole, in one piece. Regardless of their reasons for leaving their native home, they made a life in this new country, creating new spaces for themselves. One of those spaces was Little Havana.
Over time, fractures surfaced in the tight knit community. Poverty reared its ugly head and gave birth to the twin bastards: desperation and greed. Families fell apart, crime skyrocketed. Groups, organizations, and factions were needed. A call to order. A sense of belonging, of normalcy in an upside-down place. These groups developed further, some of them morphing into gangs. My uncles didn’t call themselves a gang until much later. That terminology was adopted from other places. They were just a social club. Once more of the Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Venezuelans, Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorians, more Cubans, Ecuadorians, Hondurans, Peruvians, Colombians, and Panamanians came to Florida, there was influence in how these factions ran. Some of that guidance was good, some not so much, but one thing was certain: it fostered much needed organization and created sensibility out of chaos. At least, according to my mother’s brother, mi tío Oscar.
He told us the gangs that were already well established in the United States back in the 1970s and 1980s flooded into the South from Chicago, Newark, Los Angeles, and New York City. All states surrounded by water were prime pickings, for obvious reasons. Dope floats. Ya need a boat. The power spread, and one of the most dominant organizations to land in South Florida was the Latin Kings. The Latin Kings have been coined one of the most, if not the most, violent gang in the United States, with a considerable and growing membership. For every three you see, there’ll be three more that didn’t make it. For every one of us killed, there is a new gang member taking their place, and twenty more being born who will be full blown LKs by the time they reach the age of sixteen. For every individual behind bars, there are two or three being released back into civilization. The power behind the LKs is woven tight. That’s for good reason. We are very serious about our brotherhood, and our business.
We’re particularly well-structured. We follow protocol and protect one another, and if anyone gets out of line, internally or externally, they are dealt with. That notwithstanding, one thing I learned early on was this: Your best friend will be a Latin King. So will your worst enemy. We hold close to many traditional values, despite the bad rap we’ve received. One of those values is treating fellow Latina women with respect, as well as any woman of any race we’re involved with romantically. What one may see as respectful, another may not, so I suppose the area is kind of gray there—but a Latin King beating up a Latin Queen or orchestrating violence against her is strictly prohibited. Doesn’t mean this doesn’t happen, it does, but it’s frowned upon. We’re also taught to show respect to our elders.
I must be honest though…
The new generation is not following procedure. They are doing things that require disciplinary actions. In some cases, death. Some of these teenagers coming into the game now are reckless. They’re feral. Selfish. Ignorant. Stupid. Egotistical. They only think of themselves, not the collective. We survived by thinking of our brothers. We’ll die by hoarding and giving in to our aspirations. They have no self-control and don’t think things through, but it wasn’t always that way. We used to move with purpose. Many of us still do, but there are concerns from the OGs that are still drawing breath. Marie has told me many times that she fears for our future. Florida is home. It’s where we lay our heads. It’s where we make our money. It’s where we raise our families. If that is disrupted, a war will ignite. This wouldn’t be the first time money caused the fall of our personal Rome.
I went to community college for less than one year. I took a class in philosophy—my favorite. One lesson was about how outside influences change our minds, forever. At first, the gang was formed due to discrimination, the desire to create a haven for all Latinos, but somewhere along the way, things changed. Here in Little Havana, we still had many of the older guys influencing us, and we respected them. We made a promise to them because of that respect. We made a pact, and it went down as law. Anyone breaking that law would be punished. Sometimes, depending on the severity of the disobedience, it also meant death.
The ways of the old will always be instilled in the snake. The snake will always protect the oath. The Viper is not the enemy; he is the protector. Misunderstood. Feared. The snake slithered through Little Havana, and he did the same in the Garden of Eden. He brought with him death, where God had created promise, light, and life. The Viper waited in the tree, the moonlight streaming across his black and green shimmery scales, and when the beautiful naked dark woman approached with a head of wool, he asked her to step aside…
Viper swallowed hard, trying desperately to wake up once again as his dream took a strange and sharp turn out of the blue. He was suddenly in a black, silver, and purple lush garden with high trees, red skies, and jade birds with black and coral beaks flying high. He could smell wildlife, rotting fruit, and femininity… Trapped in this world, he was unable to wake up. He relaxed once again, giving in, far too tired to keep struggling…
The snake hissed and said, ‘It’s not you I wish to give the golden apple to, my Love… It’s the one from which you protect. He will lie in the stories of your Lord, and say it was you who fell into temptation. You will be to blame for every woe, and he will be praised for every gain. He will deem you overly emotional, weak, silly, responsible for the downfall of man, and say that your monthly blood is a curse for all that you have done, and your pain while bringing his seed into the world is your punishment for listening to a cast out, fallen angel like me. I say mostly lies,
’tis true, but this, my Love, is my one truth…”
“I was taught to never trust you, snake. I will not listen to anything you say.” The dark woman, with smooth skin the color of plums and teeth white like the insides of bitten apples, stood before him while he stayed coiled in his tree. She showed no fear.
“There will be a story written about you, Eve. The first book of a long series of distortions, the truth shall be buried deep within it, the important bits ripped out and scattered in the desert, never to be seen again. They can’t control you if you know the truth. So, you must believe the lie. This, my Love, is what they fear. Hear me, and never forget the true tale of the Viper.
The dark woman with the wooly hair, her breasts soon to be swollen with milk—though she had no idea she was with child—looked at him in disbelief.
“You are to never be trusted. My mate would never betray me.”
“He will, and worst of all, you will not remember this warning once you and he are cast aside. He is the one who wishes to be like God and take his place. Right now, you can save yourself if you walk away, and let me have him.’
In the distance stood a tall, fit, dark man made of clay and Earth. The man was afraid of him, a coward waiting in the wings.
“He is trying to sacrifice you, right now. He can hear your thoughts because you allowed him to crawl into your heart. It is not YOU who disobeyed God’s word first. It was listening to the advice of your mate, who told you to do it, after he took the first taste of death by tricking you to stand before me. You will think you are dreaming, but seven days from now, everything I am telling you will come to fruition. Adam is weaker than you in all ways, except for his brawn. He will fool you time and time again because of your guilt over the lies he has fed you.”
“He showed me proof that you are evil, and that the fruit is good, and that is why you don’t want us to have it!”
“His proof was written by him. How can you trust someone to tell you the truth when this would cause their own demise? Would you trust a storm to promise to pass you by? How can you trust someone who enslaves you? That is his plan. To own you.”
“Lies!”
“You will have to fight for everything you get in seven days! Your paradise will be destroyed. You will be beaten! Blamed! Shunned! Lied on from now until the end of time. Centuries later, your body will be sold against your will. Your spirit broken. He will steal from you and kill your sisters, mothers, and daughters. You will support and help him, and he will still blame you for his struggles and downfalls. You will pick him up from the ground, and once you do, he will knock you down. He will point out all your flaws and claim none of his own. He will start war after war, spill blood from the moment he awakens to the second he falls asleep.
“He will destroy your planet; the air will be polluted from these odd machines he builds, the oceans and rivers will be poisoned, important resources will be pumped dry, the animals will be sick and die off, the soil will be barren and produce no fruit or grains. And he will still not learn, and he will want more, and more, and more, and worst of all, he will teach you to do the same. He will make deals with me so that he may be legendary in the eyes of men. He will be greedy and vile. He will lie on God and call himself a shepherd. God needs no marshals. He is Alpha and Omega. That male wasn’t even here first… YOU WERE. If you fail this test, Eve, there is no turning back.”
“Give me the apple. I trust my mate. He asked that I retrieve it from this twisted tree you sleep in and look over the entire garden from the highest branch.”
“This fruit is not for you. Now step aside! Do not listen to him!”
“You are evil! You are Lucifer! You are a viper… Eres una víbora!”
“I am all of those things, but it is HIM that I want. It is him I will have… Step aside. For the final time—I am the Viper he rightfully fears, but your mate’s desire for power will force him to sacrifice anyone and anything to get it. Including YOU being forced to walk ahead of him and ask for the apple! It’s the only time he will ever put you in the front – and that is to ransom yourself! Otherwise, you, your sisters, your mothers, and your daughters will walk two steps behind. He will take all the praise and none of the condemnation. Why are you here alone? Or are you? He lurks in the darkness, like a deserter, sending in his mate to do his dirty work. I can smell him. I want revenge, for he betrayed me, too.” The large snake’s forked tongue whipped out and tasted the air. Vengeance was so close…
“Betrayed you? How did he betray you?”
“He befriended me, then told me to ask God if I could work beside him. He told me I deserved it, and that God was simply waiting for me to show the initiative and ask for what was rightfully mine. I did as he encouraged me to do and was cast out of Heaven, and he became God’s favorite. Adam is devious, my Love. He skulks like a cat. He laughed when we were cast out, me and the dark angels, who’d been created in the sun but are now damned to the darkness of Hell.”
“I will not be fooled by you.”
“My dear, you’ve already been fooled, but not by me. The diabolical deception will cost you your sanity, your womb, and all of civilization. Did you ever consider that you’ve been tricked so well, you cannot decipher reality? Did you stop and think that perhaps it is Adam who is the biggest devil of all? It is my time, my Love. This is my day to taste the blood poured from your mate, and end my sorrow, as well as your future pain that he’d inflict, for centuries to come. I can save the whole world, if you simply step aside. My golden apple is delicious. It is poisonous, just like my kiss. Just like my bite, and my might… For I am Genesis, and Adam is the Revelations. Eve, you are the removed words from the text… pages ripped, burned, while others were spread out, carried away by the winds of the desert. You’ve brought shame to yourself now, not because you’ve sinned, but because you fell in love…”
Viper slowly awoke, in a daze. He rubbed his sweaty face, then stared at the clock on his nightstand. It was 4:44 A.M., on the dot. Since he was a child, he’d often have vivid dreams and awaken at 3:33 A.M., or 4:44 A.M. This one had a sense of familiarity. Perhaps he’d dreamt it before? No… I would’ve remembered that. He plopped back down on the pillow, desperate to go back to sleep, but it would be damn near impossible. There were things to take care of, work to be done. Calls to be made. After that, he needed to drive to Little Havana. He had stuff to take care of there, too.
Mr. Earl Dickens was mowing his lawn. Majesty noticed the daunting rain clouds gathering as if they were about to have a good cry and soak everything that dared to stand below. The buzz of the old lawnmower was now interrupted by the occasional burst of lightning, but the old man seemed determined to finish his front yard. Clutching her purse and wrinkled lunch bag from work, she hurried into the house, Troy right on her heels. She washed her hands, then got out the fixings to make spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner while Troy played on his iPad and ate an after-school snack at the kitchen island.
After a short while, she stepped onto the porch to see if the old man was still out there. Sure enough, Mr. Earl was still tempting precipitation fate. It’s going to be raining soon. He is too old to be mowing that big lot all by himself, and it is too hot, too.
She went back into the house and marched into the kitchen.
“Troy, I need to be able to trust you.”
“I didn’t do it, Mama!”
She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes.
“Boy, I ain’t even accuse you of nothing, and you’re screaming at me about how you didn’t do it. Makes me think you did do something I just haven’t found out about yet. Now listen, I want you to get washed up.” He nodded in understanding. “Wash your hands real good, too, and do your homework.”
“I already washed my hands, Mama.”
“That five seconds of you flicking water around in the bathroom sink doesn’t count. Now, after you’re done with that, you come right back in here and sit right in this kitchen, with your milk, crackers, and pineapple. I’m going to
get changed, go to Mr. Earl’s for a bit, and I expect you to be right where I told you to be when I get back.” She wagged her finger at him.
The boy’s face split in a grin, no doubt thrilled he would have the run of the house. He was always excited when she stepped out for a minute or two, doing a bit of gardening. Made him feel like a big boy.
“Don’t get any ideas. I’m going over to Mr. Earl’s, just like I said. The man lives two houses down.”
“The old man who gave us the peach pie. I know where his house is.”
“Good. You’ll be able to look right out this here window and see his backyard, but you’ll have to come out on the porch to see the front, which is where I’ll be. I’ll be back in about ten minutes tops. I should be able to trust you for ten minutes. Right, Troy?”
“Of course, Mama. I’m a man now. I’m just short is all.” She grimaced and crossed her arms. “I’m for real! And why don’t you let me stay in here for longer than just a couple minutes? Wesley gets to stay at home alone for two hours now!”
“That’s Wesley, and you’re you.”
“Mama, if you think about it, kids should be runnin’ things, anyway. Grownups don’t know what y’all are doing. You don’t see kids fightin’ about presidents and votin’, laws, and racist stuff. Y’all the ones who shouldn’t be left in the house alone. You just can’t be trusted.”
“Troy, if you weren’t my own flesh and blood, as God is my witness, I’d… God give me strength!” She shook her fist at the ceiling. “You’re too young, and I’ve told you a hundred times that I will not have you here in this house by yourself. Now, you’re lucky you get these ten minutes. Instead of thinking you can take this time to help build my trust, you start getting grand ideas about world domination. Keep on, and you won’t be here alone until you’re seventeen!”
“But Mama—”
“But Mama, nothing. I bet Wesley wasn’t fartin’ in balloons at a birthday party and gassin’ everyone out. I bet Wesley wasn’t eating all the pepperonis off the school pizza back in the kitchen when he was supposed to be helping to serve, and then everyone had to have ‘cheese pizza,’ and my ass was called up to the school due to the new change of menu, thanks to Chef Boy-I-Know-You -Lyin’! Talkin’ to me about some damn Wesley! I bet his parents didn’t have to take him to the E.R., like I had to take you, for supergluing your damn underarm closed!”
