Playing for the Devil's Fire

by Phillippe Diederich

I hurried back to my bedroom. I lay on my bed and closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but all I could see was the naked body of Rocío Morales laying in the weeds and the smell of burning trash. But now, knowing it was her, remembering how pretty she was, like the women in the old Santo movies, with big chichis and round nalgas, thick fleshy legs and lips so red and shiny they looked electric. Something strange twisted deep in my stomach like I had to piss a fish.

  4.

  After my grandfather died, my father took over the panadería. I guess the plan was for Gaby and me to take it over from him eventually. The bakery was on a street between our house and the plaza. It was a small storefront with a big open room in the back where we did the baking. Two walls were lined with shelves for the sweet rolls. At the center was a big square bin where we dumped the bolillos. It was the only bakery left in Izayoc that still baked bread in a wood-burning clay oven. The oven was like a brown igloo covered in soot. My father said it was the oak and hickory that gave our bread its unique flavor. I loved the smell of the fire. Early in the mornings when Lucio got the fire going, you could smell the sweetness of the bread and the sour spice of the smoke from blocks away.

  Working at the bakery wasn’t so bad. Ever since Gaby and I were little we were given chores there. We’d spent so much time there it was like a home away from home. I was usually stuck with cleaning. I swept the sidewalk out front, washed the tall windows and the big round aluminum trays and tongs the customers used to pick out their bread. I also carried in the firewood and helped Lucio with the baking.

  Lucio was old and skinny. He kept his long gray hair bunched up into a net and wore his pants below his waist just like Cantínflas. He told me once he’d spent most of his life in the gutter until my grandfather rescued him. But my abuela always referred to him as a stray, un perro callejero.

  My grandfather defended Lucio. He said it was better to teach a man to bake bread than to just give him a bolillo every other day. Lucio stuck with it. He was very faithful to our family.

  The next day, Gaby and I went to work at the panadería. She attended the register, and I wiped down the displays. After I cleaned the front and set out the second batch of bolillos in the bin and pan dulce on the racks, I went to the back with Lucio. It was like a barn back there, but with a tiled floor and thick walls. There were no windows, but it had a long door that we always kept open to let the light in and the smoke out.

  On a corner we had stacks of flour sacks, a big pile of firewood, and three long shelves with jars and cans with sugar, honey, yeast, cartons of eggs and all the other ingredients Lucio used to make the bread. By the door, near a small counter, Lucio had placed a small altar with a little statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe and a pair of veladora candles which he kept lit all day long.

  Lucio was preparing dough for the mid-morning. I sat on the side of the long wood counter and watched him work. His thin arms moved like a wave, forward and back, his whole body leaning over the dough. One hand punched in under the dough while the other one pulled at the top, over and over. He said it made the crust crispier and the inside of the bread fluffier.

  After a while he stopped and gave me the signal. I took a handful of flour and sprinkled it on the counter and on the blob of dough, which looked like a dead body.

  “Did you hear about el profesor Quintanilla?” I asked.

  He nodded and got back to work, leaning over the counter with all his weight, in and out, turning the dough little by little. “And the girl too, ¿que no?” Lucio said without stopping his work.

  “She was Leticia’s cousin.”

  He nodded again and glanced at the neighbor’s chickens, four brown hens that always wandered in and scratched and pecked relentlesly at the ground.

  “You know, I saw her.”

  “¿La niña?” He reached over the counter and turned off the little transistor radio he had hanging on a nail.

  “Mosca and I went to the dump. She was naked.”

  “Pass me the stick.”

  It was one of his baking tools. It was just like a small broomstick. He rolled it over the dough to flatten it into a long thick blanket. Then he grabbed a plastic spatula and in a few swift moves, cut the blanket into sections.

  “It was scary,” I said.

  “I can imagine.”

  “Who do you think killed her?”

  “God knows.” Lucio moved quickly, his hands rolling the flat little blankets into rolls and stacking them on one side of the table. “There are bad people in this world.”

  “But why would anyone kill her?”

  He finished stacking the rolls and tapped the side of his head with his index finger. “You’d be surprised how many people have problems up here.”

  “I guess.”

  “I noticed they’re going to have wrestling at the feria again this year.”

  “Yes.” I chased the chickens out the door. “Did you see who’s coming?”

  He laid out the rolled chunks of dough, each piece just bigger than his hand, then made a small indentation with the stick over each piece and placed them in a metal tray.

  “El Hijo del Santo,” I said.

  “Didn’t he retire?”

  “Not anymore. It’s on the carteles all over town.”

  “Did I ever tell you about the time I met Mil Máscaras?”

  He had told me the story a million times. He grabbed the long wooden pole with the flat end that looked like a big oar and slid it under the metal tray and carried it to the clay oven.

  “I was an assistant to one of the grips at Estudios Churubusco, and one day Mil Máscaras showed up.” He slid the tray into the round oven. “When I walked by him, he grabbed my arm and told me I was too skinny, that if I ever wanted to wrestle, I had to build up my muscles.”

  “Did you want to be a wrestler?”

  He finished with the last tray and set the pole down. “No, qué va. That wasn’t my thing.” He smiled and leaned against the table. “But all the other boys did.”

  “Who do you think was better, Santo or Mil Máscaras?”

  “An eternal question, ¿que no? I think most people will tell you Santo.”

  “I think Santo, for sure.”

  He shrugged and clapped his hands. “Ándale. Stop wasting my time. Let’s get back to work. Fetch me the flour and some water.”

  I took one of the big sacks of flour from the side and dragged it on the floor.

  Lucio helped me lift it to the counter. We poured the flour, the eggs, and the cinnamon and baking powder into one of the big mixers. When Lucio turned it on, he bobbed his head up and down and gyrated his hips, dancing to the sound of the mixer’s motor.

  Later, my parents arrived at the panadería. We had just pulled out the bolillos from the oven and placed them on the cooling racks. Lucio was preparing conchas. I rolled a rack of bolillos into the store. I wanted to see what was going on. Enrique Quintanilla’s wife Yolanda and Rocío’s father Ignacio were with them. I placed the rack of bolillos by the bin in the center of the store, but my father waved me away. “I’ll take care of that. Go help Lucio. Stay in the back.”

  I did as I was told. Lucio was busy spreading icing on the little mounds of dough for the conchas. I turned back and pushed the door open just a little. The rack of bolillos blocked most of my view, but I could see my father leaning against the counter. He was looking at my mother. She was on the other side by the register with Gaby. I couldn’t see Don Ignacio’s large body or Yolanda.

  “Absolutely useless.” It was Ignacio’s deep voice. “That man’s an embarrassment to Izayoc.”

  “He never had to do anything,” my father said. “He’s just a figurehead.”

  “True,” Ignacio said, “but it doesn’t solve anything.”

  “I just want to know that something is being done.” Yolanda moved forward. I could see her black blouse. She set her purse on the counter blocking my view of Gaby. “They haven’t even found my husband’s body, por el amor de Dios.”

  “
What we need is professional law enforcement, someone who has experience with this kind of thing.” My father leaned forward and massaged his temples. “We cannot allow this to go on.”

  “Absolutely,” Ignacio said.

  “This is exactly why Enrique and I left Acapulco in the first place,” Yolanda said. “Things there were so bad, you couldn’t go out anymore. You couldn’t trust anyone. Not even your friends.”

  “Savages,” Ignacio said.

  My mother waved across the counter. “It will be the death of this country.”

  “We need to stop them.” Ignacio’s voice filled the store. I looked back to see if Lucio had heard, but he was busy, leaning over the table taking care of the sweet rolls, painting them with piloncillo honey.

  An old lady and her teenage daughter walked into the store. Everyone fell silent.

  “Buenos días,” she said. Her daughter picked out one of the big round trays and a pair of tongs.

  “Buenos días, Señora Velasco.” My mother smiled and touched Gaby’s shoulder. She went around the counter to help them.

  “My condolences, Yolanda,” the woman said.

  When the old lady and her teenage daughter left, my mother glanced at my father. “We can’t just stand by—”

  “Please.” My father ran his hand through his hair. He bowed and stooped as if he’d dropped something on the floor. “We all agree, Carmen. The question is how—”

  “In Acapulco,” Yolanda said, “no one did anything about it.”

  “But we can’t fight them ourselves,” Ignacio said.

  My mother caressed the back of Gaby’s hair. “Think of the children.”

  Ignacio turned away. My mother grabbed his arm. “I’m sorry, Ignacio, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s not your fault, Carmen.”

  My father said something I couldn’t hear, but suddenly Ignacio stepped back and pointed at him. His voice boomed,

  “And who’s to say they’re any better than that idiot, Pineda?”

  “We could also reach out to Senator González Parral.”

  “Alfonso, por favor. They’re all crooked.” Ignacio smacked the counter with the palm of his hand. “Every single one of them.”

  “Entonces,” my father turned. “What would you suggest?”

  “My daughter’s dead. She was my only daughter, not my—”

  “Ignacio!” My father glanced at my mother and back at Ignacio. He reached out and his hand disappeared behind the rack of bolillos. He said something to Ignacio I didn’t get. I pushed the door open a bit more. They leaned closer together. Their voices were small.

  “…outside help…”

  “…a peaceful town….”

  “…our problems…the federal police…Toluca.”

  Then Yolanda began to weep. My mother pulled a box of tissues from under the counter.

  A man and a woman walked in and everyone paused. The man tipped his hat at my parents and waited by the door, looking up and down the street, like he was keeping guard. The woman took a tray and tongs and filled a tray with bolillos from the bin, which was weird because anyone else would have taken the fresh ones from the rack.

  She walked up to the counter.

  My mother smiled. “Buenos días.”

  The woman nodded. My mother rang her up and Gaby put the bolillos in a brown paper bag. The woman stepped outside and marched up the street. The man followed her.

  “I’ve never seen them before.” My father stepped outside and looked up the street. Then he walked slowly back to the counter. “I know everyone who comes here. We cannot let this happen to our town.”

  His tone reminded me of when Enrique Quintanilla would lecture us in the parade grounds at school, the big flag dancing and waving with the wind, red and green against the blue of the sky, making flapping sounds like applause. I don’t remember exactly what el profe said, but we all swelled with pride. I remember feeling then that—no matter what—Izayoc was my home. It was the place I would defend with everything I had, the same way the Niños Héroes had defended Chapultepec Castle and the honor of the Republic.

  My father said, “I’ll go to Toluca in the morning. I’ll get help. I’ll alert the federal police and Senator González Parral.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Yolanda said.

  “But no one must know what we’re doing,” my father said.

  Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. Lucio was standing behind me. He gestured with his hand for me to get back, then pulled the door closed.

  “What?”

  He pointed at the sacks of flour. “We have to stack them and clean this pigsty.”

  “But—”

  “Otherwise we’ll have rats.”

  “Or mice,” I said because six months ago when the panadería was closed, my father decided it was time to get rid of the mice in the bakery. We came in after mass and tucked our pants into our boots and began removing the sacks of flour one by one. At first we only saw a mouse or two scurrying for cover. They were the dark gray ones that are like field mice and not ugly like the big brown rats we see in the garbage dump or the open sewers in the neighborhoods on the other side of the highway. We removed things one at a time. The mice seemed to multiply as they lost their hiding places. Pretty soon there had to be hundreds of them running around with no place to go. We stomped them, Lucio and my father whistling and yelling the way people yell at the cantinas when the mariachis play happy songs. The three of us marched and danced over the little guys until they were all dead.

  “Mice, rats,” Lucio said. “Call them what you want. We don’t want them here. Everyone knows if there’s one, there will be more. A lot more.”

  5.

  It was still dark when Gaby and I walked to the panadería the following morning. My parents had already left for Toluca. The roosters crowed and the loud diesel engines of the trucks barreling down the mountain on the new highway sounded like a distant parade. Some of the streetlamps didn’t work so the road was a mix of light and dark patches. It hadn’t rained in months, but the morning dew on the stones made the narrow street slippery. My dog Chapopote, a black mutt I had adopted a few years ago, followed us for a couple of blocks. Then he got distracted with a smell and trotted off.

  When we came home that evening, my parents hadn’t come back. We tried my father’s cell phone, but there was no answer.

  We sat down to dinner. Abuela came to the dining room without protest. There was no one to give her a hard time about eating her food. Jesusa brought her a cup of coffee right away. Abuela smiled and thanked her and even asked her to sit with us, calling her Susana.

  Gaby sat at my father’s place. She didn’t say anything. She just dug into her enchiladas as if she hadn’t eaten for days. Jesusa returned from the kitchen with a plate for herself and took my mother’s place at the table.

  “Buen provecho,” she said. It was the first time she’d ever sat with us at the big table.

  Then Abuela started. “I wasn’t impressed by the fancy camera. Dorian said he had studied with some man Castillo, who had photographed la revolución with a plate camera alongside Casasola.” She told us it didn’t impress her that he and another man named Turok had been commissioned by the government to make an important photographic document of Mexico. Or that he was half gringo. But she cared that he was handsome, rugged. She cared for him a lot more than she cared for the other man Tizapa. “Dorian was no dandy. I can tell you that.”

  When Abuela stopped talking to sip her café, Gaby turned to Jesusa. “Did you hear about Rocío Morales?”

  Jesusa set her fork down and her black almond eyes grew round. “And Enrique Quintanilla. Everyone is scared. People said he talked too much about what was none of his business, pues.”

  “What did they say?” I asked.

  “Pues, Hortensia, the one who brings the tortillas, she said people are moving into town. They’re building big houses in Montes de Oca. And up in Santacruz too.”

  Santacruz was Mosca’s neig
hborhood. It was at the top of the mountain north of town, just past the creek and the old highway. When you drove into town from the west on the old highway, the first thing you saw was the giant white metal cross at the highest point of the mountain. The people there were poor, but not dirt poor like the real gente pobre from the neighborhoods like Montes de Oca. Or further past the trash dump and the Flats on the other side of the new highway where Lucio lived. I guess Santacrúz was an in-between place, a sort of between us who had some money and those who were really poor.

  Abuela laughed. “I was surprised to find out he was interested in me.”

  Jesusa smiled at her, then she turned to Gaby. “Any news of your parents?”

  Gaby shook her head. “Mamá said it might take them a couple of days.”

  “Lucky,” I said.

  “Lucky how, you fool? They’re working.”

  “Yeah, but Toluca rules.”

  “Whatever.” Gaby rolled her eyes. “And just because they’re not here you can’t just go around goofing off. There’s school tomorrow.”

  “I’m watching a movie tonight.”

  “I’m watching my novela.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “My movie’s not on ‘til eleven.”

  Jesusa turned to Gaby. “¿El dolor del amor?”

  After dinner, we all sat together on the big couch. My father had reupholstered it last year in bright orange fabric he got from Don Bonifacio’s store and covered it with thick transparent plastic.

  Personally, I wasn’t interested in the soap opera, but there was nothing else to do. Besides, I wanted to stay up in case my parents arrived. I wanted to ask my father for a loan for the wrestling tickets. I figured I could pay him back by working at the bakery.

  When the novela was over, Gaby went to bed. Abuela and Jesusa stayed up with me to watch Santo contra el rey del crimen, the quintessential Santo movie. It was an old black-and-white wrestling movie. True. It didn’t have the best action, and it didn’t have a lot of fighting compared to the other ones, but I could relate to the plot. I mean you get to see Santo when he was a boy, like my age. People forget that he had to come from somewhere. He was fighting against injustice since he was a kid. I totally got that. Even as children we have to face bad guys, bullies, big kids, drunks, whatever. But Santo, he was lucky. His father had the mask and passed it down to him.