Playing for the Devil's Fire

by Phillippe Diederich

  He didn’t mention my parents, which made me wonder if he knew they were missing. My father and the priest were good friends. Papá would sometimes visit him during the week or meet him at El Venus for coffee where they would talk about things that my father said had nothing to do with religion. He said there was a lot we could learn from listening to educated men like Father Gregorio.

  I scooted down on the pew and stared at the washed-out paintings of the fourteen Stations of the Cross on the church walls. I felt sorry for Christ. He was always so sad. I suppose he had good reason. In some of the paintings, people helped him with the cross, but in the end he was going to die. He knew it, and I guess they knew it too. It was like Jesusa always said about life, that it’s a journey of burdens and suffering that ends in death. Our journey was to live and suffer and die. It’s what Father Gregorio was always talking about.

  To me, it’s more about the help we get along the way. Looking at the paintings, I wondered if the people helping Christ on his way to Mount Calvary were really helping him. I mean, weren’t they actually helping him die? Wouldn’t it have been better if they had helped him escape?

  Once, I mentioned this to Mosca. He laughed and said Jesus had to die, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to resurrect and become the Jesus Christ, and if that had been the case, there would be no Catholicism. “Besides,” he’d said, “it’s all a fairy tale made up by the priests. All they wanted was to enslave the Indians and steal the gold of the Aztecs.”

  I wasn’t the best Catholic, but I did fear God. And Father Gregorio. I mean, what kind of life would we have if there were no heaven? It would all be meaningless. We would be here only so we could die. What would be the point of that?

  After mass, Father Gregorio came to where we were lighting veladoras for my parents at the feet of the Virgen de Guadalupe.

  He bowed to my abuela. “Any news of Alfonso and Carmen?” he asked Gaby.

  “We’re praying, Father.” Gaby’s voice had an edge to it, as if she were about to lose control. “But it’s been a week.”

  Father Gregorio rubbed his chin and watched my abuela light her candle. “I’m sure there is a good reason for their delay.”

  Abuela didn’t answer. She dug around her purse for change to place in the box for the limosna.

  “And how are you holding up?” He ruffled my hair like he used to do when I was in catechism.

  “Fine, I guess.”

  “Sometimes adults make mistakes too,” he said.

  “What mistakes did they make?” I asked.

  Father Gregorio’s blue eyes faded. I couldn’t tell whether he didn’t want to tell me something, or if he’d just said one of those things adults tell children when bad things happen so they won’t feel afraid. Like when my abuela started talking about Veracruz all the time, my mother told us she was just a little sick with nostalgia. I asked her if it was something she had to go to the doctor for, and she looked at me exactly like Father Gregorio looked at me now. Like she had made a leap and fallen and now didn’t know how to get back up. Then she said it was one of those things everyone has to live with when they get old.

  “Don’t worry,” Father Gregorio said. “I’m certain they’ll turn up soon. There has to be a logical explanation for this. Have faith.”

  “This church,” Abuela said and pointed at the ceiling, “is falling apart.”

  The cupola was marked with brown stains, peeling paint and patches of bubbling plaster. “Maintenance for such an old building is terribly expensive,” Father Gregorio said.

  “Why do we fill a collection basket every Sunday?” Abuela pursed her lips and turned back to the Virgen.

  “Father,” I said, “do you really think my parents are okay?” I really wanted to ask him if he thought someone had cut their heads off like they had done to el profe Quintanilla, but I guess I wasn’t that brave. I was scared to find out they had died. I wanted to know. But I didn’t want to know so I could hold on to the hope that they were okay. And yet, not knowing was scary. It left me with an empty feeling just like the time Ximena blew me that kiss in fifth grade.

  Father Gregorio leaned his head to the side. “Trust in God, hijo. He has a plan for all of us.”

  “We’ve called the hospitals and the procuraduría in Toluca, but no one knows anything,” Gaby said.

  He nodded. “Have patience. The Lord is on their side.”

  “Sure,” Gaby said. “It’s not your parents that disappeared.”

  “Please, I’m here to help. Gabriela—”

  But Gaby turned and marched away without letting Father Gregorio finish.

  “I can’t blame her. She’s heard too many empty promises,” Abuela said and followed Gaby out of the church.

  “And what about you?” Father Gregorio said.

  “I have faith, Father, at least for now. But I’m scared. The new people in town, with their big trucks and gold chains, I have a bad feeling.”

  “You’ve been watching too many lucha movies, Liberio.”

  “I just don’t want my parents to end up like el profe or Rocío.”

  “Hijo. Why would someone want to hurt your parents?”

  “I don’t know, Father. I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt anyone, but look at how Rocío Morales ended up. My father always said she was a nice girl. She used to come to the panadería. Sometimes my father would even walk her home. Now she’s dead.”

  He placed his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll speak with Captain Pineda and see what he knows.”

  I lowered my head. His shoes were black and very shiny. I wondered who shined them for him.

  “And listen to me, hijo.” He ruffled my hair again. “When you’re out in the streets, you might hear things about Rocío or el profesor Quintanilla or about our new neighbors. I want you to come to me and tell me what you hear, okay?”

  I glanced at the big statue of Christ on the cross behind the altar. It was so real. I thought of the sadness that Christ had pressed on me since I was a little boy—all the cuts and blood and the horrible crown of thorns. But seeing him up there now helped me understand one thing: maybe my problems were not so bad. God could not be that bad. What I was going through was not nearly as bad as what His son had to suffer.

  I left feeling a little better. Having Father Gregorio there was helpful. I trusted him more than anyone else in town.

  When I walked out of the church, Mosca was waiting for me by the iron gate. “What took you so long, güey?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Guess what? Pepino’s offering a hundred and fifty for the game.”

  “For real?”

  “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “So, you gonna do it?”

  “I’m gonna wait a little.”

  “Güey, take the hundred and fifty.”

  “Naranjas. I’m going to hold out for three hundred, the price of my ticket to the lucha. How did you make out Saturday?”

  “A hundred and seventy.”

  “Not bad.”

  My sister and Abuela were in the corner across the street. Gaby was eating chicharrón with lime and chile.

  “¿Entonces?” Mosca nudged me with his elbow. “Any news of your parents?”

  I shook my head. A man leaned out one of the windows of the municipal building and signaled someone below. A white double-cab truck with chrome wheels, the black Expedition with black windows and California plates, and the gray pickup were parked there one after the other like they were about to go on parade.

  “You know,” Mosca said, “maybe we should go to Toluca and look for them.”

  For a second it felt real, like we could do it. Like we could just hop on a bus and go find them. But the truth was like a rock, heavy and without pity. “What?” I said. Maybe I expected him to offer a plan, show me that we could really do it. “You and me knocking on doors all over the city? Just like that?”

  “I don’t know, Boli. I just wish I could help. Everyone here is scared to death.”
r />   “Scared of death is more like it.”

  He stared at me. I felt bad. He had his own problems. He didn’t need to take mine on. I mean they were my parents. They were my responsibility. I had to find them.

  I forced a smile. I think he understood because he nudged me with his elbow. “So a bunch of us are going to the Flats to play fútbol,” he said. “You in?”

  “I don’t know.” When he mentioned the Flats, all I could see was Rocío Morales’ naked body lying in the weeds. “I have to walk my abuela home.”

  “Let Gaby do it.”

  “She has to go to the market.”

  Mosca looked at them. “Oye, she’s all grown up, no?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Gaby. She’s looking real good. You should put in a good word for me.”

  “Don’t be gross, güey.” I punched him on the shoulder and ran across the street.

  I took Abuela’s arm. Gaby walked away, up Avenida de la Merced to the market by the bus stop.

  Abuela and I walked along Calle Lealtad. When we came to the corner where there was a big bougainvillea spilling over a wall, she stopped to admire the purple flowers. Then she pointed across the street. “Look how pretty, a hummingbird!”

  10.

  The following week, Chato caught up with Mosca and me outside the main gate of the secundaria. “Hold up,” he said. “Pepino wants to talk to you.”

  Just then a metallic green VW Golf with dark windows pulled up across the street. It had wide tires, silver rims, and was lowered down almost to the ground. The stereo played an American rap song—all bass, real loud, and lyrics none of us could understand but could tell were angry, full of attitude.

  The music stopped and Zopilote stepped out. He wore a green polo shirt too small for him and a black leather jacket. A pair of thin dark glasses covered his eyes. And, although I would never admit it to him or to anyone else, even to Mosca, I thought he looked pretty damn cool.

  He came around the car and leaned against the passenger side and crossed his arms. “What’s up, mis pendejitos?”

  We crossed the street and surrounded his car like a bunch of stupid goats.

  Chato ran his hand long the front of the hood. “Chingón. It’s so bad ass.”

  “Don’t touch,” Zopilote said. “I just had it waxed.”

  “You mean you waxed it, and now you have to take it back to its owner,” Mosca said.

  Zopilote grinned. “Laugh all you want, enano. But when you’re walking home, I’ll be cruising around in my chariot. I might even drive out to Coyuca del Rió, check out a flick, maybe that new Avengers movie that’s playing right now.”

  “Where’d you get it?” I said. “Seriously.”

  “I got a job.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s for real, hijo.” He dangled the keys. “And this was just my bonus.”

  Mosca laughed. “I didn’t even know you knew how to drive.”

  “It goes to show you don’t know shit.”

  Pepino and Kiko came running out of the school and moved around the car checking out the dark headlight covers, the rear spoiler, the black antenna, and even the little sticker of Tweety Bird on the back window.

  “What’s it like inside?” Kiko asked.

  Zopilote opened the door and stepped aside. “Careful. I don’t want your dirty paws all over it.”

  The seats were red and black leather. It had a cool-looking Blaupunkt stereo and massive speaker grills on the doors and in the back hatch cover. The dash was all shiny. It smelled real sweet like vanilla.

  Zopilote waved at Ximena and Regina who were just walking out. “Let’s go,” he yelled. “Joaquín’s waiting.”

  My eyes locked on the girls. Then I saw Zopilote’s ugly smile. He leaned in and pulled the seat forward. Regina stepped in first. Our eyes met. She forced a crooked smile, her eyes blank, distant, as if she knew she was doing something she was not supposed to do, but was doing it anyway because she had to.

  Ximena was different. She knew everyone was watching her. It was her big moment, getting into Zopilote’s fancy car so she could be delivered to her prince. She said nothing and looked at no one. She just floated right into the front seat as if she’d done it a million times, pulling her skirt, folding it under her leg without revealing an inch of skin above the knee. She looked as if she belonged there, in that seat, in that car, with him.

  Zopilote closed the door and waved us away. “Let’s see, chavos, make way.”

  He cut around the front of the car. Before he got in, he glanced at me and smiled like he was the devil, as if he knew I was crazy in love with Ximena and was pushing and turning the dagger deeper into my heart.

  The stereo blasted where the song had left off. Zopilote revved the car a couple of times so we could all hear the modified muffler growl like an angry tomcat.

  Everyone moved aside, like the sea parting for Moses. The car inched forward real slow. Then it revved again and the tires spun, screeching against the asphalt. We backed away and watched it speed off, leaving us in a sour-smelling cloud of burnt rubber.

  “¡Hijo de su chingada madre!” Kiko cried and wiped his mouth.

  I looked around. Mosca had this weird sparkle in his eyes, as if something had been revealed, or promised, as if he too could one day have a car just like that one. Things were changing, and Zopilote was the first one to take advantage of it.

  “I bet you it’s that guy’s car,” Mosca said. “He just let Zopilote use it so he could pick up the girls.”

  I walked away. This thing with Ximena was killing me. I knew it was an impossible love. She was older than me. But it hadn’t been my choice. She had been the one who smiled at me. And the kiss. She did it. She made this happen. I was doomed.

  Mosca caught up with me and grabbed my arm. “What’s the matter, güey?”

  “Nothing.” I tore away from his grip and kept walking.

  “Hold on, Boli. Let’s see what Pepino wants, no?”

  I stopped at the end of the block.

  Mosca ran back to where the guys were waiting. They gathered around him. I could see Mosca moving his hands, gesturing and pointing at Pepino, then at Kiko and Chato, and then back at Pepino. Then he nodded and came running back to where I was.

  “Come on,” he said. “They want to play for the cash.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I have to go help Gaby at the bakery.”

  “Pepino says he’ll pay three hundred.”

  “For real?”

  “A ticket to the wrestling, güey.”

  “And if you lose?”

  Mosca’s face twisted as if I had just insulted his dead mother. “I’ll never lose. Ever.”

  The crowd that had been hanging around under the patch of shade in the side of the street followed Pepino to where we were.

  “¿Entonces qué?” he said. “You wanna lose now or later?”

  Mosca looked at me. “Now, no? I’ll make it quick, Boli. I swear. Then you can go help Gaby.”

  I smiled. “Let’s do this.”

  We marched together to the fútbol field in the Flats outside town. That was the place where all the important games, fights, and duels took place.

  I knew one thing for sure: No one in the history of Izayoc had ever played marbles for three hundred pesos. Even if Mosca lost the devil’s fire, his reputation would be solid.

  The soccer field was south of the dump near the area where we had found Rocío Morales. It had real metal goals without nets. On weekends, when it was the season, teams from around the municipality played matches there. But the team from Izayoc had not won a game in my lifetime.

  The field was mostly dirt with patches of dry grass and weeds and no trees. On the other side of the dump, past the highway, the hills grew again where the Montes de Oca neighborhood looked like a giant construction site with dozens of concrete-block and brick houses that never looked finished—unpainted and with long stalks of rebar sticking out their roofs and
walls, the ends covered with glass soda bottles. The houses had been built along narrow dirt roads one after the other. All around, little colonias were sprouting up like gray encampments. Closer to the dump, clusters of small shacks of wood and tarpaper spread out all the way to the edge of the highway.

  The wind was blowing hard, kicking up dust all over the Flats. A few boys from the colonias were flying homemade paper kites. They watched us for a while. Then they reeled in their kites and came running. They probably thought there was going to be a fight.

  Pepino explained that the game would be played out between him and Mosca and Kiko and Chato, because they had each put up a hundred pesos. “And there’s no interference from anyone,” he warned. “Everyone has to stay back.”

  “What about Boli?” Mosca said.

  “No. Just us.”

  Mosca wanted me to play for strategy. When we played together, we used our marbles to block our opponents or to set each other up for a shot. I suppose you could call it cheating, but that’s just how it worked. Everyone did it.

  Pepino was really hyper, pacing and pointing at things. “Órale, Kiko. Make the line here. Chato, draw a circle there.”

  “Boli holds the cash and the diablito rojo,” Mosca said.

  Pepino balked. “Ni madres.”

  “He holds the bet,” Mosca said. “You can trust him. Right, Boli?”

  I crossed my thumb over my index finger and kissed it.

  Pepino stared at me with wild eyes. It was like he was possessed. Then he glanced at his friends and nodded. They each gave me a hundred pesos.

  Mosca pulled out an opaque white, orange, and blue oilie marble from his pocket.