Playing for the Devil's Fire

by Phillippe Diederich

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m happy you came back.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  I didn’t answer. I was happy he hadn’t gotten drunk. He had come back. And he was helping me.

  “Look,” he said. “I know you’re worried about your parents, but I think you need to know something. I’m going to be straight with you, hijín. I don’t think they’re alive. I have no idea what happened to them, but you need to know there are bad people in this world. People don’t disappear just like that without it ending in tragedy.”

  “What did you find out? Tell me!”

  “It has nothing to do with your parents.”

  “It has to do with something, no?”

  “It has to do with this town. It’s infected like the rest of the fucking country. This shit’s everywhere. There’s no way to fix it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He waved and turned on his side. “Everyone’s giving you hope, telling you there’s a chance, that everything’s going to be okay. It’s all lies. We are a country built on lies. Listen, forget the illusion that the world is a good place. It’s not.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said. “There’s good out there. I know there is. My father was a good man. And Lucio and Father Gregorio. And you too. You just don’t know it.”

  “Keep thinking that way. One day your heart will break into a million pieces. That will open your eyes real wide.”

  “My heart’s already broken. I lost my parents, remember?” My lip quivered. I couldn’t hold back the anger. I turned away so Chicano wouldn’t see my tears. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  “Gimme a break, hijín. It’s not as if you’re the only one who suffers in this world. You know nothing of life.”

  “I know enough,” I yelled. “I know you didn’t want to help me, but you stayed and now you’re helping me. I know you took down those poor people from the bridge. That makes you a good guy. It makes you the best and bravest person in Izayoc.”

  “Do me a favor—don’t put me on a pedestal.” Then he whispered, “I’m just a guy, okay?”

  “You’re more than that, Chicano. You have to give yourself credit for the good you’re doing here.”

  “And what if we don’t find your parents?”

  As much as I had thought of that, of finding them hanging from a bridge or stuffed into the trunk of my father’s car or chopped into pieces, it was that there wasn’t anything I could do that ripped at my gut. It was the helplessness. My voice broke. “Even if we never find them, at least I’ll be able to say we tried.”

  He was quiet for a long time. Then he turned on his back and set his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. I did the same.

  “I lost my mother when I was eight,” he said. “My father was a drunk. I grew up in the streets of Tepito, in the city. By the time I was your age, I was a pretty good pickpocket. I stole cars, held up people riding in taxis. I raped a woman when I was seventeen. I did drugs, sniffed glue. I’ve injected myself with just about every substance, legal and illegal. I lived in the sewer and did a year in prison. I was a lost cause until I walked into the Nuevo Jordan Gym.

  “There was an old man there who offered to train me. He charged people a few pesos here and there for his boxing advice, but with me, he did it for free.”

  “To become a boxer?”

  “Yes. He taught me to box. But he also taught me about myself. He taught me to dream and not to give up on those dreams. He taught me that I could be someone better. I didn’t have to live in the streets like trash. He became like a father to me.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Nineteen, twenty.”

  “But how did you become a luchador?”

  He smiled. “People said I had what it took, that if I stayed with it, I’d have a chance to try out for the Olympics.”

  “As a boxer, for real?”

  “Yeah.” He turned on his side to face me. “Well, the Olympics don’t really pay. So I took my trainer’s advice and went pro instead. In a few months, we were doing pretty well, making a little cash here and there. I worked my ass off, won some fights.

  “Then one day I’m on a ticket at the Arena Coliseo against Willy Mendoza, a Puerto Rican with a real reputation.” He lay on his back again and stared at the ceiling. “It wasn’t a title fight, but it was big. From there, I could climb up to the title. But my trainer, the old man, he told me to take a dive. Lose the fight.”

  Chicano fell quiet for a long while. He moved his hands in the air and then pulled the blanket up to his neck. “It was all about money, hijín. That’s what everything’s about.”

  “So you did it?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Chicano?”

  “I’m not proud.”

  He touched the trim around the side of his mask and stared up at the poster of Santo I had on the wall. I thought of my father lecturing me about the importance of integrity. To be a person of one’s word was the most important thing. He’d said that money would always come and go, but if people knew they couldn’t trust you, you had nothing. He’d said that to be someone in this world you had to have integrity.

  I looked at Chicano lying quietly on the floor. He probably still felt broken about what he did then. But I knew he would regain his pride when we found my parents, when we finally ran Joaquín and his pals out of town. “But then you became a wrestler, no?”

  “Some of the guys at the gym got me into it. La lucha’s just as rigged as boxing, but at least everyone knows it. The fraud is out in the open, plain as day. And sometimes the pay’s better.”

  “But things could’ve been worse,” I said. “You could’ve died or gone to jail again.”

  He laughed softly. “You don’t get it, hijo. It’s about reality. Everything out there is rotten. Everything. The sooner you admit it to yourself, the sooner you can get on with the rest of your life. Life is shit.”

  No. He was wrong. He had given up hope, but not me. Even if we never found my parents, I was not going to change. I was not going to give up on life. I bit my lip. I didn’t want to hear my own voice. I didn’t want to cry. I turned on my side and stared at the calendar and the little empty squares cut into triangles by diagonal lines. Every one of them empty of my parents.

  “Liberio?” His voice was dry and low.

  “Lemme alone.”

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry. Don’t listen to me. I’m just a bitter old has-been. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I never even made it past third grade. Your life doesn’t have to be like mine.”

  I closed my eyes and prayed to God that something good would happen tomorrow, that we’d find my parents and that they’d be alive, that it had all been a misunderstanding, and that Chicano would stay and live with us forever.

  23.

  Devil’s Ravine was a steep fall on the side of the mountain below what we called Devil’s Curve, a sharp and long turn on the old highway into town from the east. There was nothing sinister about the place. It was just like any other ravine or mountainside around the valley, but since the old highway was really just a narrow two-lane road, and there was only a small metal guardrail at the edge of Devil’s Curve, a crash there meant certain death. We had all heard stories of accidents, but I had never met anyone, ever, who knew someone who had actually died in a crash there.

  Chicano, Mosca and I walked up the narrow path between the road and the edge of the mountain. Chicano had finally ditched his tights and cape. He now wore a pair of my father’s pants and a shirt, which were way too small for him. We passed a few peasant women carrying plastic mesh bags loaded with goods, their barefoot children trailing behind, staring at Chicano’s red mask. Then we passed five men heading into town with loads of firewood on their backs. No one said anything. They stared at the ground and kept clear of Chapo even though I had him on a short leash.

  Every few minutes a car or truck would speed down the hill towards town. The ones
leaving town climbed slowly up the hill in low gear. It made me wonder because Father Gregorio had said my parents had never made it to Toluca. The real danger of Devil’s Curve was if you were driving down the hill on your way into town and came to the curves, one after another, and ended with the biggest curve of all: Devil’s Curve. After that the highway flattened out as it came to the Pemex station. There was no way to speed uphill. Sometimes big trucks climbed so slow, peasants riding donkeys could pass them.

  When we reached Devil’s Curve, we paused to catch our breath. Mosca sat on the metal rail and wiped the sweat from his brow. I looked out at the ravine. It was wooded and green from the rain. Past the ravine and the next low hill, I could make out the church bell tower and the top of the municipal building and the rest of Izayoc in the distance.

  “I don’t get it,” Mosca said. “Why didn’t your parents take the new highway?”

  I had been wondering the same thing. Chapo sniffed at trash on the side of the road. Chicano leaned forward and studied the asphalt from the bottom to the top of the curve and back. “It’s an old rail,” he said. “They didn’t go down around here, that’s for sure.”

  I glanced at the top of the curve where there was no rail. “What about up there?”

  We walked to the start of the curve. Chicano knelt on the narrow shoulder and ran his hand over the loose gravel. He looked just like a real detective, like Santo in one of the movies.

  He stood and dusted his hands on the sides of his pants. “I don’t see any skid marks.”

  “Maybe it was down there,” Mosca pointed in the opposite direction, past the rail.

  Chicano shook his head. “I’ve been looking. This would be the place.” He pointed up the road. “If they came down this way, this is where you would begin to skid. That’s why they put the rail down there and not here.”

  Mosca said, “Unless you were distracted or you fell asleep, no?”

  “I guess.” Chicano looked down the curve and then up where the road disappeared into another curve. “Come on.”

  We followed him a few feet up to the next curve.

  “No marks,” I said.

  “Nothing.” Chicano shook his head. “No skid marks, broken branches.”

  “It’s true.” Mosca walked down to where I was. “Last year I came with Junior after a truck went down. You could see all the trees broken. It was as if a bulldozer had torn through.”

  “So what do we do?” I asked, but Chicano had walked further up. He was about eighty feet ahead of us at the very top of the curve.

  Mosca and I walked to the edge of the ravine and looked down. It was all green treetops. It got darker further down, where the trees were taller. I glanced at Chicano. He was starting to come our way. Then he stopped. He turned and looked back up the hill. Then he turned and waved at us. “Go!”

  Mosca and I looked at each other.

  “Jump!” Chicano yelled. Then he took two quick steps and jumped into the ravine. A second later, a black double cab pickup appeared speeding around the curve. It rode on the shoulder, tires screeching. Chicano was in midair when we heard the popping like a string of fireworks.

  Mosca’s face turned white. He ran. I blinked, and he was gone. The pickup was coming head on, fast. I jumped. Below me, the blue of Mosca’s jacket rolled down the mountain like a giant marble.

  Tack, tack tack, tack. I hit the ground and rolled down the cliff. The popping was softer. Then it was gone. Silence. Twigs and bushes slapped and scraped against me. Every time I tried to regain my balance, gravity pushed me. I rolled until I hit a tree. Pain shot up the side of my leg.

  I lay on my side for a minute. The ravine was dead quiet. I shook my head and looked around. Mosca was standing further down the ravine, waving at me.

  Above it was just trees and bushes and small bits of white sky. My thigh was throbbing. I couldn’t feel a bump, just pain. I moved my toes, my foot.

  Mosca climbed toward me. “You okay?”

  “Where’s Chicano?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “My leg.”

  He helped me up. The ground was at a steep incline. I leaned against the tree until I regained my balance.

  “Good?” Mosca’s face was scratched up, eyes quivering with fear.

  I nodded. “You?”

  “The fuck was that?”

  A twig snapped. We jumped and looked back. Chapo. He trotted toward us. Mosca grabbed the leash and petted his head. I raised my shirt and looked at my side. No scratches, just pain. I leaned my weight on my injured leg. Pain traveled up my calf and across my hip.

  I took Chapo’s leash from Mosca.

  He pointed to the side. “He must have gone down there, no?”

  I looked up the mountain. “Those hijos de la chingada shot at us.”

  Mosca laughed. “They fucking tried to kill us, no?” His laughter morphed into uncontrollable sobs. “They tried to kill us, Boli. They shot to kill us.”

  “Take it easy.”

  “It was fucking Zopilote. It had to be.” His eyes were big and round. He was on the verge of hysterics.

  I put my hands on his shoulders and shook him. “Come on, Mosca. We’re okay.”

  “You think he’ll come after us? You think—”

  “There’s no place for them to pull over up there. Keep it together. We have to find Chicano.” His face was pale, his eyes cutting through me like I wasn’t there. “We’re gonna be okay.” I shook him again. He blinked and our eyes locked for a moment. Then he nodded and we started down the mountain.

  I pulled Chapo’s leash. Mosca followed. We had to be near the bottom of the ravine. I could hear the creek. There was no path, so we zigzagged, walking sideways, holding onto trees and sapplings for safety. As we descended it got darker, colder, quiet.

  We’d advanced only a few dozen feet when I saw the red of Chicano’s mask. He was below us, climbing up.

  I called to him.

  He stopped climbing and waved to us. “You all right?”

  I gave him thumbs up.

  We continued, zigzagging and slipping down the steep mountain.

  “Someone doesn’t like us,” he said when we reached him. His pants and shirt were torn, muddy.

  “Did you roll all the way down?” I said.

  He nodded. “To the bottom.”

  “What are we gonna do?” Mosca was shaking. “They tried to kill us.”

  I put my arm around his shoulder. “Relax, güey. We’re okay.”

  Chicano leaned forward and petted Chapo. Then he placed a hand on our shoulders. “We’re here now, so let’s do what we came here to do, no?”

  We started single file along the muddy path that ran alongside the creek, a tributary of the Lágrimas River. The bottom of the ravine was lush with tall trees and huge plants. The light was soft and misty. The whole scene had an eerie feel, like an enchanted forest or something from a horror movie. The creek stank a little like a sewer. In parts where the creek swelled, we had to manage by jumping on rocks until we found the path again.

  After about fifteen minutes, Mosca stopped. “This is fucked up. We have to do something.”

  “Look, we were lucky,” Chicano said. “It would have been worse if they’d actually killed us.”

  “It’s not a joke!” he yelled. “They shot at us. With guns!”

  “Come on,” Chicano said. “Take it easy, Mosca.”

  “They might be waiting for us at the end of the ravine.”

  Chicano gestured for us to calm down. “We’ll be okay. But we can’t just stay here, so let’s keep going.” He took the lead. Mosca shook his head. He trailed behind.

  “Maybe they don’t want us to find what’s down here,” I said.

  “Look!” Chicano pointed. It was a car wreck.

  I ran, my heart pounding against my ribs. It was a mangled mass of metal. But it wasn’t a Jetta. It was an old car, a pile of rusted steel. It had been stripped of anything that could be removed and carried away, even the engi
ne. All that was left was the thick metal frame and rusted body panels. Weeds grew through the floor and the engine bay.

  Chicano placed his hand on the side of the frame and leaned against it. “It’s been here a long time.” He looked up and down the creek. “We must be just past Devil’s Curve.”

  “Now what?” Mosca said.

  Chicano walked around the wreck. “Where does the creek lead?”

  “It goes into town,” I said.

  “That’s what we’ll do.” Chicano pointed up to the highway. “Who knows what’s waiting for us up there.”

  We started again. Chapo took the lead and trotted ahead of us, his nose low to the ground. As we got closer to town, the stink of the water became more intense. Trash began to appear along the trail: plastic bags, crushed Styrofoam cups, bottles, cans.

  Chapo stopped and looked ahead, his head up. He growled low and steady. I grabbed his collar. “What is it?”

  The old dog stepped back and growled. The hair between his shoulders spiked up. He looked at me. He let out a short yelp and pulled forward.

  A twig snapped. Chapo barked and jerked hard.

  “Let him go.” Chicano said.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  I released him. He pounced ahead and sped along the trail, disappearing into the foliage. Silence.

  We waited, then we looked at each other. Chicano took the lead. Mosca and I followed. We came to a small curve where the creek became wider. We stepped on rocks in the water, our arms extended at our sides to keep our balance. It was a long stretch. In the distance we could see light where the forest thinned before the creek entered a large culvert under the street.

  Chapo was nowhere in sight. We could hear trucks cruising on the highway in the distance. When we caught the trail again, Chicano stopped and crossed himself.

  I ran to him. “What is it?”

  He pointed to the ground. A foot. A single severed bare foot about the same size as mine. It was swollen and pale. The white of the bone was visible at the end where millions of flies and ants were feasting on the raw flesh.

  “What the—?” Mosca covered his mouth and turned away.

  Chicano shook his head and walked ahead slowly. Then he stopped again. Another foot and an arm lay on the side of the path. The earth and plants were splattered with blood.