Salsa Nocturna: A Bone Street Rumba Collection

by Daniel José Older

  I'm done finding shit out. Time to endgame the situation. As I step forward to engage the ghost, the office door swings open and John Calhoun bursts in. He's wearing tighty-whiteys and a stained, white t-shirt. He looks pissed. Gone is the forced smile he had flashed again and again that afternoon. "What the hell do you think you're doing in my office, Detective?"

  He stands directly between my blade and his slave-trading, child-killing ancestor. A cruel laughter erupts in my brain like a bomb going off. "Get out of the way," I say. I'm trying to put on a calm front but a shiver has found its way into my voice. Both Calhouns hear it. The laughter in my head gets louder. "I have to destroy that chair."

  "That chair is an heirloom!" John Calhoun screams.

  "I bet," Riley mutters.

  "I'm calling the police," Calhoun announces, as if that settles the matter. He produces a cell phone and I swat it out of his hands with my cane. He glares at me in total disbelief. I swat him again, higher this time and he falls out of the way and cowers in a corner.

  "Let's get this over with, man," Riley says. He's beside me now, weak but ready to move. "Hold off Captain Underpants and I'll deal with Grampa." I feel his icy hand on my shoulder, steadying me.

  The transmission comes in blaring and staticky: Councilman Arsten to agents Washington and Delacruz. We both straighten to attention at the sound of Bart's nasally voice. Be advised, the entity known as Captain Jonathon Arthur Calhoun III, deceased 1846 of New York State, is a confirmed protected entity. He is not to be touched, harmed, or insulted. I try to concentrate on holding my blade steady, keeping both Calhouns at bay. Riley starts breathing heavily. Under no circumstances is he to be dispatched into non-existence. This concludes Emergency Executive Order 203-14 of the New York Council of the Dead. Failure to comply will result in banishment and termination.

  When the transmission ends, all I hear is the ghost Calhoun's piercing laughter. I lower my blade slightly and then bring it back up. I feel Riley bristling and burning like a fireball beside me. There's a pause. Then Riley lurches forward. I see the blade flash and the old man's face suddenly looks frail and desperate. You ever notice how old people do that? Act all powerful until things don't go their way. The ancient phantom moans, gurgles and then shrivels out of existence. On the floor lies the crumpled pile of wood and fabric that had once been a Calhoun family heirloom. I feel suddenly light on my feet. The whole room takes a breath, like the steam had been let out of the pressure cooker.

  John Calhoun, still cowering in the corner, stammers nonsensically. Riley and I look at each other. I can't decide if that's disappointment in his frown or just the sullen satisfaction of a grim job well done. I had hesitated. When he moved, the whole world had moved with him to deliver that divine justice; I could feel the sacred pantheon reveling in his victory around us. But the repercussions of defying the Council are devastating. We don't have much time. Death's angry bull's-eye is already swirling towards Riley.

  Calhoun screams and I realize that Riley has made himself visible. I guess once you've tossed the rulebook out, you might as well go all the way.

  "You've caused a lot of problems," Riley says.

  "Jesus, what are you?"

  "It's not about me. Maybe if you'd spent more time studying your own people before you came studying mine, we wouldn't be in this mess."

  "I-I don't understand!"

  "I think you do, but I'll let it slide. I’ma need you to do me a favor, though, Mr. Calhoun."

  "Anything."

  "Put some of the degree'd-up intellect of yours into dealing with your shit," Riley says, "and move out."

  * * *

  "What are you going to do?" I ask. We're strolling slowly back down towards the darkened river.

  "I don't know yet," Riley says. "Get the hell outta here, for starters." We both laugh weakly. I light a cigar.

  "About what happened back there..."

  "I did what I had to do," Riley cuts in.

  I know those words are gonna haunt me. We walk a little further in silence. I try to ignore the image of that great warehouse with all its misty apparitions flickering into a frenzy as word of Riley's disobedience spreads. Icy fingers will twitch anxiously. A flurry of messages will broadcast out. The gears of supernatural war are about to begin thundering towards the ghost beside me.

  "They're gonna send me after you," I say.

  "I imagine so."

  "Things will get messy between us."

  "They don't have to."

  I nod. We shake hands and walk in separate directions, drifting off into the New York night.

  Magdalena

  In a couple of hours, Magdalena will walk out of a forest and into a field. I've imagined the moment so many times now. One of her spaghetti straps'll be hanging down her shoulder and she'll still be carrying the machete. She won't be smiling. Face so serious you'd wonder if she'll ever smile again. But she will walk out into that field and far, far away, and leave the terrible past behind her.

  "So you're saying you still think about her?" Big Cane breaks into my imaginings. Probably because he's bored. We've been floating amidst the manicured bushes in front of this library for two days now, waiting, watching, watching, waiting. Not glamorous at all, this ghost hunting work.

  "Every mothafuckin' day, B. Well, okay, not every single one. But many. And especially as today started coming up."

  "This was when you were still alive that you knew her?" His enormity demands he always be looking down at whoever he's speaking to, but otherwise, Big Cane is the least condescending white person I've ever met, dead or alive. When he looks at me, I believe he really does see me, not some cavewoman cartoon he caught on TV in whatever century he lived in, not some pitiful, overweight, punk rock black chick that needs saving.

  It's something in his eyes.

  "Yeah. This boarding school I went to." I always pause there. Don't ask me why. "For troubled teens."

  I hope I'm right about Cane, because I've told him more about my life than I've ever told anyone else ever. He has a way of just prying stuff out of me, probably because he really doesn't try, just makes his little noises and occasionally sews together sentences and then I get to babbling. Which I swear is really unlike me, except when it's not. That particular grunt means, I see with an added connotation of What are you gonna do about it, then?

  We spend a lot of time together, me and Cane.

  I shrug and move my neck in circles to ease the soreness of so much of the same. "I don't know if I’ma do anything, yet. There's something to be said for letting go."

  "Hm." Amen.

  At the coffee shop across the street, life bumbles along its insanely dull daily routine. We're in Riverdale, a gushy suburban corner of the Bronx and not a damn interesting thing has happened here since 1947. Probably not true: A few night clubs and assorted shenanigan holes are scattered around on Broadway, not far away, but this block right here? Duller than death. You'd never guess that at the daycare center behind the coffee shop, three parasite phantoms are poised to feed on an entire room full of toddlers.

  "Oh, look, that same mom with the two kids from yesterday," Big Cane points out.

  "Mm." I'm getting to be more like him with each passing day of this insane stake out. Good thing we're cool.

  "'Cept she's a little later today."

  "Indeed." Kill me now.

  Cane adjusts his position, stretches those gigantic arms forward and then up above his head. "So...I think you should do something." A rare declaration of opinion from the ancient giant. "About Magdalena, that is."

  I frown. "Suggestions?"

  "Nope."

  "Great."

  * * *

  Magdalena strolled into fifth period English class late and chewing gum one chilly Friday afternoon, and slid into the seat next to mine. She wore a purple dress and you could tell she had those kind of breasts that just lay there against her chest and that she didn't give a fuck what people thought about that. Halfway through the class sh
e slid a folded up sheet of lined paper onto my desk with a drawing of a penis riding a mule, its grotesquely hairy nutsack straddling the saddle like fat little legs. I tried to suppress a cackle, caught some saliva in my windpipe and erupted into a coughing fit.

  When I recovered and Mr. Davis stopped glaring at me, I drew devil horns on the donkey and a backpack on the penis with a little baby penis poking its head out, papoose style.

  That was the first time I saw Magdalena smile. It exploded like the tearing of two tectonic plates across her face; transformed her in seconds from a snarling teenager to a bright little girl. Her two front teeth were huge and one laid slightly on top of the other like it was trying to hold it back from picking a fight with the world. Then she disappeared the smile, perhaps never to be seen again, and concentrated on drawing the mama penis and her mule.

  * * *

  "I think it's time," I say, more because I'm bored than any real reason.

  Big Cane shakes his big head. "Not yet."

  "Soon?"

  A nod and the slightest of smiles.

  "How will we know?" I'm not usually this impatient but Magdalena's big moment is rapidly approaching, and it's drenching my thought process with a swirl of gruesome images. Not the walking out the forest ones. Other, uglier scenes, that I'd rather not think about. "The Council gonna send us a message or something?"

  Cane lets out a gentle chortle and rubs his big fingers into his eyes. "Council ain't tellin' us shit except come to XYZ location, wait and move when it's time to move. The parasites been holed up in there for two days, gathering strength while the kids come and go. And you and I are the eyes and ears of the Council right now, Krys. That's it."

  "So we just wait 'til some magical moment? How do we decide what to do?"

  Instead of answering, Cane says, "Look, you wanna talk about what you're really talking about?" I hate that he can see right through me. I also love it, but right now I just bristle and shrug. I am, after all, still a teenager.

  Cane shrugs too and it looks like a mountain range going for a stroll. "Suit yourself."

  I let a moment or two pass, because I don't want to seem too anxious, and then say, "It's an anniversary thing. The day and hour she turns eighteen and... The day something horrible happened to her, years ago." Cane nods and I say, "On her eleventh birthday, actually." I'm not sure why I added that detail; maybe I needed to see Cane flinch like that, to know there is still some living, feeling thing under all those translucent layers of muscle and fat. But then I feel bad, because now the sadness in his eyes won't go away and it's too late to go back. "Her father."

  Cane looks like he's been slapped and for what it's worth, a part of me is relieved. You never know how someone, especially a man, is gonna react to information like that, and I was afraid he'd just go on being the big stoic impenetrable badass he always is and that I would hate him for it.

  * * *

  I wasn't crying as Magdalena finished telling her story but I was definitely making stupid little sobby noises and frowning a whole lot. It was 3 a.m. on the morning of her sixteenth birthday. We'd snuck out of our dorm and holed up in a little makeshift nest made of stolen blankets and flickering candles in the cramped props room behind the auditorium. I hiccupped and sniffled but Magdalena just sat there calm as could be. Then she told me about the promise she'd made to herself. A covenant, she called it, fiddling idly with one of the silver spikes sticking out of her lower lip. A covenant. Then she frowned.

  She still had babyfat on her face and her hair was tied back beneath a red bandana. I felt so big and solid next to her wispy little frame, but for the first time in maybe ever that bigness didn't feel like a bad thing, an awkward thing, it just felt like what I was. I wished in that moment that I could bottle the certainty in her eyes that made it so simple and obvious to just be me. Wished I could make a lifetime supply for every moment a stranger's gaze told me the opposite.

  * * *

  "It's time."

  I look up from my memories. Cane is poised like a giant tiger that's about to obliterate some unknowing gazelle. The bastard's actually smiling about the magnificent ass-whupping he's about to deliver and that's why me and Big C are peoples. Because I'm smiling, too. Life, death, struggle, whatever: It's comp-licated, laden with strife and disagreements, regret, poisoned hearts and betrayals. We're all survivors of something. And nothing helps all that muck disappear into the ether, at least momentarily, like truly wailing on some deserving fool of a soul-sucking phantom.

  I don't know what silent cue Cane took from the universe to tell him our moment had come. He never gives me a straight answer when I try to ask; instinct, I guess. A thing I'm only beginning to understand. Either way, like he says, he just knows.

  At a nodded signal, I pull my bow and arrow from my back and aim at the sky above the coffee shop. Feels so good, so right to stretch my arms after so long sitting and waiting. Just right. I take an extra second to double check my aim, imagining the havoc I'm about to unleash. I don't really need to, but this is no time for arrogance. Children's lives are at stake.

  I release, feel the projectile erupt from my bow, stretch upwards in a glorious arc, cut through the late afternoon sky above the heads of a dozen oblivious passersby. It hangs there for a solid second, as if unsure whether or not to give in to gravity, and then plummets. The warhead at the end is a sharpened canister: The spiritual equivalent of a shock grenade. It won't do any real damage but should stun everybody enough to give us the upper hand.

  Inside the building, fourteen kindergarteners stand in a tangled shadow web. They can't see it of course, can't see anything in their semi-comatose state, but those misty lines stretch between the three hunched over phantoms. The parasites are fully in some kind of hellacious meditation, all bent on their soul-sucking ways. They're draining these kids of their life force. The kids'll live but they'll just be shells, no vitality. Failure to thrive, it's called in medical textbooks. The rest of their sad lives will be a failure to thrive. At least that's what would've happened. Instead, my warhead comes dancing out of the sky, swoops through all those layers of concrete and wire mesh and finds its mark smack in the middle of the feeding.

  Cane and I burst out of our hiding place. People walk down the street like it's just another day in Riverdale, strolling, shopping, going about their business. We cut through them, a sudden breeze against the flesh of the living, and push into the building. The arrow has done its job well; the parasites stumble every which way, their long interconnecting tentacles flapping in the air uselessly. The kids blink awake; a few start crying and running around in circles.

  I bring my bow down hard on the first parasite I pass, smashing it into the ground in a pathetic ghostly heap. The next one is recovering some; it lurches up at me and I meet it with a fist in the face. The thing crumples again and I move on, stepping gingerly over the collapsing ghost web.

  * * *

  After Magdalena told me about her plan we sat quietly for a few minutes. This band she likes, Culebra, screamed and wailed on a gritty little speaker box and the only other sound was us pulling on the joint, coughing occasionally. If it had been totally quiet, no music, no smoking, nada? I think she would've been able to hear my heart sobbing. No tears came out, although Magdalena's story has pulled the floor out from under me. I just let the sadness become a sleeping snake, curled up inside me. I let it rise in my chest; let it squeeze a little tighter with each puff of smoke.

  After a few minutes, Magdalena opened up that big smile once again. "The other part of my plan is this..."

  "Tell me."

  "Every year until then," she said like she was coming to the end of a really corny ghost story, "on my birthday, I will make love to a beautiful woman."

  I burst out laughing, but Magdalena had folded her smile back away. I stopped laughing and we just looked at each other across the dark room.

  * * *

  "Go," Cane says. He has his own covenant, the protocols of manhood. He follows them
religiously and they don't allow him to put words to what's on his mind. But he doesn't have to. A certain tremble erupts in those ghostly pupils and it tells me everything I need to know. "Go," he says again, but he's really saying Go, because it happened to me too. Because I survived and lived a long healthy life and so should she. Go.

  When I hesitate he nods towards the last writhing phantom and says "I got this" in a voice so hoarse and serious I almost hug him. But that's not the move right now and I know it. The move is get out of here and find Magdalena. Fast. So that's what I do.

  * * *

  "Actually," I said when Magdalena put her pretty, uneven lips against my neck, "I like boys." I still cringe when I think about it.

  "Me too," Magdalena said between slurps.

  I was lying on my back. Lying perfectly still, because if I moved, the whole moment might shatter. "I mean I'm not gay."

  Magdalena didn't say anything, just worked her mouth down my shoulders and along my arms.

  I didn't know whether I was relieved or disappointed when she stopped kissing my toes and nuzzled up on top of me like a kitten sleeping on a baby bear in one of those feel-good postcard photos. I mean, I was praying the whole time, to an entity I knew no name for, and cringing too, and I suppose all my prayers and my shame and pleasure got mixed into one sultry, complicated sludge that got sent up to Whomever and that was that.

  I said, "I thought you were going to make love to me," trying to make my voice neutral.

  "I did," she said and I felt her smile against my chest.

  First, I felt sad because maybe, in her strange, broken world, that's what making love was. No vaginas, no ins and outs, no gooey juices; just a whole mess of the gentlest kisses in the world placed with the utmost care on each available body part and then a good cuddle. I watched the top of her head rise and fall with each of my breaths. I had never felt so peaceful in all my life. Maybe that was what making love was in my strange, broken world too, and it was everyone else who had it wrong. I smiled and was grateful it was too dark for her to see the tears sliding out of my eyes, down my face and onto the stolen blankets.