Salsa Nocturna: A Bone Street Rumba Collection

by Daniel José Older

  * * *

  This is where she said it would happen. I move quickly through a clearing; just a translucent flash in the darkening sky and then I'm gone, disappeared into the shadows of the forest.

  Perfect spot for a killing, really. There's no one around for miles; we're well away from the main road in a vast park in the murky nether region where Brooklyn becomes Queens. I glide forward on intuition mainly, because once I enter the woods it's anyone's guess where she might be. Maybe it's the beginning of Big Cane's magic being born in me too; I feel myself getting closer. Then I see her.

  I'm too late. Sort of. Magdalena's standing by a concrete opening in the forest floor, maybe the foundation of some building that never got built. It's full of murky rainwater that looks like it's been there for eons, all sludge and dead leaves and trash. Doesn't matter. What matters is the lifeless collection of limbs piled in the mulch at the edge of the pool. The ground is dark with blood and blood is splattered in a frantic design across Magdalena's white t-shirt. She's crying. Wipes a hand over her sweaty brow, slathering blood all across her face. She's still got the machete in one hand, and as I move towards her, she places the tip of the blade against her belly and closes her eyes.

  This isn't how it's supposed to go. I admit I had no plan. But I thought maybe I'd make it here before the deed was done. I'd figure out some way to prevent it but still cause the stupid guy enough holy terror to keep him from ever doing anything so foul ever again – maybe castration as a last resort – and then Madgalena would walk away, out to the field and on into the rest of her life.

  I wrap around Madgalena, feel her shudder as my translucence covers her. She can't see me; I'm only a memory, a whisper, but I'll be a whisper at the forefront of her consciousness, I'll be memory enough to blot out all the seeping terror. She trembles, her body still stiffened, ready to strike.

  I'm just new to the afterlife but I have some swagger to my magic. I squeeze tighter, throw all my spiritual strength into making my ethereal almost-nothingness break through into that flesh and blood dimension. And Magdalena still stands there on the line, wavering slightly in the early evening breeze like some baby oak tree.

  It's a few minutes before I realize that whatever I'm doing isn't working. She'd thought there would be some sense of relief, some triumph and closure after all that waiting and plotting. Instead there's just an emptiness so deep it infects me too: A total devastating void. Magdalena lets out a sob and tightens her grip on the machete.

  I was a pretty devout atheist in life. That night in the prop dock was probably the one prayer I could put my name to. Since I died I'm not so sure. Hard to deny that there's something else out there when you are that something else. Cane, on the other hand, was a true believer all through life and still hangs out in the back of some church in Inglewood on Sunday mornings, smoking his hand rolled cigarettes and trying not to get mistaken for the Holy Spirit. He says every soul is like a tiny shard of glass that reflects God. He says when you're dead, you're just a soul, and the reflection is even stronger, not muddled by all that flesh and blood and living people shit.

  Right now, at this moment, I'm gonna go with Cane's view of the world, because it's the biggest source of strength I can find. I'll be that super-magnified shard of divine light if that'll make some glimmer of hope filter through me into Magdalena's sad soul. I'll be that. That emptiness keeps trying to overtake me, the sudden absence of life lying in a crumpled pile in front of us, the sudden absence of mission and fire in the girl I'm surrounding. My mind keeps trying to get distracted by the horror that just happened, but I force it back into focus.

  At first I think I'll imagine-up a beautiful future for Magdalena, one where she's peaceful, not haunted by today or that day eight years ago or anything else that's happened in between. But I need something more solid than a dreamy sunlit apartment and a warm cup of tea. Instead, I dig up a memory: The last week of my life, when every cell in my body wanted so badly to live. Cancer won, but the imprint of that desire, that thirst for life bubbles up inside me now and I let it overflow into Magdalena.

  I slide my arms down hers, ease along like a second skin across her. My whole being is vibrating with that memory, the lion's roar to live, and I let it vibrate from my core all the way through Magdalena and out into the forest around us.

  A minute passes, or maybe ten. I lose track. Lose track of my own trembling, transparent body and all my joys and sorrows. Lose track of which is me and which is her or whether it matters, which of us is teetering on the fine line between life and death. Both I suppose. And then Magdalena lets out a long, shaky breath and I know we've won. Death will have to wait its turn for her. She lowers the machete, squats down and pushes the pile of limbs that was her father into the green water. The last pale appendage disappears with a gurgle. Magdalena stands and then walks out of the woods and into the field.

  The Collector

  As another burst of gunfire rang out, Victor threw his defibrillator and medic bag into an unlocked door and ducked in. He did a quick glance-glance to make sure no one was around, brushed himself off and walked a few cautious steps into the room. It looked like some busted sultan's brothel. Elaborate, weathered curtains hung morosely from the ceilings. Cigarette burns and an archipelago of stains decorated a faded Oriental rug. The stench of corner-store incense, perfume and Pall Mall cigarettes colored the air.

  Not only was no one coming to force him back into the streets, no one was around at all. Most decent, life-loving people would be curled up in their bathtubs for protection this far into a shootout, anyway. Victor took a few more steps, his eyes darting back and forth. A very comfortable looking recliner beckoned from the center of the room. It was even in layback position, footrest out. The scratchy voice of another medic came crackling out of his radio, trying to give a damage report and call for backup. Victor sighed, then turned his radio off and walked over to the recliner. He let his body collapse into it and lit a cigarette.

  It had been a terrible week. The past two months of escalating turf wars and passion slays in the South Ward were culminating in these last days of summer. For the first time in his nine-year career, Victor had lost track of how many bloody calls he'd done. It was all beginning to feel so useless. Somewhere in there, he must've gotten some sleep too, but only in short, tormented bursts, always interrupted by the radio crackling out another assignment. Jenny was visiting her parents in Wisconsin, so Victor had picked up as many shifts as he could. The smoke curled thickly out of his mouth, obliterated the whole thought chain, left him giddy and relaxed at the same time. "Now if only I had a coffee," he said out loud.

  "A little late for coffee, no?" a voice croaked from behind some dangling tapestries. Victor let the smoke continue to swirl out. His eyes scanned the shrouds around him. A moment passed.

  "Um..." He rasied his eyebrows. "Can I help you?"

  "You're in my house," said the voice. "Don't you think I should be the one asking that question?"

  "Fair enough."

  Victor smoked and waited. A slight rustling waved through the drapes, but nothing else moved. Outside, the street battle had dwindled down to a few scattered shots. That'd be the winners finishing off the wounded, Victor thought. Almost over now. "You have an ashtray?"

  "Beside the mahogany bookshelf to your left."

  Victor eyed a frozen cluster of dusty furniture and some exotic metal statues. "Don't...see...one."

  "It's the Buddha."

  "You mean this kitchy fake gold thing?" asked Victor, rising from the chair and approaching a four-foot tall meditating Asian.

  "Yes, and it happens to be real gold."

  "Well, that may or may not be true. But either way, are you sure you want my ashes in it?"

  "That's what it's there for."

  He tapped out the cigarette and walked back over to the chair. The nonchalant routine was starting to feel strained but he kept his mouth shut.

  "Ready," said the voice, and the draperies swung open t
o reveal an elegant four-post bed with a flowing canopy. A pale shriveled woman hovered in the air just above the bed. She emanated a sickly, fluorescent glow. A flimsy white cloth swayed gently from her shoulders and she wore a yellow and red dashiki around her waist. Her breasts dripped down her emaciated chest like melted wax.

  Victor took the whole scene in solemnly. This would definitely have to top of the list of strange shit he'd seen ("ridiculous floating white lady," right above "man running around without head" and "dude stuck in his cat"). Her unwavering stare scanned him like a searchlight for signs of fear or surprise.

  He furrowed his brow. "Why you floating, ma?"

  "I'm dying."

  "Alright, but why you floating?"

  "I'm called the Collector." She emerged from the flowing bed canopy towards Victor.

  "Alright, lady, just ease up now," Victor said, taking a few steps back. "How 'bout you put a shirt on and come down from up there, huh?"

  "What are you called, young man?" Her eyes continued to burrow into him.

  "Bob," said Victor.

  "Ah, Bobby," said the Collector as if she'd just tasted one of those shrimp in bacon whatchamacallits. "That's lovely."

  "No, it's Bob."

  "Tell me, Bobby, have you traveled much, in your life?"

  "Been to PA a few times."

  "I have traveled all over the world, Bobby, from Bolivia to Bangladesh, walked the Highway of the Gods, cavorted through the Tierra Del Fuego with a glass of wine in one hand and a bamboo walking stick in the other." She carefully pronounced each name in some approximation of what Victor imagined to be a native accent, and it irritated him. Matterafact, everything about this lady was starting to tick him off. He took another step back and she continued to hover towards him. Her face was fully made up, layers of powder and cream caked on top of each other. She threw her head back and let out a laugh that sounded like it was supposed to be carefree.

  "Listen," Victor said, "you didn't notice there's a small ground war going on outside your door? Why don't you crawl under something like a normal person and die of natural causes as planned?"

  The Collector didn't seem to hear him. She closed her eyes and spread her thin arms out to either side. Translucent dollops of loose skin dangled from her bones. Something on the other side of the room caught Victor's eye. It was one of the antiques, an intricate metal statuette, floating up into the air. Outside, steady popcorn bursts of gunfire rattled out. Victor made a small mental calculation and decided that he might be better off back in the gunfight. He took a few more steps towards the door.

  The woman opened her eyes and smiled. "It's locked," she said.

  Panic rose like a flock of startled birds inside Victor's chest. He fought the urge to make a break for it. More objects began floating up around him.

  "You don't want to go out there anyway," the Collector said, leveling her gaze at him. "As you say, they are deep in the throes of combat." There was something to the way she said that – throes of combat – that chirped out at Victor. Perhaps it was that know-it-all smile creasing the corners of her mouth.

  Victor reached two fingers into the front pocket of his uniform shirt, retrieved a cigarette and lit it. "Smoke?" he said, raising his eyebrows up at the floating lady.

  "Thank you," said the Collector, "I have my own." She alighted into an elaborately carved medieval wooden chair. One emaciated hand upset a collection of knickknacks piled on a nearby nightstand until it found her opened pack of Pall Malls and pulled one out. She lit it and then directed a sharp look at Victor.

  "You are from Puerto Rico, Bobby?" Her pronunciation was gratingly precise.

  "The DR actually," Victor lied.

  "I have been to Puerto Rico many times – it is there that I began learning about the secret magic of the world."

  "Oh, I see," Victor said.

  She studied him carefully. "What do you see?"

  "I see that you're one of those lemme-ask-you-a-question-but-really-it's-so-I-can-tell-you-a-story-about-myself type of people."

  "Once I began to learn, I could not stop. It was like a drug, Bobby. The path led me from Puerto Rico to Africa, the cradle of civilization, like a reverse Middle Passage."

  "In so many ways," Victor muttered.

  "In Africa I was ordained a priestess and consecrated in sacred river waters."

  "I mean, no offense, the Collector, but from what I hear you can get consecrated anything you want in Africa if the price is right. It's like the internet."

  "I made my way along the Silk Route across the Indian subcontinent throughout Asia."

  "That's where you got all these knick-knacks?"

  "These knick-knacks, Bobby, are the spiritual DNA of all humanity. Surrounding you is one of the most extensive collections of divine objecture on the planet."

  "Then why don't you dust them off every once in a while? This place is a mess."

  The Collector took a deep drag on her lipstick-stained cigarette. "I have become so frail, Bobby, so frail. My time is not far now." She sounded excited.

  "Yeah, well, you're like what, eighty something?"

  That all-knowing smile crossed her face again. "Thirty-one, actually." She let out a laugh, her most genuine one yet, but it quickly deteriorated into bronchial hacking.

  Victor dropped his ass back into the easy chair and let his mouth hang open. "Jesus, lady, what the fuck?" The floating shapes hummed and spun in long gyrations around the room. Outside, the gunfight was heating up again.

  "The secrets of our planet grant one great powers, unimaginable powers, but it is not without a price." Victor watched a small porcelain globe hover past his head. "The sacred materials don't like to be tamed." The Collector started rising like a rag carried by a slow updraft. A rustling came from the doorway and then a succession of very loud shots burst out. "We have been engaged in a kind of cosmic – how would you say it? – warfare, for a few months now."

  "Looks like they're winning," Victor said, lighting another cigarette off the embers of his last one. A shiny wooden mask drifted by. Carved lines formed spiraling labyrinths on its forehead and cheeks. The shooter taking cover in the doorway kept firing until a large blast, probably a shotgun, rang out. The whole room shuddered and a few glasses exploded from a bookshelf.

  "There is great chaos in the spiritual realm, Bobby." The Collector's voice became alarmingly calm. "Static, spiritual static like nuclear fallout, penetrates every element, every realm in its path." Victor realized that the objects had created a little solar system around the floating white lady. Each spun in faster and faster orbits, circling their dying sun. It wouldn't be long now. The cruel fluorescent glow around her grew dimmer and dimmer every second. "The sacred materials," she said again, "do not like to be tamed." Another shotgun blast shook the house, followed by the rat-tat-tat of a semi-automatic a little further away.

  "You mean to tell me," Victor yelled above the humming of the tiny spinning universe, "that you hoarded all these doodads and got 'em to work for you and now they rebelling?"

  "That is more or less correct."

  "That's why they spinning 'round you? They trying to kill you?"

  The Collector chortled. "Oh, quite the contrary, my friend. They are trying to keep me alive because that's the only way they can defeat me. I have appropriated their power and am using it to spin gloriously towards divinity. They know my death will be the final step towards infinite awareness. My powers will increase tenfold and manifest like burgeoning hurricanes across our city."

  "Great."

  "No longer confined by this physical prison—"

  Something clicked in Victor's head. "Wait. Go back to the part about burgundy hurricanes."

  "My powers will increase tenfold and manifest like—"

  "No, sorry, earlier – you said you're causing spiritual static on every realm. This static, it affects the whole neighborhood?"

  "About a ten block radius, yes."

  "You're the one been causing all these sho
otouts? How many bodies have we had to pick up in the last two months – twenty? Thirty?"

  "There are always unforeseen consequences to spiritual growth."

  "Lady, you're a plague! It's no wonder the universe is teaming up to make you miserable. And if you die it'll only get worse?"

  "I'll disperse myself like so many seedlings scattered in the wind. I will be a martyred inspiration to the others like me."

  "Jesus, there's more of you?"

  "More than you can imagine."

  The humming grew louder, blurring out even the constant burst of gunfire, and soon the whole building trembled along with it. Victor looked up expecting to see the Collector explode in some scattered star orgasm. He shielded his face with his forearm in case any errant chunks of her projected in his direction, but the explosion never came. The fluorescent light flickered on and off a few times and then sputtered out. The objects spun furiously fast. The Collector's lifeless body collapsed in a heap on the Oriental rug. Then all hell broke loose outside.

  * * *

  Victor had never done CPR out of spite before. He'd worked up cardiac arrests in dark hallways, stalled elevators, even once at a nightclub, pumping the chest to the throbbing techno while dancers grinded on each other around him. But trying to get someone back so that they wouldn't become some magnanimous hood-destroying demigoddess? Another new one for the list.

  He worked quickly, throwing the defibrillator pads on her crooked little chest as soon as he'd finished two rounds of compressions. Her veins were bright blue and squiggly against her pale skin but he managed to find a juicy one to put an IV in. As he worked, the sacred objects spun and hummed above his head. Outside, bullets ricocheted up and down the street. Young men screamed and cars screeched.

  As he squeezed a few breaths of oxygen into her lungs from a small tank, it occurred to Victor that he had not stumbled into this strange little room by accident. He was a pawn in a great divine plan to keep some kind of spiritual order in the South Ward, and if that meant thwarting this irritating white lady from world domination that was alright with him.