Salsa Nocturna: A Bone Street Rumba Collection

by Daniel José Older

  Cane floats up alongside us, listening somberly. He'd been impressively relaxed about the whole beheading thing. Once the dead chicks mellowed, he simply put out a telepathic message to the Council to get some cleanup folks over to Green's apartment ASAP and then said, "Now what?"

  I told him about Krys's river situation and he said, "Oh, she's a buddy of mine from the field. We been through some shit together." And that was that.

  * * *

  "What the hell are we doing again?" one of the dead exes, Imelda, asks as we cross the highway.

  "First, we were just getting out of there quick," I tell her. "But now we're helping out a friend who's got a situation by the river."

  "A situation involving giant demons," Jimmy adds.

  The exes all perk up. "Giant demons with beady red eyes?"

  "Reeking of rot and fancy cologne?"

  "That'd be them," I say.

  "I'm out," says the housewife ghost. One of the party girls floats off with her.

  "I'm in," Imelda says. "Those the bastards that got this whole mess started."

  "How so?"

  "That's how we all came together, one night last week, we were each chased by one of those giants until we ended up right in front of Green's house. Then we got to talking and put all the pieces together. Figured we might as well make some trouble for him since we all found each other."

  "Strange..."

  The sex worker, Terry, drifts up beside Imelda. "Count me in too. Let's fuck up some river giants."

  We creep along the walking path, a quaint little shrubbery-lined number that meanders beside the rocky shoreline, until I recognize Krys's hideout from the night before. It's a little more cramped now that Riley and Gordo are squeezed in, but we clear some room and peer out towards the river.

  "Where the giants?" Jimmy asks after we introduce everyone to Big Cane, Terry and Imelda.

  "They're running," Krys says.

  "Running like jogging?" I say.

  Riley chuckles but it sounds forced. He's nervous. "Running like rioting. These mo'fos just busted out in a frenzy, man. Here come one."

  It's a rush of death-cologne first, then I see that towering emptiness come thundering down the path, arms and legs swinging like a marathon runner. Its warble's louder and more frantic than last night, and that shrill whine slices into my ears.

  "Jesus Fucking Christ," Terry says. We all nod in solemn agreement.

  The giant stops directly in front of us, its long body heaving up and down breathlessly, and looks out into the darkness over the river. A moment passes, and then the thing lifts its arms to the sky and lets out a blood curdling scream. Is it afraid? Excited? The scream fills the air like a poisonous gas. Pretty soon, the stench becomes unbearable too; the other giants are coming.

  * * *

  "What you wanna do, Krys?" I ask. "This is your job, you're the boss."

  She's been quiet up 'til now, watching, plotting. I can tell she's putting all that rattled terror away for later, just like they trained her to do at the Soulcatcher Academy.

  "I wanna wait," she says coolly. "Just a little longer." All seven giants are huddled by the edge of the water now, trading whines and gurgles. "Just a little longer."

  Then it happens: An eerie light emerges upriver from us. It's just a dim glow at first, but as it gets closer it glares into our retinas, making little color splotches dance across the darkness. The giants are electrified, they begin trembling and chortling, swinging their long fingered hands in circles at each other.

  "It's a person," Gordo says. "It's a man." Indeed, the glow has paused over the water in front of its welcome party and we can now see a trembling human form immersed in the blinding rays. He doesn't have a head.

  "It's Green!" Big Cane yells. All the giants turn at the same time. Seven pairs of beady red eyes ogle our little shrub hideaway. The tallest one takes a step towards us.

  "Oh hell no," Krys says, mounting Greta on her shoulder and clicking off her safety. "Hell no." No one has a chance to say anything. The world becomes a shuddering jumble, my legs give out, and a milky burst of smoke fills the air around us. There's a raspy shriek, like God's hocking a loogie. Jimmy falls against me and we both go down hard into the bushes. I can't see. I can't hear. I think I could move if Jimmy'd get his Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ass off me.

  "The fuck?" a woman’s voice yells. From the ground not far from me, Riley's laughing. I manage to untangle myself and peer out of the bushes. Green's still there, his luminous glow dangling eerily over the river like some corny Halloween decoration. The giants, though, are in disarray. It must've been a direct hit. Three of them lay shattered along the shore, their crumpled, dismembered bodies eeking out some unfathomable foulness into the soil. The surviving four are dazed, two sitting on their asses shaking their heads, one leaning up against a tree and one stumbling in dizzy circles. I don't think they'll stay that way long.

  "Everyone alright?" I yell. In the clearing smoke I can make out Jimmy and Riley, each with one of Gordo's hands in theirs, trying to help him hoist his fat ass into a standing position. It's not going well. Imelda has retreated to a safe distance and is staring blankly, looking ready to bolt at any second. Big Cane appears dazed but otherwise ready to move, and Terry, Jimmy and Krys are standing at the edge of the bushes, looking at me expectantly.

  "Let's do this," Krys says, setting Gerta down and drawing her sidearm. Behind her, I see the giants rising and dusting themselves off. They take a few cautious steps towards us and then break into a run. I believe in moments like these that if I'm not on automatic pilot I would be in fetal position, puking, so I click that little switch in my head and draw my sword. One of the things is closing on me; I sidestep and slash out, a little more wildly than I would've liked, but I still manage to clip off one of its feet. The giant stumbles past onto its knees and twists itself around, arms swatting out at me.

  That horrible smell fills the air, floods my nostrils and corrupts my organs. The rot has entered me; it's wearing me down from the inside out. I jump backwards, trip slightly and recover just in time to swipe at one of those long wandering arms. Jimmy's on the thing now, cutting wild slashes in the air with his shortblade. An ear shattering squeal rings out as he chops into its shoulder.

  My vision's blurring, but I can make out Big Cane wrapped in a death embrace with one of the giants, his face strained with exhaustion. Riley's egging him on, and Terry is beside them, trying not to get stepped on and taking little swipes with the dagger Cane leant her. A little further off, Krys is chasing her mark, screaming profanities and trying to get a clean shot at it.

  The fourth giant has broken from the fray, though, and is wading into the black waters towards Green's dangling phantom. The god he'd been waiting for, I suppose. "You alright?" I yell to Jimmy. He's walking slow, vicious circles around the wounded giant, dodging the thrashing limbs and landing more than his fair share of cuts.

  "Do what you do, C, I got this." I turn towards the river, thinking of how proud I am of Jimmy, and break into a run. The murky water rushes up against me and I realize just how fast winter's approaching. Up ahead, the towering wraith is a hideous void, standing in stark contrast to its shimmering god. Or whatever the fuck Green is to them. This'll take some checking up on when it's all over.

  Waist-deep in frigid, stinky river water, I pause to catch my breath. That's when I hear the sound: It's the same mournful gargle, but there's something different. The giant's shoulders are heaving up and down, its emaciated head hanging forward, an empty sack. It's crying.

  A gunshot shatters the air behind me. Krys has made her move. When I look back, she's pointing the gun at the ground. Another shot rings out and the thing beneath her writhes and then is still.

  Green's glow is waning. His headless body claws helplessly at the night sky, the final grasps of a drowning man.

  "It's over," Krys says behind me. I'm not sure if she's talking to me or the giant, but either way it's comforting to hear. The giant turns to
wards us, head hung low, twitchy red eyes blinking back tears. "Your fucked-up god is useless to you."

  The giant tenses, warbles hotly over the water at us, but you can see it knows the jig is up. "Go," Krys says. "Get out of here. Never come back." It nods, gargles a few more times and then turns and limps deeper and deeper into the river until it's just a dark splotch and then nothing at all.

  * * *

  "It was the head."

  "Ain't that what I been saying all along?" Riley demands. He's gotten himself good and twisted, we all have actually, and it makes each sentence he says come out on a sloppy wave of laughter. "It's all about head."

  Krys has already gotten good at brushing off Riley's jackassery. "I mean without his head, Green was no good to the giants. It's part of their whole system."

  "And the cologne?"

  "The cologne was like an offering. They knew Green was a mack daddy, thought his spirit'd somehow be attracted to it. They'd been waiting for him for centuries, him being the right reincarnation that is, and when everything was in place they got impatient. Wanted to hurry things along. That's why they linked up Terry and Imelda here, as well as his other two victims." Imelda and Terry nod somberly and clink beer bottles with each other. "He wanted them to off Green, you know, do that ghost kill move..."

  "The thing where they, like, plastic-wrap your face 'til you suffocate?" Jimmy says.

  "Exactly, which would..."

  "Leave the body intact!" Jimmy yells.

  "Exactly."

  "How'd you figure this shit out?" Riley's definitely impressed.

  "I listened to them. On the second day of the vigil they were more talkative."

  "Just like Cane," I say. Cane chortles good naturedly.

  Krys looks like she's got tolerance for about one more interruption before she goes for the guns. "Anyway, they got into it a little more. But the bit about the head I figured out after Green showed up without one and they got all in a tizzy."

  "That was quite a stroke of luck," Cyrus muses with a smile.

  "Not at all," Jimmy says with a straight face. "I did it on purpose."

  Krys rolls her eyes. "Whatever, playa. It's just a good thing you decided to use your ghost blade, otherwise the cut wouldn'ta carried over into the afterlife. It was a nice slice, let's leave it at that." She swats at him, her chill glow against his warm flesh, and I wonder fleetingly what the chances are for coupling between the living and dead. It's too bad it'd never work in the long run; they're both tremendous spirits and both, in their own way, large and in charge.

  "Lissen," Riley says. "I thought on it and Cane can roll with us, he definitely did good out there and being that he a legend and all." Big Cane smiles and nods his big head approvingly. "But he gotta be a sidekick." Big Cane stops smiling. "I'm deadass, people. That's the rule. Sicka white dudes being all primary in shit. He can be the sidekick or the nosey neighbor. That's it."

  "Riley, you're stupid," Imelda says.

  "And if someone gotta get killed off early in a situation, it's gotta be Big Cane."

  Everyone looks at the old detective. "I can work with that," he grins. The room erupts in ruckus laughter and toasts.

  Outside, the year's first layer of frost lays its icy blanket over the sleeping city.

  Victory Music

  One of my favorite moments ever was when the boy called me an Arab and you said, “She’s Sikh, fucknut” and then when he said “Oh, like hide and go—” you broke his nose. I heard music playing, I swear to God, and it was victory music, your music: A dusty, unflinching beat, lowdown and grinding. It didn’t matter that my family’s not even technically Sikh anymore since my parents went born-again and I’m just whatever. I smiled for days after that moment, Krys. Days.

  But so much has happened since then, so much gone wrong.

  After that day I found you on the hill at the edge of campus. There’s a fence that cuts right through the summit of the hill and the other side is all wilderness and you and MagD would sit against that fence and watch everybody and murmur quietly. Used to want to hang with you guys so bad before you stood up for me and I finally got the guts to walk up there and just say Hey. And then it was us three, and MagD used to hate it when we called her that but she probably loved it too, and wherever she is now she probably introduces herself that way, with that big toothy grin on her that looks perfect and so out of place on her serious face.

  Anyway, now you’re dead.

  Is what they told me. That you died. I’m not trying to rub it in: I need to say it again and again so it feels true finally, because it’s been months and I still don’t believe it. In part because you were SO alive, so flesh and blood, and the thought of you not is just…it doesn’t fit. But mostly I don’t believe it because I still feel you, my friend, all around me. And anyway, that’s what I’m getting at, I wanted to tell you that you’ve saved my life at least twice. And once was after you died.

  * * *

  It’s been two days and seventeen hours since I told my parents that I’m not a girl. I’m in Boston, on the bridge outside of Harvard Square actually, so right on the borderline between Boston and Cambridge. I’m alone and it’s gray gray and cold, “cold as all the fucks” like you used to say, and my bones clacked against each other with the frostiness. I’m still 9 feet tall practically and only like 100 lbs so you can imagine, when the wind picks up I’m just like a big stupid piece of Sikh spaghetti. Or ex-Sikh spaghetti. Whatever, I exaggerate but yeah, the music was not victory music, it was a dirge. Probably in one of the modes, mixolydian or something, the rearranged howl of a lonely monk, sprinkled across the piano keys while morose string instruments drone behind it and an occasional deep ol’ bass drum booms. That was the music and there was no stopping it, because it was raining as if to piss me off more. Just drizzling, but still: I look up at the sky and say “Seriously?” It’s strange to hear the sound of my own voice after so much not speaking. The sky doesn’t answer back, it just keeps raining.

  Sixty-five hours earlier and 300 miles away, my dad sent the twins to bed with a growl and then said to me, “What do you mean you’re not a girl?” He really meant it genuinely that first time, like he was really surprised. And I was like, “I mean what I said: I’m not a girl.”

  My mom just frowned at me.

  “But what do you mean?” Papa said as if emphasizing a different word would somehow get him a different answer, an answer that made sense.

  I mean – I started to say, but he cut me off: “I mean, what do you mean?”

  “I mean…”

  “Your name is Wendy.”

  As if that settled it.

  I told him I knew what my name was, but my name didn’t make me a girl.

  “But you are a girl!” Papa exclaimed, almost laughing now with exasperation.

  “I’m not.” Think it made it worse that I said it calmly, you know? Made Papa feel like he had to up his explosiveness to bring some sense of urgency to the conversation. Mom let out a sob and we both looked at her for a second. I held back the urge to apologize.

  “Are you trying to say,” a haughty laugh now from Papa, “that you are a boy, Wendy?”

  “No.”

  His palms slapped against his bald head so hard I almost laughed. “Gah!”

  “Papa, I’m…look, I don’t mean to confuse you. If you’d let me explain…”

  “Explain what!” An eruption, not a question. “What’s to explain! You say you’re not a girl. You have breasts, sort of…”

  “Mohan!” My mom gasped. She never uses his first name, so you know she was upset. He shot her a look, one of his sharp ones and she went back to sobbing without so much as a glance at me.

  Anyway, if you’ve never had your dad make a rude remark about how small your breasts are, Krys, you’re missing out on some true fun, lemme tell you. I didn’t answer; really I was doing everything in my power not to curse him out right then and there. Maybe you wanna know why? You were always the queen of holy curse outs,
it’s one of the things I love…loved about you. No. I still love that about you. You being gone doesn’t make the love past tense. I didn’t curse him out because I wanted to do this right, even if no one else was. And because I’m seventeen and have no job and no money and I thought maybe, maybe if I do this right we could have a sensible conversation after everyone gets the bullshit off their chests and then we can work something out, not be such monsters to each other. And then maybe I could still be his daughter/son/whatever when it’s all over.

  Obviously that’s now how things went because here I am. I suppressed the curse out; didn’t say anything in fact. I closed my eyes for a sec and the music was sharp and jabby, horror movie music, dissonant and vast and full of clustery notes ambushing each other, sitting too close together and attacking, falling back and attacking and I opened my eyes and my dad was damn near foaming at the mouth.

  “You have a…you have a…” Mom put her hand on his and he just looked away, rubbing what might’ve been tears from his eyes.

  “Can I just explain?” I said when his breathing slowed back down.

  But he shook his head. “No,” he said. “You can go.”

  And I did.

  * * *

  On the Chinatown Bus I didn’t cry but I did think about how you reacted when I told you. You just listened. It was before you were sick – before you knew you were sick – and I remember your face in the sunlight, the sunlight having its way with your perfect brown skin and you had your Mohawk and little beads of sweat were sliding down your scalp because it was a perfect summer day and you just listened. I waited ‘til MagD had left, because I love her but she doesn’t have the capacity to hold other people’s shit like you do, she’s not there. And I said everything, everything that was in me that had never come out except on pieces of paper that got shredded and burnt to ashes immediately after the words were down.

  You nodded when I was done. That nod was the only moment in the whole time that made me want to break down and cry but I didn’t. I didn’t. There was silence then between us and the music was a beat and a bassline and steady synthesizers. Your theme music – it was cool like you, sweet and easy breezy.