FSF, March 2009

by Spilogale Authors

  "Well, the Swede was just about covered in bumps by this point. All over his back and his legs and his belly. Crawling up his neck now too, and there were nights he said he could hear them talking, just like Corine had. So even though the Swede wasn't one to think much of Mexicans as a rule, he took his balls in hand and went down.

  "The place was really little, and it had a Mexican butcher on one side of it and a bail bonds office on the other. Swede said the place smelled like hot chocolate and blood. And dark? It was so dark in there he couldn't tell what might be in the shadows.

  "The curandero was a big fella. Fat, and I mean huge. Maybe three and a half, four hundred pounds. Tell you something about people that fat? They're strong. They got to be.

  "So anyway, the Swede walks in and there's this fucking mountain of a Mexican in a Hawaiian shirt the size of a tent, talking Spanish into the telephone too fast to follow. The Swede waits a minute, but the curandero just starts waving his hand at the Swede like he's saying, Look around, look around. I'll be right with you.

  "The Swede's eyes are getting used to the dark by now. Things start coming into focus. And the crap that's in there just about makes him walk back out. There's a stuffed cat with all the fur gone laying there, covered in dust. There's something that looks like a snake, but it's made out of silver, scales and all, and it's moving so he can't tell if it's a clockwork or something alive. The thing that catches his attention the most, though, is this mason jar. Looks like it's full of whiskey, but there's something white floating in it. Looks like a little girl doll made out of smoke. The Swede picks it up, and turns it, and he sees how the little doll doesn't have a back to it. Hollow as an Easter rabbit.

  "The curandero gets done with whoever he was talking to, hangs up the phone, and says, What can I do for you, sir?

  "Well, half of the Swede's brain is saying put down the bottle and get the hell out and I mean now. But the other half is thinking that maybe this one's the real deal. Between the two ideas, the Swede sort of freezes up, doesn't say anything.

  "The big fella comes toward him. He's got to outweigh the Swede by something like three to one, and he's a head taller to boot. He sees what it is the Swede's holding, and he nods like he's agreeing with something the Swede hasn't even said yet.

  "I remember her is what the big fella says. Must have been ten years ago now. You here about her?

  "The fella's voice is low and deep, like a pitbull that's just starting to growl in the back of its throat. The Swede shakes his head and puts down the mason jar. The little smoke doll inside starts swishing back and forth a little like maybe she's dead and drowned. The curandero puts his hand over it. One hand, and it covers the whole jar like a gumdrop. That's too bad, he says. I wanted to know how it came out.

  "Well, by this time the Swede's lucky he can say anything, and he sure as hell can't come up with something clever. He just repeats the last few words he's heard. How it came out? Like it was a question.

  "The big fella puts the jar back on the shelf where it was before and leans against this old wood table, and he sighs, and he starts telling the Swede about this girl.

  "This was back when the curandero was out west. California, not too far from San Jose. It was winter then, and even a little snow on the ground. Got dark early. So when this girl came into the shop right before he was fixing to close up, it was already dark as night outside. Thing was, the girl was an anglo. Now he wasn't stupid. He knew a white girl all by herself coming to see a Mexican witch doctor ... well, it wasn't a sign that things were going too well for her.

  "Girl was maybe fifteen. Reddish hair and green eyes, and thin, but not skinny. Had that look kids get when they've just about done growing up, but haven't but just started growing out, if you see what I mean. Well, this would have been the early December of ‘62 or ‘63, so he pretty much knew on sight what was going on. He waved her in, gave her a chair and a cup of coffee, and waited until she worked up the guts to tell him how she was pregnant and she needed to get it taken care of before her daddy found out. Took her about twenty minutes.

  "Well, it was what you might expect. Girl had fallen for some fella. Said he loved her and she believed him. Hell, it might even have been true. At the time, at least. Then things went too far, and now she was ruined. If her folks found out, they'd kill her. It was the old, old story, and we all heard it a hell of a lot more back before girls got the pill, let me tell you.

  "Anyway, he listened to the girl talk, didn't say anything one way or the other. Oh, he maybe nodded now and then, kept things on track. And when she finished up, she took twenty dollars out of her pocket and gave it to him. Some of it was in quarters. Probably everything she'd saved since she was a baby. Girl never cries. All through this, never sheds a single tear.

  "He thinks about it, and he looks at her, and then he goes into his back room and gets this mason jar ready. It's whiskey and a little blood. He brings it out to the girl, puts her hand in it and they say some words together. He tells her about this particular statue of the Virgin Mary. It's a fair way from where they are, at an old church no one used anymore. He draws her a map on a piece of paper and everything.

  "It's easy to find, he tells her, because almost all the statues of the Madonna, she's wearing a blue cloak. This one, her cloak is red."

  "He tells her she needs to sleep with the jar in her bed with her for two nights, then on the third night, she's got to break an egg, pour in just the white, and then bury the jar at the Red Virgin's feet. That night, she's got to sleep in the churchyard, and then dig the bottle back up and bring it to him.

  "Well, the girl doesn't talk back or complain or anything. She just picks up the jar and walks out into the night, so he finishes closing up. Keeps the twenty dollars, too. Man's got to make rent.

  "Well, three days passed, and the girl didn't come back. The curandero, he kept expecting to see her, even stayed late a couple days, just in case. Then when she didn't show, he figured maybe she got cold feet. Changed her mind. But then Christmas Eve rolled around, and there she was at his door, this jar hugged under her coat. He didn't say anything, just let her come in. When she took the jar out, the egg white was there floating in the whiskey, all cooked up. And it looked then just like it did when the Swede picked it up. A little hollow girl.

  "So the girl, the real one, she nods at it and asks, Is that her? Is that my baby?

  "And the curandero shakes his head and sits down and says, No, miss. That's you."

  In the darkened yard, my sister laughed too loud, the sound forced and abrasive. Abby crossed her arms, her mouth in a half-smile that meant trouble. I shifted forward in my chair.

  Dab's cane slapped my thigh. His eyes were narrow and angry.

  "I'm starting to think you ain't listening to me, son,” he said. “I'm not telling you all this just to hear my own voice."

  Then why are you doing it, I wanted to say. But instead I squeaked out “Sorry. Go on."

  "That's better. You see, the Red Virgin had power and a history, but when the curandero sent the girl out to Her, he never said that it would kill out the baby, because that would have been a lie. Not that he couldn't have done the thing, mind you. Nor not that he wouldn't. He'd done worse things than that before. Only he wanted to do the girl a favor, even if it was the hard kind.

  "Way back when the Spanish were running the missions up the coast and King Ferdinand was kicking all the Jews out of Spain, there'd been this sculptor name of Severo Muñoz lived there. No one local knew quite why old Severo had left Spain and come out to live at the ass end of the world, but there were plenty of guesses. He wasn't a good man. Drinking and whoring and beating folks up ... well, that was pretty much the standard. Severo was something past that. He'd killed about a dozen folks that everyone knew about. Raped a few. Did things to the Indians thereabouts just because he could.

  "Thing was, Severo was damned good at what he did. The Governor of New Spain, down in Mexico City, he'd seen a fallen angel Severo'd carved out of
a block of pine bigger than a man and he'd liked it. Well, Severo gave that angel to the Governor, and afterward the law wouldn't touch him.

  "The way the story went, God watched over the mission at San Jose, and one day Severo was drunk and happy and full of himself, and he had the bad luck to sin when the Lord was in a playful mood. It was a Sunday, and the priest was up saying Mass and all. Severo's in the front pew, drunk and breaking up the service. He'd start talking to the girls next row over or take down his pants and give his nuts a good scratch or what have you.

  "The priest put up with all this as long as he could, but right about the time they're getting ready to hand out the Eucharist, Severo cuts the cheese so loud, the whole church is ringing with it, then he gets the giggles and starts slapping the pew and howling. Well, that's it. The priest puts down the wine and starts cussing Severo out. Says how it's the house of God, and Severo's defaming the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross, and he tells old Severo to get gone.

  "Severo stands up and gives him the bird. He says, If this is the house of God, then let God cast me out of it. And everyone gets real quiet. The whole congregation is ready for lightning to come down or the floor to crack out from under him. The priest gets all red in the face, and Severo just holds out his arms like he's shown up God as a pussy that won't take him on.

  "Later on, Severo said he heard someone laughing. No one else did. Everyone else said it was dead quiet, but Severo heard someone in the back laughing his head off, didn't know who he was. After, he figured it for Jesus laughing because He knew what was coming next.

  "Well, the priest limped through the rest of the mass with Severo spitting and calling him shitty names. People start heading out, and there were a bunch of them waiting just outside the church. Men mostly, and they looked pissed. Now Severo was dumb, but he wasn't stupid if you get what I mean. He figured he'd head out the back way, keep himself from getting jumped. Only out back was where God was waiting for him.

  "They knew the dog was Jesus because when all those fellas waiting out front to beat the snot out of him heard him screaming, they went back and killed it. Dog had a cut on its side and a bunch of scabs all around its head, and all four paws were raw and bloody like someone'd driven nails though it. Now that might have just been the rabies, but happening when it did and all, no one doubted it was divine retribution. Not even Severo.

  "Rabies, now. That's a bad way to die. Can take a couple of weeks between getting bit and knowing you got it. Starts with a fever and just feeling generally sick. Then a fella get where he can't drink water. Gets anxious and confused. Delirious. Crazy. Then dead, and honest to God, sooner's better than later for that. Well, Severo started showing symptoms just two days after he got bit, and he knew he was screwed. He had maybe a few days left in the world, and he was going to be suffering every minute of every one of them. And he also knew that hellfire was waiting for him if he didn't get right with God. He didn't put it off or beg for mercy or anything like that. Severo was a bad, low, vulgar man, but he was an artist.

  "He got the biggest block of stone he could find on short notice, and all his tools, and he laid in to make a tribute to the Virgin Mary like an apology to the Lord for how he'd lived his life. Worked all through the day and night. People started going to watch, part because no one liked him and part because everyone had this uneasy feeling that something holy was going on. Well, about the fifth day after he got bit, Severo started talking while he worked. Strange voices, like they weren't really him. Singing and gibbering, declaiming on religious doctrine and talking dirty. People said it was the Devil leaving Severo's body. Said they were watching him turn into a saint.

  "So by the time he finishes the statue, he's pretty much gone, but She's beautiful. There's this radiant, serene Madonna born out of a dying man's madness. Just at the end, he paints her but instead of blue, he paints her red, and then he collapses at Her feet. Last thing he says is, I have seen myself in Her eyes. That's what they put on his grave. I have seen myself in Her eyes.

  "Ever since then, strange things happen around the Red Virgin. The curandero, he tells the girl about some of those too. There's the fella right around the turn of the century about to get married and the Red Virgin shook her head at him. Turned out the girl he was sweet on, his daddy'd been messing around with her mother. Red Virgin kept him from getting hitched up with his half-sister. Or this old fella just after World War II who came back with shell shock, didn't know who he was until he spent a night sleeping at the Red Virgin's feet.

  "What the curandero tells the girl is, That statue is a mirror. Sometimes we all forget who we are. Or we get blind to it. And he points to the hollow girl in the mason jar. This is what you've become.

  "Now the girl looks at it, knowing now what she didn't know before, and she nods. Her face is blank, just empty. The curandero knows she's right on the edge. Maybe she's going to kill the baby like she wanted at the start. Maybe she's going to hold on to it after all. And he just sits there with her. He knows that the girl's screwed either way. She can't win. Best she can do is lose a little less one way than another.

  "Well, what she says is, Give me another one. The curandero doesn't ask for money or what she's going to do. He just goes in the back, gets a second jar, puts in the blood, puts in the whiskey. He brings it out, and they say some words over it. And then the girl goes out with it, and she never comes back.

  "That's why I was hoping you knew what happened, the curandero says. And the Swede shakes his head. All in all, they've been talking for maybe an hour at this point, and somewhere along the way, the Swede's stopped being quite so scared. He can come up with things to say now.

  "So the Swede says, You didn't cure her, though. She came to you for something, you didn't do it. And the big Mexican gets this soft look on his face.

  "She came to me looking to be healed, is what he says. I never heal anybody. I only do what I can, and then God heals them or else He doesn't."

  "And that, it turns out, is exactly what the Swede needed to hear. He said it was like he'd been twisting and turning trying to make a piece fit where it was supposed to go, and that what the curandero said was what made it all click into place. After that, he could tell the big fella about Corine and about the bumps and how they'd been spreading and talking and moving. The curandero had him take off his shirt, and he looked at the bumps for a long time, went and got a stethoscope just like he was a real doctor and listened to them talking.

  "Then the curandero put down his stuff and just talks to the Swede. Talks about Corine and what she was like, how he felt about her, what it felt like to fuck her, what it felt like to wake up with her, what it felt like when she was gone. They talked about the boys back at the machine shop, and what it was like working with whites. They talked about Minnesota and Africa and the south. The curandero got a Coke for the Swede and a big bowl of beans and chili for himself, and they sat around and chewed the fat just like they were old friends.

  "Time comes the curandero finishes his beans and he leans back in his chair and he says, You have been injured. What your body's doing is trying to deal with the rage and the anger.

  "And the Swede crosses his arms and he frowns real hard and he says, How do you figure? I didn't break anything or get hurt. I'm not mad at anyone in particular.

  "The curandero shakes his great big head and he says, You are a black man in America. That's injury enough. Well, the Swede doesn't quite know what to say back to that, but he's gotten to where he likes the big Mexican enough to let it go. The curandero, he keeps talking. He says, I can help you with the rage, but the hurt that caused it in the first place? That's for God.

  "And the Swede points to the bumps on his arms and says, Will it get rid of these? And the curandero says it will, so the Swede claps his hands and says, Let's get to it.

  "The curandero, he goes and roots around in the back. There's noises that sound like knives getting sharpened and someone singing that wasn't the big fella. Smells like rain and over
heated iron. Well, it's only about ten minutes before the big guy comes back to the front dragging this massage table. You know the kind with that head rest you can look down through it? Like that. And he tells the Swede to get naked and lay down on the table with his face on the rest looking down.

  "Two hours before, the Swede had been too scared of this man to talk straight, but now it's like they're old friends. Brothers. The Swede shucks off his clothes and lays himself down, and the curandero comes and starts putting little weights on all the bumps all over his back and legs and arms and neck. Curandero's muttering something in Spanish under his breath. So the Swede winds up with these little weights everywhere, he's maybe got ten, fifteen pounds all told, and the curandero stops and sits back.

  "Okay, the big fella says, this part is going to hurt some. And the Swede figures he's going to press on one of the bumps or cut it open or some such. He nods and he gets ready for it, but he's got it wrong. That wasn't the kind of hurt the big guy meant. Instead, just like that, the Swede feels this sorrow rising up in his chest like a flood. He starts crying like a kid whose momma just died, and he can't even say why.

  "And the thing is, he never stopped. Last time I saw the Swede was three, maybe four years ago. He's all white hair now, just like me, and he's still crying. Not bawling, but weeping a little all the time, like he's got a slow leak. The bumps went away, and Corine came back. They've got three kids and something like eight grandkids. Love each other no end, got a nice house and good lives, but the Swede can't stop crying. And I'll tell you now, I expect when he dies, his body'll keep right on weeping even once he's done with it."

  Uncle Dab paused, looking at the spent stub of his black cigar. He looked out to the edge of the lawn where the women still stood in the darkness, almost invisible now as if the night had drawn them away from us. When Dab spoke again, his voice had lost the energy of his story. He sounded almost touched by dread.

  "America's a bordertown. All of it, east to west, north to south. Texas and Kansas and Alaska. It's all bordertown. We got the people who were here before us, we took it from. We got the people coming here after, looking to take it from us. And all of us got our stories to make sense of it. Sometimes those fit together. Sometimes they don't. It's a mess. Scares me sometimes, it truly does. But I see how it gives us a chance, too. Gives us wiggle room where we try to make it all make sense.