by Don Donovan
Silvana was with her aunt in a neighborhood food market when she met Blanca, who went shopping with her mother. The girls found out they were the same age and both hailed from the Cuban port city of Mariel, so they quickly took a liking to each other.
They began spending time together after school, this odd couple. They often spoke of home, familiar places in Mariel that were bright spots of their Cuban childhood. Blanca tried numerous times to shift the topic of conversation to boys, since her hormonal stirrings were now making themselves known, but Silvana skillfully deflected that subject every time to something a little more generic and less sexual. And whenever Blanca asked Silvana to talk about her heart-pounding trip across the dangerous Florida Straits, she was met with a dark glare and stony silence. Silvana was not about to revisit the nightmarish ordeal of waking up one night on the raft after a few hours' sleep to find her two companions gone.
Blanca was frisky, insolent, and somewhat pretty, with nut-brown skin and flowing, deep brown hair, where Silvana was thoughtful, respectful — to a point — and plain, and with flat hair of lifeless brown. Her round face and squinty eyes never turned heads of the boys in school, not that she ever wanted those heads turned, but Blanca, her complete opposite, was the other side of the coin. Blanca would often tease Silvana into coming out with her at night. They never went anywhere at first, just hung around under streetlamps or down at Stephen's for a Coke, or sometimes they'd make the trek to the Burger King down on Eighth Avenue.
Occasionally they'd meet up with Sofía Ramos at Burger King. Sofía lived with her parents and her brother in another part of Hialeah — in a nice house, Blanca had said — although she originally lived in one of East Hialeah's shabbier sections. She was a year or two older than Silvana and Blanca, but in the same class at school, having flunked a grade or two along the way.
What she lacked in academic ambition, however, she recouped in a bounty of looks. Slim body, smooth and tight with the springtime of youth. Skin as fresh and flawless as the clear blue sky, only now being introduced to its first applications of makeup. Flesh soft and rounded that glistened the way only young flesh can. Dark, bewitching eyes that looked past a light touch of eyeliner down into the souls of boys who dared approach her. At fourteen, she was becoming dimly aware of the great power nature had given her, and it thrilled her.
"Boys are just so stupid," she told Silvana and Blanca one rainy evening at Burger King. "All you have to do to is look at them the right way and they'll do whatever you want."
Silvana was not too interested in getting boys to do whatever she wanted, but Blanca said, "How do you know they'll do it?"
"You can see it on their faces," Sofía replied. "Just yesterday, I looked at Tomás Leal and he asked if he could buy me a Coke. I bet if I looked at him some more, I could get him to buy me a pizza!"
"A pizza?" Blanca's eyes glazed over in wonder. "He would buy you a pizza?"
"I bet he would!"
"I bet he wouldn't," Blanca said.
"I bet I could get him to take me right over to Rey's and buy me a whole pizza."
Meanwhile, Silvana's insides were stirring with desire, fearfully exciting desire that she dared not mention, at the sight of this gorgeous Sofía and her … her witchcraft. Yes, that's what it was. Witchcraft. Nothing less. Clearly, this girl could spin webs around helpless boys who willingly fell into trances over her, just for the chance to speak to her, to maybe … maybe even touch her. Silvana desperately wanted to drag her aside and ask her if she ever had feelings for girls the way she did for boys, but deep down, she already knew the answer. She silently cursed the whole situation.
As the rain subsided, Sofía left and returned home. Silvana and Blanca lingered at their table in Burger King a while longer. Blanca talked on and on about Sofía and how there was no way any boy was going to buy her a whole pizza just because she looked at him.
"But she is beautiful," Silvana said her heart fluttering. "You have to admit that."
"Yes, she is. But we can be, too. Did you see all that makeup she was wearing?"
"What about it?"
"We can wear makeup, too," Blanca said. "We can be beautiful just like she is. Come on. Let's go get some and be beautiful." She rose up from her chair and tugged on Silvana's arm. "Come on."
"Come on where? What —"
She tugged again at Silvana's sleeve. "Just be quiet and come with me. You'll see."
They crossed the street to the Rite-Aid, where Blanca led Silvana directly to the makeup section. She pointed out all the exotic paints and touchup items, oohing and aahing at each one.
"We can't buy any of this stuff," Silvana said. "Or I can't anyway. I don't have any money."
Blanca didn't respond. She was too wrapped up in a package of mascara and its possibilities. Her attention then turned to a row of lipsticks and she riffled through them until a particular deep shade of red caught her eye.
"Look at this one! What a beautiful color! Don't you think?"
It did complement Blanca's complexion, Silvana thought. She pictured the shade on Blanca's full, moist lips, then imagined those lips …
"Yes. Nice color," Silvana said, tamping down the feeling swelling deep within her. "Very nice color."
"And this mascara, and this blush. I bet this is the same stuff Gloria Estefan uses, don't you think?"
"I wouldn't know. I don't know what she uses. I don't use makeup."
"Oh, Silvi, you just have to. Boys won't look at you if you don't. Look what Sofía can do with a little bit of this stuff." She gathered up the mascara, the blush, and the lipstick and the rest of it and, with a quick glance up and down the aisle, dropped all of it into her purse.
Silvana gasped. Blanca led her out of the store and the two of them hustled down Eighth Avenue as fast as they could, giggling to each other, but without running or drawing any other attention to themselves.
That was only the beginning. The two of them developed a pretty effective shoplifting routine with Silvana acting as the decoy and Blanca stuffing things into her purse. And not just at Rite-Aid. They went to the food market, the record store, and wherever there was merchandise waiting to be lifted.
≈ ≈ ≈
Over the next year, they became inseparable. They hung out with a group of boys who stole license plates and tires, then celebrated their scores with a couple of six-packs of beer purchased with a fake ID one of the boys had. The boys were older, seventeen and eighteen. One was even twenty! Blanca had sex with him a few times and while she couldn't quite master the total domination Sofía had acquired, she did have a good time, and he did buy her a few small trinkets with his share of the money from their heists. One time, he stole a car and took her all the way to Miami Beach in it one Sunday afternoon. All the way to the ocean! The next day, Blanca repeated every detail of the trip over and over to Silvana and anyone else nearby. Miami Beach! In a car!
There were other girls in this group also, and gradually Silvana and Blanca became their natural leaders. As the next couple of years passed, the girls became adept at pulling their own little jobs, stealing purses in restaurants, even graduating to B&E, pulling off a few well-selected break-ins and taking down some pretty decent scores. They became known in that part of Hialeah, and one night while they were all together at Rey's celebrating one of their successful heists, Blanca said, "People in the neighborhood, you know, they know us now. I think we should have a name. You know, like a label, a brand."
"A brand? You mean, like …"
"I mean a brand," Blanca said. "Like a brand name. Like Maybelline is a brand."
Without thinking, Silvana said, "How about Las Brujas?"
The Witches. Sofía still owned a little corner of her mind, even after all this time. That submissive connection quietly passed through Silvana's consciousness.
"Las Brujas," Blanca cried. "Ooh, that's perfect!" The other girls squealed their approval and they each raised their soft drink cans to consecrate their new name.
&nb
sp; With the name came consequences, responsibilities. Soon there were battles with other girl gangs around Hialeah, not that the Eleventh Avenue/17th Street turf was worth fighting over, but the fights — usually in close hand-to-hand combat — were general tests of their toughness. Saps, bats, shivs, sometimes even guns made their way into these conflicts. Silvana had by then developed into a thick-bodied hardass, unafraid and merciless to her enemies. The fights, all won by the Witches, made her very aware of who those enemies were, and they came to regret being on her wrong side.
Naturally, marijuana was introduced into the Brujas circle, where it was warmly embraced. Cocaine followed as sure as April follows March, and most of the girls went for it, many in a big way. But Silvana stayed with the weed. Something about blow that struck her the wrong way. Goes up your nose into your brain, fucks with your brain cells. This shit can make you a loser real fast, she thought, after having seen some of the boys in her group and a few of the other Brujas veer far off the rails from time to time while they were high on it. She knew the cost, in both money and self-respect, was high.
Not at first, of course, because no one thinks the shit will ever be a problem for them. They think they can snort it at will, all they want, and they'll be fine. Other people … well, they're the ones who can't handle it, they think. And then before they know what hit them, they surrender their lives to those little bags of white powder. They give their money to lowlifes and watch themselves slide down the drain.
No thanks, Silvana said. Not for me.
25
Silvana
Hialeah, Florida
Friday, July 31, 1998
4:20 PM
THAT AFTERNOON WAS PARTICULARLY STORMY during the summer before her senior year in high school. Silvana was at the food court in Westland Mall chowing down on yellow rice and black beans when she learned Blanca had been beaten to death. It happened the night before, she was told, her bloody remains dumped in back of a warehouse on the west side of Hialeah. The news came from Lisi, one of her closest Bruja compañeras.
"I just found out about a half an hour ago," Lisi said, visibly upset and speaking in a near-stammer. "My cousin is on … the … the Hialeah PD and he said he took the call. He said her b-body was broken in so many places … and … oh, Silvi, and her face!" She began sobbing loudly.
Silvana couldn't move. The noise in the mall, incessant talk over nearby loudspeakers, howling infants … it all faded away to silence. She sat glassy-eyed, mouth open. How could … how the fuck could anyone …
"Do they … do they know who … did it?" she asked.
Lisi pulled a tissue from her purse and blew her nose into it. The sobbing subsided for a moment. Her tall frame bent slightly, and her light-complected face showed a mixture of pain and anger. She said, "My cousin says they don't know. There is no evidence." Her voice lowered to a growl. "But I know. And you know, too, Silvi."
Silvana did know. A vicious beating like this, one that took Blanca's life, could only have been administered by her boyfriend, a worthless fucking Honduran by the name of Angel Canelas. He was a street level drug dealer, and while there was nothing wrong with that in and of itself — the Brujas knew plenty of drug dealers, and most of them were pretty respectful — Canelas was a savage. She had warned Blanca about him, not to go near him, not to hang out with him, certainly not to fuck him. But Blanca wasn't the type to take good advice from anyone.
"I'm calling a couple of the girls and we'll go get this motherfucker," Lisi said. "We'll make him pay for Blanca!" She pulled out her new cellular phone, which she had bought with the proceeds from a recent score. One of the new Motorola StarTACs. Cost her a grand.
Before she could flip the phone open, Silvana put a firm hand on it. "No, mi brujita," she said. "No."
"No? What do you mean, no? We can't let that cocksucker get away with this!"
"He won't get away with it." Silvana's eyes narrowed into dark slits. Her voice was all calm now, eerie almost, like it was coming from a great distance away. "Now, tell me, where does he live?"
≈ ≈ ≈
Angel Canelas lived in a rundown apartment building down on Southwest Fourth Street in Little Havana. That stretch of Fourth Street was one-way and very narrow, little more than an alley, with low-rent apartments and houses lining both sides. Several pairs of tied-together sneakers dangled here and there from the telephone wires that ran the length of the street. Canelas's building was a long, one-story structure with five units. It was in the shape of an "L" and his apartment sat in the corner of the "L".
It had stopped raining by the time Silvana got there. The sun was out in all its baking glory, water had puddled in the streets, and the temperature was high. The post-rain humidity did its oppressive best to spread misery and discomfort.
With her AC set on maximum, she sloshed off Fourth Street into the building's small parking lot. Only one space was occupied. She parked her ten-year-old Isuzu and went up to Canelas's door. A knock at the door went unanswered. And what about the door itself? Just like she thought. Cheap-ass construction with no thought of security. A fast look around showed a still-empty parking lot, no one walking around or lingering in doorways. She whipped out a credit card and slid it into the jamb, and within seconds, she was inside.
The apartment carried an odor which Silvana couldn't identify. It was definitely a mix — she smelled the marijuana immediately, and maybe something like shit? No, more like … cat litter? There was a little garbage for sure, but the rest of it? She'd just have to live with it till Canelas arrived.
The small living room held a cheap couch and a cheaper TV, one from the 1970s, she thought. There was an end table and a lamp, which had been left on, but none of it was any good. Just shit you buy from notices stapled to telephone poles. The window air unit whirred in its wall cutout next to the jalousied windows, but noise, rather than cool air, seemed to be its principal product. A few old magazines lay around on the couch and the floor — mostly porn — and they were joined by a couple of pairs of socks and underwear.
The stench grew stronger in the kitchen. The garbage pail overflowed with God knows what — Silvana was not about to look beneath the top layers — and there was the unmistakable odor of a dead animal somewhere, probably a rat in the walls. Or maybe in one of the cupboards under the sink. Again, Silvana opted not to look.
The bathroom was filthy and without order. She noticed there was no toilet paper, but there was a roll of paper towels sitting atop the commode. Fucking Hondurans, she thought. Can't even keep toilet paper in the fucking bathroom. Part of the smell came from in here, too. The toilet water was yellow with urine, which had probably been there a while. She made a face and walked out.
But the bedroom revealed bigger secrets. The first thing she saw was a massive red stain on the rug by the side of the bed. The same shade of red spattered upward on the sheetrocked wall in a broad, scary pattern and some of it even found its way onto the sheets. It was here that Blanca died. Here that he pounded the very life out of her, watched her blood spill freely in his deliberate act of carnage. Blanca, who never wanted anything more out of life than a good time and a few laughs, had everything beaten out of her until she had no more to give. She was seventeen, like Silvana.
The closet was tiny behind an accordion door. Silvana stepped inside and closed the door, leaving a slit for her to see into the bedroom. The light from the living room would be enough to illuminate Canelas when he entered, but not enough for him to see her in the closet.
She checked her watch. Quarter to five. Then she straightened out the scabbard on her belt that contained the machete and settled in to wait.
≈ ≈ ≈
Fortunately, her wait was short. The air got thick and hot pretty quickly in that closet and Silvana was about to run to the living room and stand in front of the window unit for whatever coolness she could squeeze out of it. At five-twenty, however, she heard the key turn in the front door lock. She quietly drew her machete.
He puttered around in the living room for a minute or two, sending random noises back to her closet perch, although from her position, she couldn't see him. Then she heard him walking, punctuated by the opening of the refrigerator. The psshht of a pop-top was next, and a moment later, she heard the TV. Music videos in Spanish.
As she remembered, the TV faced the bedroom and the couch faced the TV, meaning that if he was seated on the couch, which he likely was, he would be facing away from the bedroom. She eased the closet door open.
Sticking her head out, she could see the TV going in the living room and nothing else. Then, in a split second, it went silent. The picture was still on, and she heard a phone ring, a strange little musical tone like you hear in the newer cellular phones. He began speaking and she heard him go on about an impending deal. A small argument, then he finally agreed to meet the caller the next night, at ten-thirty. The TV volume resumed and she had to believe he was back into watching the video.
Her sneakers, enveloped in hospital shoe covers to prevent any possible footprint identification, didn't make a sound as they moved out of the closet and started across the bedroom floor. Halfway to the living room, the knock at the front door stopped her cold. She quickly ducked behind the dresser as Canelas got up from the couch and passed by the bedroom on his way to the front door. When he opened it, she slid back into the sanctuary of the closet. She clearly heard the conversation at the door.
"Hola, Angelito," said a husky male voice.
"¿Qué quieren ustedes?" Angel said, asking what they wanted, using the third person plural, letting Silvana know there was more than one of them. She picked up what sounded like a nervous twitch in his voice.
There was a minor shuffling sound and they were inside the apartment. The husky-voiced man said, "Maxie Méndez sent us. We want the money you owe him."
