Never Wake the Dead

by Bajaña, Edgar

  I looked at her for a short moment. Poor girl. She didn’t have the slightest clue of the kind of things I saw. I never told anyone about my ability to commune with the dead.

  "James, talk to me!” She pleaded again.

  “Sorry. I was an inch away from dying, Charlene. Just in shock.”

  “Of course, James. But I have to know.”

  “What?”

  “Did you kill him?”

  At that moment, I really didn’t know. And we stared at each other for a long moment.

  “Yes. He was about to shoot me.”

  There was one time when I thought about telling her the truth about my abilities. I always thought that it would be safer for her to not say anything.

  After more cops filled the scene, Charlene and I drifted away from each other in the crowd.

  I gave my statement and was about to leave. Once again, Charlene tried to look for me. She asked me if I was going to come home.

  I didn’t say anything. I just left, disappearing into the night.

  2

  Violets Don’t Last Forever

  The Beast came and went with the night.

  Walking the streets, Violet never saw the Beast, a supernatural aberration more than man.

  On a Friday night, the Beast sat on the double cantilever towers of the Queens Borough Bridge. How he got up there, remained to be seen.

  The Beast wore a death mask made of paper machete under his black hoodie, watching and laughing, as Violet prepared for the night.

  His horns twirled in the shadows of the night, and Violet never had the slightest clue that the Beast liked her the most.

  ON FRIDAY NIGHT, Violet haunted the upper level of the iron bridge, watching red and white trails of light pass her by, like packets of energy passing from one side of the river to the other.

  As Manhattan glowed with light, Violet threw her cigarette butt off the bridge and watched it disappear into the East River.

  She wore high black platform shoes and a tight violet dress that showed off her smooth brown thighs. Anyone who noticed her, always looked at her long legs first, then her piercing green eyes. But, Violet was so much more than the sum of her parts.

  At the top of the bridge, she leaned into the night, alone, with her black hair violently blowing in every direction, whipping around her face, sometimes covering her bright red lips, her rosy cheeks, and her long black lashes. From a couple of feet away, she looked gentle, soft and harmless. However, her heart had hardened over the last month she worked the night away.

  Violet was more than a young woman caught in the dark currents of New York City.

  She was more than a twenty-six-year-old prostitute from Peru who migrated to the States six months ago.

  After this weekend, Violet would have enough money to repay the Coyote. The Coyote was the person that brought her into the United States illegally. Once Violet was inside the country, all she had to do was pay the Coyote off with money that she made as a streetwalker in Long Island City.

  At least, that was what the Coyote had her believe.

  However, Violet was so much more than red flesh. She was a beautiful violet flower, blooming before anyone knew how to appreciate her. No one knew her. Her parents were long gone when she was six.

  However, Violet was close to being free, indeed. After this weekend, her time on the streets was over.

  Whenever Violet walked down the dark industrial streets right off of Queens Boulevard in Long Island City, she wasn’t the kind of girl that was scared.

  The whole time she worked in the street, she felt so empty inside that there was nothing to lose.

  Besides, the streets were worse south of the border. Besides, it was all part of the journey that girls like her made in trying to start a new life in the new world.

  Violet stood on the Queens Borough Bridge by the double cantilever towers, getting high and remembering how she got here. About a month ago, the Coyote dropped Violet off in Woodside, New York City a gateway community for South American immigrants in the Borough of Queens. Once here, she was set up in a house that belonged to an older Spanish woman, known as La Negra.

  Under a haze of smoke, Violet’s life played out like a glossy magazine cover in her mind. It was in these quiet moments, where she dreamed of the good things that she wanted for herself. And sometimes, she imagined herself appearing on a movie screen at the Sunnyside Cinema Center along Queens Boulevard. Like every other young girl who takes to the streets, she fooled herself to make the whole thing bearable.

  Violet made the sign of the cross like her mother taught her back in Peru. Then, she walked down the bridge and dove into the dark streets of Long Island City, where there were always a lot of dark places to carry out the commerce of the night.

  And into the night Violet went.

  SATURDAY EARLY MORNING - At Foxy’s Diner on 32nd and Queens Boulevard, a waitress named Alice kept staring at a man wearing a paper machete mask of a wolf over his face and a black jumpsuit. At first, Alice was shocked by his appearance. But, she decided to play it off.

  “Can't wait for Halloween yet? huh?” asked the waitress.

  However, the man in the mask said nothing. He remained quiet and walked past her. Then, he sat in a booth in the back of the diner. Along the way, he picked up the paper lying on the counter.

  Alice noticed that he knew the restaurant well. He knew where he wanted to sit as if he had been there before. But she couldn’t remember him and she worked there every night.

  From time to time, the waitress glanced at him, while he buried his head behind the pages of the Queens Gazette. When the waitress served him coffee, he grunted more than anything else.

  Like a statue, he stayed in that booth for exactly an hour, reading.

  Throughout the night, the waitress never dared to approach him. There was only one time when Alice thought she heard him laugh.

  By the end, the masked man in the booth left the newspaper on the seat. When he got up and brought his cup to the counter, a shadow eclipsed the waitress’s face. She was a little scared by how tall and massive he looked.

  The whole time he never said a word.

  Alice stayed quiet too, watching him until he left. The man felt like a shadow more than anything else, as if he weren't even there.

  When the glass door closed, Alice sighed with relief and everything felt like it went back to normal.

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON - Before the sun was up, Violet came through the door of Foxy’s Diner to have a meal with a slice of cherry pie. It was part of her ritual before she went back home. She celebrated making it through Friday night.

  "Hi, Alice."

  "Violet. Coffee. Black. Right?"

  "Yeah.”

  Alice knew that Violet was a prostitute. Most of the girls that came through in the early morning were working girls.

  A few moments later, the waitress served her a steaming cup of coffee. Violet glanced up at Alice and caught her looking at the pink newspaper left in the booth. The man in the wolf mask read that paper, just before Violet arrived. For some reason, the waitress looked rattled, when she glanced at the newspaper.

  “Are you okay?” Violet asked her.

  “Yeah,” The waitress glanced over at the door. She imagined the man in the paper machete mask coming through the door. The thought of it scared her.

  “Let me get that plate of meatloaf for you, Violet.”

  After the meal, Violet picked up the Queens Gazette newspaper on the seat next to her and immediately saw a news article that called her attention. It read, “Body Part Found on Queens Boulevard.”

  The reporter’s name was Luella Matos. It was the sort of grim discovery usually reserved for a cable television police thriller. Violet was a little surprised that it happened in a neighborhood that she passed through every night.

  BODY PART FOUND ON QUEENS BLVD

  by Luella Mattos

  BOROUGH OF QUEENS - Out for an early morning jog with a dog on Thursday, a man fou
nd a severed body part packed into a black bag and dumped curbside in the neighborhood of Sunnyside. The identity of the victim remains unknown.

  In an emailed statement, the police department says that any wild speculation made on social media about the find are just that, wild speculations.

  As of now, this is an isolated case, and the investigation is ongoing.

  Violet looked up from the newspaper and out the window of the diner. The story rattled her. She wondered if the body part belonged to a male or a female. Shit. If it was a female, there was a good chance that it was a working girl. In the last month that Violet hooked in Long Island City, she met several girls in the street, that she had not seen again. It could have been anyone of them. Girls come and go all the time.

  No one gives a shit about them.

  Violet thought of a handful of girls. There was Tulip who she hadn’t seen in a while. There was Iris. There was another one named Rose, who Violet met last week. One night, Rose never showed up to her usual spot, underneath a viaduct of the Queensborough bridge. Violet didn’t think much of it, at the time. After a couple of days, Violet asked around for her. But no one had seen her. She tried calling. But, her phone always went to voicemail.

  Violet hoped that the article she read in the Queens Gazette wasn’t about Rose. She should have contacted the police once she got that feeling. But, she never did.

  Violet couldn’t stop thinking about which body part the police may have found. On social media, a jogger at the scene was able to snap a picture of a cop carrying a black bag. Most people thought that it could have been a leg or torso inside that bag. Violet saw how the cops taped off most the Street and diverted traffic away. Maybe there were some markings on the body part, a tattoo or a scar. Like the one under Rose’s arm that she showed her.

  The thought made her scratch her own.

  She remembered Rose had a scar and several tattoos. One was a rose, and the other was a barcode on a petal, that Rose showed her. Violet had a tattoo under her arm too in the shape of a violet flower.

  Using her phone, Violet looked up Luella Matos, the reporter of the story.

  On Luella's blog, there was a text messaging service for anonymous tips. But, Violet was looking for another authority that she could talk to about the case and find out if the body part was female or a male. Maybe she could warn some of the girls on the street, Even though the Coyote told her not to talk to anyone.

  On another page of Luella’s website, Violet found the number of a police detective, named James Night who worked in the missing person unit. Tomorrow, she would try whatever she could to find him.

  Rose deserved that, at least.

  Violet stayed at Foxy's Diner, until early morning. By now, the river of cars was no more, and there was only a violet glow just before dawn. She made the sigh of the cross.

  To her, it meant that she had survived the night.

  As Violet stared at herself in the reflection of the restaurant window, she never caught on to that fact that the Beast watched her throughout the evening. The creature watched her when she walked down the street and turned the corners. The creature watched her when she slipped into and out of every car.

  Only when the sun came up, the terror left her alone and retreated back into its dark domain.

  SATURDAY NIGHT - Violet got out of the backseat of an unmarked cop car and walked back toward a place called the stroll under the Queens Borough Bridge.

  Walking alone, she thought about Detective James Night.

  In the afternoon, she spoke to him on the phone. She was surprised that he was in the office. She expected to get only his voicemail.

  Nothing went how she thought, though. She asked James about the body part the police found in Sunnyside. But, he couldn’t discuss it. Then, Violet told him about Rose, who disappeared last week. Then, that was pretty much it.

  “Fill out a missing person report,” James told her and hung up.

  And that was it.

  At the very least, Violet used the story in the Queens Gazette to scare off a new girl she ran into that night. When it came to protecting her spot by the viaduct of the Queensborough bridge, she used whatever she could find. Tonight, Violet couldn’t lose any money. She was close to reaching her goal to pay back the Coyote, the person that brought her into the country illegally. Besides, she didn’t want to be out there any longer than a month.

  And being street smart was the only advantage she had when a new girl showed up on the deserted industrial streets of Long Island City.

  In the end, the story of the severed body part sounded like a good way to scare off the competition. She made up whatever the newspapers left out. Besides, she hated getting into physical confrontations on the street.

  Violet emerged from under the shadow of the bridge and approached her usual spot. She saw a new girl there, where cars from the surrounding suburbs came to look for a quick date.

  Violet called her Daisy, a tall busty girl in tight neon yellow spandex pants. Violet never bothered to find out her real name and ended up calling her Daisy, for short. She walked around shirtless, wearing only a bra. The girl was South American just like Violet, except she was from Columbia and Violet was from Peru.

  Another flower blooming on the shores of Queens

  "Hey girl," Violet called to Daisy, approaching her from across the street. "Hey, Daisy!"

  "Yeah?" Daisy turned around.

  "Come on girl. What are you doing around here?"

  "Same thing you are."

  "And what's that?”

  "Trying to get something to eat so that I can feed my kids.”

  "Look elsewhere girl. You need to get out of here.”

  “Why?”

  “Get out of these dark streets, before your children won’t have anyone to feed them, and they starve to death while they wonder what happened to you. It isn't safe out here.”

  Violet looked at her fake gold watch. It was already 2:30 am.

  “Why should I leave?”

  “Look. I don't care where you go. But, if I were you, I would get on the Q32 or Q60 bus or the N or Q train. I don't care. Just get out of here. It ain't safe, girl.”

  “Then, what you doing here?" asked Daisy.

  "Believe me. I'm not here for these jerks who give you bullshit money to beat on you. No way. Screw that."

  "Then what?"

  "I'm here for girls like you. Listen. The police are paying me just to help girls like us. Right now, you have a chance to walk away. You have an opportunity to survive another night. And you should take it. Most girls never even get a warning. They just end up missing.”

  “Missing? What you mean?”

  “Don’t you read the paper?”

  Violet gave Daisy the newspaper clipping that she found at Foxy’s Diner, the other night.

  “Look. Come on Daisy. You have to believe me. It’s for your good. Look.”

  Daisy saw the headline and a genuine concern grew over her face. Daisy couldn’t help but ask that one question.

  “Just tell me what it says,” Daisy looked embarrassed after she looked at the paper. Violet realized that she was illiterate and could not read. It wouldn’t be so hard to make Daisy believe a fake story.

  Then, Violet stepped onto the curb, pulling out a Virginia Slim 100s from her purse.

  "Here. Here. Take one." Violet offered.

  Daisy accepted. Together, they stood underneath the orange glow of the viaduct of the Queensborough Bridge. Violet's voice echoed underneath.

  “Well, this week hasn’t been good for girls like us.” Violet continued.

  Daisy took another nervous pull from her cigarette.

  "Well Daisy" Violet placed her hand on her bare shoulder. “Last week, I had a friend that I made out here in the streets. I really liked her too. Her name was Rose. She was a good friend, and we looked out for each other for a little bit, like sisters."

  "Like sisters?" asked Rose.

  "As close to sisters as you could get out
here. We had been working these streets for a month, down Vernon Boulevard, 9th Street, 8th Street. You name it. There are a lot of good spots around here because some of the cops watch our backs.”

  "What was her name, again?”

  “Her name was Rose, and she was someone that I could talk to about all the crazy shit that I went through, out here. You understand. Right?"

  “Well, yeah."

  "Well, I was supposed to meet her right here after work, last week. So, we could catch something to eat at Foxy's Diner. I waited almost a half an hour for her. But nothing. I didn't think much about it. Shit happens you know. So I went to eat, alone."

  "And Rose?"

  "I was so tired that I woke up the next day and forgot all about her."

  "And what happened, though," Daisy asked. "Did you ever catch up with her again?"

  "No." For a moment, Violet stared off into the dark streets. She looked at a shadow underneath the viaduct. For the first time, the streets looked colder than ever before.

  "So what happened," asked Daisy. "Did you ever find her."

  "Yes. At least I think I did. I was reading the Queens Gazette yesterday. The one in your hands. Then I spotted a small article. My eyes zeroed in on it. I knew this story in the newspaper was about her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A reporter named Luella gave me the name of one of the detectives on the case.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Detective James Night. I wanted to let him know that I might know the girl.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He was nice to me, and he gave me more information about what happened.”

  Daisy saw Violet's eyes begin to water.

  "What did he say?"

  “He told me about the black plastic bag they found in the street in Sunnyside. Inside, there was an amputated arm. Can you believe that? It was just one arm and nothing else. No foot or head. The killer left her arm inside that black bag, like a piece of meat, left to rot.”