Dancing with the Devil and Other Tales from Beyond / Bailando con el diablo y otros cuentos del más allá is made possible through a grant from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.
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An imprint of
Arte Público Press
University of Houston
4902 Gulf Fwy, Bldg 19, Rm 100
Houston, Texas 77204-2004
Cover design by Mora Des!gn
Cover art by Sara Tyson c/o theispot.com
Saldaña, Jr., René
[Short stories. Spanish & English. Selections]
Dancing with the Devil and Other Tales from Beyond = Bailando con el diablo y otros cuentos del más allá / by = por René Saldaña, Jr.; Spanish translation by = traducción al español de Gabriela Baeza Ventura.
v. cm.
Summary: A collection of traditional tales based on Mexican-American lore with a contemporary twist.
Contents: La Llorona Sings a Happy Song = La llorona canta una canción alegre—Louie Spills His Guts = Louie suelta la sopa—Dancing with the Devil = Bailando con el diablo—God's Will Be Done = Si Diosito quiere—Have I Got a Marble for You = Ay, la canica que te tengo—All Choked Up = Sin palabras.
ISBN 978-1-55885-744-5 (alk. paper)
1. Mexican Americans—Juvenile fiction. 2. Children's stories, American—Translations into Spanish. [1. Mexican Americans—Fiction. 2. Short stories. 3. Spanish language materials—Bilingual.] I. Ventura, Gabriela Baeza. II. Title. III. Title: Bailando con el diablo y otros cuentos del más allá.
PZ73.S2742 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2012008729
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
© 2012 by René Saldaña, Jr.
Bailando con el diablo y otros cuentos del más allá © 2012 by Arte Público Press
Printed in the United States of America
April 2012–May 2012
Versa Press, Inc., East Peoria, IL
12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my wife, Tina, and our little cucuys, Lukas, Mikah and Jakob
For Nicolás Kanellos, Gabriela Baeza Ventura, Marina Tristán, Carmen Peña-Abrego, Ashley Hess and Lalis Mendoza, and the rest of the crew at Arte Público Press, reader-makers one and all, cucuys of the highest order.
La Llorona Sings a Happy Song
Both out of breath, our hair matted to our foreheads by sweat, Lauro and I crouched and leaned our backs against the wall of a shed facing the alley some three miles or so from where we’d first begun running for our lives. Lauro gasped and rubbed at his chest, took a gulp of air, then whispered, “Are you okay, Miguel?”
“Yeah,” I said, myself struggling for breath. “I’m good. You?”
He nodded half-heartedly.
Shoulder to shoulder, I couldn’t decide whether it was Lauro trembling, me, or the both of us. It wasn’t a cold night, not even a cool one, but my teeth were clattering, that’s for sure. Through my aching teeth I said, “Who was that? A bruja?”
“That was no run-of-the-mill witch, Miguel. That was La Llorona in the flesh after us. Best thing for us to do now is to stay put, keep our eyes peeled and our mouths shut.” He put a straight finger up to his lips and exhaled a “shhh.”
I let my jaw go slack to keep my teeth from giving away our location. Still, though, I heard the pounding of my heart throbbing hard at my ears. I mean, I didn’t believe in silly ghost stories when I was a kid and I wasn’t about to start now. But, there was something about the fierceness in this woman’s eyes, her hair whipping about her like vipers, and that cry of hers as she breathed down our necks, almost like the howling of the wind. An angry and sad wind blowing. I was scared.
Last night, my father came into my and Joselito’s bedroom. My baby brother was fast asleep; I only made like I was. Joselito was snoring lightly; I felt his warmth at my back. Father didn’t try to wake us. Instead, he sat at the foot of our bed, his back to us. Even in this darkness, I could tell he was crying. His shoulders rose and fell, rose and fell. He sat there for what seemed like an hour. Then, there was a soft knock on the door—my mother, I imagine—and Father stood and crept quietly over to us. He ran a warm, moist palm through my hair, then Joselito’s, reached into his pants pocket and whatever he pulled out from there he lay gently on the nightstand. He whispered, “Adiós, mis hijos,” then he was gone, and I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I didn’t know it then, but I would never, ever see him again.
Lauro and I had stopped gasping for breath, but I hadn’t stopped shuddering, especially when from somewhere beyond the shadows of the trees, there was a rustling and a moaning. I looked at him, he looked at me, then we both searched the darkness for the woman who’d chased us all the way here from the river.
We’d been out there earlier with a packet of cigarettes Lauro had “borrowed” from his older brother. Neither of us had ever dared smoke before, and tonight we’d decided we were going to take the plunge into manhood, like all the guys who were tough did. After school, the bus would pick us up at the front of the middle school, then we would head over to the high school.
We’d approach the high school gymnasium from the back, and that’s where all the cool guys we knew stood in tight circles and smoked. They’d see the buses coming, but they wouldn’t stop puffing away. They just seemed to hurry it up some, taking deeper drags. By the time the buses reached the front of the gym, every one of the smoking high schoolers would be waiting to get on their buses. The only sign that they had been smoking was the smell of it when they walked down the aisle past us to their seats at the back of the bus. They always sat, slouched, and talked about girls.
Every last one of them was cool, and Lauro and I wanted to be just like them. So, Lauro had snagged the packet of cigarettes from his brother’s coat pocket earlier in the afternoon, I took a box of matches from the cabinet above the microwave, and we headed for the mesquite trees that lined the riverbank just outside of town. Once there, we planned to climb the biggest of the trees and light up. No one would see us. We shared the first cigarette and I nearly choked on the smoke. Lauro laughed, but stopped when he sucked at the cancer stick—no lie, that’s what the lady at the grocery called them—and almost fell from the tree because he almost coughed up a lung. When there was hardly anything left of it except for the butt, Lauro smashed it into the tree. After that, we each took a cigarette and lit up. I wasn’t stupid—I wasn’t swallowing the smoke this go-around. Just holding it in my mouth and puffing out my chest to make like I was actually smoking. I couldn’t let Lauro know I was too chicken to go through with it on my own. I wouldn’t be cool no more, and word would get out, I’m sure. Lauro hid the rest of the cigs in a crook in the tree for next time, then we jumped into the cool of the water “to wash away the stink of it,” Lauro said. Our parents would never be the wiser.
When we were climbing out of the water, that’s when we heard her steps. I looked up, and she was beckoning us over to her. “Boys,” she said. “Come over here. I’ve got something for you.”
The following morning, I jostled Joselito awake; the kid could sleep all day if I let him. Besides, it was getting late. Normally we’d already be up and getting about the work of the farm. But Mot
her hadn’t come in at five like she normally did every morning except for Sundays. When we dressed and stepped out into the kitchen, she was sitting at the table, her hair wild, her face, hands, and arms grimy, and her eyes bloodshot like she hadn’t slept all night, maybe like she’d been crying all night, too. I asked, “Where’s Father?”
It was then that she turned and glared right at me, with the meanest eyes I’d ever seen. She’d gotten angry before; I knew it from her expression every one of those times she was mad for my having not done this task or that the right way. But this morning’s glower was full of venom, like I’d had the gall to slap her across the face and she was letting me have it next.
But, she didn’t jump to her feet and strike me on the head, she didn’t scream at me that I was some kind of brute for asking such a stupid and foolish question.
Instead, she let go of the mean stare and replaced it with a smile, but her stretched lips and bared teeth were even scarier. She motioned to me and Joselito to come to her, “Hijos,” she said, “come here. I have some sad news to tell you about your father.” Joselito’s eyes grew sad and he ran up to her, jumped into her open arms, and said, “What’s the matter, Mother? Where’s Father?” I stood right where I was, like a tree rooted, and I could smell the fresh earth on her.
The woman seemed to float in our direction. It was weird because there were all kinds of bristly brush where she’d been standing when she’d called out to us, and she wasn’t snagging her dress on any of it. And she was coming at us real fast. We got to our feet and ran as hard as we could. We didn’t have to look over our shoulders. We knew she was there. Right on our tails. Her cold breath on our necks, her low moaning calling us her children right in our ears: “Mis hijos. Ay, mis hijos.” I just knew she was about to snatch me by the hair with her icy fingers. I dug my chin hard into my chest and pumped my arms harder. “Faster,” I screamed at Lauro. “Faster.”
Mother sent Joselito and me out to the barn. She said she’d already fed the animals and milked the cows. She said we didn’t need to worry about it, but we were not to step one foot outside the barn doors. I tried asking her what was going on, but she smiled at me like she had earlier and said, “It’s nothing for you to worry yourself over, mijo.” I insisted, and she slapped me, said I was an ingrate, a foolish boy who shouldn’t be sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.
Joselito whimpered and I told him to shut up. I needed to think, I told him, figure things out. I climbed up to the hay loft, leaving Joselito down below, wiping his snot on a sleeve. I eased myself to the crack in the loft door. From there, I saw Mother step quickly around the side of the house and disappear into the apple trees. I didn’t see much more, so I climbed back down where Joselito had fallen into a fitful sleep. I sat beside him and ran my hand through his hair like Father had done the night before.
Without slowing and wheezing, Lauro grabbed me by the arm and pulled me in the direction of some houses on the outskirts of town. I didn’t really know this part of our town, except that it was the bad side where all the hoodlums lived: drug dealers, dopers, what my mother called streetwalkers, what the preacher at church called women of ill-repute. When there was a report on the news about a shooting, you could count on it having happened up or down one of these streets, at a bar or a seedy motel.
“Here,” Lauro puffed. “Crouch down.”
I did and tried to catch my breath. A few moments later, Lauro said it was La Llorona after us, to be still and to keep my mouth shut.
Several minutes passed, and there was no sign of the woman, the witch who had drowned her two boys one day for no good reason. She’d been condemned by God to search eternally for her two sons, who she said weren’t drowned but who had left with their cheating father. “The whole lot of them was rotten,” she said.
Growing up, when the wind blew hard enough, it howled down by the river. Parents tried scaring us into obeying them without question; otherwise, they’d send us out into the dark night, and La Llorona would likely snatch us up. Early on I figured she was as real as Santa and the Easter Bunny. Just a way to make us do as we were told. Pure fantasy.
Tonight, however, having seen those flames in her eyes, the thrashing hair, well, let’s just say that if we made it to morning, I’d be a believer.
Later in the afternoon, Mother came for Joselito and me at the barn. She said she’d taken care of the business she needed to take care of and that we could now come back to the house. “Dinner,” she said, “is waiting for us at the table.” She’d cleaned herself up and changed her clothes, though the smell of dirt still clung to her. As she took Joselito’s hand and led him toward the house, she was humming the tune from my childhood. Joselito looked over his shoulder at me, smiling, apparently having forgotten the fear he’d felt earlier when she’d slapped me; but I hadn’t. I still felt the burning sting of her fingers on my face.
We ate in near silence, Mother hummed all the way through dinner. By the time we had finished, the sun had set, and my mother started washing dishes. She said we should go into our rooms and to get dressed in our best clothes. “Where you’re going, you want to look nice,” she said. “Where are we going?” I asked. “You’ll know when we get there,” she answered. “Now hurry, do as I say.”
When we were done, I remembered that Father had pulled something from his pocket last night and laid it on the night stand. It was two ten-peso coins, one for me, one for Joselito. I told my baby brother these were from Father, and his face broke into a big smile. What he could buy with this much money, he must’ve thought.
I stuck mine in my pocket. Mother called us out into the kitchen, where she had put out two glasses of milk. “Drink these before we go,” she said. “It’s fresh milk.” I was thirsty, so I gulped it down. Joselito loved milk more than anything, so he sipped his, trying to savor every bit of it. “Hurry!” Mother ordered him. He was on the verge of tears, but he did as he was told. “It’s time,” she said.
We stepped out the back door into darkness. She took both our hands and led the way. Partway into the apple orchard, I tripped on something and fell face-first into a mound of fresh dirt; it smelled just like Mother had smelled all day. When I sat up, I made out the handle of the shovel I had tripped on. Mother yanked me up by the collar and started dragging us toward the river.
My head was spinning and next thing I knew, Mother was carrying Joselito in one arm: “Don’t you fall asleep on me too,” she said, her fingers ice-cold on my wrist. “Just like you to get dirty,” she said to me. “Just like your father. Dirty to the core. He never appreciated anything I did for him. He deserved what he got.” She was sobbing, heartbroken. The only man she had ever loved had betrayed her, was leaving her for another woman, she was sure.
My mind was swirling—I had no idea what she was saying, and she was walking harder now. So confused was I that I didn’t realize at what moment we’d left the road and had stepped into the rushing waters of the river, then the water was up to my chin and Joselito was floating on his back, his eyes closed in sleep. Mother wrapped my arms around Joselito as though I was hugging him from behind and then tied a rope around us. Then she kissed us each on the tops of our heads, took a deep breath, and pushed us under.
I hadn’t taken a good breath, so my lungs burned immediately, but I was too sleepy now to force my head above water. Joselito hadn’t woken up, he looked like a sleeping angel. It didn’t occur to me that it was odd that in the middle of the night, in the middle of this murky river, I could make out my baby brother’s face. But I could. I needed to take a breath, but Joselito was so heavy now, so I used my last bit of energy to kiss him on the cheek and to wrap my arms around him that much harder. Then it was too dark to breathe. The last thing I felt was the cold of the coin in my pocket, rubbing through my pants onto my leg.
It was so dark that I couldn’t make out Lauro’s face anymore. I wondered if my mother and father had noticed yet that I hadn’t come back from Lauro’s. Had Dad come out onto the fro
nt porch and yelled out my name? Or, because it wasn’t a school night, would they let me stay out a half hour longer tonight? My teeth had stopped chattering, and I finally had caught my breath. So had Lauro. And in this new quiet, I noticed how the wind had stopped howling.
I hadn’t dared to even look over at Lauro in all this time we’d been hiding, but in this stillness I took my chance. Slowly I turned my head, and when we were eyeball to eyeball, I saw that his face had gone pale, his eyes opened wide, and he was looking just over my right shoulder, muttering something unintelligible: “Lalalalalala.” It was then that I felt a cold whisper on my neck: “Mis hijos,” it said. “I’ve finally found you.” I felt a tightening around my chest, like we were being tied together. Lauro and I were so close we were hugging each other.
The wind began to blow lightly and, instead of a wailing, there was a humming of a child’s song I remembered my mother singing to me long ago.
Louie Spills His Guts
Louie was feeling sluggish today. Not coming-down-with-the-flu lethargic. Not down-in-the-dumps, been ditched-by-my-favorite-girl, bluesy-woozy-weary. But for real slow-moving. A couple days ago was when he first noticed he was getting around more slowly than usual. Almost like walking into a heavy, hard headwind. He didn’t take it to mean anything bad then. Some days, right, move slower than others, he thought, and left it at that. It’s all in my head. Psychosomatic.
This morning he got out of bed feeling fine. Started getting ready for school, then his gut felt like it was emptying out. Almost like he was throwing up or like that one time he had the worst diarrhea in his life, sitting on the pot, the levee torn open and his whole insides just splashing hard into the toilet. But he wasn’t tossing his cookies or pooping. He was standing, getting dressed, and from one second to the next, he felt poured out. He sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed at his belly, which didn’t help, so he smacked himself upside the head to make sure he wasn’t just making this stuff up. He stood, walked over to his desk, grabbed the bottle of Pepto Bismol, and chugged what was left. Normally he liked the taste of it, but not today. Not for the last few days, when it seemed not to be doing its job. He could drink bottle after bottle of the stuff, and he would still feel horrible. Drained. He looked at his paling face in the mirror, then thought, That’s really weird. Bizarre.
Dancing with the Devil and Other Stories from Beyond / Bailando con el diablo y otros cuentos del más allá Page 1
