12
Invisible hammer
Una venganza certera y sangrienta
New ink – Skinny bearded saint
Cojones de buey
What happens sometimes is that life resembles a porn movie. You tell yourself that you like what you see, but it takes a lot of effort to keep at it. You think about beauty and try to use an invisible hammer to make what you’re looking at sort of fit into the hole created by your ideals. The lie works for a while, but then you start seeing truth; you start spotting the acne on the guy’s back and the thin dark scars under the woman’s breasts and you realize he’s holding his dick in his fist like he’s trying to make the head pop because he’s so damn high he has to look down to see planes and can’t get hard. That’s when the lie crumbles like a deck of cards in a hurricane. Suddenly her fake screaming and moaning starts getting on your nerves, like when two cats fight outside your window at three in the morning and the loser stays there after the action is over, wailing away like a banshee.
What happens then is that sadness creeps in, dragging shame along like a beaten dog with a filthy chew toy in its mouth. Yeah, the lie is gone and all you’re left with is a black hole where your heart used to be and a limp dick in your hand. What happens once the castle of lies you call a life is gone is that a desire to escape builds up inside you and sours everything you do, taints everything you experience, sucks the color out of everything you see.
Our lives aren’t as great as we want to believe they are, and being afraid is a magnifying glass that makes you see every painful detail, every crack.
What happens when you accept that the lie is over is that you have to change things or ignore them.
What happens when someone takes someone you love away from you is that your lie crumbles but you also fall into a hole and start hating the walls around you. That hate eats you up like a cancer and the only cure es una venganza certera y sangrienta. Action. Don’t let anyone feed you any bullshit when it comes to venganza because something that feels so good, so right, tan cósmicamente correcto, is something that can’t be wrong.
The bad thing about that venganza is that you need inner strength to make it happen. Necesitas cojones de buey.
What happens when you decided to act, when you decided to make things right, is that you go out and get a gun. Then you go to a tattoo shop with a picture of a San Lázaro statue on your phone and you show it to the artist. Then you sit around and wait for a while. Eventually, the artist comes to you with a smaller version of the saint, a version small enough to fit on your forearm. You nod. Then comes the shaving and the placing of the stencil and the needle with its endless buzzing that mixes with the pills you took and places your brain somewhere between this world and the world of dreams.
The skinny bearded holy man on your forearm is surrounded by dogs. That puts a small smile on your face. You thank the artist and leave a hundred-dollar tip because the ink makes you feel powerful and protected and your endorphins are working tiny miracles as they mix with the other chemicals in your bloodstream. You wish you could bottle that feeling and carry it with you wherever you go.
What happens next is, you think you have a plan. That plan is simple, but simple is almost always the opposite of easy.
What happens when you have a plan but you’re not sure about it is that you realize you have to ask someone about it, and when the person you usually consult about such things is no longer in this realm, you have to concentrate to find a viable alternative.
That’s when you remember a man Consuelo told you about, a man whom she said could see even farther than she could and never blinked.
13
Visita al visionero
The motherfucker doesn’t blink
The bones never lie – Cards
Castle in the distance
I drove north on North Lamar and kept an eye out for the big red neon hand like los tres reyes magos kept an eye out for that guiding star.
Ten minutes later I spotted the place, did a U-turn, and parked.
The place had no name. It was one-story building with a façade made of light brown rocks. A giant red neon palm decorated the front. The words PALM READINGS and TAROT READINGS shone the same neon red on either side of the palm. The door was painted purple and had an OPEN sign hanging from the doorknob.
Memories of driving Consuelo there invaded my head. She wanted to know if someone had done a trabajo on her dead sister and was curious about her health in the upcoming months because she’d been feeling tired. I asked her why she went to see this guy when it was obvious she could she beyond the veil. “You can see others very well, Nando, but your reflection always comes at you twisted regardless of the quality of the mirror,” she’d said.
Not wanting to let the memories mess me up, I stepped out of my car and walked into the place. A skinny man who looked seven feet tall sat on a purple stool in the middle of an empty room. The only illumination came from a collection of candles pressed against the walls. The gaunt man stood up and looked at me. I remembered then what Consuelo called him when she asked me to bring her there, “the man with wild eyes and many faces.” His eyes looked normal to me.
Then I remembered she’d said he never blinked.
The man walked toward me slowly. He wore black jeans and a blue shirt with a purple vest. Every finger had a ring and necklaces made from beads of every color known to man hung from his neck. His arms were covered with tatuajes of faces, numbers, and names. I didn’t recognize any of the faces, but some of the names I saw were familiar. Blavatsky. Crowley. Laveau. Boukman. The portions of his neck that were not covered by the necklaces were inked with small, intricate designs. Some were numbers in a line and some resembled the drawings voodoo practitioners use in their incantations and rituals.
Maybe it was because my spirits were down or maybe because Consuelo had spoken so highly of this man, but he struck me as someone with incredible power.
When the man reached me, he said “Welcome,” and stuck out his hand. His voice sounded like dust being scraped off an old wooden surface. I took his hand. He squeezed my fingers with the strength of a man four times his size. I felt weak compared to him, small despite outweighing him by at least 80 pounds.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said with that voz de ultratumba. He sounded sincere.
I kept quiet.
“You’re lost. You have suffered a great loss and now love and hate are fighting inside you. When the sons and daughters of Changó get lost, they either disappear or learn to wield the power of their Father. Which group do you belong to, my friend?”
“I think I belong to the second group. That’s why I came to see you…”
“Isaac,” he said.
“Isaac, I came here because Consuelo said…”
“Consuelo,” he said, giving my hand one more squeeze and then letting it go with the same care one puts down a newborn baby. “She’s the hole in your heart. That space is full of negative energy now. The weight of it is making breathing difficult, but don’t despair, her light is keeping absolute darkness and an eternal storm of pain and bone dust from sweeping you away. She has left this plane, but her enlightened spirit is no longer bound to inaction by the limits imposed on us by flesh. She’s far more powerful now than she ever was, and that is a beautiful thing. I very much look forward to her visit.”
He stopped talking and looked at a spot behind me. His lips curled up into something akin to a smile, but it immediately vanished. I kept my eyes glued to his, but he didn’t blink.
“Consuelo is with you, protecting you now and in the trip you’re about to embark on. Be careful in this endeavor. The world of eternal danger and sharp shadows is trying to invade you. She can’t protect you if you don’t do your part.”
“I want to go aft…”
He raised his right hand with a quickness that seemed impossible given the calm look on his skeletal face.
“You are a blind man trapped in a boat with no captain in the middle of an uncharted ocean. I’ll ask the Orishas. Come with me.”
He turned around and used one incredibly long arm to part the beaded doorway to the side. A small round table with a white cloth and two chairs stood in the middle of the room.
Isaac produced a deck of tarot cards.
“Pick three cards. Don’t look at them. Hold them by your side and imagine them gone. We will do something else first.”
I did what he asked me to. Isaac nodded and wrapped the remaining cards in a blue handkerchief.
I thought we were going to sit down, but he turned and led me out of the room. About a third of the candles had blown out in the very short time we spent in the tiny room and everything looked darker now. We walked behind the black curtain entered a small room with no furniture. The walls looked like they had been painted with blood using a hand instead of a brush. The skin of some brown animal was laid out on the floor. Next to it was a small vase made of mud.
Isaac bent down and picked up the vase. He looked at me and started shaking it. A few seconds later, he tipped the contents on top of the animal skin. I looked down. About twenty little bones were sprawled over the skin. Some looked like chicken neck bones but others were larger and I couldn’t imagine what kind of animal they came from. At least two of them looked like tiny penises. I was sure those came from human fingers. Issac kneeled down and studied the bones for a while. I kept my mouth shut. He started speaking without removing his eyes from the bones.
“Death has been a part of your life for a long time, but the death that’s breathing down your neck now is a different beast. A son of Ogún has crossed your path. The many sacrifices this man has made to his Father have made the god hungry for more. Ogún wants your blood. ‘Ogún shoro shoro, eyebale kawo.’ He speaks loudly through blood and killing. This man has a dark pact, an unhealthy understanding with Ogún.”
When a man wants you dead, you think about killing him first, about being smarter and faster and putting a few holes in his body before he can catch you slippin’, but what the hell are you supposed to do when a god wants you dead?
“The bones never lie. They have knowledge that precedes us and all of our religions. They’re inhabited by spirits from Africa that witnessed the birth of our gods and feasted on their afterbirth. Trust what they say. They say you are a lucky man. Changó is your Father. He doesn’t want you dead, much less at the hands of a son of Ogún. However, Changó’s good will and Consuelo’s light might not be enough if you don’t make an effort to fight. The matters of the Orishas are complicated when they are carried by the hands of men. These men are drunk on blood and power. They are ignoring Ogún’s cries for blood, plying their bodies with liquor and chemicals. This has upset their god. Which is good for you.”
“I’m praying a novena to Santa Muerte,” I said. “I burn a candle for her every day and offer her rum and food.”
“That’s good. Burn a few candles for Changó as well. Offer him white wine and apples. These things will keep him happy and watching over you. Now show me your cards.”
I had forgotten about the cards. I turned them over and held them in front of me like a kid holds an unknown insect.
The first card showed a tower being struck by lightning. People were jumping out of windows into a starless night.
“The Tower,” said Isaac. “Turmoil. Life’s rug is being pulled from under your feet. You’re falling, scared and confused. Something is striking down on you with a ferocious force. When life is a mess, a devastating fire is needed to clear out the dead wood, to scare bad creatures away, to clear the space and strengthen the soil so that fresh seedlings can sprout, take root. Survival is the only path to strength and vice versa.”
Isaac removed the Tower card from between my fingers and looked at the second card. A woman with a blindfold on and her arms tied behind her back stood among very tall swords stuck in the earth. Behind her, a castle rose up in the distance at the top of a mountain.
“The Eight of Swords,” said Isaac. “Oppression. The castle, the oppressive force, it watches over your every action. The woman looks trapped, helpless, but her feet are not tied. She’s free to run, or to a use a sword to cut the binds from her hands and face her oppressor. The choice is yours.”
Once again, Isaac plucked the card he’d been reading from between my fingers and looked at the card that was behind it. It showed a skeleton riding a white horse and holding a strange flag. A dead man was underneath the horse and a couple of kids were in front of it. One seemed to be dying and the other one looked like he was praying.
“Whispers from the future. Death. An intense change is at hand, a transmutation that requires action. The nature of Death is duality. The meaning of this card is in your hands. Obey the Orishas and Death can be a commanding force that carries you into a new plane. Disobey and the dark forces around you swallow you whole. Death of the flesh is only one of many.”
I needed to get out that small room with its bloody walls and the man who never blinked.
“How much do I owe you?”
“A friend of Consuelo would never owe me anything. Take what you have learned and use it. Retribution feels personal, but it can be a communal event. Keep that in mind as you move forward. Burn your candles. Offer Changó some apples. Let him know that you acknowledge his power. Be humble. Pray every day to your Santa Muerte. She is a good protector and healer. Give her a soul to deliver. Whether that soul is yours or someone else’s is entirely up to you.”
He was done. He raised his arm and motioned for me to walk out.
I mumbled another thank you and reached the door in a few hurried steps.
As I reached the door, I turned one last time to look at the man who never blinked. His feet were hovering about two inches from the floor.