Chango's Fire (26 page)

She kisses me, ruining her newly applied lipstick, and I notice for the first time that Helen's upper lip is almost a line. It barely exists, but her bottom lip is lush and therefore rescues the top one.

“The opening of my gallery is tonight, so I'll see you there, right?”

“I'll be there,” I say, “don't worry.”

“Good, I leave you with Silvio,” she says, picking up an umbrella.

“No, I'm leaving with you,” I say, and she shrugs like that's all right.

My only concern now is my mother. If she sees me leaving here I'll never get to work on time. She'll want to know everything—dates, times, kids.

I tell Helen I have to get some stuff at my place, and she kisses me again and continues to walk downstairs. I watch her go down, and when she reaches the last landing, she looks back at me and waves.

“Are you going to write me another letter?” I say.

“If you knit me a sweater,” she says, winking. “Don't get wet, it's nasty out there. See you at the opening tonight.” She opens her umbrella and walks out.

In my house the cat is asleep on the sofa. His belly lifts up and down gracefully, like someone blowing in and out of a paper bag. I pet him. Whisper that I'm sorry I yelled at him. He wakes up worried, but when he sees it's me, he lazily drops his head back and continues his slumber.

“Oh, no, you don't,” I say to Kaiser, “if I have to work you're not sleeping.”

Then I see the Bible open on top of the coffee table. Job,
Chapter 9
, Verse 8-9:

Mom is half right, Kaiser was in the Bible, only she was mispronouncing it. It's spelled K-E-S-I-L.

“You are in the Bible after all,” I tell the cat and I realize, regardless of my misery, I must be happy because I'm talking like an idiot to a cat who licks my hand. I walk with the cat inside my bedroom. Trompo Loco is getting dressed. The bed is neat and he's made sure not to disturb any of my things.

“Your mother said I can stay,” he says, cowering like I am going to be angry and throw him out.

“I'm sorry about that day, Trompo. I mean it,” I say to him. “You wanna borrow my raincoat? It's pouring.”

“I use trash bags,” he says, putting on his shoes, “I make holes in them and make them suits.”

“Here, just take my raincoat,” I say, putting the cat down, making my way to the closet, “here, this will keep you dry.”

Trompo looks at my raincoat.

“But it's plastic,” he says, “the garbage bags are plastic, too.”

“Yeah, but this,” I say, knowing he'll then take it, “has pockets, see.”

He smiles like I just gave him chocolate.

He puts it on and places his hands inside the pockets.

“Julio, you gonna talk to my father—”

“Trompo, we went through—” I stop myself when I see Kesil sniffing at what's left of my altar. “Trompo, did you mess up my altar?” My voice rises a notch.

“Nah, nah,” he says, cowering again, “your mother did. Señora Santana did.”

“Just now?”

“Yeah, she woke up mad, said stuff. Are you going to talk to my father?”

I leave Trompo hanging and head for my parents' bedroom.

I'm furious and don't knock. Pops is asleep like a rock, and Mom is nowhere to be found. I leave the apartment and find Mom outside, holding an umbrella that is so big she sometimes takes it with her to the beach. She is ready for work but she is arguing with Papelito who is also under an umbrella.

“Pero señora,”
Papelito says in that delicate voice of his, “how can you say that.”

“Ma',” I yell in the rain, “you had no right doing that!”

“Mira qué demonio te han puesto,” she yells back at me. “That's what he has done to you.”

“Señora, please,” Papelito shouts back.

“Tu tienes un demonio,
Julio,” she yells, “he did that so he can take your money. That's what
santeros
do, that's what they d
o, yo sé.”

Maritza arrives to open her church, which during the day doubles as a day care that nobody trusts. Nobody. But she opens it. And all the women that volunteer there are undocumented.

“Qué pasa aquí?
” Maritza asks, concerned.

“I went to the bank,” Mom yells even louder at me, “they told me you don't own this place. That he does.”

“Let's all go inside,” Papelito says, “we can all talk inside,”

“I'm not going inside no botanica!” Mom says with disdain, “with demons and you!”

“'Ta
bien,”
Maritza says, “let's go inside my church then. Talk there.”

“I don't want to talk to her,” I yell at my mother. “You went behind my back, Ma'—”

“You stole my son's money,” Mom accuses Papelito, yelling so loud that even with this rain, even this early, people begin to peek out of their windows to see what's happening.

“No, señora,”
Papelito defends himself, “I never took a penny from anybody.”

“Un hechizo,
and then took my son's money,” she says.

“You think I'm that stupid!” I say, “Ma' give me more credit.”

“Yes!” my mother yells at me again. “You can be like your father sometimes.”

Trompo appears from the doorway. He senses arguing and doesn't like it. It scares him.

“Dios,
” she says to Papelito,
“dios le va a castigar a usted. Por ser immoral y por ser un ladrón.”
Mom cries but I feel no pity for her. She turns to say something to me but I turn my head. She flares her nostrils; even in this heavy rain I can hear her molars grinding, her jaw a lock of anger. When I turn my head toward her, it's a mirror. She's as angry as I am. So angry at me, she walks away stepping in deep puddles like she can walk on water.

“You all right, Julio?” Maritza covers me with her umbrella.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” I say, still angry at Mom.

I look at Papelito who can't stand the sight of me. He gives me those
brujo
stares of his. I know what he's thinking and I can't say he is wrong. Papelito turns around and noisily closes his umbrella and shakes the water out of it like he is getting rid of bad influences. As if it had rained bad spirits and he is shooing them all away. He then goes inside his botanica without saying a word to me.

“You want to come inside?” Maritza asks me, but I don't answer, because, pounded by the rain, next to a garbage pile, I see the items that once composed my altars. I see squashed fruit, nuts and shells, all scattered. My statue of Oshosi, the hunter, split in half. The decapitated statue of La Caridad de Cobre all bashed up. The goddess's scarf, her candles dark and wet and dirty in the rain. Then I see a piece of paper sticking out of her neck, like a Molotov cocktail inside her hollow body.

It's Helen's letter. I had hidden it inside the statue. Thinking my mother would never look there.

“Take my umbrella, stop being stupid,” Maritza says. I don't take it.

Maritza takes one last reassuring look at me and then leaves me there.

“You gonna go talk to my father?” Trompo says as Maritza takes his arm and guides him inside the church to get stuff ready.

I just stand there getting wet. I stare at pieces of something my mother had no business touching. I feel like it was these pieces, this ritual, that had brought me some sort of happiness. I had awoken with some hope that something good was going to happen. The rain had led me to believe that I might be rescued at the last moment, because love does that. Last night, I had been fingered by grace, and I woke up ready to smile at every stranger in the street, at any animal, any soul. My life wasn't that shallow after all, my pockets were deep and full of hope. But anyone with the map of my terrible life could have pointed me in the right direction. The broken altar is an omen. I feel that everything I was after is already behind me, and everything I am running away from is still here.

I kick some of the items. They are useless now.

I go pull out Helen's letter. The paper is already turning soft, dissolving like a wafer. The ink is blurred. Helen's words are lost. Just as well. I let the letter fall from my hand. It doesn't float like a feather but sinks like stones thrown in a puddle.

I enter the church to face Maritza. Trompo Loco asks me if I am going to see his father. I say, yes I am, Trompo. Then I tell him to start cleaning the floors so I can speak with Maritza. Trompo Loco begins to get the floors ready. His smile is so radiant it shines. I have told him what he wants to hear and so he doesn't want to ruin anything.

I go talk to Maritza, who is checking her church's unopened mail. She is sitting on a folded chair with the letters spread over her lap.

“They are on to you,” I softly say to her as I look around the empty church.

Maritza doesn't answer me, she continues to read a letter. She's probably already talked with her boyfriend and he's told her I dropped by.

“I'm not going to rat you out,” I say, almost whispering. “Not that I have anything. They want those papers. And I can't help you. I have my own problems.”

Maritza crushes some junk mail. She crumples it into a ball and flings it across the church. That's more like Maritza, always angry at something.

“I just wanted to tell you this.”

Maritza doesn't open any more mail. Heavy in angry thoughts, Maritza stares at the walls.

Papelito enters the church. All wet, his hair is dripping water from being outside arguing with my mother. Yet he still sways his hips past Trompo Loco who is mopping the floors. He excuses himself for ruining Trompo's newly shined floors.

“Mari,” he says to her, ignoring me, “you have to stop.”

“Why,” Maritza yells, “can't they just leave me alone!” The echo makes Trompo Loco stop mopping. I wave at him that it's all right.

“This is not the way, Mari,” Papelito says to her, and the silence this church once held is gone. “It's not the way. They come because of what you can give them. Listen to me, Mari.”

“I'm doing what's right,” she finally looks at us. “I know that this is right.”

“Mija,
you can't force people,” Papelito shakes his head, “you can't force them to embrace something that's right. You are buying them so they can agree with you, Mari.”

“So what, I'm helping them—”

“Mari, who are you to choose who gets the help? You are doing exactly what you hate. You are playing God, Mari. You decide who.”

I stand back and let them talk it out. I'm not going to interfere or add anything.

“Papelito,” she says, “look at what we have accomplished. All
the
people we've helped.”

There might be tears in Maritza's eyes, I don't know.

“Good, Mari,” Papelito answers her, “good, then take that as your prize.”

Maritza bows her head. I have never seen her like this. Her entire body is weighed down like gravity is pulling her down.

“And you,” Papelito focuses at me, “that agent came to talk to me, way before he talked to you, Julio.”

That's why Mario knew everything. He had gone to see Papelito.

“I didn't tell him anything, Papelito. About you, or her,” I say pointing at Maritza, “he only wants those documents.”

“I know that,” Papelito gently places his hand on Maritza's hair. He delicately strokes it. Maritza welcomes it. “There's enough blame here to go around.”

Trompo Loco is getting ready to dust the plastic flowers that decorate the platform. He has a bottle of Windex and he starts spraying and wiping. He seems to like spraying, because he sprays too much.

“I'm going to get those forms out of my botanica,” Papelito gracefully retracts his hand away from Maritza's hair, “and give them up.”

Maritza jumps up. The letters on her lap fall to the floor.

“No!” she defies him.

“Oh yes, I am,” he says, angry that she has dared to confront him. After all he's done for her. “And then Julio,” I straighten up in fear of him, “after the ceremony that I have to conduct tonight, you and me are going to the bank and we're going to set that right.” He puts his foot down like he is my father. “I want your mother off my back, Julio. That woman is worse than the government.” I want to at least smile but Papelito isn't joking. His lips are a straight line. “After that,” he pauses to make sure we are listening, “I'm taking all the blame.”

“No you can't—” Maritza protests. Papelito lifts a hand at her as if he is ready to slap her. She turns her face away, waiting for the blow.

“Mira, que te doy un
—” he stops himself from striking her. It is the only time I have seen Papelito so enraged he almost harmed someone.

He swallows hard and orders me to follow him. I do as told and walk behind him. Trompo Loco asks to come along but Papelito shoots him a
brujo
stare. Trompo knows to leaves us alone. I whisper to Trompo that everything is all right, and he continues to clean.

Next door, inside San Lazaro y Las Siete Vueltas, Papelito takes a deep breath. He recites a small, quick prayer and calms down. Silently, Papelito walks behind the counter, where several small statues of San Lazaro, the saint for diseases, stand upright on a shelf. He takes one down and, underneath the small statue, like a piggy bank, is a small opening. Papelito digs his fingers inside and pulls out a thick paper, like the one Mario showed me.

I look at the shelf full of statues. Maybe twenty of them.

Papelito follows my eyes and knows what I was looking at.

“That's nothing Julio,” and he points to a life-sized statue of a regal looking Santa Barbara. She stands upright, holding a golden goblet in one hand. I notice that underneath Santa Barbara, like a base or a foundation for the statue to stand on, is a thick metal box that resembles a large phone book made out of tin.