The Temptation of Demetrio Vigil (16 page)

“Would you please shut
up
?” I asked Kelsey.
“God, I can’t
stand
you sometimes.”

“I know you feel what I do,” he
told me, maturely ignoring Kelsey. “It’s almost like electricity,
or chemistry, and it’s real, and I’m pretty sure there’s science
behind it, frankly. But I don’t think you should get in the middle
of the mess that I’m in right now. It wouldn’t be fair to you. We
got plenty time, later. Go back to your life, Maria, and stop
trying to seek me out. Let me find you, when the time is right. Or
better yet, let’s just not see each other at all until it’s
over.”

I felt tears well up in my eyes. “That’s really nice
and really mean at the same time,” I said. I groped for his hand,
and found it, squeezed it. Instantly, I was met with the incredible
warmth and sense of peace I’d gotten the other times we’d touched.
He looked down at our hands, and looked...scared. Like a little
boy.

“Whoa,” he whispered, as a sort of heat energy just
pulsed back and forth between us.

“Yeah,” I said, feeling all melty inside. “I think
that’s what they mean by chemistry.”

“Uhm,” said Kelsey. “I think you’re about to have a
sickeningly touching moment. I think I’ll just go look around the
back of the church for a minute and think about Israel and the
Moors, or something. If that’s cool with you. Uhm, yeah. Well,
alrighty then.”

We didn’t answer, because we were quite occupied
looking into each other’s eyes. I’d never felt this way before, and
the magnetic pull toward him was overwhelming. I scooted closer,
but just as he’d done last night, he braced himself, then backed
away. He dropped my hand, and literally recoiled from me as though
I had the plague.

“The best thing I can do for you is leave you
alone,” he said, struggling to believe it.

“That’s not true.”

“It is. Trust me. It has to be. Please trust me.” He
turned his attention to a small blue door at the back of the room,
anxiously.

“Do you live here?” I asked him.

“Something like that. I’m safe there, because even
Ulysses is afraid of The Maker.”

“The Maker?”

He looked embarrassed, caught, and backtracked.
“God,” he said. “That’s what I meant to say. God and the church.
The bad guys know better than to come in here, and the people here
have been very kind about sheltering me and my animals.”

“Why all the animals?”

“Don’t you know why, mamita?” he
asked me, with a knowing look. “You feel the same way about them
that I do. It’s love. I’ve seen you with Buddy. You’re like I am, a
big softie. It’s one of the things that makes you so beautiful,
Maria.”

I was struck then by the incredible difference
between Demetrio and Logan with regards to animals. I’d never known
a man who loved them the way I did. I didn’t think such males
existed.

“Are you gay?” I asked him.

“What?” He seemed surprised, but not offended. “No.
Why do you ask?”

“Because you love animals, always smell good, and
you won’t kiss me.”

He laughed softly and sighed. “I’m
very straight. I’m also careful. I’m not impulsive, Maria. This
ain’t the right time for us, me and you.”

“I can help you do this, get away from those guys,”
I said. “My mom’s really powerful, she’s a city councilor and a
lawyer, she’s running for mayor and comes from an old powerful
family in New Mexico; she can help you. She knows a lot of people.
Really.”

“That’s really nice, mamita, but you don’t
understand what’s at stake,” he told me, and I saw tears well in
his eyes. “Just trust me, please, and go.”

“Don’t do this,” I whined.

“You have to leave here. I’ve - I’ve never known a
girl like you. You’re safe to leave now. Those guys are pretty much
nocturnal, and they’re gone on their rounds. I promise I’ll see you
again. Okay? But not - not like - I don’t know. I’m a little
confused, too. I have to go.”

“No,” I said, crying a little.

“I’m sorry. I have to go. Bye.”

He opened the blue door, stepped through, and shut
it behind him. I went back to the front door, and found Kelsey
there trying to blend in with the shadows.

“That was very sad, and creepy and totally
inappropriate in every way,” she said.

I hugged her, and broke down crying. “I’m totally
losing my mind, aren’t I?” I mumbled into her shoulder.

“Maybe,” she said, holding me
tightly. “Yes. I mean hell
yes
, you are. You
are
. But all that means
is that it’s our job to help you find it again. Let’s get out of
here and go home. We don’t belong here and you know it.”

I looked around, and tried to
believe her, but honestly, I felt like I
did
belong there. I felt like an
acorn fallen to the base of its tree, like a Monarch Butterfly
following its instincts to the natal land of its
grandparents.
I was supposed to be
here.
But I knew better than to tell her
this. Even with the best of friends, there were limits to
disclosures.

“Let’s go,” I said.

And we did.

♦

We didn’t make it far, however. As soon as
we left the town limits, at Mile Marker 21, the road was suddenly
coated in shrapnel, bits of sharp metal that seemed to have fallen
from a junkyard truck. I saw it too late to swerve away, and
bumpingly ran the Land Rover over it all. The large pieces of
debris were too much even for the tank I was driving. I felt a
small explosion beneath the car, and then heard the telltale flap
and thud of a flat tire.

“Great,” said Kelsey. “Just when
you think your day can’t suck any worse than it already does, what
with your life being threatened by a trailer trash gang leader
named Ulysses,
this
happens.”

I hobbled the car to the shoulder of the highway,
and turned to look at her with worry in my eyes. “This is where I
crashed,” I told her, scarcely able to believe it myself.

“I know. Golden, Highway 14. Yadda yadda yadda.”

“No. It’s
exactly
where I crashed,
Kelsey.
Exactly
.
This is the same exact spot.”

Kelsey gulped, but pretended to shrug it off. “So,
it’s a coincidence.”

“If you believe in coincidences.”

We sat in silence for a moment. A coyote call
pierced the evening air. It was close, and the animal seemed to yip
for joy that the sun was going down, opening up the bunny
buffet.

“Do
you
believe in coincidences?” she asked me.

“I used to. But, no. I don’t think so. Not
anymore.”

“Yeah. Well, me neither,” Kelsey pouted. “And I’m
pretty much blaming you for that, provided we survive to assign
blame at all.”

I fumbled through the glove box for the roadside
assistance number, and called it. I gave the dispatcher the
coordinates from the GPS map. Ten minutes passed, and we still
waited for help. Twenty minutes later, and we still waited. By
then, Kelsey was wiggling and bouncing around in her seat, her legs
tightly crossed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“I really have to pee,” she said. “All that water I
drank.”

“You have to hold it.”

“I can’t. You saw all that water I
drank. I really have to go, Maria. I mean really.”

“You can’t.”

“There’s no one around. I’m going out there.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Coyotes,” I said.

“I’m sure they won’t hurt me.”

“They might.”

“In your dream world, sure. But here in reality,
where I live, and where coyotes are actually smaller than many
overfed housecats, I will be fine,” she said, opening her door and
bolting out before I had a chance to stop her. I began to
tremble.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I said over and over. I
couldn’t see where she’d gone. I turned my head and looked out of
every window, trying to find her.

Nothing.

After ten more minutes passed, without Kelsey
returning to the car, I realized I was going to have to go out
after her. I took the flashlight from the glove box, for
protection, and stepped out of the car, cursing under my
breath.

“Kelsey!” I called out.

Nothing.

“Oh, God,” I mumbled to myself. Then I called her
again. “Kelsey! Where are you?”

A moment later, her voice answered back. “Over
here.”

“Get back here!” I screamed, furious with her.

“You better come over here,” came the reply.

“What? Why?”

“Just come,” she called back.

I walked toward the sound of her voice, and found
her. Mercifully, she wasn’t squatting and making yellow snow.
Terribly, however, she stood next to the two descansos that I’d
noticed the day of my crash, when I’d joked to Demetrio about
having been lucky not to be one of them.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at her. “Let’s
go!”

Kelsey motioned me over with her hand. “Just come
here!”

Reluctantly, I did as she bade.

“What is your problem?” I griped when I arrived next
to her.

“That,” she said, pointing to one of the
crosses.

“It’s a descanso. We have them all over the state.
People put them up whenever someone dies in a car crash in a place.
It’s not a big deal.”

“I realize that, dork. That’s not what I meant. Look
at the name.” Kelsey fell to her knees in the snow.

I moved closer to the cross, and read the black
old-English style lettering across the horizontal plank of white
wood. It took me a moment to register what I was seeing, so
enormous was my shock.

DEMETRIO ANTONIO DE LOS SANTOS VIGIL

I put my hand on Kelsey’s back, gently, and said,
impotently, “It’s a common name around here, Demetrio Vigil. I
mean, it’s a tiny town and I’ve already met two. Chances are there
are - or were - three. Right?”

“He was eighteen when he died,” she said. “One year
ago, nearly to the day.”

I stared at the birth and death dates, and said,
“Maybe it was someone else.”

“The picture.” She pointed to the cross, shaking her
head.

Stapled to the cross amid the plastic flowers and
teddy bears was a photograph, weathered and faded, protected by a
plain Ziploc baggie, barely visible anymore. I moved closer to it,
and examined the photograph. It was a simple Polaroid, from a
homecoming type of dance, a boy and girl. The girl was very pretty
in that plucked-brow homegirl kind of way, with lipstick a couple
of shades too dark. The boy, unbelievably, was the same one we’d
just left in the church. The same one who called 911 for me. The
same one who found me to return my locket. It was him.

“Maybe he’s a twin,” I whispered as goose bumps
crawled up my arms and down my legs.

“No one gives twins the same name.”

“Sadists? A sadistic parent might do something like
that. Right?”

Kelsey didn’t laugh at my joke. “What was the saint
on the card he gave you again?” she asked, standing up, her face
ghostly pale.

“Saint Anthony of the Desert.”

“Well, Maria, I’m no expert on the
Spanish language or anything, but something tells me ‘de los
Santos’ means of the saints, and I have a sinking feeling, you
know, that Antonio might mean Anthony. Just wild guesses, of
course.”

I gulped, hard, and tried to understand, but there
was nothing in my brain that could wrap itself around what I was
seeing. It was insane. It didn’t make any kind of sense. I just
stood, for what seemed like an eternity, staring at the cross, and
the photograph, remembering the magical feeling I got whenever he
touched me, the way the old man had said he was gone, and Ulysses
had said he was dead. I shook my head ever so slightly back and
forth, hardly breathing, until the towing service arrived from
Albuquerque, to help us fix the flat, and Kelsey was able to pull
me, staggeringly, away.

♦

I’m sure Kelsey and I did not make a good
impression on the tow-truck guy who fixed the tire on the Land
Rover, because we basically just stood there trembling. I was
crying, too, though not because I was particularly sad about the
dead Demetrio; rather, I cried because of the overwhelming flood of
emotions that had taken over my body. I still believed, somewhere,
that I was losing my sanity - and if Kelsey had not been there to
witness some of the things that had happened that day, I would
surely have managed to convince myself they simply had never
happened.

Because she was the calmer head at the time, Kelsey
took the wheel of the Land Rover for the drive back to Santa Fe. We
didn’t play music on the car stereo, because it seemed wrong
somehow under the circumstances. Death required silence, did it
not? We did talk, a lot, about what we’d seen, what it might have
meant, and what could possibly be happening. I had the Saint
Anthony of the Desert card out of my pocket and up on the dashboard
in anticipation of a visit from the resident coyote psychopath, but
none came.

Many questions came to us, but no
answers.
If Demetrio is dead, how can we
see and feel him as though he were alive? Is he the coyote? Is he
protecting us from the coyote? Does he live in the church, or just
haunt it? Can ghosts haunt churches? When his grandfather said
Demetrio was gone and didn’t live there anymore, did he know that
the younger man was dead? If he really was dead, why was he still
trying to get out of a gang? Did he know he was dead? Were the
animals he carried around also dead? Did something happen to him
after dark, or was that just an excuse he used to get away from us
and turn into something else? Had he really been in the dream? Why
did he sometimes speak ghetto and sometimes sound
educated?