The Temptation of Demetrio Vigil (3 page)

“He was practically dead.” My body
trembled violently. “What you did, that’s not
normal
.”

“Nah, man. Your dog was just stunned is all. He was
feeding off your fear, too. He just needed reassurance.” He stood
and moved toward me. “Your turn, mamita.”

“No, no, I’m okay.” I recoiled from him. “I’m, I’m,
I’m going to walk to Golden for help.”

“You can barely walk. And Golden is pretty far.”

My legs buckled. My head spun. I began to cry, a
pathetic moaning weep. He backed up an inch or two, as if to
reassure me, and dug in his jeans pocket. This is it, I thought.
He’s got a gun. But all he had was a cell phone; he held it toward
me.

“Listen. I called 911. They said they’re on their
way, but it might be a while. You’re kind of out in the middle of
nowhere. Let me make your pain a little better.”

He came to my side faster than I could get away from
him, and touched my shoulder. I winced and whimpered.

“Shh.” His eyes were so bright, so soothing. He
smelled dry and warm, like sunshine.

He closed his eyes again with that intense look on
his face, and I felt a soft heat radiating from them to my injured
shoulder. Thirty seconds or so later, the pain was less than it had
been.

“What, how, but -”

His eyes narrowed into a self-assured smile. “Feel
better, mamita?”

“How did you
do
that?” I whispered.

“Do what, girl?” He looked deeply into my eyes, and
smiled with a playful intelligence, evasive. “I didn’t do nothing.
Just helped you relax is all. It’s like with a cow that’s calving.
You just have to calm them down a little, and the pain goes
away.”

♦

The vato’s hands continued to move
across my body, patching me up and stopping wherever there was
pain. The warmth came, and then a bit of relief. He took off my
glasses with incredible gentleness, and wiped the blood from my
face. When he slid them on me again, he said I was
pretty.

“This is impossible,” I said,
ignoring the compliment. “What - what
are
you, some kind of, what do you
call them? Those preachers…”

He laughed at me. “Nah. You crazy? You watch too
much TV, girl. All you needed was a little TLC and human contact.”
He stood up and dusted his hands together. “You was panicked is
all. That makes it all seem worse than it is.”

“No, there’s more to it than that,” I insisted.
“You’re lying.”

He shrugged at me like I had offended him, but
exhibited powerful self-control. “I don’t lie, but I’ma let that
slide. Think whatever you want. It don’t bother me. People get
crazy thoughts in accidents, I guess. Stress.”

He returned to check on Buddy, who seemed to be
almost completely recovered, happy, as Chihuahuas often are, to be
nestled within the protection of a warm coat. The dog was busy
licking darkened blood off his front paws, seemingly unaware that
this tasty treat had come from his own body. Chihuahuas are cute,
but no one ever accused them of being smart.

The hail and snow began to taper off. The guy turned
away from me, moving with purpose, digging through the snow for
sticks and twigs. He dried these on the legs of his jeans, and set
them in a pile near Buddy. He dug for rocks next, and made a ring
around the sticks. He pulled a lighter from his pocket, and tried
to start a small fire. It wouldn’t catch.

“Too wet,” he said. He started looking around in
frustration. “We need something paper, something dry.”

He spotted a couple of old black paper coffee cups
from Einstein’s Bagels that had spilled out of my BMW during the
crash. I was a bit of a caffeine addict, and wasn’t always so good
at keeping my car any cleaner than my room. I was a bit of a slob,
actually. I was embarrassed, but he seemed to think they were just
perfect. He went and scooped them up, tearing the paper with his
hands, and lining the little pit with the scraps.

“I have a study group,” I babbled, trying to cover
for my mess. “Some friends, physics and math mostly, the left-brain
stuff I need extra help with, we meet in the mornings at the bagel
place by my school. I kind of forget to throw the cups out
sometimes.”

“No worries, mami,” he said, without looking up. “No
judgment. The paper’s a little waxy on the inside, but it’ll
do.”

“I’m really not a pig all the time.”

“Come, sit.” He patted the ground next to him. “Warm
up.”

“I’m not even that cold anymore.”

This seemed to worry him. “Snow calmed down is all.
You need to stay warm. Frostbite can make it seem like you ain’t
cold no more when you’re colder than before. Here. I won’t bite
you. C’mon.” He patted the snow next to him. “Stay close to me. We
conserve body heat that way.”

I did as he asked, and he pulled me in close. He did
not touch me in a romantic way, more like the way a nurse might
adjust your pillows in the hospital. I noticed his exquisite hands
now. They were large, the color of soft caramel candies, and
strong, with clean, short nails. He had long, graceful fingers. His
left hand had a dark blue tattoo on the back of it, in the space
between the thumb and index finger. It looked like roman numerals,
like the tattoos on his neck.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“You really wanna know?” he raised a brow at me.

I nodded.

“Gang symbols,” he said, hugging me closer.

“You’re in a
gang
?” It was scary, but also sort
of exciting, to hear this. I’d never known anyone in an actual gang
before.

He laughed out loud. “Nah. Not no more, mami. I’m
working on getting’ out right now.”

I sat uncomfortably with this information for a
moment, not able to think of anything to say. Then I joked,
stupidly, “Is that where you learned to build fires? Your gang?
Like boy scouts? Do you get gang patches to put on your sash?”

He looked surprised and pleased by my obnoxious
humor. “Nah. I learned fires and all that after, on, well,” he
paused, “on the farm.”

“Well, wherever you learned all of this stuff, thank
you,” I said weakly. “Whoever you are.”

He held me against his side with one strong arm and
used the other to coax a water bottle out of his toolbox. He popped
the cap and handed it to me.

“Drink,” he said. “You lost some blood. You need
it.”

I chugged the cold water. I wondered why it wasn’t
frozen, but thought maybe it was warmer in the box where he’d had
it. It tasted unusually sweet, and felt unbelievably good on my
throat. When I was finished, I asked him, “You got a name?”

He leaned forward and rubbed his hands together over
the fire, smiled up at me. His teeth were perfectly straight, and
very white. They made my heart hurt. “Demetrio.”

“De- what?”

“Demetrio,” he said, with a palpable exhaustion that
probably came from having to explain his weird name all the time.
“Demetrius in English. Demetrio in Spanish.”

“I’m Maria,” I told him. “It’s
probably Maria no matter what. Maybe not in Mandarin. I’m not sure
what it is in Mandarin. Maybe Hoochie Min.”

“Maria.” He smiled at
me.

“It’s actually Maria Luisa, but
people just call me Maria.”

“Cool. I like that.
Maria
. Good to meet
you.”

“You too. You live around here or something?”

Demetrio jutted his chin to the south. “Down in
Golden.”

“Kind of far from home, aren’t you?”

“I was out walking around when the storm came in. I
was on my way home when I seen you crash.” His eyes strayed to the
crushed corpse of my car. “Dope ride. Used to be.”

“Yeah.” I felt awkward, because I knew it was an
amazing car, and I guessed that his type didn’t have access to
amazing cars. So I said, “I hate cars,” even though it wasn’t
really true.

Demetrio found this amusing. “Only people who ain’t
never had to hitchhike or ride the bus say that. Or walk.” He
raised a brow to indicate himself.

I eyed him doubtfully. “You always carry a bunch of
first aid stuff when you just go ‘walking around’?”

“Actually, yeah.”

“Uhm,
why
?”

“Cuz city people be driving like crazies up in
here,” he said with a sparkle in his eye, shooting another glance
at my ruined BMW.

“Point taken.”

“And there’s always some rabbit or gopher or
something, all smashed up. I try to help out.”

“You go around rescuing road kill?” I asked,
incredulous and impressed.

“And the occasional pretty girl.”

I didn’t
feel
pretty, not after this ordeal.
I felt chewed-up, and spit-out. I touched my face, felt up into my
matted, frozen, tangled brown hair. I felt my face grow red.
“Thanks,” I said, adding, as I channeled my inner fifth-grader,
“guess it takes one to know one.”

He cracked a grin, embarrassed,
and looked away. I watched him for a moment. He
was
handsome, for a homie. I usually
ignored his kind. It confused me to look at him now and feel
something like attraction. I thought I must have hit my head,
because it wasn’t smart or like me at all to have thoughts like
this.

“You go to school out here?” I asked.

He shook his head and chuckled. “Nah, man. Not
exactly.”

“What does that mean, ‘not exactly’? You a
dropout?”

He laughed. “What? No! I ain’t
no
dropout
.” He
considered his words before speaking again. “I’m home schooled, I
guess you could say.”

He seemed distracted by something in the distance,
and peered west, over his shoulder, crinkling his brow. I heard a
faint thwacking noise in the distance.

“Helicopter,” he said. “Good. They didn’t waste no
time. They’ll be here soon.”

A moment later, the coyote howl came again.

“I think that’s the one that tried to kill me,” I
whispered, half-joking.

His eyes probed mine, worried. “What do you
mean?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but you had to be there.” I
was talking too fast, nervously. “It looked at me and it was, it
was almost like – like a human being or something. I sound crazy. I
realize that. Hard to explain. You probably think I’m nuts.”

“Maybe a little,” he said, kindly. His eyes strayed
to a spot in the distance, and narrowed thoughtfully. “But you been
through a lot with this wreck and all. Snow plays tricks on the
eyes sometimes.”

I followed his gaze down the road. A couple of
homemade wooden crosses stood planted in the ground, with gaudy
plastic flowers and tacky Christmas tinsel on them. They are all
over this state, on every road, marking spots where people died in
car accidents.

“You’re lucky,” he told me, jutting his chin toward
to the crosses. “Could have been worse. See?”

“No doubt,” I said, with a shudder.

He shook himself a little, dabbed
a fresh bit of blood from my forehead with a bit of tissue, and
asked, “Where you go to school at, Maria?” It was like when
grownups try to distract children with questions they couldn’t care
less about. He was trying to keep me calm until help arrived. I was
grateful for it, but the new blood made me realize I really was
still hurt, but probably just numb from the cold.

“Coronado Preparatory Academy. I’m a junior.”

He lifted his eyebrows, mockingly impressed. “Pretty
fancy school, girl.”

I shrugged. It
was
a fancy school, the fanciest in
the state and probably one of the fanciest in the nation. It made
my mother look good for me to go there, where she could rub elbows
with the city’s elite and powerful at PTO meetings. I loved my
school, too, but I didn’t want to seem arrogant in front of
him.

“You rich or something?” he asked with a half-grin
that bore traces of insecurity. “Fancy car, fancy school. Fancy
dog.”

I shrugged, because it was a weird question. “I
don’t know,” I said. “We do okay. But I do get a partial merit
scholarship, in science. I like science, and I’m in the dance
troupe.”

He looked delighted. “Even better.
You’re a genius. A genius that gets her
dance
on.”

“I don’t know about
that
.” Tears welled in
my eyes as I rubbed my sore ankle with my frozen hand. “I just hope
my ankle will be okay by next weekend. We have the state contest
for dance next Sunday, and I’d hate to miss it. I’m sort of helping
choreograph and everything.”

“I think you’ll be okay,” he said. “State contest,
huh?”

“Yeah, down at UNM. We’ve been working hard on
it.”

“Sounds pretty cool. Is it like cheerleading?”

I balked, because I was not the cheerleading type.
“What? No! We’re serious dancers. We do jazz, tap, ballet, modern,
even hip-hop.” I felt foolish saying this last one to him because
from the ironic look on his face when I spoke the words, he clearly
didn’t seem to think I was the hip-hop type.

“Dang,” he shook his head, hanging it low and
peering up at me, mildly flirtatiously, still impressed and unsure
of himself the way guys with less money always get around girls
like me. I’d been through this rigmarole a few times at the
mall.

“I woulda never guessed you got your hip-hop on.
Fancy school of yours, I’d think it was all about waltzes and
afternoon tea.” He pantomimed sipping a cup of tea with his pinky
out and lips pursed, and then grinned to let me know he was
kidding. I admired him for trying to keep me distracted from my
pain and panic.

“It’s not all that fancy,” I said, even though my
school, built of dark red bricks and dripping with ivy in warmer
weather, was the type to call the pool a “natatorium” and the
cafeteria - which had solid oak tables and white linen napkins - a
“dining hall”. We also had two gymnasium centers, our own visual
arts complex, art museum, world-class library, bookstore and nature
retreat in the mountains. Etc.