My Bruja, Carmen

It lay across my chest like a moist log and I knew it was just her arm but it seemed to push down on me as I inhaled and made me gag. I sat up quickly as the bile rose in my throat, singeing the sides, forming bitter spots in my mouth. It was coming up and I could not breathe. My eyes searched shadows with moonlight hard against walls and still curtains.

A little air, then a little more and more came, the bile subsiding, the throat relaxing. I knew I should not lay back down; that I should get up and get dressed as her words rang clearly beside me, her warm hand smoothly rubbed in a circle on my back. I nodded, wiping foul tasting and smelling stuff from the corners of my lips.

‘Go back to sleep,’ I said to the hard light against the curtains. I laid back down, my back to her, my knees drawn up tight.

I knew water had stopped running. The light was in slits through little checks in the closed tall doors. The room was muted colours. Porcelain wash bowl with porcelain pitcher, a flower design of some kind half turned round. Painting of a light blue sky, a surreal beach with a canoe pointing out and palm trees at its side. The bedroom walls off white with bluish border trim. She came through the curtain from the bathroom wiping herself with a towel and beautiful to my eyes. I looked down at the crumpled and wet sheet.

‘How do you feel?’ she smiled at me with concern in her eyes. ‘You really scared me this morning.’

I thought, ‘This morning?’ and said, ‘Just choked.’

‘Is there something wrong?’

I kept looking at the sheet. ‘Naw, why?’

‘There is something wrong. I did something?’

‘Naw,’ I said fast, too fast.

‘Why don’t you look at me?’

‘I just woke up. Give me a chance, okay?’ I spoke harshly, too harshly. There was something wrong, like he was in a play or somebody else talking to somebody else.

‘Yeah.’ I pulled the top sheet off and swung my legs off the bed as she approached, ‘Gotta piss.’

I stayed in the bathroom until I heard her dressing. ‘What’s for breakfast?’ I tried to sound jovial.

‘Whatever you want. Eggs, bacon, toast, coffee. Anything else?’ she asked. I was feeling a hurt in her voice.

‘Perfect.’

‘I will go down and see to it. We are rising late, so the cook will have to make it all again.’

‘What time is it?’

‘A little after nine.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Are you going anywhere? Something to do today?’

I smiled at the thought. ‘Yeah, the boat. Been away too long.’

‘I’ll go with you?’

‘Naw. Boring.’

She left without shutting the door. I heard the softness of her feet on the tiles. Somehow I knew she would be instructing to keep a watch on me.

As I closed the front door, Bernardo, the watchman, came running up.

‘Capitan Brown, you need a taxi?’

‘Naw, man, I will walk.’

‘No Señor, it is dangerous. I call the taxi. Just stay here and I goes for him.’

Bernardo looked both ways as he began his exit from the door within the main gate. He closed the door carefully. I made my way to the door, opening it and looking out and up the hill to see Bernardo running, his gun poking through his shirt, stuck in his belt. I went out, crossing the street quickly and going down the hill, hiding myself from the watchman by pushing into a crush of people standing around waiting for a public bus.

It was hot and the people had individual odours. I felt free. Was it the odours? They were outside the compound and free. I was outside the compound and free. I breathed and was smiling and people smiled and nodded to me. God, I love this place, I thought.

A couple of blocks down the hill I re-crossed the busy street to stand with another small group waiting for a bus. They were suddenly silent and looking down at the pavement. I saw an old chocolate and off white Plymouth slowly coming down the street, holding the traffic at bay behind it. It was crowded with men showing guns. They came alongside the group and stopped. The group had somehow moved to one side and I was standing alone. The man in sunglasses raised his head in an assessing way, his revolver slowly moving upward as I ran in front of the car and across the street. I could hear arguments and commands behind me as I pushed through the slowly walking lines of people moving up and down the pavement.

I turned once to see three men running after me as the car sped down ahead of me. I turned off the sidewalk and ran down an embankment of banana trees and underbrush. I slid on mud and tripped on rocks and jumped streamlets as a shot rang out behind me. I ran faster, tumbling and falling down a steep hill, ending up in a pile of garbage from a house behind a wall. I jumped up and ran alongside a small river. I stopped and listened for them following but it was mainly quiet with just the murmur of people above and the swish of coco-palms overhead.

‘This is fucked,’ I said aloud, then looked around at plays of light on banana plant colourings and scraggly underbrush, and the stiff trunks of coconut trees. There was still steam lightly sifting upward from some mulched humps of rotting leaves. I washed my hands in the river and started back up the hill. 

The people who saw me coming out of the growth did not pay much attention to my state. Everybody relieves themselves and you are not to pay attention out of courtesy. The traffic had resumed on the other side, so I crossed over and looked for a taxi or a bus. I smelled him before I felt the gun muzzle in my back and heard the orders. I was being pushed out into the traffic and saw the Plymouth spurt out and hit another car in its side.

The Plymouth pulled up as the back door was opening. I was pushed inside and pushed away from those inside, while being pushed by the one with the gun getting in behind me. The door slammed and they took off like a little kid with a prize. The car stank and I was scared. They were young and looked serious in sunglasses. There was a submachine gun and some machetes on the floor and they all waved pistols around. Nobody smiled.

I slowed my breathing. I waited for a chance to do something. Women were bargaining for mangos at a stall, standing rigidly tall and proud in dresses with the backs unzipped and sweat sensuously accenting strong muscles. Maybe this is my last scene alive, I thought, but they drove on and I felt I had accomplished something by living a few seconds more. The man at my side canted his head. ‘Spek Ingles?’ he asked in a humble way.

‘Yes. Ingles. I am, estoy Americano.’

‘Americano? Black … Huey Newton, Black Beautiful, Stokely. Africa bad. Ras. Bob Marley. Brotha.’

‘Yes, si.’ I was putting on a smile now. ‘Black is beautiful and the Black Panthers is brothers and we are all brothers.’ I looked around at all in the car. They were all part black.

‘Brother. Black Panter?’ he started rapid dialect to the leader in front and the two on my side began looking at me differently, both taking off their sunglasses to assess me, then putting them back on and both looked toward the leader.

‘Was you in Oaxaca?’

‘Barco. Tenemos el barco aqui. Lo tomamos al Caribe.’

‘Ship. Cruiseship. No cruiseship Puerto Angel. No cruiseship Puerto Angel.’ He looked cross at such a lie.

Looking at each of them I said, ‘No. Nuestro barco with sails. Schooner at ancla. Goleta at ancla.’

They all started talking, including the driver, who was not particularly looking at the road. The leader pointed to the right with his automatic and the driver swerved up partially onto the sidewalk and stopped. Everybody got out and I was pushed into a dark café with three tables and a few chairs. Everybody pulled a chair up and I was pushed down onto a plastic one. They sat with their guns in their belts.

I looked up and saw a man behind the bar with his back against the wall with no way to escape, which was obviously his wish. Behind him were dark bottles of beer and clear bottles of mezcal and tequila. I raised my hands palms outward, then cupped one as though holding a glass. I gestured toward the man and bottles. They all turned and looked at him. 

‘Mescal.’ I said, ‘Men drink mescal.’

The leader said, ‘You wants mescal?’

‘Si.’ And gesturing for all to be included, I said, ‘por todos nosotros.’

They all laughed at my Spanish and the gesture. The leader smiled bashfully and nodded for the man to come over. He told him in soft dialect something and he ran over to the shelves on the wall and returned with two bottles, one amber and one clear. The leader yelled at him and he ran back to bring plastic cups. Everybody was laughing at him. He was a round man with a large balding head and wide eyes. I took the mescal bottle and unscrewed the lid, dropping it on the floor and started pouring the fragrant liquid into the cups. One of the young men put his hand over his cup to signal he did not drink. He looked over to me and placed a revolver on the table top. The leader took his hand away and I poured a small amount and he looked grateful.

I finished pouring and raised my cup. ‘Viva Mexico.’

They frowned, spoke to each other than each smiled and raised their cups. ‘Viva Oaxaca.’

Everybody sipped the mescal. I said, ‘Capitan Brown.’ Pressing my two right hand fingers to my chest.

‘Capitan…’ the leader said to the others. They responded with assessing nods.

The leader poured his mescal onto the floor, then the others did. He took my cup and poured it onto the floor also, smiled up at me and opened the tequila bottle and poured some into my cup. He poured himself a good shot and passed the bottle to the others. The one who did not want to drink was the last to pour some into his cup.

‘Ahora. Now,’ The leader said, ‘real drunks, us. Al Diablo.’ And laughed a loud shriek and they all gulped down the cups.

I lifted my cup and downed it too. The tequila was nice and simple and slightly burning. I had expected a tourist tequila taste and actually raised my eyebrows to them.

When everybody was looking warm and relaxed I smiled at the leader and asked, ‘What do you want with me?’

He blinked a few times, bashfully. He leaned over without a smile and stared into my eyes. ‘We wants money from you bruja. We knows you wid her in dat casa…’

I looked toward the doorway.

‘We no kills chu… she gives money,’ he nodded. ‘She money. All give money la cabrona. Majica, no?’

I drank more smiling. He drank more, then filled my cup again and his own. We drank it down together. He smiled looking very young. They were all young with two having slight, wispy moustaches. 

‘Chu want go us?’

I looked over to the one with the revolver on the table. His cup was still containing some of the tequila and his eyes were clear. His revolver was shiny with oil with no dust in its muzzle. Five round bronze helmets sat still in the cave chambers waiting to take flight. I was starting to like tequila. I reached over and picked up the revolver and flipped open the barrel. Nobody moved or considered what I was doing as improper.

‘Limpio,’ I said to the group.

He smiled proudly and nodded. ‘Mi papa…tol’ me…limpiar la cada dia.’

I closed the chamber and replaced the revolver on the table top smiling back at him and nodding. ‘Su papa es muy intelligent.’

He looked down and said something in their dialect but I understood the word, muertan-they killed. He picked up the cup and downed the tequila, looking away from us with a trace of tear in one eye.

‘Vamos a jugar fútbol, amigos,’ the leader shouted. 

I wasn’t sure what he meant by futbol, picturing them kicking my head around the streets or something. I asked, ‘Futbol?’

‘Si. Yes. Ramon es lo mejor, the best, in our pueblo. Come, you likes.’

It was a sincere invitation with a hope that I would like to see Ramon, who I was taking in as the revolver man. Ramon stood and wiped an eye quickly, then smiled, saying something in dialectic to which the others shouted and cried out, then two of them shot off their guns into the ceiling scaring the shit out of me and the bartender still against the wall. Sulphur filled the small space and all of our eyes began to water but everybody was giggling and talking fast in dialect. The bartender looked anxious as we all got up and stumbled out the doorway.

We drove to a sandy soccer field with some kids calling to each other and running up and down kicking a ball. The breeze was picking up and dust started to fly across the field. When they saw us getting out of the Plymouth, they stopped running and stared for a moment before running off the field. The ball was left on the field and Ramon, putting his revolver into the belt at the back of his trouser, ran and started kicking it up to bound it with his head over to us. One of the others brought it up with his foot and pushed it up and toward us with the leader bounding it toward me with his chest. 

‘Come on, Capitan.’ He was grinning broadly.

I responded with a kick that sent the ball back out to Ramon, who recovered it with a nod to me and directed it toward the leader. We started a game of three per side and after about an hour my team of the leader and Guero won the game. A small round clay bottle of mescal was produced and four of us sat against the Plymouth with Ramon, continuing to play on the dusty field. The breeze had gradually become a wind with little whirlwinds forming at times. We sat in the lee of the car without saying anything about the wind or dust. 

The dust hid the two players for a moment and that reminded me that I was their prisoner, their kidnapped victim. My eyes searched for a way away from my newly acquainted team mates. The only thing I could think of was the same way the children had run off and to get there was simply to join the kicking of the ball around.

I stood with the clay jug, took a slug and called out, ‘Ramon.’

Ramon smiled and kicked the ball to me. I handed the jug to the leader and ran out to catch the ball and kick it back. We played at it for a short while before Ramon stopped and looked back at our group, then over to where the children had fled. I was thinking the jig is up when the dull pops of an automatic weapon began its sputter and the dust began to shoot into the air near Guero’s feet. He threw his pistol down quickly and looked for a way to run but settled on seeing what came next.

From out of the shrubbery came four muscular men in black shorts and white guayabara shirts. They all wore the same type of sunglasses and I could not recognise their faces, but behind them strolled Carmen talking to another man who I also had never seen before. Carmen waved at me and smiled warmly, showing her comforting brilliant teeth.

‘We die now.’ I heard the leader tell the others. I did not look back but I could hear sobbing from one of them. 

‘Die like men, cabron,’ the leader shouted to them. I heard his pistol discharge and the four men opened fire with me between everybody. The sulphur was thick and stung my eyes. I dared not move for fear of attracting bullets and when the firing stopped Ramon lay before me with five holes in the back of his shirt and a small pink drip line starting to spread in even stripes. I turned and they all lay with their legs in front of them as though resting but their heads were either turned down with chins on chests or the chin was pointing skyward toward a perfectly blue ceiling of heaven. The leader pulled his own chin down and attempted to raise his pistol but didn’t have the time left on earth and his gun and hand fell onto his lap.

Carmen was holding me and talking about how she was so scared they had killed me. She had found out that they were here playing football and brought some friends to take care of the whole thing. She also said that she was starved and hadn’t eaten breakfast, and smelling my breath she smiled happily.

‘How did you manage to stay alive? The last ones they captured were skinned and left alive hanging from a tree Christ fashion.’ She put her lovely arms out and drooped her head to the side. ‘Can you imagine stripping the skin off a man?’