El Juego de los Diablitos

Patrick came to get lost, in the crowds and in the beer; it helped that everyone was wearing masks. His came from a little man in a shack, the floor covered in curled slivers of wood, sitting on a too short stool, a wooden hammer and a chisel nicking out balsa wood chips, removing all the parts that weren’t a frowning old man with tusks and what would soon be devil’s horns. There was a painted sign on his shack that read: Indigenous Art For Sale. The man smiled at him and handed him the mask. He would blend in perfectly, besides his white legs and Timberland work boots, but being lost was just part of the game.  

Today was the final battle of the Juego de Los Diablitos, some had been at it for two days, the festival began in the morning of December 31^st and would end on the third day with the burning of the bull. As festivals go, El Jeugo was chaotic, hot, humid and the chica – the craft beer of the indigenous Boruco people, was served in a murky wooden bowl, offered freely, with a tangy, slightly carbonated, puddle water taste that could only come from homegrown ingredients. In all his travels there he had found that fermenting something from the local terrain was a cultural constant. This was his second year in Costa Rica and his new friends had told him he would need to participate in the festival to understand the people, but he was here by an invitation of sorts – an invitation delivered without pomp and circumstance, nor with a time, place or host noted, which gave him a good idea who he would be meeting with and the only way not to lose that game, was not to play.

Patrick looked for an opening in the procession – he felt like a driver coming off pit row to re-join the race, and he made a leap of faith and stepped in between a group of old men in old masks and a bunch of kids chasing them. The men flowed around him, dancing, and chanting; the kids surrounded him, reaching for his pockets, their faces wrinkled up into smiles so wide that met bright eyes to form scrunched up happy faces. He was prepared.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a handful of candy, the kind you hated on Halloween as a kid, but it was colorful, and sweet, and he quickly became a festival favorite, at least with his peers. He scanned the crowds as he handed out the candy, but all eyes were on the procession of men looking for the next serving of chica, as eager for it as the kids for candy. The warriors kept moving to the beat of a handheld drum and the magical sound of a hand-made flute, most with woven banana leaf tunics, and masks whose elaborate decorations seemed to be a sign of class; bright paint, feathers, extravagant designs for some, plain worn masks for the older generation. The village elders led the way, blowing on conch shell horns.  

The warriors, enraged, frowning and growling, some carrying short spears or bows, all in search of the bull, a burlap effigy, the subject of their wrath that represents the Spanish conquerors that considered the Borunca’s devils because they were pagans. The homes, like most indigenous folks, were simple, well-vented huts, with corrugated tin roofs, surrounded by lush tropical plants that looked like giant cousins of their domesticated household versions in the States. He scanned the crowds again looking for somebody, looking for him. 

She stood out. She wore a jaguar mask, beautifully carved, and painted, that served more as a headpiece than a mask, with thick brown hair tumbling over her shoulders, but with her safari-chic shorts and cotton blouse, sleeves rolled up, she would even stand out on main street USA. He looked around, he had that sense that comes from knowing that if you looked in one direction, the threat was coming from another. 

She didn’t look like the type that sent anonymous invitations. He looked again and realized that he had zero game when it came to starting conversations; “Are you new around here?” wasn’t going to cut it. It didn’t look like it would matter, she waved tentatively, and walked towards him. His thumb twisted his wedding ring in a subliminal reminder that he was still married. He smiled, forgetting he was wearing a mask. 

“Sorry to interrupt, but I’m feeling a little out of place and was looking for a friendly face,” she laughed. “No, pun intended.”

“Sure. I’m Patrick,” he took off his mask and extended a hand, which she took. “They say that people chose a mask to reflect their inner self,” he looked at his mask and shook his head. “I like yours better.”

She was Gabriel DeLeon, “Call me Gabbi.”

She looked at the warriors that had moved past the next hut and rambling on to the next free chica, “Should we catch up?”

They rounded the curve and the festival had stopped for a drink and a show and Patrick saw three people that stood out: literally. Three brightly painted masks with decorative feathers were a head taller than the natives, but it was the pale legs and Birkenstock sandals that gave them away. That and the fact that one of them was pointing at Patrick. 

He turned back to Gabbi, “You must be an anthropologist?” He was joking, it was a polite way of saying, what the hell are you doing here alone?

“I was invited, but they decided to go see a volcano, so I came by myself with a tour group. You?”

“Same. Invited.” Patrick looked across to the Birkenstock boys. 

“If you have to go…” she trailed off.

“Nope. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you hung around,” he said, glancing towards the men. “I don’t usually walk up to strange men in masks.”

She laughed and he did too, mainly to show the man that had pointed at him that he would have to wait. 

“So, if you aren’t an anthropologist, what are you?”

“I’m not a novelist,” she said.

“Ah, aspiring?”

“Yes. You?”

“Aspiring to finish my sloop and sail away into the sunset.”

“I see,” she thought a moment. “I ran away to get here. You want to sail away. Everyone wants to be somewhere else.”

Patrick did want to be somewhere else, or maybe somebody else. He looked at the men again, one of them was walking towards them, mask off in a sign of peace, and Patrick decided he did want to be somewhere else. He recognized the man. A fixer of sorts, lawyer, handler; the guy that did the stuff that was below his masters. For that matter, so did Patrick and he wasn’t sure if it was a case

“What are you writing about?” He tried to sound interested. He was interested, it was just hard to keep an eye out for a potential threat and talk to a woman at the same time. Both deserved more attention, and he was a little rusty on both accounts. 

“Don’t know. That’s why I’m here, I guess. I had to get away to clear my mind.”

“Find yourself?”

“Exactly. Do you write?”

“No. Just the opposite, I came here to get lost.” It came out sounding more spiritual than he intended. 

Gabbi shook her head in understanding, “Sometimes you have to get lost to find yourself.”

Patrick was lost because he didn’t want others to find him, but he understood her point and might even look forward to the day where he could look at life philosophically, but for now he was just looking over his shoulder.   

The man that had separated from the group approached them, took off his mask, nodded to Gabriel, and extended a hand, and said, “Patrick”. He took it but didn’t take off his mask nor acknowledge the man by name. Gabbi got the message and said, “I’m going to catch up to the parade.” She looked tentatively at the two of them and then said to Patrick, “Maybe I’ll see you for the burning of the bull?” She didn’t wait for an answer and turned to jog towards the procession.

He took off his mask so he could look the man in the eyes but said nothing; this wasn’t his meeting. The man called him Patrick, his “local” name, not the one on his passport, which meant he was here to ask a favor, not to extradite him to the United States. It was hot, humid, and smelled like a jungle to Patrick, the man in front of him looked like he was moving and breathing through a nightmare underwater, he wore the humidity like an extra layer of clothes and Patrick could only hope the sweat on his brow wasn’t from the message he was delivering.

“Look, Patrick, I can call you Patrick, right?” The man dropped the hint with the dexterity of someone that wanted to show he was three steps ahead and had more cards to play. 

“You don’t work for them, the guys from the League?” Patrick had to know if he was dealing with locals or if this guy was from stateside. 

“I do.” He looked away. “In a way.”

The League was a yacht club of sorts. Patrick’s friends called them “The League of Formerly Extraordinary Gentlemen”.  A bunch of ex-pats that left the States because after a few martinis they bellowed into the television screen, “If he gets elected, I’m moving to Canada!” But these guys did it. They moved. They moved their money. They moved their political machine, waiting for the right time to move back. Patrick shared some of their beliefs, but not their methods. Something told Patrick he was about to be asked to help with their methods. 

“Your past experiences

“My past experiences are why I’m sitting this out in Costa Rica and

“We can help. We can get you back with your family.”

Was that an offer or a threat? Patrick was going to consider it a threat until he heard their offer. His wife lived in an undisclosed city – not even Patrick knew where – using her maiden name. He promised to find a way back, but short of the Cartel imploding or the Task Force making an unlikely move, he wasn’t going back. Both depended upon him, but their mistake was taking his loyalty as nativity and expecting him to happily serve as the prey to draw the other in, but like on the Serengeti, the lion lunged, the hyenas saw too late that they had misjudged their prey, and Patrick left a tangled mess of wounded alpha predators. His mistake was trusting authority and making friends with the bad guys, only to find out the bad guys were trying to be good, and the good guys were assholes.  

“You can’t help me with my family, so I’m taking that as a threat.” The man looked stunned. That was good.   

“I understand you left some loose ends when you left,” the man recovered.

“We need somebody that can work both sides,” he said.

“You don’t understand, both sides want me dead,” Patrick said.

“That’s exactly why we chose you,” he laughed and nodded to the men he had left on the other side of the path. 

They walked over, removed their masks, and joined them. Patrick knew them. He listened to their story. Apparently, they were not “Formerly Extraordinary Gentleman”. Extraordinary? Yes. Gentleman? No. They persuaded him with a combination of offering him the only thing he wanted in life, with the added incentive of not having a choice. 

They caught up with the crowd, dusk was settling over the festival, and the warrior's blood ran hot. Torches were lit. The bull was cornered and faced its tormentors for one last lunge, but they all knew the outcome. The Diablitos would win defeat the bull, it wouldn’t change their past, but maybe with the help of a few more bowls of chica, they would win the night.    

Gabbi walked up to him and said, “The Diablitos win again!”

“Some games you can only win by not playing,” Patrick said.

“We're not talking about chasing the bull, are we?” She looked at the men walking away.

Patrick had to play their game, but he wouldn’t play by their rules.