Suerte by Héctor Hernández, shot of Tequila

 My tires protest with a disturbing nails-on-chalkboard screech. I come to a stop but not before tapping the bumper of the car in front. Shit. A stench of burnt rubber fowls the night air. An arm pokes out of the driver's window and motions forcefully for me to turn right. I follow the car around the corner, and we park along the curb, ignoring the ‘No Stopping Any Time’ sign.

As I rummage through the glove compartment in search of my registration and proof of insurance, I try to control my breathing and my racing heart. It's a minor accident, I tell myself, nothing to get flustered about. I find the two slips of paper and prepare to exit the car, but before I do I see all four doors of the car I just hit swing open.

The driver and his four passengers step out. All five are young, Hispanic males in their late teens, early twenties. They're short with slight builds and shaved heads. They're heavily tattooed. They lean casually against their car and wait for me.

I have second thoughts about stepping out. I could restart my car and speed off, but what good would that do? They would just follow me until I stopped at a light, and then I'd be in a worse situation. I can picture the headline: “Seventy-Two-Year-Old Man Beaten to Death by Unknown Assailants.” Better to push through the alarm bells clanging in my head. Maybe I can impress them with my Spanish. I'm fluent in the language even though I'm not Hispanic. I learned it during my nearly forty years as a front-line county worker for the Department of Public Social Services.

I step out of my car and into the crisp night air—late autumn in Los Angeles.

‘Disculpame. Fue mi error. Es que iba de prisa por que llevaron a mi esposa de emergencia al hospital, y con la preocupación que tengo, no me fijé en el alto. Yo tuve la culpa, obviamente. Perdón.’

The driver stares. ‘What the fuck? Speak English, man.’

I'm taken aback and become a bit flustered. ‘Oh . . . I'm sorry. Don't you . . . I mean . . . I assumed you . . . that is . . . uh . . . I was just saying it was my fault. I was in a hurry because I just got word my wife was rushed to emergency—emergency hospital. I was preoccupied and didn't pay attention to the traffic light when it turned red . . . well, actually, yellow. Not that it matters,’ I add quickly, ‘red or yellow—it was still my fault.’

I had been at LAX waiting to board a flight for Philly when my daughter called. She had taken her mother to the hospital. The emergency physician initially suspected a heart attack, but an EKG quickly ruled that out. A cursory examination and a check of her vitals revealed nothing obvious, so an X-ray was ordered. That's when they spotted an unknown mass on her left lung.

Her breast cancer had already metastasized and destroyed two of her cervical vertebrae. Those corrupted bony structures were removed only last month and replaced with a titanium apparatus. Has the cancer now spread to her lungs?

The young driver mad dogs me—as my grandson would say—a cold, dispassionate stare. I grow uneasy but hold his gaze. He finally breaks away and cuts his eyes over to the rear of his car. It's a Chevy Impala that has seen better days but likely won't see them in the future. To call it ‘vintage’ would be generous but a lie. It's just old.

Mad Dog walks over to the rear bumper. Under different circumstances, his languid swagger would be comical, but in the present situation, his walk is just grotesque. He crouches and runs his hand carefully—almost a caressing gesture, which does not bode well for me—over an obviously scratched and dented area of the bumper.

‘You fucked up my bumper,’ he says without looking up. His calmness is chilling, and his words are like the appearance of dark clouds on the horizon. They portend an ominous change to this encounter.

I become aware of just how exposed and vulnerable I am. Of all the places to have stopped, it had to be here, in an industrial area with no pedestrian traffic. The weak light from the overhead streetlamp gives me little comfort.

I'm hesitant to move, but I can't stand here forever. I have no choice but to check the damage for myself. Mad Dog stands as I approach the bumper. My unease amuses him. He casually steps back a few paces.

I set my glasses on top of my head and bend over, bracing my hands on unsteady legs. I look at the damage. It doesn't match up with my bumper. Clearly I didn't cause this.

I straighten up and say with an even and calm voice—though my heart is pounding with such force I'm sure they can all hear it—‘There's definitely damage here, but honestly, I don't think that slight tap I gave you could have caused this.’

Mad Dog says nothing, but he doesn't have to. His long silence speaks of his displeasure. As I consider my options—none of which are good—one of the passengers shouts to him, ‘Hey, Sicario!’

My heart pounds ferociously as I brace for an attack. A sudden cold sweat bathes me.

The young passenger walks over and says to Mad Dog, ‘That chingadazo was already there! You backed into the post outside my apartment like three days ago, man!’ He points to the bumper. ‘Look you can still see yellow paint.’ He bends down and flicks off dried specks of the paint. ‘This viejo's car is blue, ese, not yellow!’

Mad Dog glares at the young man and says, ‘But he made it worse.’

‘Naw! How could he make it worse?’ The young man waves his hands theatrically toward the car. ‘Come on! Look at this chingadera! This car is no fucking beauty! It has more dents and scratches than Spider's pockmarked face.’

One of the other young passengers—presumably Spider—takes offense and shouts back, ‘Hey! Shut up, Payaso!’ The other two passengers laugh.

Mad Dog is adamant. ‘He made it worse.’

Ignoring Mad Dog and turning to me, Payaso says affably, ‘Ah, don't listen to him. He's just fucking with you, man.’

And to my surprise, I reply, ‘Yeah. I thought he was fucking with me, but I wasn't sure. I've never been fucked before.’

Payaso laughs a machine-gun staccato. ‘Hahahahahahahah.’

The other two passengers also laugh, but not Spider—and definitely not Mad Dog.

‘That's funny! You're funny, man. Hey, Flaco,’ Payaso calls to one of the other young men. ‘He says he's never been fucked before, so why don't you tell him what it's like since you have the experience.’

More laughter, accompanied by hoots and hollers, but this time from Spider and the fourth passenger.

‘Shut up, pendejo,’ replies Flaco. ‘Or I'll fuck you!’

With feigned sincerity, Payaso replies, ‘Hey, don't be mad. It's okay if you like it homeboy on homeboy.’

Even more hoots and hollers.

‘Shut up!’

‘Like they say, you know, “live and let die,” ese.’

Live and let live, I think to myself, but I don't correct the young man.

‘Everybody, shut up!’ yells Mad Dog.

The laughter dies quickly, and the sudden silence puts us right back to that ominous mood of before. Mad Dog once again fixes me with his eyes. I sense the situation is in a fine balance and fear the weight of my breath could tip the scales against me. I stop breathing. After a brief, tense moment, Mad Dog says, ‘Everybody get the fuck back in the car.’ I slowly exhale.

Payaso turns to me, offers a wide smile, and says, ‘Take it easy, man.’

‘You too,’ I say with a feigned ease.

Then he drops his smile and says in a low, conspiratorial whisper, ‘Tuviste suerte. Me acuerdo de ti.’ You were lucky. I remember you.

I look at this young man—as if seeing him for the first time. Do I know him? I scrutinize his features carefully, but his face is not at all familiar. Is it possible our paths crossed when I was a Social Worker? And if so, what kindness did I give him that now prompts him to give me one in return? Or did our paths cross under different circumstances? I search my cloudy memory but come up empty. I offer him a subtle nod of ‘thank you.’

 I turn to Mad Dog and say, ‘Again, I'm sorry.’

He shoots me a piercing look before getting in his car. All the other young men—Payaso, Spider, Flaco, and that nameless fourth passenger—pile back in, laughing and joking. I watch as they pull away from the curb and drive off.

Tuviste suerte. You were lucky. The words echo in my head. I certainly don't feel lucky. Instead, I feel exhausted, lightheaded, and nauseous.

As I walk back to my car, a sudden pain starts in my left shoulder and spreads down my arm. There's also a vice-like tightness in my chest, and I'm short of breath. I suppress an urge to vomit, but a little bile comes up anyway, and I reluctantly swallow it back. It burns my throat.

***

She stands just outside the hospital's emergency entrance, her left hand pressing the phone to her ear, her right arm hugging her chest against the cool, crisp night air. Still no answer. She decides to text him: Dad, are you almost here? Less than four miles away, the phone in her father's pocket emits a double chirp, but the sound, muffled into the pavement, never reaches his ears.

About the author 

 

Héctor Hernández received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He lives in California and is now retired. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Literally Stories. 

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Cessi be Peter Lingard, Tequila in a salt rimmed glass

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi … proposed the one whom we ask to provide writing prompts.  I’m too old for hide and seek games so once home I Googled ‘sip-pi, hoping it might be a shortened version of a woman’s name, or something else I could work on.  
What I got was; A loud, beautiful, crazy, hyperactive person with a smile that will make your day. She is always there to make you laugh when you need it. She will also stand her ground in any situation and will punch you in the throat if necessary.  

The beautiful, sexy Cecelia! I thought I’d erased her from my memory bank.  Obviously not.  In the days when I loved her I called her Cessi, which isn’t too far from Sippi.

We dated in the mid-eighties and, for a while, had a great time.  Trouble was that the more she got to know me the more she slighted me – especially in the bedroom.  They say familiarity breeds contempt and Cessi was living proof of those words.  Despite that, I loved her (even when she called me Shrimp).  When I was reluctant to perform certain sex acts she became a tad testy.
I once relented after she said she’d never known a man who couldn’t stand a little pain.  I never relented again and spitefulness raged.  I said we should split; she should go find a man with tastes that matched hers.  She flounced out and resolved never to return.  You’ll be sorry you let me go, Shrimp, she said.
 

A week or so later she returned with her I’m-ever-so-sorry smiles and a bottle of de-cent Italian plonk.  And, fool that I was, I welcomed her back.

It didn’t take long before she suggested we play some little games just to add humour to our lives – only fun games – nothing too radical.  God forbid I should redefine your con-servative morals, she said.  I did as bid for the first few romps but when she looked to esca-late, I flinched and called a halt.

That break lasted just over two weeks during which time I cogitated on our relation-ship and happily concluded I was the normal one.  It had been her deceptively sweet cajoling and comparisons to other real and/or make-believe men that put a rein on my passion.  

 

On a weekend in Queensland she asked, aren’t you ever going to lighten up?  
 

‘Not your kind of lighten up,’ I said.  
 

She made an ‘urghhhh’ sound and locked herself in the bathroom for an hour.  
Over dinner she probed.  Why don’t we invite another man into our games?  A stranger.  No-one we know.
 

No, I said.
 

You’re such a cold fish, she replied.  How about another woman?
 

Nope.
 

Look, if we’re going to progress you need to broaden your sexual horizons.
 

Perhaps we shouldn’t progress, I said.
 

We have to!  I love you and I’m not about to lose you, despite my history.  If you try to leave me, I hunt you down and love you.  We’ll be together until the end of time, believe me.  I’ll try to tone down my desires but don’t you see you have to meet me half way?
 

‘I’m sorry, Cessi, but I just can’t persuade myself to indulge your outlandish games.  I’ve tried, believe me, but I find most of them a complete turn-off.  You have to have no-ticed.’
Most of them! She almost screamed through her laughing leer.  So there’s wriggle room here?  She wriggled fetchingly in her seat and beamed her sexy smile on me.  Which ones don’t turn you off?
That night, I allowed myself to indulge her desire to be strangled – that is to say, I strangled her, but not to death.  She enjoyed herself immensely; loudly and exhaustingly.
That was fantastic, she later said.  I want to go somewhere where my cries of love and joy won’t be heard by those of your mindset.  
 

‘We could romp in the bush,’ I suggested.
 

‘I don’t think so’, she said.’ I’m not keen on spiders and snakes and things.  No.  I’m going to hire a boat so we can cavort at sea, rise and fall like dolphins.’

It was a smallish boat, but we didn’t need a great deal of room.  We went far enough from land that buildings looked like specks on the horizon.  When the sun sank, little twin-kling lights appeared in their stead.  We drank wine and feasted on fish eggs, cheese and fruit, and then our other activities started.  After a while Cessi wanted to be strangled again and she had a whale of a time.
 As she enjoyed every moment until she expired I didn’t feel too remorseful.  I used the cheese knife to cut her leg, then bundled her overboard and hoped sharks would sense her blood in the water.  
I headed to shore, beached the boat away from any lights and walked away.

If I’d left my finger prints or DNA anywhere, nobody found them or identified them.  Cessi’s mother reported her missing and the police interviewed me.  I told them she’d hurtful-ly said she’d found a more malleable partner and I’d told her not to contact me again. Who was the more malleable man?  No idea, I told them.  They said they’d probably want to talk to me again, but they never did.  As far as I know, Cessi’s body was never found, nor that of her lover.  Sharks must have been ravenous that night.

I’ll have to be careful with writing prompts in the future.  I don’t want other awkward memories to surface.

About the author

Peter Lingard, born a Brit, served in the Royal Marines, was an accountant, a barman and a farm worker. He once lived in the US where he owned a freight forwarding business. An Aussie now because the sun frequently shines and the natives communicate in English. 

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Saturday Sample: Wishful Thinking by Derk Corbett, Tequila

 

 

Mathias Mori stirs; his body stiff from the chill night air. His nose twitches under the old fedora covering his face, as an ant becomes separated from the detachment marching purposefully across his hat and finds its way into his moustache. Cautiously he raises his head to look around himself and winces with discomfort as the pistol tucked into his belt presses against his lower ribs.

Midnight is approaching and the little graveyard is quiet in the darkness. Here and there Mathias sees the low glow of still-flickering candles. Their light picks out remnants of food, sugar skulls and elaborate floral tributes. He sees a few remaining hushed and huddled figures: the weathered faces of the elderly, the painted faces of the young, craving the company of revenants.

Pale moonlight throws nearer marker crosses and stone memorials into black relief.

Fully awake, Mathias rises to his feet beside the headstone of his wife, Lavida. His single candle, almost spent, illuminates the small, oval photograph from which she smiles serenely at him in shades of sepia. Her image, immortalised and sealed in its mount, sits above the flimsy brown skeletons of past bouquets. Now, no more than bundles of kindling dried under the hot sun.

Tonight, Mathias brings fresh marigolds. He scatters their petals to entice lost souls. They are withering on top of the marble slab. The Day of the Dead is almost at an end.

 That morning, while early light bled upwards from the line of the horizon and shades of blue and gold outlined the sharp spears of the peyote agaves encircling the village, Mathias said goodbye to his empty home. He said goodbye to his old bentwood rocking chair, sitting motionless on the flagstone floor, to his two hens roosting on a faded candlewick bedspread thrown over a wooden settle, proudly crafted by him in his younger days.

Outside, through the open door, where a single tap dripped into a chipped stone sink, he said goodbye to a shabby turkey which sat in the dust. The turkey, with no name and a broken wing had followed Lavida everywhere. It was generally regarded as a measure of the family’s prosperity that the bird continued to live on, fiesta after fiesta.

Mathias walked past the family’s little plot of land, past straggling tomatoes and chilli peppers, past prickly pears and lavender, past husks of maize and wizened sunflower stalks.

He will spend this day of celebration walking and talking with old friends and neighbours.

As the farmer marshals his flock to pasture, Mathias hails him.

‘Buenos Dias Señor Ferrer! How are your goats today?’

‘Señor Mori! They do well, but… today’s fiesta affects them. They sense things. They sense the spirits abroad on El Dia De Los Muertes. It affects the animals. Who knows if they can see and hear things outside our experience? I tell you Mathias, while we honour our departed and feel their presence around us, I think the animals see them.’

‘Ask your goats if my wife comes back here. I have kept faithful vigil each year since her passing, but have seen nothing. She vowed to return, but I am tired; my bones grow old and my shadow is thin and bent.’

‘Mathias, I am sorry for your loss, as are many here, but do not joke of such things. People believe the departed are awake and free in the domain of the dead, while we, the living, remain trapped in the dream of life. You must be patient in your dream of life. Do you sleep hombre; do you sleep?’

‘Sleep? Those days are gone, my friend. And you?’

‘Farmers? We sleep like those in the churchyard. But I tell you Mathias, this is a strange day.’

‘I know. And I must be on my way. Adios Enrique, my old friend. Buena suerte.’

‘Vaya con Dios. Stop by later for my wife’s good cooking. She worries about you.’

‘Si, si; adios.’

The dirt roadway leads Mathias between uneven limestone walls, washed in pastel pinks, blues and ochres. He sees they are flaking and bleached like bones in the sun, cast with sharp black shadows. Now, daylight crosses wrought iron balconies with their pots of yuccas. It seeps in slivers between faded shutters, their paint peeled back like scorched skin. It stretches to touch the hardwood beds within, some with their still slumbering occupants.

In the village square, where an ancient well trickles clear water into a roughly hewn trough, Pinot the baker piles grotesquely decorated, grinning sugar skulls and pink iced pan de muerto onto a stall set out on the pavement. His wife sets out bistro chairs and little tables with festive cloth covers.

‘Buenos Dias Mathias, mi amigo, will we see you during today’s fiesta?’

Mathias nods. ‘I wait each year for the visit of my wife but I do not see her. I fancy I hear her calling to me, but…’

‘Madame Pinot and I would have to travel to the edges of Marseilles for a reunion with our ancestors. They must celebrate alone, ha, ha! And here…  I do not wish to encounter the dead but I will bake for their descendants. They make me good business.’

Mathias shakes his head. ‘It’s true; not everyone’s relatives lie buried here. Did you know, my wife and I had a son? He rode away to seek work. We understood his decision; we waited for his return. He was killed they said, in a farming accident on a ranch somewhere out in the Rio Grande. There were no remains to commemorate. My wife, I believe she died of grief.’

The two men share a respectful silence before Mathias speaks again.

‘I go now to seek the advice of the priest, Father Murphy. I wish you a prosperous day.’

On the outskirts of the village, the little whitewashed church has a cool limestone interior. Shafts of sunshine slant through the window grilles onto rustic pews and a roughly hewn baptismal font. Father Murphy is occupied replacing the pooling stumps of spent candles with fat new ones.

‘Ah Mathias Mori! We don’t see you in the congregation; not since your wife passed away. People worry about you.’

‘I know Father, they’re good people here.’

‘This morning I prayed to the Almighty for the safe conduct of the spirits of our loved ones. Soon it will be over for another year. There will be a surfeit of food and tequila, followed, I hope, by peace in the village.’

‘Father, do you see the dead return here?’

‘My son, the church cannot be held responsible for what people here choose to believe. Certainly, I have witnessed things I can share with no man, they are between me and my maker. Now I am returning home. I shall have a mug of tea, and if a drop of good Irish whiskey should find its way into the mug, then I shall give thanks to the Lord for His bounty. I’ll have none of this local brew, and that’s a fact… but you look troubled.’

‘I’m sorry, Father.’

‘What ails you Mathias? I know the fates have not been kind. Will you return to the church?’

‘You may find me here tomorrow Father, after the early bell sounds.’

‘I do not take part in today’s festival but you should join the procession. Or, go home, give thanks and pray.’

Mathias continues his walk.

At home, the clock ticks above his workbench where his tools lie dull and rusting. The tap drips. The hens pick over the old maize husks and the shabby turkey ruffles its feathers in the dust and gobbles up any remaining sunflower seeds.

Later, Mathias drinks in the square beneath fairy lights strung amongst the tree branches. He watches as villagers celebrate the fiesta. He follows the procession to the cemetery where he sits alone with his memories of happier times: times before Lavida, the love of his life, moved on without him, left him behind, gone, some said, to join their son.

At last, as darkness closes in from the surrounding desert, beneath a million stars, weary revellers find their way home. Many remain around the little limestone church to keep a graveside vigil. Mathias too remains in the small cemetery.

Here he waits each night on the second day of November. Lavida promised to return.

He looks again at his wife’s grave, seeking signs of disturbance, evidence of another’s presence. He sees nothing.

The sound of a single gunshot reverberates; it bounces off the walls of the tiny church; it ricochets off the gravestones and echoes into the night air.

The hard-working ants halt in confusion as they carry their precious cargo of sugar-crumbs from yesterday’s fiesta towards their colonies’ home beneath the church steps. Their leader marshals a wide detour around the pool of blood spreading slowly about the head of Mathias Mori.

Those who have stayed on there, the weathered elderly and the painted young, will be begged to repeat what they witnessed that night, year after year, over and over again.

The shock of a gun-shot, then a silence so absolute that they believed themselves to have been deafened. The unmistakable scent of marigolds; a smell as enticing and fragrant as sun-warmed nectarines, heady and sweet. It charmed their senses and whispered to their souls. Then a disturbance in the perfumed air, ethereal colours dancing and blending: a shape-shifting chimera coalesced, lingered in amethyst, opal and moonstone. Some say they heard the voice of Lavida, others, that they heard an angel singing. Time and belief were suspended in wonder.

 

Mathias drifts through cold unlit olive groves, reputed to be home to the monachichi, spirits of children who died unbaptized. They reach out clammy gossamer fingers and whisper to creatures of the night that raise their heads and sniff the air. Where is this place?

      Then Mathias detects the scent of marigolds. Gradually, familiar sensations permeate the gloom and he hears Lavida, she is recounting the story of their lives together. He sees her face, it melds with that of their son, hollow-eyed but smiling. He smells once more the wood-fire in their hearth in winter and the rich earth of their garden under the sun. He feels the fabric of the home his great-grandfather passed down through the generations. They are all here; they have been here all the time. They welcome Mathias into his afterlife.

      Together they look out from within the adobe, at the sunrise, at the sunset, at the stark silhouettes of the agaves that have framed their lives. Their community is complete.

In the graveyard where Mathias’ bones lie beside those of Lavida, some may see the priest pause as if deep in thought. He may raise his eyes, look around himself; he may walk more swiftly on into the sanctity of his church, closing the heavy wooden door firmly behind him. Ecumenical duties take him far away once each year, always around the time of El Día De Los Muertes.

The life of Mathias Mori was unremarkable but in Pueblo Peyote the story of his death is repeated in hushed tones on every second day of November.

 

Published, (and title of anthology) Black Pear Press, On The Day Of The Dead, 2017

 

Published by Tacchi-Morris Creative Writing Comp, The Page is Printed, June 2016