Five Midnights

by Ann Dávila Cardinal

  Pendejo? The guy was insulting him while he saved his ass? I should just let him drop, Javier thought. But really, how close had he come to being Keno? Who was he kidding? If Sebastian hadn’t found him he would totally be Keno.

  Or dead.

  He’d be dead.

  Keno looked at the unforgiving asphalt below him and back at Javier, his eyes panicked and pleading. Suddenly he didn’t look like an evil drug dealer. He looked like a scared kid, not all that much older than Javier.

  Javier reached down and pulled Keno up until he could once again wrap an arm around the crossbar.

  “Thanks, man.” Keno was breathing heavy, but then an oily smile spread across his face. In one swift move he bashed his free fist onto Javier’s fingers that were wrapped around the metal bar, and Javier struggled to hold on.

  “See? I don’t even need the gun. I should have just stabbed you like I did that idiot Jamaican priest.” Keno was yelling over the background of wind and music.

  Javier’s blood froze in his veins. “You stabbed Sebastian?”

  “What the hell?” Lupe’s voice came from the ground beneath them.

  “Yeah, he wouldn’t tell me where you were. Vico’s crazy sister tried to warn him. Disloyal bitch. But enough talk, time to die.” Keno lifted his fist to bash Javier one final time.

  Something black whizzed by Javier’s head, he heard a thud, and then Keno was falling.

  Lupe

  Lupe watched a combat boot whack Keno on the side of the head, and he fell two stories down to the pavement. She looked down but she had both of her shoes. She looked over and saw Marisol standing there with one sock-covered foot. Lupe gaped at her.

  Marisol shrugged. “What? No one stabs a priest on my island.”

  “Nice boots.”

  Marisol nodded. “Well, they’re for combat.” She gestured to her bleeding nose. “Nice move.”

  “Yeah, you know. Combat.”

  They smiled at each other.

  “This is sweet and all, but I won’t forget you tried to kill me.”

  “I never tried to kill you, I was just gonna scare you, to make you go back to Canada—”

  “Vermont!”

  “Whatever.”

  “You didn’t need to try to run me over with your car. Or send me threatening texts!”

  Marisol tilted her head. “What?”

  “In Old San Juan.”

  “That was Keno! He borrowed my car. I was surprised since it’s way too ghetto for him. And I didn’t send you any texts!”

  Javier

  After Keno fell, Javier hung there for a moment with his eyes closed, grateful. Then, the air began to move again, the tower shaking with the growing wind, and Javier screamed in total animal rage.

  After all that, El Cuco was still going to take him.

  As the cyclone rebuilt around him, the pain began. He felt as if his skin was being ripped from his body in sheets, the water in his eyes boiling from the heat. But worst of all was that with the darkness came a feeling of overwhelming solitude. For most of his life, all he’d wanted was to be left alone, to not have to rely on anybody else’s help. Particularly in the last two years. But in that moment, he saw his solitude as dark and empty, here at the precipice of a black hole that was sucking any memory of love or friendship from his soul.

  Everyone dies alone, he thought. But here, at the moment of his death, all he wanted was to not be alone.

  For the first time since his father left, he prayed for help.

  Lupe

  Lupe stared up at the cyclone rebuilding above the stage. She could no longer see Javier through the swirling darkness.

  She looked over at Marisol, her mind buzzing.

  There had to be something. She managed to keep her father alive on a daily basis, but getting her friend back from the grips of a mythical monster might be beyond her skill set.

  Wait. What had her father said during their phone conversation?

  “‘It’s actually the children who have all the power.’” She said it out loud as it came back to her. “‘If I’d known that as a child I would have been threatening her with El Cuco!’”

  “What are you going on about, gringa?”

  “It’s something my father said. ‘Children have all the power.’ Los cangrejos were kids back then for sure. But there are only two left and they don’t seem to have any power in this situation.” She gestured back up to the stage.

  “Yeah, but they weren’t the only children there that night El Cuco was called.”

  “You! There weren’t five, there were six!”

  Marisol’s eyes widened with memory. “That was the night I knew the drugs were going to ruin my family.”

  Lupe nodded, following.

  “And when my mother and the others threatened the boys with El Cuco, I secretly hoped he would come, that he would punish those boys.” She looked back at Lupe. “I—I was just a kid.”

  “But between you and las madres, maybe El Cuco was listening.” She pointed over to where las madres still held hands, their faces etched with exhaustion, their mouths moving in prayer.

  Marisol grabbed Lupe by the arms. “I have to call him off, too! The ritual isn’t complete without me!” Then she stopped. “Wait, why should I? Javier earned his place up there.”

  Lupe stared into the other girl’s eyes, as if she could climb into them and change her mind. “He did. He absolutely did. But what about second chances? Don’t you believe in them?”

  Marisol paused. “I do, but I’m just not sure Javier deserves one. Carlos is an asshole, but he never used, never broke a law in all the years I’ve known him. Why do you think he’s still alive? El Cuco wouldn’t take him!”

  “True, but look at Carlos!” She pointed up at the star. “He hasn’t taken his eyes from Javier, he’s staying right there even though his life is in danger just standing near the storm from hell. Doesn’t that say something about Javier’s worth?”

  Marisol looked into Lupe’s eyes and for the first time there was no sign of contempt or anger in them. “You’re his friend, too, that says even more. One small problem, though. I don’t know how to call him off!”

  The girls looked around as if the answer lay on the sidewalk around them. Then Marisol stopped and grabbed Lupe’s hands into her own. “Help me! Hold my hands, close your eyes, and we’ll ask him to leave Javier be! Ask him to just leave!”

  Lupe closed her eyes and concentrated on the places where Marisol’s cool, smooth skin touched her own. She imagined giving all her power, what little power she had, to Marisol and las madres. She thought of her father, of Esteban, of the people who meant so much to her, and imagined their power going into Marisol as well. Nothing. She felt nothing. There had to be something else they could—

  Her hair.

  It was blowing back, as if she were standing in front of a fan.

  She opened her eyes and saw that Marisol was emitting power like las madres. Her clothes, her hair, all were pulled away from her body as if the wind were coming out of her pores, but it was even stronger. Marisol seemed unaware, her eyelids moving as if her eyes beneath were watching a private performance.

  Lupe held tight, but looked above the stage to see the cyclone hover, just above the tops of the streetlights. Then a powerful blast came from the mothers and from Marisol and the tornado’s outside wall started to break up like a windshield shattering, the dust and garbage floating for a split second, then all fell to the stage.

  Including Javier.

  Javier

  Javier closed his eyes, certain he was heading for the very bowels of hell as he fell.

  But then his feet hit the ground as if he had only jumped a fence or a wall.

  He opened his eyes and spun around as he stood up, his bearings seemingly lost forever. His feet were on the ground, but the darkness of El Cuco was still swirling above him, as if waiting for something; at least it had stopped pulling him. For now.

  He saw Lupe climbing over the e
dge of the stage. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up, and as soon as her feet hit, she wrapped herself around him, her whole body shaking. He kissed her hair and whispered soothing things.

  Marisol walked up the stairs behind them, and Javier whispered, “Thanks.”

  Lupe pointed up to the swirling darkness above them. “Why is that still here, though?”

  “That’s what I’m worrying about. The monster exacts a price.”

  “But what’s the price?”

  “Um, guys? I think I know.”

  Javier and Lupe whipped around to see Marisol standing at the top of the stairs, Keno, blood streaming from his temple, holding his recovered gun to her head.

  Lupe actually started to lurch toward them when Javier pulled her back against him. “Even you can’t win against a gun, amor,” he whispered into her ear.

  Javier could see the police gathering at the base of the stairs, guns drawn, but they didn’t dare make a move while Keno held a gun at Marisol’s temple.

  Despite the threat, Marisol’s voice was cool and clear. “I only dated you because hanging out with your little gang was better than going home to my cousin’s house. But only slightly.”

  Keno snickered. “Well, I put up with you because I figured you were so crazy I could get you to do shit, like kill this guy. But for all your talk, your conscience got in the way.”

  “That’s because Marisol is a human, and you’re the real monster, Keno. Sebastian was right.” Javier spat at him.

  “Ah, yes. The good padre did quite a bit of threatening at the end. He shouldn’t have called the police and given them my name. God rest his soul.”

  Lupe held up her hand. “But Sebastian’s not dead.”

  “What?” Javier and Keno said at once.

  Marisol snorted. “Guess you failed yet again, Keno.”

  Javier must have heard wrong. He could still see the padre’s body on the floor. It was etched behind his eyes. “Are you serious, Lupe? He’s not dead?” She nodded, never taking her eyes from Keno, and Javier felt as if he were lifting off the stage again, with joy and relief this time.

  “Well, maybe now I’ll really kill someone you care about.” He slowly moved the gun from Marisol’s head, keeping his arm around her neck. “Like the Canadian bitch, for instance.” He slowly lowered the gun to point it at Lupe, clearly enjoying the drama.

  “She’s from Vermont,” Marisol said and then, before he was able to aim, she brought her elbow back and up, catching Keno right in his nose, blood flying onto the stage.

  Marisol pulled away and ran to stand with Lupe and Javier as the police rushed up the stairs toward Keno. In that moment the darkness from above began to turn fast, the pull like a vacuum above them. The police weren’t able to get closer to Keno, it was like they were walking into a wind tunnel. Javier and the girls held on to one another, hovering closer to the stage so they wouldn’t get pulled in.

  Javier looked back and saw that Keno was lifting, his body leaving the stage, holding his bleeding nose, his eyes frantic. “Wait! What’s going on?” He looked all around as the stage dropped farther and farther below him.

  Javier, Lupe, and Marisol watched as Keno rose up in the sky, his screams piercing the air until he was swallowed into the black hole and the cyclone disappeared.

  Lupe

  Lupe could feel Javier’s heartbeat against her own, and she didn’t want to ever let go. With her eyes squeezed shut she could almost forget the sight of Keno being lifted up into the void, the sound of his screams getting farther and farther away.

  She opened her eyes to find that Javier was looking at her, their faces almost touching. “Javier, what happened up there? Did you see El Cuco?”

  “Oh, I saw him all right.”

  Marisol asked, “Well? What did he look like?”

  Javier chuckled. “That’s hard to say. I think he looks different to everyone.”

  Lupe wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “What did he do to you up there? I mean, before Keno showed up?”

  Javier smiled down at her. “I think he took me to the Narcotics Anonymous meeting from hell.”

  Lupe cocked her head. “What does that mean?”

  Javier was silent for a moment. “It means that I had more of a role in all this than I ever imagined.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what it all means. All I know is that I have another chance to make amends.”

  “Let’s give it up for my hermano Javier!” Carlos’s amplified voice bellowed around them. Javier put his arm around Lupe’s shoulders and steered her toward the stage. Lupe reached back and grabbed Marisol’s hand, and dragged her with them. At first Marisol made to pull her hand back, but Lupe knew it was an act. Carlos gave Javier a huge hug and, when he pulled away, looked deep into his friend’s eyes. They were two of only a handful of people who knew what had really happened there that night. The two cangrejos who survived. And then Carlos pulled away and gestured to Javier’s left.

  “And let’s not forget my sister in the good fight, badass Lupe Dávila!”

  Lupe stared at Carlos. Did Papi Gringo just call her sister? And a badass? She’d always fantasized about having a brother, a normal, bickering family. Well, normal was a relative term. In her daze she looked over the crowd, which was yelling for her. For her, an attitudinal Gringa-Rican from Vermont. She saw las madres in the middle of the crowd with their arms linked, looks of exhausted relief on their faces. The whole thing felt so surreal, like it was happening to someone else. It was like … having a family. This handsome boy with his arm around her, a new friend beside her who had as much attitude as she did, a rock star calling out her name, a monster thwarted. Her eyes fell on her tío in the crowd. His face was above everyone around him as he stood over to the side, not wanting attention as was his fashion. But his smile was all Lupe’s. He smiled at her all the way to his eyes in a way that said all was real. That all was good.

  That he was proud.

  Marisol

  The thumping in her head.

  It was gone, truly gone!

  And there was no feeling of a darkness behind her, next to her.

  Nope, the only thing next to her was the crazy gringa who had saved her life and whose life she’d saved.

  For the first time in five years, Marisol felt hope.

  Carlos took Marisol’s hand and smiled at her and she could remember why she had such a crush on him when they were younger. Lupe held on to her other hand, and Carlos pulled the line of friends into a bow across the stage, the crowd screaming in one joyous wave.

  As she stood up, Marisol saw her abuela in the crowd in front of the stage waving. Her abuela smiled and blew her a kiss. She looked like she was ten years younger than she had been yesterday. Maybe they could get an apartment together back in Amapola. Start to work to bring the old neighborhood back.

  Marisol squeezed her friends’ hands, dropped them, and headed toward the front of the stage. She might have been set free, but this was still way too much attention for an introvert. Several people from the crowd helped her off the stage, and she made her way to her abuela and hugged the tiny woman tightly.

  Javier

  Carlos’s stage manager was slapping the star on the back. “Man, I wish you’d tell me when you plan surprises like that, but that was dope, pana!”

  Javier smiled at Carlos as all the stagehands congratulated the singer on the special effects. As the crowd called for an encore, Javier and Lupe made their way backstage. In the shadow of the massive speakers, they turned back to watch Carlos fire up another of his hits.

  Javier kept thinking about how unreal it all seemed. What an insane night. Would he have been killed if Marisol hadn’t joined las madres to call him off? Javier stood there, his arm around his girl, most everyone he loved in the world with him on this Amapola street on his eighteenth birthday. No way he was going to take any of it for granted.

  “So, Miss Lupe. Does this mean you’re going to take your uncle up on his offer and come live in Puerto
Rico?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’m looking forward to the summer more than I ever have before. And for now, right now, I feel at home.”

  Lupe put her arm around him and held her cell up, and images of their two smiling faces with Carlos strutting on the stage in the background popped up on the phone’s screen. She typed for a minute, then put it away. “Had to post it. No one back in Vermont is going to believe me.”

  After a few bars of the song, Lupe yelled into his ear over the music throbbing from the speakers, “My Spanish might be rusty, but is this song really entirely about a girl’s butt?”

  Javier smiled. “Yes. Does this offend you, Miss Lupe?”

  “I’m just glad it’s not about yet another monster waiting in the dark.”

  He gently tugged her chin up to his. “I’m not worried. We’ll fight it off together.” He leaned in, thinking only about pressing his lips against hers, but as he neared she pulled back. Javier felt his heart fall as if he were dropping to the stage again.

  “Lupe, I—”

  “No, wait.” She put the tips of her fingers against his lips. Her smell of sun and apples made his head spin.

  “I need to know that you’re not going to use again.”

  He took her fingers from his lips and gently kissed them. “You know a promise like that from an addict is worthless.”

  She nodded and pulled farther away. “I know.” He could almost see the fear tumbling around in her mind.

  Javier stared into the blue of her eyes. “But I will promise that I never want to go back to that place.” He pointed up into the memory of the cyclone, of El Cuco above them. “And I’ll work every single day to make certain that I don’t. Not for you.” He pointed to his own chest. “But for me.”

  Lupe was looking into his eyes as if she were searching for something. He watched a series of emotions pass over her face. Then a small, sad smile pulled up the edges of her soft, pink lips.