“Bullshit,” I said. “Lovecraft made that book up.”
“That’s what some people say. But other people claim he merely used a coded name for a real book. This book. The true Necronomicon.”
“Yeah, so even if it’s true what the hell is a copy of the Necronomicon doing in the hands of a panhandler in Mexico City? Shouldn’t it be in Boston or New York or some shit like that?”
“Olaus Wormius made a Latin translation and somebody wrote a translation of that into Spanish. This is a copy of the Spanish manuscript, written in Zaragoza and carried by a Spanish scribe to Veracruz. Somebody sold it to Porfirio Diaz and then during the Revolution it got lost, but it was in the library of the UNAM back in the seventies when this dude photocopied it and then someone else made more photocopies.”
I shrugged an answer. We had a math test next day and I was more worried about getting a bad mark in Calderon’s class than whatever weird shenanigan La Bola had cooked up.
“It looks like gibberish to me.”
He plucked four pages, placed them smack on top of the math book I was trying to read.
“These are authentic aetheric keys. They can be used to invoke all sorts of stuff like Cthulhu and shit. We can call him.”
I shoved the pages inside the book and rolled my eyes.
“Why would we want to do that?”
“Because it’s neat,” La Bola concluded. “Come on, you’ve got to help me.”
“We’ve got that test.”
“So?”
“So I can’t play Lovecraft right now.”
“Who’s talking about playing?”
“Are you going back to the factory?”
“I can’t invoke nothing in my place,” La Bola said.
“Will that dude be there?”
“Who?” he asked.
“You know,” I said, but I didn’t say the hobo’s name and La Bola pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“I’m not talking to him anymore,” he muttered.
“Why?”
“Because, he’s a damn cultist that adores Dagon and he wants to sacrifice me to the Elder Gods. Who cares?” He grabbed his envelope, zipped it into his backpack and huffed at me.
“You’re always saying stupid shit like that. There’s no monsters hanging ‘round the park.”
“There’s monsters,” he assured me.
Stupid La Bola. Still dicking around with horror books wrapped in garish covers and little-kid ideas about things from the stars.
I was conscious of the realities and hardships of everyday life. La Bola took photocopies from drunkards, like a modern Jack waiting for his beanstalk to grow.
“Whatever, asshole,” I muttered. “You’re nuts.”
“I am not! You’ll see! I’ll show you!”
“Nuts.”
“Aren’t you coming?” he asked, plaintive eyes, voice quivering. “I don’t want to go alone.”
“No.”
I went home, concentrated on my studying. Tried not to think about the Necronomicon, La Bola going to the factory by himself.
Cultists.
What if the hobo was hanging around the factory?
Monsters.
A strangled cry.
And I had seen something through the greasy, milk glass window panes, that one time.
Two figures …
and then I had rushed to class. Don’t be, don’t be late.
But back there, in the factory.
Back there …
I saw nothing. I saw nothing. I saw …
My mother arrived from her late shift a little before midnight. I was still up, reading my textbook in the kitchen.
“Big test tomorrow, huh?” she said.
“Yep.”
“Did you finish the spaghetti?”
“Yeah, Marilu warmed it up for me.”
My mother took off her shoes and rummaged through the refrigerator. The phone rang. I picked it up at the first ring thinking it was La Bola. I was feeling kind of lousy about our fight and I wanted to apologize.
I held the receiver next to my ear. It was one of those yellow Western Electronic Princess Telephones that my mom had owned forever and sometimes the damn thing did not work right.
“Hello,” I said very loudly. “Hello.”
There was no answer. Just a crackling, which was not unusual. What was unusual was the other sound I heard. Only it was not really a sound. More like a vibration which went up and down my arm.
“Bola?” I whispered.
I didn’t think it was him. Or it was not only Bola.
There was something else trying to get through the line.
The receiver, as I held it between my fingers, felt rubbery and pulsated.
I dropped it. It dangled from the cord, brushing the linoleum floor.
“Is that Marilu’s boyfriend again?” my mother asked. She picked up the receiver quick as lightning and yelled into it with a loud, stern voice. “You stop calling here! You hear me?!”
She slammed the receiver down, grumbled about Marilu and made herself a sandwich.
I went to bed.
I did well in my exam the next day. La Bola missed it, but that was his tactic. He tried to miss as many exams as he could so I could tell him what the test had been all about, and he could get a decent grade when he took it the next week.
I was not too concerned about his absence. And I was not too worried when he did not go to school the day after that. He was probably still sore at me, nursing his wounds by staying in bed and watching TV all day long.
But he did not go back to class. We heard he had been expelled for drug use. Someone had found him dealing pot or coke or some shit inside the pantyhose factory and he was kicked out of school. Other folks said he went nuts and killed his whole family, then microwaved the cat. I did not think that was very likely because it would have made the front page of La Alarma and I did not see La Bola’s wide eyes staring at me from the newspaper stand.
One lady who was a friend on my mom said it was a mental breakdown and she mentioned the pantyhose factory, and the guy there and there was … maybe she said pederast. Maybe she said nothing. I like to believe she said nothing.
And then my mom, she asked me pointed questions about La Bola and I didn’t have the answers, so I shook my head no.
No.
Somebody called a few days later. Heavy metal music played in the background. But the caller didn’t say anything and I hung up.
Nine years later. Enough to misremember.
I had long finished my bachelor’s degree and moved out of my mom’s place and into a little apartment. Overall, things were going fine and I was considering applying for another scholarship, this one for a master’s degree.
Marilu was married and living in Monterrey. She had just had a second baby. My mom was going to go live with her and watch over the grandchildren. Mom told me that she was getting rid of everything in my room and I better go help her throw out my old crap.
I put a few precious things aside, then piled my old books into a box, including the horror paperbacks La Bola had given me in junior high. I took them to one of the used stores where they buy books and newspaper by the kilo, and got a couple of pesos out of the whole effort.
When I was handing the guys who bought the books and newsprint my stuff, I discovered that at the bottom of one of the boxes there were a few photocopies of La Bola’s Necronomicon. I folded them and took them with me. Out of a sense of nostalgia I walked through the old neighbourhood, patting the wrinkled photocopies.
The area was still shitty but they were starting to build nice condos here and there. Gentrification was creeping in.
I stopped at street with the pantyhose factory. That block had not been touched by the cranes and construction crews. The old buildings remained stubbornly in their place, peeling paint and all. The factory itself was even more ruined, dirty and with more shattered glass panes.
I glanced at the photocopies I was carr
ying, at the building and then back at the squiggly lines that passed for writing.
I heard the tinkering of glass bottles and a panhandler sleeping nearby shuffled to his feet.
“Hey,” said the man and I raised my hand to tell him that no, I didn’t have any cash to spare but I stopped.
The man was very, very skinny. Bone thin and he looked at least a decade older than me, so he couldn’t possibly be La Bola. But he looked like him, only hungrier, his dark eyes very large and fixed on me.
“Hey, long time no see,” said the man. “I got some nice stuff for you. You want to take a look?”
I was born and raised in a neighbourhood with its fair share of drunkards, hobos and hookers, and none of them ever scared me, but this man who looked a bit like La Bola sent me shivering like a five year old; and I swear I could feel a cold, cold rubbery thing slipping around my neck when La Bola stared at me.
I tossed the papers in the air and ran away, only pausing once to see if the man was following me. He was too busy picking up the pages that I had dropped, fiercely clutching them against his chest and mumbling something I could not make out.
Three blocks from there I hailed a cab. When I was boarding it, my cell phone rang. I answered it, but the line was quiet. I thought I could hear someone breathing on the other end. There was expectation in the air, like the pause after you say “I accept” during a collect call. Then there’s a little click and you are connected.
I threw the cell phone out the window and told the driver to go, just go. Where? Not downtown, to buildings and streets three centuries old, not through the old colonias like la Roma. To the outskirts of the city, past Santa Fe, past the DF and into the places where condos and houses are barely going up.
Sometimes the phone rings in the middle of the night and I wake up, and I think I’m a kid again back in the apartment with the hallways smelling of urine and if I look out the window I might see the shadow of the old factory.
Strange things happen there and there are monsters.
I think then, still wrapped in the haze of dreams, that somewhere, Bola’s dialing my number, trying to connect. And I’m never taking that call. And I never did.
And I shouldn’t have run away.
And I didn’t see anything.
And I cry sometimes, but I don’t remember why.
“You can never trust a nahual,” her mother said, “because you cannot be certain if you are speaking to the animal or the man.”
When the chickens disappeared her mother placed her scissors under the bed to ward off the nahual. Her four brothers were more practical, and after consulting with their uncle, their father having passed away the previous summer, they grabbed their rifles and set up watch next to the chicken coop every night.
Even though Teresa was fifteen and a girl she was allowed to keep watch during one of the nights. Unlike her older sister Asuncion who liked to help out in the kitchen and tidy their home, Teresa preferred to go hunting with her brothers. She was a good shooter and an even better rider. Because of this Teresa did not scream and run away when she saw the nahual.
She spotted a fox creeping in the shadows. Teresa pretended to be asleep while keeping a strong grip on her firearm. When she was sure she could get a good shot she spoke.
“If you move I’ll kill you,” she said.
The nahaul stared at Teresa with bright eyes, and she stared back.
“Please, do not hurt me,” said the fox, with a voice that was much too human and made her pause.
“We’re tired of you stealing our chickens. We’ve got enough to worry about with the soldiers to have a nahual also taking our food.”
“But what is a chicken once in a while?”
“It is too much.”
“If you put your gun down and let me go I’ll give you a gift.”
“What kind of gift?”
“A little golden medallion with the image of the virgin. Very pretty. But it’s for a girl and I have no use for it. If you let me go I’ll return in a week and bring it to you.”
“You’re just trying to trick me.”
“No. I give you my word I’ll return.”
“I ought to call my brothers and let them beat you and cut your pelt,” she said, but she’d already felt sorry for the bony fox with its ratty coat. “Don’t steal any more chickens from us or I will shoot you next time.”
The fox trotted away and Teresa sighed, feeling she’d been tricked.
There were rumours that soldiers were moving through the area and this had her whole family in a constant state of alert. If soldiers were indeed nearby they’d have to take the animals and hide them in the caves. Her older brothers, Asuncion, and Teresa would also have to hide in the caves. The soldiers not only stole food and valuables; they took any young man of fighting age with them and the women they hauled off to serve as soldaderas. They said that’s exactly what had happened to their cousin Esteban, that he’d been taken by some soldiers. There had also been some rumours that Esteban had been shot by one of Villa’s firing squads.
People could be killed just because they were related to the wrong person and neutrality was key to survival. Their mother was not taking any chances. She denied both stories and told everyone in Nogalera, the nearest town, that Esteban was away in Mexico City with some relatives. As a result, Esteban’s name had become a taboo and a precise protection system had been established. If soldiers came to Nogalera, all the older children would run away and hide while their mother was left behind with the younger boys and girls.
“God damn pelones,” Teresa’s uncle would say on those occasions and claim that the federal soldiers were the worst of the lot.
To Teresa they were all the same and here in the middle of nowhere the only thing that mattered was that men would come to steal their pigs and rice and guns. Their little farm was located far from Nogalera and that was good because it spared them from much trouble. Still, they waited for word of any approaching soldiers. But nothing happened and Ramon came over to tell them the rumours had been unfounded, no soldiers had made their way to town.
Ramon was courting Asuncion. This meant their mother immediately invited the young man to stay and eat with them. It did not please Teresa as she was required to be on her best behaviour and wear her nicest outfit in front of their guest and it was very hard to be good and proper when Ramon was such a bumbling, cross-eyed fool. Asuncion insisted his eyes were fine but when he was nervous, and he was nervous whenever Asuncion walked by, Ramon’s eyes would clearly cross.
“Don’t make fun of him,” her sister had told Teresa. “It’s not polite. I may marry him one day.”
Teresa did hope Asuncion would get married and go live with Ramon. The sisters shared a bed and Asuncion was always kicking and squirming. When she was not asleep, Asuncion would sigh and read silly poems or sad love stories about dashing highway robbers who fell in love with beautiful young heiresses.
It was very upsetting and it had gotten worse since Ramon started coming around the farm. Asuncion would blush, Ramon would stammer, and Teresa would make a brilliant joke that had her brothers laughing and her mother glaring at her.
Teresa was on night duty again when the nahual came, this time in the shape of a young man. He was bony thin even as a human and when he moved it was with a fluid, liquid quickness.
“I keep my promises,” he said handing her the medallion.
“What if it is not gone? What if it comes while we are asleep?”
Teresa was braiding Asuncion’s hair. It was a part of their nightly routine that also included prayers to the Virgin and their guardian angel, even though Teresa usually skimmed over the prayer part.
“Don’t be silly,” muttered Teresa. “The nahual has left us alone.” Their mother attributed their successful battle against the creature to the scissors under her bed and the fragrant romero she had placed throughout the house, thus ending the need for their nightly watches.
“But what if it comes to eat us
tonight?” Asuncion said.
“I’d grab the gun and shoot it in the face. That’s why I keep it under the bed.” Teresa did in fact conceal a firearm under their mattress. It was a necessary precaution, the revolution also making it necessary to hide money behind loose bricks.
“Don’t say that. You wouldn’t.”
“Of course I would.”
Teresa did not mention that she had already been presented with chances to kill the nahual. It would have been embarrassing if anyone knew that. After all, Teresa was the brave girl, the machorra, the proud antithesis of Asuncion and the bane of their mother’s existence.
“If it comes we’ll yell for Alvaro,” her sister muttered. “I think it would be a bad thing if you killed a man, even if it’s a nahual.”
Teresa shrugged. Men were getting killed left and right all over the country so what did one more matter.
2
Their mother’s birthday was nearing and Asuncion was busy embroidering a handkerchief as a gift. Teresa was also trying to embroider little yellow flowers that she thought would look much better than her sister’s pink roses. She sat under a fir tree and looked at the flowers but the results were botched. She pulled and cut threads once more.
“That looks very boring,” said the nahual, standing tall before her in his human shape.
She’d seen him during the past few weeks, slinking around in his fox form and sometimes looking as he did right now, a normal man with a wide grin. Teresa did not know his name. He must have one yet she had not asked about it. It was already bad that she knew a nahual and it would only make it worse if she actually knew his name. That would mean they were friends.
“I have chores to do. Unlike you.”
“I have chores.”
“Running in the fields and stealing chickens?”
“You should come with me some time,” he said.
“To steal chickens.”
“No, to run in the fields after dark.”
“My mother wouldn’t like me running outside at nights with a man.”
“I’ll show you how to shed your skin and that way you won’t be a woman and I won’t be a man. There is an animal inside all of us wanting to be free.”
Love and Other Poisons Page 8