Monkey Around

by Jadie Jang

“Yes,” Amoxtli said. “I’m sorry, Tez, but that’s how it is. Luis hid the Huexotl before he left, and Ome had Pilar take It and go to the Bay Area ahead of him, and hide It. And It still affected him. In the end, it became clear that he needed to bond with It, because he was becoming paranoid and irrational.”

  “I don’t remember that!” Tez protested.

  “Pilar and I kept it away from you. By the end, we were begging him to go through the ritual. He’d become paranoid about it, thought we were trying to ‘tie him down,’ as if a wife and four kids weren’t tie enough. But he’d finally seen the light and agreed to it, and we were preparing for the ritual, when Bergara, that’s that shotcaller I told you about, Maya, stole the Huexotl.”

  “What?” Tez cried. “That’s what he stole? How did he even know about it?”

  “Somebody told him— it doesn’t matter who, Tez. Moving the clan up here, without the anchor of that bond to the earth, made all of us feel lost. Some of the kids were finding what connections they could, riding with 23rd St. and the Mission Mob. One of them made a mistake. I advised Ome to keep cool about it. We could’ve found other ways to get It back. But he was out of his mind. And he marched right over there and demanded It back, in front of a bunch of people, who wouldn’t have heard about It if he’d stayed cool and kept his mouth shut. And he tried to call Bergara out, but that asshole wasn’t fool enough to fight him. So he sent some guys out and, when it looked like Ome was gonna beat them in to the ground, shot his crazy ass.”

  Amoxtli shook his head. “It was my fault. I was a terrible advisor to him. Papa had died shortly after he’d arrived and, without Papa’s advice, we were just flying by the seat of our pants. After that, the Huexotl just passed from hand to hand, I guess. It would be good luck for a while and then the dude holding It would get unstable—nowhere near as bad as a nagual would get, mind you, because they just can’t access that much power—but they’d get greedy and paranoid and someone would take them down or steal It from them … after a while I lost track of who had It and thought maybe It had gone back down south.”

  “But Padrino,” Tez cried, distressed, “Que paso? Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this? We could have used your help! We were so lost! Where were you?”

  Amoxtli bowed his head.

  “I’m so sorry, Tez. I’m so, so sorry. I see now what a mistake that was. … I was ashamed. I was too ashamed to look you in the eye and tell you that every adult in your life had failed you, and now all the responsibilities would come down on your shoulders. I didn’t think it was fair. And your mother and I agreed that it was better to let you …

  “Oh, but that’s not true, either. She agreed, but she wasn’t in on it. She didn’t know all the secrets, and she was grieving and not thinking straight. She tried to get me to change my mind later, when she was dying, but at that time I knew it would have been wrong to load you up with so much when you suddenly had all the kids to look after. And then it just got too hard to tell you … too hard.” He looked down again, and I really felt for him.

  “Whatever,” Tez said, shortly. I understood his anger, too. I wasn’t gonna get between them. “That’s not important just now. What I need to know is, what do I do now?”

  Amoxtli sighed deeply. “Tez, we’re currently in the last trecena—or thirteen-day week—of the sacred year. This trecena is when great changes need to be made. In two days will come the day for becoming and transmutation, the day of Xolotl, the dog, the shapeshifter. In two days you will need to bond with the Huexotl.”

  “Or what?” Tez asked.

  “Or someone else will.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Surely humans can’t bond with the stick? They can’t even hold it for more than a few seconds!”

  “They can hold It if they are bonded to the stick,” Amoxtli answered, but to Tez. “Haven’t you guessed? That original nagual, who made the Huexotl—he put part of himself in It, part of his own soul.”

  I started physically. There’s soul in that stick? Essence? No wonder …

  “That’s why your family line has such an affinity to the Huexotl; it’s a blood tie; a spirit tie. But it also means that a human, who has no magic of his own, could bond with It—easily, in fact—and take on the magic of a nagual. That shot caller from the San Antonios, Juice? He’s ready. And possibly one of the guys from the 70s as well. They’ll take It back from you, and they’ll go through the ritual if you don’t.”

  “But wait,” I said, “how is that possible? Aren’t you the only one who knows the ritual, and the timing?”

  Amoxtli hung his head even further.

  “Amoxtli,” Tez said sternly. “How do those fucking thugs know so much?”

  “The ‘instructions’,” I murmured, realizing. “You wrote down the instructions, didn’t you? That’s why you were visiting Ayo. You were trying to find these things because you knew the date was coming up and you heard rumors that someone was going to do the ritual.” A thought struck me. “Oh my god. Oh my god, that’s why Chucha went to the San Antonios in the first place, isn’t it? She was drawn there by the stick!”

  Tez looked thunderstruck.

  Amoxtli took a while to answer. He wouldn’t look up. He finally whispered, “He threatened her. He threatened your mother, and you, and the babies. Your mother was so proud of herself for standing up to Bergara, and she thought it was over. But it’s never over. There’s always some pendejo behind the one you’ve just knocked over who’ll come at you twice as hard. He came to me and said he knew what Pilar had done to Bergara, and she and your family owed the Mission Mob a blood debt. But he would let it go if I gave him the ritual to bond with the Huexotl.”

  He finally looked up, anguished. “I wrote a calendar of possible dates, all a long ways off. I knew he wouldn’t survive that long without bonding to It. And he didn’t. So It got passed along, and the ritual instructions got passed around, too. And somehow, we got lucky. Nobody’s timing was quite right, nobody got to do the ritual before the Huexotl was taken away from them. And later, I heard even better news: the instructions had been lost, separated from It. That’s when It disappeared, and that’s when I stopped worrying about it.”

  “But Juice,” I said, thinking out loud. “He’s smart, Tez. Way smarter than you give him credit for. He must’ve found out about the instructions and brought the two together.”

  Tez looked ten years older. “What happens if somebody like Juice bonds with the Huexotl?”

  Amoxtli looked like he and Tez were having a race to see who could age faster. “He’s not a nagual. He doesn’t have the power to reach through to the earth, and become a guardian. He won’t hear the earth calling to him, but he’ll receive much of its power. He’ll become much stronger.”

  “But with none of the responsibility, and none of the stability,” Tez finished for him. “And there’ll be nothing I can do about it.”

  Amoxtli’s look was the only confirmation we needed.

  “What are his other options?” I asked. Tez looked at me with such hope, I realized he was becoming desperate.

  “I don’t know, really,” Amoxtli said. “I suppose you can take It out of the Bay Area and hide It somewhere. You’ve had extended contact with It so I don’t know if you can stay away. This is all unprecedented. But Juice has also had prolonged contact with It. I don’t really know how It interacts with people who don’t have a nagual’s abilities, but,” he gestured at his bandaged torso, “it looks like they’ve had pretty good luck following It so far.”

  “Can I destroy It?” Tez asked.

  Amoxtli looked miserable. “All I know is that if the Huexotl is damaged or destroyed, some sort of doom is promised. It could be an environmental catastrophe, or it might be simply that the clan will be scattered, which would have been seen as a horrible fate back then. It’s pretty much already happened, though, so …”

  “All right,” Tez said. “I get it.”

  “Tez, mijo” Amoxtli said, desperately, “I’m so
sorry. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. But you do have to make your decision quickly, act quickly.”

  “Enough,” Tez said, holding his hand up. “Enough.” And he walked out.

  I gave Amoxtli my most sympathetic/irritated look, and ran out after Tez.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Sunday, October 23, 2011

  San Francisco; Oakland

  I didn’t have to run, though. He was waiting at the elevator for me, pulling on his hair.

  “I don’t want to think, or talk, right now,” he said, but didn’t make any move away from me. Clearly he wanted company.

  “Okay. I’m headed across to the Occupy Oakland encampment. Gonna hang out, do some work, maybe attend the general assembly later. You wanna come?

  “Oh, right. … Yeah, okay.”

  Without waiting for permission, I took the backpack carrying the stick in it from his shoulder, and, after a moment of resistance, he let me.

  It was a beautiful day with a few high, passing clouds. On an impulse, I suggested that we fly. Tez was unexpectedly up for it, and made us both invisible while I called down a cloud. I’d never done this before—didn’t know, in fact, if it could be done—but Tez stepped right onto the cloud with me and we went up.

  “It doesn’t … feel like anything!” he said, looking at his feet.

  “It’s water vapor. What should it feel like?”

  “It should feel soft! Or … squishy. Or something. It should feel like we’re being held up by water vapor!”

  “We’re not. We’re being held up by magic.” But I couldn’t help smiling back at his surprise. Twenty-seven was two years older than I was, but I had to admit, it was still pretty young. That struck me in my heart, as both tragic and hopeful: tragic for him to have lost so much, so young; hopeful that he could still bounce back.

  We didn’t really talk on the way over the Bay, but I did speed up, and swoop a bit for Tez’s benefit. He chuckled nervously, then laughed outright. No languid felinity here. Seeing the Bay from a bird’s eye view for the first time must’ve really been something. The water sparkled, and we were low enough to occasionally see the shadows of fairly large creatures underwater: either whales or some of the Bay’s supernatural water-breathers. The air was as fresh as air gets, and the sky was, as usual, more blue when I was in it than when looking at it from the ground.

  All too soon we were passing over the massive cranes of the port, then the tangle of the freeway interchange, and descending into the street behind Ogawa/Grant Plaza.

  As we walked into the encampment, I began to feel a little anxious. “Let me know if this all gets to be too much and you want to leave,” I said.

  He saluted with two fingers as Baby ran up to me. I was a little jolted. The magazine staff had all signed up to help out the Brooms Collective today, but after her little speech on Thursday, I wasn’t sure she’d show up. I looked around quickly, but Salli wasn’t there, which relieved me. I was pretty sure she knew about me, and didn’t want to put her tete a tete with another supernat.

  “Maiiiii! You’re late!” Baby didn’t sound accusing, though; rather, glad to see me. Considering how we left each other last time, I was pretty sure the enthusiasm wasn’t about me. And sure enough, Baby’s eyes cut right over to Tez after greeting me. To avoid deep embarrassment, I hurried to introduce them.

  “Tez, this is Baby. Baby, Tez.”

  “Tez!” Baby cried, giving him a hug. “I feel like I know you already!”

  Tez froze. I plotted murder.

  Pulling back, she saw the blank look on his face. “Didn’t Maya tell you? We used to go to the poetry slams all the time at Cal. And I saw you spit at a lot of marches, too. Man, you were on fire!” She knuckled his arm with her fist.

  Tez looked uncomfortable, but relaxed a bit. I decided to hold off on the murdering.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Listen,” Baby said, taking his hand (only Baby could get away with this,) “I’d offer you condolences, but I can tell you don’t want them from strangers. But I’m hereby relieving you of any social responsibilities for the afternoon. You can hang out as long as you like, leave when you like, talk or be silent as you like, and make no apologies. I got your back.”

  With a final squeeze, she let go of his hand and made good on her promise. I knew that for the rest of the day, she’d be keeping an eye on him and cockblocking anyone’s attempts to get anything from him he didn’t want to give. He was being Baby-ed. He looked a little bewildered, but also relieved.

  “She’s, like, the anti-Maya,” he said, smiling. I chose not to take it amiss.

  “She does make me possible,” I said.

  He laughed, a genuine one. I introduced him to the rest of my crew, including Mari and about half the staff of Inscrutable … plus about half the crowd. Yes, I know everyone: what can I say? Monkeys are social creatures. Tez was friendly, but not particularly open, and that appeared to be okay with the group. Some recognized him from protests of yore; but even those who didn’t seemed to regard him with a certain amount of awe. It gave me a new perspective on Tez. Was it the nagual in him? Was it the stick’s proximity? Or was it Tez himself? Was he just born with this much charisma?

  Speaking of charisma, just as I was starting to relax, Todd showed up. He looked blank when he saw me with Tez, then put on his goofiest smile and came over to greet us. I reintroduced him to Tez and saw them tense up at each other. Yes, definitely tension. I told myself I didn’t need to make anything of it, though; it was just awkwardness—while Monkey screeched with delight. What was I gonna do now? I’d brought Tez here to take his mind off of his troubles, not to cause a cockfight … or whatever this was.

  But then Baby, bless her soul, came over and grabbed Todd’s arm.

  “I need you to help me with these supplies,” she said, and led him away before he could protest. I knew she’d fill him in on the tragedies of the week and keep him away from Tez. Thank god for Baby.

  And it worked. Todd glanced over at Tez and me throughout the afternoon, and periodically gave me his goofy smile, which I returned with double goofiness, but he kept his distance. I refused to think about how Baby might be helping me string him along … as Monkey screeched laughter again.

  As for Tez, I—or the afternoon and the crowd, or the simple work of cleaning up—seemed to be having a good effect on him. Underneath his stoic outer face I could see he still looked worn to the bone, and desperately sad. But, as his latex-gloved hands picked up some truly disgusting bits of plastic, glass, and paper, the small muscles around his eyes, which had been tight the whole time I’d known him, finally relaxed. And he was smiling and even laughing at the occasional jokes the crew was throwing around.

  Then, just as I was starting to get irritated by the crowd, as if synced, Tez and I turned to each other with the clear intention to leave. We handed off our garbage bags, and Baby’s intervention allowed us to go without a fuss, walking quickly, leisurely, out of downtown and across the freeway, chatting about nothing. Soon, we lost track of time and space and found ourselves deep in West Oakland’s residential neighborhoods.

  Then, from one moment to the next, my monkey brain heard something and began screeching. I stopped, and caught up a few seconds later. It was the engine sound from the 70s’ Mustang! Where—? Tez reacted to something behind me. I spun to look where he was looking, down the street, where the iridescent green ‘Stang was just rolling up. Wow, the call of that damned stick was really powerful!

  The next moment, I heard a shout behind me: “Hey, China!”

  Uh, did that mean me? It usually meant me. I spun back around and saw a large black SUV approaching from the opposite direction. The passenger window was down and … Juice was calling through it: “Hey! I thought we had a deal!”

  Shit. Both of them.

  Tez’s face went fierce. I felt a momentary fumbling at my back, and then he lifted the stick and bent his legs. Uh oh. A short highlight reel of the next two
hours rolled before my eyes: Tez beating San Antonios bloody; Tez beating 70s bloody; somebody playing the fool and getting killed; me shrieking like a kettle; an audience spilling out of the nearby houses and onto the street; somebody calling the police and shooting smart phone videos; us arrested, or possibly Tez getting shot terrifying the cops and resisting arrest; the whole thing winding up on YouTube.

  “Run!” I shrieked. “No fighting! We have to get away!”

  He was already off the sidewalk and into the street, but turned on a dime and headed away from both cars. Hm. Good boy. I grabbed his free hand and yanked him after me and we leapt together over a fence and into someone’s yard. From there I called down a cloud and Tez made us invisible, and a moment later we were high in the air and speeding back over the Port of Oakland to the Bay.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sunday, October 23, 2011

  Tez’s House, San Francisco

  As we stood on the sidewalk in front of his house, looking at the door, I opened my mouth to ask if Tez wanted me to keep the stick for him, but he spoke first.

  “Do you want to come up and eat something? I’m starving, and I have some beef marinating. We could have tacos.”

  He didn’t look at me, trying to look cool, I guess, but it made him look more anxious. He definitely had something on his mind.

  “Sure! Beef tacos sound great.”

  In his apartment—which was completely quiet; his siblings weren’t home—he led me down the hall and into the bathroom, where he showed me a hidden cupboard in the wall behind the vanity. I put the stick in, bag and all. He didn’t touch it, hadn’t touched it since he’d handed it back over after the near-fight.

  We were mostly silent through the excellent meal; beast shifters tend to be serious about food. But finally, our bellies full and our minds as well, Tez led me to the living room and we sat next to each other on the couch.

  “Okay,” he said. “What do you think about this whole bonding-with-the-Huexotl thing?”

  My heart beat faster. It sounded like he was putting weight on what I had to say. But then, who else would he ask?