Salsa Nocturna: A Bone Street Rumba Collection

by Daniel José Older

  Damn, he played that card. Most of the time when I show up at Victor and Jenny's door it's because some heavy supernatural shit went down and I need a little upkeep. Victor works overnights on an FDNY ambulance and Jenny has as many herbs and nerdy things to say about herbs as Baba Eddie’s Botánica. It's a strange, fiery combo – new age and 911 – but my half-dead ass can't just stroll into an ER and demand treatment, they might try to resuscitate me while I'm napping. "You know," he continues unnecessarily, "we had to get a new couch cover after you bled out on our last one."

  "Thank you, I remember." It was a nasty little run in with a million-year-old ghost mammoth. And yes, I stained the couch, but this guilt trip, I don't need. Maybe I would be better off at an ER after all. "Alright, I'll talk to him. But look, he doesn't need to know about me and what I am."

  "Carlos, you already know I keep your shit under wraps. HIPPA, patient confidentiality, I got you, bro."

  "I have no idea what you're talking about. Bring him to Marcus Garvey Park in three hours. I'll see what I can do."

  Jenny pokes her head in. She's wearing a flowy pajama thing and her blond hair's pulled into a tight and shiny pony tail. "I'm gonna do some yoga, boys."

  "Try not to hurt yourself again, baby," Victor says. "I'm off duty."

  "Fuck you."

  * * *

  I like Garvey Park because the spirits here are very old and very chill. They don't wile out and send kids hovering over swing sets or switch joggers' right and left feet just to pass time. They watch, nod their ancient, glowing heads, appraise the spinning world around them, and confer quietly amongst themselves. They're older even, than The New York Council of the Dead, that sprawling bureaucracy of the afterlife that keeps me busy with heinous errands in return for a modest income and a vague sense of purpose.

  It's one of those languid Harlem afternoons in late summer that the whole world has come out to enjoy. The park is thronged with barbecue families, bums, and flirting teenagers. Each group orbits in little clusters around the picnic tables and basketball courts. The occasional sweaty, spandexed jogger huffs and puffs past. The sun sends a golden, gentle glow through the trees as it gets ready to turn in for the night. And here's when the nothingness sets in. These damn peaceful moments, when no bodies are dropping, no fanged fuckups are charging through subway tunnels at me. This is when I seem to be a sum of only negative parts: Not dead, not alive. No memory, no past. A hundred miles away—at least inside my own heart—from the one woman I managed to fall for and the two adorable fully alive babies we created. Aloof even with my closest friends, unless we're laughing about some grim shit that just popped off. I think it's all the happy families around that do it to me. All that cheery wholesomeness clogs my flow and gets me nostalgic for a time that never was, for a potential that simply won’t manifest. It's why I usually don't bother with the park 'til late, late at night.

  In the woodsy slope above the playground, the ancient, blissed-out park spirits are watching the tiny theatrics play out and nodding silently. One floats just at the edge of the trees, staring back at me. Apparently onto my neither-here-nor-there status, his bearded face shines with serene uncertainty.

  "That high-ass geriatric bothering you, C?" My partner Riley has materialized a few feet away. "Want me to fuck him up?"

  I grin. "Nah, I'm used to it."

  "He's either/or, abuelo, walk the eff along." If nothing else, it's good to have crude friends who stand up for you even when you don't really need them to. The gently bobbing ghost keeps staring, his ancient mouth forming a little concerned O from within a long translucent beard.

  "He's not scared of you, Riley."

  "He's bluffing, but we can let him have his moment. C'mon." Riley flips the old ghost off and floats towards one of the winding paths.

  "What's all this about anyway?" he asks as we stroll along the outer rim of the rusty amphitheater.

  "Victor's little cousin got into some shit with a lady."

  Riley chuckles. "Okay, Anne Fucking Landers, but why am I here?"

  "And he thinks there's something about it that might pertain to us."

  "How's she look?"

  "Who?"

  "The lady, Carlos. Jesus."

  "I don't know, man, she's probably a kid like the cousin. What's wrong with you?"

  Every once in a while, being dead catches up with Riley. The few shards that he remembers from his life swirl in repeat through his head and he gets all agitated and perverse like a damn teenager. I don't think he can even really be horny, but something about that frisky interplay and all those gooey juices mashing up together just means life to him. It drives him even more crazy that it's a game I could play but don't.

  "What's wrong with me?" he says. "What's wrong with you?"

  Instead of responding, I light two miniature cigars and pass one to my partner. I do have a recurring fantasy, or perhaps it's a memory, who can tell? She's Puerto Rican, dark skinned, hair a black ocean of curls, eyes mahogany and penetrating, ferocious. She just looks at me, usually in that perfect dream-time between sleeping and waking, when everything is foggy enough to make thoughts and dreams indistinguishable. She floats towards me, always getting closer and closer but never touching. Her eyes bore into mine like delicious drills, evacuate everything that troubles me from the inside and leave me empty, wide open, charmed and with a huge-ass erection. Other than that and ignoring the thoughts of Sasha that constantly barrage me like barbarians at the gates, I’m all set. I don't pay much mind to ass on the street.

  Riley and I make our round, smoking in silence. Victor's waiting for us by the half-shell stage. Beside him stands the tallest sixteen-year-old I've ever seen. His face is long, moose-like even, and he wears Malcolm glasses over a serious frown.

  "Damn, Victor," I say as we stroll up. "You miss out on some genes?" Victor's not particularly short or wide but he looks like a fat midget next to his cousin. "You play ball?" I ask up at Jimmy.

  "Chess actually."

  "Oh well."

  Victor rolls his eyes. "You done?"

  I nod. "Let's walk."

  We start a wide loop around the ball field. Riley floats along beside me, invisible to Victor and the giant. It's further into evening now; the little ones have been dragged off to bed and the park belongs to a few squirming teens and some quietly conversing homeless guys. The occasional rising firefly glistens against the darkening field.

  "So me and this chick, right," Jimmy says, "we been talking, you know, for like, two, three weeks now."

  "Talking means fucking in teenager," Riley points out in my ear.

  "When you say talking," I say to Jimmy, "do you mean having a conversation or having sex?"

  The boy flashes an awkward smile and waves his hand as if swatting the thought away. "Nah, we was just talking." He giggles a little. "Yeah, you know, speaking, with words, to each other. Or whatever."

  "Gotchya."

  Victor, I realize, has turned bright red and put his hands in his pockets, which means things will only go downhill for him from here.

  "So then on, like, Saturday, was it? Yeah, Saturday. Mina – that's the chick, Mina Satorius – asks me to come over to her house and watch a movie."

  "That also means fucking, by the way," Riley says. "Ask him what this Mina looks like."

  "White chick?" I say.

  "Yeah," Jimmy nods but not, I notice, with any particular pride or boastfulness. "But she's, like, white-white, not just Caucasian-white. Not an albino either, but her skin's like fucking porcelain. Shiny and everything."

  "That's kinda creepy," Riley says. I nod, which to Riley means I agree with him and to Jimmy means 'go on.'

  "Like, she's definitely fine," Jimmy shrugs. "I mean, dudes always sweatin' her, so I was surprised when she started talking to me, 'cause I just kinda have, like, my boys I chill with and whatever, but we definitely not the cool kids, if you know what I mean."

  I say I do but I really have no idea what he's going on about. Hig
h School, if I even went, is at the bottom of a pile of deleted memories for me.

  "So whatever, you know, I go over there. She lives in Staten Island, so it's like a serious journey; had to take a train to Manhattan, then the ferry and then a bus."

  Riley belly laughs. "And I know he was thinking, 'This better not be for no damn movie.'"

  "She meets me at the bus stop. She's looking really fine, wearing one of them, what-you-call-it, spaghetti strap shirts?" Riley and I both shrug. Victor's still turning colors and chain smoking menthols with one of his FDNY rubber gloves on to hide the hand stink from Jenny. "We walk a few blocks through the suburbs. But it's, like, serious suburbs, like, manicured bushes on the lawns and tonsa space between each house, and mad pastels and shit. And I'm already feeling kinda on shaky ground, you know, 'cause clearly this place ain't seen a Negro since there was cavemen in it."

  "True, true," I say.

  "Not to mention a tall-ass Spanish-speaking one like me." We're all laughing now. I notice that the old park spirits have ventured out of their forest hideaway with the onset of dusk. They form a growing crowd of curious onlookers in our wake, marveling at this strange fellowship of night strollers.

  "Her house was ornate, yo. I mean, like some kinda Disney movie shit: All fucking swirls and coordinated furniture and pearly crap in vases. She leads me inside, and yeah, I'm definitely thinking about getting ass, but I'm still shook from being this deep in unfriendly territory, and the house is just giving me weird vibes."

  "Ah-ha!" Riley says. "Get into that!" Which I was going to do anyway, but I let it slide.

  "What kind of vibe, Jimmy?"

  "I mean, the shit just felt spooky, like I was being watched by a hundred tiny eyes. Like, you ever go into one of those emptied out apartments in the projects and you can't see 'em, but you know the wall's fucking alive with waterbugs and centipedes and shit, and even if they don't actually touch you, you can feel them all around? That's what this was like, but it was crazy, 'cause like I said, the shit was ornate."

  "Now we're talking," Riley says. He is getting excited. So are the park ghosts; I hear them muttering and humming behind us in ancient languages.

  "She leads me through the main room into a smaller one, and this one's real dark and draped with all kindsa heavy fabrics, blood red and burgundy colored curtains. But that's not even the thing with this room. This room is full, from top to bottom, of dolls. You know, like, the girly kind they're always hocking on late-night TV and you're, like, 'Who buys that shit?' Well, this lady does – all of 'em. Grandma Tess I guess, that's what Mina said. The old lady's, like, a serious doll fanatic. Mina just rolled her eyes like it was some annoying grandma thing, but I was, like, truly chilled to the bone, yo. It was deep, because like I said, I had felt all those eyes on me, and then we walked into the room and there they were, hundreds of creepy little girls, all dressed in creepy little outfits and posed in mid-gesture. And no matter where you move in the room, they all looking right at you, I swear to God."

  "That's fucked up," I say. Riley nods in agreement.

  "So babygirl starts getting all hot and heavy right then and there."

  "In the creepy doll room?"

  "In the creepy doll room!"

  "Oh hell no!" Riley yells. Even the elder ghosts swish back in disgust.

  "And I was, like, 'Oh hell no!'" Jimmy says.

  "Good man," says Riley.

  "But she's, like, fiddling with my fly, making like she wants to give me some brain."

  I look at Riley. "Bobo," he says. I blink at him. He circles his fingers near his mouth and pokes his ghostly tongue out the opposite cheek.

  I say, "Damn, son," to Jimmy, who's starting to wonder what I'm looking at. Victor shoves a fresh menthol into the dying embers of the one in his mouth and puffs 'til it's lit.

  "And I'm, like, 'Don't you have a bedroom?' And she's, like, 'Yeah but ain't you want some right here?' And I'm, like, 'Ain't you feel like a million fucking porcelain freaks about to go Chucky on your ass?'"

  "You said that?"

  "Nah, but I was thinking it."

  Riley's doubled over, slapping his knees.

  "What'd you say?"

  "I said, 'Let's go in your room, baby,' and you know, eventually she let up. But for a minute I thought I was gonna haveta choose between head in the dolls-of-death-room and no head at all. And I really don't know what I woulda done."

  Riley clicks his tongue. "That's teenagers for you. I'm horny, but not that horny."

  "So we went to her bedroom..."

  "What was it like?"

  "It was normal, you know, like your average teenage girl shit: Band posters and half naked dudes on the wall. A few leftover stuffed animals from elementary school. Mirrors and makeup and shit."

  "Nothing creepy in there? No dolls?"

  "Nah, it was cool. And when we get in she lays out on that big poofy pink bed and does the one finger c'mere thing and we just... You know."

  "You do it?"

  "Well, you know, not all the way..."

  "What base?" Riley says. I give him a what-the-fuck face. "Just ask!"

  "What, ah, base?"

  Victor scowls at me.

  "First she went down on me. It was alright, but there was definitely teeth." Riley coos sympathetically. "Then it was third base, like, right away."

  "That's French kissing?" I ask.

  "No, asshole," Riley says. "Third base is finger in the pussy."

  "Nah." Jimmy raises two fingers and two hopeful eyebrows.

  "Right," I say.

  "Alright," Victor finally pipes up. "Jimmy walk ahead a sec, I gotta talk to Carlos here." Jimmy looks confused but strolls a few feet along the dimly lit path. Night has dropped her cool darkness around us. The air is fresh with the swirling of plant life and the churning urban forest. The elder dead watch us anxiously, unclear on what the holdup is.

  Victor smokes and waves his hands like he's trying to pick the words out of the air around him. "It's just..." he takes another drag. "Jimmy was born when I was ten. I babysat him 'til he was twelve. I changed his fucking diapers. I'm not really ready for him to be getting to third base yet. That's all."

  "For a paramedic," Riley says, "Victor sure don't have a very nuanced appreciation for the gooier aspects of human life."

  "Riley says you need to get your shit together, ambulance boy," I tell Victor. "And I concur. Dirty diapers or not, the kid's growing up. So you may not be ready, but he is. Deal with it."

  The funny part is, Vic can talk up as mean a sex story as any of us, and don't get him started on the nasty traumas he catches on the graveyard shift. But that's family for you. He'll get over it. We catch up with Jimmy, who was clearly overhearing everything we said. "Can I continue to live my life now?" he says to Victor. Vic nods wearily. The ancient park spirits gather closer around us.

  "After third base, it was sloppy seconds."

  Riley turns to the floating audience. "That means he licked her titties." They nod solemnly.

  "They were a little on the small side," Jimmy reports, "but perky. Looked right at you. It was awesome. And I know this sounds corny, but the whole thing was just really sweet. Like, it was comfortable, you know? She didn't try to act all pornstar like some of 'em do. We just kinda held each other for a while."

  "That's sweet," Victor admits.

  "Then she blew me again 'til I nutted on her face."

  The whole park lets out a collective hum of muted fascination. Teenagers really are another species entirely.

  "We passed out – well she cleaned up and then we passed out – and I dreamt some heavy shit. I can't remember what was going on though, but this creepy carnival type song was playing the whole time."

  "You remember how it went?"

  "I actually can't get the fucking song outta my head. It's haunting me. And I can't figure out if it started before I fell asleep or not, like, you know, when you're almost passed out, but not quite? That's when the music started."

&n
bsp; "How'd it sound?"

  Jimmy whistles an eerie minor key waltz, slightly off time and dissonant. It gives me the chills. The park ghosts have widened their circle around us by the time he finishes. Riley and I trade concerned looks.

  "That's evil," Riley declares.

  "Word," I say. Jimmy looks confused. "That melody's got some power in it," I tell him. "But go 'head. What happened next?"

  "When I woke up, Mina's gone and the dolls are all around me in the bed."

  "Now that," Riley says, "is some horror movie shit."

  "And I feel sick, like, physically ill. Not to mention terrified. I throw 'em off me and they're so cold – it's not natural. It was still dark out, just before dawn actually, and I just got up and fucking booked it outta there. I barely put on my clothes all the way, just was out. Out, son. My black ass was running down all them crazy Arthur Kill Road type-a streets and I wasn't even afraida no crazy white people anymore. I woulda been relieved to see some sheet-wearing mothafuckas, just to get away from those dolls, I swear, Carlos. I was shook."

  "Then what?"

  "I caught the first ferry home. Passed the eff out and tried to forget the whole thing happened."

  "Alright," Riley says. "So some phantomified American Girl dolls jumped him after he banged their owner's granddaughter. He got away. It's spooky but not much else. Open-shut."

  "Anything else go on since?" I ask Jimmy.

  "That's the thing," he tells me, and I feel a little lump building in my throat. "I haven't really been the same since."

  "What, you can't sleep? Nightmares? That'll pass."

  "No, man, I'm telling you, I'm off. Look." He reaches his hand out to Victor and his fingers shudder dimly and fade into his cousin's shirt. "I'm disappearing!"

  This is bad. This is bad in so many ways. I can almost feel Riley's gears turning at the same time as mine. The dolls. The girl. The grandma. And now our boy's slowly checking out.

  No easy way to do this: I reach a hand I hope will be comforting up to Jimmy's shoulder. It doesn't pass through him but I can tell the flesh isn't fully there. "You're dying," I say. "You don't have much time."

  Victor spits out his cigarette. "What?"