by Alisa Valdes
He put a finger to his lips, and pulled me over to Kelsey, grabbing her hard by the wrist, too. He wore a black long-sleeved t-shirt, with the name of the old band Led Zeppelin on it, with a chain that appeared to have dog tags on it, around his neck. The shirt wasn’t overly tight or anything, but you could tell how nicely shaped he was beneath it - a strong young man, not overly so in a stupid, grunty kind of way, but rather perfectly so. He glowed with good health. He wore jeans, too.
“Hey!” Kelsey shouted. “Let go of me!”
“I will, don’t worry, but in there.” He jutted his chin toward the church.
At that moment, we heard the sound of a car rumbling up the dirt road we’d just been on, and when we looked toward the noise we saw that it was the low-rider Bronco from the trailer, still a good ways off, but barreling down on us, fast. Demetrio saw it, too, and his face registered alarm and worry.
“I was afraid of that. Come with me. Now.”
His grip on us was nonnegotiable as he yanked us away from the car, across the cemetery and through the open door of the church. I was astonished by his strength, which overrode our protests and struggling with ease. It almost felt like we flew behind him.
“What the hell are you doing?” Kelsey shrieked, while I was too afraid to utter a peep. “Help! Help!”
Once inside the earthen chapel, he closed the enormous wooden door behind us with a dark, incontrovertible thud, locking it with an old-fashioned enormous metal key that hung from a hook in the wall.
“Shh,” he said, putting his finger to his lips. Kelsey and I looked at each other, utterly terrified, as we listened to the sound of the Bronco pulling up next to the Land Rover outside.
“Help!” screamed Kelsey, once more.
Demetrio clamped his hand over her mouth, and steadied her with his other arm. He spoke with his face very close to hers. “You need to stop that, if you hope to live,” he told her in a harsh whisper.
“Omigod, we’re going to die,” whispered Kelsey.
“Not if you can control your outbursts,” said Demetrio. “Don’t let them hear you.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The guys from the trailer,” he said as he regarded me with disgruntlement. “You shouldn’t of gone there, mamita.”
“I know that. I didn’t want to go there. She did.”
“Don’t blame me!” hissed Kelsey. “You’re the one who fell in love with him.” She pointed at Demetrio. “Now we’re going to die.
Demetrio registered what she had just said, and he seemed momentarily pleased by the news of my adoration of him. I, on the other hand, was horrified, until he kept talking as though she hadn’t confessed my crush for me.
“Shh,” said Demetrio. “No hysterics, please. They can’t get in here. They won’t come in here. Trust me. Just chill.”
We stood still, all of us, and I think I held my breath for a long moment, listening as the Bronco’s engine revved like a dragon outside the castle. After a minute or two, the obnoxious revving stopped, and we heard the Bronco peel out of the parking lot, the rumble of its overly-loud engine growing more and more distant until the air around us became completely silent.
“They’re gone,” said Demetrio.
“Who are they?” I asked him. “They have the same tattoos you do.”
He nodded grimly. “Let’s just say they’re old coworkers. The one with the long hair used to be my boss. His name’s Ulysses.”
“You’re kidding me. ‘Ulysses’?”
He cracked a grin. “I wish. Nah, mamita. Ulysses. Variant of the name Odysseus, from the Greek verb odussomai, which means wrathful and hated. Suits him, right?”
I stared open-mouthed at him as I realized he was speaking proper English, just as he did in the dream.
“You were there,” I whispered, unable to find my voice.
“Where, mamita? Greece? Nah. Lived in Golden all my life.”
“The dream. The triangle. It was you, wasn’t it?”
He blinked a few times and it seemed like he was deciding how to answer me, before looking away, embarrassed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “You always just say these weird things, Maria. It’s kind of cute, but we should sit down and talk for a minute right now, before you guys get yourselves hurt. C’mon.”
He led us deeper into the empty church now, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. To my astonishment, the interior of the old earthen church was simple, cold, rectangular, ancient, and smelled of wet plaster, very much like the room had been in my dream the night before. I shuddered, and wrapped my arms tightly across my chest. I was not going crazy, I told myself. I wasn’t. I couldn’t be.
Demetrio stopped at the front pew, and knelt down to make the sign of the cross over himself before taking a seat and motioning for us to join him on the wooden bench. Kelsey looked completely confused and afraid, so I tried to reassure her with a smile. I knew something was amiss, but I didn’t think we were in danger, exactly. I sat next to Demetrio, and Kelsey sat on the other side of me. The room was more visible now that my eyes had adjusted, and I saw the simple altar, with the images of saints painted on the walls behind it.
“Is this where you live?” I asked Demetrio, though as I asked it, I knew it to be true for some reason. Maybe because he had smelled just like this place the day he called 911 for me.
“I’ll answer your questions after you answer mine,” he said, matter-of-fact, turning to look me steadily, almost incriminatingly, in the eye. “What are you doing here, and why did you go to Ulysses house?”
I explained that we had decided to come looking for Demetrio on a “girlish whim, because we’re stupid like that.”
“Why?” he asked, clearly irritated with me. “I specifically told you not to come asking questions about me around here. I told you it wasn’t safe, Maria. I said I’d find you. But you did it anyway. I thought Coronado Prep kids was supposed to be smart?”
I could tell Kelsey was about to go off on her tirade about money and intelligence, so I shot her a look to shut her down.
“I wanted to ask you about something,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I saw you disappear in a twinkle of lights the other night, when you just left me there and ran away, and I want to know what’s going on. When I drove home that night, I got attacked by a coyote, but after I showed it your prayer card, it dried up like beef jerky and flew away like a bat.”
“She isn’t always this preposterous,” Kelsey told him. “I’m actually starting to get a little worried about her.”
Demetrio chuckled at us as though we were both very young and utterly pitiful, and shook his head wearily. He used the tips of his fingers to rub his temples for a moment, as though we gave him an awful headache, and groaned in frustration.
“Maria. I think you might have a bit of trauma from the accident,” he said.
“You see?” Kelsey said, punching me in the arm. “I told you! Even he thinks so.”
“What?” I asked her, incredulous. “A second ago you believed me, and now you’re on his side? Not fair!”
“Well, yeah, there’s a logical explanation for everything, if you think about it,” she said. “I have to stop listening to your superstitious stuff.”
“Ladies,” said Demetrio, turning my head so that I was looking at him again. “I need you to understand what I’m about to tell you, and understand it good mamita. Can you do that?”
I didn’t like his condescending attitude, but I nodded.
“I told you I’m in a gang. I didn’t front about it, I didn’t lie. You asked about these,” he indicated his tattoos, “and I told you the truth because I felt like I could trust you. What you didn’t know, and I didn’t want you to ever have to know, is that I did some things when I was part of the gang that were really bad, and now I’m trying to get myself right with God. I’m trying to leave the gang. It’s not an easy thing to do. They don’t like you to leave. They don’t let you leave eas
y. It’s a battle I don’t want you in the middle of, because you seem like a great girl.”
“That drowned-rat gang leader guy with meth breath said you were dead,” blurted Kelsey. “What does that even mean?”
Demetrio paused for a moment to look over at her, something furious flashing in his eyes. It scared me and I felt a brief dizziness and nausea course through me.
“It means I’m in deep,” he said. “Let’s just say he was speaking metaphorically, for now, that I’m dead to him, but that he has every intention of making it true in a permanent sense. You don’t leave these situations without being punished. And these guys won’t hesitate to punish anyone I love - or care about.” He looked at me nervously, like he’d revealed too much. “Or anyone who cares about me. That’s how they roll. That’s why the nicest thing I can do for you is tell you to stay away from here. From me.”
We sat quietly for a moment, and then I asked him, “Why don’t you just move? Go to another town? Another state? Somewhere they can’t find you?”
He laughed openly at me. “You don’t get it, do you? They’ll always be able to find me. I can’t leave. Plus I got responsibilities here. It’s hard to explain, mamita.”
He regarded me with a sorrowful smile now, and took a deep breath. “There’s so much I’d love to tell you, but for your own safety, and for mine, I can’t. I don’t doubt for a second that you both be smart enough to understand what I’m telling you. The men you spoke to today ain’t good men.”
“I saw that guy’s eyes, the rat guy. I agree he’s a bad man, a very bad man.”
“Ulysses,” I said. “Penelope’s husband.”
“I know, but I refuse to say that name without laughing,” she replied, “and I’m not really in a laughing mood right now, thank you very much.”
“Now that they know you’re looking for me, and you’re my friends - I’m assuming that’s what you told them?”
Kelsey nodded, guiltily.
He sighed again and briefly buried his face in his hands before sighing deeply.
“Okay. Now that you’ve done this, you’re marked, too. It’s all my fault. The last thing I expected was that I’d develop feelings for you in the middle of all this garbage, and I’m sorry for dragging you into it.”
I stared at him, my mouth just a tiny bit open. “You have feelings for me?” I asked, butterflies rioting in my belly.
“Yeah, mami. You can’t tell?”
“She has feelings for you, too,” Kelsey told him, to my horror. “But she’s too goody-goody to admit it. She’s too delusional about her boyfriend, who’s an ass. Tell him about the dream.” She shoved me playfully.
“Kelsey, please,” I said, blushing and annoyed.
Kelsey steamrolled on, her eyes alight with pleasure, hands flying wildly. “She was practically naked, in this underground room, and you were dressed like a monk but you were going to seduce her but then her stepmom woke her up.” She blinked at me. “It sounded better when you told it, honestly.”
“Would you please shut up?” I asked Kelsey. “God, I can’t stand you sometimes.”
“I know you feel what I do,” he told me, maturely ignoring Kelsey. “It’s almost like electricity, or chemistry, and it’s real, and I’m pretty sure there’s science behind it, frankly. But I don’t think you should get in the middle of the mess that I’m in right now. It wouldn’t be fair to you. We got plenty time, later. Go back to your life, Maria, and stop trying to seek me out. Let me find you, when the time is right. Or better yet, let’s just not see each other at all until it’s over.”
I felt tears well up in my eyes. “That’s really nice and really mean at the same time,” I said. I groped for his hand, and found it, squeezed it. Instantly, I was met with the incredible warmth and sense of peace I’d gotten the other times we’d touched. He looked down at our hands, and looked...scared. Like a little boy.
“Whoa,” he whispered, as a sort of heat energy just pulsed back and forth between us.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling all melty inside. “I think that’s what they mean by chemistry.”
“Uhm,” said Kelsey. “I think you’re about to have a sickeningly touching moment. I think I’ll just go look around the back of the church for a minute and think about Israel and the Moors, or something. If that’s cool with you. Uhm, yeah. Well, alrighty then.”
We didn’t answer, because we were quite occupied looking into each other’s eyes. I’d never felt this way before, and the magnetic pull toward him was overwhelming. I scooted closer, but just as he’d done last night, he braced himself, then backed away. He dropped my hand, and literally recoiled from me as though I had the plague.
“The best thing I can do for you is leave you alone,” he said, struggling to believe it.
“That’s not true.”
“It is. Trust me. It has to be. Please trust me.” He turned his attention to a small blue door at the back of the room, anxiously.
“Do you live here?” I asked him.
“Something like that. I’m safe there, because even Ulysses is afraid of The Maker.”
“The Maker?”
He looked embarrassed, caught, and backtracked. “God,” he said. “That’s what I meant to say. God and the church. The bad guys know better than to come in here, and the people here have been very kind about sheltering me and my animals.”
“Why all the animals?”
“Don’t you know why, mamita?” he asked me, with a knowing look. “You feel the same way about them that I do. It’s love. I’ve seen you with Buddy. You’re like I am, a big softie. It’s one of the things that makes you so beautiful, Maria.”
I was struck then by the incredible difference between Demetrio and Logan with regards to animals. I’d never known a man who loved them the way I did. I didn’t think such males existed.
“Are you gay?” I asked him.
“What?” He seemed surprised, but not offended. “No. Why do you ask?”
“Because you love animals, always smell good, and you won’t kiss me.”
He laughed softly and sighed. “I’m very straight. I’m also careful. I’m not impulsive, Maria. This ain’t the right time for us, me and you.”
“I can help you do this, get away from those guys,” I said. “My mom’s really powerful, she’s a city councilor and a lawyer, she’s running for mayor and comes from an old powerful family in New Mexico; she can help you. She knows a lot of people. Really.”
“That’s really nice, mamita, but you don’t understand what’s at stake,” he told me, and I saw tears well in his eyes. “Just trust me, please, and go.”
“Don’t do this,” I whined.
“You have to leave here. I’ve - I’ve never known a girl like you. You’re safe to leave now. Those guys are pretty much nocturnal, and they’re gone on their rounds. I promise I’ll see you again. Okay? But not - not like - I don’t know. I’m a little confused, too. I have to go.”
“No,” I said, crying a little.
“I’m sorry. I have to go. Bye.”
He opened the blue door, stepped through, and shut it behind him. I went back to the front door, and found Kelsey there trying to blend in with the shadows.
“That was very sad, and creepy and totally inappropriate in every way,” she said.
I hugged her, and broke down crying. “I’m totally losing my mind, aren’t I?” I mumbled into her shoulder.
“Maybe,” she said, holding me tightly. “Yes. I mean hell yes, you are. You are. But all that means is that it’s our job to help you find it again. Let’s get out of here and go home. We don’t belong here and you know it.”
I looked around, and tried to believe her, but honestly, I felt like I did belong there. I felt like an acorn fallen to the base of its tree, like a Monarch Butterfly following its instincts to the natal land of its grandparents. I was supposed to be here. But I knew better than to tell her this. Even with the best of friends, there were limits to disclosures.
“Let’s go,” I said.
And we did.
♦
We didn’t make it far, however. As soon as we left the town limits, at Mile Marker 21, the road was suddenly coated in shrapnel, bits of sharp metal that seemed to have fallen from a junkyard truck. I saw it too late to swerve away, and bumpingly ran the Land Rover over it all. The large pieces of debris were too much even for the tank I was driving. I felt a small explosion beneath the car, and then heard the telltale flap and thud of a flat tire.
“Great,” said Kelsey. “Just when you think your day can’t suck any worse than it already does, what with your life being threatened by a trailer trash gang leader named Ulysses, this happens.”
I hobbled the car to the shoulder of the highway, and turned to look at her with worry in my eyes. “This is where I crashed,” I told her, scarcely able to believe it myself.
“I know. Golden, Highway 14. Yadda yadda yadda.”
“No. It’s exactly where I crashed, Kelsey. Exactly. This is the same exact spot.”
Kelsey gulped, but pretended to shrug it off. “So, it’s a coincidence.”
“If you believe in coincidences.”
We sat in silence for a moment. A coyote call pierced the evening air. It was close, and the animal seemed to yip for joy that the sun was going down, opening up the bunny buffet.
“Do you believe in coincidences?” she asked me.
“I used to. But, no. I don’t think so. Not anymore.”
“Yeah. Well, me neither,” Kelsey pouted. “And I’m pretty much blaming you for that, provided we survive to assign blame at all.”
I fumbled through the glove box for the roadside assistance number, and called it. I gave the dispatcher the coordinates from the GPS map. Ten minutes passed, and we still waited for help. Twenty minutes later, and we still waited. By then, Kelsey was wiggling and bouncing around in her seat, her legs tightly crossed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“I really have to pee,” she said. “All that water I drank.”
“You have to hold it.”
“I can’t. You saw all that water I drank. I really have to go, Maria. I mean really.”