Dancing with the Devil and Other Stories from Beyond / Bailando con el diablo y otros cuentos del más allá

by René Saldaña, Jr.

  “Is anything the matter?” asked María.

  “No, why do you ask?” answered Cecilia, again craning her neck toward the window, then looking back at her cousins immediately. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Well, why didn’t you go to the dance?” asked Julia.

  “The dance? Why didn’t I go?”

  “Yes. Ernesto waited for you all night. When the final song was announced, he held his chest as if he were heart broken and left running,” said María.

  “It was such a sad scene,” added Julia.

  “So, why didn’t you go?”

  After several minutes of prodding her for an answer and getting none, the girls said they would visit with her later in the week. Before walking out into the hall, María turned around and said, “Oh, by the way, Cecilia, the mayor announced that the next dance will be held next month. I hope you’ll show up to that one.”

  Cecilia looked out the window, and without turning back to her cousins, said, “Yes, I will go, but only if God wills it.”

  Have I Got a Marble for You

  Title holder or not, Toño fudged at last year’s Peñitas Marble Championship. I’m almost 100% positive. I don’t know how, but he cheated. It wasn’t anything obvious, like switching shooters partway into the game, or using a steelie for his shooter. But something’s amiss and I haven’t figured out what. It doesn’t make a lick of sense to me how a guy comes in last for three years running and then last year, out of the blue, he turns into a marble wizard.

  Sleight of hand or not, I mean to win at the end of the summer. So I’m practicing every chance I get, I’m studying videos of various better-attended marble tournaments around the country and a couple of You Tube postings of some international events. Anything to get a leg up. I mean anything short of selling my soul, which might be what Toño did. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s been gunning for the title forever. Maybe I’d go that far if the price is right. And what would that be? A magical shooter. I heard about just such a marble. A girl from Sweden paid over 200 bucks for a marble called the Deep Space Vortex, an infinite twisting of an ominous cloud caught inside this tiny orb of glass. She won an international title, and she said it all had to do with her magical mib, this hand-made marble she found online.

  That’s what I’m looking for. A shooter that will give me a supernatural edge. I’ll beat Toño, take back the title of Peñitas Grand Master Marble Champion. I’ve got to do it this year because next year, at 15, I’ll be too old to play. So it’s for keeps this go-around.

  Since it’s summer time, I practice every day, all day long, as long as my folks let me, which is pretty long since I’m training in my backyard. I practice tossing my shooter from the pitch line to the lag line, standing, my knees slightly bent, my arm dangling at my side, then swinging it back and forth three times, then letting my shooter fly through the air, a perfect arc, usually bouncing once before rolling to a stop an inch or two from the goal. I do this every time, and that’s with my regular, old shooter. The right marble would get me mere millimeters from the line, if not smack-dab on it. I want that marble.

  But I don’t have two hundred dollars to spend on one.

  “If it’s the perfect marble you’re after,” said Miguelón, my trainer and so-so friend from down the street, “I might have a line on one. I heard about this kid over by the Circle 7 store who says he’s got exactly what you’re looking for.”

  “Yeah? You seen it yourself?” I ask.

  “Nah. It was Toño who told me about the kid. Toño said it’s a sight to behold (his words), nicer even than the Vortex, definitely nicer than anything he’s got. Said it looks like pure silver, but it’s not. It’s regulation. Glass. But a beaute, he swears.”

  “How’s he know it ain’t metal? That wouldn’t do me any good.”

  “Toño held it, jammed the shooter hard into the tiny cave of his thumb and middle and index fingers. Said it felt like magic in there. But something wasn’t right about the boy, he said. Something like an emptiness in his eyes. In his voice something dry. Not a raspy, I’m thirsty kind of dry; more like the crackling of a shriveled leaf. That Toño, right: one championship under his belt and he thinks he’s Muhammad Ali getting all poetic that way. Whatever! Anyway, the boy said Toño could have it for free, and plenty more of them. All he had to do was to follow the boy to the motel where his mother was waiting for them. He said the kid said, ‘Come on, Toño, you’ve got to go with me. You’ve just got to.’ Crazy kind of talk, Toño thought, for several reasons, the most important being, how’d the kid know his name when he’d never told it to him. So Toño dropped the marble at the boy’s feet and ran, hard.”

  I can’t believe it. What an opportunity that had knocked on Toño’s door, and he didn’t answer. He blew it. What a fool! I won’t make the same mistake. I turn to Miguelón, and nonchalantly ask, “So this kid, this boy with the marble, you said he was hanging out at the store?”

  “Yeah, at Circle 7. Wait—what are you thinking of doing?” He grabs me by the shoulders. “No. It’s not gonna happen, Felipe. When Toño was telling me his story, I saw in his eyes he was scared. He wasn’t joking. This kid put the fear of God in him. Tell me you’re not gonna go looking for him.” When I don’t answer, he says, “Felipe, tell me you won’t do anything stupid.”

  That I can tell him, I can even promise him I won’t. But I’m already making plans to go looking for the boy. For this silver marble that could be the answer to all my problems. Anyway, what’s more foolish than to let this break pass me by? With this magical orb, I’ll win Peñitas. Next the Nationals. And the World’s after that, why not? Besides, the way I see it, I’m gonna take just the one marble. The miraculous one that will earn me hundreds, if not thousands when I win it all. And I’m too smart to go with a stranger anywhere, whether he’s a harmless looking kid or not. I’ll be satisfied with just the one.

  I smile. “Sure, Miguelón. I’m not going to do anything stupid. Just the opposite, trust me.”

  The transaction goes smoothly. I need a special marble, he has it, and he hands it over, and he doesn’t ask for anything in return except to say that there’s plenty more where that one came from, better marbles. “If this one doesn’t last you, Mother’s got this gold one, a sphere that transforms into an eye when you hold it up to the sunlight just so. Mother says that the eye will see for you in the ring. It’ll know where to go to get the job done. All you’ve got to do is come with me right now. Mother will be more than happy to let you have it. It’s sure to do the trick for you.”

  Sure, the kid’s spooky with his bulging black eyes and pale skin and wiry hair. But when I tell him never mind about what all else he was offering, he basically drops the subject: “Just so you know, it’s there if you need it.” He points in the direction of the motel to this side of the irrigation canal.

  Tempting as it is, I’m not stupid. Who is this kid, anyhow? I don’t know him from Adam in the Garden of Eden. So I pocket the silver and walk up the alleyway behind the store quickly, not looking back once. I got what I came for, and head for my backyard to put in some practice.

  The tournament’s a week away. If this shooter’s going to do it for me, I’ve got to get a feel for her, know how she behaves under pressure.

  In the backyard, I don’t treat TCB softly, that’s what I decide to call her: TCB (Taking Care of Business) I flick her hard at the other marbles. I mean, I chuck her hard at my glasses, at my clays, and just to be sure, at my steelies. Each time I take up my new shooter, I inspect her for the tiniest of flea bites, pin-prick-sized chips. But no going. It stands solid against the harshest of treatment. It’s a winner. My winner!

  To top it off, when I fling the shooter with my special brand of English, I’m able to knock out the intended marble and, on the bounce back, push another one or two out of the ring. Plus, every single time, my TCB comes to rest in the middle of the circle. Pure magic! I’m a shoo-in. Toño won’t know what hit him.

  The following wee
k, the three-day tournament gets underway. It’s the greatest turn out so far. Players come from all around: from here in Peñitas de Arriba, from Peñitas de Abajo, from Tierra Blanca, from Tom Gill, even one kid from Ojo de Agua. That means a lot of marbles we’re playing for. Each mibster antes up 100 choice marbles that will be added to the pot as one after another is knocked out. The rules are simple: two players go head-to-head, for keeps, last man standing takes all.

  The first day of competition comes and goes easy for me. I win both my games. The second day is going smoothly, too. I’m playing my last match of the afternoon. I knuckle-down with my shooter, take aim, flick the magic and knock the final of my opponent’s marbles out of the ring, but then I notice the nick in my silver. Bigger than a flea-bite, but still small. Maybe, I think, it’ll do the job for me, still. I’ve got only a couple matches to go before the finals. If only I can make it last. I finger it all the way home. When I get to my backyard, I toe the pitch line, fling the marble toward the lag and it comes to rest way off its mark, a foot away, no matter what I try. And when I shoot it at another marble, either I miss outright, or when I hit it, my poor TCB practically bounces back from even the most common of my commies. Worse yet, the nick becomes a hairline crack, and stupid me, I push her too hard: she breaks in half. My magic marble is done for. Out of commission. Tomorrow I’m sure to face Toño first thing, and here I am empty-handed. Nooooo! I want to scream. Tears are welling up in my eyes. What will I do? I wonder. And I’ve got no answer. I trudge to my room all down in the mouth. My last year in, and I’m going to lose. I’ve come this far, so near victory I can touch it, only to lose on a fluke. And Toño’s dealing some fierce magic out there, a sure winner. My old shooter’s not gonna cut it. Then it hits me, first thing tomorrow morning, before the shooting gets going, I’ll go looking for that kid.

  A couple of times today I saw him hanging around the tournament, always at the edges of the crowd but perking up and pushing his way closer when it was TCB’s and my turn up. It’s then I remember that he’d said his mother has another and better marble, and that’s what I need. Right then I decide if he says this way to the Goldie, I’m gonna follow him. What’s the worst that can happen, right? He’s a skinny kid; I can take him, and his mom can’t be that strong. I mean, she’s a girl, right? A bit more at ease, I begin dozing off.

  But before I’m out for the night, I’m startled awake by a howling outside and a rattling of the window. Like someone outside crying at the top of his lungs and trying to force his way inside. At first, I’m too scared to get out of bed and see for myself it’s nothing but a surprise norther making the window bang like that. I consider calling out for Dad, but that would mean that I still rely on the old man for every little thing, including scaring away the wind monsters, which, by the way, I tell myself, don’t exist. It had to have been the wind. So I tip-toe to the window and check that it’s locked tight. It is. I even take a quick look out into the dark and am relieved when I don’t see anything, or anyone among the shadows. “The wind,” I whisper. “It had to have been the wind.”

  Just then, the wind shrieks again, a long and miserable wail this time. I spin toward my bed and I’m about to jump onto it and under the safety of my quilt, when I stop cold where I stand. As I’d been spinning, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a figure at the window, the boy, maybe, holding up the gold marble. I swing back around to check it out, but when I’m full-on facing the window, the boy isn’t there and my heart is beating hard in my chest. All in my head, I try telling myself. Still, I’m scared witless, so I leap at my bed and in one move, I dive under my quilt and cover my whole self under it. I hardly sleep a wink.

  So the following day, early, my lids heavy from lack of sleep, I head directly for the store. When I get there, I don’t see the boy anywhere. I step inside and ask Nena behind the register if she’s seen the kid who’s been hanging out by the phone with the wild hair and the pale skin.

  “Nope. Nobody out this early but folks getting breakfast before work.”

  I walk outside. I’ve got to find the kid, and fast. There’s only a half hour before the shooting starts, and if I don’t show up on time, I forfeit my game. I’m not ready to do that just yet. But as the minutes pass, it dawns on me that my career in marbles is coming to a quick and shameful end. Stop thinking that way, I tell myself. You’re going to win. You just have to be patient. He’ll show up, I’ll get what I need, and that’ll be that.

  And, as if by magic, here he comes. Talking fast, I explain my situation to the boy. He smiles, and when I ask, “What’s so funny?” he says, “Nothing. I’m just happy because, well, uh, because I can help you out. And maybe you’ll be able to help me out too. Isn’t that something to smile about?”

  He’s right, I’m so close now to winning back that championship, nothing’s going to stop me. So I smile back, from ear to ear.

  The boy says, “First, my name is Porfirio, but call me Fito. Second, I’ve got just the marble to help you win, the gold one I told you about.”

  My heart’s beating in my throat. I heard him right; he just said he’d give me a gold marble. I’m freaking out because last night when I imagined seeing Fito in the window, he was holding out a gold mib. Scary, but whatever. He’s got something I need, and I need it now, or within the next 15 minutes, anyway. “So, hand it over, Fito,” I say, looking anxious.

  “I don’t have it with me. We have to go ask Mother for it. She’ll take good care of you. Good thing you found me this morning. I was here to get some tacos to go because Mother and I were about to quit and move on. Cool how things turn out, huh? This might just work out for all of us.”

  I’ve got no clue what he’s talking about, but I say, “Yeah, cool, whatever, let’s go.” Time is of the essence.

  We reach the old, run-down motel. Inside the room it’s dark, the air is heavy. Fito’s mom is sitting by a tiny window facing the irrigation canal, her back to us. “Momma,” says Fito. “Look who’s here. It’s Felipe.”

  At my name, she sighs deeply. Like she knows me. Like I’ve been gone a long time and here I am, back in her loving arms. Weird!

  “Can it be? Can I be this close?” she says to no one in particular. “No more walking around aimlessly, searching, always searching?” Like I say, bizarre. I would’ve taken off because she’s creeping me out, but she has that certain something I want. So if she stands up, dances a jig and hugs all over me planting wet sloppy kisses on my cheeks, well, so be it, so long as I get my Goldie.

  She turns to me and smiles, then motions for me to follow her to the small desk in the corner of the room: “Come to me. Have I got a marble for you.”

  This is it. I’m almost there, I can smell the victory, but I wish she’d hurry. I’m running out of time. The others are probably already gathering, polishing their shooters, chatting nervously. Making predictions. One or two asking, “Has anyone seen Felipe?” Scanning the alleyway, and when they don’t spot me here or there, the entire field of marblistas becomes a-twitter with excitement.

  “So,” I say, “about the marble. Fito said you had another marble like the silver one he gave me the other day, only golden, and better. So . . . ”

  “So,” she says, “this marble, it’s going to cost you.”

  I panic. Fito hadn’t said anything about it costing me. I don’t have a cent to my name. I look at Fito, who shrugs and disappears into the shadows in a corner of the room. “Cost me? Fito didn’t say nothing about paying for it. I don’t have any money. But listen, if I can still get the marble, I promise, you give me a week and I’ll pay you for it.”

  “Oh,” she says, “you’ll pay for it, because it isn’t free.” Then I think I hear her say, “It’ll cost you plenty.” She slides open the drawer and holds an open palm out, tempting me with the glittering, sparkly marble.

  I don’t take it right off. I pause. So she shoves it at me, under my nose practically. Boy, next to the Vortex, this is the most beautiful marble in the world
. Then she rolls it slightly on the tips of her fingers, and when the sunlight hits it just so, there’s the eye, and I’m freaking out. It’s way more beautiful than that girl’s Vortex.

  “Go on, mijo, take it. It’s yours, like I said.” She grabs me by the wrist, forces my hand open and drops the marble in the palm of my hand. I can feel it burning there and I so want to get to my first match of the day. But she doesn’t let go of my wrist. She holds it, and I shiver. Her hands are cold and hot at the same time. I shut my hand tight around the marble and yank myself free.

  “How much are you going to want for it?” I ask.

  “Mijo, you go and win this silly contest of yours. Don’t worry about payment right now. Later, Fito will find you. He’ll tell you how much you owe. Now go, you don’t want to be late.”

  With that, I wave at Fito and beat it out of there.

  I get to the ring just as Miguelón is about to forfeit. When he sees me coming he runs up to me. “Where’ve you been, man? You almost lost all your marbles.” He thinks for a moment, smiles and adds, “Sorry about the pun. But for real, you’re cutting it close. So where were you?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You okay? You look all pale, man.”

  I shrug and show him the marble.

  “No way! I held my tongue yesterday. I didn’t say anything about the silver mib and where you got it. And to be honest, maybe I didn’t because you were winning. But this is too much. You’re asking for trouble. That kid’s dangerous.”

  “Whatever. Fito’s okay. His mom, on the other hand . . . ”

  “His mom?” Miguelón screams. “You’ve seen his mom?”

  “Yeah, just now. I came from the old motel. She’s weird, man. I don’t mind telling you she scared me some, but here I am, the winner in hand and ready to play.”