The incisions running up my arms pulse in pained protest. The red rice-sack bandana tight around my forehead helps me ignore the tingling and focus on the task at hand. I must be alert. Never know what’s out here.
In the distance, the highway trickle of cars spews smog into the morning air. The graveyard’s a shortcut to the barrio, the place of pillage for anything useful.
Looks like someone else is also on food duty – a mangy dog, foraging amongst the tombstones. Its howls penetrate the still morning, just another hungry animal twitching in the cracking dawn.
A human answers the call, alerting the dog. It’s a boy, atop a rusty bike, but not just any boy. That’s Amilton, wearing the rival yellow bandana fashioned from corn sack strips.
The dog hobbles over, hoping for scraps. Amilton bounds off the bike, letting it fall to the ground. “Nothing for you perra.” He kicks it in the ribs. It yelps and hobbles off, zigzagging around the graves.
And me, standing there in plain view.
“Hey! Pinche cabrón! What you doing on our turf, aye? Lost?”
His turf? “Last time I checked it’s ours.”
“Check again, cabrón. This side of the highway’s ours now.”
“Since when?”
“Aye, doesn’t matter when. It’s ours now.”
Food must be even scarcer on the other side of the highway. I can see ribs through his skin.
“I don’t want no trouble,” I say. “Just passing through.”
He sidles closer. “Little cabrón. All alone.” He rests a leg on a tombstone. “Why don’t you stay in your tower?”
“What’s so bad about your side?”
He gurgles his throat and spits phlegm. “Eh. Garbage. All garbage. And the whole time you drink clear water. But not today.”
Then he charges forward. Our fists are up. We circle and engage.
Amilton swings his arm wide, a bad opener. I sidestep and bash his chest. Amilton curls up, arms at his midsection. His face is wide open and gets punched once, twice. He swings both fists. I retreat, sliding on the ground and he takes the chance to deck me with a well-connected overhead. On the ground, I bite his leg, but he kicks my face with the other.
That’s enough. I cover my face and roll away. Panting, I run like a dog toward the barrio. It’s too early in the morning for this, and it’s held me up from my morning mission.
***
In the distance, the barrio dwellings blanket the mountain like a skin rash. Alleys twist around the slums, the perfect place to get lost or scavenge. Sound from competing televisions reverberates against scattered barrels and wooden crates. Laundry dries above. Small oscillating fans circulate hot air inside crumbling apartments. The sweet aroma of baked arepas is thrust into the morning air.
A window opens into a kitchen. Beyond, cluttered newspaper piles litter the home. In the living room, a plump woman is slumped in a wicker chair, asleep in front of a television game show.
Pain alights my gills when I hoist myself up and through the window. Someone’s just guessed three correct numbers in a row and won fifty thousand.
Inside the fridge sits a plastic bag with four rolls, a pair of tomatoes, a bag of rice, and some candy bars inside. All mine.
A brass jingle signaling a commercial break bursts through the television speakers. The woman jolts awake and looks in my direction.
“Hello? Who are you?”
I’m gone before she can make sense of what’s happened. I take the long way back, avoiding the graveyard.
I head to Torre Perdida, a half-finished skyscraper and centerpiece to the marred skyline. Once a failed governmental project, now it’s the closest we have to a sanctuary against the outside world.
At the threshold, I strike the secret knock on the heavy doors. They unlatch and creak open. A boy acknowledges me and secures the entrance once I’m inside.
The lights inside expired long ago. Eyes can adjust to dimness, but noses will never get used to the ripe stench of the lobby. Some of the other boys are there, a few sleeping, all fatigued. Others are missing – hopefully on a run – braving the steep mountain trek to return water to the group.
Finding a dim corner, I tear into a candy bar. The warm, brown chocolate has a sweet yet foreign taste. I put the rest of the bars in my pocket.
Upstairs, I bang a rhythm on room 305’s door, jostling flakes of paint from the wall. The door squeaks open.
Inside, empty churro sheaths, cellophane wrappers, and plastic bottles litter the ground. Several overfilled garbage bins cluster the corner. The refuse is starting to discolor the floor. Near an open window, a weak oscillating fan with exposed blades parcels the stench. Our older leader Santuel presides in the middle of it all upon a chair with torn arms. Next to him, a pack of crumpled cigarettes and a rusty box cutter wait on a coffee table.
Santuel’s gills travel up his arms and connect just under his neck. A horizontal slit disfigures his forehead. He’s got two times as many, maybe three times, as I do.
Kneeling, I present the bag of food – minus the candy.
“Good work, Mauricio,” Santuel says, looking through the bag. “You’re getting better every week.”
Santuel makes an incision above my uppermost gill with the box cutter. The new gill puffs open like a tiny bleeding mouth.
The more incisions we get, the less they sting. They are marks of respect amongst us, medals borne of skin. Flexing, the blood trickles down my arm.
Santuel lights a cigarette and places it between his chapped lips. He exhales smoke and swirls it around, a gesture of ceremony. “Breathe the sacred smoke.” Santuel places the cigarette between my lips.
The embers burn slow all the way to the filter. The nicotine provides joy, that synthetic taste giving me a rush, if only for a minute.
Then the cigarette is just another bit of trash. Santuel claps once and I stab it out on the table. He points out a scuffmark on my chest from this morning’s skirmish. “What happened?”
“Ambushed by Amilton. He’s got a bike now.”
“A bike? How?”
“Who knows? He’s in the graveyard now too. I ran into him this morning.”
“That’s what happens when you go alone. I told you, bring someone. But you’re better than that, huh?”
“But with the bike, what about the others? They’ll join him.”
“We have the numbers. He doesn’t. Our tribe has faith.”
“But –”
“We have faith.” Santuel raises his hand in farewell, ending the conversation.
***
Outside Torre Perdida, the clouds stalk the sun. The mangy dog has picked up a friend, a little pup. It’ll be even harder to feed two mouths, but if Santuel was right, there’s power in numbers.
Rosaria, a girl from the barrio, sits on the sidewalk clutching her one-eyed doll. She waves to me when I emerge from the tower. Her plastic shoes approach, beating a rhythm on the char.
“I want to show you something.”
“Leave me alone.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Go away.”
“Come on. Follow me.” She pulls my arm. “Come on, just for a second. Come on.”
She’s steadfast – I’ll give her that. Or maybe since her parents work during the day, she just has no one to play with. She pulls me toward the skeletal remains of the business district.
Some blocks later, she selects a building with some sort of significance to her. Rocks and rusty nails make it tough on my feet. Rats scurry from our noise.
Rosaria puts a finger to her lips, signaling for silence, then points into the air. Chanting voices come from within the structure. Rosaria’s light smile accompanies her guiding hand. We head up a concrete staircase.
At the top is an overlook, the alien voices coming from below. We hoist ourselves up on the balcony. A group of bowing adults prays to a cross made out of a pair of pipes. We observe from above like a pair of angels.
Tomorrow begins without me
With no tears or divine graces
Love has never known me
Though what lies beyond is oasis
“My parents bring me here sometimes. Maybe you could come too. Instead of fighting all the time.”
The balcony houses all sorts of junk, begging to be explored. Cracked stained-glass windows and obscene graffiti mar the walls.
“Careful.” Rosaria clutches her doll at the balcony. “Broken glass.”
A bunch of large plastic barrels are loosely tied together, a blackened sludge in one. Behind them is some sort of cage, like for chickens. Feathers are still stuck to the iron bars, and a chain hangs off the side.
Chains make great weapons.
Rosaria makes her way through the rubble. “What’s that?”
“A new friend.” I pull the chain free of the cage. “I’ll call him…Estizo.” He goes around my waist and I feel the candy bars in my pocket press against me.
An idea comes to me. If Amilton and his cronies are occupying the graveyard, they might be hitting the barrio houses like we are. Restaurants empty garbage in the alleys, a good place for me to ambush him.
***
Heading toward the barrio, I see the mangy dog again, its body at rest, throat torn open.
No more pain where you are now, boy.
The candy bar on the ground sets the trap. I lie in wait behind some wooden crates and tighten my red bandana. Now’s not the time to doze.
Hours later, Amilton and a few of his others appear. They fan out, searching for anything resembling food. Amilton goes for the candy bar. How could he not?
The first hit has to count. Estizo whips at Amilton’s face and connects. He cries out. I shoot a glance over to his gang, and the understanding registers – this is between me and Amilton.
Estizo whips out again, but Amilton evades. His fist cracks against the bridge of my nose. I almost black out. Stuttering back, my feet slide along the dust.
Peripheral shouts surround us. A crowd of boys oozes closer, creating a ring, soon joined by others from my camp, until everyone’s taunts bleed into a mash of shouting.
Amilton lunges for my stomach. I sidestep and elbow him at the base of the skull. He spits. Estizo whips at Amilton’s legs, connecting with the soft bone in his knee. He goes down, yelping in pain.
Amilton wheezes and struggles when the cold iron wraps around his malleable, boyish neck. He chokes out something resembling words.
I loosen Estizo and Amilton clutches his neck, coughing for air.
Estizo lashes at his back, then again. Again.
“Mauricio. You’ve made your point.”
I relent, raggedly coughing. Amilton’s back shudders from the flogging. Lacerations in red run across. Santuel has arrived with a couple of our brothers.
“Amilton,” Santuel says. “We had an agreement. That side of the highway, you. Here, us. Let’s not teach you again.”
Amilton’s face is in the dirt, his eyes shut. He shakes his head, spit emerging from his mouth.
“Yes?”
The whites in his eyes appear. “Okay…okay.”
“That goes for all you,” Santuel says to the yellow bandanas, then beckons me to follow him back to the tower.
***
Santuel takes his throne in room 305. He’s grinning, the first time in a stretch. “You did well today. Took care of that dog Amilton. He won’t bother us anymore.”
“Hopefully.”
He motions me closer. “Lift your bandana.” Taking the box cutter, Santuel makes a horizontal incision on my forehead. The cut puckers and bleeds.
“I’m moving you up.” Santuel rummages around the garbage. He finds one of those kitchen spray bottles and mists the shiny foam onto his arms. “Only the ones I trust know about this. It helps with the gills.”
“What’s that?”
“Disinfectant. Just cleans.”
“But isn’t that –”
“Otherwise we’d get sick.”
“What about the pain? Isn’t that the point?”
“We have to be strong, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have help.” Santuel sprays the bottle across the gills on my arms and then the new one on my forehead. The liquid reeks of chemicals.
I’m glad of my new position, but this isn’t what I signed up for. Leaders don’t get crutches.
***
Downstairs, Rosaria is in the lobby, holding a can of red beans. “Dios mío – I heard what happened. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“I brought some food and they let me in.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Mauricio. Have some.”
She sticks the can under my nose. A bitter, peculiar smell wafts out. My stomach rumbles a complaint. Rosaria fishes for some beans but I twist away, lips pursed.
“Stop,” she says, her fingers insistent. “Stop it.”
She shoves the beans between my lips and my instinct is to spit them out, but I don’t. The beans are soft, and even though they don’t have much of a taste, they’re appetizing. I stand there, chewing. Maybe there was something to what she said before, that everything didn’t have to be a fight.
She dips her fingers in for more. I open my mouth, close my eyes and reach for her hand.
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.
