Cuento de Mi Id

“The Sacrifice”

Oh great! The Huntsville Express.

Shut up. The most they can get you for at this point in time is hitchhiking. Just play it cool and everything will be all right.

All right? Half-ounce of sinsemilla in my knapsack and you say everything will be all right?

Of course, it will. Just don’t act suspicious.

But if the cops search my bag?

They won’t if you give them no reason to--and by the way, don’t call them cops--call them policemen.

Well, all right.

It hadn’t been a good day for Martin. The Texas sun had decided to celebrate the Fourth of July early, and that had meant blast furnace temperatures coupled with a nonexistent breeze along a highway where the nearest shade trees were on the other side of the acre-long cotton fields. Not that there was a lot of green stuff to impede his way -- all the plants Martin had seen so far were brown and wilted--but there was no way he could hope to flag down a ride from the shade and he had no intention of walking all day in this heat. Now his first ride of the day had proved to be a cop car and Martin was already envisioning himself behind bars when the driver pulled up besides him and lowered the passenger window.

“Hey there!” said a good-ol’-boy-type in the shotgun seat. “What brings you out this way on such a fine sunny day?”

“Oh, nothing, Officer,” said Martin. “I’m just waiting for a friend.”

“Your friend live around here?”

“Well, no. Not really.”

The white policeman grinned and opened the passenger door. “Why don’t you come on in and tell us all about it?”

“Uh, no, thank you,” Martin replied. “My ride will probably be coming by any second.”

“Suit yourself,” said the policeman. “I wouldn’t linger here too long if I were you. You might get picked up for hitchhiking.”

Martin thought a minute. “On second thought, maybe I can use a break from the sun right now.” He climbed into the back seat almost eagerly, and tried not to jump when he heard the door slam behind him.

Take it easy. You’re just among cops; you haven’t been charged. They still have to read you your rights so don’t worry until that happens.

“You headed down Brewster way?” the first policeman asked as he reentered the vehicle.

“No,” Martin replied. “Dallas.”

“Close enough,” said the policeman, and he signaled to his partner, a short dark Latin man.

The car took off silently and Martin thought it rather nice to be out of the sun for a change. Not only that, but the car had air conditioning too.

Then he remembered where he was and looked up at the cop riding shotgun.

The policeman smiled. “Don’t worry, son. I was young once too. I bet you thought me and Frank here were going to arrest you, didn’t you?”

“Well, the thought did cross my mind.”

“Forget it. Anyone hitchhiking nowadays has enough to worry about with all the weirdos on the road without getting hassled by the cops. Don’t you agree?”

“Well, I’m not exactly in a position to disagree with you.”

The policeman laughed. “That’s great. “ He extended his hand. “My name’s Bob Smith. This here’s my partner, Frank Gonzalez. What’s your name?”

“Martin Lucas.”

“No relation to Henry Lee, are you? No? I didn’t think so. You probably wouldn’t admit it even if you were.”

“No, I guess not.”

“So what brought you to our part of the country in the first place, Martin?”

“Well, my girlfriend and I were driving up from Austin and we had a spat. She took off with the car and left me behind at a rest stop. I’ve been on the road ever since.”

“That’s quite a shame. Don’t you have any kin here abouts that you could have called for a ride or something?”

“No, not really. Most of my folks live in Dallas and the rest live out of state.”

“That’s a real shame. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of your girlfriend coming back for you?”

“Well, if she hasn’t come back by now, I really doubt she’s going to be.”

“That’s a shame. Well, I guess you can always catch a bus from Brewster. Me and Frank are headed that way and we’d be glad to drop you off at the bus station.”

“Much obliged.”

“Oh, think nothing of it. If we can’t help each other out, who’s going to do it for us?” Bob turned and contemplated the view ahead. “Rotten weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

“Not really,” Martin said, “not if you like sun.”

“The folks around here don’t. There’s been too much of it lately--and not enough rain. This here’s farm country. A few more weeks of weather like this and half the folks around here will be ruined.”

“That’s a shame,” said Martin, trying to sound sincere.

“Yes it is. Most of these folks have their whole lives invested in these farms--but you don’t want to hear about that--do you?”

Martin shrugged.

Bob continued “Anyway, at least they’re a lot better off than the Anderson kid.”

“The Anderson kid?”

“Yeah. Virginia Anderson. Prettiest little thing you ever did see. Would have turned sixteen last May.”

“Last May? What happened to her?”

“Went out on a date with the local quarterback. Her first one, oddly enough. Both of them missed curfew so their parents started calling around. Turned out the boy had been killed. Strangled to death.”

“Jesus. What happened to the girl?”

“Well, she was killed, too, but the killer took his time with her. Used her in every orifice, if you know what I mean, and left a few new ones to remember him by. Her parents had to request a closed casket.”

“Jesus,” Martin said again. “What could have made somebody do something like that?”

“There’s no telling, son. There’s a lot of strange people in this world. Like that guy ‘Zodiac’ out there in L.A. He killed all those people back in the ‘60’s to supposedly prevent an earthquake. The cops out there never did catch him Might even have been a her for all they know.”

“Well, how about this guy? The one who killed Virginia and her boyfriend. Did you catch up with him yet?”

“No, not really,” said Bob. He turned to look at Martin. “What makes you so sure it’s a him?”

“I dunno,” said Martin. “I just got that impression from your story. After all, you did hint that the girl was raped.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Girls can rape too; they’re just more creative about it.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose you’re the expert on this kind of thing. Who do you think did it?”

“Well, presently the most popular theory around the stationhouse is that some sort of wandering vagrant did it.”

Martin’s chest tightened. “What makes you say that?” he forced himself to say.

“Well, it obviously wasn’t anyone in town. That girl was so popular that only someone passing through would dare to commit a deed like that and not risk getting caught.”

“Oh, I see,” said Martin. “So you figure some sort of hobo did it?”

“Or a hitchhiker,” said Bob.

“Oh.” Martin started to think fast. It was bad enough to be flirting with a possible drug charge but if the cops suspected him of murder, they’d put him away for sure.

Take it easy. No one’s accusing you of anything yet. We’re living in the post-Miranda era, remember? He can’t force you to admit to something you didn’t do and anyway you were at Padre last May. Take it easy.

Martin tried to tell himself that his conscience was correct. He had nothing to worry about. He had a lot of things to feel guilty about but not murder. Not murder.

He began to relax.

Then Bob asked him, “Do you come up this way often?” and his chest tightened again.

“What makes you say that?” he asked in what he hoped was a casual tone.

“I don’t know,” said Bob. “It’s just the way you spoke of your girlfriend made me think you must be a frequent visitor to these parts.”

“Not me. I can’t afford it.”

“You came down this time, didn’t you?”

“Uh, that was just an one-time-only thing. Actually I’ve never been out this way before.”

Bob’s eyes hardened. “Seems to me you and your girl must have a weird relationship if this is the first time you ever visited her.”

“Well...” Nice going! “Actually she just transferred to UT this fall. Before that, she lived in Dallas.”

“Oh, I see.” The expression on Bob’s face told him he was not entirely convinced but he remained silent.

Martin turned to look at the scenery. They were coming into a different area now. There were more trees now and they came up to within a few feet of the highway. Bob suddenly pointed to something up ahead.

“There’s the spot where we found the Anderson girl,” he said. He turned toward Martin. “Would you like to see it?”

Now what? Martin wasn’t in a position to refuse.

“Okay,” he said without enthusiasm.

Frank pulled over and Bob and Martin got out. Bob let Martin go into the woods ahead of him.

Oh, great! Now Frank’s going to have the perfect opportunity to search my knapsack.

Shut up and act casual! You’ve got more important things to worry about, remember?

“It’s just a few feet ahead,” Bob said. “You can’t miss it.”

Up ahead Martin saw a clearing which looked like the spot Bob might have been talking about. He started to turn to ask Bob if that was it when he stumbled over something hidden in the leaves. A dead log, he thought--and he cursed. He started to get up, gazed at the object he had tripped over…

“What’s the matter, son?” asked Bob, coming up behind him. “Haven’t you ever seen a gen-u-wine murder site befo--Jesus!”

The object Martin had tripped over was a body--a woman’s body. The woman was blonde, apparently in her late teens or early twenties, and the stab wounds on her chest and belly were still oozing fresh blood. From her shorts and halter top, it appeared that she had been dressed for hitchhiking. If so, she apparently did not get too far.

“We better call the police,” said Martin.

Bob behind him nodded.

“Her wounds look recent. There’s probably a good chance we can catch whoever did this while he’s still in the area.”

“What makes you think we didn’t catch him already?” asked Bob.

Martin turned. “This is no time to joke. A girl has been kil--” His voice froze. Officer Bob had drawn his gun and was aiming it straight at him.

“What is this?” he said.

“Looks to me like we caught us a killer.” Bob grinned.

“You’re crazy. I’ve been with you guys all this time.”

Bob chuckled. “Oh, come now. The wounds aren’t that recent. How do I know you didn’t do this before we picked you up?”

“Are you kidding? You picked me up miles away from here.”

Bob shrugged. “You could have walked.”

“Through miles of open country? Why would I establish a stupid alibi like that? Anyone could have seen me. Even you guys--” Martin broke off. A horrifying thought just came to him.

Bob kept grinning, his gun still on Martin. “Come to think of it, you were nervous about something when we picked you up.”

Martin panicked. “That’s because I was carrying drugs in my bag. Would I admit something like that to you if I was really a murderer?”

“You might,” said Bob, and then Martin knew it was hopeless.

“All right,” he said, raising his hands. “I give up.”

Bob smiled. With his gun still on Martin, he took something from beneath his jacket and dropped it on the ground. “Pick it up!”

Martin’s blood turned cold. “You gotta be kidding!”

“Pick it up,” said Bob, and he fingered the trigger. “Don’t make me do this.”

Martin looked down at the object Officer Bob had thrown at his feet -- a butcher knife sealed in a plastic bag, its blade covered with blood. He looked at Officer Bob again and then ran.

If I make it to the woods, he thought, I can beat him. I don’t care if these woods go all the way to Texarkana, I can still outrun him. He can’t stop me. I haven’t touched the knife. There’s no way he can get away with this. No way in Hell--

Just a few feet behind him, Officer Bob cocked his gun and fired….

************************************************************

Frank was still waiting in the driver‘s seat when Bob returned from the woods. “How did it go?” he asked.

Bob smiled. “Better than I thought it would. Not only did he confess to the murders, but he admitted to being a dope fiend, too.”

He got in and Frank started the engine. “Any problems?” Frank asked.

“No, not really.” Bob turned to look at Frank. “You don’t sound too happy.”

Frank shrugged as he pulled onto the highway. “I just can’t help thinking about what’s going to happen if there’s an investigation.”

“Fuck the investigation. We had one last time and they never found out anything. Why should they find out anything this time?”

“Well, suppose they did?” asked Frank.

“Why should they? We’ll probably be public heroes. Who’s going to want to mess with a rep like that?”

Frank frowned. “I just can’t help thinking nothing good’s going to come of all this.”

Bob chuckled and looked up at the sky. “Well,” he said, pointing upwards, “something good’s already happening.”

As the patrol car disappeared down the highway, a parade of clouds began to appear in the sunny sky. Soon they began to darken. As the first raindrops fell, a clap of thunder could be heard echoing across the landscape like celestial applause. There was no lightning to accompany it.

Cuento de Mi Id

"Dawn at Dusk"

Dawn was still standing by the kitchen sink as she cleaned the gasoline off of her hands when Kennedy came into the house from the back yard.

"Dawn," she asked, "have you seen Spike today? It's almost time for our nightly training exercises and I don't see him anywhere."

"I don't think Spike is going to participate in any more training exercises," said Dawn. "He and my sister had a big fight yesterday and I believe that he's decided to move on."

"A fight?" asked Kennedy. "Was that what all the shouting was about yesterday?"

"Probably," said Dawn with a shrug.

"So that explains all the bruises on her arm," said Kennedy. "He didn't try to -- "

"Well, he tried, but he didn't succeed," said Dawn. "Once again my sister was too strong for him, which is just as well since he'll never be doing that again."

"What do you mean, 'again'?" asked Kennedy. "And how do you know that he'll never be doing it again?"

"Oh, just a hunch," said Dawn. "Buffy is not the only one in this household who has visions. By the way, there's a notebook on the table full of phrases in Cantonese that I found on the Internet. I figured that as long as Chao-Ahn is staying with us, we might as well find some way to communicate with her."

"Why, thank you, Dawn," said Kennedy. "That's so thoughtful of you. But why didn't you let Giles or Willow do that?"

"Because there are some certain things that need to be done that Giles or Willow -- or even Buffy -- can't -- or won't -- be bothered to do," said Dawn. "And apparently that is my job now -- to do the things that need to be done that others seem unwilling to do. Now if you'll excuse me, Kennedy, I need to go clean up the basement."

"Yes, I suppose you'd better," said Kennedy. "It smells like somebody's been burning trash down there."

"Yes, that's one way to put it," said Dawn with an enigmatic expression on her face.

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Funeral”

The four of them had rarely driven this far away from home before that day and since they were unfamiliar with the territory, it was no big surprise that they got lost. By the time they made it to the funeral home, it was after sunset and the service had already started so Ned and the others had to stand awkwardly outside the chapel until it was over.

Not that there was a large turnout. There were only a small handful of friends and relatives who turned out to wish a final farewell to the deceased, a young blonde women in her early twenties who had apparently fallen from a great height. Plus there was a British-looking gentleman in a tweed suit who looked like a high school librarian while in the corner, a white-haired man in a black leather coat stood against the wall while seeming to put a significant distance between him and the various containers of holy water near the chapel entrance.

Ned waited until the service was over and the crowd was leaving before he walked up to the coffin. After looking around to see if anyone was watching, he then gestured to his partner Emerson who got out his stop watch and waited for Ned to make his next move. Then Ned immediately touched his left forefinger to the corpse while his other two friends, Charlotte and Olive, stood and watched.

The young blonde woman in the coffin opened her eyes and looked around in panic.

"Where am I?" she asked. "How did I get here? What happened to Dawn?"

"I'm sorry, miss, but we only got a minute and we have some questions to ask you," said Ned.

"I don't understand," said the woman. "What did you do with my sister? Where are my friends? Who are you people?"

"Can't you see you're frightening the poor girl?" asked a voice from behind Ned.

Ned turned and saw that the white-haired man had not only stayed behind but was also walking toward him.

As he got closer, Ned just smiled and tried to look him in the eye. But the white-haired man just glared back at him.

"You don't understand," said Ned. "We suspect a case of foul play here and we have to ask the victim some questions before her time is up."

"Why would her time be up in a minute?" asked the man in a deceptively smooth tone.

"Because I have this ability," said Ned. "If I touch a dead person once, they come back to life. If I don't touch that person again within a minute and make him or her dead again, then something dies in his or her place."

"It's time," said Emerson.

"That's it," said Ned. "Time to touch her again."

At this point, the white-haired man smiled and said, "You try to do that and I'll break your bloody neck!"

Cuento de Mi Id

“I Don't Want to Start Any Blasphemous Rumors, But I Think That the Muse Has Got a Sick Sense of Humor”

Alondra was dreaming again when she had the vision. It was a white palace adorned with purple pennants and there were servants throughout the place, dressed in green and gold. On a balcony overlooking the countryside, there stood a princess clad in a purple dress looking up at a full moon. She was gazing at a silver lake and chanting words that seemed quite familiar to Alondra...

It was then that she woke up. She reached for the notebook by the bed to write down the details of the dream while it was still fresh in her mind. But before she could write down the first words, a baby started crying.

It was her sister's baby but her sister was not home. So Alondra had to get up and see what was wrong with the baby. Did it need a new diaper? Or a fresh bottle?

Alondra could not tell. But she changed its diaper just in case and then she gave it a bottle when it kept fussing.

By the time the baby went back to sleep, it was almost time for Alondra to get ready for work. Alondra really wanted to write down her story first but she just knew that she had to take her shower now or else she would not get a chance to take one this morning.

Besides, the story was still intact in her brain. She just had to get it down on paper.

After her shower, there was no time to write because then she had to get dressed. Then she had to brush her hair. And do her makeup. Then she had to eat breakfast, only no one else was up yet so she had to cook her own breakfast first. Finally she had time but no, she didn't because she had to leave for her job at the local coffee shop or else she would be late. And her boss hated it when she came in late.

Oh, well, Alondra thought. I'll write at the coffee shop.

When she got to the coffee shop, there was no time to write because she had to wait on customers. It seemed unusually busy this morning -- not just during the morning breakfast rush and the lunch rush but in-between as well.

Ironically, one of her customers was herself a writer. She was a middle-aged redhead who continually stared at her laptop as if it held the answer to all the mysteries of the universe. Alondra thought about asking her for advice about writing, but every time she had the chance, the expression on the woman's face always discouraged her.

At long last, Alondra's work was through and she had the chance to go home. Now she finally had time to write.

But as Alondra opened her notebook and started to write down her dream, she had trouble remembering little details. Had it been a large palace or a small one? Purple pennants or green? Silver lake or blue?

Was this story really worth writing down? Alondra wondered. It had seemed so vivid this morning but now...

As Alondra read over the few words she had written, it was all she could do to keep from weeping.

xxx

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the redhead who had been in the coffee shop was in her apartment trying to think of a story to write in order to justify her art grant.

But for some reason, the words would not come.

Indeed, no words had come all day.

And all week.

And yet people all around her seemed to find plenty of stuff to write about.

Life is so unfair, she thought. Why does everything always happen to me?

Cuento de Mi Id

"The Job Interview"

"I'm sorry, kind sir, but I would rather be a rebel than a slave," she said.

The man on the other side of the desk just sighed. "With an attitude like that, you'll never get anywhere in corporate America, Miss Pankhurst."

Cuento de Mi Id

"It's a Wonderful Life: An Alternative Ending"

That night, after a long day of breaking rocks and cursing Uncle Billy, George Bailey lay on his prison bunk and dreamt of libraries.

And librarians.

And hydrangea bushes.

But mostly of libraries, thanks to that damned Hays code.

Cuento de Mi Id

"It's a Good Strife"

"But if you do that, Mr. President, all the crops will die!"

"You gentlemen want to go into the cornfield?"

"On second thought, that was a good thing you did, Mr. President. That was a very good thing."

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Aftermath”

Since that day at the camp, Amanda Buckman's hair has turned white. She still screams when she sees a lit match and she has grown very thin.

As of this writing, her parents are considering taking her to see the renowned therapist Dr. Sue Snell, since Dr. Snell has a reputation for being an expert on bad dreams.

Cuento de Mi Id

"King Kong: An Alternative Ending"

"It wasn't the airplanes that killed him. It was the corrupt workings of our profit-driven economic system."

"You mean--"

"That's right. It was booty that killed the beast."

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Girls of Winter”

It was half past twelve when the next girl came on stage, which proves that not all scary things happen at midnight. She was a skinny young thing, most likely jailbait, and it hardly seemed worth it for her to take her top off. She staggered about the stage for a while, waving her arms up and down as if they were drumsticks. I could clearly see her ribs beneath her skin and I almost felt sorry for her.

She was promptly booed off the stage -- no doubt as an act of mercy, I thought. She then grabbed her top and scurried off to the back room.

The next dancer was of more conventional proportions but she wore too much blue eye shadow. I quickly lost interest and returned to my drink. The club closed at two and I wasn't looking forward to navigating my way home with a hundred other drunks. However, it was fifteen below outside and I was in no hurry to brave the winter traffic. I came from Chicago myself so snow and ice don't scare me, but trying to dodge fifteen other drivers while trying to avoid a fishtail tends to take all the fun out of winter driving.

In fact, I almost totaled my car making it this far. Some wiseguy in a pickup truck was too stupid to drive at normal speed and made me put on the brakes when he cut in front of me on the highway. When you're driving on ice, that's the last thing you want to do. I managed to get out of it okay -- I always do -- but I must admit that I was really shook up there for a while.

Yeah, a long while.

The next dancer came on stage as I finished my beer. She was a black girl and she reminded me of a girl at the last club I was at. Very friendly that one had been. In fact, she even offered me drinks. Then she started putting her hand on my thigh and I realized that drinks were not the only thing she sold.

Outside, that old north wind must have been howling like a banshee. Perhaps if I put enough antifreeze in my system, I could make it as far as the parking lot, I thought as I ordered yet another beer. The waitress took her time bringing it as if she were being paid to bring it extra slow and I mentally subtracted a large portion of her tip while I was waiting.

In the meantime, I kept looking up at the stage and trying to not act bored but it was hard. After all, there was nothing in the club I couldn't see in a Playboy. And you're not allowed to touch the girls here, either. You're just allowed to get close enough to drop a bill in the old G-string and that's it. How dull.

The next girl on stage appeared to have needle marks on her arms. At least, I thought they were needle marks. Didn't make sense to me. I would have figured that most girls in her profession would be into skinpopping. If this was Canada, I could find out for sure, but they don't allow such places down here in the Bible Belt. Not at normal prices, anyway.

My beer finally arrived but for some reason, it tasted funny. I called the waitress over to order something in its place.

“Want any change?” the waitress asked me.

“What for?”

She gestured at the dancers.

“No, of course not.”

The waitress shrugged and went to fetch me my drink. It didn't taste much better than the last one. I began to think that I had been in the club too long.

I looked around again and saw that the club owners were out in force. Dressed in suits, they looked like members of the local country club but as they clapped along with the music, trying to drum up enthusiasm, they somehow reminded me of guest extras on Miami Vice and I was almost tempted to look for shoulder holsters.

My next drink tasted like it had a dead animal in it and I decided that was it. Time to go.

I threw a twenty down on the table and made my way to the door.

I looked back long enough to see that the girl on stage was now showing off her wrist scars and then I headed out to the parking lot.

The club was supposed to have valet parking but it seemed to be mostly reserved for the suits and the owners of late-model cars. I was neither, of course, and anyway, no one was on duty. So I made my way across the wind-swept parking lot by myself.

That's when I noticed that the parking lot was almost empty apart for a few scattered vehicles -- which was really unusual considered how crowded it had been inside the club. Where the hell did everybody park anyway? Surely they did not all arrive in those few cars like they were circus clowns or something? Or did the creeps who owned the club sell out to a chop shop?

I was thinking about going back inside when I suddenly saw a familiar vehicle. My old red Chevy was parked at the far left corner of the lot. As I walked closer toward it, I could see that it was not in great shape. In fact, it had a couple of dents in it that had not been there this morning. A couple of big dents in it. In fact, the whole left side of the car was caved in.

And that mess on the ice. It looked like blood. At least, some of it did. And the rest of it looked like...

Suddenly I was back on the highway. I was going 35 and my engine was starting to stall. The guy ahead of me was going 15, then dropped down to 0. I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting him, but a pickup got in front of me and in trying to avoid him, I found myself fishtailing on the highway. My brakes locked, the oil light came on, and I found myself heading toward the rear end of the same pickup that cut in front of me.

Then I blinked.

And found myself back in a mostly empty parking lot. The same lot I had been in before. I hurried back inside and didn't think twice when the girl at the door demanded another five bucks to enter the club. Instead I gladly paid it.

I went to the men's room to check myself out in the mirror but saw nothing wrong. But then I had seen nothing wrong before.

Then I went back out on the floor and picked myself an empty table to sit at. One that was near the stage. I ignored the other customers which was just as well since even in the half light of the club, they didn't look so good. But I wasn't paying to look at them so I didn't. Instead I stared ahead at the girls on stage until a waitress came up to me to take my order. This time I noticed a scar on her chest that was not quite covered by her uniform, but I said nothing about it. Instead I just ordered a beer.

No, I ordered three beers.

Then I turned to watch the dancer on stage try to pretend that she was not totally out of it. I didn't care if she was or if she wasn't. I was here to forget and that was what I intended to do.

In fact, it's almost one thirty and I'm still here. The drinks are starting to take effect now and I no longer notice the bad taste of the beers. I don't notice much of anything, in fact, except for the girls on stage. And I stopped trying to tell them apart a long time ago.

My wallet doesn't seem to be empty, and I could probably stay here all night if the club owners would let me. But I doubt they will. In fact, it seems like the club is going to end up closing soon.

That worries me. For as much as I try to pretend otherwise, I can't help wondering what will happen to me If I try to stay here past closing time. Or if there will even be a me here past closing time.

And yet I really do not want to go outside again. I really don't.

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Liar”

I’m smiling at the back of some geezer’s head, trying to pretend he didn’t just ignore me in favor of some young slut with tits full of silicon and ribs like a xylophone.

I smile some more as a man makes his way to my stage to tip me. I can tell from here that’s he’s not even pretending to look at my face. But it’s been a long day and my feet ache. Besides, they don’t come in here to look at my face.

The song is almost over and pretty soon I’ll be moving on to the last stage in the room. With luck, that should be my last time on stage for the day.

The man is saying something about how he liked the way I dance and I pretend to believe that he’s really interested in my dancing technique. With luck, I can get a few more dollars out of him before my shift is over. It would be nice to get more, but people his age don’t give up their fivers that easily. Not when they can spend them on drinks. So I may have to line up a few more table dances when I get off the last stage so I can make my quota for the day.

One of my regulars walks in while I’m climbing off stage. With luck, I can talk him into a table dance or two, and if I tell him a real hard luck story, I might even get more than that.

Not that I have to make up too much. My ribs still hurt from where my ex once kicked me and I still have nightmares about the time I almost bled to death on the bathroom floor.

But I won’t tell those stories tonight. Not yet anyway.

And he probably wouldn’t believe me even if I did tell them.

Because they say we strippers lie, you know.

We’ll tell you anything you want to hear if it will make you part with a few large bills.

And, hey, it’s not like you guys don’t make up shit either. Whether it’s the guy with the bandaged ring finger who pretends he’s single or the geezer with the blue pills who thinks he can still get it up if the right girl comes along or the “Christian” who talks about “saving” me from my evil life while he is staring at my tits, it doesn’t matter. There’s always some guy who thinks he can pull something over on me. And sometimes he does. Then again, sometimes he doesn’t.

I should have learned better by now. But I haven’t.

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Appointment”

Amanda called Victor Friday night and asked if he could take her to the hospital Monday morning. Victor asked her which hospital and then Amanda explained that it was a certain hospital in North Dallas, a hospital whose name Victor recognized because it usually had a lot of protesters out in front.

Amanda called Victor again Sunday night to remind him and to let him know that she would be staying in a hotel. Her boyfriend was supposed to meet her there but he had gotten busy with his meetings and he couldn’t make it. So now Victor had to take her for sure.

Next morning, he arrived at her hotel five minutes early but she wasn’t downstairs yet. He drove around a bit until he finally saw her outside.

He pulled up in front of her and opened the passenger side door. She got in, gave him a brief hug and then started checking the messages on her cell phone.

He got her there about ten minutes late but it didn’t matter because the hospital had told her that she had about thirty minutes leeway. It was so cold a morning that only two protesters had bothered to show up. Neither of them were located anywhere near the front door of the hospital which, ironically enough, faced away from the street. Amanda initially bristled at the thought of confronting the protesters but a moment later she was feeling sorry for them. She told Victor that she really couldn’t afford another child and Victor stayed silent. He agreed once more to stay in the waiting room while she was undergoing the procedure and to drive her back to the hotel when she was finished and he even agreed to sign a piece of paperwork to that effect.

When they went in, the waiting room was playing a DVD of “Footloose” on a flat screen TV. Under the circumstances, it seemed surreal but then Victor found it difficult to think of any movie that could have been showing right then that would not seem surreal.

When they called Amanda’s name, she left behind her purse and jacket but then she came back to retrieve her cell phone. She talked to it more than she talked to Victor and she said nothing about her current child who undoubtedly was spending this week with her ex.

Victor sat in the waiting room and pretended to enjoy the movie. He was surprised at the end to realize that the sharp-faced girl who played Lori Singer’s friend was actually played by Sarah Jessica Parker, an actress he should have recognized but didn‘t. The things you find out, he thought.

The waiting room -- which was nearly empty when they came in -- started to fill up with people, most of them women. Amanda eventually came out clutching a handful of prescription slips and asked him to take her to the nearest pharmacy. He did so, taking care to ignore the protesters as he drove past them on his way to the street.

On the way to the pharmacy, Amanda explained that she had not really wanted to have the procedure that she had just had but she really couldn’t afford to raise another child and her boyfriend especially did not want her to have a child at this time. Perhaps a few years in the future when they were more established they might have one but not now.

Victor said nothing. Victor always said nothing. He listened to her prattle on about how much her new boyfriend loved her and how much money he spent on her and how he wanted to have been here in Victor’s place but he just couldn’t make it back to Dallas in time.

This is just between us, she kept saying to Victor. No one else can know except for you, me and my boyfriend. Especially my ex. You can’t ever tell my ex. Or my former room mate. Not ever.

Victor promised he would keep her secret and then dropped her off at her hotel. As she got out of his car, three words came to mind but he swallowed them hurriedly and only said them when she was already inside the hotel entrance and out of earshot.

Then he drove away hurriedly. And promised himself the stiffest drink he could afford.

Cuento de Mi Id

“A Day in the Glamorous Life of an Entertainer”

5:30 a.m. You wake up and start getting the kids ready for school. You ignore your ten-year-old daughter when she mumbles something under her breath about you being a whore. You take a quick shower and put on your “mom” clothes: black jeans and a sweatshirt.

6:30 a.m. Your ride arrives. You hustle your kids out the door. You make sure they’re polite to the driver. You ignore the driver’s request for a kiss but you thank him profusely for waking up so early.

7:00 a.m. You drop your kids off at school. You kiss them both and you pray that they did their homework.

Then you look for signs of your ex-husband being in the area and you sigh with relief when you don’t see him or his car. You ask the driver to take you to a doughnut shop. You ignore the calories. It’s only one doughnut and you’re going to be at work for hours.

7:30 a.m. You go home and wave goodbye to your ride. You dodge his request for a quick kiss. You go upstairs to your apartment and you crash for a few hours.

9:00 a.m. You start getting ready for work. You take a long, hot bath. You shave your legs and other body parts. You are sure to use plenty of bath lotion to give yourself that nice scent the customers like so much on the rare occasions that they notice it.

9:30 a.m. You towel off and you get dressed. You take your backpack which contains the clothes you might wear at work. You are sure to include your high heels.

10:00 a.m. Your ride arrives. He requests another kiss. You dodge it. He drives you to the club and he drops you off at the entrance. You go in and you check in with the house mom. Then you go to the dressing room where you ignore the graffiti on your locker and you start changing into your work outfit. Today it’s a blue dress that you bought last weekend. You never wear it outside the club. Only here. And you never wear it when you pick your kids up at school. Never.

10:30 a.m. The club opens. The lights come on. A few customers straggle in but most hang back until lunch time and the free buffet. You’re not particularly flattered by this, but you don’t come here for flattery. You come because you need the money and this is one of the few jobs you can get with your high school diploma that will pay you enough for you to be able to feed and clothe your kids and pay the rent on your $500 per month apartment. And even with that, you often have to use food stamps.

11:00 a.m. The lunchtime crowd starts showing up. Mainly senior citizens and a few blue-collar workers. Occasionally a well-off businessman. But the truly well-off usually don’t arrive until late afternoon. You start getting a few tips but it’s the young girls with hips the size of your forearms that get most of the tips. You mainly get the mean ones who aren’t anxious to waste their SS checks on a woman like you and the poor Mexicans who do their best to cross your “border” with their Roman fingers.

2:00 p.m. The end of the free lunchtime buffet. The crowd dissipates. The club is slow. If you’re lucky, you have made a tidy sum. But you aren’t always lucky. If you’re lucky, you’ve found time to grab a quick lunch from the buffet. But you dare not eat too much lest you lose your job for being too fat. So you play video games in between sets and hope that today your ex doesn’t discover what club you’re working in.

3:30 p.m. The first of the after-work crowd starts strolling in. You dance for a customer and talk some construction worker into letting you have a sip of his beer. You don’t really like to drink on the job but there are times when alcohol seems to be the only way to make it through the day. Even though your kids are out of school, you have no way of picking them up so you pray that they have gone to day care like you asked them to.

5:00 p.m. More after-work customers show up. A rich businessman pays you $500. You don’t get that every day. More often you end up owing the club money. Indeed, this is the first day all week that you have broken even. You hope you get another shot at him but he already has his eye on another girl. A younger, thinner girl. Some of the girls who work here are so thin you can see their ribs and you can’t help but suspect they’re on drugs. But the manager could care less what substances you take as long as you show up on time and the customers don’t complain. Of course, if you’re lucky enough to attract a large crowd of regulars, you don’t even have to show up on time. But you don’t have a large crowd of regulars. And none of the ones you do have have come in today.

5:30 p.m. You’re asked to perform in a special section that is separated from the main club by a wall and an one-way window. Hardly no one goes back here until they are with a dancer so you don’t make any money. You do see one of your co-workers making money in a way that the local vice squad would not approve of. But you say nothing and pretend you didn’t see a thing.

7:00 p.m. You are finally off work. You hurriedly change clothes so that you can leave the club when your ride arrives. Of course, you have to settle up with the management before you can leave. You didn’t make much today so you hardly have anything left when you do leave. Your ride arrives and takes you to the day care center where the lady in charge asks you for money you don’t have. You pick up your kids and once more you ignore your daughter when she calls you a whore. Ironically, you’re one of the few women at your club who isn’t a whore, but she doesn’t care. She picked up the expression from your ex, and you have yet to persuade her not to use it.

7:30 p.m. Your ride takes you to the dollar store where you buy school supplies with what little you have and then to McDonalds where you buy your kids a Happy Meal. You know McDonalds is not the best place to eat, but it’s the best you can afford, and it’s not like you’re in a mood to cook. Your ride takes you to your apartment, where he kisses you on the cheek and asks if he can come up.

You tell him no, but someday you’ll say yes. Your kids get out of the car and you can tell what your daughter is thinking by the way she looks at you. By then, you’re too tired to care anymore. You follow your kids up the stairs to your apartment and tell yourself for the umpteenth time that you’re going to quit your job next week.

Cuento de Mi Id

“Final Vengeance”

(This was my first attempt at writing a short story for publication. I would like to think that I have improved a bit since I first wrote this but I guess that's up to you all, the readers, to judge. Anyway, I hope you all like it.)

The moment Joe Mesey reentered the old neighborhood, he knew that his coming back was a mistake. Not for any foolish, sentimental reasons -- it’s hard to be nostalgic about growing up in a slum -- but because his return was all too easy. He had expected an all-out attack the minute he entered his old stomping grounds; instead, he was simply ignored.

As a member of mankind’s true oldest profession, a self-styled professional assassin who euphemistically referred to his calling as the “retirement business” and who commanded top dollar for a kill, this was a bit of an insult. He had expected a neighborhood crawling with cops -- or worse; instead, he found an area of deserted streets and neglected tenements -- a place seemingly as devoid of life as the dark side of the moon.

It was an eerie feeling. Had Joe been a lesser man, he might have turned the car around and searched for more populous surroundings. But he was on a mission here -- a personal mission. He had returned to this neighborhood to kill a man. A man whom he had killed a long time ago...

***********************************************************

The room was filled with more candles than a religious shrine and their acrid scent and flickering light made Joe uneasy. He kept peering into the shadows of the old man’s living room as if expecting to see something lurking there. Nothing was there, of course, but the way the old man kept bowing his head and peering into his little grey book made Joe uneasy. And he hated being made uneasy. Especially by a little old man who was destined within a matter of minutes to meet the Maker about which he endless prattled.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the realization that the old man had said something. He looked up at the white-haired figure and smiled inwardly at the idea of this little man in the black suit and skullcap doing him bodily harm. As powerful as he may have once been, now he could not harm a flea.

“Pardon me, he said. “I didn’t hear that last question.”

“I was asking whether you had considered the consequences of your actions, Mr. Mesey,” the old man said in a voice that was stern yet moderate.

“Of course, I have. I simply waste you and then my boss gives me a lot of money. What’s to consider?”

“Hasn’t the thought of punishment ever entered your mind?”

“Not really. The cops won’t be able to prove a thing, and nothing you can do can change that.”

“I wasn’t talking about earthly justice.”

“Oh, really?”

“Doesn’t it ever bother you, Mr. Mesey -- the number of men you’ve killed?”

“Of course not. Why should it?”

“Fear of the dead is a centuries-old tradition,” said the old man. “Some say it dates back to Neanderthal man.”

“Well, that may be the case with some people, but I’m more like a surgeon. I live with death every day. It doesn’t scare me a bit.”

“If I were you, I would be scared. Murder is the supreme taboo; you have committed it not once, not twice, but times beyond counting.”

“You’re one to talk,” said Joe. “Before you retired, you were in the rackets, too. You know how it is.”

“Yes, I know how it is,” said the old man, gazing at his folded hands. “But I never killed anyone directly. And when the ghosts of those I did kill indirectly began to prey upon my conscience, I knew it was time to leave.”

The old man looked Joe in the eye. “But it’s still not too late for you. The powers that be love a repentant sinner as long as he’s sincere.”

Joe smiled. “That’s nice talk for a dying man but I intend to live a long time.”

“Maybe not as long as you think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I have taken the liberty of making certain arrangements in case my little talk with you should fail.”

“Oh, I see. Like a sealed letter to the D.A. left in the hands of your attorney?”

“Nothing so crude, I assure you,” said the old man. “Besides, I’m sure a man in your profession has sufficient connections to get such a letter swiftly discredited. No, my arrangements are of a more final and irrevocable nature.”

Joe laughed. “If that’s meant to scare me, it didn’t work.”

“It wasn’t meant to scare you -- now.”

“Listen, old man,” said Joe, pulling out his gun. “I’ve had about enough of this Jewish superstition nonsense you’ve been giving me.”

“Jewish? Who said it was Jewish?” The old man’s voice took on a sepulchral tone. “The faith I follow is older than Judaism.”

That’s when Joe’s gun went off. The first bullet hit the old man in the chest; the two followup shots hit him in the belly and the groin. Joe never knew whether his shots were the result of anger or blind panic, but the results were the same. One dead Jew (or so-called Jew, if his last words were correct) who had time to do little more than glare and mumble an inaudible curse before succumbing to the permanent paralysis of death. Hardly the formidable adversary he had anticipated.

“I hoe you prepared well for the afterlife, old man,” Joe said as he stood up. “Because you’re going to have all eternity to enjoy it.”

He left the house quietly, but not before giving some thought to the arrangements the old man had mentioned. However, search as he did, he could find no trace of any hidden cameras or tape recorders in the old man’s residence...

***********************************************************

The old apartment house where he used to live was boarded up now -- a victim of urban renewal. Gazing at the crumbling exterior brought back many memories for Joe. Memories of living with his old man -- an embittered widower with five children to raise. A man who had sought refuge in a whiskey bottle and who used his youngest child -- Joe -- as a punching bag until the day Joe fought back and caved in his father’s skull with a tire iron. Yes, the place did bring back a lot of old memories -- none of them good.

He smiled grimly and attacked the boards on the front door with a tire iron. As the ancient nails reluctantly began to yield, he once more looked around the neighborhood, expecting any minute to see a cop -- or something -- appear around the corner to question him about his activity. But none appeared. Joe seemed to be the only person around in what should have been a crowded slum neighborhood. It was as if he was in the land of the dead.

Joe shuddered. He was normally not an imaginative person -- in his line of business, you couldn’t afford to be -- yet something about that last phrase -- and the way it popped into his mind, unsummoned -- made him uneasy. Especially when he looked back upon certain recent events...

***********************************************************

The first clue Joe had that the old man‘s arrangements were not just talk occurred in Chicago. He had heard the old line about being able to meet almost anyone in the world by standing on State Street, but he never expected to see Vinny McCloskey there. And for a very good reason -- Vinny had died six months ago.

When he first confronted Vinny with this information, Vinny seemed as shocked as Joe. His eyes went blank; he appeared to be remembering something.

Then he remembered.

“You!” he screamed. “You’re the one who killed me.”

Within an instant, Vinny’s hands were around Joe’s neck, choking him with the strength of the violently insane and the insanely violent. Vinny was a big man; his hands were the size of steam irons. Killing Joe should have been as easy a task for him as cleaning fish. But it did not work out that way. Joe had been around too long not to be prepared for the unexpected; he freed himself with a blow to the groin -- then pulled his newly-purchased revolver and fired a bullet meant for a prominent state witness into Vinny’s chest.

At this point, Vinny smiled -- the vacant smile customarily associated with the hopelessly insane -- and then he collapsed. For a moment, Joe was aghast. After all, even the most blasé hitman does not meet dead people on the street every day. Then he took Vinny’s pulse. The bullet wound Vinny had just received was not necessarily a mortal one, yet he was already dead.

Needless to say, the witness job was blown. No one had witnessed the confrontation between Joe and Vinny, but that didn’t mean the cops would not be interested if they ever caught wind of it.

And what of the body? Although Joe managed to safely dispose of it without being seen, that still did not account for its presence. Surely he had not just killed the real Vinny; after all, the real Vinny was supposed to be feeding the worms in a South Side cemetery. That meant the man he had killed was an imposter, no doubt made up to look like Vinny with the help of a clever plastic surgeon. But an imposter with Vinny’s height and build? Possible, Joe thought, but not probable. Which meant...

***********************************************************

The last board came off with an angry screech. Now the door was open and he could seek shelter from the open street. Yet Joe was not satisfied.

If he was right, the man he came to kill would be lurking inside, safe from the summer heat. It unnerved him to realize how matter-of-fact he was handling the whole situation. Had his own boss told him a similar story, he would not have believed him -- even if his life depended upon it. Yet here he was, standing outside his old apartment house, treating his long-dead father as a potential adversary…

He pushed the door open with his foot, holding the tire iron ready in case of attack. None came. Inside the entrance hall was nothing but dust and silence.

As Joe stepped inside, he again held the tire iron ready to ward off a sudden attack. But -- again -- none came.

Perhaps I only dreamed the first incident, he thought. Perhaps I was wrong and the old man’s curse was only a figment of my imagination.

Then Joe thought again and shook his head. For he remembered Frank Lupesco...

***********************************************************

It had happened at a men’s room in the Miami Airport. Joe was combing his hair before boarding a flight to San Juan when he felt himself being seized from behind. Without warning, he was whirled around and thrown against the opposite wall. Before he could recover, a knife was at his throat, and on the nape of his neck, he could feel the hot breath of the man standing directly behind him.

That’s when Joe moved. Stomping down hard where he guessed his assailant’s left foot to be, he reached up at the same time and grabbed the knife-bearing hand. Its skin felt cold and clammy -- like a dead frog -- but he did not let that prevent him from bending the hand back against the waist until the knife dropped. And the bones broke.

Joe’s assailant was curiously silent for a man who should have screaming in agony.

Instead, the only thing Joe heard was “It’s not that easy, kid.”

The voice was familiar, but not the face. When Joe turned around, he found himself staring into a bleached parody of a human face, the type of scarred and tattered face you’d expect to see on a man who had spent the last seven months on the bottom of the Hudson River, not on a living person.

Then the man smiled -- if you could call what he did smiling -- and Joe recognized the familiar lop-sided grin of his former mentor, Frank Lupesco. It had been Lupesco who had gotten Joe his first job in the “retirement business.” Frank had taught Joe everything he knew. Taught him so well that when Frank retired and decided to turn state’s evidence, Joe was the one chosen to bring him down. And he did. Seven months ago.

And here Frank was, standing before him, smiling as if his broken wrist was a mere scratch.

“This one’s for you, kid.”

With frightening suddenness, Frank lunged forward and grabbed Joe by the throat with his other hand. Pressing his other forearm against Joe’s throat as well, he pinned Joe against the wall and started to squeeze. Joe’s face began to turn blue; he was running out of time. In desperation, he punched his opponent in the stomach. His fist went all the way through.

As Frank let go, Joe was too relieved to do anything but stand and watch Frank’s body collapse in upon itself like a punctured balloon. Too late he thought of questioning him; by then, his body was merely a pile of decaying flesh awaiting disposal.

That’s when Joe realized that the plot against him was more than simply an elaborate scheme of vengeance. Even the best plastic surgeon could not have instilled such qualities into a Frank Lupesco lookalike. The man who did had to be a person who had experience dealing with the supernatural. A man who not only had such experience but who also possessed a grudge against him. Somebody like -- like -- the old man!

By then, the old man’s name had faded away from Joe’s memory, but he still remembered that scene in the room full of candles, and he also remembered the old man’s ominous last words.

At first, it seemed ridiculous -- an old-fashioned curse at work in the twentieth century. And yet it was the only explanation which made sense. If only there was some way to break the curse...

Then it came to him. The curse was operating in a pattern: confront Joe with all his previous victims, in the order of their deaths, and have the attacks increase in intensity. Considering the number of people Joe had killed in his lifetime, such a pattern could easily wear him down before it ended. And sooner or later one of the victims was bound to get lucky and kill him.

But suppose he short-circuited the curse. Instead of waiting for the victims to go after him, he would go after the victims. And the most obvious one to pursue would be the first one -- his father. The only one he had killed for free...

***********************************************************

The sun was going down now, and there was still no sign of his old man. He smiled at the irony -- the old man had intended to avenge his own death by using Joe’s own old man to kill him. Perhaps he had been counting on the power of nostalgia to prevent Joe from delivering the fatal blow. Well, it won’t work, Joe thought. There was no love lost between him and his father. He killed him before and he could kill him again.

Then it occurred to him -- what if this was exactly what the old man had wanted? For Joe to come up here to New York and face the ultimate challenge? Joe had not been attacked since that day in Miami. The trip up here had been way too easy -- almost as if he was being set up.

He scoffed at this thought. There was nothing to fear. He had a loaded revolver in the highest caliber and absolutely no reason not to use it. Everything he had experienced so far told him that the old man’s walking cadavers were still vulnerable to gunshots. There was nothing to fear.

And then he heard it. A quiet, scraping sound like dead leaves rustling across the sidewalk. No footsteps -- just a quiet, rustling sound. Then the doorknob turned. Joe slowly drew out his revolver and aimed it at the front door. This is going to be easier than I had anticipated, he thought. Then the door opened...

Joe’s first thought was that it was all a trick. That the old man had anticipated his actions and sent a stranger to take him by surprise. After all, Joe might not remember every single man he killed, but he certainly would have remembering icing a woman. Then he looked beyond the woman’s black dress and veil -- recognized a face which he had seen only once before, in a wedding portrait kept by his father because it was the last picture taken of her before she died in childbirth. And suddenly he knew why the old man was so certain that Joe would not be able to kill her.

He had time to say only one word before the first of many blows fell: “Mother.”

Cuento de Mi Id

“Love Among the Runes”

“But I love you,” Kenneth said, tugging at her coat.

“But I don’t love you,” said Katherine. “That’s just the point.” She pulled her coat out of Kenneth’s grasp and continued on her way.

“Why?” asked Kenneth. “Why don’t you love me?”

“I don’t know ‘why’ I don’t love you,” said Katherine. “I just don’t. It’s not something you can make happen just like that.” She snapped her fingers for effect.

Kenneth just shook his head. “I don’t get it. I love you. Why don’t you love me?”

Because true love is not like exchanging gifts at the office Christmas party, she wanted to say. But she didn’t say it. Somehow she couldn’t bear to hurt him by being that harsh with him, even though he deserved it. Perhaps she really did love him, after all.

Don’t be ridiculous, she thought. Just because I don’t want to hurt his feelings doesn’t mean I love him, and even if it did, I certainly don’t love him in the sense that he means. In any event, love isn’t something you receive upon demand. How did that song go? “Lose your love when you say the word ‘mine’”? Or was that “you can’t hurry love”? It didn’t matter. The fact still remained that you can’t force someone to love you. Yet Kenneth was determined to violate that basic law of nature.

He clutched at her coat one more time. “Won’t you please reconsider?”

Katherine forcibly pulled the coat fabric out of his hands. “I have reconsidered,” she said. “And the answer’s still no.”

Kenneth started to step toward her again, then reconsidered and stepped back. Good, thought Katherine. He’s learning.

Kenneth’s mouth opened as if he was starting to say something but he apparently thought better of that, too, and closed it. “I hope you never fall in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, Katherine,” he finally said.

“I’m sure I won’t,” she replied.

Kenneth couldn’t resist trying one last time. “I really do love you, you know.”

“Oh, please,” Katherine muttered under her breath. She turned on her heel and stalked off toward the parking lot. If Kenneth wanted to play the role of the tragic lover, that was his business. But Katherine had no interest in sticking around to play the cold-hearted love interest. She had her own life to lead.

Halfway to her way, a cold November breeze induced her to put her hands in her pockets. As she did so, she discovered a small piece of paper in her left coat pocket. Kenneth’s handiwork, obviously. He must have slipped it into her pocket while she was taking to him. No wonder he had been tugging at her coat so much.

She pulled out the piece of paper and unfolded it. She might as well have left it in her pocket for all the good it did her; the note itself was obviously written in a foreign tongue, in letters so strange Katherine could not even recognize what language it was written in. Nice going, Kenneth, she thought. You go to all this trouble to slip your favorite lady a love letter, and you don’t even bother to write it in English. Very impressive.

She crumbled up the note and tossed it away. Within seconds, the wind had caught it, and the note was blown halfway across the parking lot. Perfect ending to a perfect day, she thought. Then she reached into her purse for her car keys…

By the time she got home, there was a blinking red light on her answering machine. No way I’m answering that, she thought. You don’t have to be the Amazing Kreskin to guess who that was.

She hurriedly undressed and took a quick shower. While she was in the shower, she heard the phone ring yet again, but she ignored it. The phone rang yet a third time after she got out of the shower.

She let the machine get it again.

“Katherine,” said the voice on the machine. ”You must call me back as soon as possible. My number’s 972-435-9075. It’s a matter of great importance. Please call me back.”

Katherine sighed. Everything was a matter of great importance to Kenneth. Didn’t he have a life of his own? He probably did, she realized upon reflection. The problem was that at least half of it revolved around dreams of her. As if she was supposed to be flattered that Kenneth picked her to be his dream girl. Face it, Kenneth. You’re no Brad Pitt. And anyway, I don’t want a man who loves only me. I’m not sure what I want, but it’s definitely not you.

She thought about the party she would be attending tomorrow night. The odds were that the men she met there would be no improvement over Kenneth, but there was always a chance. And besides, where is it written that you had to “settle” for second-best? Katherine was always having to “settle” for things. Well, no more. This time she would take control of her life.

The phone rang again. This time she picked it up.

It was Kenneth. “Thank God you’re home. They’ve been watching us, you see, and they must have slipped something in your coat pocket--”

“What’s with this ‘they’, Kenneth?” she interrupted. “Is this another scheme of yours to get me to go out with you? Because if it is--”

“No, it isn’t,” Kenneth replied. “I swear. It’s just that they’ve been following me for the last two days, and just tonight, I noticed that they’re starting to follow you, and--”

“Who’s ‘they,’ Kenneth? Some schoolboy chum of yours?”

“No, they’re this -- Well, you won’t believe me when I tell you this, but I used to belong to this group, see, and they were really into mythology, see--”

“Is this going to take long?” Katherine asked.

“No, it’s not. You see, they’re after you now because they’ve seen us together, and they must think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. Anyway, I saw one of them hanging around the coatroom today and --”

“And then you conveniently remembered that in time to give you an excuse to come over to my house,” said Katherine. “Thanks, Kenneth, but no thanks. I’m not going out with you no matter what silly story you conjure up. And stop flattering yourself. Your friends must be the least observant people on Earth if they think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend because at no time did I ever give you or any third party any reason to think that we were. Now leave me alone before I call the police.”

“But what about the not--?” Katherine hung up on him.

Great, she thought. Now Kenneth was inventing conspiracy theories to get close to her. If this kept up, she might have to seriously consider changing jobs. Surely her current paycheck wasn’t worth this hassle.

The doorbell rang. Katherine checked the peephole. No one on the front porch. Probably high school kids pulling another prank. If she ever got her hands on that Kenneth…

The phone rang again. It was Kenneth, of course, mumbling something about a note in her pocket. If he was so sure someone else had slipped a note into her pocket, why didn’t he tell her about it earlier? He must have seen her throw it away. That’s why he was so upset. Well, he should start getting used to rejection, thought Katherine. She certainly had.

She turned the TV on and sorted her mail by the light of a Cheers rerun. Just bills and junk mail again. She sighed.

At least the sound of canned laughter drowned out Kenneth’s voice. Maybe she’ll get lucky, and he’ll run out of quarters.

The doorbell rang again. Those darn kids again. Or maybe it was Kenneth. Maybe she should get her mace... No, she could handle him.

She peered out the peephole again. The porch was empty. It was kids, she thought. Or was it? Maybe she should start taking Kenneth’s bizarre story seriously. No, that’s exactly what he was expecting her to do. Perhaps he had set this whole thing up as part of some sadistic prank. You never could tell. Sure, Kenneth looked like a nice guy on the surface, but underneath? Who could tell? Remember Jodie Foster? Forget it. If Kenneth thought sadistic pranks were going to drive her into his arms, he had a long wait coming. If he kept it up, she‘d just call the cops on him. She wasn‘t born yesterday, you know.

The phone rang again. She turned the sound up on the TV. There. That showed him.

Then the doorbell rang again. Katherine got her mace. Next time it rings, she thought, I‘ll be ready.

She glanced out the front window. She thought she saw a white-faced figure dressed in black, but it turned out to be a piece of paper stuck on a bush. Then the wind blew, and the paper vanished.

The phone rang. This time she picked it up.

“If you don‘t stop harassing me--” she started.

“Katherine,” Kenneth interrupted, “you must get out of that house. They know where you live.”

“I‘m warning you, Kenneth--”

“No, I‘m warning you. There‘s still a chance if you still have that note. Just give it to me and I can--”

“I threw it away.”

“What?”” Kenneth sounded stunned.

“I threw it away. And I must say that I‘m getting sick and tired of all these pranks you keep pulling, Kenneth. I know you feel rejected, but I thought that you would be a better man than that.”

“But I‘m not -- Oh, I see. They‘re doing it.”

“Who‘s ‘they,’ Kenneth?”

”The guys I told you about. The ones who are into black mag--”

Katherine hung up on him.

The doorbell rang again. This time Katherine strode right up to the door and pulled it open in time to catch a miniature figure kneeling on the doormat.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

The kid looked up. “That man down the street told me to do this.” The kid pointed down the block.

Katherine walked out onto the porch and caught a glimpse of a solitary figure standing beneath a distant streetlamp. Kenneth, no doubt.

“Go away,” she said to the kid.

She locked the door behind her and ran to the phone. That was it for Kenneth, she thought. Now she was going to sic the police on him.

The doorbell rang.

She ignored it.

Someone tapped on her window. She ignored that, too.

An operator answered and put her on hold. Just like a Tonight Show joke, she thought.

The tapping grew louder.

She turned and saw Kenneth at the front window.

The operator came back on the line.

“Come quick,” she said. “There’s a man outside and he’s trying to break into the house.”

She hurriedly gave the operator her name and address and then hung up. Kenneth was gone from the front window. But he could still be outside, she thought.

The doorbell rang again.

“Go away!” she shouted.

Something thin and white emerged from beneath the front door. It was a note. “Get out of the house,” it said.

She crumbled it up and threw it away.

Then the phone rang. She ignored it. She thought about the back door. She rushed back to check on it.

When she got back to the living room, the doorbell was ringing again. She peered through the peephole. There was a cop on the front porch, peering into the bushes.

“Thank God,” she muttered.

She hurriedly unlocked the door. “You wouldn’t believe what has been going on here tonig--” she started to say.

Then the cop turned toward her. The first thing she saw was a face that looked like a crumbled sheet of paper.

Cuento de Mi Id

“The November Country”

by Ramón Bradamante

It was the November Country...

That country where prosperity was always around the corner... The country where the bottoms were always foggy and the promises always broken; where votes go quickly and taxes linger, and debts stay. That country composed in the main of smoky rooms, grassy knolls, no-tell motels, credibility gaps and future monuments. That country where people are election people, forever chasing dreams and the occasional chad. Where people perpetually pay for the future while living in the past and hoping for the present -- if not a present.

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Harrowing”

It is said that there are seven gates through which one must pass on the way to the underworld and that at each gate, one must discard an article of clothing to demonstrate one's vulnerability to the Ruler of the Underworld. Whether the rules were the same for men as well as for women, Theadora did not know. Nor did she know what became of one's clothing after it was discarded. She only knew that somewhere during the course of her journey, she had evidently miscounted. Either that or the sages were wrong -- there were eight gates through which she must pass.

At the first gate, she abandoned her shoes. The path before her was still strewn with small rocks and pebbles yet she deliberately chose to bare her feet before she bared any other part of her body.

At the second gate, she stripped off her stockings.

At the third, she took off her earrings.

At the fourth, she slithered out of her skirt, and at the fifth, she discarded her blouse.

At the sixth, she unhooked her bra and walked topless into the increasing darkness.

At the seventh, she shivered in the cold as she looked up at what had to be the largest gate she had ever seen in her life. The path was made of smooth stone now but that was not what bothered her. For after she walked through this gate, she would be naked. Not just naked, but butt-nekkid, nude, bare as a baby's bottom, sky-clad, naked as a jaybird, in puris naturalibus, wearing only a smile, clad in her birthday suit, in the altogether, adorned by air, decorated by dew, dressed in nothing and wrapped in emptiness. She had nothing more to abandon.

And yet on the other side of that gate, she came upon an even larger gate.

She rubbed her hands together and felt something on one of her fingers. But of course. Her wedding ring. She mumbled a quick prayer of forgiveness to her departed husband and took off the ring. She would never see this ring again, she thought. As it hit the stone ground besides her, the gate slowly opened and before her sat the Ruler of the Underworld. A figure that few people could view without going mad and that few madmen could view without going catatonic.

In a glacial voice the figure bade her step forward.

Theadora did so, shivering in the dark cold.

She knelt before the figure as the elders had taught her and murmured her prayer.

Then she waited.

After a wait in which every second seemed to take a century to pass, the Ruler spoke.

“What... do... you... want?”

“I want...”

Suddenly her throat went dry. What did she want? Part of her wanted to run away -- to scream and run back through the eight gates before it was too late. But that was too easy. It also seemed too much like the type of thing that the thing on the throne would want her to do.

She looked upon the unspeakable once again. Dared to look it in the eye. The thing was older than old, so wrinkled that Theadora could hardly tell if it were a man or a woman. It wore a wrinkled robe that threatened to fall apart any second and reveal the creature's nakedness. Its hair was just short enough to disguise its gender -- too long for a man, too short for a woman. Theadora got the feeling that the Ruler had been old when the Creator Herself had been young. She then got the feeling that the Ruler might even have once ruled the Upper World in a far older past, before its world was replaced by the present one and its powers confined to the world of the dead.

“I want my mother,” she said.

The Ruler smiled. It was an evil smile, one that hinted at infinite malice, but it was a smile.

Then the Ruler laughed. For centuries it seemed to laugh and then it would pause for a moment and start right up again.

Then it stopped.

“Are...you...sure?” it asked.

“I am,” said Theadora.

“Very...well,” said the figure on the throne. “Come... to... me.”

Theadora walked forward. The figure stood up, dropped its robe, and glanced down at Theadora, no doubt expecting an expression of shock or alarm.

Theadora refused to let the tiniest expression cross her face. Not even when the creature embraced her. Not even when it kissed her. Not even when it thrust its tongue between her teeth and its hands between her legs and pressed her upon the hard ground.

The ruler's embrace was cold. Very cold.

And then...

“Arise...” It said.

It sat back upon its throne and wiped itself with the remnant of its clothing. “Go... back... through... the... gates...

“By... each... gate... there... will... be... a... piece... of... cloth-... ing...

“Put... it... on....

“Do... not... look... back...

“If... you... ev-... er... re-... turn... here... a-... gain... you... had... bet-... ter... be... plan-... ning... to... stay...”

The ruler seemed to be smiling, but Theadora could not tell.

She turned, dabbed at the liquid between her legs, and walked up to the last gate.

There on the ground lay a ring.

She bent down to pick it up, not caring what sort of view she gave to the figure who sat behind her. As she put on the ring and walked through the gate, the mighty gate closed behind her.

Keep walking, she thought. Keep walking.

At the next gate, there was a scarf.

At the one after that, a pair of earrings.

Wait a second, she thought. I don't like this trend.

At the fourth gate, there was a pair of shoes.

Wait a minute, Theadora thought. It is almost as if it wanted me to stay naked.

At the fifth gate, there was a bracelet.

At the sixth, a pearl necklace.

At the seventh, a bra.

And at the eighth...

At last, she thought. A dress.

She ran forward into the sunlight.

Reached behind the gate to pick up the dress.

The gate closed.

Leaving her in sunlight...

And in the middle of a busy intersection.

“Wait a minute,” she thought. “I didn't enter through here. The Lord of the Underworld tricked me.”

As the eyes of a hundred passersby stared at her, she tried to put on her dress.

But as soon as she put it on, she heard...

“For heaven's sake, Theadora. How dare you act like that in public!”

She turned toward the voice.

Saw a pale figure standing in the middle of the intersection.

Then the gate re-opened and a mighty wind blew the figure away into the darkness beyond.

“Wait!” Theadora shouted.

The gate closed.

Nothing remained to mark its existence but her memory.

She was still pounding on the pavement where it had existed when the men in the white coats arrived.

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Tocayo”

“Mar-teen!”

Martin turned to look behind him but there was no one there. Nothing behind or in front of him but shadows.

Must have been my imagination, he thought.

He continued onward.

“Mar-teen!”

Martin turned again. Again there was no one behind him.

My imagination again, he thought.

He started walking faster.

“Mar-teen!”

This time he almost jumped out of his skin. The voice sounded very close that time. Yet he could not tell where it was coming from.

One of the surrounding apartments maybe?

Perhaps but they all looked dark. It was unlikely that anyone was even in one of them. And even if there were, they were probably asleep.

Then who--

“Mar-teen!”

Martin started walking faster. He had no idea who was calling him, but they obviously meant no good if they kept ducking out of sight. Besides he didn’t even know this neighborhood. He normally rode the bus home at this hour. Just his luck that tonight he had stayed after class just a little too long and ended up having to walk home instead.

Still his home couldn’t be too far away. He just wished he knew the neighborhood better.

“Mar-teen!”

Martin circled around, hoping to see someone shouting at him from upon a fire escape or from behind a garbage can. But there was no one in sight. No one at all. Except himself.

“Mar-teen!”

It’s a gang, he thought. They spotted my umbrella and briefcase, and they assumed I was easy pickings. Never mind that I’m probably poorer than they are. They’d probably just make up the difference with bruises.

“Mar-teen!”

If it was a gang, he thought, it was a pretty strange one. And how did they know his name anyway?

“Mar-teen!”

They picked a name at random, he thought. The minute I reacted to it, they knew they had the right one.

He frowned. The thought of having been fooled so easily made him angry. He felt like throwing down his briefcase and umbrella and challenging the mysterious name callers to a fight. He would never do that though. He knew better.

“Mar-teen Gar-see-ah! Doan-dey ess-staas?”

The voice sounded strangely familiar. As if it were someone he knew.

That’s crazy, he thought. He didn’t know anyone in this neighborhood.

So how come they knew his complete name?

Coincidence, he thought. Just coincidence.

“Mar-teen Gar-see-ah! Doan-dey ess-stass?”

The buildings were starting to look more familiar now. He recognized the corner street light ahead and sighed with relief.

He suddenly realized that for the last few feet he had been brandishing his umbrella like a sword and his briefcase like a shield. Pretty foolish of him, he thought. He wasn’t the type to start a fight, and you could fill a thimble with everything he knew about self-defense. Still if he had discouraged someone from messing with him, it was worth it. Even cowards could fight when cornered.

“Mar-teen!”

There he went again. He was beginning to sound nearer. Much nearer. Yet Martin still couldn’t see who was calling that name.

There went the voice again, calling for Martin Garcia. By now he was sure it was a coincidence. After all, he was in plain sight. Why keep asking where he was?

Whoever the caller was, he was obviously after another Martin Garcia. Which was just fine with Martin. He had no intention of getting involved in another man’s business.

Then he rounded the corner and ran into a dark-clad figure. He stopped and dropped his jaw in amazement.

The stranger before him was just a few years younger than he was. Young enough to be a possible gang member.

His hands were empty but there was no telling what he had beneath that black windbreaker. And that face. If it had not been so pale and free of chickenpox scars, it would have almost an exact duplicate of Martin’s own face. A coincidence, perhaps, one worthy of all those dumb TV shows his cousins watched, but it was unsettling all the same.

“Who are you?” Martin asked.

The stranger before him answered, “Martin Garcia.”

Martin scowled. His hands curled into fists. He was tempted to deck the stranger, but he noticed by the boy’s trembling that he was more scared of Martin than vice versa.

Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he too was named Martin Garcia. It was not all that unlikely in this neighborhood.

“You’re kidding, right?” Martin asked, just to make sure.

The boy looked at him as if he was going to throw up.

“No, I’m not,” he said with an effort. “I really am Martin Garcia. Who are you?”

The unknown caller interrupted. “Mar-teen!”

Martin noticed that the boy paled as soon as he heard the voice.

“Who is that?” Martin asked.

The boy replied, “My father.”

“Your father?”

“Yes,” the boy said. “I ran away from home and now he wants me to go back.”

He looked Martin straight in the eye. “But I don’t want to go back. My father did mean things to me when I lived with him. He used to beat me and -- and --” his face blushed. “--treat me like a man treats a woman.”

Martin did not know what to say.

“That’s why I ran away,” said the stranger. “I -- I just couldn’t take it anymore. I tried to fight back but I couldn’t. He was too strong. Besides he’s my own father. So I ran away.”

“I see,” said Martin. Actually he did not see anything, but it seemed the right thing to say. The real scary part was how frightened the boy looked. Nobody deserved to be that scared of his own father.

He’s just a few years younger than me, Martin realized. He even has the same name. A tocayo, he thought. A namesake. There but for the grace of God...

“Mar-teen!”

The voice was louder this time -- and even closer than before. The boy grew paler.

“He’s coming,” the boy said.

Martin looked around. “Where is he?”

“Close,” said the boy. “Too close. He’s been following me ever since I ran away, and he doesn’t ever stop.”

Martin stared at the boy. “Why don’t you go to the police?”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” said the boy. “He’d just get me there. You see, just before I left home, I hit him on the head with a frying pan. I hit him real hard -- and it didn’t do any good. He still follows me.”

“But surely--”

“I hit him so hard his skull broke. I’m sure of it. And still he follows me.”

“Mar-teen!”

The voice sounded like it was just a few inches away now and still Martin could not see a thing. The boy’s eyes, however, were as wide as they could be.

He seemed to be staring at something just behind Martin’s shoulder -- something only he could see.

Then he screamed and ran off in the opposite direction. Martin started to run after him, then stopped and wondered what he was doing. It was then that he heard it. A second set of footsteps running right by him in the boy’s direction. And not a soul in sight.

There but for the grace of God, he thought. He walked hurriedly in the opposite direction.

************************************************************

He did not bother to tell his parents about what he had seen that night. He did not tell anyone. He just went straight to his room and buried himself in his homework.

Martin was never so grateful for night school as he was that night. At least it gave something to think about apart from what he had seen. When at last he was through and he retired for the night, he wondered what had happened to the boy. None of his business, he decided. It wasn’t his problem.

Nevertheless, it was a sad case. And lying there in the darkness, Martin could almost hear the same voice he had heard before.

“Mar-teen...”

It must be his imagination, he decided. Or a dream.

Even the sound of pebbles being thrown at his window was just his subconscious’s interpretation of a more mundane sound.

“Mar-teen...”

The voice sounded louder now. The pebbles being thrown against the window sounded louder too. Almost any minute he would see his namesake before him...

Klunk!

Martin sat up in bed. For a minute there, it sounded as if someone had thrown a huge rock at the windowpane. He turned on the lamp on his nightstand and saw that the windowpane was still intact, the street below still empty.

It was just a dream, he decided.

He reached for the lamp switch and brushed against something. It was a human hand.

Before he could scream, another hand clamped itself over his mouth. Then the lamp went out and things got really interesting.