Cuento de Mi Id

“Bloodwaters”

It was a hot summer day and the sky was raining blood. Lots of it. A regular gullywasher. I ran inside as soon as it started and stared defiantly at the dark clouds from the safety of my bedroom window. But the blood did not cease falling.

In panic, I watched as the rain continued on and on, creating puddles out of dry patches and ponds out of puddles. The storm drains were regurgitating their unabsorbed contents into the city streets, transforming them into crimson canals... The front lawn became a scarlet lake and as the rising fluid began to pour over the curbs, I suddenly thought about Mom and Dad and how they were supposed to be coming home from work soon.

I ran for the kitchen phone and dialed my Dad’s work number. A busy signal answered so I tried Mom. Halfway through dialing, the phone went dead. So did the lights.

I ran out to the living room to examine the neighbors’ lights, but their houses were just as dark as mine. A part of me wondered idly about the conductibility of plasma and then I remembered the flood outside and how close it had been to my house.

By then, the red rain had reached the front hall. I had never seen rain flow uphill before but then this was not normal rain. I tried pushing it away with a mop but that only seemed to encourage it. So I ran.

I ran to my sanctuary of sanctuaries -- my bedroom. I huddled there on the bed in a panic. I thought idly of climbing out the window and escaping through the back yard but one glance outside showed me that the blood was just as deep out there as it was up front. So, like a dummy, I just sat there and prayed that God would make it go away. But He didn’t.

By then, the rain had begun to seep into my bedroom from beneath the door. I watched in horror as it darkened the nice clean white carpet and in desperation, I took my shoes off and climbed upon the bed, hoping upon hope that I had chosen the highest point in the room. The rain continued to flow in. The carpet by then was saturated with pink fluid and had begun to resemble a small pond. I thought about making a break for it across the squishy carpet but somehow the thought of touching it with my bare feet just seemed too much.

Then the bloodwaters rose higher and the room was covered with rich, flowing blood. I looked around in vain for a dry spot, certain now that I must escape that room or drown. But there was no place to go that was not already shin-deep in blood.

Eventually the fluid reached as high as the top of the bed. I drew back, climbing upon the pillows as if their combined height would save me from the rising tide.

By now it was so high that it was breaking out the window in my bedroom. Some of the fluid flowed out but much more flowed in. So I climbed atop my headboard and made a grab for the overhead light.

My fingers slipped. I lost my balance and fell. The plasma poured over me as I fell into it and when I tried to scream, it filled my mouth.

What will my parents think, I thought as I lost consciousness. What will my parents thin --

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

At that point, the alarm clock rang. I awoke and noticed that there was no blood in my room. The window was still intact and there was no blood anywhere on my person.

I smiled, got up and went across the hall to the children’s bathroom to pee.

The door was open. Something inside smelled. One of my sisters had left her clothes all over the floor and it smelled as if she had forgotten to drain the bathtub after her morning shower.

I smelled something too. Like blood. And pee. And some other odors I wasn’t sure I wanted to identify.

I remembered my dream and shook my head. That had been just my imagination.

Perhaps my older sister Lupe was playing a trick on me -- though how she could have possibly known about my dream, I did not stop to ponder. Instead I turned and opened the shower curtain on the bathtub.

Someone had indeed forgotten to drain the bathtub and it didn’t just hold water. Instead it held Lupe’s naked body, her bloody wrists still staining the water a color that resembled the fluid I had seen in my dreams.

At that point, I opened my mouth to scream. But then I slipped and fell into the bathtub, at which point my sister’s blood started to pour into my mouth.

Cuento de Mi Id

“The Last Day of Summer”

It was the last day of summer, and there was no one else on the beach.

Normally the beach would be quite crowded this time of year but now for some reason, it was empty. Quite empty.

Must be all the stuff that happened in Matamoros that did it, Callie thought. Stuff like that usually scares away the tourists; in fact, it always does.

But not her. She had waited too long for this break, this vacation. Waited too long for this week which was now drawing to a far too rapid end.

She had waited too long for a lot of things. Perhaps that was why she finally decided to kick off her flip-flops, strip off her bikini and plunge into the warm waters of the Gulf.

Not that it mattered. There was no one around to see. No one around for miles. And her friends back at the beach house had their own dates -- and undoubtedly they were already doing things with them that were far more daring.

But Callie did not feel sorry for herself. No, Callie was too good a person to do that. Better to hold it in. To swallow it down. To pretend it did not exist.

She did not need a date. She never did. She never will. She probably would not know what to do with a man even if she did meet one.

But she did know how to swim. She took lessons at the Y. And no matter how depressed she felt tonight, there was no way she was going to emulate that Crissie girl in the Benchley novel. She was much smarter than that.

Just swim to the buoy and back, she thought. Simple. In fact, she could do it dog-paddling. And no one on the shore could see her. No one at all.

There.

She touched it.

Now swim back, she thought.

Quick.

Before the sharks come.

Not that they will come, of course. You don't find many man-eaters in the Gulf. But then there is always a first time.

So Callie closed her eyes to protect them from the salt. And she swam back to the beach, stopping every so often to check for triangular fins.

But there were none.

Told ya, she thought.

Sharks are the world's oldest movie cliché, anyway. Stuff like that doesn't happen to people like Callie in real life. It just doesn't.

But it could.

Good thing she's not having her period.

They are attracted by blood, you know.

But the deed was done. She was through. She was finished.

She stood up and walked out of the water, feeling more than a little brazen.

Imagine me, she thought. Callie Martin, an actual skinnydipper.

She smiled and then glanced toward her clothes.

Only to notice that they weren't there.

But they were just there a few minutes ago, she thought. I know. I saw them.

Then where did they go?

Instinctively, she covered herself. Wrapped her arms around her torso as much as for warmth as for modesty.

The night wind was feeling quite chilly upon her backside and Callie was already beginning to regret her impulsive midnight swim.

Where are my clothes? she thought. Where are they?

She thought of what her friends back at the beach house would say if they saw her now. The inferences they would make and the assumptions that would not be true.

She thought about her parents and her grandparents and the kids back in high school. Kids she'd never thought she'd see again after graduation but who were bound to come into her life again once the scandal hit.

Then Callie saw a young Mexican girl up upon the dunes. She was wearing a red bikini. Her red bikini. Callie knew that much by instinct.

The girl was not facing her, choosing instead to concentrate on a pair of flip-flops she was putting on. Her flip-flops! They had to be.

In spite of her nakedness, Callie ran up to the girl and grabbed her arm.

"Those are my things!" she started to yell. But then the words died in her throat.

The face that looked back at her had once been pretty -- but no more. It was much battered and scarred. Nor did the scars stop at the girl's face. They ran all down her body as if they were seams -- invisible from a distance, of course, but all too visible up close.

If that were the worst of it, Callie might have continued. But she had already felt the girl's arm. Felt the girl's leathery arm. And she also smelled the aroma of something oozing up from the girl's body.

Then the girl grinned. Not a gold-toothed grin but it was quite obvious to Callie that the teeth did not match up with the girl's lips. Nor did the knife which the girl produced from within her bikini bottom's waistband.

Callie screamed but the girl just laughed. A harsh, masculine laugh that could not have come from such a girl under normal circumstances.

Then Callie ran. Not toward the beach house. But toward the sea.

She reached the surf before the Mexican girl did. She dived into it without a moment's hesitation and surfaced only after she had passed the shallow area. Then she swam out toward the buoy.

Only then did she turn around.

Only then did she notice that the Mexican girl was not following her into the sea. In fact, she was quite content to wait for Callie upon the shore with the knife still in her hand.

Callie let go of the buoy and dived into the sea. When she surfaced again, the girl was still waiting for her on the beach. Her arms were crossed this time, but she was still waiting. And as the girl started to sit down upon the sand, Callie suddenly realized that the girl could very well wait there all night.

That's okay, she thought.

I'll just wait her out.

I can swim. I can tread water. But apparently she can't do any of that or else she'd be out here already.

Good thing for me.

Now I just have to wait for dawn to arrive.

As soon as people start showing up on the beach, she'll have to move. Granted, the results might be a little embarrassing for me, but better that than whatever thing that girl had in mind.

Besides, she thought, I'm a lot warmer here in the ocean than I would be on the beach.

So warm, in fact, that Callie never really felt the onset of her period until the first drops of blood hit the water.

And a black triangle started zigzagging its way through the ocean behind her.

Cuento de Mi Id

“After the Apocalypse”

(Obviously this is one of the most dated stories I have ever written and there is one image towards the end that makes no sense whatsoever. I do not remember how much of this story might have been based on a dream and how much of it was based on things I witnessed when I was visiting Michigan back in 1987. I will admit that I wrote the first draft while Reagan was still in office and I will also admit that the story was obviously meant to have a sequel. However, I have yet to write it. Maybe someday I will.)

Route 75 from Midland to Detroit is almost a straight shot once you get off Highway 10. There being no exits or detour signs to look out for, this route is perhaps the closest thing to a straight road in this twisty, curvy country. You enter Route 75 just north of Saginaw and you can take it all the way into downtown Detroit if you wish. But you best not.

The whole thing started on one of those bright summer days we’re not supposed to have up here in Michigan. The four of us -- Paul, Lee, Billy and myself -- had risen before dawn that morning in order to pack and we were already suppressing yawns by the time we finally got on the road.

Billy, the driver, had an in with the local camp commander who agreed to let us go down to Detroit on a “fact-finding mission” provided we return before dark. As it was summer and the trip normally took about four hours in either direction, we saw no problems.

Nevertheless, the guard at the city gate could not resist the opportunity to reinforce this point.

“Please get back here before sundown,” he said, stroking his gun with a smile. “We don’t want to have to come looking for you.”

The trip went okay until we hit Flint, the last major city on the route before Detroit. The authorities there insisted on taking the car in for inspection and since we were dependent upon them for approval of our travel permits, we really could not put up much of a fuss. Billy said that because of his National Guard background, the inspection was little more than a formality that would take at most an half-hour; he recommended that we all grab a delayed breakfast while we were waiting. I was not so confident -- I had seen troops being driven up and down Route 75 all my life and yet I was still not used to seeing them carry out civilian activities. However, I was content to trust Billy’s judgment.

That, of course, was a mistake.

The authorities shunted us over to the corner of a large reception area designed primarily for refugees awaiting the latest bus consignment. It seemed terribly gauche to put four of us rich kids there with a crowd of people who may never again see their homes or families, but Billy just shrugged when I mentioned this and muttered something about the infallibility of authority.

Paul smiled. Of the four of us, he had brought the smallest meal, a legacy from his anorexic days which had taken place at a time when self-starvation was still an abnormality and not yet a way of life. He ended up sharing part of his meal -- rather involuntarily, I noticed -- with a couple of refugees who had drifted up to our table. One of them was a young black man who kept inquiring about relatives in Saginaw. The other was a white girl interested in our chances of reaching Detroit. She said she had a sister in Taylor from whom she had not heard since the war began and there were rumors that the way to the city had been blocked.

A radio was blaring somewhere during all this and no one seemed to mind that it was on an all-oldies station. That was all that was left nowadays -- even the Top 40 stations had turned oldie due to lack of new material -- yet it seemed funny to be sitting there, listening to Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” just months after we had proved that this country could take the worst the Russians could dish out and still survive. However, when I pointed this out, one of the refugees just muttered something about it’s not being over till it’s over, which sounded suspiciously like a song quote.

It was at this time that an acne-scarred lieutenant came up to our table and asked Billy to come with him. There was no problem, he said. Just a little confusion concerning our travel permits.

Billy just smiled his old boyish smile and stood up. “This place,” he said. “They can’t do a thing without me.”

The lieutenant escorted him off to the main building and the three of us sat there waiting for his return. A WAC came by and asked us if we wanted a little something extra to go with our meal but we just shook our heads. There was no sense in becoming obliged to people when it was unnecessary and besides, it seemed vaguely obscene to offer aid to strangers who obviously needed no aid when so many around us looked as if they had not had a full meal for weeks.

It’s the old banking theory in action, I thought. Look as if you do not really need money and you are sure to get a loan; look as if you do not really need a date and your social life will be nonstop. The same principle apparently applied to emergency aid.

What a pity.

I pictured myself as one of those poor souls queued up for the next bus consignment and then I shuddered. At least we still had our own vehicle. It was not much, but it did permit us independence of travel and that was fast becoming a luxury in the post-war United States.

Another WAC came by our table.

“Staying with us long?” she asked.

“Only ‘til our permits come through,” we answered.

“Oh, you’re thinking of traveling?” she asked. “In what direction?”

“South! Towards Detroit.”

“Oh.” Something in her face died.

“Very well,” she said and then she left, leaving a trio of puzzled stares behind her. At least we were not being solicited to register as citizens, I thought.

I was wrong.

A couple of hours later, Billy finally made it back to our table, grinning and unaccompanied. “They’re rerouting all southbound traffic through Ann Arbor,” he said. “However, they did offer to let us register as citizens if we wish.”

“Billy,” I said. “That’s not our intention. I thought we were going to Detroit.”

“In time. In time. They’re still checking out the car for radiation damage. They should be through in an half-hour.”

“You said that two hours ago.”

“Well, this time they sounded sincere,” he said.

I frowned. There was something just a little too glib about Billy’s expression -- as if there was something he was not telling us. Paul felt it, too. I could tell by the way his shoulders were hunched.

“Very well,” I said, deciding to give Billy the benefit of a doubt. “We’ll wait.”

They came for Lee after lunch.

“Just a slight formality,” they said. “It’s required of all female travelers.”

The fact that they apparently did not consider me female rankled a bit but I consoled myself with the thought that perhaps I would be next. An half-hour later, I was not so sure.

“What’s taking Lee so long?” I asked.

“Health inspection,” replied Billy.

“What?”

“All women have to get them. Can’t have the next generation being born with two heads.”

“You sound like a bigot.”

Billy shrugged. “Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t.”

When Lee did not show up an half-hour after that, I began to get worried.

“Perhaps you should go check on her, Billy,” I said.

“Why?” he answered.

“It’s nearly two. We need to leave soon.”

“We can’t leave. The paperwork is still being processed.”

“We have to leave,” I said. “We have to be back in Midland by sundown.”

“That’s okay. They offered us residency here.”

“Here?”

“Sure. Along with free citizenship. No registration fee required.” Billy smiled. “I persuaded them of that.”

“But what about our travel permits?” I asked.

“I told you. They’re not done yet.”

“Why not? They’ve had all morning to work on them.”

Billy gestured at the crowd around us. “Busy place.”

“Busy place...” I started to repeat sarcastically when I caught sight of Paul’s gesture. He was looking at Billy’s face and he was gesturing for me to look at it as well. When I did, I noticed for the first time that although Billy was sitting on the side of the table facing the sun, he was not blinking.

“I think Billy’s right,” Paul said. “I think Lee will be okay.”

“You really think s -- ” I started to say. Then I shifted. “Oh, yeah. Sure. She’s in good hands.”

“I told you,” said Billy. His face seemed oddly smug in the summer sunlight. It reminded me of the way my old tomcat had looked after it had caught a mouse. Or worse, the way it had looked after it had been fixed.

“Right,” I said.

The three of us sat there, waiting for about twenty minutes.

Then I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room and Paul excused himself to go to the men’s room. We met behind one of the portable buildings next to the camps’ temporary apartments.

“Paul,” I said. “I think we need to discuss Billy.”

“Not here,” he answered.

“What?”

“Not here.”

We found an unoccupied apartment. The sign on the door said it had been assigned to us.

“Kismet,” said Paul.

“What?” I asked.

“Never mind.”

As we entered the room, I turned on the radio. I turned it up just loud enough to drown out the sound of our voices to outsiders but not to ourselves.

Paul looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“What if the room’s bugged?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just talk low.”

“Okay. What’s your conclusion?”

“Something happened to Billy. He’s not the same.”

“I know that. What about Lee?”

“I don’t know. I hesitate to think about it.”

“What about our travel permits?”

“I don’t think they’re going to give them to us. They’re planning on keeping us here.”

“Any reason why?”

“To separate us from the car, maybe. I saw no one being banned from the bus consignments. However, if we take that route…”

“Right...”

“There’s no telling where we’d end up.”

“And we’d be right where they want us,” I said.

“Which is where we are now,” Paul answered.

The two of us were silent for a long while.

“Any conclusions on your end?” Paul asked.

“Just two. One: we have to make a break for it before sundown.”

“And risk becoming outlaws?”

“If we don’t make it back to Midland by sundown, we’ll lose our citizenship there.”

“We have no guarantee that things won’t worsen there the same way they did here.”

“No, we don’t,” I said. “But it’s worth a chance.”

“Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t, huh?” Paul said.

My face reddened. “Not exactly. But at least conditions are still slightly better in Midland.”

“For now,” Paul said.

“Let’s not worry about that,” I said. “What about my second conclusion? Two: Something’s happened to Lee.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure but the way Billy talked... I’m not entirely confident she’s in good health.”

“Surely they would not hurt an innocent girl?” Paul asked.

“In the position we’re in right now, they could do anything,” I answered.

“Right.”

“What about your conclusions?” I asked.

“I have only two as well, “ Paul said.

“Let’s hear them.”

“Number one: I don’t think they’re going to let us go voluntarily.”

“Why not?”

“Too much at stake keeping us here.”

“For Chrissakes, we’re not the United Nations.”

“But we are potential contributors to the local community. But that is not the worst part.”

“Which is?”

“My second conclusion,” Paul said.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I said involuntarily, then silently cursed myself.

A black woman in a maid’s uniform came in. In her arms was an unconscious figure. She laid the figure on the room’s only bed. It was Lee.

“Lee,” I said after the maid had left.

“She’s unconscious,” said Paul.

“I can see that.”

I checked her pulse. It was still there. Her pupils did not seem to be dilated. They did not use drugs. So why was she unconscious?

“You shouldn’t display your nursing skills too much, Annie,” said Paul. “If they find out your true profession, we may never get out of here.”

“Shut up,” I said. “You just said we may have to break out.”

“True. If we plan to go south. The consignments will be going east, west and north.”

“I thought we already discussed that, Paul. You said yourself that we can’t trust the consignments.”

“Right,” he said. “Especially since the one for Midland doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning.”

I glanced up at Paul. “You mean you checked?”

“Only in a casual way. But I have worse news than that.”

“About Billy?”

“No.” Paul turned toward the window. His voice was so low I could barely hear it over the radio.

I asked him to repeat himself. He turned.

“My second conclusion, Annie,” he said. “The reason all travelers are being kept from going south along this road. The Russians bombed Detroit.”