Crache (7 page)

9

BRUJA-HA

B
y the time the gangstas finish hauling L. Mariachi to their temporary barracks, his head is throbbing to a killer downbeat and he has to pee. The real pisser is that his bladder is about to explode and he’s no longer drunk. Fucking EZ beer isn’t worth shit. In the interest of worker health and productivity, it’s been brewed to wear off quickly.

The
tambo
is a cluster of recycled trailers that have been hauled out of storage in the past twenty-four hours to house the incoming
braceros
. Fabricated out of stucco-textured structural foam sprayed over a wire frame, the trailers are stacked like cargo containers in precise anal-retentive rows. The dirt around them is bare. The politicorp didn’t bother to spray the ground with grass to hold down the grit. A ragtag collection of umbrella palms and circuitrees furnish some UV protection and power. Not much, considering the number of migrant workers that have been sardined into the units. A bad sign. The
patrón
is a tightwad.

There are more
malavisos,
bad omens. For one, the place is dead quiet; no traditional
banda
or up-tempo
norteño
beat blasting from any of the trailers. No thrashup synthonica to keep the blood flowing. He can’t stop thinking about the absence. It’s as if the lack of music is a wound that needs to be licked, no different from a dog cleaning a raw sore. Not because it feels good but because it hurts more not to. The lack hints at some deeper, unseen illness. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with the sick woman—what the witch is trying to cure.

These
braceros
are more like
pollos,
he thinks. The frightened chickens who used to migrate between clades illegally, covertly, by dosing themselves with black-market antiphers. This was long before the
bracero
work exchange program was formally institutionalized and placed under the administrative control of the Bureau of Ecotectural Assimilation and Naturalization. Now the migrants are officially BEANers. A term that is no longer derogatory, according to the politicorps, because it applies equally to everyone who signs up for the employment program, regardless of race, religion, or economic and cultural background.

“
Pinche güey
,” L. Mariachi mutters under his breath. Goddamn.

“What?” Balta, the oldest gangsta asks, steering him toward a trailer at the end of one row. The unit looks like a last-minute addition. It’s whiter than those around it, as bright and shiny as a filling in a mouthful of rotting teeth.

“I have to take a leak,” L. Mariachi says.

“Me, too,” the younger gangsta, Oscar, says. Grinning. As if this creates some special bond between them that transcends their background and any other differences they might have.

“This is it,” Balta announces, pressing a thumb to an iDNA sensor on the door to let them in.

L. Mariachi isn’t sure if the kid’s referring to the trailer or what’s about to happen. When the door opens he’s assaulted with the aroma of incense, rose-scented candles, tortillas, and hydroponic chili peppers.

Inside the trailer is a big rectangle divided into smaller rectangular rooms by thin lichenboard panels clipped to modular fasteners. The fasteners make it possible to change the floor plan, or redecorate, but the holes they leave in the exterior walls look like shit. For the most part, these have been papered over with old
videocentro
movie posters, hologram printouts of pop singers downloaded from online netzines, and black silkscreen images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and innumerable saints. The furniture is standard
bracero
mix-and-match, a menagerie of secondhand gel cushions and pillows on folding plastic frames. Interior light is provided by peeling biolum strips stuck to the walls and the ceiling. The windows, paned with photovoltaic cellulose, are black as the night and reflect the sad-ass squalor of the place, including himself.

A few steps into the room, Oscar locks the door behind him. Dead bolts click into place.

He’s greeted by a man in his late forties—João, the uncle-in-law of Lejandra, the sick woman. He sports a big mustache, has watermelon seeds for eyes, and is wearing a loose sprayon tank top over the tattunes on his pectorals and biceps. One is a topless woman whose breasts rattle
ka-chooka chooka
when she shakes them. Another depicts a heart that drips blood. The blood trickles down his side before getting reabsorbed into his skin. He’s got scars, too. Thick keloid welts that look like permanent leeches. He’s been roughed up, and not by another
bracero
. The welts are the scarlet letter of a BEAN interrogation.

Great. Not only has he been hulled by the gangstas, he’s going to turn up on a BEAN list of suspicious persons. Assuming he doesn’t get hulled permanently at the end of the evening.

“Thanks for coming.” João offers a gruff, callused hand, each finger tattuned so it resembles a snake. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“Sure. No problem.” L. Mariachi does his best to ignore the writhing Medusa hiss of serpents and return the squeeze. Then he quickly excuses himself and heads into the bathroom.

The closet-size stall is windowless. There’s no way out. Not even a fan vent he can use to call for help.

“You were lucky,” Num Nut tells him as he’s relieving himself. “It’s a good thing they showed up when they did.”

“Yeah, right. No telling what horrible shit would have happened if they’d left me alone.”

“For one, you could be hungover. Wallowing in self-pity.”

L. Mariachi offlines the IA. He doesn’t want to listen to it berate him, especially if he actually has to try to play. He tucks himself in, then shambles back out to the front room.

João’s wife, the sick woman’s aunt, is waiting there for him. She doesn’t look happy to see him, introduces herself as Isabelle. She’s in her midforties; has raven black hair tied back in a ropy braid, is rocking fresh sprayon jeans, a pretty but modest floral-print blouse, and cheap company-store wraparounds made out of pink-tinted cellophane.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” She stands with her arms folded across her chest.

L. Mariachi glances around, notices the faint, chalky outline of an equilateral triangle scratched on the floor. At each corner he can just make out the shiny residue of low-grade glycerin wax. His gaze travels to the windows and hallway. Sure enough, the windowsills and doorframe have each been marked with an equi-armed cross.

“The
bruja
was here already?” he says, trying not to sound too optimistic. Maybe he’s off the hook—won’t have to play for the witch after all.

“That’s from last night,” Oscar says. “The spell didn’t work.”

His sense of reprieve falters. So she’s coming back again tonight—moving on to the next stage of treatment.

“She’s on her way now,” Isabelle tells them. “I just got a message from her. She’ll be here soon.”

“You want to meet Lejandra?” João says.

“We already told her you were coming to play,” Oscar says, working hard to play up L. Mariachi’s celebrity status as a musician, stroke his ego. “The
bruja
asked for you specifically.”

“She did?” A washed-up
rockero
like him?

“Come on.” Balta tugs at L. Mariachi’s sleeve.

“Maybe we should wait for
la bruja
,” L. Mariachi says, hedging. There’s still a chance she won’t show.

“We need to wake Lejandra up anyway,” Isabelle says. “For the
limpia
. It would make it easier if you’re there.”

No way he’s getting out of this even if the
bruja
doesn’t show. They aren’t taking no for an answer. So he lets himself be led down the hallway to a bedroom in back. The room’s only window is curtained with threadbare sprayon gauze that hides the yellowed photovoltaics. Under it, the family has set up an altar table. A vase on the table sprouts a bouquet of yellow marigoldlike flowers he can’t identify. Some knockoff hybrid. There’s a cross made out of two green chili peppers tied together by a red ribbon, even a festive sugar skull. The biolum panels on the walls have been muted. The only light in the room is given off by a votive candle made out of myrrh-scented glycerin, the chipped plastic holder etched with a colorful image of the Virgin Mary cradling the Baby Jesus.

L. Mariachi turns to the bed where Lejandra is asleep, resting uncomfortably under sweat-stained sheets. The woman, thirty-something, has a haunted look. Troubled. Her face is gaunt, her skin jaundiced but glossy. Just under the translucent flesh the bruised outline of her skeleton is visible, as if her bones have been scorched black. In contrast to her sunken cheeks and pursed lips, her tightly closed eyes are huge, bulging with fever or some other internal pressure. The pulse in her neck is rapid, as if fueled by a high-octane nightmare.

A flesh-and-bone Day of the Dead skeleton puppet, he thinks. That is what she looks like. Under the illness, something else about her is familiar. The association vague, unpleasant.

“Did the
bruja
say what’s wrong with her?” L. Mariachi asks.

“She did a reading,” João says. “The cards indicated she was suffering from ghost fright.”

Ah. The tarot deck.

“Lejandra was shivering real bad,” Balta explains. “She couldn’t get warm no matter what.”

That explains the triangle on the floor, the crosses over the windows and doorway. According to the old tales, people who have been badly frightened by an encounter with a spirit are susceptible to evil air—sometimes known as
aire de noche,
night air—which gives them chills. Usually the ghosts that cause evil air sickness are of people who have died violently.

“Did she sprinkle holy water?” L. Mariachi asks.

Isabelle nods. “Wherever she found a cold spot.”

“But the exorcism didn’t work.”

João shakes his head, the corners of his eyes drooping almost as much as the ends of his mustache. “That’s why we’ve decided to do a cleansing.”

“What about a doctor?” L. Mariachi says. “Did you take her to the clinic for an examination?”

“Two days ago. All of the tests came up negative. They said there was nothing the matter with her.”

Which is why they contacted the
bruja
.

“The politicorp doesn’t want us to know what’s wrong!” Balta blurts out. “The fucking
patrón
is trying to hide it from us.”

“Why would he do that?” L. Mariachi says. It doesn’t make sense. If there’s a virus or some other kind of transmittable disease going around, it’s in the best interest of the politicorp to keep it from spreading.

“We think they accidentally exposed us to something, and now they’re trying to cover it up,” Isabelle says.

She goes to the side of the bed and rouses Lejandra by brushing aside a tangled strand of matted hair and kissing her on the forehead. Then she blinks, straightens her head, and stares at the eyescreens on her shades. “She’s here.”

João and the two brothers hurry to the front room. Isabelle stays with Lejandra, one hand caressing the side of her face. L. Mariachi drifts uncertainly into the hallway, following the others. He hears a knock on the door, then two more, before the boys let her in.

“Doña Celia,” João says, all respectful. “Welcome back.”

The
bruja
is old and stooped, a thick stump of a woman in her white cottonlike dress, freshly sprayed. Her hair is a smoky white bun, coiled on her head. She’s dosed herself with cleansing/deodorizing bacteria that reek of copal-scented cologne or soap. She’s carrying a black mesh duffel bag in one gnarled hand and a battered instrument case in the other.

“You’ve been burning the candle.” Her voice is a scratchy rasp, as soft as frayed canvas around the edges.

João bows his head in polite submission. “Just like you said.”

“Good.”

She glances from João and the two brothers to L. Mariachi. Skewers him with a bird-quick eye. “You’re the musician.”

“Yes.” The word curdles on his tongue like a lie.

Her gaze settles on his left hand. “Your heart is crippled, too,” she says. “Heal one, and you will heal the other. If you don’t, the disease will spread and you will die.”

Before he can respond she brushes past him, down the hallway. The four of them trail after her, pulled along like dead leaves in the wake of her movement.

When L. Mariachi gets to the room, she opens the instrument case, takes out a battered acoustic guitar and hands it to him. “It’s made from the wood of the Angel Tree,” she says.

Whatever the hell that is. He’s never heard of it. Rather than reveal the depth of his ignorance, he nods once. “What do you want me to play?”

“Music that’s close to your heart, that makes the soul burn.”

“SoulR Byrne,” he thinks, knee-jerk. It takes him a second to realize that what she actually means are the traditional and largely forgotten
pirekuas
.

“When do you want me to start playing?” he says.

“You’ll know.” She turns away from him and busies herself with Lejandra and the duffel bag.

L. Mariachi watches her pull out the contents—a green plastic egg, a clear plastic glass, which she has one of the boys fill with water, a spray of dried herbs, a crumpled pack of Siete Machos cigarettes, and a fire-blackened palm-size ring of stone. The stone is embedded with fossils. Odd-shaped bones from some mythical beast that send a chill down his spine. Lastly, a miniature parrot emerges from a side pocket on the duffel. Based on images he’s seen online, the bird is maybe a quarter the size of a regular parrot. It’s a child’s toy. The bird moves with cheap nanimatronic clumsiness. Its purpose in the ceremony is unclear. Perched on the
bruja
’s shoulder it seems more of an annoyance than anything else, nibbling at her ear and clawing her hair into tangles.

While the
bruja
sets up, L. Mariachi focuses on the guitar. Amazingly, it’s in tune, and the action of the strings is good. The sound isn’t bad, either. Mellower than he would prefer but seductively resonant. The tone doesn’t seem to have been adversely affected by the fragments of polished rock and worn bone inlaid in the soundboard. Fossils, similar to the
bruja
’s charred rock, arranged in a cryptic design.