The Temptation of Demetrio Vigil (11 page)

“This isn’t happening,” I mumbled.

Trembling, I reached into my pocket and extracted
the laminated prayer card Demetrio had given me. I didn’t know why,
exactly, only that it felt reassuring to hold it in my hand. As
long as I held it, the animals did not appear again.

As an experiment, I set the card down on the
passenger seat. Again, the coyotes loped into my peripheral vision.
I tried in vain to speed past them. At 70 miles per hour, all of
them dropped off expect the enormous one, the leader. It stuck with
me, and seemed even to enjoy the challenge of the sprint. At eighty
miles per hour, I looked at it directly. Its eyes were lit with
sanguine pleasure, as though this were exactly what it wanted.
Then, as before, it rippled into darkness and was gone.

Realizing how foolish I was being, driving like a
maniac, I stepped on the brakes, and slowed back down to 45 miles
per hour. I picked the prayer card up again - and, again, nothing
chased me. I set the card down once more, and again the lone coyote
cantered alongside me in shadow, its posture suggestive of patient
disappointment. I refused to look at it, though I felt it wanted me
to. Within moments, the thing gave up trotting alongside me, and
began to smash its body into the side of the Land Rover. Thump
after sickening thump. I felt it, and I heard it.

“Omigod, omigod, omigod,” I chanted. I could
understand visual hallucinations, but physical and audible
ones?

I looked at it, and this time the
coyote did not disappear. The act of hurling its body against a
moving Land Rover had no obvious physical repercussions on the
coyote. In fact, it seemed to grow
larger
with each furious leap
against my car. Before I knew it, the coyote had leapt onto the
hood of the Land Rover, and was standing in my line of vision,
blocking the road.

I scrambled to find the card on the seat with my
hand again, and held it up between myself and the animal. The
coyote seemed to lose strength instantly, as soon as its eyes made
out what was on the card, but did not leave the hood. Rather, it
crouched there, unsteady, almost pitifully holding on to the metal
as well as it could with its paws and claws, and shaking its head
the way dogs do when they’ve bumped them on something. I was
astonished. I turned the card toward me now, and began to read the
words out, in as loud a voice as I could manage. I would read a
few, then flash the card back at the animal, read some more, on and
on - all the while trying to concentrate on the road before me.
Cars passed, and the coyote disappeared, only to reappear in the
exact same spot as soon as we were alone on the road once more. I
read the card again. Louder this time, though in a quivering,
terrified voice. The animal seemed provoked by this, but also
crippled by it. The anger apparent in its eyes no longer served to
strengthen it.

By the time I finished reciting the prayer, which,
it turned out, was for protection from evil - surprise, surprise -
the coyote was small, tiny, the size of a dog not much bigger than
Buddy. I stared at it in astonishment. It seemed so pitiful now, I
almost felt sorry for it. I had to force myself to remember that
moments before, it had been trying to run me off the road. I had to
fight the impulse to rescue and cuddle it. It shivered on the hood,
against the wind, and seemed to be slipping every few seconds. Its
eyes entreated me to help it. I had to remind myself that this was
all just my mind, playing tricks on me. The coyote represented
insanity, and I refused to sink into that abyss.

Looking into the eyes of a tiny, helpless animal
that was now somehow smaller than my beloved Chihuahua back home, I
felt a meanness come over me. I would not be made crazy by a car
accident. I would not relinquish who I’d been.

“To hell with you,” I said, looking directly at the
creature. I said the prayer again, and pressed the pedal to the
metal, speeding along a straight stretch of road with all my might.
When the speedometer hit 75, the coyote seemed to dry up like a
scrap of road kill or mangy wolf jerky. Unable to hold on to the
hood any longer, it flew away into the night, like a bat. I was
almost to Santa Fe by then, with only 12 miles to go to the upscale
enclave known as El Dorado.

I had never been so happy to be that close to my
father’s house. I couldn’t wait to get home. All I wanted was to
crawl into bed, and sleep.

When I finally pulled into my father’s driveway, I
called my mother as she’d requested I do. I was trembling, my voice
quaking with fear and worry.

“Are you okay?” my mother asked me.

“I don’t think so.” My voice broke, and I began to
sob. “I think I need to see that doctor after all, mom. I think I’m
losing it.”

My mother didn’t ask me why;
rather, she sighed at the inconvenience of having an imperfect
daughter to contend with. Ever the expert on everything under the
sun, she assured me, without conviction, that “this kind of thing
is normal after a traumatic event,” and promised to make an
appointment for me with a child psychologist she knew. She told me
she loved me, that I was going to be fine, and said she’d come get
me if I needed her to. But I didn’t need her to. What I needed, I
decided, was sleep. I went inside, asked to be excused from dinner
because I wasn’t feeling well, and locked myself in the bedroom
that during the week was Missy’s crafting room and on weekends was
reserved for me. I got into my pajamas, crawled beneath the goose
down comforter, and hardly able to remember the way life felt
before my crash - before I’d begun this slide into insanity - I
fell into a deep slumber.

♦

Demetrio stood across the room with his chin
up and his eyes blazing through me. I didn’t know where we were,
only that it was a large, dim chamber that smelled of damp earth;
cold, with thick adobe walls and a high ceiling girded by crooked
vigas that looked like the roots of a massive tree. It could have
been an ancient church, maybe, or a medieval dungeon, except that
it appeared to be perfectly circular. It was hard to tell where I
was, or what it was. It was something old and echoing, cold, damp
and mysterious, and if not for the flickering yellow light of a few
dozen lit candles, absolutely dark.

In the flickering shadows behind Demetrio were vague
people in outfits I recognized as belonging to Aztec Dancers (my
mother took me to the Mariachi and Mexican Folkloric Christmas
Fiesta at Popejoy Hall every December, I was down with the history
of my dad’s peeps) - meaning feathered headdresses, no shirts,
rattles lashed to their ankles, golden chest plates, and little
fringed skirts. Music played somewhere, and they moved. I stood
mesmerized and watched, until the music faded and the dancers, one
by one, disappeared. I was alone in the chamber now with
Demetrio.

He wore a strange outfit, a thick gown of some sort,
brown with a wide, knotted rope about the waist, the kind of thing
a monk might wear, with a long hood worn hanging down his back. He
was planted next to a huge wooden table, crooked and rooty as the
vigas; it was covered with burning white candles. There was very
little sound here, just the soft trickle of something unwholesome
dripping, dripping, dripping, somewhere in the distance. I was
freezing cold. My feet and the tip of my nose were numb with cold.
I shivered. I crossed my arms over my chest, and realized, to my
horror, that I wore only a thin white nightgown, almost
transparent, one I’d had when I was younger, only it fit me now. I
might as well have been wearing nothing. I was afraid to be seen,
naked beneath it, and I whirled around, looking for somewhere to
hide from Demetrio’s smoldering gaze. But there was nothing else in
the part of the cavernous room where I stood. Just me and the
frigid hard dirt of the floor, the lumpy earthen walls, and the
clear, almost metallic tones of water dropping slowly into a pool
somewhere out of view.

“Come here, mamita.
Ven
.” Demetrio motioned
for me with his hands, as though directing a symphony. The motion
stirred up a mild breeze in the entire room. “Don’t be afraid. I
won’t hurt you.”

“But my nightgown. I’m embarrassed.”

He smiled gently, and stepped forward with his head
tilted to one side and one corner of his mouth held playfully in
his teeth. As he did so, the brown robe he was wearing dissolved
around him, melted into dark nothingness. He stood before me in
just a pair of white cotton pants, the kind you might wear for a
karate lesson, with a dark red sash belted at his trim waist. I
gasped as something caught in my throat, and a thrill went up my
spine. His body was exquisitely sculpted, formed perfectly; his
skin looked smooth as a new bar of soap, and in the candlelight was
the color of a soft caramel candy. I wanted to touch him so
badly.

“Now you ain’t alone with your shame,” he said with
a wink. “Come.”

I hesitated. Shivered. Trembled
like a stinking human Chihuahua. I liked him, I wanted to be with
him, but I didn’t like this
place
. This cold, humid, strange,
suffocating
place
. I felt like I couldn’t get enough air. This wasn’t where I
wanted to be when we kissed for the first time, I realized. This
wasn’t where I ever wanted to be at all, frankly.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Sure you can,” he told me, as he stepped forward
again. “All you gotta do is trust me. You do trust me, don’t you
mami?”

Shivering, I stepped toward him, brought my other
foot next to the first, and stepped again, walking the way people
do in weddings. Step-together. Step-together. He did likewise,
until we met halfway. The dripping sound grew louder, and I felt a
cold drop fall from the ceiling onto the top of my head.

I wanted to scream, but Demetrio stopped me by
putting a finger to my lips and saying, “Shh, you don’t want them
to know you’re here. You shouldn’t be here. I snuck you in.”

“I know! I knew that. I
don’t
want
to be
here,” I gabbled, frantically.

“Shh,” he repeated. “Silence. Please. For me. It’s
okay. You’re cool as long as you’re with me. I’m pretty sure of
that.”

“Pretty
sure?” I stared at him, dumbfounded. “That’s not good
enough!”

“It’s the best we got,” he told me. “No more
talking. Hush.”

For a split second, I heard a crinkling noise, and
saw a very tall, very skinny figure of a man with very thick
eyebrows slink past us in the distance, glowering.

“Hey,” I called out, but the figure was gone.

Demetrio seemed not to notice or not to care, as he
unfolded my hands from across my chest, and held them in his own.
As had been the case before, I was filled with a deep, profound
warmth. The water droplet on my head spread, and was warm. The
chill and fear in me simply disappeared, as he looked into my eyes.
He pulled me in closer to him, and embraced me. I relaxed in his
arms, and wrapped my own around his firm, solid body.

“I’m so confused.”

“Shh.”

He unwrapped one arm from around me, and used the
tips of his fingers to pull he nightgown down over my left
shoulder, exposing it to the cold air. With the other arm he
reached out across the enormous distance to the table, his arm
stretching unnaturally. He snatched a candle from the table and
brought it back to us, his arm contracting now.

“How...?”

“Don’t ask, mamita. Not now.”

He wet his thumb and finger in his mouth, and used
them to squelch the flame. Then he ground the wick between them, to
make a fine ash. He used this substance and his fingertips to draw
a small triangle on my skin, charging my skin with electricity as
he did so.

“What are you doing?” My voice was a scrap of a
whisper.

He answered calmly, confidently,
in a low, dark voice. “In Ancient Egypt the triangle symbolized
intelligence and love. That’s why I like it for you, Maria. You’re
my smart mamita. I can talk correct English in front of you and you
won’t front. That’s cool, girl. The Cheyenne Indians use the
triangle tip of an arrow to symbolize male power. That’s me. I also
like the triangle because in Buddhism it’s a way to invoke love
energy and promote union with all good things. And there’s the
Christian holy trinity, of course. In ancient Greece, Pythagoras
believed numbers, math and all things mystical were connected, and
he thought this because of the structure of the perfect right
triangle, which we still call the Pythagorean triangle, where, I’m
sure they taught you in your fancy school, mamita, the sum of the
areas of the two sides equals the square on the hypotenuse. The
universe is pretty simple, ultimately, but it is also infinitely
complex. Dope, right?”

“How - how do you
know
all this?” I asked
him. “You said you’re just a simple country boy. You’re a gang
member. Why are you speaking so well? Your grammar - and I mean
this respectfully - but it usually sort of sucks.”

His mouth turned up in a delicious, almost wicked
grin, and he laughed at me softly.

“Turn that triangle upside down, and it might be a
country boy’s bucket, or sacred cup to carry me in when I’m not
with you. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.”

Next, he took the same finger and used it to tilt my
chin up so that my mouth was inches, then centimeters, from
his.

“You said we can’t kiss,” I told
his lips as they moved toward me. “You didn’t want me. I tried to
kiss you and you didn’t
want
me. I was so embarrassed.”

“Shh. That wasn’t it. That was never my reason. I
always wanted it. From the first time I saw you, even as
messed-up-looking and bloody as you were.”