Okay, so maybe that won’t be the title of the comic, but the art just below this post should give you a good idea of what’s ahead. In a few weeks, once I finish making the sprites, I’ll be starting a bi-weekly webcomic based on the characters in Charcoal Streets.
At first, the comics may be one to three panels, but as I get more comfortable with the format, I may expand into full sheet comics. The stories will be stand-alone entries into the mythology… although their canon status may be debatable as they will certainly be a but sillier and rely on visual humor as much as dialog. I’ll be honest… it took me hours to get this first comic done. Most of that came from the fact that I had to draw the sprites, get the backgrounds ready, and otherwise do everything instead. I’m hoping to get a gallery of stock backgrounds and props so I don’t have to go hunting all the time.
Additionally, I’m writing up the rules for a contest through deviantART. Those familiar with the site and those that have memberships will be happy to know I’ll be giving away an ad plan and maybe a few months of premium membership.
In the meantime, enjoy these character portraits, take a look at some Charcoal Streets art, keep spreading the word about Charcoal Streets and Randomology, and I’ll see you all here on Friday.
Here’s another preview at Charcoal Streets. Carmen was always one of my favorite characters going into this. While most of you have already guessed what she is, it makes it hard to really give her a challenge. This story, though, aims to change that.
Love is not something that just happens. Sometimes you fall for someone the first time. That’s called lust. When the feeling passes, you reach something more real. We say love, real love, lasts forever. Maybe it does. I hope so. Still, the cynic in me always looks for story possibilities, and Carmen’s… unique lineage opens the door for all sorts of mischief.
Carmen tried to move her hair out of her face, but the caked blood made it difficult. She’d had to contend with the slightly tacky strands of hair banging on her face. When she finally got home, she was thankful the streetlights didn’t work and most people weren’t awake at three in the morning.
She went to unlock the door, but it swung open. Before it could creak, she had her Glock out and ready. It still had a few rounds left, more than enough for her to do what she needed to do. Without turning the lights on, Carmen walked, room by room, and found nothing. Satisfied that the house was empty, she turned the lights on to get a better lock. Nothing looked disturbed. Her weapon cache remained intact and the safe-box in the bedroom was untouched. However, on the dining room table, she found a folded piece of paper.
Her name was scrawled on the outside with a very fine point pen. Inside, Carmen found sets of scratches that looked oddly like writing, but she didn’t recognize any symbols. After she turned the lights off and made sure the door was locked, she ran out into the night.
Luz opened her door and stared at the woman on the other end. Attractive, yes, and built like a ballerina trained at boot camp. Her hair and face had bits of dried, brown blood on them. Luz was at least a head shorter and thin with zero muscle tone, but she stared down the new arrival.
“Come to blow up my door again, Carmen?”
“No,” Carmen said. “I need your help. I found this letter-”
“‘How are you, Luz?’ ‘Oh, I’m fine, and yourself?’ ‘Never better. Still caked in the blood of the wicked. How’s the new door?’ ‘Great! Finally managed to get the smell of Semtex and soot out of the house.’”
Carmen stood at the door for a long time as Luz stared up at her. She finally said, “Look, I offered to pay for the door-”
“You. Blew up. My front porch.”
“And. I’m sorry. But you were hiding a mark.”
“What do you want, Carmen?”
Carmen handed her the envelope. Luz opened it and her scowl softened as she said, “Where did you get this?”
“Someone left it for me. The writing, well, it looks like writing, looks familiar. I was wondering if you knew what it was.”
Luz kept her eyes on the writing as she turned and walked back in. Carmen tried to follow but felt as though she were walking through mud before she stopped at the doorframe. A quick look up and down the frame and she finally noticed the protective wards carved into the wood.
“Can I come in?” she said.
“No,” said Luz from inside the kitchen. The young witch walked back to the door only a minute later with a thick, coverless book. She had the letter by one of the pages and said, “This is cuneiform. And I haven’t studied it in a while, so don’t expect a Rosetta Stone moment, but it looks like a love letter.”
Carmen tried to grab the paper but her hand stopped at the frame. Luz smiled and said, “You’re still not getting in. Look, let me run off a copy so I can translate it and I’ll get back to you when I know something.”
Luz shut the door. As Carmen walked away, she saw a figure in the trees across the street. Old neighborhoods always had the best hiding trees. Whatever sat on the treetop a moment ago vanished by the time Carmen saw the disturbed leaves fall. She went for her Glock, but stopped when she realized just how fast the stalker had moved and how far he would have dropped if he hit the ground.
Via Rosa’s cool night enveloped her. Downtown smelled like pot, gunpowder, car exhaust, and spilled motor oil, but Carmen was looking for a different scent.
Wilted flowers, just a hint of wet dirt…
She found him coming out of Sonny’s. His long black duster and wide-brimmed hat couldn’t hide the shaggy hair and unkempt beard. He barely lit his cigarette with a broken match when he turned to her and said, “Fuck off.”
“I need your help, Miguel,” she said.
He coughed a lungful of smoke and said, “You know, I don’t think of myself as a vindictive person, but you have so little clout with me right now-”
“Someone’s following me.”
Miguel took another drag and said, “Wow. You? You don’t have an enemy in the world, right? You usually kill them.”
“Pinche fallen angel-”
Miguel’s eyes flashed blue light before fading back to normal. He said, “You wanna start something? We both know I can take you. Now, there’s a band I like playing down the street. I’m going to watch them, get drunk, go home, and sleep it off.”
Carmen eased her hand off the Bowie knife. A crowd left a bar across the street. Their laughter and footsteps almost drowned the faint tap of someone landing on the roof two buildings down. Miguel smirked and Carmen saw that he hadn’t heard anything. He walked up to her and said, “Magic knives won’t hurt me. Chingate, and leave me alone.”
“There’s an angel after me.”
She saw the pause in his motion. He looked her up and down and sniffed the air before saying, “You’re not lying.”
“At least, I think it’s an angel. Could be a demon, so I need-”
“I said you weren’t lying. I didn’t say you couldn’t be wrong. There were eighteen angels and about fifteen demons in Via Rosa last time I checked, and I can’t think of a single reason any of them would want to stalk you.”
“Well one of them’s been tracking me since I got back to my house. I don’t think he or she knows it’s me, but I need some kind of information to take back to Luz.”
Miguel threw his cigarette away and motioned Carmen to walk with him. He said, “Why’s the little alchemist involved?”
“Whoever is following me left me a letter. She’s translating it right now, but she said it looks like a love letter. Now, the only things that could hide from me are demons or angels so-”
“Wait, wait, wait…” Miguel turned with a smile on his face. He let out one laugh and said, “Someone left you a love letter?”
“That’s not the point.”
“You’re freaking out because someone left you a love letter? Please. What guy is that desperate?”
“It’s one of your brothers.”
“I don’t know if you noticed, but the family hasn’t gotten along for a few eons. Can’t help you. But I’ll tell you this. Whoever’s following you is good.”
The sun rose and colored the brick and glass buildings. Carmen sat on the bridge overlooking the river. The smell of soapy water thrown on sidewalks and the aroma of cooked meat from a dozen street vendors was overpowered by the stench of sulfur.
“Hi, Lilith,” she said.
She turned to face the demon. Her form wavered between shapes. Her eyes, one purple and one green, remained constant. Whatever form she turned from moment to moment, Lilith kept on a long coat and her hair never went shorter than shoulder-length.
The demon said, “I heard you had a stalker, little raindrop.”
“Figured Miguel would talk. Chismoso.”
“Yes. He asked around. And no, it’s not a demon that’s after you.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
She giggled. Carmen caught a hint of sharp fangs behind her lips. Lilith said, “Demons don’t lie, little raindrop. It’s counterproductive.”
“Whatever. Not like I could tell anyway.”
Lilith lit her cigarette by touching its tip. Somehow, thought Carmen, the smell was sweeter than Lilith’s aura. The demon said, “Maybe it’s not a demon or an angel.”
Carmen tensed. Lilith felt the increased emotion and said, “You know why you’re so fast, why you can sense our kind.”
“You mean ‘your’ kind. I’m-”
“You’re one of the Fallen, whether you like it or not. Heaven doesn’t want a mutt like you, and we don’t want all that sparkley angelic blood in Hell. I know my people aren’t after you, and the haloes want just as little to do with you…”
Carmen already knew it. She sensed it when she couldn’t hear the stalker. She figured it out when she talked to Miguel, but it wasn’t something she wanted to consider.
“I can kill a demon, or even an angel,” she said. “Hell, send a hit squad after me, I’ll kill all of them. But…”
Lilith grinned wide enough for Carmen to see the demon’s fangs. Her eyes glowed like embers as she said, “But now you’re dealing with another half-breed. And you’re not bound by the rules. And Fallen are out of my jurisdiction. And Heaven’s. Fallen have desires. Fallen can kill humans. Congratulations. You have an immortal stalker with superpowers.”
It’s preview time! One of the greatest things to experience is reading old books. I don’t mean words that were written a hundred or two hundred years ago. I’m talking about actually holding old paper, wrinkled, bark-like leather, and smelling the decay of paper itself. Ink turns different colors with age.
Maybe I’m just a bibliophile, but it’s a much richer experience. I’ve been lucky enough to work in archives and look through records and letters stretching back centuries. I even got to restore an old Civil War letter by digitally scanning it and bringing out the ink.
And yet… it’s easy to think of the past as something that’s gone. We may realize people existed, but to hold a book so old, or better yet, something hand-written decades ago, is to touch someone else’s thoughts…
This is a true story. In a way. It’s real in that it exists. I’ll let you decide if it really happened.
I found the old journal while cleaning out my grandmother’s things. It was an old elementary school notebook with a blue grid for practicing letters, but when I opened the yellowed pages expecting to find a child’s scribblings, I instead found tiny handwriting that had turned almond-brown with years. Each word looked like a single line with the occasional spike indicating a letter, and it took me an afternoon staring at them to finally figure out what peaks were vowels and what peaks were consonants. I forgot about dinner and read as much as I could, but it hurt my eyes. The notebook was a journal, something my grandmother kept secret. In just a few entries, I knew the names of her friends, the little restaurants by the river she liked to go to, and her excitement with her new husband. I went to sleep just after I got to an entry talking about a man my grandmother met.
I woke up around three in the morning to get a drink of water. I felt my way to the door. As I walked into the hallway, I saw the shape of a man at the end near the bathroom. He was looking at me and the hallway smelled like fresh-cut plants, dirt, and sweat. Intense, wide eyes looked at me from a tanned, wrinkled face marked by the sun. Even though his mouth moved, I couldn’t hear anything. I wanted to run, but a combination of fear and curiosity kept me in place. As soon as I moved towards him, he disappeared.
My house smelled like cut grass and dirt until the sun came back up. I didn’t go back to sleep.
The next morning, I asked around to see if anyone at work had any idea what to do. My friends all thought I was insane, of course. They went back to scanning books into the library system. I helped people at the reference desk, but I kept smelling cut grass and wet dirt every few hours. At any moment, I expected to turn the corner and find the man staring at me like some horror movie cheap shot. I wasn’t even sure what he looked like, but my nerves were so frayed that I skipped lunch and just walked around the block three times.
I didn’t open the notebook again for two days, but every time I wanted to, the smell came back.
Every day, walking the stacks in the library, all I could smell was the paper, the scent of the new arrivals contrasting against the dull aroma of old paper from the older volumes. I remembered the journal and instantly thought I saw the ghost in front of me. It was just another patron. That happened at least three times before lunch.
I wasn’t going to start checking books out on what to do, either. All my friends would see them and think I was crazy. I spent my next few lunch hours looking through old newspapers. Nothing in the front page, of course, but I thought somewhere in Via Rosa there had to be a human interest story. There were plenty of psychics and mystics in the yellow pages, but they were there for profit. I was looking for someone who didn’t advertise. It took a week, but I found a story about a story about a young woman that suffered some sort of gang attack. The neighbors all said she was a witch working with a demon. She sounded like a brat, and there wasn’t much beyond a picture of the home where it looked like someone had taken a pound of dynamite to the front door, but I recognized the place.
Every city has it. It’s the house or the neighborhood where the witch lives. In this case, it was an old Spanish mansion downtown near Herradura Street. The place was vibrant once. The iron gate squeaked and shed bits of rust as I opened it and walked the overgrown path to the front door. I was about to knock when the door swung open and I was face-to-face with a young Hispanic woman, no older than twenty-five. She was thin and dressed like she was in high-school.
I swallowed hard and said, “You were waiting for me?”
She smiled and said, “Actually, I was going to check the mail. Can I help you?”
I showed her the newspaper clipping and she frowned. “I hate that picture,” she said. “They made the house look like was condemned. Look, I don’t do love potions or voodoo dolls or anything like that, so if you have a problem with your vieja, go to counseling.”
“It’s a ghost.”
Her eyes lit up and she opened the door wide for me. I walked in, clutching my briefcase, and was instantly hit by the smell of a dozen spices. The walls were painted a dull orange that screamed faux-Spanish, but almost every wall was covered in mismatched shelves stuffed with books, notebooks, and jars, spice racks, and plants in various stages of bloom. I wondered if any of them were illegal. She motioned for me to turn into the living room. None of the couches matched either, and the coffee table had more stacks of old, fifty-pound books sitting on top. She sat cross-legged in the loveseat and looked to me while she took out a notebook and pen.
“So what’s the problem?”
I explained the ghost, the smell, and the journal. She asked for the notebook and I carefully pulled it from my briefcase.
She took it in both hands and inhaled deeply.
Closing her eyes, she said, “He’s here…”
I looked around, but she giggled and said, “Well, mostly here. It looks like we have some work to do.”
“What kind of work?”
Once again, she giggled and said, “You don’t bring up the past without the past coming back for you. You need to set things right.”
“But I didn’t do anything!”
“Yes you did… You peeked.”
To be continued…
Want to read more? Just visit the main Charcoal Streetspage and take a look at the complete stories, samples, and other fun features, and stay tuned in 2011 for the release of the first volume of collected stories!
Merry Christmas, everyone! Sorry this is up late, but just think of it as a Christmas present from me to you. We’re going back to a sort-of-regular schedule next week, and all things being equal we’ll get more regular updates and more regular stories.
Anyway, I hope you’re having a good time with you and yours. Now let’s enjoy a mescaline-fueled trip through a Via Rosa Christmas.
It’s all cold, no Christmas. I got a little apartment that overlooks the main road to the warehouse district further out. The neighbors leave me alone, and I know a guy less than a mile away. The walls in my apartment are still bare. There are no pictures, no posters, nothing. I have a camera I never use. My mom calls me up at 7:30 in the morning. I’ve been awake for an hour already. Haven’t been able to sleep well in more then five years, so it’s not like she’s bothering me. She asks me how I’m doing, if work is going fine, if I need anything from the store. She’s going grocery shopping in the afternoon, so if I want anything she could pick it up for me. I tell her I’m fine. I drew a Christmas tree on my to-do board. It’ll have to pass for decorations.
There’s a pause as she tries to say something.
“Arturo, I’m worried about you,” she says. “Honey, you’ll get another job. You’ll be fine. Listen, a lot of people lose scholarships, but they get back on their feet. It’s not the end of the world. You just have to try harder.”
“Yeah. I guess. I love you mom.”
There’s nothing more to say. She tells me she’ll call at night to say hi. I know she will. She always does. I put the phone back and roll to look at the ceiling.
Fucking Fridays.
There’s no work today. Normally, I work as an assistant at one of the warehouses at the Via Rosa city limits. I sit, I smile, and I type. I have a little desk with a plaque, black on gold, that has my name on it. It pays the rent. Not much else I can do really. It’s life. What am I going to do? Quit?
Sonny’s has a second floor most first-time visitors never visit. The walls are lined with shelves and old books, paperbacks mostly. I sit in a corner, on one of the armchairs, and just listen to the acoustic band. Blue lights and black lights barely give enough illumination to read. I’ve sat here so many times I know the books next to me by heart. Anne Rice, Lewis Carroll, Dr. Seuss, a few Alan Moore comics, Paradise Lost… Jesus Christ, who arranged these things? The couches they have instead of tables on half the floor are nice, sadly more intact than the ones I have back at my place. The bartender’s a friend of mine, Ramón. He keeps the beer coming and for a few extra dollars he’ll get me a few pastas from under the counter. Not a bad deal, either.
Have to remember to drink water, though. Don’t want to get dehydrated and get a hangover tomorrow. Ah, fuck it. Tomorrow’s Saturday. What do I care? I slam down a few more Buds as the pastas take effect. My fingertips are the first to go. Soon the band’s songs turn into little muffled sounds. The bass thumps pretty loudly, though, and it’s a good song. I can feel it snake up my stomach, through my spine, and up my head. Mars Volta, I think. I lean back on the couch and let the music just flow over me. The band goes into some Christmas song covers. They do a rock version of “Winter Wonderland” that leaves me sick. I take the little bag of mescaline powder out of my pocket and mix it in with the half-beer I have left. I can barely taste anything. The second floor’s packed pretty tight, so it takes me a few minutes to get from one side of the room to the other. Ramón gives me a glass of water, I leave a ten on the counter, and I walk out. Music’s picking up. The bass’s rhythm makes little waves of light through the room, higher frequency as the bass replaces my blood. The band’s instruments make waves of light, but I leave before the mescaline takes full effect.
Night’s cool. Mescaline kicks in and I puke in the parking lot. Wow, there’s a lot of Fords in this town… Things go blurry. Lights flash for a moment, then fade back. I’m on the ground, leaning on a Ram. How long was I out? The streetlights look like melted skittles in a black light. My watch looks like an Aztec sun and moon, but I think it says it’s not even midnight. Great. I can walk back home. It’s only four miles. Balance is pretty good. If I stay on the back roads I should be fine.
Via Rosa’s different at night. Mescaline makes every light shine and twinkle in different colors. They spread over my eyes, drip down to the sidewalk and spread like puddles. Starting to wonder if those pastas had something them. Maybe cocaine, something that’s making me more hyper than I should be. I run across a street as a couple of trucks rush past. They honk and I laugh. Why am I laughing? One truck clipped me. My arm’s hurting bad. I put my hand to it and raise it to the rainbow light. Is blood blue? No, it’s red. This stuff looks purple. The ground comes up fast and I fall in a parking lot.
I smell cigars. My eyes barely open but I can make out someone standing over me wearing a trench coat. My vision’s blurry, but I can make out a guy, maybe thirty, and he smells like cigars and tequila. Good shit, too. His shoes are worn, though. White tennis shoes with little bits of red mud on the bottom. And who the hell wears a trench coat in the desert? Even from the ground, I can see his eyes swirl blue, like sapphires and ocean water. He leans down close to my face and whispers, “Want to know the way out?”
My mouth feels like I just spent an hour chewing cotton. I roll over and stare at him upside down. He’s wearing a wide-rimmed hat, like something out of a gangster movie.
The sky’s the wrong color. It’s red, almost pink. There are stars, every color in a bag of confetti, and the sun’s wearing a moon mask over half its face. The sun just winked at me. I stand up and brush the dirt from my jeans. I still can’t feel my fingertips, and I feel like I’m walking through Jell-O. I’m face-to-face with the man now. His face is very familiar. He doesn’t look like he’s shaved in a week, and that really is tequila and cigars I smell on him. Smells expensive.
“Who are you?” My voice sounds weird, like I’m listening to myself on a recording.
He smiles and says, “I’m a metaphor.”
I shake my head and rub my eyes, but the sun is still wearing a moon mask.
“This isn’t real… I’m dreamin’, that’s it. Fuckin’ Ramón put something in the pastas…”
He laughs at me. His eyes are intense, bright under the shadow of his hat. He waves down one street, theatrically, like he has an audience, and he tells me, “We’re going to find the way out, aren’t we?”
My head’s still spinning. I can’t think too much, and by the time I stand up the streetlights have rainbow haloes around them. I look at the guy and ask, “Who are you?”
“My name’s Miguel,” he says.
“You a hallucination?”
“Not at all, ‘mano. Think of me as your guide.”
“Sure thing. How does Jimminy work for you? Or Clarence?”
“Miguel works just fine. Calling me Clarence is just wrong on a lot of levels.”
He pats my back and we walk down the street. I don’t really recognize anything. The buildings look normal, the same southwest architecture as before, the same kinds of pseudo-American buildings Via Rosa’s always had. Nothing’s moving, though. Cold wind picks up. The wind smells like sand and cactus, like it’s alive.
How long have we been walking? I can’t tell, but I know we’re still in Via Rosa. No building’s been taller than two stories, and half the street signs are still in Spanish. If we’d crossed over into Mexico we would have crossed the river. I try to find north, but the sun’s still directly above us, grinning, and I don’t recognize the stars. I don’t recognize anything. My fingertips are getting their feeling back and they don’t feel as stiff, but my head’s still very light.
Miguel walks to my right. He laughs a little and says, “You ever taken mescaline before?”
“Sure, a few times. I just needed a break, you know? Life’s getting hectic, needed to forget for a while.”
“Oh, I understand. You have problems, problems I couldn’t possibly begin to understand.” I’m not stupid. I can hear the sarcasm in his voice. He keeps going, “So you decide to pop a little eye of truth, some Huichol magic, some of the good stuff? I can only imagine what you’re seeing right now.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about now. I ignore him. He goes on about seeing the truth, shamans, the colors of reality, but I’m ignoring him. Still, he’s the only person around and I have no idea where I am.
Something’s off. There’s something in the air as Miguel and I near a street corner. There’s a haze now, silver smoke, as we near an intersection. Tall spires like a cathedral poke out of the fog. They go up for miles. How did I miss them? A man with a dark green suit stands outside looking into the building. It is a church. I walk right into the cloud as Miguel waves to the stranger. The smoke smells like Christmas, like cigarettes and incense, like buñuelos and church. It’s spicy but maple sugar sweet. The stranger’s a gringo, but he has the same intense blue eyes as Miguel. I hadn’t been able to tell much from the street, but I stand in front of the buildingr, hands in my pockets, and ask, “And who are you supposed to be?”
The gringo looks me up and down like he’s trying to figure out if he wants to ignore me or actually talk. He doesn’t smile or scowl or anything. He finally says tiredly, “Who are you?”
I can’t think of the words, or the letters. I can’t remember what letters look like. Spanish or English, numbers, nothing.
“I don’t know,” I say, “but I think I knew once.”
“Strange. Oh well.” He lights a black cigarette and says, “Where does the Border end?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“And that’s why you’ll never find the exit,” he says as smoke leaves his mouth and drops to the ground like feathers. “You don’t know a lot, do you? Pity.”
I try to look into the church but don’t see anyone. I say, “Is it always this empty?”
“It’s always empty, but I want to go inside,” the stranger says.
“Why don’t you just enter?”
“It’s very lonely when you’re the only real one inside. Christmas is about forgetting you’re lonely. In Heaven, we take the day off on Christmas.”
I walk away from the cloud and back onto the street, back towards Miguel. Little tendrils of smoke grip my legs and are torn free as I leave the fog. When I turn back around the gringo is trying walk into the church, but he keeps backing out. Miguel puts his hands in his coat pockets and says, “That guy’s a real trip, huh?”
“Yeah. Do you guys practice being vague around here?”
Miguel lights his own cigarette and says, “Not vague. You just don’t get the metaphor yet.”
I pretend to understand him and we keep walking down the street.
It’s all one big sprawl of concrete and color. I don’t think I’ve seen the sun move since I got here. It’s always right above us and yet it’s not even hot. It’s actually been getting colder. I can feel my fingertips, but I’m starting to feel tired, feel the chill on my bare skin. It was annoying at first, but as the wind gets colder, it’s harder to keep my eyes open.
My feet hurt. I ask, “So when do we stop and rest?”
Miguel lights another cigarette and says, “We don’t stop ‘till you find the exit, ‘mano.”
“I don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
“The exit.”
“Yes the exit, but what does it look like?”
He doesn’t have time to answer. I turn back to the street and see a large dog in front of us. I stop, instinctively, waiting to see if it’s going to pass us or stop and sniff us. It licks its lips. No, not a dog. A coyote, a big one too. Miguel sees me frozen in fear, but he keeps walking right past it. The coyote gives him a passing glance, then slowly walks up to me.
It looks into my eyes and says, “I know the way out. Do you?”
I say, “No. Can you show me?”
“It’ll cost you. Pay up now or pay later, but I’ll get you across.”
“How much?”
“That depends on what you have to lose.”
“I don’t have anything to lose. I’m just trying to find the exit.”
“But do you know what’s on the other side? I can tell you, but it costs more.”
Miguel grabs my arm and leads me away from the beast. It doesn’t follow us, instead trotting down the same way we were walking. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a coyote as sad as this one. When it’s far enough away, the animal turns into a man. He’s wearing a cowboy hat, jeans, and a gray shirt the same color as the coyote’s fur. I can’t see his face. He keeps going. Miguel keeps his hand on my arm. He says, “Don’t trust those things. They’re everywhere, but you have to earn your own way through.”
“What did he mean when he asked if I knew what was on the other side? Miguel, what’s on the other side?”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Speak to me! What’s on the other side? Why would I even want to leave this place? Tell me!”
He stops and turns. His eyes are glowing. His grip on my arm is starting to hurt.
“You need to get out because you’re not a predator. You’re not working on survival instinct, and you can’t see them waiting to knock you down. Desert survival, ‘mano. It’s all about survival here, and you’re a little bird.”
“But I can’t make it out there, Miguel. I tried.” I try to wrestle his grip on me, but his fingers are steel. The light from his eyes is starting to hurt mine. “I already tried! It’s safe here.”
“And yet you can’t think of anything else but escaping.”
He finally lets go. His eyes are back to normal and he walks away. I’m left nursing my arm. When I try to follow him, he turns, way too fast, and says, “If you haven’t seen the exit by now, I’ve wasted my time. Laters.”
The confetti stars all fall at once. The moon and the sun part ways until only the moon is left in the sky. My fingertips go again and I’m left standing in a street. Everything goes black and yellow… no, not yellow. Those are streetlights.
I’m in a neighborhood, but which one? Houses aren’t that old. The trees are pretty tall, so that means it must be at least ten years old, and there aren’t any kids playing on the street. Their parents are either smart or there aren’t that many kids around here.
I know this place. I walk towards the third house on the right. I don’t know why I do it. My legs just seem to move on their own, and by the time I ring the doorbell it’s too late. No matter how much I want to move, I can’t. My head feels light, but this time I know it’s not the mescaline, or the beer, or the pastas. Mom opens the door and sees me, and by the look of shock on her face I can only guess I look much worse than I feel though the pain in my arm is coming back. She says something, hurries me in and lays me down on my old bed. My sister runs in and stares at me. I can’t see anything now. The lights look like honey.
Can’t tell how long I’ve been out. The lights look normal, but the streetlight outside is way too bright. My eyes hurt. No, not the streetlight. That’s the sun. It’s morning, or afternoon, one of the two. I’m covered in Sylvia’s pink and blue blanket. I guess they couldn’t get me under the sheets. It still smells like her tropical fruit shampoo. I try to stand and my head pounds like a construction site. My arm has a bandage across the forearm. I’m cold, but if the sun’s out it should be fairly warm. It was last night right? God, I wish I had my phone so I could check to see if it really is Saturday.
Mom walks in. She sits next to me and hugs me, tells me everything a mother tells a child when they’re sick. She hugs me more tightly. I tell her I love her. I tell her I’m sorry. I say all the things a son says when he knows he’s been wrong.
Light’s pouring in through the window now. I can’t remember seeing sunlight like this in a long time. I smell cinnamon rolls. Monday’s going to suck, but right now I have a plastic Christmas tree and a day with family. It’s not much, but it’s what I needed. Even if I don’t know it.
It’s time for another sneak peak at Charcoal Streets. In case you haven’t looked over the old stories or wanted to get to them later, all except for Beautiful Lies (Parts 1 and 2) and She Wept Flowers are now only in sample form. That means the whole stories won’t be available again until the anthology is published in a few months, and almost every story published from now until then will only feature a sample.
Almost…
This little number is about one of the more famous Hispanic legends I heard growing up. Everyone’s heard it. It’s like the girl that got picked up for a dance, then the driver found out she was dead. Everyone’s heard a version of it or maybe knows someone who saw… her.
Well, it’s good to be back, and it’s going to be a very eventful month. Stay tuned for a new article on Wednesday where we discuss just why you don’t mess with fanboys, why Captain Kirk needed to die, and why Hollywood is raping us without us even feeling its tiny, tiny weenie.
“I always heard she was a killer,” Luz said. The lights and pop-country music blaring from the speakers rattled the beer just enough to create ripples. The clove cigarette between her fingers dropped its ash. Carmen followed the little bundle of burnt cloves and tobacco as it hit the table and Luz said, “Yeah, a killer. See, this woman a long time ago had this guy after her. He owned a ranch or something. He was loaded. She was real pretty, but her husband died or something. Anyway, she had these three kids and no job. Or she worked a job and she couldn’t make a lot of money. Fuck, I don’t know.”
Across the table, Carmen took slow sips of her beer while watching everyone coming and exiting the bar. She said, “You suck at telling stories, you know that?”
Luz flipped her off and said, “One day, some rancher comes along and spots her and says she’s the most beautiful woman in the world. He makes her think she’s fuckin’ Helen of Troy or something. He wants to marry her, but he doesn’t want any kids, and this chick’s got a couple already. Pinche bruto is loaded and can’t afford a fuckin’ nanny or something. Anyway, she sees she could have this guy and everything she ever wanted, so she goes and kills the kids. She drowns them in the river. Or she drowns one and burns the other. I can’t remember. Well, the guy finds out and leaves her because, well, she killed her fuckin’ kids. She goes crazy and drowns herself. When she gets to heaven, they ask where she left her kids. She has to find them or they won’t let her in.”
Carmen and Luz turned to see the woman standing by the table. She had one green and one purple eye. Luz could barely see her true shape, but Carmen picked out the demon for what she was: a humanoid mass of constantly shifting skin tones, hair color and length, and clothes. Carmen didn’t know what Luz saw, but it had to be something appealing and trustworthy.
“Hey, Lilith,” said Carmen. “What’s a cunt like you doing in a dump like this?”
“Fuck you, Carmen,” Lilith said. “I heard they had a special on beer tonight and I overheard la bruja talking about la Llorona. And I hate it when people get the good stories wrong.”
Luz crushed the butt of her clove as she said, “That’s how it happened.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I just do. Everyone knows the story.”
By the time Lilith sat down, her curly, red hair had straightened into jet-black locks and her blouse was a studded leather jacket. She said, “That’s not how it happened. Do you really want to know what happened to la Llorona? She wasn’t some psycho-killer. She committed the greatest sin a mother could commit and she did it out of love.”
Carmen grinned and said, “Entertain us.”
Placing a glass of water on the table, Lilith said, “A long time ago, she was just some woman. Her husband left her and she had to take care of her children by herself, but she couldn’t make enough money to keep everyone fed. She’d starve herself to feed her two escuincles, but eventually, that wasn’t enough, so, to keep them from slowly starving, she did the only merciful thing any mother could do. She took her kids out to the riverbank and drowned them. Then, overcome with grief, she drowned herself. Now, she wanders the streets, searching, hurting people, because she can’t find her children and she can’t accept that she killed them. She’s cursed to forever haunt the world, never knowing why she does it.”
Luz and Carmen looked at each other, and then Carmen waived a waiter to take another drink order.
“That’s stupid,” she said. “Why not give the kids to an orphanage or leave them in front of a church or something?”
Lilith grabbed her glass of water and tapped the rim, turning the contents into deep red wine, and said, “I didn’t make it up. That’s the way it’s been told for years. If you don’t like it, just say so.”
“I don’t like it.”
Smiling and momentarily showing fangs, Lilith sipped her wine. She stopped at the same time Carmen noted the smell of flowers in the bar. They both turned. Luz followed their gazes to the young woman, no older than twenty, walking through the crowd. She wore a long blue and white skirt and a blue hoodie. Carmen and Lilith could smell the thick aura of marigolds, roses, and other flowers emanating from the girl. She walked up to their table and said, “Can I take a seat?”
Lilith moved her chair away from the new arrival. Luz said, “And you are…”
The Girl in Blue started to say something, but Carmen said, “An old friend. I’m sure you’ve met her before.”
Luz said, “No, I don’t think so.”
“It’s okay,” said the Girl in Blue. “People usually forget me. So, what were you ladies talking about?”
“La Llorona,” Carmen said. “Luz and Lilith have two different versions. And they both think they’re right.”
The Girl in Blue giggled as the waitress arrived to pick up the empty bottles. She looked to the new arrival and said, “And what can I get you?”
“Corona, please. Oh, and a new round for everyone on my tab.”
The waitress left and Carmen said, “Why so generous?”
The Girl in Blue said, “I always like taking care of my friends.”
“Even me?” asked Lilith.
“Even you, chingada.”
“Cool,” Lilith said, then quickly added, “So what do you know of la Llorona? You’ve been around a while.”
The Girl in Blue smiled as the drinks arrived. She took a sip from her Corona and said, “She was real. But it’s nothing like what you know.”
Luz giggled and said, “It already sounds like a bad movie trailer.”
Carmen playfully punched her in the shoulder said, “Keep going.”
The Girl in Blue said, “A long time ago, she had a husband. He wanted children, and she wanted to give them to him. They tried for a long time, but she never conceived. She started to think that perhaps God had forsaken her. What kind of woman didn’t bear a child? What kind of woman could not give her husband a son? Then, one day, she was pregnant. It wasn’t by her husband, though. The father was… insistent to say the least, but she never told her husband. She carried the child and he was born. They never had a lot of money-”
“Boring,” muttered Lilith.
The Girl in Blue just smiled and said, “They were happy, though. Her son grew up, but he was killed… and his real father made it all possible. He needed a sacrifice. She watched him die, and in her grief, she wandered, crying out for her son. She never forgave his real father for letting it happen. She never forgave everyone for being used, so she guards little children, protecting them from those who would hurt them, because she wants to be the mother she never was.”
Luz finished her beer. Carmen looked around while Lilith smirked. The demon said, “So she cries and wanders the streets looking for her son?”
“Yes and no,” said the Girl in Blue. “She cries for him and for her other children.”
“Why does she cry for them?”
The Girl in Blue slid her beer away and said, “I have to get going. I have an appointment to keep. I just needed a drink.”
She left a few bills on the table and stood. Lilith said, “Same old shit?”
The Girl in Blue said, “Going to see a friend I haven’t seen in a while. So yes, same old shit.”
She left Sonny’s and walked into the cool night. She pulled her hood up as a large Caddie pulled up with bone-thumping bass. The three men inside put out their cigarettes and walked out towards Sonny’s. One checked her out. The other walked right inside. The third took his jacket off and revealed the large Virgen tattoo on his chest.
The Girl in Blue wept black petals. Flowers withered behind her as she walked into the Via Rosa night and let the hood cover her tears and muffled cries.
Want to read more? Just visit the main Charcoal Streetspage and take a look at the complete stories, samples, and other fun features, and stay tuned in 2011 for the release of the first volume of collected stories!
I wrote a draft of this story years ago for a college writing course. Apparently, I gave a few girls nightmares. I don’t know if it’s that scary, but I certainly got a creepy feeling while writing this. If you don’t know who el cucuy is, just think of it was the Mexican version of the boogeyman.
Anyway, have a safe Halloween and go be wild! It’s the one night of the year you can dress up like Batman and people won’t look at you like you’re insane.
I was six the first time I saw the el cucuy. My mom and dad had been fighting all afternoon, but once they calmed down I asked my dad if I could set up my Cub Scout tent in the backyard and camp. He said it would be fine as long as I didn’t cross the tree line into the monte, into the wilderness with the wolves, and cactus, and rattlesnakes. I took a bag of animal crackers, some juice boxes, a few comic books, and a flashlight to read them once it got dark. I even snuck out a book of legends my dad kept in the living room. I took it even though he told me I was too young to read it. When it got dark, I opened it and looked through the pictures and tried to read a few of the stories. There were pictures of killers, screaming innocents, demons in the shadows, and the monsters that followed us from Mexico to America. I didn’t know what any of it meant. I pulled the sleeping bag over my head and peered at the pictures and hoped demons wouldn’t hurt me.
I looked at my watch and saw it was almost midnight and my parents were fighting again. The pictures burned into my mind while I stared at rough drawings of el cucuy and other monsters as I tried to drown the screams inside the house with the gray, black, and white of the book.
At one in the morning, I heard the rustling outside my tent. Mom and dad were still shouting inside. I turned my flashlight off and crept to the tent’s zipper, opening the flap as carefully as possible. My sweaty little hands grabbed the flashlight like it was my mom’s hand. It must have taken me hours to open the flap.
My eyes quickly adjusted to the moonlight when I finally looked outside. The house sat less than thirty feet from me, and behind me I could hear the sounds of the desert. A cricket played his fiddle in the dark. A whitetail buck scurried between the bushes. I also heard something crunching. It sounded like cookies being eaten. I crawled around the tent on my stomach until I could see the big elm tree behind me.
Something was curled up beside the tree, its back facing me while I tried to move as little as possible and not even disturb the grass. I could see nothing but black skin in the moonlight until it stopped munching on whatever it was eating. It turned slightly. A strand of sugar-white hair fell almost to the ground from its head. I followed the hair all the way up to the half of its face that was staring at me. A pin-prick of red light stood where its eye should have been. It turned and looked at me.
The thing spoke.
It sounded like a hiss and a whisper, something more animal than actual language. Needle-sharp teeth poked out of its gums like a piranha’s. It had ice-white hair, wild and free, that reached almost to the floor. Its skin was jet-black and the glow from its eyes gave it a sharp edge like a knife. I could see long pointed ears, horns I thought briefly, and even though I was fixed on the light from those eyes, I got the impression it was a “he.”
He turned around and ran into the monte, impossibly fast, and I tried to follow, but I lost him when he jumped into the brush.
I returned to the tent and found what remained of an animal cracker wrapper. It still had half a note stuck on it, “If you get hungry later. –Mom.”
My parents were busy with the divorce for several weeks. Every time I wanted to tell them about el cucuy, they just asked me to come back later. They had things to do. I stayed with my mom while my dad moved in with a friend of his. During those few weeks, I wanted him around. I wanted to talk to him and play basketball. On Saturdays, he used to take me out for ice cream. My mom was lactose intolerant. She and I had cookies when I got back.
On Saturdays, then, I had a lot of free time. Once the sun went down, I would sit on the windowsill in the living room and look out into el monte behind the house. Once it got dark, I turned off the lights inside so I could see further into hills. It was easier when there was a full moon, but even then I could barely tell the difference between the trees and anything else moving along the undergrowth. I kept my ear close to the window to hear anything that might break the silence.
After my mom won custody, I watched long after she thought I had gone to bed. She would kiss me good night and close my door, but I would sneak to the living room and stare out into the darkness for hours, until I could no longer keep my eyes open.
I didn’t see el cucuy again for several years.
To be continued…
Want to read more? Just visit the main Charcoal Streetspage and take a look at the complete stories, samples, and other fun features, and stay tuned in 2011 for the release of the first volume of collected stories!
When I was younger, my mother had a book of fairy tales she would read to us. That book is long gone, maybe still in a box somewhere in Mexico, but I’ve always held hope I would find it again. This story is based on the only tale I remember from that old, cracked book.
I’ve spend the better part of my life trying to figure out what it means. Every time I think I know, it throws a curve-ball. Maybe someone out there will have better luck. It’s one of my favorite stories from my thesis, and I’d like to share it with you.
Once upon a time, there was a man known as the Painter. The Painter lived a long time ago. It seemed like everyone in Via Rosa knew him only as the Painter since no one knew his name and he didn’t have any family. He lived in a house near the edge of the city and, every morning, would open his windows to let the sun in. For the rest of the day, the street smelled like paint as he worked on every bit of canvas he could find.
In the afternoon, he put his paintings out in the yard and set out a table with mangoes and pineapples. Just like his name was a mystery, no one was sure where he got the fruit. It just appeared, and for a few dollars, he’d cut a piece for you to take home and enjoy. The children liked the warm mango and the neighborhood mothers frowned upon the juicy mess their children made. Sometimes, someone would buy one of the paintings, too. The Painter usually created portraits of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and angels. He said they were angels, but no one bought those. Men with eyes of two different colors, gringos with pale blue eyes… these were not the angels of cathedrals. No one knew it, but the Painter was the only person to ever draw Jesus as he really lived.
No one knew except the angels who bought the pineapple and Jesus paintings.
No one knew they were angels, but then again, no one knew the Painter had talent. They bought the paintings because they had Jesus on them, much the same way people exchange money because it has God’s name on it.
The Painter didn’t care. He was just happy for the attention.
One day, a storm came through Via Rosa. It was the biggest storm anyone had seen since people had panicked from the last storm. People panicked, but the Painter just saw the way the drops splashed on his windows and the plants outside and made it a point to draw that moment between the perfect drop and the splash.
Just then, a butterfly flew into his room.
Like many in Via Rosa, he’d never really paid attention to butterflies. They flew with the dust in the summer. Most people thought they were leaves. The Painter, though, saw the butterfly and expected to see the patterns of God’s design on its wings. However, this butterfly was special.
It was a metaphor. Like angels.
Its wings were almost clear. Only the tiniest bit of color clung to them. The Painter saw this sorry excuse for an insect, a failed creature that lost its only reason for existing to something as simple as rain, and felt sorry for it. Most people would have taken the butterfly by the wings, but the Painter cupped his hands and let the paper-light creature crawl towards him. When the butterfly was safely within his palms, he took it to the desk by the lone light in his bedroom and studied it. The rain washed away the fine powder on its wings and it was a miracle it managed to fly at all. The Painter took one leather-like hand and picked the finest brush he owned. It was a thin, chipped thing with only a few bristles left, but it would do the job.
Slowly, as though he were writing an illuminated manuscript, he painted the butterfly’s wings. It was a Monarch, he could tell. A little copper and a touch of black slowly moved onto the creature’s wings. The pale, gray material turned back into a vibrant canvas. A few hours later, the Painter put the brush away and watched as the butterfly stood by the window, waited for the rain to stop, and left. The street smelled like heat and vapor as the sun came back out. Even though it was nearly evening, the Painter took his mangoes and pineapple outside to see if anyone would buy any.
The next day, the Painter received another unexpected guest.
Another butterfly landed on his windowsill. At first, the Painter was confused. He’d never really seen more than one butterfly in a week. Well, that’s not quite true. He didn’t think he’d ever seen more than one butterfly at once, maybe one every few days in the spring, and now he was looking at his second miracle in two days. This butterfly was smaller, red by the looks of the faded markings on its wings, and it nuzzled against the Painter’s fingers.
Any artist would know what to do next. The Painter took his fine brush and repainted the butterfly’s wings. With the last day’s work, he knew enough to paint this butterfly’s wings in half the time. He was done so quickly he had time to set his fruit and paintings outside. He didn’t sell any pictures of Jesus, but he was content with his work with the butterflies.
That night, Via Rosa drowned in a storm. It was the worst storm since the last time it rained. People said the bridges were washed away. Entire sections of the market and even the cathedral were rumored to be underwater. The Painter stayed inside. He readied his brushes, waited, and before the last drizzle went away, his windowsill was covered in dulled butterflies. Anyone walking by, and that would be no one after it rains, would have thought the Painter’s house had been covered in tissue paper because of all the butterflies covering the garden and windows.
No one bought mangoes or pineapple for days.
No one saw the painter for just as long. Eventually, old ladies wanted their mangoes. Angels wanted their paintings. Demons wanted the chance to seduce him with promises of fame and fortune.
He never appeared. Someone finally went to knock on the Painter’s door. It made a hollow sound that no one could really place. The door stayed locked, and after a few more days, someone called the priest and asked if it was proper to enter someone’s home to check on the person.
The priest said yes, it was proper, and a brave young boy from the neighborhood finally entered through a window into the Painter’s bedroom. Inside, he found the old man on the bed, paint in every color drizzled on his fingers and a workbench with a hundred colors standing by the door. The Painter didn’t move.
The boy checked him and found he was dead.
After much deliberation, the priest confirmed the Painter was dead. The old ladies wept for their mangoes and pineapples. Angels held on to their paintings. They all felt bad enough to put some money together to give the Painter a funeral with a nice casket, a good piece of land in the cemetery, and a ride from the church to his final resting place. The old ladies thought it was the least they could do. The angels watched on.
As the casket left the church, the real procession started.
Butterflies in every shape and color and even some moths swarmed the casket and followed it all the way to the cemetery. The ribbons of red, white, yellow, green, and white stretched for a mile. People had never seen that much color in Via Rosa. They’d never seen that color anywhere except the Painter’s work. While they pined for mangoes, the butterflies stayed and swarmed over the gravestone. They stayed there and kept vigil until the next rain came along. By then, the butterflies were careful to keep their paint out of the water.
And what’s the moral of the story?
Who knows? Maybe everyone eventually appreciates art. Maybe you have to die for your art to be appreciated. Maybe there is no moral. Maybe it’s just a made-up story that means nothing and you’re supposed to listen to it or read it until you fall sleep.
Or maybe it’s all completely true.
Good night, and sweet dreams little one. Maybe, someday, you’ll paint a butterfly, too.
Want to read more? Just visit the main Charcoal Streetspage and take a look at the complete stories, samples, and other fun features, and stay tuned in 2011 for the release of the first volume of collected stories!
I wasn’t able to go to the wake and by the time you read this, they’ll have already cremated him. He’d been sick for a while, so while his pain is now over, those of us left behind hurt now. It’s a dull hurt, but it will subside. It always does.
This is by no means a representation of the actual ceremony. Or maybe it is. Maybe it’s all real. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that people forget conflicts when the people we all have in common hurt or go away.
We all die. It’s the one thing we all have in common eventually.
And before someone asks, YES, this is set well before Beautiful Lies. Non-linear storytelling rocks.
Tío, you were a man who lived a full life. You had a family, a business, and your words will live on with all of us. Thank you for the delicious meals, the laughs at parties, and the family you helped create.
An angel walked into the white-walled room and went straight for the bar. His long black duster trailed behind him as he removed his wide-brimmed hat and moved long wayward hair behind his ears. Stained white tennis shoes trailed red dirt with each step. Miguel walked past the buffet table covered in five kinds of corn tortillas and beans, tamales , and stuffed bell peppers dripping with cheese and followed his nose to the back of the church’s assembly room. The tables covered in paper tablecloths and plastic plates buzzed with Spanish and English. Family members talked amongst themselves, some in whispers, some at party volume. Some, the old women mostly, were somber. They looked after the younger children while the men walked back to the makeshift bar that usually served as the church’s weekend soup kitchen.
It could easily have been a dull birthday party, thought Miguel. He stopped at a few tables and shook hands, said how sorry he was for the family’s loss, said he was there for them if they needed anything, and kept going. It was all true, but he didn’t stick around long enough for anyone to ask how he knew the deceased.
Miguel almost reached the bar before a firm hand grabbed his shoulder. The smell of roses and lavender overpowered the spices at the buffet table. He didn’t even have to turn around.
“Micah,” Miguel said, “so are you on the bride’s side or the groom’s side?”
He turned to face the other angel. Micah’s dark green suit and golden tie looked clownish next to the jeans and dress shirts in the room. His fair skin and slicked blond hair pegged him as an outsider. He kept his hand on Miguel’s shoulder and said, “What are you doing here?”
“Saw the obituary. Decided to come pay my respects. Why? What are you doing here?”
“Came to see the priest.”
“Why? Flores hasn’t been kissing your ass enough?”
The angel removed his hand and said, “Never mind all that. I wanted to have a look at all of this. I don’t like when they have these things here” He turned and looked at the dozens of tanned, wrinkled faces in the room. As the alcohol and food disappeared, so did the sorrow.
“Well, come on,” said Miguel. “Grab a drink or people are going to think you’re an usher.”
To be continued…
Want to read more? Just visit the main Charcoal Streetspage and take a look at the complete stories, samples, and other fun features, and stay tuned in 2011 for the release of the first volume of collected stories!
Time for some alchemy! I wrote a draft of this story almost four years ago in college and was called out on some drug-related habits by a guy in the class that, well… was quite familiar with the subject matter while I only did research on case studies. I guess it goes to show the power of first-hand accounts. Enjoy!
Nothing really gets you going like some self-medication. You have to get the right stuff, though, the right pills and chasers. If you really want to experience a new level of sensory immersion, though, you can’t go wrong with some cheap vodka, a water filter, and a couple of sinus pills, something antihistamine for the daytime. Cheap-knock-offs work just as well, as long as it’s orange or red. That’s an easy way to remember it.
Once you have a day like mine, you need your friends. Construction work for twelve hours a day, working without a face mask, breathing in little bits of concrete and plaster… that’s enough to make you cough gray for three days. You ever been in the sun so long that going indoors makes you feel as though someone took a blanket off of you? Like the sun has been pressing down on you the entire day, like it has weight, and those burns on your back and shoulders are the imprints of sunlight? It’s a stamp, really. The only way to forget about it is to forget pretty much everything else.
I came home earlier and found Rich on the couch, passed out on what I could only imagine were a few dozen pills from assorted pharmacies throughout the city. He swore he could find the right mixture of prescriptions and liquor to simulate the euphoria of any illegal drug. He was probably right. Then again, he took enough pills that his brain shut down and he thought he was having the time of his life.
Random alchemy in the brain is not the best way to go, but it’s the best I know. That’s why we stuck with the true and tried methods. Pot’s too mellow, cigarettes are too expensive, and expensive liquor doesn’t cut it. People can’t offer you the right comfort, either. They can’t tell you they’ll make you forget how shitty your life is. No woman can do that for you. They can come close, though. I met a girl at a party once. Not my idea. A friend dragged me there because he said I wasn’t being social. I met this girl there, a brunette. Blonds are a dime a dozen. I went to the bar and had a few shots of something that tasted like wood and rubbing alcohol. She was sitting on the other side of the room, red plastic cup in hand, eyes glassy. She was talking to a few other girls standing beside her, but she looked like she was alone for the most part.
I walked up to her and said, “Long night?”
She rolled her head to face me and said, “Not long enough.”
I’d had a few cocktails that night, the kinds of things Rich cooked up in high school before he could get the prescription ingredients and had to make do with complex mixes of other substances. Everything felt heightened. Her smell, her eyes, the way she moaned and scratched my back an hour later while she tried to not make too much noise and wake her parents. It was good. I even got her phone number, and she asked me to call her later. I never did. Even while I was with her, all I could think about was that in the morning it would all start over again. Classes, find a job, think about the next fifty years so you stress out. Just an endless cycle broken briefly by Rich’s customized reality trips and the occasional momentary companion. You can’t go wrong with that, but it doesn’t change anything.
She wasn’t the first. Not even close. Ever since I was old enough to steal beer, I’d looked to women. They came before the drugs ever even crossed my mind or twisted it into a hundred different shapes and colors. The first one was called Tammy. I can’t remember her last name. I just remember she was this short busty blonde on the cheerleading team back in Calvary High School. She didn’t talk to me for weeks after we spent the night in her parent’s lake house doing things we saw on cheap cable movies. She was the first time I tried to forget. No, that’s wrong. I’d tried to forget all my life. She was the first time I’d had anyone else help me forget. And I did, if only for an instant. After that, I met other girls, let them help me forget, and then I met Rich.
Rich was in the same grade as me but was a year older because he’d been held back. Even back then, he looked like a scarecrow had grown skin and was just walking about. He was skinny with short blond hair that looked more like straw and sunken features that completed the undead look. He was just some kid from the suburbs with daddy’s money and no direction. The first time he showed me the merciful bliss of chemically-induced weekends, I was walking along, backpack slung over one shoulder, trying to act cool when I knew I looked and acted as awkward as anyone in that school.
I was probably worse off than others. I’d enrolled in the Manufacturing Sciences Program, a program designed for, “the brightest students interested in getting a step ahead in the corporate and manufacturing sectors of society.” What I was finding out by the end of my freshman year was that their taglines were all just really nice, fancy ways of saying, “We’re going to show you how to talk properly to your superiors, write a report, and type.”
In other words, how to work in a cubicle. We were being taught how to not go crazy for the next thirty years as we worked for some position in middle-management.
That day, I sat outside in the parking lot, waited for my ride, and Rich passed me. I must have had circles under my eyes, or at the very least I looked like I needed to wake up. You wouldn’t believe how much work tediousness is. He dropped a little bag next to me. I picked it up and saw the colors inside, white and red, Christmas colors. Before I could say anything, he kept walking and said, “Two red, one white, chase with mouthwash,” winked, and kept walking.
You could ask me for hours why I took them or why he gave them to me. Maybe he gave them to me because he felt sorry for me. Maybe I took them was because I thought they’d kill me. Maybe it was because I really wasn’t sure if they would work. They were something different in my life. Yes, they could kill me, but maybe they wouldn’t. When I got home, I took Rich’s prescription, then sat down and stared at the wall for an hour. My mom called me to dinner and I sat there, moving my chicken and mushrooms to the rhythm of a song I didn’t know. The salad was brighter and the chicken tasted like it was raised in some far-off tropical country. My parents asked me a few times why I seemed so distracted.
“Long day at school,” was all I needed to say and they left me alone for the rest of the night. Amazing how that line can work on almost any place, job, or situation.
To be continued…
Want to read more? Just visit the main Charcoal Streetspage and take a look at the complete stories, samples, and other fun features, and stay tuned in 2011 for the release of the first volume of collected stories!
I highly recommend you re-read “Beautiful Lies” first. I added an extra scene and subtly changed the dialogue. To be honest, I thought I knew where this was going when I started, but as things went along, I realized it had to go in a different place. Muriel was a different animal by the end.
It was actually very difficult to write this second half once I realized I needed to change the entire last third of this story arc. Oh well.
Angel and demon walked through the back alleys of Via Rosa, avoided the major streets, clubs, and haunts, and eventually ended up in a neighborhood near the river that ran through the city. Everything smelled like soap and roasted meat and as they turned around the last corner, they saw a group of men with food carts heading downtown to meet the hungry late shifts.
Muriel, however, knew where they were.
“Fuck you, Miguel,” he said. “I’ve got a Fallen Son on my ass and you go and take me to see her?”
Miguel pulled his wide-brimmed hat close. The wind almost took it and his long black duster. He pointed to the run-down house at the end of the block and said, “She’s the only one that can help you right now.”
“I’m running from the fucking Fallen Sons-”
“One Fallen Son.”
“Qué importa! And you have me running to la bruja?”
“You know she doesn’t like that name,” Miguel said as he grabbed Muriel by the back of his shifting coat and dragged him to the front door of a Colonial-style two-story brick house. Uncut grass and wild plants in broken pots marked their path as they arrived at the cast-iron door. He said, “Now shut up and grow a pair. It’s this or I leave you with the Fallen Son.”
The door opened. A woman in her twenties stood there with blue jeans and a dusty black shirt. She was a local, for sure, thought Muriel. Tanned, a bit short, but he saw hints of an athletic frame under the baggy shirt and rumpled pants.
But he couldn’t smell her. She might as well have been a mannequin.
“Luz,” Miguel said.
“Hello, Miguel. Come on in,” she said. Miguel followed into a home that looked like it had been decorated by someone who longed to see Mexico and had no real idea what it was all about. Bright orange and yellows and greens covered every wall. Shelves along almost every wall overflowed with books, vials of various liquids, and bottles filled with everything from preserved piglets and what Muriel guessed were tequila worms. The front of the house was a large open area with the kitchen, living room, and dining room all sharing the same space, and the space was covered with books like some homes were covered in picture frames. Everything looked handmade and at least a hundred years old.
“I can’t smell anything,” he said.
Luz chuckled and said, “Of course you can’t. The whole house is enchanted. Nothing can see in unless I want it, and nothing and no one can enter as long as I don’t let it.”
“Ándale,” Muriel said, “but I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in here.”
“Hopefully you won’t have to,” Luz said while she sat on the couch and took several of the heavy tomes from her coffee table off until she found a Moleskine notebook with bookmarks, dog-ears and a worn cover. She finally found the page she wanted and put the notebook in a separate book-pile over the sofa as she said, “I think I can cloak you for a good long while, at least until we can figure out something more permanent. But I’m going to have to stick you somewhere while I get the last few things ready.”
Miguel thumbed through an old Bible. He looked up and said, “But you said no one could see in here.”
“I did,” Luz said, “but if he’s being hunted by nephilim, they’ll follow his trail right back here. They won’t be able to see inside, but they’ll know he’s here, and I have to leave the house too, you know. I’m just going to stick him somewhere for a few days.”
The doorbell rang. Luz smiled and skipped to the door. Muriel and Miguel watched as she escorted a teenage girl back to the living room. The new girl was thin and mousy, and Muriel looked her up and down while walking behind her.
“Hungry?” Miguel asked in Enochian.
Muriel responded in kind, “It’d be like eating oatmeal. I’m hungry, but I’ll wait for something with flavor.”
The girl looked at both of them as they spoke, but Luz took her hand and they sat down on the couch. As Luz tilted her head to tell the others to leave the room, the girl said, “I’m so glad you can see me. Do you think you can help?”
“Of course. I just need a few things.”
Muriel and Miguel stepped into the hallway and waited. Muriel kept running his fingers over the walls. After five minutes, Miguel said, “Do you have to keep doing that?”
“I feel like I have a cold.”
“How would you know?”
“I mean everything’s dull, like my head’s stuffed up, hombre. I miss smelling.”
Luz walked into the hall and flagged them. They went back to the living room and found the girl sitting on the largest chair in the place. Her tilted head swayed as she moaned.
“Is she okay?” Miguel said.
“She’s fine,” said Luz. She inhaled deeply and the others looked at her. “Monkey see, monkey do,” she said. “She wouldn’t take a hit unless I joined her.”
Muriel lifted the girl’s hand and said, “Hit of what?”
“Just some… secret herbs and spices. Nothing serious. She wanted me to put a spell on her mom, curse her or something, but I figure this will work too. She’s out like a light and her body’s got just enough belladonna and party mix in her to let you jump right in.”
Muriel shrugged and started unbuttoning the girl’s blouse before Miguel grabbed his hand and the former angel’s eyes glowed blue.
“Oh,” the demon said. “You meant ‘Possess her.’ Got it. Next time, be clear.”
He placed his hands on her forehead and concentrated until he flowed into her as easily as a breath. The girl stood and stretched. Miguel could see the awkward walk as the girl wiggled her fingers.
He finally asked, “Everything okay in there?”
The girl turned around. For a moment, her eyes were two different colors before Muriel went deeper. She said, “Yeah, everything’s good. Just kicking the tires.”
Luz took a few deep breaths and said, “You should be fine in there for a while. Just give me a few days to figure out how to mask you and you’ll be okay. Let the girl drive and come back on Saturday. I should have everything ready.”
The girl rolled her eyes and said, “Yes, mom.”
Luz giggled and said, “That’s pretty good. You’ll blend in.”
Miguel chucked and said, “No, that was still Muriel.”
The demon was close. Its footsteps left a glowing trail through the city. Carmen touched the ground and felt the warmth from its passage. It crisscrossed the city and formed a net, but she was patient. Checking to make sure her dagger remained in place, she ran down the street.
Miguel entered Luz’s house in the middle of the night, this time carrying two full grocery bags. As soon as he put them down, Luz examined the contents.
“Is this all the sea salt they had?” she asked.
Miguel put the change on the counter and said, “It’s the middle of the desert.”
“Fine. That will have to do. I’ve almost got the circle ready in my room and-”
Muriel walked through the front door and into the kitchen. Miguel and Luz watched him grab a glass of water and fill it to the brim, then transform it into whiskey. He drank it in one quick series of deep gulps while Luz and Miguel looked on in shock.
“What the fuck happened?” Luz asked.
Muriel finished the glass and started to fill it and said, “I got evicted. Something about no pets.”
Miguel shifted towards him in a blur and knocked the glass into the sink. He said, “We’re almost ready to give you a way out and you go and blow it?”
“Not my fault!” the demon said. “I was waiting in the girl and I got bored, so I started fucking around with the parents.”
“And a big fucking red alarm didn’t go off? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I’m not good at just sitting around! Besides, the priest called the Baptist.”
Miguel stared for a second, then said, “Yeah, you never had a chance. Never mind. We’re almost ready. Just sit for a few seconds and-”
The front door splintered and bits of doorframe flew into the far wall. Luz covered herself as Miguel and Muriel were thrown back by the impact. When Muriel looked up, he saw a young woman, Middle-Eastern or Native; he wasn’t sure. Her hair was tied back and she wore a camo pants and a plain black shirt. She held a black-handled bowie knife in her hand and instantly focused on Muriel.
He stood and dashed for the back door. The dust from the explosion seemed to stay still and Luz would never have seen him as he rushed through the house. He hit dust suspended in midair, but Carmen easily kept up.
Luz fell as the gust of wind from their speed pushed her into the wall. Miguel picked her up and once he saw she was fine, she asked, “How the hell did she get in here?”
“You don’t smell that? She blew your door away. Took out your wards.”
She picked up a piece of charred wood and said, “What now?”
Miguel looked out the back door and said, “Now we see if Muriel learns anything.”
They ran through the night streets. Muriel shifted into a thousand different forms as he ran through Via Rosa. He would never tire. He couldn’t. And neither could she. He turned a few times to see how close she was, but Carmen stayed within a few feet of him. The sun rose and people moved inches in the span of days. It took a century as Muriel looked for a way out.
The chase ended by the riverbank on the edge of town.
Muriel and Carmen stopped running by the side of the river. On one side, Via Rosa woke up. Muriel could smell carne asada and exhaust fumes flowing through the air. Carmen took her Bowie knife and gripped it. As he paced through the reeds and the unkempt grass, Muriel looked back and said, “I didn’t think he’d send you. You’re looking good.”
She said nothing, stood as though she was waiting in line, but Muriel knew she could kill him whenever she wanted.
“What do you want me to say?” he said. “I’m sorry? Leaving was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I just… This was bigger than us. I just didn’t know… God damn it, say something!”
She remained stoic and Muriel couldn’t read her. She was good, he thought. The sun finally came over the buildings and he said, “Could you do me one favor?”
“What?” she said.
“Could you tell me what you see?”
She almost said something a few times, but Muriel said, “And don’t lie to me. Please. What am I?”
“I see my dad.”
Muriel smiled and said, “That’s good enough. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I left.”
Carmen loosened her grip on the knife and said, “She died asking about you, you know.”
“Did she?”
“Yeah. She couldn’t remember why you’d left. She couldn’t remember a lot of things at the end.”
“And you?”
Carmen remained serious and kept her eyes on the demon, but Muriel saw the glistening in her eyes. She quivered a little as she said, “It took me a long time to understand why you left. And I still hate you.”
“Well the War-”
“Didn’t have to happen.”
“Probably. But it’s done. Just do what you came here to do.”
Carmen moved up to him and gave him a peck on the cheek. She whispered, “Where do angels go when they die?”
“…I don’t know.”
The knife plunged through his heart. He hardly felt it. His body rippled and shifted into gray ash, breaking apart from the wound like newly used charcoal.
“Fuck,” he whispered as he fell apart and the wind blew his ashes into the river.
Miguel put his cigarette out as he watched from the bridge overlooking the plaza. Lilith walked next to him as Carmen put her knife away and walked back home.
“Blessed silver?” Miguel asked.
“Crusader sword fragments and Irish church bells.”
“Where’d she get that?”
“Craigslist.”
Miguel lit another cigarette and said, “He didn’t learn. Did he really have to send a nephilim after him? And her of all people?”
Lilith swung around a light-pole while smiling and breathing in the morning frustrations from the passing cars. She said, “He was no good anymore. Broken little Muriel. And what about you, wing-less? Thinking of switching teams finally?”
The former angel exhaled smoke and said, “Not a chance. I retired. I didn’t quit. Besides, he may have had a chance if you hadn’t killed him. He was a good kid.”
“Weren’t we all?”
“No,” Miguel said as he followed the last of Muriel’s ashes through the wind. “He was a rebel. The rest of you are pricks.”
Want to read more? Just visit the main Charcoal Streetspage and take a look at the complete stories, samples, and other fun features, and stay tuned in 2011 for the release of the first volume of collected stories!
