Dead Awake: The Last Crossing (4 page)

With those thoughts, I
stepped through the door into the beautiful morning, which waited
to greet me. My Gilligan hat served its purpose. It stopped the
rays from blinding my eyes and kept my hair in its
place.

I drifted into the pleasing
morning. The trees, the sky, the sand and even the people pulled my
attention to them. A couple of the villagers peeped out of their
windows as I passed, probably still looking at me because of what
I’d done the day before; but the shame had left me and now I was
only hungry and happy. Yes, what a great day it was. In fact, as I
thought it over, yesterday had not been a bad day either. All of it
had served its purpose and was a good experience for me. An
adventure! I chuckled to myself, as my wit returned. It was even
funny, the more I thought about it, after all, it was good to have
a sense of humor.

I think the island’s beauty
will make me depressed when I get back to the city: the wonderful
fresh air and the little hand built straw houses. The people look
so happy on top these huts as they fix their roofs; pushing in the
new straw to keep out the rain. Life is so simple here. Every need
is met – housing, food, friends.

My walk took me to a little
bar/eatery that was serving
camarones
. I sat and ordered a
bowl of them and a
tamarindo,
a local drink made from a
sweet root. The shrimp were very good; dipped in some kind of
batter and fried, then served with a tart-lemon sauce. They went
down well with the
tamarindo
. After the shrimp, I ordered a
large baked fish, which they called “El Mojarra.” It tasted a lot
like carp, but wasn’t served like it. The huge size of it
overlapped the plate, and it was served with the head and tail
still attached. Very strange looking indeed, but very tasty if not
for the spines. I finished the
tamarindo
and ordered a lemon
drink. The bartender looked at me as if I was a sissy and said,
“Let me guess, you want that non-alcoholic?”

I responded in the
affirmative, so he served it to me with a wink. Stupid bartender, I
thought, what makes him a man? He’s probably an alcoholic and
that’s supposed to make him manly. If I choose to drink or not,
that’s my choice, so what is it to him? Their beer was too strong
anyway; and I’d definitely stay away from the mixed drinks for I
knew what kind of bomb their hard alcohol was. It was at least six
times as strong as in the States. I finished the plate, then paid
the man and left. He tipped his hat to me with a last teasing wink.
I think he was poking fun at my hat as well. What an
idiot.

When I arrived back to my
room, I noticed that my door had been left slightly ajar. I
wondered if I’d forgotten to close it. Perhaps someone had come to
show me some island hospitality. Near my door, on the floor, was a
piece of paper; and judging from its appearance, it had been there
all night, in the rain. Most likely, I had overlooked it the night
before, seeing as I was so tired.

I picked up the paper. It
was a note, addressed to me, and still a little damp. I knew it was
for me because it was addressed to “el guero,” which means “the
blond one,” although I’m not really blond. The people in these
parts just like to call anyone who has anything other than black
hair a blond.

Unfortunately, it was the
only thing I could read. The rest was written in some other
dialect, one of the many spoken on the island. I immediately
thought of Blanca. She could interpret the note for me. I stepped
inside to retrieve my things, then headed to the kitchen to find
Blanca.

“
Como esta mi
querida
, Blanca!” I greeted. “So good to see you.”

“
And you
tus, mi
hijito,
” she replied. “Are you come for your suppers now? I
affixin’ some berry good
caldo de res
and some empanadas
that yous like. Yous sit down right here and I go and get for
you.”

I tried correcting her
English, even though I wasn’t interested in eating just then. “Yes,
thank you Blanca, but it’s
breakfast
now, see, the sun is
up.”

“
Ah yes, breakfas-lunch,
whatever you like Mr. Finch. I get for you right now, so you sit
down plis, okay.” She went over to the stove, as she started in her
preparations, and made more conversation. “So how waz your day, you
do? Have you seen a lot?”

“
Actually, Blanca, that’s
part of why I came. You see, someone, one of the villagers, left a
note on this scraggly piece of paper, attached on my door last
night, and I wanted to know what it said, and since you speak all
the dialects of this island I thought you could translate it for
me.”

I handed her the paper. She
unfolded it and stared at it a moment, then her eyes became the
size of mangos and her hands started to sweat. She looked at me as
if a great evil had just befallen us both. Surely whatever the note
said, it must have been bad enough to upset her.

“
This is El Malagra!” she
said with the grim reaper’s voice, “El Malagra! We are in great
trouble!” She went pale, after that, and started to chant some
prayer to El Gauchito. I didn’t understand it, at that time, but
later heard it many other times. It went something like this: “Oh
bendito ser divino, no se que hace
r! What can we do? It has
come, as I prayed it would not!”

Gauchito Gill protegenos de
las manos del enemigo. Guardanos como has guardado a tantos que te
rezan, de las garras de Satanas. Oh Gauchito, explicanos como vivir
mejor y ayudanos para que podamos servir en paz. Ahora que a
llegado este gran maleficio sobre nosotros, quitanos el pesar de
nuestras manos y te prometemos servirte y ayudar a todos los que
actuan por el bien.

Oh con tu bondad, como lo
hiciste en tu vida mortal, cuando de tus enemigos escapaste y
dejaste con el castigo adequado para los asesinos. Tu que
predicaste y profetizaste en tu vida. Ahora guardanos la nuestra y
sacanos de estas tinieblas, te lo ruego!”
ⁱⁱⁱ

She was very frantic,
while she held the note, almost terrorized by
the fact that she
was holding it. Still, she was unable to put it down, as if by
doing so she might offend some local god and make matters worse.
She kept on shouting “Malagra-Malagra” and repeating her prayer
many times. I later on found out that the prayer was a fixed
prayer, and always chanted the same way.

Gill (pronounced hill) is a
local saint of the island of Natial who has not, as yet, been
recognized by the Roman Catholic church, but who is very much a
part of the local folklore tradition. From what I understood, this
Gauchito Gill became recognized as a saint by the people because he
made some prophecies during his life that came true.

It turns out that Gauchito
had been sentenced to die at the hands of one of the great
conquistadors of the early period for theft, plunder and murder,
but while in prison El Gauchito claimed to have repented and seen a
vision. Hill claimed that such apparition made him exempt from his
previous life and he demanded to be set free, but the conquistador
didn’t see it that way and sentenced execution for the following
day.

With vengeance, El Gaucho
prophesied that the conquistador’s daughter would also die, the
next day, if he were not set free. So, as things would have it, he
was not set free and indeed the daughter died. The fame of his
accurate prediction turned him into a martyred legend; but from
what I got of it, El Gauchito Gill was a murderous fiend who had
plundered the village, and raped and murdered many of the women.
The villagers overlooked this and pronounced him a saint. They also
gave him an official prayer and banner, in tribute to his
greatness, even though he was practically the Devil
himself.

I looked at Blanca with
uncompassionate eyes, and held her to her reason. “Maybe if you
just read it to me,” I said, “it won’t be that bad.”

“
No don,” she wept, “It is
that bad. You have over-stepped yurself and have cosed El Malagra
to come on us.” She was crying and looked really sad, but I didn’t
care. I just wanted her to stop being a fool and tell me what the
note read.

“
Look Blanca, it can’t be
that bad; if anything, it was written to me, not to you, so you
have nothing to fear. Why don’t you read it so we can see what it
says.” She persisted, claiming it all came from Hades.

“
Mr. Finch, it is certainly
a curse that does not respect a persons. It spread itself across
and you don’t even know what can happens to you and to
me.”

“
Blanca!”

“
Ok, I read it you, but I
warning you...”

THE RIVER’S FLOW

Look at the river – it is
white, and it flows into chaos, then falls.

The rain drops into an open
hole, where eternity shatters before it awakens,

And never Lives.

As she cries the raindrops
give life unto her tears,

Splashing upon the water
where they’re lost,

Through the memories that
awake and the image that reflects.

She looks at death with
emptiness –

It glitters in her eyes, but
souls of all immortals have fallen there before.

Streaks crumble and shatter
as her hands let go the shards,

Empty with the flesh of men
once won.

A swirl of wind, a swirl of
dust the river bends and dries.

Soft thoughts from heaven
wash on barren banks forgetting all the lies.

The hum soft-strum has
turned directions, the stream to claim its soul,

Giving chance for the
raindrop’s dream to escape, and never Die.

Peace is ended with the
black of sky

While all dry earth is
begging for a taste of dew

As the first raindrop falls
it falls into the rift.

She put the poem down with a
look of fearful satisfaction that said to me, “See how terrible it
is?” But it wasn’t, and I don’t know how anyone could think
anything wrong of it. If anything, the local villager who wrote it
ought to be thanked. I would easily buy more poems from whoever was
the author of such work. He or she could have easily made a living
with their writing. They just had to place little wooden frames
around each poem, along with their English translation, and sell
them as souvenirs to tourists like myself. Heck, I would have paid
even without the frame.

I took the poem from her
hand, and then gave her a stern look. “It’s not bad at all,” I
scolded, “How could a beautiful poem like this possibly mean any
harm? If anything, it’s the islanders greeting me, or more likely,
one of the girls trying to win me over. In any case it is nothing
bad at all.”

“
You don’t know, Mr. Finch.
It is El Malagra. Theys all start that way, then bam, worse and
worse. The only thin that will save usss – you now is – here you
take this.” She went over to one of her shelves and pulled a
necklace that smelled as if it were made of garlic, but was made of
some other root that I’d never seen before.

She tried to put it around
my neck, but I pulled back offensively. I wasn’t the least bit
interested in changing my style to that of some native
vegetable-garden wearer.

“
I am not going to wear
that thing around my neck.” I said annoyed, “There is nothing wrong
with this poem, and I want nothing more of it!”

She kept insisting, as a
mother does and not as a host. “You do as I says. You don’t know.
If you put dis on and reza, Gauchito will help you. He don’t care
if you believe or no. He help no-believer and believer alie. Come
on, put it on, then you eat, yes?” Her eyes were sad and puppy dog
like, as she begged me, so much that I could not reject
her.

“
Oh, all right. I’ll do it
for you this time, but don’t keep on it.”

“
There, there, you feel
better, you see. Now I go cook for you.” She went to cook, but I
had no intention on wearing the necklace for more than a few
minutes after I finished eating; and as soon as I was well beyond
her sight-it came off. I can’t say I did better at keeping my
promise to pray to el Gauchito. As far as I was concerned, this
Gauchito could rot in hell without missing one more prayer from
me.

CHAPTER 3

They Meet

I walked for a while down
the road, with my shoes in my hand, observing the local people in
this never-ending paradise, and thinking to myself. The families
always seem to be together, helping in the work around the house.
As I walked, I watched what seemed to be a mother, a father and all
the kids patching up a house alongside the road.

How close they all must be.
Dreadful how in the States we are so far from all our relatives.
Here there must not be a single thing wrong in all their little
world. I wonder if they ever quarrel among themselves. Well of
course they must, but I wonder.

And who is this? It must be
the daughter. She’s helping too! She must be at least nineteen or
twenty. And how pleasant her smile looks. No makeup, nor painted
nails. No shoes for that matter, although most everyone is barefoot
here. Just look at the way she plays with her younger brothers
while she works. Really, what a beautiful smile.