Click the logo to download the Festival Author Booklet including excerpts and biographies.Click the logo to download the Festival Author Booklet including excerpts and biographies.
The sun sank behind the mountains, casting a long shadow over the coast, which slid into the cantina like a stalking cat, caressing all inside with the secrets of twilight. Candle-fire became brighter and people got closer to one another, huddling in nervous clusters of red feathers, unfastened camouflage fatigues, and tattered fashions of the past. Their eyes (and perhaps even mine) flickered more intensely, as dusk gave way to night. A forest of creature eyes.
A compassionate smile painted Alto’s face with a wash of papaya flesh—he shone like a deity in fiery semi-darkness. He became to me, in those few tense seconds, a spiritual beacon. I still cannot rationalize those feelings, but that was how it felt at the time. The whole of my body and soul listened to him as if he were a messiah, a man sent from far away to dispel lies and teach universal truths. I tried to convey a neutral impression and became enthralled by his voice.
Alto knew this. “What are you thinking?” he asked, laughing kindly.
“I can’t say.”
I’d always been told that my face illustrated the feelings in my heart and I could see the desiring colors and hues of my eyes reflecting in his. His eyes wandered away from mine while he spoke, to study my arms and hair and mouth. My fear of all the potential things he could become to me became noise in my head. I realized, in the midst of the war inside of me, that there was a sudden commotion growing around us. It got louder and infused my bones with confusion and worry and the instinct to flee like a wild animal set loose of its cage.
Alto detected my crisis and leaned forward to console me, to whisper something from his lips to mine—just as a storm of hissing bullets and devastating artillery began piercing the battered walls and shattering the windows around us. We fell to the floor, avoiding hot projectiles and razor-edged glass. I grabbed my suitcase, dragging it behind me.
Alto led the crawl across the imploding room and others followed, hoping he would lead us to freedom. People were choking and screaming. I couldn’t stop thinking about those who didn’t make it, those who bled on the floor they’d been dancing on just moments before, calling out the names of people who weren’t there—the living and the dead they began seeing around them.
We tumbled down a flight of carpeted stairs and rolled down another. I was astonished that we eluded serious injury. I could see nothing, or very little, and followed the sound of Alto and his deep breathing. I panted, heaving the desperate sounds of a frightened animal, as we scurried along the filthy floor to a hatch. I watched as Alto dove into the unknown. He cushioned my landing when I followed him and set me aside to catch the others, who had minor injuries and were drunk and crying. There were six of us. The rest had perished or surrendered. Alto slid the hatch-cover back into place from underneath, locking it. In a crawl space no wider than a meter and about as high, we crawled until Alto located a second access hole, where a ladder took us down to a solid metal door.
Kicking a scorpion aside, he unlocked the door with shaking hands, assuring us, “We’re safe now.” The others studied Alto and I with weary and panicked eyes, as the six of us stumbled into a humid tunnel that led to the murky labyrinth known as the Santa Prieta Underside. Where did the light in their eyes go? Even I shivered at the crossroads between two worlds—wondering what I’d be stepping into, and dreading what I’d left behind. And would I soon be dreading where I’d arrived and wondering about all I’d left behind?
The low-ceilinged corridor was lined with dozens of grimy men in various states of contemplation and confusion. Upon reaching a common area of fresh and moist concrete walls, a feeling of safety fell upon me like rain, as excited shadows swarmed us and offered us bottles of water and bandages and soothing fruit. They were as a race of forest creatures: bearded, clawed, hairy—smelling as if they had never once bathed. Despite the jolt of shock I felt upon seeing these Santa Prieta undersiders, I vowed never to return above, after what I’d seen.
It was then that a tunnel brother stepped forward from the small crowd before us and bowed, saying, “Bienvenidos.”
***
About Charlie Vázquez
Charlie Vázquez is a writer and editor of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent. His second novel, Contraband, was published in 2010 by Rebel Satori Press. He has edited two anthologies of contemporary Latino literature: The Best of PANIC!, which was based on his underground East Village reading series, and he served as co-editor with Charles Rice-González on the genre-reinventingFrom Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction in 2011.
Charlie also penned the bilingual poetry collection Meditations/Meditaciones: Bronx/Salsa in 2011 and isthe New York City coordinator for Puerto Rico’s “Festival de la Palabra”. He was born and raised in the Puerto Rican barrios of the Bronx and now lives in Brooklyn.
