BAKERSFIELD, CA-

It’s time for a breakdown.

The magic realism had already started. Sugar skull ghosts and sparks of firework lightning bolts. It was September 10, 2001, Las Vegas. I just had a summer of dreams: airplanes, white tunics, exploding casinos. I left my girlfriend that day. I was going to hitchhike to California across the Mojave Desert the next morning, September 11th. Somehow, as the story will say, I got to California. Over the next several months I scribbled “Thick White Crust.” I could barely stay ahead of it as it chased me. I ran down flights of stairs into a university to let it out and then ran back out into the daylight, enveloped once again in drowning literary moments. The story is magic realism non-fiction. It’s a bite of a sugar skull. It’s the moment fireworks burst. It’s whatever you need it to be as you dream while asleep or awake.

Update: Listen to GSpot Interview: Nick Belardes - Magic Realism, Bugs and 9/11

L E G A C Y  There is a story in my family that tells of the rape of a young girl faraway in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. It takes place in the early 20th Century. It might have been 1917. The year isn’t important as the shadow remains heavy across my family’s history.

 When I heard the story I was in a kitchen in San Jose, California in 1996. My cousins, a tough brand of Chicanos and their friends—some with tattoos like Jesus scars—took a break from their nightly prowls to tell me the story. They were smoking. Their eyes were glazed. People came and went.

Outside, the San Jose streets were abuzz with people, horns, cop cars—chukos smoking and tires peeling out. My musician cousin Mike was there. His jazzy sax playing had transformed since the 1980s into a colorful punkabilly style. He had been in a band that won Star Search. They had a song in a Michael J. Fox flick. I could see all of that was gone now. He’d become even more of a nighttime bar-blasting sax icon; his weapon a giant golden pistol with a bullet spray of fiery music. His sombrero: a small brim hat. His gun belt: suspenders. His love: a tattooed Asian girl, Junko.

His two brothers were there. They talked and I listened. Their dad had died—was found dead in a car from a bout of hard living, diabetes. They called him the funnest man they ever knew. My father had been found dead in a semi from a similar sugar-struck heart. I missed their father’s funeral but had come up with mine to be with the family. We came through the Central Valley and cut past Los Gatos to wind among the garlic roads of Gilroy. To enter San Jose was to open childhood wounds, which I swallowed with pride. I forced happy memories onto myself. We passed Hellyer Park where I remembered fishing with a bamboo pole my father had made. We caught bluegill, trout…

My cousins said they didn’t know if the story was true. I couldn’t help but imagine the tale during long drives across the desert. I saw lightning bolts of a young beauty in the monsoon mountains. There were galloping horses and 1920s train rides. Poncho Villa growled in the wind and a church roared under the gaze of a priest’s corrupt eyes. They stared from burning bushes in the creosote desert. I was a peasant breathing the winds of revolution in desert-crossing dreams. I still am:

Lita Cisneros loved soldiers. She gazed at them on their magnificent horses. She watched them twirl their pistols and practice shooting with their rifles. She bit her lip and never got caught looking as she only flirted as a virgin should, from a distance.

Her mother had been in love with several soldiers—never banditos—and always the most honorable of men. Mostly, Lita loved to stare at those who came back from the Revolution. She would sit outside or poke her head from river bushes where she hid and smiled. She watched as they rode into town along the riverbeds near her home. The men had all left as boys. But upon their return, she noticed they looked stronger, war-torn. They had a look in their eyes as if they had experienced life and manhood. Their scars and dirty fingernails showed it. When they looked down at her they gazed at her as if they were fighting for something.

Soon she fell in love with Señor Renaldo Velarde, a soldier fighting for Poncho Villa. Renaldo had come home to take care of the funeral of his mother. He had received word of her death and now saw to it that his family was well taken care of before he again went off to war. Strips of bullets crossed his chest like the Holy Father crossed his soul. He wore two gun belts at all times. Lita loved that. She saw him ride into town that very day and imagined him firing his pistols in celebration. She marveled at his horse’s quiet gait.

It was early. The red sun broke over the treetops. Lita made her way to the church for prayers. She thought Renaldo looked magnificent—and he did. But then so did she. Her black hair was pinned up and some of its strands fell loosely about her neck. She wore a long white skirt that curled around her light-skinned body like a ruffled white seashell. It shifted and danced in the wind as she made her way to where Renaldo was also headed to the Church to pray for the souls of the dead.

Early that morning the priest finished his prayers and saw the beautiful Lita enter the church courtyard. He quickly glanced around to make certain she had come by herself. He never saw Renaldo.

“Why are you here, young Lita?” the priest said. He stood in a plain black robe. His arms were folded neatly across his stomach.

“To pray for the dead and the dying this day. My parents are so very old.  I fear for them strongly. So I feel it is wise to pray for their souls too.”

“Why haven’t your brothers and sisters come with you?  Don’t you know that God hears the prayers of the many, though he says he will listen to every heart that beckons him?” he said. “Please come with me. I must speak with you on this matter.”

Lita followed him into an antechamber whereupon entering he closed the door behind them. “This is the place for you to pray,” he said standing over her. “This is the place where you ask God’s forgiveness for your family, for yourself, and give to Him all that he asks.”

Young Lita shivered. She had never been afraid of the priest but now suddenly feared his callous stare.

Señor Renaldo Velarde visited his family only briefly that morning. He hugged his sisters and sat down to eat a meal of soup and bread with his cousins who had arrived the night before. He felt it necessary to discuss with the local priest how he should approach a certain dilemma he faced with his family estate. As the oldest, he had the sense of duty that obligated all eldest sons. But he was also angry. He wanted to keep fighting in the Revolution. Many of his friends had died and he wanted vengeance more than he wanted a united country. He had graciously come home, though during his travels he wondered where his allegiance really was. Was it with Poncho Villa, the Revolution, his family or some other cause? 

After Renaldo ate, he parted with his family and entered Las Floras de la Madre Church. He had come to look for the priest.

Las Floras was a mighty building that soared into the Mexico sky. Mediterranean in style, it was white with arches curving over two bells in high towers. It beckoned to the green countryside, peasant farmers, wandering refugees and soldiers of the land. Surrounded by farmland, there were government buildings and homes nearby, but mostly, it was a town of peasants and middle class, not nobility.

Right away, Renaldo noticed Lita crying and coming towards him.

“Senorita?” he said. He saw that her face was red, her cheeks wet from tears. She shuffled past and out the door, sobbing. Quickly, he ran in the direction from which the young girl had fled. He knew he must talk to the priest, to figure out why such a beautiful young girl could be so heartbroken. The priest would know, he told himself.

Renaldo burst through a thick wooden door, and with a sudden look of shock, caught the priest in an antechamber committing a despicable act. The priest’s wide hands clutched beneath his robe with one hand and sniffed and snorted at a torn portion of the girl’s undergarment with the other. His back was to Renaldo and so it was several long moments before the priest even looked up from his ecstasy. Renaldo’s face turned from horror to anger at the priest for having violated the girl and the sanctity of the church.

“Father, what have you done?!” Renaldo’s voice bellowed.

The look of pleasure on the priest’s face turned to fear. “Nothing! I have done nothing!” the priest screamed.

“That is a lie! You have defiled a young girl and the honor of this church!” Renaldo grabbed the priest by the collar. He forced him from the room into the sanctuary, past aisles of pews toward an altar beneath a large crucifix showing the Christ being tormented. Stained-glass windows hung behind the crucifix showering rose, green and blue light into the room. 

“Please! I beg of you! I have done nothing to the girl! She was upset, I tried to console her!” the priest said.

“The Devil has burnt a few sins from your loins onto your dirty hands.” Renaldo said. He held firm and forced the priest to stand before a cistern filled with holy water.

“I will not. You will hang for your treatment of me.”

“Drink from the waters of His Holiness, Father. Drink from the blood of the Saints,” Renaldo said. He then forced the priest’s head into the water. The priest kicked and grabbed. He clawed at Renaldo’s clothing.

“Do you feel this sin too, Father? It burns me.”

Renaldo held the priest’s head in the large bowl. Sweat poured from his forehead as he struggled to hold the priest. Water splashed from the cistern and bubbled onto both of them. He held firm until the priest fell limp across the bowl, his head submerged, eyes wide and filled with tiny bubbles. The priest’s hair flowed like ocean seaweed in the sudden calm water.

Finally Renaldo let the priest’s body slump to the floor. A whip of water flung across a few rows of benches. He then dragged the body back to an antechamber. He dropped the priest onto the floor and didn’t bother to close the empty eyes that now stared upwards. Death glared into the stillness of the room, toward the wooden beams that crossed the ceiling.

There was another door at the back of the antechamber. Renaldo quickly pushed it open. Inside, he saw a locked cabinet. He then went back and searched the dead priest and found a set of keys that he used to open the cabinet. Therein he found a small chest filled with paper money. He grabbed it and tucked it under his arm. “At least I didn’t even have to shoot you,” he said to the dead priest. He then rushed out of the church into the warmth of the Mexican sun.

Somehow, knowing the girl would not dare to go home, he found her hiding along the very stream bed where he had entered town. His horse walked behind him, drank water, and swished its long black tail at flies that buzzed along the grassy banks. The stream moved silently between tall grasses and long stemmed flowers. He saw Lita on her haunches, crying and splashing water beneath her skirt. She didn’t know he could see her. For a few moments he stared at the beauty of her face and neck. He saw her perfect white legs and imagined the blossom between them.

“Nothing will help purify you,” he said stepping into view.  “But I have at least taken revenge upon the priest for his ungodly act.”

Shocked, the girl stopped crying, and fell back into the water.  “Go away!” she said.  “You cannot help me. No one can!”

Renaldo stepped close to Lita. “That is not true. I have helped you. But it is no longer safe for either of us to stay here. You must come with me to America, to California. That is the only haven you will ever have. You are a disgrace to your family. Come,” he said. He held out his hand. “You must go with me. You have no other choice. Fate has chosen your path.”

Read More of “Thick White Crust”:

Part One: H A U N T
Part Two: B O N I F A C I O
Part Three: S E P T E M B E R
Part Four: L E G A C Y
Part Five: G R E A T  G R A N D M O T H E R ‘ S  B U L L E T
Part Six: N O N - M I G R A N T S
Part Seven: D I A  d e  L O S  R A S C A C I E L O S
Part Eight: T H E  G A T H E R I N G
Part Nine: W H I T E F L I E S  A N D  W I D O W S

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N.L. BELARDES is a journalist, blogger and videographer. He writes several media blogs, including Noveltown’s Paperback Writer and Nick 2.0 (Formerly on ABC23). His work has appeared on the homepage of CNN.com and other news sites all over America. You can purchase Lords: Part One, which describes the infamous Lords of Bakersfield. They still creep the city long after they and a 1977 Central California dust storm ravaged the area. N.L. welcomes humorous notes and news tips to his MySpace or Twitter.

Tags: 9/11, Alta, author, Baja, California Writer, casino, Chicano fiction, day of the dead, Death, dia de los muertos, family history, gulf, Las Vegas, Latino, magic realism, N.L. Belardes, Poncho Villa, revolution, September 11, Sinaloa, sugar skulls

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Death, Debauchery, Dreams, Family, Heaven, Hell, Literature, Nightmares, Religion, Transcendence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.