(See “Critical Reading” in Chapter 1)

1

The iron security gate unfolded like the bellows of an accordion as Perla pulled it along the rail in front of the door. She snapped the padlock shut, turned around the corner of the building, and headed home. Her house was close, just across the empty lot next to the shopping center. Wild sage and scrub grew beside the worn path that cut through the field. Boys sometimes rode their bikes there, doing tricks and wheelies as they bumped over mounds and breaks, falling down, laughing and scraping their knees, their faces coated with grime. Their tires left thin tracks that looped around the salt cedar trees, around the soiled mattresses and old washers and sinks that were dumped there.

2

People told of a curse on these grounds, a group of monks traveling through Agua Mansa in the days when California was still a part of Mexico, back before states were shapes on a map. They said a tribe of Indians massacred the monks; they skinned them and scattered their body parts around the lot for the crows. Still others said Mexican settlers had been lynched from the branches of the cedars by Anglos who stole their land for the railroads. Seeing a piece of stone, Perla wondered about the monks and those men dangling from branches. A tooth? Part of a toe? Empty soda cans and wrappers were caught under boulders and discarded car parts. What would the monks think about having a tire for a headstone, a couch for a marker? She thought of her husband, Guillermo, of his tombstone, of the thick, green lawns of the cemetery where he was buried.

3

When she reached her house and stepped inside, the air was warm and silent. Perla put her purse down on the rocking chair near the front door and went around, pushing the lace curtains back and cracking open the windows. She breathed in the scent of wood smoke from someone’s fireplace down the street, a smell that reminded her of her father toasting garbanzo beans. She went into the kitchen and looked for something to eat.

4

Dinner was a bowl of oatmeal with two slices of toast, which she took out to the patio. The night was cold, and the steam from the oatmeal rose up and fogged her glasses as she spooned it in her mouth. Police sirens wailed down the street, and dogs answered, their cries lonely and beautiful. She looked up, and in the flashing lights saw a set of glowing red eyes.

5

Perla flicked on the porch light. It was an opossum, its fur dingy and gray, the tips and insides of its ears bright pink. It stood motionless, behind the trunk of the organ pipe cactus, staring at her. It climbed to the top of the fence, making a low, faint jingle as it moved. Perla looked again; a small brass bell was tied to a piece of red yarn knotted around the opossum’s tail. She took her spoon and threw it. When it hit the bottom of the fence, the animal darted, the clatter of the bell frantic. The opossum disappeared behind the branches of the avocado tree and down the other side of the fence into the empty lot, the ringing growing fainter and fainter.

6

From under the kitchen sink, behind the pile of cloths and old sponges she could never bring herself to throw away, was a bottle of rum. She poured some into a cup and took a drink. Then she took another. The warmth calmed her nerves.

7

She imagined the ghosts of the dead monks and the lynched men rising up from the ground, awakened by her thoughts. Curls of gray smoke at first, they slowly took human form. They walked in a straight line, one in front of the other. A slow progression followed the opossum’s tracks through the lot and back home.

8

She took another drink and closed her eyes. That animal was a messenger. It was letting her know that something was out there. It was coming.