Flo's 2021 Altar - A Work in Progress
Día de Muertos is a big deal at our house. Each year, Flo creates an elaborate and unique altar, different from any previous altar, which takes several days to build. She orders a special cake from a baker friend, and when we're not isolated because of a pandemic, she hosts a family dinner that anchors the celebrating with touches of nostalgia, sadness, and joy of remembrances. My contributions are minimal but I've come to appreciate Flo's efforts to preserve and enhance a tradition that once was little-known and often misunderstood by the non-Latino world. Times have changed since the days, a few decades ago, when an altar for the deceased was an odd and unusual symbol that many thought was part of a Halloween custom. She was one of a handful of artists and other cultural warriors who "revealed" the Day of the Dead to the non-Hispanic population of Colorado, and who helped preserve the tradition with dignity, respect, and love.
As part of this year's Día de Muertos, I'm participating in an event with a Day of the Dead theme. Here's a poster for that event. (Note: Denver time for this event is 6:00 PM.)
And, also in the spirit of Día de Muertos, I present Chapter 13 of my 2016 novel My Bad: A Mile High Noir.
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Somebody said that I was lost
Corrine arranged the final sugar calavera on her altar. The red skull had “Gus” written across it’s forehead in black letters. It joined a dozen other skulls, life-size to miniature, Katrina figurines, muertos, and mementos of dead people we knew or wanted to know – parents, uncles, aunts, abuelos, friends, coworkers, and our own heroes. Corrine included photographs and trinkets that were supposed to remind us of something about the particular person’s personality. That explained the unopened cigarette packs, empty candy bar wrappers, laminated cover of People magazine, and several other things that looked more like litter than altar decorations.
Corrine strategically set up a glossy of Ricardo Montalban and Katy Jurado, the “all-time” Mexican actors according to her. Max contributed a signed photo of Chavela Vargas, Frida Kahlo’s girlfriend and idolized singer who had died recently at age ninety-three. After much nagging from Corrine to “do something for Day of the Dead,” I placed a magazine pic of Freddy Fender on the altar. She clicked her teeth and shook her head.
“Is the policewoman coming to dinner after all?” she said. “Be nice if I could plan for the number of guests.”
I had no doubt that a dozen uninvited guests could drop in and they would end up fed to complete satisfaction. Corrine cooked enough food for her annual día de los muertos dinner to feed all the soldiers on one of Pancho Villa’s troop trains. The feast had great-party status among her circle of friends. For the meal she rolled out platter after platter of enchiladas and tamales, and bowl after bowl of posole, green chile, arroz, and beans. The table included stacks of tortillas (maiz and harina,) side dishes of roasted jalapeños, olives, chile güeritos, chile serranos, lemons and limes, walnuts and almonds, pink and white sea salt, oregano, onion, and cilantro. Bottles of beer, wine, tequila – the liquor usually carried skull labels – and a jug or two of fruit-infused water and Mexican hot chocolate. Pan de muerto, dead bread, of course.
The diners brought dishes, too. The one dish that Max boasted about was her fideo and there was always a bowl of the Mexican pasta, with tomato sauce and onions, on the table. Corrine’s dining table quickly maxed out and the guests followed a trail of serving dishes back to the kitchen if they wanted to sample everything. When we finished the main courses, desserts took center stage. Pies, empanadas, cakes, cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, Jell-O, leftover Halloween candy, biscochitos. All to honor the dead.
“I can’t say yet. I told you, she doesn’t know if she has to work. That’s all I got.”
Corrine didn’t exactly approve of my ongoing relationship with the policewoman, as Corrine called her. Nothing surprising about that.
She set the time for the party at 4:00 p.m. That gave the guests about an hour and a half of talking, drinking, and remembering before she began serving. The late afternoon start also meant that she had time to visit our parents’ graves in the Crown Hill Cemetery, where she left a vase of flowers, a few cookies for my father’s sweet tooth, and a shot of tequila in a paper cup for my mother.
“Luis is coming, right?”
“Yeah, he’s for sure. When I gave him your invitation he went on about how no one used to know what Day of the Dead was all about, and now it’s practically as popular as Christmas.”
“Wh-a-a-t? Mexicans knew about it. Mom always put up a little altar when we were kids. What’s the lawyer talking about?”
“I think he meant in general. You know Móntez. He’s always going back to the days when things were different. He’s more and more like an old man every week.”
“I hope when I’m his age I’m as sharp as he is.”
“His mind’s okay, I think. His body, not so much.”
“Happens to us all.”
She rushed to the kitchen and her food. I went downstairs to my cave in the basement.
I called Ana.
“What’s up?”
“Still at the office,” she said. “But with a little luck I’ll get out of here in time for your sister’s dinner. Around six, you said?”
“Be better at five-thirty, even earlier if possible. We’ll be almost done eating by six.”
“Okay. I’ll do what I can.”
“Be nice to see you.”
“If I don’t make it, we can get together later, right? You coming over?”
“I think so.” I hadn’t figured out what our relationship was all about, other than we were both having a good time. She rushed through the next few seconds and hung up before I said much more. Our relationship, or whatever we had, was stuck on fast forward.
By the time Móntez arrived for the dinner I’d popped open and finished a couple of Mexican beers. My taste for booze was slowly returning. He sat down next to me on Corrine’s couch where we listened to her homemade mix of Mexican oldies, watched a silent TV game show on her big screen, and munched nachos.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “It’s about the Contreras thing.”
I hadn’t heard that name for a few months. After her heart attack in our office and the official conclusion that she died of natural causes, Luis and I passively let her case close. I didn’t think there was anything we could do to find out more about what she’d experienced, and nothing came of the investigation into the Westwood arson. Other than Ana and Luis, no one knew what I’d seen in the house before the fire.
My own investigation of María Contreras had hit the pause button. I looked into her background again, and learned a little more about Valdez. Nothing new. As a last step before I shut the file for the final time, I figured out where she actually lived. Her driver’s license address was a dead end and the fake address she gave Luis stalled me for about an hour before I dug up her real address online. It wasn’t that hard. I scoped out her house for three days, off and on, but I didn’t see anyone enter or leave. Finally, I visited María’s home late one night. Very late. I used some tricks I’d picked up in prison to open her back door and spent about twenty minutes looking for anything that might explain what she had going on in her life that involved Luis or me. The place felt damp and smelled musty. I hurried my search because of the uncomfortable feeling the place wrapped around me. I took a folder of papers related to the import business, a key that looked out of place in the folder, a few business cards from artisan shops and distributors in Mexico, and the insurance policy for Sam’s bar. The visit wasn’t a complete waste of time, but we didn’t end up with any more of an explanation.
“The police and the fire investigators know the fire was intentionally set, and a few think someone died in the house, maybe more than one person. But there’s no evidence, no proof. Nothing verifiable, at least.”
“I know all that, Luis. What’s new?”
“How’d you like to take a quick trip to Mexico? A vacation, more or less?”
I stopped in mid-dip of a tortilla chip into a dish of salsa.
I made a wild guess. “La Paz?”
“I got a call from the cop that María Contreras talked to about Sam’s death down there. Apparently she contacted him just before she disappeared. She gave him my name and number.”
“This cop has news?”
“His name’s Fulgencio Batista.”
“Where do I know that name?”
“The original was the dictator of Cuba before Castro threw him off the island.”
“Sounds phony.”
“Maybe his father was an anti-communist. Maybe he had a sense of humor, seeing as how the family already had the last name. Maybe it’s just a name. I don’t know.”
“Whatever. You sure he’s a cop?”
“I checked up on him. Talked with some of the local feds who work with the Mexican police. According to them, Mr. Batista is part of the Policía Federal Ministerial, the PFM. What we used to call Federales. He was pulled in on the case because Sam was a U.S. citizen and his death involved what looked like pirates, maybe drug-smuggling. They wanted a high profile cop to work the case.”
“He team up with U.S. cops?”
“He has. That one fed that interrogated you when you were arrested. Collins? From the DEA?”
“I remember him. Hard ass. Big ego.”
“That’s the guy. I’ve run into him a few more times. We developed a certain level of trust, especially after the way your case turned out. Anyhow, Collins said that Batista has been involved in dozens of high-profile arrests. And I mean involved. He once was captured by some cartel guys. They tortured him for a couple of hours before he managed to escape. He killed four of the gangsters getting away.”
“Sounds like he can take care of himself.”
“That same cartel has issued a death notice for him, and a five hundred thousand dollar reward.”
“He must be doing something right.”
I sauntered to the kitchen and dug out two more beers from the ice chest set up in the corner. I asked Corrine if she needed any help. She shook a large serving spoon at me and uttered a Mexican curse, which I took to mean she didn’t require my assistance right then. When I got back to the couch the nachos were finished.
“All this action from a run-of-the-mill case. What Batista want? They finally figure out what happened to Sam? They find a body?”
“Something like that.”
I waited.
“The case is cold. Almost four years and no developments. But Batista called me because he was trying to find my client, María. He had news for her that he thought she would want to know.”
“So something did turn up?”
“Yeah.” He waited one beat. “They found the guide that Sam hired for his fishing trip.”
“After all this time? I thought he was dead, too.”
“Exactly.” He nodded his head. “Batista said he turned up about a month ago in a sweep of drug traffickers off the Southern Baja coast. The guide, a certain Francisco Paco Abarca, was arrested when officers in the PFM and a dozen Mexican marines captured four fishing boats heading north that were empty of any fish but were well-stocked with kilos of heroin. Needless to say, Batista was a little surprised that Abarca was alive.”
The doorbell rang.
“Hold that thought, Luis.”
I opened the door to more guests. It was close to five-thirty so I figured Corrine was ready to start serving. There was no denying that I was hungry.
“Let’s eat,” I said to Luis. “Then you can finish telling me why I should go to Mexico and have a heart-to-heart with Fulgencio Batista.”
Later.
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1 comment:
Nicely done. It's good to be reminded of the many ways we can honor and remember. Loved reading the chapter, makes one curious about the whole enchilada. N. De Necochea
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