Chapter 16 - The Man of Wind and Moss

Part Three: Witchy Shit in the 813

By the grace of God, Marco was under for most of it. The oral surgeon, a young man who was much too cheery, told Marco to think of a joke and to try to recite it before the anesthesia hit.

“What do you call a chupacabra mixed with a coquí?” Marco asked. It was an old joke Monchito brought back from Puerto Rico. This was when he was strictly speaking Spanish and would move around the house like he was better than it. Marco’s parents rolled their eyes—chupaquí, ja, ja, ja. They had heard it a million times. Marco thought long and hard about the punchline but when he figured it out the moment had passed. Saying it aloud again, through a garble of teeth, the silhouette of the surgeon only expanded, and Marco fell down deep into a memory.

The reason Marco has such a thing about coffee is because when Monchito first came back from PR he made coffee for Marco with a moka pot, and Marco thought he was in heaven. Monchito said in the “homeland” it was “a greca,” and the pot was painted with a gaudy flag and a coquí frog wearing a Bad Bunny pava. It was a cool summer morning, and it had rained all night before. Sun fell in through the sliding glass doors of the kitchen. Mom and Dad were out of town, seeing their friends in Miami, and when Ray sat across from him, they sipped their drinks in a silence so full of understanding and tranquility that Marco looked back on it like it was impossible. But the beauty of the moment was tainted. Because Monchito had come back changed and was already planning to go back forever. This moka pot moment was like a sentimental courtesy of what Marco was being left out of; it was touching and despairing the way brotherly love always is, and Marco didn’t know what else to say except, “Please, don’t go.”

The wetness came to his eyes fast and he wiped it away. He had to power through.

“It’s so boring,” Marco continued. “It’s nothing. It’s the least interesting of the islands. We think we’re so exciting and cool when America has owned us since 1898. That’s over 100 years,” Marco chuckled. “We have loud and obnoxious parades because we want to hold onto something that is literally slipping out of our hands, falling between our fingers. Did you know it’s a stereotype that Puerto Rican parents don’t teach their kids Spanish? It’s because they want to be American. They want their kids to be American. Nobody cares about Puerto Ricans, we’re not interesting. Even our flag is a rip-off. And I just don’t know what you found there that is so special. That whole island is not for us, man. We’re tourists. We’re cosplaying.”

Monchito sipped his coffee. He placed his big brotherly hand on Marco’s. “I don’t have any wisdom for you, hermano.”

“‘Hermano?’” Marco scoffed. “Get the hell out of here.”

“All I know is what I feel in my heart. I need these little routines and these little traditions because they anchor me to something. If I didn’t have them, I think I’d probably die.”

“What do I even say to something like that?”

“Just don’t let Mom and Dad grind you down.”

“I’m not talking about Mom and Dad; I’m talking about you.”

“When I go there for good, I will be happy. I know it. I know it in my bones.”

“And what do I get? What’s left for me?”

“You get to rest easy knowing I got out,” Monchito smiled. His big, thick lips and big, white teeth. He was twice the man Marco was and, somehow, three times as depressed. His brother needed out, so his brother got out, and that was that. He was gone before the end of the month.

The memory faded nastily, distorting Monchito’s head and warping the kitchen. Then, all at once, Marco was yanked back into the reality of a surgeon in his mouth. The pain was excruciating. His eyes shot open, and he gagged, and the surgeon and assistant recoiled, pulling their tools out of his mouth. A tangle of stitches dangled from his gums and a loose, unconnected bolt of metal hung sideways like a broken train track. He was going to throw up.

“Hey, champ, just relax.” The surgeon snapped a finger at the assistant. “Get Dr. Kyle. He swallowed a lot of blood.” The surgeon didn’t want to cause a panic and didn’t want Marco to scream and choke, but it was all happening too fast. It was a blurry, queasy, painful few seconds. He began to hypersalivate, his mouth coating itself in preparation for the vomit. It mixed with the lingering Novocain, somehow not working, and it mixed with the blood and gum tissue already pooling in his mouth. The rush came from deep inside his stomach and burnt the entire way up, and he spewed.

In the seconds of vomit-hell, his eyes focused in and out on what, precisely, was coming out of him. It was leaves and bugs and dirt. It came out like a mudslide and poured down his chest.

The staff backed away, horrified. Marco couldn’t tell who spoke behind their masks, but someone asked, “Didn’t he fast?” and someone else replied, “They said he did!” and someone else confirmed the unnatural, “What the fuck did he eat?”

They scattered out of the room going for their various solutions: another doctor, a mop, towels, another anesthesiologist, whatever. Marco blurred out and he vomited some more. He looked at the doorway and saw long, black arms and bright, yellow eyes and then another gas mask coming to smother him.