Demon Dancer. Alexander Valdez
still to this day, do not require water. Now and then, my body will scream for water, and I will gorge myself till my stomach aches, but that doesn’t happen very often.
We six vagrants took off down the sandy river bottom for the first mile of miserable heat, with nothing exciting taking place. Then we realized where we were, and a small dose of fear came over each of us. We had crossed into the next neighborhood’s turf and were praying that no one would be out by the river that day. We didn’t get along at all with those guys, and they had an official gang which boasted some sixty of their neighborhood hoodlums as members.
I thank God that those guys, like us, found the river unappealing and seldom ventured there in the daytime. We all knew one another because we attended the same school together. We got along for the most part. It was at recess and lunchtime that we competed at softball or other sports.
So getting along was fine, but when the school bell rang, all bets were off. They would exit through the north gate of the school to their barrio, and my bunch left through the south gate to our slightly more upscale neighborhood. I think they resented us because of economic disparities. Our parents chose to assimilate and learn the King’s English, whereby their parents spoke Spanish solely and passed on their laborer’s trades to the kids. So I was not liked out in the streets.
Anyway, it was mutually decided upon that we should turn around and go back to our piece of heaven or hell, as it were. We had turned about, and an object caught my friend Blackie’s eye. It looked like a shard of glass with fabric attached to it, and it was barely exposed being buried in the sandy bank. Each of us took to digging around the object, and as we cleared away sand, it became apparent that they were human remains. They clearly had been there for some time, and they were the remains of a young girl, maybe fifteen or so years of age.
We were shocked and sickened by the sight. None of us had ever witnessed death before. We had to run and tell the police or the first adult we ran into, and run we did.
The fire station was our first stop as some of the men there had come to know us from our playing around the station. Big Dave was polishing up the fire truck as we approached him with the breakneck speed of a crazed horde. He probably thought to himself, These little bastards are gonna mob me and take the fire truck. Dave had seen us crazy at play before, using slingshots against one another and other roughhouse tactics. We always kidded him about taking his fire truck down the street, although none of us knew the first thing about starting the engine, much less driving it away.
Today was different. He saw in our eyes a sight he had never seen before. He yelled to his firemen mates to come out as he held up his hands as one would do if trying to stop a stampeding horse. I was the elected spokesman for the group whenever a serious event needed discussing or having to talk one of us out of a tight spot. I had a way with words and rationalizing things in a manner that seemed to always make sense. The consummate bullshitter.
After explaining to the gathering firemen what we had discovered, they got on the telephone with the police department and relayed the claims we were making. Dave assured us that if we were making this all up, there would be hell to pay, and we would be restricted from ever playing around the firehouse again. We assured them that we were dead serious.
The police arrived at the station in two cars and asked that Blackie, Tommy, and I accompany them to the location. Oh boy, I was riding in a cop car, and I really thought I was something. We went by my house where my mom was out front sweeping off the porch. She saw me riding in the back seat and turned pale, dropping the broom to run inside and call my father. I felt kinda good knowing that a whipping wouldn’t be called for, and I would be a hero in the next day’s newspaper.
Arriving at the scene, we pointed to the body’s location and were instructed by the police to remain on the bank and not to go down into the riverbed. Meanwhile, more policemen and investigating detectives had arrived to the area. As the medical examiner and his team totally excavated the body from the bank, members from the rival barrio gang arrived. First, they asked what were we doing there and then asked us what was going on. I explained that there was a dead body and that we had discovered it earlier that day.
Furthermore, we told them we were brought there by the police, and if they wanted to start something, the police would come to our side. This was big news to them, and they forgot about territorial rifts. We kibitzed about all the possibilities surrounding the girl’s death just as if we were on the school playground. My guys and I were getting hungry and decided we would head home.
I gave the officer all our addresses and told him where we could be found if he needed more information from us. He let us go and thanked us for our service that day. We said our goodbyes to the gang guys, and they said their goodbyes as well, with a cordialness we weren’t used to.
Getting home was a fun experience. By now, all the neighbors were in my living room with my mom ready to put the switch to me. I told her to cool it and take a seat for one of my out-of-this-world stories.
After telling her the complete story, she had the nerve to call me a liar. Of course, on almost any other occasion, she might have been right. I liked bending the truth or exaggerating it; it lent a certain flair to what were normally tedious events.
Thank God that at that moment, a police car pulled up in front of the house, causing my mother to look at me in horror. She told me to go out the back door and run to my nana’s house a block away and not come out till she came for me.
Chapter 3
The Police
I guess she assumed that I had escaped from police custody. When she saw me in the squad car earlier, she did call headquarters to see what I was being charged with. Of course, they didn’t know my name yet or that I was even with the police.
I ran to answer the door and asked the officer in. My mother was petrified and close to a faint, but she gained back some sense of composure as the officer started asking me questions. Listening in, my mother started believing in the tale I had spun a few minutes earlier.
The crime unit had identified the girl as one who went missing seven years prior. Her dress and other items were identified by her father. Distraught over the loss of her daughter, the mother had committed suicide two years after the disappearance. My mother seemed to be relieved, as only I could detect in her facial expressions as she did the math. I would have been four years old when the girl disappeared.
Thank God he’s not a suspect.
My mother knew deep down that I could never commit such a crime, but she would never be surprised by anything involving her son. I guess I really was a hellion, but causing pain to another soul? Never. What a mother, I swear. God bless her though.
My aunts were around all the time it seemed, and they just loved me and the antics I would provide. The neighborhood women were glad that I belonged to my mother and not to them. They only had gossip and rumor to fill their lives, no e-mail or Internet. Their children just weren’t as smart as me, so tales of Alex and what he was up to on any given day were plenty. The telephone, with a nice party line, would fill an otherwise boring evening and load ’em up for the following day’s across-the-fence bullshit among the hens.
I think many of the surveillance, black ops tactics, and disinformation techniques used by the CIA are a result of observing women in their everyday lives, all the way back to the days of the cave.
The police officer told me that I had provided all he needed and thanked me once again as he made his way out to his car.
My father came home and saw the calm in my mom’s eyes, so for now, his prepared tirade had to be put on the back burner. His comment, though, gave me a start.
“This girl was from seven years ago?” he asked.
My father had recalled an incident seven years ago that involved the disappearance of a young fourteen-year-old girl. The more he thought about it, the closer it began to hit home. There was a man he had worked with back then at the flour mill who had lost his teenaged daughter under mysterious circumstances. The man had quit within the year, and my father lost touch with him, never giving