Out of the Devil’s Cauldron 3 page

Inside, beyond a small sitting area with a few chairs, I saw a curtain hanging over a door that led to a back room. That must be where they do the readings, I guessed, and sureenough within a few minutes the lady of the house came through the curtained doorway, gesturing for us to follow her back.

“This is my sister-in-law Esther and her son John,” Aunt Maria told the woman, who eyed my mother and me for a few seconds, then nodded and told Aunt Maria to sit at the card table set up in the back room. A white cloth covered the

card table, and I saw candlesticks, crosses, figurines of Catholic saints, and other “holy” items spread across another longer table against the back wall of the room.

Right away the woman, Cookie, gave Aunt Maria a card reading, and as she muttered out what she read in the cards, I glanced at my aunt’s face. No one from our immediate family knew she had been involved in witchcraft since childhood— somehow she’d kept it a secret—but even now as I watched her, I saw a gleam in her eyes that hinted at a restrained power behind her bland exterior.

When Cookie finished she asked my mother if she would be interested. Mom hesitated, but Aunt Maria convinced her so my mother agreed, afraid to say no and disappoint her sister-in-law.

During my mother’s reading, Cookie told her nothing but negative things. I couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.

“Your husband is a womanizer,” she said, studying the cards on the table. “You have a very bad marriage, and I see you being a widow at a young age.”

I glanced at Mamí. Her face wore a blank expression, and I knew it was because the card reader’s words had found their mark. She went on for a few minutes, loading my mother up with misery. The next thing she said was about me.

“Your son is on the verge of losing his sight . . .” She stopped suddenly, studied the cards a bit longer, and lifted her diabolical gaze toward me. “This boy needs a ceremonial cleansing right away. If he doesn’t receive the cleansing I see

him losing his eyesight within thirty days!” She turned herhard eyes back to my mother. “The ceremony will cost $200— don’t delay.”

By now my mother was in a panic. Beads of perspiration dotted her pretty forehead, and my stomach roiled with anger that one more thing just got added to her already heavy load of worries. She promised the card reader we would return within a week for my cleansing ceremony.

As we left the card reader’s house that day, little did my mother know that an evil door had just been opened, and we were about to walk through it.

Welcome to Witchcraft

I knew my mom didn’t have $200, and the idea of asking my father for the money was a joke, so she did what any good mother would do—she sold her bedroom set to a neighbor for $250.

A week later my mother took me back to the tarot card reader, who was a high priestess and medium in an occult religion called Santeria. Leaving my mother in the front sitting area, Cookie led me back to the kitchen where she initiated the cleansing ceremony by placing beads of different colors on the table, each strand representing one of the five main spirit gods that ruled the religion.

In the kitchen, I sat and talked with her until someone from behind me tied a blindfold around my eyes and led me to a

room where together they tore off my clothes and bathed me with herbs and plants. Terrified, I shook with fear but kept silent. Why couldn’t my mother be with me during this strange ritual that was both frightening and humiliating? I had no idea what would happen next.

Suddenly the high priestess and her helper started singing songs to the five main gods of Santeria: Obatala, Yemaya, Ochun, Chango , and Oya. Although I couldn’t seebecause of the blindfold, I knew that two people performed this ceremony. Sometime later they dressed me in white and took me to another room where I was offered up to the five gods. When they finished singing, I was given five beaded necklaces to wear, each representing the color of a particular god. They told me to bow down in a certain fashion, repeat the names of the five main gods, and thank the gods for receiving me.

During the process the two women became my godmothers in Santeria. They wrapped my head in a white bandana and told me I must stay dressed in white for seven days. Finally they released me back to my mother, but I would never be the same innocent ten-year-old boy again. The world of Santeria had become real to me. My life would be controlled by the guardian spirits that rule over espiritismo and Santeria. I would no longer belong to my mother but to incredible forces beyond my control, for these entities had stepped up to fill the void in my heart that yearned for a father.

After this, every weekend one of my godmothers took me to what they called centros (espiritismo churches) to learn how to work the mesa blanca. I learned from the very best,

people dedicated to Santeria and espiritismo for thirty, forty, fifty years of their lives. They called themselves mediums. As I made my weekly visits to the centros, I learned how to communicate with spiritual forces of different ranks, cast spells, and recruit others into the religion—spirits that I now realized were diabolical spirits, or demons.

School for Warlocks

Centro was a place where humanity met thesupernatural in a most diabolical way, a place where I went to “school” to learn how to lend my body to evil spirits—to be demon-possessed. We met at Cookie’s house in a large room on the first floor. About sixty people gathered in rows of folding chairs set up facing the mesa blanca. Aunt Maria took me there for the first time on a Friday night. As I walked inside the room, my eyes adjusting to the dim glow of candlelight, I felt chills run up and down my spine. Something in the atmosphere told me this was not a regular meeting. People stood in clusters talking before the service, but they took their seats when the six mediums assumed their place at the white table. Glancing around, I saw that I was easily the youngest one there, so I sat somewhere in the middle, trying to lose myself among the older people. But there was no chance I’d be lost that night.

“We have a special guest tonight,” Cookie said as she called the service to order, dressed all in white. “He’s a new

initiate in the religion. John, would you come up here please?” She held out her hand toward me, a motherly expression on her face, and I couldn’t refuse in front of all those staring adults. I walked to the front and Cookie sat me on the edge of the mesa blanca so I could watch, listen, and learn as the mediumsworked the table.

No lights were allowed, because demon spirits only come down when it’s dark, as Aunt Maria had told me before. The service started about 9 p.m. I had no idea that first time it would last until five o’clock in the morning. One by one the mediums performed cleansings, gave readings, and prophesied over those in the folding chairs who had come for healing or guidance or deliverance from spells.

“Focus and watch what we’re doing,” Cookie whispered to me. I nodded, instinctively aware that I should remain silent. “Permission of the white table,” she suddenly intoned. “I see . . .”—and she called out what she saw in the large vase full of water in the center of the table, encircled by candles. The spirits showed her and the other mediums certain things in the water, or in their mind/conscience, and they would call those things out, addressing the person the prophecy pertained to. In time I grew bold enough to start speaking out things I saw in the water too, or the different vibes and spirit voices hovering over the table.

The mediums would target individuals in the audience, placing a glass of water and a candle behind their chair. “Permission of the white table, I see this lady who lives in your house—pale white skin, jet-black hair—and she’s put a spell

on your family. Now we’re going to break that spell,” one of the mediums said. The woman in the chair shook visibly, tears spilling down her cheeks. As the medium continued prophesying over the woman, he prepared himself to “catch” the demon that was casting the spell over the family, entrapping it in his body.

Suddenly the medium started yelling like a madman, foaming at the mouth. His eyes rolled back in his head, showing only the whites, and he practically floated in the air before grabbing the victim by the throat. The other five mediums around the table got up and started to pray—“Hail Mary, full of grace . . .”—throwing holy water on the medium in the chair. One medium grabbed a cross in her hand and confronted the demon trapped in the medium’s body. Every time a spray of holy water hit the medium, his body jerked and contorted. By this point, I could see that the medium was in a trance—no longer himself but something diabolical. “Don’t hit me! Leave me alone!” he screamed in the guttural voice of the trapped spirit. Finally, he fell back as if dead, growling and making weird noises as the other mediums drove the demon spirit back to hell.

“Permission of the white table,” Cookie called out one night, directing her dark eyes toward me. “I see one of the most powerful guardian spirits in all espiritismo guiding and protecting you, John.” Her words hung in the air as I waited for what would come next. “He is an Indian chief spirit named Tawata,” she added, and at that moment I remembered the Indian necklace that had dropped out of the sky when I was

younger. Amazed, after that I prayed to this special new deity

—my protective spirit—daily, even moment by moment.

At another gathering one night, the intensity of the service reached an electrifying pitch, and I felt pulled to keep glancing at this six-year-old girl who’d been brought there by her mother. My sharpened spiritual senses picked up an evil vibe in the same instant the mediums at the white table shouted, “Focus, focus! There’s a bad spirit in the air tonight, and the bad spirit is trying to grab somebody and take them with him.” As they spoke, I felt the vibe of the spirit try to snatch the little girl. Before our astonished eyes, she hopped out of her seat, jumped up in the air, and spun around like a ballerina—spinning and spinning nonstop for several minutes. Her eyes were not her own, her hands were not her own, and her feet were not her own as they floated, not even touching the floor.

Later that evening at the white table, Aunt Maria stood paralyzed without blinking or moving her features for over an hour, looking like a mannequin. Dressed all in black for a change, she stood trapped in a trance with a demon that was new to the occult but not new to her. I left the service even more astonished about how the demon world worked, and I learned something new—not only how powerful the spirits of the dark side could be, but also that they have no respect for age. The purity of that six-year-old was snatched away that night. She was now one of us, never to be an innocent child again.

This was the life I lived for weeks on end, months on

end, and years on end. After the service was over, often an adult would pull me aside and smile down at me. “You’re going to be something great in this religion,” one might say, a look of admiration in their eyes. “We can’t wait to see how far you’re going to go in Santeria,” another would echo. “You’re going to be very powerful. You will win many souls . . .”

Even though I didn’t understand these predictions at the time, I felt like I was a part of something that wanted me for once. I was part of something great. For the first time in my life, I enjoyed the acceptance and love I never got from my father. I looked forward to the next validation the following Friday night.

Chapter 4

The Silent Pain

The school bell dismissing class rang out shrill and loud, cutting off the teacher’s last words—“. . . your final grades, and have a happy holiday!”—but we kids didn’t care. We were free . . . for two whole weeks. A couple of desks got overturnedin the mad dash for the classroom door, and once we broke out into the halls they cleared within seconds amid loud whoops of celebration and ghetto-blasters cranked to ear-splitting levels. It was Christmas. Nothing could contain our excitement.

“Hey, John, I’m gettin’ some good stuff this year. What about you?” my friend Junebug shouted as we pushed through the outside door into the freezing air of the schoolyard. Everybody turned to see what my response would be.

“My brother, I’m gonna get the bike I always wanted and my GI Joe set,” I said boastfully, then turned around and murmured under my breath, “Like I’m really gonna get these toys this year.” But Mom had said that this year my father wasgoing to cooperate and be part of our Christmas—even

promised it—so I allowed myself a spark of expectation. My brothers and I had a good feeling that, for the first time, we were going to have a good Christmas.

“Man, Christmas is my favorite holiday,” Junebug went on. “Christmas at my house is always the best time of year— we always get the very best. My father always does the right thing.”

“Really? Well, at my house we always step it up for the holidays,” I lied, falling into the rhythm of things.

“Hey, you wanna go hang out? You wanna go to the candy store?”

“Nah, man, I gotta get home. My brothers and I are gonna help my mother put up the lights on the window and decorate the Christmas tree—my dad’s supposed to bring home a tree today.” We talked on as we headed down the block toward our apartment building, our feet crunching over clods of icy snow stained brown from the street sludge. People jostled along the streets with the ever-present noise of traffic and police sirens in the background. New snow started to fall as we walked, covering the dingy Bronx neighborhood in a fragile coat of white. In spite of myself, I really did feel hopeful about Christmas this year.

When I burst through the door of our apartment, there was the Christmas tree, still bound with twine and leaning in a corner of our tiny living room. Mamí came in from the kitchen smiling. “Guess what we get to do tonight, John?” she said, her eyes sparkling.

“Did Papí bring the tree? It sure is a good one,” I said,

admiring the spindly balsam fir, my voice loud with excitement. “But Dad brought it, right? Just like he said he would?”

My mother’s eyes flickered. “Of course he wanted to, but Papí was very busy with his taxi service today, so your Uncle Alberto brought it instead. It is a good tree, isn’t it? We’ll decorate it with lights and ornaments and make it real pretty for Christmas morning. Your father promised to be here this year—remember how I told you that? It’s going to be a good Christmas, you’ll see.”

A twinge of disappointment bit at my insides, but I pushed it away, determined to be happy for my mother. Later that night we hauled the box of ornaments and lights down from the closet shelf. My brothers and I transformed that plain-looking tree into a real Christmas tree. In our childish glee we didn’t notice how few ornaments and lights there really were. To us, it was the most beautiful Christmas tree we’d ever seen. I imagined waking up Christmas morning, running down the hall into the living room, and finding gifts piled underneath the branches, just like they did in the movies. After all, he had promised this year.

The days leading up to Christmas passed quickly, and suddenly it was Christmas Eve. After I helped clear the dishes away from the dinner table, I went over and stood beside my mom as she scraped leftovers into a container. “What time is Dad coming home tonight?” I gazed at her face and watched for her reaction.

She paused a second too long. “Oh, I’m not sure, but he’ll be here for Christmas morning.” She smiled at me and

placed the container in the refrigerator. “He’s bringing the gifts he promised. You and your brothers are gonna have your toys to play with in the morning.”

“Okay,” I said, mustering a feeble smile.

That night I leaned out the window of my bedroom and looked up at the stars, praying to the only god I’d ever known —the Indian spirit who gave me my protective necklace. “Tawata, please let my dad come home for Christmas like he said he would.” I fingered the necklace around my throat and squeezed my eyes shut. “For once, let him show up.”

Home for the Holidays

The grayish light of dawn peeked through the cracks around the window blind, signaling the start of a new day. My groggy mind took only half a second to register . . . Christmas! I kicked back the covers to awaken my brothers. We tore down the hallway and spilled into the living room.

“Santa came! He came, he came!” Julio shouted, jumping up and down and diving under the tree to look at the five gifts lying there. George and Eustaquio tumbled in after him. I didn’t want to spoil the whole Santa thing for my younger brothers so I played along, my own heart thudding with excitement that he came—or rather came through. My father had come home for Christmas and brought presents for his family.

“Wait for your dad to come into the living room before

you can get your toys,” Mom said as she entered the room, tying on her robe.

“The toys are there. Grab your toys and don’t make a mess,” Dad’s booming voice called from the living room doorway. “And make sure you clean up after yourself.” He spoke with coldness and a pretend smile on his face.

“Merry Christmas, boys,” Mom said as she bent down to kiss each of us on the cheek. “I’m gonna start breakfast.”

My father settled himself on the couch and popped open a beer—breakfast in a can as one of the older boys in the neighborhood called it. He ordered my little brothers to hold off on the gifts until he passed each one of us the present with our name on it. I knew he wanted to do the father thing, and that was cool. It was good to see him home with us for once after so many Christmases when he was an absentee dad.

“Here you go, John.” My father handed me a small gift wrapped in Christmas paper. It was too small to be a GI Joe, but I didn’t care. I started to open the present and glanced up at Mom in the kitchen. She smiled back at me from the stove, where the smell of eggs frying wafted out into the living room.

My fingers struggled to tear open the gift, it was taped so much.

“Here, stupid, let me do it,” my father said, snatching the gift out of my hands. “What kind of a kid can’t even open his own Christmas present. Ay-yi-yi . . .” He made a hand gesture as if to slap me.

My heart, so full of joy at seeing my family all together on this special day, sank into the pit of my stomach. With his

cruel, sarcastic comment, my father had killed whatever Christmas spirit resided in the Ramirez household.

I don’t even remember what my present was that Christmas morning—some trinket my father picked up at Cheap Charlie’s Store—but it didn’t matter. In that one instant of cruelty he had spoiled it all.

A few days after Christmas, my father long gone from our lives again, I was heading down the apartment stairwell when I spotted two brand-new GI Joes lying on a step. One of the neighbor boys must have been playing with his new Christmas toys and got called inside for supper. I scooped up the action figures and tucked them under my shirt, then made a dash for my aunt’s house where I could play with them unseen. These were coveted toys, and I was so desperate to have a GI Joe at any cost—to feel like a regular boy—that I pushed away the nagging thoughts in my conscience that what I’d just done was wrong.

When the neighbor boy asked me if I’d seen his action figures a few days later, I lied and said no. Once again my conscience bothered me, and I felt the burning guilt of my crime, but I never confessed to it. Even though Mom had taught us carefully not to lie or steal, at that moment I didn’t care about the penalty I would pay or the beating I would receive if my mother ever found out.

The False Penitent

The years churned on, with my father in and out of our lives and startling changes happening in my own body. Suddenly my voice lowered to a new octave and I developed muscles that hadn’t been there before. The reflection in the bathroom mirror showed a young man with new dark hair growth on his chin and upper lip.

By the time I turned thirteen, my experience in Santeria had reached new levels—I was learning how to control spirits to make them do my bidding, and visitors to the centros often sought me out for readings, recognizing the special gifting upon me to tell fortunes and break spells with complete accuracy. Yet for all my advancement in the world of witchcraft, I was still a boy craving the love of a father—an earthly father I had given up on.

Though my dad was rarely home, word of his escapades drifted back to us, twisting the knife in my gut with every fresh story. One evening he was hanging out with some friends at his buddy Manuel’s house, drinking it up and listening to music. At some point late that night, after the others left, he and Manuel got into a disagreement about who was a better man—back and forth they compared themselves, regarding women and money and who drove the better car. As the argument escalated, suddenly my father jumped out of his seat and grabbed Manuel by the throat, choking the life out of him. Turning blue, in self-defense Manuel reached into his back pocket, grabbed an eight-inch knife, and plunged it into my father’s stomach. My dad fell to the ground. Manuel called 911 and told the police my father came to the house looking for

a fight, and he was forced to stab him in self-defense. An ambulance carted my father off to the hospital.

I never witnessed my dad getting in a fight. What he did in the street, he did in the street. But as time went on, he got even worse. He drank, mouthed off, and got into heated arguments that ended up in a lot of street brawls. Sometimes he was beat up badly and had to go to the hospital again. When we visited him, he made profuse promises to my mother that he was going to be a changed man. He announced dramatically, almost pitifully—gasping and wheezing because of his injuries —that he was going to stop drinking and playing around with other women. It almost seemed like he was repentant. And we all wanted so much to believe him.

“Esther, oh Esther, please forgive me! Give me another chance!” he would cough and plead in a ragged breath while holding onto my mother’s hand. My brothers and I stood awkwardly to the side of his white hospital bed, watching the embarrassing scene. Once he even kissed her hand and double-kissed her wedding ring.

“I will make it up to you,” he swore as a tear slid down the stubble on his cheek. It was the only time I ever saw any real tenderness from him. Deep inside I suspected his actions were prompted by being in the hospital and afraid to die—not out of any real love and concern for my mother. Because when he got better and the fire was back in his belly, as soon as his wounds healed, you could see his eyes dancing with plans, even from his hospital bed.

It was during those times, closest to his being released,

that my father’s remorseful behavior switched right in front of our eyes. He’d be sitting up in bed now, hair combed and gleaming with dressing oil, his face freshly shaved and cologne liberally applied. He was glorying in all the attention. At this point, he certainly didn’t look sick or injured to me. I turned away, hiding my tears as I stared out the hospital window.

Once discharged from the hospital, of course nothing changed. If anything my father’s drinking and hanging out became even more of his 24-7 obsession. There is a saying that “every dog has his day,” and it’s sad that it applied to my own father, but at this point his carousing had reached a fever pitch, one that was compelled to satisfy his most rabid carnal instincts no matter how it hurt everybody near and dear to him.

Farewell, My Father

One night my father was out with a drinking buddy at his favorite social club. Every poor neighborhood had a club like this one, an adult hangout where the liquor flowed and infidelities flourished. Details of that night only filtered back to me later, but the story goes that he was having a good old time with a barmaid, one of his many mistresses. As she served him his drinks, they flirted back and forth, with whispers, giggles, and cute talk. Apparently they had been lovers for a while, and my father lavished time, money, and attention on this good-time girl who had become one of his special girlfriends. Witnesses said she was wearing a low-cut top, skintight skirt,

and fishnet stockings. She had been dancing around drunkenly, tottering on high heels, just a half hour before my dad entered the club.

While they flirted and laughed, a man entered the club, a stranger to my father who turned livid and purple when he recognized the woman my father canoodled with. As the stranger watched them flirt back and forth throughout the night, he became enraged. He started to pick a fight with my father’s friend. Noticing the confrontation, the Great Eustaquio jumped up from his seat to shout at the stranger and defend his friend.

My father no doubt planned to just intimidate the stranger with the “evil eye” or a bare-knuckled defense if necessary. At the worst he would endure another ambulance-to-hospital stay, but either way he ultimately would be the barmaid’s hero and resume their relationship.

The angry stranger had something final in mind. Without warning, in the middle of that escalating argument, he pulled out a piece of gray heavy metal from his black leather jacket. Unblinking, the stranger pulled the trigger and blasted a fiery gunshot into my shocked father’s face, the bullet driving into his brain just above the eyebrow, killing him instantly. Pandemonium broke out in the bar, and the gunman fled into the night on foot and disappeared.

That night in our apartment, we heard a loud knock at the door as though someone were trying to break it down. As my mother opened the door, one of my father’s sisters came in screaming hysterically “Eustaquio is dead! He just got shot . . .

he’s dead!”

Since I was the oldest, my mother grabbed me and we ran to the social club a block away. That night it rained like I had never seen before in a very mysterious way. It seemed as if heaven was crying and the sky was mourning. The raindrops fell heavy and hard like fifty-cent coins dropping from the sky. It rained nonstop. My mother and I stood in front of the social club wet and cold as my dad’s body lay inside the smoke-filled room. As I watched the throng of policemen and curious onlookers surrounding the whole area, I asked myself why God was crying. Was it because my father lost his chance to go to heaven? I stood there, shivering from more than the cold rain, and tried to make the tears come, but my eyes and heart were empty.

Chapter 5

Nightmare on Crotona Avenue

I was thirteen when my father was killed, a sensitive age for a young boy with thoughts and intents and hormones changing, and now I had my ambivalence toward my father’s death to contend with as well. All the bad thoughts I had toward him flooded my mind. All the times I had wished him dead came back for awhile to taunt me, because now he was dead.

At first I felt great guilt at my thoughts prior to his death. But soon, in realizing I didn’t have to deal with him anymore, overwhelming relief washed over my guilt, and I felt absolutely no sadness. I felt my family’s anguish had ended with my father’s life, and my hardened thoughts tried to blot him out of my mind. My daily wish for his demise had finally come true. I thought then that the torment and hell would be over.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 468