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Out of the Devil’s Cauldron 4 page

 

Later, I realized that the scars only covered my own internal injuries that would continue to haunt me. I grew to realize that the psychological wounds and my father’s death were pivotal points that led me down a path of destruction that


would twist my direction and change my life.

 

The next few years passed in a haze of struggles that my mother, brothers, and I constantly faced in our lives, trying to keep things afloat. The year after I turned sixteen, something good happened for once; 1980 turned out to be our lucky year. My mother’s sister had lived in a beautiful area called East Fordham Road in the Bronx for a long time, and her landlord promised her that the next available apartment in his building would have our name on it. With our aunt’s influence, it was the right price at the right time, and Mom had saved up enough from my father’s Social Security checks to make the numbers work. For the first time, we looked forward to moving to the good side of town.

 

A Piece of Paradise

 

Fordham Road looked the way I always imagined “real” neighborhoods should be: clean, manicured streets lined with freshly painted stores—Woolworths, Alexander’s department store, drugstores, grocery stores, an RKO Theater, Valentine’s Theater, beautiful residential buildings, and—perhaps best of all—no ugly graffiti scrawled on everything in sight. It was a bustling, vibrant community, and we were proud to be a part of it. However, as only the fifth Hispanic family to move into the area, my brothers and I didn’t know how to deal with the kids in the neighborhood because it was culture shock.

It came to a point where we had problems with the white


kids in the area, many of whom were racist and wanted to beat us up. The first week we moved there they acted like they wanted to start a rumble. Every time we came outside they tried to chase us back into the building where we lived.

 

As my brothers and I walked to the corner store one day, here were the white kids hanging out in front of the candy store, taunting us and grouping together to try to set us up.

“Hey, spic!” one of the guys yelled. “We’re coming after you. You think you can come in this neighborhood and just hang out on our corner?” The group of young men advanced on us, forming a semi-circle to come up at us from both sides.

 

I turned to my brothers and yelled, “Run, Julio! Run, George! Run as fast as you can!”

My brothers and I took off running—it was the third time in a week this had happened, and we left without getting to go inside the candy store.

 

Our Uncle Jimmy, an ex-gang member of the Reapers, decided to put things right on our behalf. He went and talked to the wannabe white hoodlums in the neighborhood. I heard about it secondhand that night at our apartment as he gloated over the way he scared them straight.

 

“It’s like this,” Jimmy said, jabbing the air for exaggerated effect, “I’ll give you an ultimatum—either you leave my nephews alone or you’re gonna have a fight on your hands. A real fight. If you’re tough guys and really want to fight, I can come up here with some guys from the South Bronx and give you a rumble. You tell me what to do: We can call it




peace or we can start a war.”

 

The white kids decided to call it peace. A wise decision, no doubt. Eventually we became good friends with most of them and laughed about our initial standoff.

 

Since I was sixteen and the oldest, and with no father figure at home, I was becoming the man of the family. I was really young to shoulder such responsibility, but I wanted to make sure our lives stayed in this new sunnier place. My best friend’s mother got me a job working in a supermarket after school, packing and delivering groceries. Months later a friend from the neighborhood approached me about a part-time job at a children’s department store. It was a better opportunity to help my mother in a better way. I gave half the money I made to my mother and kept the rest.

Life settled into a good rhythm on Fordham Road, and best of all we had a real park to play baseball in—no more throwing catch in dirty vacant lots filled with broken glass and rusted car parts.

 

A Demon’s Fury

 

One bright summer afternoon, my brothers and I grabbed our baseball gloves and ball and headed over to the park to play catch. As a follower of “the religion” I had learned years earlier about the laws of the spirit world, and the different spirits that ruled specific locations. Whenever I entered the park, I was supposed to cross my arms over my chest in tribute


to the demon spirits that ruled the foothills and woods there. My brothers always stood in awe and fear, making sure I entered the park with reverence, because if not they feared they would be harmed as well as me. But today I had other things on my mind and sauntered through the gate without stopping to pay respect. In my conscience I felt the weight of those demons hovering over me, waiting for me to pay them respect, but I pushed it aside.

 

“Hey, John!” Eustaquio called out. “Did you forget?” “Forget what?” I shot back. “Let’s just play baseball . . .

 

that’s what we came here for.”

 

My youngest brother looked uneasy, knowing how seriously I took my witchcraft rituals. “Okay, I just warned you —that’s all I’m doing.”

 

I shrugged him off. “Don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s get a game started.” We rounded up a few other guys and decided to play a real game, not just catch. A handful of their friends took seats on the bleachers to watch the game. As it turned out, it was a baseball game nobody forgot.

 

Halfway through the game the sky turned dark as thunderclouds gathered overhead. We kept looking up at the sky, surprised to watch it turn from bright sunshine to dark so suddenly.

 

“Come on, play ball!” someone shouted from the bleachers. “Don’t worry about the weather. You’re one hit away from taking this inning.”

 

“Batter up, batter up! Get a hit!” another guy yelled.


A violent gust of wind blew through the park, bending the tree branches as they rustled against one another. Suddenly a lightning bolt cracked the sky wide open, followed by a rumble of thunder so loud it shook the ground. Somebody screamed.

 

“Whoa, did you see that?” the pitcher yelled, but his voice got drowned out by another bolt, this time hitting the large oak tree near the baseball diamond. We heard the tree trunk splinter and crack as a guy from the opposing team ran to second base.

 

By now the wind had picked up even more, howling and whipping against our faces and tossing our hats off our heads. I knew the rain couldn’t be far behind, and a downpour would surely end the game on the spot.

 

“Bring him home, bring him home!”

 

We all felt the adrenaline of the moment—the game was close, and one more run would give the opposing team the winning advantage. Meanwhile it seemed all hell was breaking loose in the sky overhead and the contorting trees around us.

Crack! The next guy up at bat hit a huge pop fly ball,but our outfielder missed it and dashed after the ball. The batter tore off running, yelling for his teammate on second base to bring it home.

“Home it, home it!” his teammates chanted, and as the guy on second rounded third and then slid into home base, his left leg twisted in a horribly unnatural position. I knew it was broken even before I heard him scream.

 

Instantly a cluster of guys surrounded the boy writhing


on the ground at home base. Amid the crack of thunderbolts, the sky opened up, unleashing a torrent of rain over the ballpark.

 

“Let’s get outta here!” one guy yelled, looking up at the angry sky. He and another teammate carried their wounded friend away, their backs bent against the lashing rain. The bleachers cleared out as the onlookers ran for cover, scattering to their cars and the picnic pavilions.

 

My brothers and I stood in silence as we watched the ballpark empty. At this point everything was gloomy and dark, as if nightfall had come early that day. Fear gripped us and our hearts pumped wildly, because we knew something supernatural was happening. We all felt it.

 

Eustaquio glared at me. “I told you, man! This is all your fault. I knew you should have done what you were supposed to do when we came into the park. You should have paid your respect! Now look at what’s happened! It’s your fault.”

 

Julio and George stared at me sullenly, not saying a word. They didn’t have to. I knew Eustaquio was right. My cavalier attitude had roused the anger of the spirits that day.

“I’m sorry!” I shouted to the heavens. “I’m sorry, I’m

 

sorry!”

 

Back to the Gutter


 

The beautiful streets of East Fordham Road didn’t last


for long. Within two years my father’s Social Security expired and we lost that income, which caused a huge reversal of fortune that forced our family back into the gutter. We said goodbye to East Fordham Road and in 1982 moved to the projects on Crotona Avenue, one of the toughest neighborhoods in the South Bronx. After Fordham Road, moving to Crotona Avenue was like moving into hell, but it was hell on earth.

 

Even the neighborhood looked like it was in pain because of the corruption and rundown buildings, where graffiti covered every concrete wall within reach. This was a place where you could touch the poverty. And always, hanging in the air over everything, was the ever-present reality of crime. Right next to the bodega (grocery store) on the corner, the Chinese takeout looked like a miniature Fort Knox. Every time you went for Chinese you didn’t know whether you were going to get food or heading to the bank because of all the bars surrounding the place. Now we played baseball and football on a schoolyard concrete lot—no longer the lush green park of the East Bronx.

 

We lived a block away from the Bronx Zoo, and sometimes I wondered whether we needed to be caged up and the animals set free. The pent-up anger, frustration, and rebellion of those who lived in this neighborhood were contagious, and we caught the infection. Sometimes killings occurred at two o’clock in the afternoon, right out in the open. Without warning you’d walk by a crime scene on your way to the store and see where the police had taped down the corner.


Or, worse, you would glimpse the body of a young man covered in a white sheet, nothing but his sneakers sticking out.

During our first few weeks there, all my brothers and I did was get into fights with guys from the neighborhood. In a tough neighborhood like the one we now lived in, someone always wanted to test you and see what you were made of, and my brothers and I were really tested. Whenever we came home from school, we never told Mom about all the fights because we knew she would worry. We tried our best to hide the cuts and bruises, making some lame excuse for why our bodies bore the marks of street violence. Eventually the neighborhood bullies got tired of fighting us, and we became friends. But being friends was worse than being enemies because every bad thing these guys did, we followed along just to fit in. Hey, who said there were any good boys in the hood? There were a few nice kids; they just weren’t hip like us. And in time their parents moved away from the neighborhood so they wouldn’t lose their children to the streets or watch them end up in jail.

 

My brothers and I knew there was no way out for us, so we adjusted to the environment of drug dealing, shootouts, muggings, stabbings, and death—which went on every day— by hanging out with school friends who lived in better neighborhoods. The violence in the neighborhood was out of control. One time involved a friend of mine who was very well-known with the drug dealers in the neighborhood. As he sat in his car at a stoplight, two guys drove up on a motorcycle. Before it was said and done, bullets rained into his car, cutting his life short. I was stunned by the news. Who would have


thought his life would be over while waiting for a traffic light? That was life in the hood—alive today and dead tomorrow.

 

A Taste for Blood

 

My brother George ran upstairs to our apartment one day, shut himself in our room, and didn’t come out for two days. When he finally came out, he paced the hall like a caged animal. I saw a crazed look in his eyes and knew something was wrong.

 

“What’s going on, George? Why are you not acting right? Talk to me,” I said, my voice coming out stern.

George avoided eye contact and kept pacing. “It’s nothing, man. Forget it.”

“I said talk to me—maybe it’s something I can help you out with.”

My brother snorted contemptuously. “Nobody can help me out of this, man. It’s just . . . you know, I’m having problems with the guys on the corner over money, which I never took. Now they’re trying to blame me for it, and I didn’t do anything. They’re hunting me down like an animal.”

 

With his words something clicked in my brain and rage consumed me. Now I started pacing back and forth. “Didn’t I tell you not to hang out with these drug dealer losers?” I shouted. “All I’m gonna end up doing is going to your funeral. You’re a loser just like our dad.”

 

“Yeah, well, we’re all losers one way or another,”


George shot back.

 

The next morning George finally decided to go outside. As he approached the corner of the building where we lived, a guy jumped out of a parked car and ran up behind him. As my brother turned around, the guy shot at him five times. All five bullets missed him. When I heard the news, I knew that the demons I catered to—the demons I served—protected my brother. In that instant I also understood my mission and assignment from hell was to put my brother in jail, where he would be safe, not stand by and watch him end up in the cemetery. That day my powers increased in the demon world, and I set out with a vengeance to destroy the life of the person who tried to kill my brother.

 

I challenged the devil, yelling out loud, “You better do something or else! That person better die! Do you hear me?”

His answer came quiet my spirit: “I will avenge my fury and anger on that person, and you will hear all about it. Then you will truly know that I am your dad.” A few weeks later, the person who tried to murder my brother was killed in the street like the dog he was.

 

Unfortunately, drug dealers run in packs, and I knew the dead guy had buddies who still wanted their money—or my brother’s life. Jail was the safest place he could be, so I summoned the demons to inquire what to do to put him there. The demons sent me to the four corners of the neighborhood to collect dirt from the place where my brother used to hang out with his boys.

 

I went and got two roosters and chopped off their


heads because I needed the sacrificial blood for the power to cast this spell on my brother. It gave me pleasure to chop the struggling roosters’ heads off, wishing they were my brother’s enemies instead. Next I wrote his name on the inside of a brown paper bag, wrapped it up, and put it in a dark bottle with the dirt of the four corners. Finally I turned it over to the devil and placed it in the cauldron—a cast-iron pot where the devil and his demons meet. Strangely turned on by the killings, and watching the blood drip from the roosters’ necks, I knew my witchcraft powers were increasing all the more. Within twenty-four hours my brother George was in jail.

 

But not everyone I knew escaped death so easily. Several months later, two cousins who made their living selling drugs got into a territory fight that ended in a bloodbath. One of the cousins was better at the game than the other. Late one night, Gary decided to make extra money while his cousin Ron was away. He decided to go into Ron’s turf and sell drugs to his customers. To Gary’s surprise, across the street a cab suddenly pulled into the curb and out of the cab came Ron. As Ron spotted Gary, he pulled out his 9mm gun and fired away, spraying bullets until Gary hit the ground. Ron crossed the street and finished him off.

 

Early the next morning my brother George ran upstairs and told us the news. As soon as I heard, I ran out to where the killing took place. A cluster of police cars blocked the crime scene, but as I peeked through the swarm of officers and medical personnel, I saw the bloodstains on the pavement.

 

Oddly, in that moment, the only thing that crossed my


mind was the pool of blood that was wasted—blood I could have used for witchcraft. How I regretted not being there to collect that blood before it seeped into the asphalt.


Chapter 6

 

A Night of Voodoo

 

 

The devil was on a mission. Although I had been a practicing warlock for nearly ten years now, it was time to go deeper. Unseen forces pulled me into new levels of evil I had only heard about previously. Voices talked in my head, and my waking and dreaming hours blurred with strange visions. Satan was reminding me that I had a contract to fulfill and I belonged to him.

 

One night I fell asleep and felt myself pulled into a bizarre dream—it seemed more real than my waking reality, so real I got sucked into the dream and didn’t know whether I was dreaming or actually there at that very moment. I woke up in a cold sweat, jumped out of bed, and looked around the room, my breath coming in gasps. Nothing was there. I glanced across the room and saw my brother George asleep in his bed. Outside, the familiar nighttime Bronx sounds filtered through the dingy windowpanes. Deciding it was just a nightmare, I crawled back under the covers and soon fell asleep. This time I found myself by the ocean, and I knew that Madre Agua—the


spirit that rules the ocean—was talking to me by the edge of the water. I could hear the waves rush into shore and then whoosh back out to sea. Overhead, the sky was lit by a million twinkling stars. When she spoke, I heard her voice resonating in my spirit: “I am your mother in the religion. I am the one who will guard you and protect you. You need to step out and bring people to the religion so you can have your own village of people. You have been chosen and called for this.”

 

Madre Agua stood tall and serene against the crystalblue water, dressed in a white gown that was transparent and flowed far below where her feet should have been as she floated above the ground. She wore a necklace around her neck made out of seashells, and her long black hair flowed in the wind, framing her angelic face. But despite her beauty I could feel that she was fearless and very dangerous.

 

“Thank you for the blessing, thank you for revealing yourself to me,” I stammered. “I will do my very all to accomplish what I was called to do.”

 

Instantly I woke up, startled once again from the strange, vivid dream, not knowing where I was for a moment and trying to gather my thoughts. When my eyes settled on the familiar furniture of my bedroom, I realized something curious—though I was at home in my bed, I could still smell the ocean brine, it was so real.

Pulled back into sleep again, this time I woke up high on a mountain in the deepest part of the forest. Towering trees surrounded me on all sides, and I felt the spongy forest floor beneath my feet. Right in front of me, between two trees, stood


a big Indian chief spirit, maybe nine or ten feet tall. As I looked at him, I knew it was Tawata, my main protective spirit, the one who threw the beaded necklace out of the sky for me to wear when I was nine years old.

 

Mi padre,” I said at once, awed by his presence. “What is this all about?”

 

The tall spirit gazed at me for a few seconds before he spoke. “You have been called to the world of spiritualism, and I’m the one who is going to guide you where no other human being has walked before. You will have my powers to tell people all about their lives, their destinies, and their purpose. It is time to get started.”

 

Burning Flesh

 

Fueled by the strange but powerful dreams, I started attending even more occult gatherings, including parties at the centros to honor the demons who gave us our powers. Thesefestive celebrations resembled birthday parties, except there was nothing innocent about them. What went on in these gatherings was pure evil. One of the most demonic initiations used by espiritismo was the cigar burning.

 

One Friday evening after midnight, Aunt Maria got demon-possessed by a spirit who called herself the mother of Haiti—the principality that guards Haiti. Speaking through my aunt, the demon spirit requested dark rum and a cigar. Somebody brought the liquor to her in a coconut shell, and I


watched as my aunt lit the cigar and puffed on it until the coal turned red-hot. Her eyes dark with purpose, Aunt Maria called three of us to the front, including me. Speaking in her demonic language, she said, “We’re going to see tonight who truly belongs to us, and this ceremony will determine that.”

 

The cigar kept turning redder and redder. The other two, a man and an older woman, went first. The man was told to lift up the back of his shirt. As he kneeled on the floor in front of my aunt, she plunged the lit cigar into the bare skin on his back. He screamed like someone trapped in hell as she branded him in different parts of his back. Finally, he passed out.

 

Quivering with fear, the woman came forward next. Aunt Maria commanded her to close her eyes and extend her arm. When my aunt plunged the cigar into the woman’s wrist, she too screamed and fainted.

 

At last she approached me and told me to hold out my arm and close my eyes. As I stuck out my arm, I felt the heat of the cigar approaching my skin like a flaming torch. She pressed the red-hot coal into my arm and held it there, searing my flesh. I locked my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut tight, allowing the cigar to remain on my skin, because I knew I was called to do this. I overcame the pain and the smell of my own burning flesh—and that night I knew I was one of them.

 

“John,” Aunt Maria called as I started to head for home later that night. She gestured for me to step into the hallway apart from the others. “There’s a secret meeting Monday night, and I want you to be a part of it,” she said, her voice lowered. “Only the proven ones can be there, and tonight you proved


yourself.”

 

“What’s the meeting about?”

 

“This is for high-ranked mediums in the religion, and we’re gathering to map out the coming year, to find out which principalities are going to run which regions. We’re also going to punish those that dared to come against us,” she said, a devilish smile painted across her face. I knew it was time for war.

I went about my business over the next few days in high expectations for what Monday night would bring. We gathered at Aunt Maria’s house in the basement. Glancing around the candlelit room, I realized I was standing among a select group of mediums who had ominous powers. The meeting’s purpose: to settle the score and counter-attack our enemies, a group of people who wanted to make a name for themselves and tried to do witchcraft on one of our people. But we caught it, and it was time to teach them a lesson.

 

Earlier that day my aunt had purchased a dozen dark-colored roosters for the purpose of sacrificing—we needed their blood to do the witchcraft. That night, we all gathered together prepared to do war. As the conga players started beating the drums near the front of the gathering, the atmosphere was set and I felt the spirits of espiritismo enter the room to receive the sacrifices. The presence grew heavy; thick darkness hovered over the basement as the smell of cigars and rum perfumed the air. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up as I felt shadows passing by.

We chanted as the conga players beat the drums


harder. Some sang, some danced to the demons, others lit up cigars and blew smoke while still others sprayed rum on the four corners of the basement floor, with the symbols of espiritismo in the center of it. Every now and then a smallexplosion lit the room as somebody poured alcohol on the concrete floor and threw a burning match on it. In time we felt hell arrive in that basement. Even the roosters, squawking from their cages, knew that evil danced in the air. You could see terror in their eyes, as if they knew they were going to die.

 

As the music played the energy in the room got heavier and heavier, and I knew that in just a matter of days our enemies would pay. Aunt Maria distributed the voodoo recipe of what we needed to do to chasten those who betrayed us. I had a taste for blood that night—my heart was pumping fast and my knife was sharp, ready to behead a few roosters. I was excited to be one of those chosen to kill the roosters. Grabbing one after another by its feet, I plunged the knife into the roosters’ necks and drained their blood. When I was done, claws and feet and beheaded necks were scattered all over the basement floor. The demons cackled with delight through the mediums who lent them their bodies for the ritual, their demonic laughter mingling with the screams of the birds. Blood dripped from my hands, and if I’d had the chance to lick my hands I would have, but what would the others think? As we came down to the last rooster I opened its mouth and stuck the sharp edge of the blade right down its throat with hate and anger, knowing that the blood was a contract and the killing would destroy someone else’s life.


I came out of that secret meeting feeling giddy with power—wicked energy all over me—and celebrating the victory that was about to take place. Sometime later we heard that the house of our enemies caught fire and burned to the ground. They became homeless and had nowhere to stay. I knew they learned a hard lesson not to mess with fire, because we were fire.

 

The drawing to the dark side seemed to be getting stronger. All this made me hang out more with my friends and brought on more drinking, more women, more clubbing, and now sex. I started to get a hunger for the club scene. I was living like my dad without realizing it. The life that I hated him for had now become my life. The curse upon my father had not only reached me but was now taking over my brothers as well. My mother couldn’t do anything to stop it. We were out of control and headed in the direction my father had once lived. Now she had four sons that reminded her of the abusive-drinking husband she had lost. Old doors and wounds had been reopened.

 

Graveyard Ritual

 

Fall came and with it a chill wind blew through the Bronx, forcing its residents to layer up and lean into the cold air as they made their way down the noisy city streets. For me, autumn meant one thing—the approach of Halloween, my favorite holiday. Halloween is the most mysterious, carnal, and


devilish holiday of them all. I always laughed at those who celebrated Halloween by changing their identity for one night, and those who claimed to be witches and warlocks because they danced around in front of open fires set in a field or forest beneath a full moon. To me they were fools, like little kids playing with matches, not realizing the thing they played with had the power to kill. I knew the real meaning of this black holiday: Halloween is the night to have the most demonic powers available to use to kill and destroy those you hate.

 

The week before Halloween, I prepared for a special assignment to do just that—inflict suffering and death on three people I was contracted to destroy. That Wednesday night, St. Ilia, the demon spirit that owns the gates of the cemetery, instructed me to visit the tombs of those who had died recently so I could capture their spirits.

 

My second godmother in the religion, a one-of-a-kind witch, met up with me and we walked the fifteen blocks to the walled cemetery. No one lurked about as we approached the wrought-iron gates of the cemetery. As usual, the gates were locked after sundown, so my godmother waited by the gates while I paid my respect with twenty-one pennies, then climbed the wall to leap over. As I stood on the wall, I gazed into a sea of concrete tombstones and was in awe. The statues of different saints distinguished different parts of the cemetery— even the place of the dead was beautiful.


Date: 2016-04-22; view: 552


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