Demons on Assignment

My pact with the devil only caused me to step up the clubbing scene. I stepped into bars and clubs and lounges so often they seemed more familiar than my own home. The taste of wine and the sound of jazz and salsa music blended into a never-ending haze of casting spells by day and recruiting souls by night.

There was a lounge in my neighborhood where all the pretty people loved to go, and one Tuesday night I got myself ready and headed out alone because at this point almost no one in the religion wanted to hang with me—like Joe, they thought I was too far gone. It was a world of jealousy, a love/hate religion, and people would not hang out with you if they thought you were more powerful than they were. Even the bartenders dreaded to see me come in, knowing I would steal all the pretty women at the bar. I could read it in their eyes: We don’t have a chance now that you’re here.

A big bouncer collected admission fees at the door to the bar. When he looked at me, fear gripped him and he waved me inside. “Go away, man. Gone on . . . don’t worry about it.”

“Cool,” I said, and started to go inside.

“Wait a minute,” the bouncer said. He threw some chips in my hand to buy free drinks with. As I made my way to the bar, I said hello to a few people I knew, got a seat at the corner of the bar, and looked across to the opposite side. There sat Carlos, an NYPD officer who was also in the religion, so I went over and we started shooting the breeze.

Deep into the night a girl named Jennifer, one of my favorite young ladies, made her way from downtown to the Bronx to hang out with me. After she located me at the bar, I introduced her to Carlos and we all started talking and laughing. Jennifer was the type who liked to roam around the place to get attention. Beautiful from head to toe, with light brown eyes, she grabbed everyone’s

attention as soon as she came in. As she paraded herself through the bar, tossing her long black hair, my friend and I kept talking about the religion and his police work.

“Hey, John,” Carlos said sometime later, nudging me. “Your date’s over there entertaining two guys at the bar.”

I glanced in the direction he indicated and shrugged.

“Are you planning to do something about it? ’Cause if so I’ve got your back.”

I swallowed a mouthful of wine and set the glass on the counter. “She’s nothing but a piece of furniture, Carlos. Don’t worry about it. By the end of the night I guarantee you she’ll be back by my side.”

Suddenly I had an idea. “You want to see how strong my demonic powers are?” I asked Carlos. He nodded, so I called to the bartender and told him to give me a white napkin and a pen. I drew symbols of Palo Mayombe on the napkin to call upon demonic spirits to show up at the bar and confuse the atmosphere. As that took place, Siete Rayos showed up. I could feel his presence in the bar. I knew that night the bar was never going to be the same. The place heated up like it was on fire, and people seemed very uneasy, not understanding what was going on.

As the night drew to a close, Jennifer jumped off her stool across the bar and made her way to me, wrapping her arms around my back. The two guys she’d been partying with strolled over in my direction, and I looked at them and smiled. I pointed my finger at them. “You’re police officers,” I said, and they froze in their tracks because they were undercover cops, not uniformed policemen.

“See?” I said. “She’s leaving with me, but you two will learn a lesson tonight that you will never forget, not because of her—she means nothing to me.”

The two men looked confused. “What are you talking about, man? What are you trying to say?”

I stared them down. “You know what I’m talking about . . . you’re police officers, and I’m going to teach you a lesson about respecting people. You will know that this night you messed with the devil.” I turned around and left the bar with Jennifer.

Three weeks later I was bored at home and decided to make my way to the lounge in my neighborhood. As I took a seat at the bar, Louie the bartender approached me and said, “What’s up? How you been?”

“Nothing new,” I answered. “Just the same old, same old. I just wanted to come out and hear some jazz and have a nice chill glass of wine.”

“Anything for you, John,” he said.

As I sat at the bar, a few minutes later Lou came over and leaned down close.

“There’re two gentlemen across the bar, and they’re afraid of approaching you, but they want to know if they can buy you a drink.”

I looked across the bar and recognized the two guys I had encountered three weeks ago, the ones who had partied with Jennifer.

“Lou, they don’t have to buy me a drink,” I said. “I got my own money. Who are they to think they can buy me a drink? If they want to come over and talk to me, so be it.” As the two men came over, they wore a look of respect and fear on their faces.

“Can we talk to you for a few minutes?” they said. “My name is Rick, and this is my partner

Tony.”

“What can I do for you?” I said.

The guy named Rick spoke first. “We’ve been coming here for three weeks looking for you.

We wanted to tell you we’re sorry for what happened that night with the girl. We stayed away from her; we haven’t called her. We wanted you to know that something we could never imagine happened to us in our apartment. We just want to call peace with you, so whatever you sent to our apartment, you can remove it.”

I was laughing inside. I knew what had happened, but I acted like an innocent little boy, waiting to hear the full story of what took place that night.

Rick glanced at Tony and started talking first. “When we got home that evening, we decided to call it a night and headed for our rooms. Sometime that night after we fell asleep we heard noises in the living room and kitchen—like a person was walking around the apartment. It was crazy, man. We both were feeling the same thing, but we were in two different rooms. Dishes rattled, heavy steps thudded through the living room, and the apartment went ice cold. Paralyzed with fear, we finally reached for our guns and got up. As we headed to the living room, the sound got louder, and when Tony and I came into the room we heard maniacal laughter—even though we could see that nothing was there.”

Rick turned and looked at his friend Tony. “Right, Tony? Isn’t that what happened?”

“Look at my pendant of San Lazaro,” Tony said. “It got twisted like a pretzel. We wanted to run out of the house, and we stayed up all night, unable to sleep. This went on for a few nights in a row. That’s when we decided to come to the bar and call it peace. We wanted to apologize for any misunderstanding. Are we cool?”

“The next time you disrespect me in any way, I’ll be going to your funeral,” I said, sipping my wine nonchalantly. “I will withdraw the demon that I sent over to your house, but don’t let it happen again.”

From that night on we became good friends.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 778