Jemez Spring (32 page)

“I mean good …” he muttered.

“You have the gift of dream,” she said, taking the empty cup from his hand. “Seek Raven there.”

“We've moved onto a new plane,” Sonny replied, nearly adding it was a new plane of illusion. Raven was playing new tricks, far more powerful and dangerous tricks than practiced before.

“I understand,” Tamara murmured. “You two have been at this struggle since long before the first stone was laid for the pyramid of Giza. Neither can gain the upper hand, and yet in the struggle is the evolution of the psyche. Our evolution. You know this, and he knows it, two snakes clinging to the same tree, the yin and yang. The masses I watch from my window know nothing. They are trapped in cycles of unredeeming work. They are not conscious of their work. Millions and millions of our species who do not understand they could make quantum leaps in the ladder of evolution, if only they understood the psyche's role. If only they could harness the energy and make whole again the dualities that tear each person apart.”

She paused, and they both looked out the window down Central Avenue, where the wild fiesta continued, a rending apart of the human spirit, which sought its wholeness behind the mask of the fiesta, under the influence of booze, cocaine, ecstasy, and lust, only to find the following morning, after a night of riotous revelry, that each had to return to the wheel of unredeeming work.

“Our hope is in you and Raven,” she whispered, touching his hand. “Because you have knowledge of previous existences, those times and places that come in your dreams, you have already achieved the first step of the Fourfold Way. Also, you have knowledge of the divine eye, which is your Zia medallion.”

“Raven has it,” a very relaxed Sonny said, yawning, aware her presence was growing luminous, the image of a woman he had long desired to reach out and touch, and her voice a melody that called from a distant shore.

“You'll have it before the day is done,” she prophesied. “The problem is not the Zia medallion or the sacred Zia Stone you seek.”

“What then?” Sonny reached for her, felt her warm breath on his face, the beginning of her journey into his body, her path of orgiastic pleasure.

She was no sylph, but a real woman, an enchantress, Sonny knew that. The length of her body exuded the aura of a woman the ancients had called the salacious virgin, a woman who could please a thousand men without losing her virginity. The light in the room became the hue of desire, a royal purple, and as desire yearns to come to life by touching the object it needs, she ever so lightly brushed her gold-ringed hand across his thigh.

“You are tied to the wheel of causation. You have already cut away some of the twelve knots, but you still have a way to go before you arrive at the fourth step.”

“The fourth step,” he repeated.

At this point it was impossible to tell what was lost in Sonny's plan, or gained. He was staring into her sparkling eyes, liquid pools of green whose tides pulled him toward her as the full moon draws the blood of ready men and women.

Perhaps he was hypnotized by the long, gold earrings that dangled from her small ears, the diamond's glitter refracting light like a prism, creating rainbows on the walls, or was it the tinkling sound of the Egyptian bracelets on the soft curve of her wrists?

“The fourth step is complete awareness. Knowledge of the universal light. A blending into cosmic energy.”

Sonny thought of the Path of Light don Eliseo had taught him. That's all he needed. But perhaps he had been negligent. Not fully understood its possibilities.

“There is another way,” she said softly, reminding Sonny of his mother's call to dinner, afternoons when he and his brother played with the neighborhood kids, and the call to eat was like an angel's call to heaven's feast.

Her breath wafted ambrosial sweet on his face; the most imperceptible tremor moved the curves of her body toward her goal.

“What?”

“I offer the way of love.”

“Tell me.” Sonny grinned, a stupid grin.

“As you know, each chakra is a lotus blossom waiting to be opened. Opening the chakras is a way to enlightenment.”

“Yeah,” Sonny agreed, except that in New Mexico the lotus was the yucca with its stalk of white blossoms and sharp spears, which explained why so few New Mexicans had ever attained enlightenment.

“It is the way of kundalini,” her voice whispered from another shore, where the sloshing sea grew still. “At the base of the spine lies the blissful serpent. Asleep. Yoga teaches us how to arouse each of the chakras, beginning with the first and traveling up the tree of the spine, a seven-stepped ladder to the crown of the head. When all are opened and blossoming you are awakened to spiritual consciousness.”

“I could use a little of that,” Sonny said, aware that his mind was playing tricks on him. He was falling for her line. Was it the drink, or was it his coyote spirit, tired of craftiness, ready to have fun? The mariachi music from the streets wafted through the window.

“Let us began,” she said, “a chant of syllables. Each
aum
will be a petal from the lotus flower, beginning at the cave of the sleeping serpent and moving upward as we breathe life into our kundalini energy.”

She chanted.
Vam, sam, sham, sam, bam, bham, mam, yam, ram, lam, dam, dham, nam, tam, tham, dam, dham, nam, pam, pham, kam, kham, gam, gham, ngam, cham, chham, jam, jham, nyam, tam, tham …

“… thus I will open each leaf of the lotus blossom, from the first to the crown, each leaf is a syllable. Let me continue.”

“First, Raven.”

“He meets with his witches at six.”

“Where?”

“There, by your bridge.”

The Barelas Bridge. Raven wasn't fooling. It was showdown time.

“Is that it?”

“Make love to me. Leave your seed in flesh, not in dream …” Then she whispered, “Don't be a slave to only one reality.”

He felt her warm hands on his stomach. From the foreign and distant shore of the kama sutra, he heard her song, the siren's plaintive song. La Llorona's call.

The ambrosial drink tasted bitter in his mouth. He wasn't a datura/hibiscus man. “Yoga takes years to learn. All those syllables. Take me years to repeat.”

“Not if I become your guide,” Tamara whispered.

“Sorry, I don't have time. I have a date with Raven.”

“Damn Raven,” she sputtered, feeling him slipping away.

From the street below a car horn sounded. Sonny recognized it.

“Mi troca!” he said, and stood to look out the window.

“Troika!” a frustrated and steaming Tamara cried, stumbling from the divan to have a look.

22

On the street below, Diego was standing beside Sonny's truck.

“Gotta go,” Sonny said, flinging the colorful robe aside.

“No,” Tamara gasped, clutching at Sonny, her eyes pleading as she reached out. “Stay awhile—”

“Don't have time,” Sonny said. He really meant that whatever she was promising just wasn't in the cards. It never had been.

“Damn Raven!” she cursed. “Never mind the chakras. Just stay. I promise—” She ran her tongue across her burning lips. “Raven will always be there. But this afternoon could be so special.”

“Some spiritual enlightenments just aren't meant to be,” Sonny said.

“Go then,” she cried. “Yes. Raven waits for you. But he's dangerous! He's leading you into a trap. Don't you understand?”

“I have to try,” Sonny replied.

“Or die trying, as the saying goes,” she said, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “I wish there was some way I could make you stay. If you go, I'm afraid it's the last time—”

“It's what I wanted,” Sonny said, “for Raven to lead me to his place. The river's as much mine as his. The water—”

He didn't finish but walked briskly to the bathroom, picked up his shirt, and went to the door.

“He's been playing tricks all day!” she called.

“I know,” Sonny answered.

He shut the door softly behind him, then flew down the stairs while pulling on his fluttering shirt, arms outstretched like an airplane, letting out the shout of a boy playing with a homemade airplane, “Baaa-roooooooommm,” the sound of flight contained in the joyful and untutored
ommmmmmm
of childhood, learned not in the long and tiring regimen of yoga, or in Tamara's kama sutra, but from the natural burst of air that explodes from innocent lungs.

Sonny burst out the door and ran across the street.

“Hey, bro, what's happening?” Diego asked, pursing his lips toward the building. He guessed Tamara lived there, and here was Sonny buttoning his shirt. “Man, did she punch your eye?”

“Nada,” Sonny replied, “pura nada. Thanks for finding my troca. Was there any sign of Chica?”

“No. She's not with you?”

“Raven—”

“Raven? Ah, que chinga.”

“I don't have time to explain. How's Rita?”

“Everything's cool. Y tú?”

“Gotta see the man.”

“Want me to go with you?”

“I'm okay. Stay with Rita.”

“You sure?” Diego asked. He knew of Raven's power.

“It's gotta be,” Sonny replied.

“The pinche is holding a big press conference at the Hispanic Cultural Center. He's got everybody acting like this whole thing is a game. The guys hanging out at the cafe are taking bets—”

“What kind of bets?”

“Ah, you know la plebe. Pura cábula.”

“Come on, what kind of bets?”

“Tú sabes, bets you won't make it back. Kidding around, telling Rita if you don't check in by closing time one of them gets to take her home—”

“Some friends,” Sonny said through clenched teeth. “You tell Rita I'll be there.”

For a moment he thought of turning home. Maybe resisting Tamara had been the last test. But no—he had to get over to the Hispanic Cultural Center. Raven had called the shots. Told him to be there. He had to rescue his daughters, the images he had seen at the theater, and take from Raven all that belonged to him. Or die trying.

“Suave, bro, suave. Keep the faith. You gotta do what you gotta do, like the old pachuco said. Don't worry, things are okay at the cafe.”

Sonny took his clean jacket from the plastic bag and put it on.

“Hijo, bro, cool. Man, you show up in that and those guys will scatter like gallinas.”

He checked the glove compartment, took out Elfego Baca's Colt .45, loaded it, and tucked it in his belt.

“It could have been lifted at the city lot,” Diego said, “pero tú sabes, la plebe takes care of their own.”

Sonny understood. Sometimes la raza surprised you. A pistol like this was worth its weight in history. Maybe he would use it to scare the hell out of the guys hanging around Rita. Shoot their asses. Show them he meant business. No, he knew better than that. The old pistol had served only on the side of law and order, and today it had shot down a demon wind. Time for it to be retired.

Besides, he had never used it in anger, never shot a man with it, so why carry it and tempt fate? In the time of chaos it was time to put away the guns, make love not war, create a balance of power through cooperation not competition, heal the wounds of the world, green vegetables for all the children, massage therapy for all the senior citizens and those stiff and weary from life.

Yeah, it was time to put the old pistol in a glass case, save it so he could tell his grandchildren how José Calabasa had killed a giant dust devil with it.

But why was he carrying it hidden under his jacket? Did he still believe, in spite of everything don Eliseo had taught him, that he could shoot Raven? Was it some quirk in his psyche telling him that he really could put a fatal and final bullet in Raven?

There it was, the seed laid in the brain of man from the time he first stood upright. Stood up to piss and shivered. The sabre-tooth tiger lurking in the savannah grass was always nearby. No matter how much a person tried to put aside violence, revenge reared its head. Would it never end?

“Can you catch a ride?”

“No problem. The buses are running. Cuídate.”

“Tú también,” Sonny said, “y gracias.”

“What's a compa for?” Diego replied, saluting.

Sonny started the truck, and drove across Central toward Cesar Chavez Boulevard. Raven's big meeting with the city fathers and the Los Alamos scientists was about to begin.

In the west the sun was one of those glorious fat sunflowers people raise in their backyards, brilliant yellow petals pasting themselves on the sky turning gray, the end of the equinox day. A knot of clouds in the west gathered to form the dark center of the flower.

Today the one dark seed in Sonny's path was Raven. All around, afternoon shadows crawled from buildings and trees to claim their own essence, sisters of the falling dusk, brothers to the night.

The blooming sunflower didn't last, it wilted, the doom of time bending the stalk until the yellow petals bowed and settled into the western horizon and all that was left was a pale glow lighting up the azure sky.

How long was I with Tamara?

Yo no llego ni temprano ni tarde, the old man said.

What does that mean? Sonny asked.

It means God was always there. I am who I am. In his world there was no time. Same could be said of a passionate woman.

So you were there?

No, I stay away from sex scenes. He laughed.

There was no sex, Sonny explained.

Yeah, right.

I tell you, no s-e-x.

With a woman like that, and you didn't—

See! I can't win. If I'd taken advantage I'd be a heel. Because I didn't, you doubt my virility.

Well, Sonny, the old man continued, knowing he had just pulled Sonny's coyote beard. What are your compañeros going to say when they find out she was hot to trot and you left her hanging?