This is my entry in the 2019 Halloween Story Contest. Please vote if you like it.
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I was sitting quietly in my room when I heard my grandfather come home. He would also come directly to my room and say hello, checking on me, making sure I was safe at home.
"Hello Sofia," he greeted me as he usually did. "How were your classes today?" he asked.
"Fine, normal," I responded. "Calculus always kicks my butt, Papi" I added.
"You need to learn that well if you're going to be an architect," he would always say regardless of whatever subject it was I was struggling with.
I called my grandfather my daddy since he and my grandmother raised me since I was a small child. Mama passed away four years ago from cancer. Since then it's been Papi and myself. I was three years old when my parents died in a car accident. They were hit by a truck rushing to the hospital, my mother giving birth to my sister.
"What should we have for dinner?" Papi asked.
"I can heat up the
albondigas
," I suggested.
"That sounds good," Papi replied.
Papi worked hard as a welder. He would come home dirty and sweaty from a long arduous day. He was very strong, a lean and muscular body for his sixty-four years of age. I regarded him as one of the most handsome men I ever met. Sharing this house with him matured me beyond my twenty-one years. I was spoiled so much that I did not regard the young men my age as real men compared to Papi.
Papi would always ask me why I didn't date. I always answered him that I was committed to becoming an architect, a builder, and I needed to focus on my work. That pleased him very much but the reality was that no man measured up to Papi in my eyes.
Papi was also intriguing. He was steeped in folklore from both his Mexican and Pasqua-Yaqui heritage. He would tell stories of Spirits and tales of the afterlife. When Mama died she was ceremoniously guided into the afterlife by some elders of the tribe after her traditional Catholic funeral. It was a strange mixture of beliefs but Papi seemed at ease with it all.
I did take a class at the University last year on the culture of the indigenous tribes here in the Southwest of which by virtue of my heritage, I was a member. My blood was mostly Mexican but as Papi reminded me, Native Americans were intertwined with Hispanics for hundreds of years.
Papi's favorite celebration was
El Dia de los Muertos,
or Day of the Dead which was fast approaching. It is a three day celebration that starts on Halloween. It is a time to celebrate those who have passed on to heaven, hopefully, or to another not so desirable afterlife. Papi, however, believed more in the Yaqui tradition that life continues its journey after death, he conjures up the spirits of the departed and celebrates with them.
"This year is a very special celebration
Dia de los Muertos,
" Papi said to me sitting at the kitchen table after dinner. "We need to make a special altar for your sister," he explained. "She must be guided into womanhood."
I wasn't sure what he meant by that but I trusted his knowledge of the spirits and the rituals he carried out each year to celebrate our lost family members.
"We will build it in the guest room," Papi told, "instead of the living room."
That seemed a little unusual. 'Why would we not want it on display in the living room?' I thought. We had never actually made an altar for my sister. She was always implied in the altar for my mother and father. We prayed for her along with prayers for my parents.
"We will make the usual altars in the living room for your parents and my wife," Papi explained. "But we need a special one for your sister and the ritual for her journey."
I was very intrigued but I didn't want to ask too much. I knew Papi wouldn't answer anyway, he felt that ritual must be experienced. He told me to never try to understand, spirits existed in another plane of reality.
Papi gave me a list of things to get for my sister's altar. The objects included articles of clothing, a pure white dress, lace, a scarf, a woman's hat. Other things he requested were feminine soaps and perfumes. I also needed to get fresh rose petals on Halloween so they would still be fresh on the first of November, the day we celebrate our departed adult family members.
He took a day off work and made a trip south of the border where he said he could acquire certain special blankets, vessels and a statue or painting of the goddess Chimalman. I couldn't resist finding out about this particular goddess from Aztecan mythology so I looked her up on my computer. There are several versions of how she became pregnant but the most prominent one was that she swallowed a precious stone, presumably jade.
I had pulled a flyer for a Halloween costume contest and dance out of my bag to through away. It was an event planned by the Student Union at the University. Being a Thursday night I didn't plan to attend anyway. Papi, however, asked me what it was for and insisted I go.
"It would be good for you to socialize a little," he said. "Besides, it will give me some privacy preparing for our celebration on Friday."
I called my friend Anita and we agreed to go together. We decided we would both dress up as evil clowns. That way the boys wouldn't be eager to hit on us, or the girls. I didn't date but I did fool around with Anita occasionally. We weren't lesbians, we weren't really attracted to each other sexually, just friends helping each other get some release.
Thursday evening came around. Papi took off work early so I helped him with the altars for my parents and my grandmother before Anita came by to pick me up to go to the dance. I confided in my friend that there was something special and secretive going on with Papi.
"He's always so serious about the Day of the Dead celebrations," I told my friend.
"That's because he wants to preserve the elements of the ancient culture," explained my friend who was studying Anthropology. "The ancient Aztec culture from which the Yaquis descended believed heavily in a spirit world," she told me with authority.
"Do you know anything about a goddess Chimalman?" I asked Anita hoping she could give me more insight into Papi's altar preparations.
"Not really much except I do know she was impregnated by swallowing a precious stone," my friend answered. That much I already knew from my sparse research.
"I'm wondering what that has to do with my sister. She was born at the moment of the accident and supposedly died instantly. She was still connected to my mother. They were crushed by the truck," I tried to explain. "I can't figure out what this all means."
"Don't worry about it," Anita consoled me. "Your grandfather loves you very much and I'm sure he has something enlightening to have you experience tomorrow," she assured me.
"You're right," I replied. "Let's have fun tonight."
We were invited to an after dance party where there was plenty of alcohol flowing. Anita and I had one drink and observed the drunk boys making asses out of themselves trying to get in the pants of the drunk girls.
"I don't get it," I said commenting on the drunken antics we saw. "They're probably too drunk to get their dicks up anyway," I chided.
"It's so unappealing," Anita agreed. "That's why I stick to older men," she confessed. I knew she was seeing one of the professors who was on his forties. He was also married.
"You better be careful with the married men," I admonished my friend.
