Mestizo the Old Man

By Marvin Guadalupe Romero

In our computerized high-tech society our elders are too many times misunderstood and neglected. Some are sent to old age homes; others suffer in silence in their own frail, impotent world. Diego Santiago, a eighty-nine-year-old World War II veteran suffering from amnesia and the complications of old age has been praying every day for his lord to bring back his memory so he could recall if he was a good person with his loved ones, if his life had a fruitful and caring impact with others that shared his life. Then one day when he was asleep in the portal of his adobe home by the bosque on the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he heard a mystical voice calling his name and he awoke. He looked up toward the sky and heard the angelic voice calling him, “Diego! Diego! I am going to restore your memory, but beware for there are tragic events in your past you will not want to remember!” And with those words etched in his mind he began to recall his past, weary of the unknown occurrences in his past he would have to face.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640272378

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Mestizo

The Old Man

Marvin Guadalupe Romero

Copyright © 2017 Marvin Romero

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2017

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences are either the product of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to events, scenes, or actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-64027-236-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64027-237-8 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To my wife Georgiana

Also thank you to Judith Van Giesen writer extraordinaire for her expert advice and help. Her suggestions were invaluable.

Preface

In our computerized high-tech society our elders are too many times misunderstood and neglected. Some are sent to old age homes, others suffer in silence in their own frail, impotent world.

Diego Santiago a 89 year old World War Two veteran suffering from amnesia and the complications of old age has been praying every day for his lord to bring back his memory so he can recall if he was a good person with his loved ones, if his life had a fruitful and caring impact with others that shared his life. Then one day when he was asleep in the portal of his adobe home by the bosque on the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, New Mexico he heard a mystical voice calling his name and he awoke.

He looked up towards the sky and heard an angelic, voice calling him, Diego—Diego I am going to restore your memory, but beware for there are tragic events in your past you will not want to remember!

And with those words etched in his mind he began to recall his past, weary of the unknown occurrences in his past he would have to face. Their flashlight, a blood soaked dagger stained the white sheets, on the carpet floor beside the bed were the black sweater, pants and black ski mask covered with blood.

Chapter One

What happened in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on that summer morning of August the first in the year 2015? Was it a supernatural anomaly, or could it have been a divine presence? Some of the neighbors even accused the old man of practicing witchcraft. Ese viejo es un brujo! What phenomena was this that altered the old man’s life? He had already lived his life to the fullest, and now old age and the onset of amnesia were robbing him of what he wanted most in life, to remember his past before he died. He wanted to know if he had been good to his family and other loved ones who shared his life. The misery of not being able to know who he was and how his life impacted others was what he wanted more than anything else in his old age. You decide for yourself what really happened to Juan Diego de Santiago.

He was sitting on the couch in the portal of his adobe home in Alameda near the bosque of the Rio Grande River just north of Albuquerque, an old Indian blanket covering his frail body. He stared aimlessly at the little hummingbirds sucking the nectar from the colorful flowers blooming in the courtyard garden as if they had no meaning in his life. His long hair has turned gray with time; its long silver strands glisten as the gentle rays of the morning sun begin to warm the early morning. Tears fell slowly from his tired eyes and trickled down the wrinkles of his weathered face and slowly made their way through the full-length mustache grayed like his hair.

The wind picked up and his long, gray hair was tussled gently upward and slowly settled back on his droopy shoulders. His once handsome face was now full of wrinkles and scars of his adventurous past. He searched his pocket and brought out a handkerchief to wipe the tears from his eyes. His large, calloused hands were now arthritic and painful to use; the fingers and knuckles show the scars of the many encounters of his youth. Diego Santiago wanted to recall his past life now that the ravages of amnesia had erased the memories of his aging and troubled mind.

Every morning when he was in the portal and at night when he went to bed, he used to pray to his creator to bring back his memory. For years after his memory began to deteriorate, he started his ritual of prayer, hoping that someday his wish would be answered.

His once-muscular, athletic body that served his country during the Second World War and when he worked for the City of Albuquerque Police Department has now betrayed him. His tired and battered body had served its usefulness, and now he pondered his purpose in this ever-changing, modern world.

"YA NO SIRVO PARA NADA MÌ TATITA DÌOS . . . MÌ CUERPO Y MÌ MENTE ESTÀN PARA LA CHINGADA . . . QUE IMPOTENTE SE SIENTE MÌ VIDA!"

His shouts echoed through the bosque and scattered a family of tortolitas making their way through the mesquite bushes and the giant cottonwoods, saturating the bosque along the riverbank. He looked at them with empty, emotionless eyes as they hurried away into the brush, avoiding a lone coyote looking for an easy meal.

It started that Sunday morning in the courtyard of his adobe home. The old man was pulling weeds from the flower garden in the courtyard by the old adobe wall, and the sweat rolled down his brow as he went about digging into the soil, his large, calloused hands aching with arthritis. His head bent down, cursing at the weeds whose roots held firm, embedded deeper into the soil when he heard a voice calling out his name.

Diego! Diego! the sound of the voice echoed through the courtyard.

He struggled and slowly straightened his aching back as his tired, startled eyes panned the courtyard, but he couldn’t see anyone. He turned toward the adobe wall and saw the uneven row of corn on the other side, withering away, trying to survive the drought. All he heard was the rustling sounds of dried-up corn stalks in the field rubbing against each other. Being so close to the river and not being able to irrigate his crop just because some land assessor didn’t include the water right to his acre of land. Those politicos are always at the ready to fill their pockets from landowners who want every drop of water from our rivers to irrigate lands they stole from the Mexicans and the Pueblo people.

The wind started to swirl around him, raising up the loose dirt, and he covered his eyes when he felt something brushing against his shoulder, and the voice again echoed through the courtyard, calling out to him, followed by an eerie, piercing chant he had never heard before, not English nor Spanish, Kerseren, Tiwa, Towa, or Tewa languages of the Pueblo people.

He thought some neighbor was playing tricks on him, or maybe it was the wind flowing through the crooked branches of the cottonwood tree? It wasn’t too much of a concern to him until the wind died down and he heard his name again. This time he was sure that it was someone’s voice. It got louder and more demanding than before.

Diego! Diego! Don’t you hear my voice? Then he heard the mysterious chant again echoing through the courtyard, his eyes pensive, mystified as they searched the courtyard for the phantom voice calling to him.

Damn it, this old age is killing me. Every time I move it seems like another part of my body goes out. What the hell is going on? Who could be calling me? Where is the damned voice coming from!

He rubbed his ears and began to walk as fast as he could back to the safety of the porch, but his knees gave out, and he stumbled and fell on the flagstone path, his eyes scared and mystified looking at the darkening, unforgiving sky.

What the heck is happening to me!

This time his words were much weaker, barely escaping his quivering throat. A bewildered look framed his old face, trying to make sense of the voice and the mysterious chant that only he was hearing.

He knew that he was alone, but he could feel something, some unseen entity shadowing every step he took. Diego got up slowly, holding on to his cane, walking the final steps to the portal. He looked all around the courtyard, a scared look in his bewildered eyes, his body shaking as he sat down on the soft cushions covering the couch, and there he stayed cursing his aging body." Que chinga con esta viejes! He cursed his debilitating old age. Cabron, all those chingaderas that happen in your life seem to get worse with this fucking old age."

The pipe and his sack of tobacco were on the armrest, waiting for his gnarled fingers to slowly curl around his favorite pipe and pour the sweet tobacco, strike the long-stemmed match on the book of matches with the red diamond logo, and relax his tired body with the aroma of a long pull of tobacco. He exhaled the mystical, white smoke that slowly rose up into the blue of the sky, changing shapes as it swirled and disappeared. He sat on the soft cushions of the sofa, his tired body trying to relax, but his troubled mind was still struggling to make sense of the voice and the haunting chant piercing his troubled mind.

That night he sat on the rocking chair in the living room, staring at the television set, his eyes transfixed on the blank screen when he felt the presence of the phantom again. He didn’t hear the voice calling to him, but the smell of incense and the eerie feeling of the entity enveloped the living room. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck moving ever so gentle, and his body began to tremble. He opened his mouth, and his quivering lips moved in desperation, but his voice was mute as if the entity already knew what he wanted to say.

This time the voice was more direct and demanding of the old man.

I am here because you asked for my help! the voice echoed through the room. You have been asking for my help, and now you must tell me if you want me to bring back your memory! Tomorrow morning you must decide, but if you accept you must honor the atonement you must make to me, and you will not know when and what the consequence will be!

The flowery smell lasted for a while, then it began to sour and bit into his nostrils as the smell had changed into the scent of sulfur. He didn’t know what to make of this sudden change that was happening to him. Diego got up from the chair and saw a blurry shadow disappear into the wall.

His overworked imagination began to unravel in his troubled mind.

I must have been asleep, or did this really happen? What did it mean about the atonement that I must abide by? Oh well, who cares anymore, I’m too fucking old to worry about anything. All I want is my memory.

He began to walk around the living room, confused and scared. Then as he walked by the window he felt the presence of someone else in the room. He saw the drapes on the window move from the corner of his eye. A chill came over him, and the coldness flowed down the length of his body from the top of his head to his toes.

You know that eerie feeling you get like when you are walking out of your home in the dead of night, and all you hear is the sound of grillos on the ground making that screeching noise, calling for their mates and the buzzing noise of chicharras in the trees, shattering the silence of the night?

But as you walk deeper into the bosque, the sound of the grillos and chicharras stop, and all you hear are the footsteps of someone walking in back of you, shadowing every step you take. The cool night air swirling around you. Dark, gray clouds partially covering the mystical moon and the wind making wispy noises as it flows through the crooked branches of the cottonwoods, protruding into the old, worn-out path that has been carved out by the many footsteps of foolish souls that have wandered into the night.

The phantom closes the distance with every nervous, hesitant step you take as your shoes crunch the dried leaves and twigs along the crooked path. He gets closer and closer until you can feel the breath of his mouth on the nape of your neck, that excruciating, scary feeling that chills every bone in your body, and then you reach the moment of truth, your body shivering with fright. You turn your body with your arms raised up into the night sky, ready to fend off the phantom following you, and you let out the bravest scream your trembling mouth can muster, expecting the worst. But all you see and feel is the wind howling among the trees, shaking its crooked branches and the rustling sound of the leaves swirling on the ground.

The chilling wind in the darkness swirls around you, and the wisp of dark clouds hide the glow of the moon. Then you curse your overactive imagination, and like a fool a little snicker of a stupid smirk forms on your reddened face, and you continue walking the same worn-out path your zapatos have made from the time you were able to walk as a small mocosito out on your first venture away from Mama and the safety of the adobe walls of your casita.

Diego began to pace up and down the hallway in his pajamas until it was past midnight. He walked into the kitchen and warmed up a glass of milk, sat down on the chair alongside the table, and drank it slowly. His mind was in a pensive trance, trying to make sense of the voice that was calling out to him, wondering if the voice was from the Almighty or some other entity reaching out to him. For the Bible warns us of the Dark Angel. The deceiver who is as powerful as he.

But even more of a concern to him were the horrible nightmares of apparitions that have appeared in his dreams, malsueños so realistic that made him get out of bed and walk into the courtyard in the middle of the night screaming and throwing stones at imaginary ghosts with fiery eyes glowing in the night, staring at him as they levitated above the bushes and dark corners of the courtyard. Their bony arms and crooked fingers pointing to him, their shrilling voices calling out to him, Come and join us, Diego. They flapped their tattered wings, and the shrill sound of their ghastly cries echoed on that unholy night. These were ghosts that only his hallucinating eyes were able to see and hear.

But his inquisitive neighbors could hear his shouts, and the next morning the telephone lines were ringing throughout the barrio as the rumors chastised the old man. "Brujo, once again the old man is having visions of the dark world."

What his vecinos didn’t know was that he was suffering from PTSD, and with it the hallucinations that afflict the soldiers that went out in harm’s way to serve their country.

"What does this fantasma want from me? Should I trust it? If I let him bring back my memory, how can I be sure that I will be able to abide by the consequences that he will set for me?"

All these worrisome thoughts went through his already troubled mind that night. He walked into the bedroom, grabbed his turquoise beaded rosary from the bedpost, pulled the blanket over his tired body, and began to pray. He prayed to the creator to help him make the right decision. Not that he was one of those Holier Than Thou churchgoing people who are the first ones at the confessional telling their most personal sins to a priest whose life is probably filled with the same guilts as yours, or maybe even worse.

The only time he went to confession was when he made his first holy communion. But as he grew older and experienced the evils and brutality of man, he chose to pray and confess his sins alone in his home, just him and his creator. Telling your sins to another person other than his Lord was too personal and sacred to have a man who has not seen the horrors of war or experienced the other dark side of life judging and absolving you.

Once you experience the wrath of war, seeing your fellow soldiers dying, screaming in agony, you begin to doubt that there is an Almighty God.

The smell of corpses with gaping wounds and bloated bellies lying on the ground as the hell of war explodes around them, consuming all that was once a piece of Mother Nature’s caring hands now being obliterated by the wraths of war!

The old man wanted to recall his past before he left this earth. He knew that his life was coming to an end; his debilitating old age and the loss of his memory tore into his soul. The misery of not being able to remember who he was, and not being able to recognize loved ones around him, or how his life had impacted others was very troubling for him.

He was sound asleep with the rosary clutched in his fingers when he felt a hand caress the top of his head and heard his name being called from the darkness of his bedroom. The same voice he heard that morning. This time it was a loud, clear voice that resonated mysteriously inside the walls of the dark bedroom. A divine, almost angelic voice, or was it the voice of the deceiver, the Dark Angel chastised from heaven? The air began to get colder, sending a chill through the old man’s body. He rose up from the bed, his naked feet stumbling on the cold saltillo tile, searching for his sandals, and yelled out, Who are you? Why are you calling my name? Tell me what you want from me!

But there was no one in the room to answer him. All he felt was a cool breeze enveloping his shaking body. He turned toward the nightstand, with his hand groping through the darkness for the lamp. He called out again, this time in agonizing desperation.

Tell me who you are! his voice breaking up as he felt the cold air sweep into his chest. His fingers were fumbling in the darkness, trying to find the lamp’s switch. Finally he found the switch, but the light in the cold, dark room did not turn on.

Then the radio next to the lamp started playing all by itself: One day at a time, Sweet Jesus. The words reached out, hoping Diego would grasp its meaning, and he again heard his name coming from the darkness. Diego! Diego! This time he pinched his arm and felt the pain. Holy Mary of God, help me!

He fell to his knees and began to pray out loud. O my God, I’m heartily sorry for having offended thee and I detest of all my sins because I dread the laws of heaven and the pains of hell . . . But most of all because I offended thee my God who is all good and deserving of all my love. The Our Father and Hail Marys followed in succession as he fingered his turquoise beaded rosary, his forehead and the rest of his body saturated with sweat. He prayed and prayed until all of a sudden the lights on the lamp turned on and the radio stopped playing. The bedroom began to get warmer and the nighttime began to pass.

The prayers from the old man continued until the warm rays of the morning sun glistened through the window the following day.

Diego walked up to the small table by the door and lit the incense from the herb bowl, stood half naked by the open door, and let the sweet aroma of the smoke envelop his body. He placed his hands over the smoke and with a circular motion of his arms brought the spiritual herb over his face and silver hair over and over, inhaling, slowly circling his face and shoulders, his eyes closed in prayer blessing another morning in his life.

He got dressed and walked out slowly into the patio, the old Indian blanket covering his tall, slender body, a cane by his side anchoring his right leg that was injured in the war. The rosary clutched in his left hand, he lowered his head as if he was counting every step his ailing body made on the flagstones covering the portal floor.

Tears fell slowly from his tired eyes and found the wrinkles of his face as they slid down the crevices. His eyes in a trance that could no longer recognize loved ones that share their lives with him. His once-handsome face, high cheek bones that exuded the mestizo mixture of Spanish and Indian blood that he was so proud of was now full of wrinkles. Events in his life were sporadic flashbacks like the shards of a broken mirror appearing in his forgetful mind, memories of his life that he wanted to recall before he died.

It is such a tragic thing to get old, but knowing that the memories of your past will slowly disappear is even worse than dying from this damned old age. Diego’s troubled thoughts ran through his head.

His decaying memory was even more of a loss to him than dying. The doctors at the Veterans Administration Hospital had told him years ago that there was nothing they could do for the tumor in his head that was slowly deteriorating his memory and made him hallucinate. So he prayed every night and in the mornings, which he spent in the portal of his adobe home that him and his father Antonio built many years ago when he was a young man.

Sangre de Indio flowed through his veins; his long black hair that cascaded down the sides of his handsome bronze face were but memories from his past. His six-foot muscular frame was just an illusion of what he used to be when he was a young man.

The mixture of the two cultures were very important in his life. His mother Maria Abeyta was of Spanish descent, born in a small village in Northern New Mexico, where they lived in the ponderosa- and piñon-tree-covered mountains of San Geronimo and Mineral Hill near the city of Las Vegas. For seven generations they raised their cattle and horses and farmed crops in the fertile soil feeding off the Tecolote River of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. His late father, Antonio de Santiago, was Native American, a proud descendant of the Tano Pueblo Indians. A strong man who served his people as one of their councilmen in those troubling times of the Great Depression.

Now in his old age all Diego wanted was for the creator to restore his memory, to grant him one last wish, and go back in time to recall his life. He wanted to know how he became the person that he was, and who the people were that had a part in shaping his destiny.

"Ya no sirvo para nada, mi tatita Dios. My mind and my body are not what they used to be, my life is so impotent! Sometimes I feel like putting an end to my worthless being. I am no good to anyone in this ungrateful world that I am living in."

He looked out into the courtyard, his eyes in a gaze that understood very little of his surroundings. He looked at the small garden of colorful flowers sending their succulent aroma into the warm air that Sunday morning, the sweet aroma that the old man could not smell anymore. He walked slowly on the flagstone path, laid out around the large cottonwood tree that had stood there since he and his father Antonio started building his adobe casita.

The adobe wall and the old gate leaning to one side of its weather-beaten boards barely hanging on with one rusty hinge holding it upright, dug into the dust that had built up on the half open gate was in front of him as he walked slowly past it and he looked out at his field of corn stalks withering away in the hot sun. The rain-starved soil not even fertile enough to feed the weeds that once grew along the cornfield. The four-year drought had taken its toll on the Rio Grande Valley and Albuquerque.

Diego looked out at the Rio Grande River curving its way through the cottonwood trees of the bosque, making its journey toward Albuquerque and the smaller cities and villages whose orchards and fields of corn, grains, and alfalfa fields have fed off its life-giving waters. As it flows South on the crevice, its waters have carved out of the desert, creating a verdant, fertile earth as it flows toward the Mexico and Texas borders.

He looked out toward the massive Sandia Mountain as it looms out into the sky above The Duke City and the pueblo. The ten-million-year-old Bien Mur reigning over the earth, its granite peaks buttressing the sacred mountain. They guard their queen like giant, ancient sentinels as they thrust their jagged spires into the belly of the cloud that has formed above its crest. Like enormous cotton balls with dark bellies, they have gathered on top of the sacred mountain with its moisture-laden bowels, enticing the drought-ravaged earth.

The old man raised his arms up into the sky and yelled out toward the mountain, RAIN! RAIN! DAMN YOU! But it was not to be, the scarce raindrops that fall evaporate before they hit the sun-scorched earth. Soon the north winds appear, and the clouds slowly make their way past the city of Albuquerque, and the Middle Rio Grande Valley is again left with its parched lands. And the old man is left with his corn crop withering away just like his body.

Diego walked away with his head bowed, slowly making his way back to the portal and the safety of the couch where he lay down. Under the pillow where his head rested was the 1911 semiautomatic Colt .45 handgun issued to him in the Marine Corps during the war with the Japanese. His tired eyes looking up at the vigas and the latillas on the ceiling of the portal cut from the ponderosa and piñon trees he and his father timbered in the Jemez Mountains.

He draped the old Indian blanket on his frail body and closed his eyes, his mouth moving in unison as he began praying and soon fell asleep. The dream that followed was the same one that has tormented his life over and over again.

He is walking in the darkness of the night, down a path that has no ending, barely able to see his feet crunching the graveled ground. The cold wind peppering his face and hands holding his M-1 rifle. The only sounds he hears is the cold wind swirling through the trees. He walks slowly, his shoes crunching the graveled path until he feels the bushes full of thorns tearing into his fatigues, cutting into his legs and he stops, unable to move. Then he hears the voices of his men calling to him, voices with eerie, painful cries echoing through the darkness. Agonizing cries of the men from his squad that only he hears.

Help me, Diego! Help me! I am bleeding, come to me. Help me stop the pain!

But he can’t move; his legs are tangled with the vines of the bushes covering the sides of the path, and all he hears are the wailing, agonizing cries of his fellow Marines.

Diego cries out in desperation, his mouth open wide pleading, yelling for forgiveness, his head tilted up into the darkness.

God, God, help me! Help me! I have to get to my men! But his cries are in vain as the nightmares that possess his soul are a stigma that will haunt him forever.

As he was lying on the couch, a cold sweat spread through his body, and his horrifying flashback begins, back to the war. The demons have come back to haunt him. The affliction of seeing the inhumane brutality man inflicts on each other penetrate his shaking body. His sullen eyes take him back to the islands of Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima. He sees the mangled bodies of his fellow Marines lying on the rotting grounds flowing with their blood. The mortar fire of the artillery detachment and the guns of the Navy destroyers deployed miles away from the island screech overhead landing with fiery, orange red flashes that rip the ground, exploding into deadly shrapnel that mangle and kill everyone in its path.

The powdery black smoke looms overhead, staining the sky. Diego sees the face of death in the exploding shells, calling to him, signaling to him with its long, bony arms and fingers pointing to him. His red, fiery eyes penetrating into Diego’s soul, searing through his cold veins.

Come into my hell, Diego, join me in my misery! the face of death calls out with its banshee cries, wailing out as the stench of death and rotting jungle permeates the air. He again relieves the agony of covering himself and his wounded Marines with the lifeless bodies of the dead Japanese and his own men to avoid being captured or stabbed to death. They hear the bugles and war cries of the enemy storming through their position. They fought in hand-to-hand combat with the sons of bitches, k-bars in one hand and .45s in the other. They fought for every inch of ground, but most of all they fought for each other. But there were too many of them, and only four of them remained from the squad.

The sounds of M-1 rifles and the Browning automatic rifles, .30 caliber machine guns, grenades drowned out the bugles and screams of the enemy. Lieutenant Jones and his platoon charged into their midst and whatever was left of the bastards took off into the jungle.

Here, here we are under the bodies! Their agonizing voices pierced the deadly night.

Follow our screams! We need the corpsman. Help! Help!

They found the four Marines under the bodies and were evacuated in stretchers through the rotting jungle of dead trees and gaping craters of exploding shells from their own artillery battery. The young, inexperienced officer had given the wrong coordinates, and the shelling exploded in their midst; another friendly fire incident had decimated the squad.

The deuce-and-a-half with a red cross in white background was waiting for them, and rubber pouches with plasma and saline were hanging from the struts of the canvas top. Two triage doctors and the corpsmen had their hands full resuscitating their battered bodies.

"Cabron, those ugly nightmares are killing me. There are times when I want to end it all. Those demons that live inside my head are destroying me, they don’t let me live my life in peace."

"Que pinche locura."

"I am so tired of seeing them destroy my life. That fucked-up war has left my friends’ lifeless bodies in puddles of blood in those godforsaken places that consume their beings. Mi gran Dios, porque, porque tiene de ser asi! Que me lleven los pinche demoños para sus infernos, que