Everything is wrong. People ask me questions, but I don’t remember responding. Papo Sileno, the owner of the club, eventually wakes up. He said he blacked out and fell.
“I was drunk,” Sileno says.
He’s lying through his teeth. I store his lies in the back of my mind for later use. When he least expects it, I’m going to rain down on him because what happened to Eury most definitely is tied to him.
Eury is only a few feet away. She’s surrounded by paramedics. The bouncers have pushed everyone to the side to give them space. Penelope is hysterical, crying on Aaron, who holds her tight.
The cops ask me questions, and I tell them what I know. I don’t tell them everything. The name Ato never escapes my mouth. I don’t feel his presence. Ato is gone.
“What hospital?” I yell when the paramedics pull the gurney holding Eury. They respond with Lincoln. “Lincoln is too far. Take her to Lebanon.”
“There’s been a fire,” the paramedic says. “Lincoln is our best bet right now.”
“I’m going.”
“We’re not done yet.”
A cop places his hand on my shoulder. He looks like every other cop out here. His partner is the good cop. She tries to be understanding, but it’s an act. This is a play I’ve been dragged into to perform a part I never wanted. Eury is being taken away. Her face is covered with an oxygen mask. My crumbling heart is replaced with rage.
“We will text when we get there,” Aaron says while keeping Penelope upright.
I sit down in a lounge chair. The cop continues to grill me. They ask me again and again what happened, and I repeat my version. I’m at fault here somehow. That may be true. I was too full of myself, soaking up the adoration of the audience instead of keeping Eury safe.
“I need to go,” I say. The cops won’t allow it.
“Just a few more questions,” they say.
I check the time. It speeds so fast. An hour goes by, and these cops continue to talk in circles. A half hour more, and I waste away while Eury is in Lincoln Hospital. Eury’s going to be all right. She is. I won’t accept any other reality.
“Where’s my son?” Pops pushes through the crowd. He gets up in the cop’s face. “He’s a minor.”
When I see him, I start to bawl like the day I found out my parents were getting a divorce. I can barely breathe. The emotions pour out.
“I tried to get to her, Pops, I swear.” I can’t stop crying.
“My son is done here,” Pops says. “He’s done.”
The cop opens his mouth to say something but changes his mind. They let me go. I gather my stuff. Jaysen holds on to my guitar. I need to bounce and follow Eury. I run down the steps of the club. Pops follows close behind.
“Hold on!” Pops stops me from running out on the street. “Take a deep breath. We’ll hail a cab and get you there.”
He blows a loud whistle and a cab shows up in no time. I can barely figure out what to do with myself. He directs me to the back seat of the car.
Damn. I replay the scene in my head. How Eury fell and there was nothing I could do. I need to know she’s okay. This cab isn’t going fast enough.
“What happened, son?” Pops asks me again. I shake my head. How do I begin?
“Eury said there was this …” I hesitate. I can tell Pops anything. I know he won’t judge. If anyone believes in unexplainable things, it would be him. Yet, I still can’t formulate the sentences.
I punked out before. I can’t repeat my mistakes.
“Eury said a spirit followed her from Puerto Rico to Tampa to here,” I say. “I didn’t believe her at first, Pops. I doubted her. Shunned her even when I actually saw the spirit with my own eyes.”
My head hurts from this pain.
“¿Un espíritu?” Pops shakes his head. He goes quiet as he deciphers this revelation. “And you saw it?”
I turn to him. “Yes. It was a boy. I saw him. Barefoot. He was there on the roof. There was a flash, Eury fell, and the spirit was gone.”
“You sure it wasn’t a boy from around here?”
“I don’t know. No. He wasn’t from here. He wasn’t real,” I say. “Eury was scared. She kept saying he wanted to take her. He calls himself Ato.”
“Ato.” Pops repeats the name.
I pound on the driver’s window. Tell him to go faster.
“When she first told me about Ato, I thought it was PTSD from the hurricane. Dad, he was on the roof. He took her.”
“Okay,” he says with the most serious face. “Let me think.”
While Pops does that, my mind races, and I absentmindedly start to recall Lincoln Hospital’s history. Lincoln was first called “The Home for the Colored Aged,” a place where former slaves could find services in their old age. When the hospital relocated from Manhattan to the Bronx, they renamed it after the president. In the seventies, the Latino activist group the Young Lords took over the hospital, demanding better service for the community. Back then the doctors there were considered butchers. They still haven’t lived down that reputation.
There are 347 hospital beds in Lincoln. One of the beds is where Eury lies.
Pops alerts the driver to pull in front of the entrance of the hospital. He gets out first. “I’ll wait out here for you,” he says. “Got to make some calls.”
There’s so much anger in this building. I’m adding to it because every single person I ask about Eury gets my fury. No one gives me a straight answer. I keep being sent from one window manned by a disgruntled worker to another. This woman right now tells me I have to be a relative to see her.
“I’m her brother,” I lie. She reluctantly directs me to the third floor.
The waiting room is crowded. Every seat taken by Penelope’s family. Aaron tells me Eury’s mom is on her way.
“Has anyone seen her?”
He shakes his head. I can’t stay here. I need to see her myself. Once I do, I can work out how best to help her. I leave before anyone starts asking me questions about what happened.
The hallways are endless. Eury is on the floor where they hold those in critical condition. Making sure the coast is clear, I open the first door. I apologize to the body lying there. I go to the next room. I know this isn’t right, but I keep doing it. After the fourth try, I finally find her. Eury.
She’s hooked up to machines making eerie sounds. The room is cold. How can she find her way back when there is nothing here reminding her of where she belongs?
“I’m so sorry, Eury. I messed up.”
I lay my hand atop hers. Her fingers are swollen from the needle feeding into her vein. Someone has placed a rosary around each of her wrists. The rosaries are small, circular, with tiny beads and a dangling silver cross.
Where are you, Eury? Where did Ato take you?
“Sir, you are not allowed in here.” The nurse has a weary face. She’s had this argument before. Can’t she see I’m different?
“I just want to see her for a second,” I beg.
“No, sir. Don’t make me call security,” she says. “Let us do our job.”
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask the nurse.
“You’ll have to wait for the doctor, who will speak to her family.”
The nurse refuses to answer any more questions. She offers no details. Not a single thing. If Eury is connected to the machines, then she must still be alive. She’s not completely gone.
Before I leave, I grab one of Eury’s rosaries. It will be my link to her.
My head keeps remembering Ato’s words. You’re too late.
He’s wrong. Eury will find a way out of Ato’s hell. There has to be a way.
The nurse gently pushes me out the door. She points to where the elevators are. I try to compose myself. I’m not going to the waiting room. The waiting room is purgatory where people stand by for bad news to arrive. Eury will wake up. She has to.
I lean against the wall and cradle my head. What should I do? How can I help her? I’m so lost. The elevator door opens. I let my lead feet take me.
Outside the hospital is an endless night. There is a slight chill in the air as if the weather is also feeling the depth of my despair. It may be late, but the streets are filled with people. Tragedy is a magnet.
“Did you see her, son?” Pops leans against a mailbox. He hands me a bottle of water. How many hours have passed? It seems like an eternity.
Pops wraps his arms around me. I try not to choke up again.
“She looked like she’s sleeping,” I say. “It can’t be right. This doesn’t feel like real life.”
“Let’s go. If this spirit took Eury, there are people who may be able to help you,” he says. “I’m going to take you to las casitas.”
Las casitas. Is Pops talking about the blue house on Brook Avenue? He took me there once to listen to the Puerto Rican musicians play el cuatro. The house was crowded with people from the neighborhood singing Christmas songs. I remember it being cold outside, but inside the casita the warmth of everyone made it seem as if we’d been transported to a Caribbean island. What do las casitas have to do with anything?
Pops leads the way.
The faces of the people on the streets seem so strange to me. Then it dawns on me why. The old people, the viejitos and abuelas, stare at me. They meet my eyes and then turn in the direction of las casitas. Do they know where I am heading, where my father is meant to take me? They are pointing me to where I need to go.
No, I must be seeing things, tripping.
Casita Rincón Criollo stands out in this neighborhood. There’s no way of missing it. The simple bungalow is painted completely in blue like the crystalline ocean of the Caribbean. Pops stops in front of the house and faces me.
“We are entering a whole other universe where the rules are different. Do you understand?” he says. “I am only in the peripheral, not as well-versed as the others. Are you open to this?”
I can’t process the words Pops is saying, but I nod my head anyway.
“Wait here.”
He knocks softly on the door before entering. A soft glow spills from underneath the door. The strong smell of tobacco fills the air. I think of Eury. What makes me think I can do anything to save her? Who am I to dare? Me. A dumbass from Manhattan. And yet, I find myself standing in front of this house with the hope that those inside hold a key to her. They must.
Eury, don’t give up on me.
“Come in.” A woman’s voice. I open the door.
The small house is crowded with people. A bottle of rum is in the center of a table. Some of the people are familiar, faces I’ve seen around the neighborhood. Some are even part of Pops’s bike crew. I recognize a lady who sat by Eury at the church. Here, she is different. I let her hold me even though I don’t know her. Her hug reminds me of Grandma Lynn.
“This is Doña Petra,” Pops says.
“We’ve been waiting,” Doña Petra says.
A chill runs up my back. My mother’s voice comes to me with a strict warning to stay away from these people. I can just imagine how she would look around this room and not approve. Even with Pops near, I am not sure if what I’m doing is right or if I’m going against my mother.
“Do you think Ato has power over her?” Doña Petra asks.
I turn to my father. Those in the room are already in this discussion. They are in the know.
Be open, my father said. I’m trying, but doubt is telling me to accept the reality that Eury fell and is in a coma and I have no business trying to change that. My mother’s voice in my head is telling me to stick to what I know—singing, playing guitar, and reality.
“Eury said they used to be friends,” I say. “She’s known him since they were little.”
“Do you know what he is?” A man with a scruffy beard speaks. He is the owner of the bodega a few blocks from here.
“I don’t know,” I say. Do I tell them what I really think? That this is an elaborate hallucination affecting both Eury and me.
“He’s lying.” A young mother sits rocking a sleeping baby. She says this with such bluntness. I’m being interrogated like I was earlier by the cops. Exhaustion hits me. My life is a constant battle of explaining myself. I pause for a moment, not knowing what to say.
They wait. “He’s a spirit who wants to take Eury to the Underworld,” I say. “That’s what Eury told me.”
“He doesn’t believe,” the old man says. I can’t even correct him, because where is the lie?
“Ato has attached himself to Eury because of her light,” Doña Petra says. “He’s fed on this light for years with the conviction that soon they will be together in el Inframundo. The Underworld. That’s where Ato has taken her.”
She says this so matter-of-factly, like this piece of information should be obvious.
“What is a spirit if not the result of a colonized, traumatic state?” the man with the beard says. “Plant yourself in the mindset of the Taínos when they first saw the conquistadores arriving on the island. They were seeing things they never witnessed before. So much pain, and this pain can manifest in many ways.”
They talk to me with calm voices, but what they are saying sounds impossible. I’m meant to be open, but how can I be when what they speak of is straight out of a horror movie? I’m dealing with a history of tragedy that goes back centuries.
“But how can I help her?” I ask.
Doña Petra shakes her head.
“You can’t.”
“Then why am I even here?” I head to the door. This is some bullshit. Why did Pops bring me here if the only thing these people will offer me is a history lesson? Don’t tell me about the why. I need to know how. Give me the tools; if not, get out of my way.
My father presses his hand on my chest, preventing me from leaving.
“He believes there is still time,” Pops says. “His heart is true. I’ve seen them. Eury and Pheus. I know they were meant to stand beside each other. Let him try.”
“You abandoned her once,” Doña Petra says. “You’re too young to see what is plain. You should go back to singing at the club for your friends. It’s an easier life.”
I push Pops away. Let them stay in their shack. Eury is in an underworld with a ghost full of pain. They are like every adult out there. Like my Mom, who sees only the future me making money. Like my Father, who wishes only to see me using my music to heal.
“Screw this. I’ll find another way.” My hand is on the doorknob.
“Wait.”
Doña Petra approaches me with an intense stare I cannot hold. “There is only one way to help Eury, but the entrance to el Inframundo will not be cheap. What are you willing to give up?”
“I don’t have much.” I sound like an idiot. I barely have an education. My father doesn’t have a job. I’m broke.
“Dig deep,” Doña Petra says. “Because your love will not be enough. Your anger will not be enough. What do you have of value compared to a tempestuous spirit who came from a world filled with suffering?”
Eury told me I can move mountains if I want to. She said this when I first met her. She whispered this the first night we kissed. They were sentences with such sustenance.
“He can sing,” my father says.
“I heard you sing in church,” Doña Petra says. “You do not believe in your own talent. What makes you think your voice is strong enough to open the doors to the Underworld?”
She is right. I ain’t nothing. But what else do I have to offer?
“Let me try,” I say. “Please.”
Someone produces a guitar. It’s old and out of tune. My fingers can’t seem to remember how to strike a chord. I’m so nervous. I’m auditioning to see if I got what it takes to travel through space and time for Eury. My throat is parched. It feels like years since I sang on that stage. So little time has transpired, and yet it feels like a lifetime.
I sing the song “Adore.” I close my eyes and channel all the love I have into the verses. I sing so the lyrics reach her, wherever she is. This is for Eury. She’s lost and alone out there. I can help her. I will.
Although this sorrow of mine can fill galaxies, I surrender it and pour the anguish I feel into Prince’s lyrics. I sing until I have nothing left inside.
My voice will save her.