Lacrimosa

He's gone to buy groceries and there she is, picking cans out of the garbage in the alley behind the supermarket.

Llorona.

He used to send a postcard to his mother every year when he was younger, newly arrived in the States. He couldn't send any money because dishwashing didn't leave you with many spare dollars and he couldn't phone often because he rented a room in a house and there was no phone jack in there. If he wanted to make a call he had to use the pay phone across the street.

Instead, he sent postcards.

Carmen didn't like it.

His sister complained about his lack of financial support for their mother.

"Why do I have to take care of mom, hu? Why is it me stuck in the house with her?" she asked him.

"Don't be melodramatic. You like living with mom."

"You're off in California and never send a God damn cent."

"It ain't easy."

"It ain't easy here either, Ramon. You're just like all the other shitty men. Just taking off and leaving the land and the women behind. Who's gonna take care of mom when she gets old and sick? Whose gonna clean the house and dust it then? With what fucking money? I ain't doing it, Ramon."

"Bye, Carmen."

"There's some things you can't get rid of, Ramon," his sister yelled.

He didn't call after that. Soon he was heading to another city and by the time he reached Canada he didn't bother sending postcards. He figured he would, one day, but things got in the way and years later he thought it would be even worse if he tried to phone.

And what would they talk about now? It had been ages since he'd left home and the sister and cousins that had lived in Potrero. He'd gotten rid of layers and layers of the old Ramon, moulting into a new man.

But maybe Carmen had been right. Maybe there's some things you can't get rid of. Certain memories, certain stories, certain fears that cling to the skin like old scars.

These things follow you.

Maybe ghosts can follow you, too.

It's a bad afternoon. Assholes at work and in the streets. And then a heavy, disgusting rain pours down, almost a sludge that swallows the sidewalks. He's lost his umbrella and walks with his hands jammed inside his jacket's pockets, head down.

Four more blocks and he'll be home.

That's when Ramon hears the squeal. A high-pitched noise. It's a shriek, a moan, a sound he's never heard before.

What the hell is that?

He turns and looks and it is the old woman, the one he's nicknamed Llorona, pushing her shopping cart.

Squeak, squeak, goes the cart, matching each of his steps. Squeak, squeak. A metallic chirping echoed by a low mumble.

"Children, children, children."

Squeak, squeak, squeak. A metallic chant with an old rhythm.

He walks faster. The cart matches his pace; wheels roll.

He doubles his efforts, hurrying to cross the street before the light changes. The cart groans, closer than before, nipping at his heels.

He thinks she is about to hit him with the damn thing and then all of a sudden the sound stops.

He looks over his shoulder. The old woman is gone. She has veered into an alley, vanishing behind a large dumpster.

Ramon runs home.

The dogs are howling again. A howl that is a wail. The wind roars like a demon. The rain scratches the windows, begging to be let in, and he lies under the covers, terrified.

He feels his mother's arm around his body, her hands smoothing his hair like she did when he was scared. Just a little boy terrified of the phantoms that wander through the plains.

His mother's hand pats his own.

Mother's hand is bony. Gnarled, long fingers with filthy nails. Nails caked with dirt. The smells of mud, putrid garbage, and mold hit him hard.

He looks at his mother and her hair is a tangle of grey. Her yellow smile paints the dark.

He leaps from the bed. When he hits the floor he realizes the room is filled with at least three inches of water.

"Have you seen my children?" the thing in the bed asks.

The dogs howl and he wakes up, his face buried in the pillow.

He takes a cab to work. He feels safer that way. The streets are her domain, she owns the alleys.

When he goes to lunch he looks at the puddles and thinks about babies drowned in the water; corpses floating down a silver river.

Don't ever let the Llorona look at you, his uncle said. Once she's seen you she'll follow you home and haunt you to death, little boy.

"Oh, my children," she'll scream and drag you into the river.

But he'd left her behind in Potrero.

He thought he'd left her behind.

Ramon tries to recall if there is a charm or remedy against the evil spirit. His uncle never mentioned one. The only cure he knew was his mother's embrace.

"There, there little one," she said, and he nested safe against her while the river overflowed and lightning traced snakes in the sky.

In the morning there is a patch of sunlight. Ramon dares to walk a few blocks. But even without the rain the city feels washed out. Its colour has been drained. It resembles the monochromatic images they broadcasted on the cheap television set of his youth.

Even though he does not bump into her, the Llorona's presence lays thick over the streets, pieces of darkness clinging to the walls and the dumpsters in the alleys. It even seems to spread over the people: the glassy eyes of a binner reflect a river instead of the bricks of a building.

He hurries back home and locks the door. But when it rains again, water leaks into the living room. Just a few little drops drifting into his apartment.

He wipes the floor clean. More water seeps in like a festering boil, cut open and oozing disease.

The Llorona stands guard in the alley. She is a lump in the night looking up at his apartment window. He feels her through the concrete walls and the glass. Looking for him.

He fishes for the old notebook with the smudged and forgotten number.

The rain splashes against his building and the wind cries like a woman.

The dial tone is loud against his ear.

More than ten years have passed. He has no idea what he'll say. He doesn't even understand what he wants to ask. He can't politely request to ship the ghost back to Mexico.

He dials.

The number has been disconnected.

He thinks about Carmen and his mother and the dusty nothingness behind their house.

There might not even be a house. Perhaps the night and the river swallowed them.

The Llorona comes with the rain. Or maybe it is the other way around: the rain comes with her. Something else also comes. Darkness. His apartment grows dimmer. He remains in the pools of light, away from the blackness.

Outside, in the alley, the Llorona scratches the dumpster with her nails.

The dogs howl.

Ramon shivers in his bed and thinks about his mother and how she used to drive the ghosts away.

She is sitting next to a heap of garbage in the middle of the alley, water pouring down her shoulders. She clutches rags and dirt and pieces of plastic against her chest, her head bowed and her face hidden behind the screen of her hair.

"My children. My children."

She looks up at him, slowly. The rain coats her face, tracing dirty rivulets along her cheeks.

He expects an image out of a nightmare: blood dripping, yellow cat-eyes or a worn skull. But this is an old woman. Her skin has been torn by time and her eyes are cloudy. This is an old woman.

She could be his mother. She might be, for all he knows. He lost her photograph a long time ago and can't recall what she looks like anymore. His mother who ran her fingers through his hair and hugged him until the ghosts vanished. Now he's too old for ghosts, but the ghosts still come at nights.

The woman looks at him. Parched, forgotten, and afraid.

"I've lost my children," she whispers with her voice of dead leaves.

The alley is a river. He goes to her, sinks into the muck, sinks into the silvery water. He embraces her and she strokes his hair. The sky above is black and white, like the pictures in the old TV set and the wind that howls in his ears is the demon wind of his childhood.