malestado

The little dead girl “lived” at the church on 3^rd street. Of that Amy was sure. She had dreamed about her twice, and seen her once, just that once, driving home late at night, from Byron’s apartment. Amy thought about her again, as she clipped back her hair, her bass hanging heavy around her neck at practice, a block of hot sunlight stretched across the wooden floor at her feet. She was wearing short shorts and sneakers with no socks, and her feet were sweating into the canvas of her shoes.

Mark was tuning his guitar, the ends of his new strings twisted wildly in all directions off the headstock, needing to be cut. “It’s hot,” he said, and stared at her legs, absently, which he had a habit of doing when she wore shorts. Amy had no idea why. She had to be the skinniest, whitest girl for miles around. This was Echo Park.

“Is Steve bringing the fan?” she asked.

“Nah, it broke.” Mark coughed and turned off his tuner. “He called me last night though and said he wrote a new song. Did I tell you?”

Amy shook her head and played the opening bass line to the one they were working on before. The newest one was always her favorite, always thumping over and over again in her head, for days. She liked to get the buzziest sound she possibly could out of her amp, and drive it into the ground. Her arms were getting really strong.

“Yeah, he was all excited. He’s been very prolific lately,” Mark said, grinning. “How’s Señor Byron?”

“Good,” Amy said, even though Byron didn’t really call her anymore. Even though she was positive she had seen a little girl’s ghost the last time she had seen Byron. And she was probably losing her mind. Mark squinted at her shirt.

“What’s this one say?”

“Marie Leveau’s House of Voodoo,” she said, shyly.

“What’s that?”

“It’s in New Orleans. Corinne and Shelly got it for me.”

“I forgot they went down there,” Mark said. “What else did they bring back?”

“…Ghosts,” Amy said mildly.

“What?”

Steve stomped up the steps, abruptly, and shoved open the screen door, carrying his guitar case and a six-pack of Red Stripe. “Guys! Guys.” He stopped and stared at them, for emphasis. “I wrote the fucking song.”

“Yeah, you told me,” Mark said.

“No, I wrote the fucking song, the song that will ‘make Israel and Palestine get along!’” he announced and they both started to laugh. Steve never failed to reference song lyrics from his newest favorite band. Lately, it was Art Brut.

“…‘As universal as Happy Birthday,’” Mark chimed in and took the six-pack from him.

“Indeed.” Steve beamed at Amy, his beard sweaty from the steep flight of steps that led up to the house. This was Mark’s house, where he lived with his friend Alex, from New York, and where Alex's girlfriend Gina used to live, but they had broken up a month ago. Steve lived in Silver Lake, in a one-bedroom apartment with three other guys, where they took turns sleeping on the couch. Amy lived around the corner from Mark in a house with her sister Corinne, and Corinne’s best friend Shelly. That was everyone Amy hung out with. Everyone at all.

Amy had met Byron at a bar near downtown a few weeks ago, when she got there early, and was standing around waiting for Corinne. He was Mexican, and Mexican guys never seemed interested in Amy, so she was surprised and curious. They never even came to the bars where she hung out, which was ironic, considering her hangouts were all in Latino neighborhoods. But they were random bars filled with white people, mostly white guys, the kind of guys that played obscure rock singles and classic soul hits on the jukebox. It was sort of a phenomenon.

Byron was charming and kind of old-fashioned, even chivalrous. They went on three whirlwind dates and then he suddenly seemed to turn a bit cold towards her. She thought maybe it was the band thing; sometimes guys liked her because she was sweet and shy, even a little gawky, and that was their type. So then when it came out that she played in a rock band and was serious about it, it caught them off guard.

Or maybe he just wanted a fling with a white girl.

“I kept thinking about you when I was in the Quarter, Amy,” Corinne had said, when they came back from their trip.

“Really, why?” she asked. They were lying on Corinne’s bed, which they had moved out onto the screened-in porch, because it was so hot. Amy hadn’t been able to afford a trip to New Orleans. She was a waitress at Millie’s, while the other two girls ran a boutique together and paid most of the rent. The boutique was a lovely, tiny shop that sold flowers and lingerie, across from a liquor store and rat-hole apartments. But their clientele drove to find it.

“It just had a vibe for you there, honey. It just had a vibe.” Corinne spread out her postcards on the comforter in front of them, like tarot cards. “You know, you have that quality about you, that atmosphere.”

The little dead girl wore a bonnet and a long gray dress. She had dark skin. She stood in front of the strangely gaudy little church, which had a neon sign blinking, through the bars of the gate, “The Superet Light Center – Prayer Garden.” That night, there was something both seedy and gothic about the church, like a wedding chapel out of Beetlejuice. It was an odd sign for a church too, blinking on and off late at night, and the little girl’s face was forlorn, so forlorn. She stood with one hand on the pole of the neon sign. Amy had nearly crashed into a parked car, from staring at her.

She had driven by again, during the day, and the church was there, far less anomalous in the bright sunlight. And of course there was nobody there, holding the sign pole. The sign was not even neon. It was now an ordinary, painted sign, with the same name as the night before.

“Amy. Amy,” Mark was saying, holding a beer out at her. Steve had plugged in and was stepping on his pedals, looking excited.

She snapped out of it and took the bottle from him. “Thanks.”

“Drink it while it’s cold, Miz Leveau,” he said, and then Steve launched into a searing guitar riff that was not their style at all.

Amy drove home after practice, feeling tired and content, the way she always did after playing. The only time she did. Fingers calloused and arm muscles sore and legs weary of standing. Corinne and Shelly had people over, filling up the tiny old house, standing around with drinks. Shelly’s favorite band We Are Scientists was booming out of the stereo on the windowsill. Amy squeezed through the people and sat down in front of the fan in the corner, letting her hair blow back.

“Hi, honey,” Corinne said, leaning down and wrapping her arms around her.

“Hey. Who are all these people?”

“I’ll introduce you. I’ll introduce you to everyone.” Corinne pulled her up, a little drunkenly. Her blond hair was twisted up and she had long, dangly earrings on. “Are Mark and Steven coming?”

“Yeah, they wanted to take showers first.”

Corinne steered her around the small crowd of mostly guys, white guys in military jackets, with beards. Corinne liked to say, “This is my little sister Amy. She’s in The Fast Sails.”

“Oh, I saw you guys last weekend.”

“I thought you looked familiar.”

“Hey, your man Steven is the shit. You need a drummer though.”

“Yeah, programmed drums are pretty passé.”

Amy nodded and smiled, and accepted a cup of beer – red beer, because Shelly had thrown a St. Valentine’s Day party where they dyed all the beer red, and Corinne had decided their beer should always be red, from then on. So they could be the Red Beer Girls. Amy thought it looked like they were all drinking blood.

They drank and smoked and changed the music, and some people danced, and Mark and Steven showed up with Mark’s friend Alex, all a bit drunk already. Alex got really drunk and went off on a rant about his ex, Gina. Amy went out onto the porch to lie on Corinne’s bed in the cool night air. She lay there and thought about how Byron wasn’t going to call anymore. How, once again, something that had barely started, had already faded to nothing, and she felt the loneliness seep back in. She closed her eyes and slowly the image of the little dead girl swam into view, her hand on the sign pole, her face so frighteningly sad. The girl was sad. She was hurt, and horribly alone. Amy felt cold. Something was wrong. Goosebumps suddenly shot up her arms.

“Tired already?” Mark’s voice sounded, and Amy sat up like lightning. She threw an arm up in front of her, like she was being attacked. Mark froze. Then he started to laugh, standing there with his red beer. “Little jumpy, huh?”

“Uh…” Amy shivered and rubbed her arms. She didn’t know when the skimpy breeze she had been so grateful for had actually become cold. “I fell asleep. I was dreaming.”

“Oh, well, go back to sleep then,” he said, a little embarrassed. “I was just wondering where you were…”

“No, I’m awake.” Amy curled her legs up and sat Indian-style, and Mark sat down next to her.

“Did you have a nightmare or something?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Amy rubbed her eyes and looked at him seriously. “Do you know what that little church near downtown is, The Superet Light Center?”

“Oh yeah, my dad was talking about it.” Mark’s dad was a professor of religious studies at Occidental College. “It’s one of those weird, New Age, religious groups, I don’t know exactly. It’s not an actual cult though. Why?”

“I was just wondering,” she said.

“You know what’s kind of cool,” he added, drinking his red beer. “There’s this house not that far from there, it’s like on Bonnie Brae Street and 1^st, where that whole movement started where people speak in tongues. What’s it called, Pentacostalism?”

“Really?” Amy asked.

“Yeah, the ones that writhe on the floor and all that stuff. It started right there, in that house. My dad said this pastor that started it was black, which was really unusual at the time, kind of controversial. Pentacostalists were pretty racially tolerant, so people didn’t like them.” He looked thoughtful for a second and took another sip of beer. “They’re not related to the Superet people, but it is kind of creepy, huh? Like there’s this little hotspot of weird religions going on right there, you know what I mean?”

“…Yeah.”

“It’s a pocket of extremists,” he said, grinning. “I mean, the Superet people believe in auras.”

“Auras?”

“Yeah, they think they can see them. Like a life-glow or something…”

“Hey guys,” Steve called, from inside. “Gina’s band is playing at The Silverlake Lounge and Alex wants to go.”

“He wants to go?” Mark exclaimed. “To heckle her, or what?”

“We’re all going! Let’s go, let’s go,” Steve’s voice trailed off, sing-song, as he headed for the door. Many footsteps followed, validating the remark, and Mark looked at Amy. He seemed tired.

“I don’t wanna go,” he said. “They’re awful. And Alex is just gonna pick a fight with her.”

“Do you want to go somewhere with me?” Amy asked him. Mark stared at her for a second and then put down his beer.

“Yes,” he said, serious.

“I want to go check out that church, the Superet one.”

“Oh.” He coughed, embarrassed. “Right. Why?”

Amy looked out through the screen at the dark street slanting down the hill in front of them, and debated telling him. Cars were starting up, as people from the party were heading out to the show. “Well, I drove by it one time at night and it had a neon sign that was blinking,” she said slowly. “And then the next day, I drove by and it was a wooden sign. Painted.”

“A neon sign? I never saw it with a neon sign,” Mark told her.

“I know,” she said. “What kind of church has a neon sign?”

“Were you drunk?”

“No! I don’t drive drunk,” Amy told him. He shrugged.

“That’s what all these guys are about to do right now,” he said, jerking his head out at the driveway.

About twenty minutes later, Amy pulled up in front of The Superet Light Center on 3^rd, and stared out the window at the gate in the front. Mark leaned over from the passenger side and peered out with her. There were no lights at all this time, let alone the brilliance of neon. The building was merely small and dark. The whole street was quiet and dimly lit. Up the street, a small crowd gathered at a taco stand, but no voices carried down towards them.

“I think something bad happened here,” Amy said, feeling her skin crawl.

“Really? …Like somebody died?” Mark asked, intrigued.

“Yeah. Yeah, like somebody died.” Amy turned the engine off and unbuckled her seatbelt.

“Wait a minute!” Mark said, grabbing her arm. “If something bad happened, then we don’t want to be here.” Amy nodded in agreement and then got out of the car anyway, headed for the gate. “Woah, woah.” Mark jumped out and ran around the car, up to her side.

“Amy, what are you doing?”

She stood there with her hands on the bars, listening, a warm breeze rustling the bushes and leaves on the other side. Racially tolerant. People hadn’t take kindly to that. Something had gone wrong. She could hear whispering now, inside the rustling. Voices murmuring. Frightened… threatening… frightened. The little girl had run all the way here from Bonnie Brae Street. Amy was sure of it. She felt out of breath herself, suddenly, as if it had been her. She had run for her life, all the way here. But then she had fallen, and given in to whoever was chasing her. Had she collapsed at this very spot? This place where she was now just a specter? Just a presence felt by these New Age believers, this new group of extremists. People with extreme beliefs were probably drawn to such places…places with atmosphere.

Amy knew the little girl was still there. She was on the other side of the gate, small and dark and sad.

“Amy…?” Mark asked, his voice scared. She looked at him and noticed for the first time how blue his eyes were.

“Don’t you ever think it’s weird, the way things are?” she asked him. She was still clinging to the bars.

Mark’s forehead furrowed as he stared back at her, trying to understand. “What do you mean?”

Tiny cold hands closed over Amy’s fingers. She leapt back and shrieked. Mark grabbed her, both arms around her, and ran for the car. He started the engine and screeched off down the street, the group near the taco stand staring after them.

“Gueros locos!” one of them yelled.

Mark didn’t stop until they reached The Silverlake Lounge. He grabbed Amy’s hand and they scrambled frantically inside, past guys with beards and wearing jackets, not stopping until they were right up front by the stage. Right under the venue’s trademark: the brightly-lit sign that read “Salvation.”

-L2T