A Cult of Two
by Harrison Kim
Chapter 5: The Guardian Angel
I came down with a bad cold. Jimmy recommended that I chew a few cloves of garlic. One night, Estrella visited. She bought Anna’s guitar and wanted to hear some music.
“You pig!” she breathed in. “I cannot kiss you.” She rummaged in my cupboard and pulled out fifty pesos. “I’m taking this money to buy some new nylons.”
“Okay,” I said, “I’m not feeling musical this evening.”
Estrella had been taking money from the drawer after each of our encounters. I never refused or stopped her. Now though I began to wonder if I was indirectly paying her for sex.
I was becoming irritable with Estrella anyway. She was hooked on junk food and fixated on her appearance. She often demanded that I buy her chips and popcorn and chocolate bars, or maybe some lipstick or other makeup.
If I said “No,” she’d refuse to touch me, or she’d go on a messy rampage, searching my possessions for something valuable, and tossing any she didn’t like in a big pile on the floor. Then she’d walk out with anything she wanted.
After my cold eased, I went to Anna and told her what Estrella was doing.
“I’m just puzzled,” I said to Anna. “If she liked me, why would she take the money?”
Anna’s face became even paler. “She took money from you?”
“I allowed it,” I said. “She said she needed it for clothes.”
“Like I said,” Anna told me, “this ends now.”
I didn’t understand. Anna had seemed so friendly a month before, when Jimmy and I moved in. She and her sisters gave me a huge birthday cake. They delivered it to our room while singing together, the candles burning and the icing jiggling. Anna stood out in a black mini-skirt and matching mascara.
“You’re the hombre of the day,” she announced.
“She’s possessed by your confidence-oil power,” Jimmy said.
We sat and devoured the cake.
“This is the greatest icing I ever had,” I praised the sisters.
Jimmy sat on the bed, licking his fingers.
“What’s all the statues for?” Silvia asked.
“They’re Jimmy’s,” I said. “Jimmy’s saints.”
Silvia looked closer. “We’ll leave a couple of these candles for Saint Jude,” she said. She kissed me on the cheek.
I wondered why the sisters weren’t more friendly with Jimmy. They barely said hello to him in the hall. How could he claim to have slept with all three of them?
“Why are they so stand-offish to you?” I asked.
“Your birthday was your day,” he said. “On my day they’ll give me the cake and all the attention.”
“How do you communicate with them anyway?” I asked. “You don’t speak Spanish.”
“Body language,” he said. “And telepathy. I make a spell, and they do my bidding.”
“That spell doesn’t seem to work very well,” I replied. “At least, not with Anna.”
“Like I said, she’s possessed by bad spirits.” Jimmy chuckled wryly. “She’s a mean one, Harrison.”
After my birthday party, Jimmy and I sat meditating and digesting for a while. Then he pointed above my head. “Look! Look!” he exclaimed. “Can you see it?”
I craned my neck around and checked out the back wall, a lighter shade of beige, with a few holes here and there.
“What is it?”
Jimmy’s grin acted wider than wide, his eyes focused higher up. “It’s your guardian angel!”
“Where?”
“You can’t see it; you’re too close.” Jimmy’s face lifted, he raised his chin. I noted the dark brown skin underneath his beard as he said, “Not everyone has a guardian angel. You are a very lucky man.” He paused. “There’s no one watching over me.”
He assured me that soon we’d go to find the head Santeria Wizard of Mexico City, who lived not far from the Zocalo. “He’ll be able to hear and speak with your angel, man. I can only see it.”
“What does it look like?”
“Wings, white outfit, it shimmers,” he said, and again repeated: “I have no one.”
“You were in Vietnam,” I said. “You didn’t get killed.”
“Most of the time we sat around the pool at a hotel.” Jimmy laughed. “My angel then was a real cute Saigon girl.”
He stood up and faced he wall, leaned in and placed the palms of his hands on it. “She had an aura,” he said, “just like you.”
We went upstairs to see Gordon Watson, an American jazz drummer living in the room directly above us.
Gordon was part Afro-American, with white hair falling all-round the folds of his sagging face. I liked his fingers, long and strong. He claimed to be a Rosicrucian.
“Come with us to visit the head Wizard,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, I’d love to check him out,” Gord grinned excitedly. “I’m interested in all faiths and creeds, man.”
Jimmy and Gord often talked for hours when I visited Estrella or Silvia. I knew they shared certain beliefs and seemed to click in various ways, yet Gordon seemed naturally relaxed, whereas Jimmy always carried a tension.
Jimmy nodded. “When we see the Wizard, give him some money, man. He doesn’t work for free.”
Gord grinned. “I’ll pull a twenty-peso note out of my snare drum.”
I bopped down the street, pumped up by the power of confidence oil, one of Jimmy’s favorite potions.
We headed for the Wizard’s place. I led while Jimmy and Gord tagged along behind. “Which way do we go?” I kept turning around and demanding.
“Up the street,” Jimmy repeated several times. “Now right, a block.” He kept shifting directions, until we’d gone a full circle.
“You’re leading us down the fantasy trail,” chuckled Gord. “Portals are not easy to find even for a Master of Santeria, eh?”
“Just looking for the right entrance.” Jimmy moved his arms around and waved his hands in the air. “Got to move the system so it shows me the buttons, man.”
He’d been drinking quite a bit of white rum that morning.
“Wow, I’m looking forward to seeing that Wizard,” I said. “Is he the kind with the pointy hat or what?”
Jimmy shook his head. “No time for jokes.”
I waved at strangers on the street, reached my hands through the air-polluting mist towards the sun. Everyone seemed yellow outlined and, far above them, if I looked very hard, I could peer through the yellow to a patch of blue sky. I didn’t need a high; I was high enough knowing I was a special person with a guardian angel.
“Right through this door,” Jimmy said. He showed Gord and me a nondescript walk-up tenement of about ten stories.
“At last!” exclaimed Gord and, we walked in, he began ascending the stairs, which wound round and round and up, and Jimmy couldn’t tell us when to stop. “It’s a long journey for these old legs,” Gord moaned.
I smelled chili cooking. I had a feeling. Up these stairs, anyone could be overcome and robbed. I looked down at Jimmy and Gord. Were they in cahoots? Was this a conspiracy? Maybe they were really demons, planning on ripping me off.
Then Gord started coughing. “Let’s stop for a moment. I’m winded.”
I laughed. How could I make up such crazy thoughts? Anyone winded on these stairs could never catch me.
At the top of the landing, Jimmy motioned. “It could be this room.” He pointed to a nondescript door with a coconut shell as a knocker. I went over and tapped with the shell. Tapped again.
The door opened. A young woman’s face peered out. “What do you want?” she asked.
“Is the Wizard in?” I inquired.
“What Wizard?” she said. “Are you one of those religious people?”
“No,” I said, “I’m just looking for the Wizard. The Santero guy.”
“Maybe he lives down the hall,” she said. “Look in the phone book.” She shut the door with a puzzled smile.
“I guess this might be the wrong building,” I said.
“Maybe the Wizard moved out,” Gord said. “Isn’t that right, Jimmy?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy replied. He stood resting a while. “He went back up north, I guess.”
Some part of me understood that Jimmy was likely a con artist. Yet I also knew he believed in his con. I’d opened the hotel room door often enough to witness him praying, I’d heard his discussions with Gord. Yet why did he talk to himself on the phone and pretend it was to Grandmother Marget?
I decided to let those thoughts go. I didn’t want to start believing that my newfound confidence, energy, and success with women could be due to Santeria delusion. My purpose and meaning on this trip, to form a new identity from my quest for experience, was coming true. I didn’t want to spoil everything. My faith must remain strong, and I must stay on track, because what if Santeria were true? Skeptics miss out on so much adventure, I concluded.
Copyright © 2021 by Harrison Kim
