By Patrick Cabello Hansel
Dear reader,
It is hard to describe evil. Sometimes it carries a bat, sometimes it wears a badge. Sometimes it is a boss, sometimes a prayer gone horribly, horribly wrong. The evil that befell Angel was all of them, none of them. It was all of us, the worst of us, and we were its victims and its helpers.
For three days, unconsciousness became Angel. If he dreamed, if he was visited by memories or spirits, he will not be able to tell us. He dwelled in the land of Morpheus, in the land before darkness was separated from light. Hovering over the waters, hanging between life and death.
Some say that angels and demons converse secretly, right under God”'s nose, in the chasm between heaven and hell, in the moments before dusk becomes night and dawn becomes day.
They are after all, family. Separated not by essence, but by actions. They were all created as the light of God, and if some confirm that light by seeking the darkness, should we be surprised?
Jaime knew better than to take Angel to the hospital, and Ahmed sensed it quickly. Whatever or whoever could beat him that badly, with that kind of impunity, would seek him out to finish the job. Angel had no papers, no insurance, no advocate for a health care system gone bad. He could, he would receive loving treatment at the hospital, but his tormentors would seek him there. Besides, Angel needed a healing that was stronger, stranger, deeper.
They carried him to Jaime”'s truck, and then drove him to the heart of healing, to the far northeast corner of our community, where the drum still beats, and plants speak to those who would listen. They brought him in a basement door, and laid him at the feet of a woman known only as “Mother” or sometimes “Mother Light”.
Meanwhile the word went out about Angel, not by phone or television or official channels, but by the heart and its harsher sister, the tongue. His friends hung out on the corner, talking of revenge. His former teachers sighed and wondered how many more. Angel”'s mother went to the cemetery, not because she feared her son dead, but to implore the dead, to stir the ancestors to intercede on his behalf. And Luz Maria lit candles in the shop, and kissed each long pan of bread with her breath.
Perhaps, reader, you are wondering about the one we call “Mother Light”. Oh, she has a “real” name. In fact, she has several. One for the taxes, the voting, the troubles and the bills. Another for the land she came from. Perhaps another that not even she knows, but only the Spirit that hovers. But now she is hope to this wounded child, mother and milk and we may dare to say, healing magic.
Rest in her, Angel, rest.
