By PATRICK CABELLO HANSEL
To say that Lefty’s brother Karl was a retired FBI agent was a lie; he had not retired, he had been pushed out for complaining about the practices of the agency at Wounded Knee, with the Black Panthers and other political groups. He’d threatened to go to the press with documents he had, exposing other as yet unknown misdeeds; they threatened to arrest him and hide him away in a supermax prison. It was a standoff that neither the bureau nor Karl intended to break.
Such was life in Phillips in the mid-2010s: Angel and Luz needed to depend on someone who may have spied on their families’ past involvement with the Chicano movement. Someone who knew how to find out things without being found out. And someone for whom tequila, pot and conspiracy theories both left and right were his daily diet.
By a strange turn of fate, Karl had been based in Seattle in the late 70’s, met founders of tech companies and was an early investor. Stock doubling after stock doubling later, Karl was a multimillionaire living off Big Tech earnings, while decrying their nefarious influence on the body politic. He lived in a downtown high rise overlooking the river. Lefty, Agnes, Mother Light and the family crowded into the elevator and rode to the top of the building.
Though it was near zero outside, Karl was dressed in a bowling shirt and khaki shorts. He motioned them to sit on a white sofa that to little Angel’s eyes seemed to be a mile long.
“Listen,” Karl said. “There’s no time for introductions or chit chat. I know Brian Fleming well; I know what kind of man he is. He’s probably on his way out of the country.”
Luz sighed deeply, as if she had never really breathed freely in her life.
“But his boys, and his connections in the police are still here,” Karl continued. “The raid on their operations tonight was not planned. Some junior officers acted on a tip and didn’t inform their superiors. The press heard of it as well, so the Special Unit wasn’t able to cover it up.”
“What’s the Special Unit?” Angel asked.
“Better if you don’t know,” Karl answered. “Suffice to say that they don’t answer to the chain of command in any real sense. They have their usefulness at times, but they’re not to be trusted.”
Angel and Luz looked at each other as if to say can we trust this guy?
“You want to know where Lupe is, is that right?” Karl went on.
“Of course!” Angel and Luz shouted.
Karl turned to Agnes and nodded.
“She is going to meet us at the bus station,” Agnes said.
“The bus station!” Angel said. “What bus station, and why there?”
Karl nodded at Mother Light, and she nodded back. Luz got the impression that they knew each other well, though they worked in completely different realms.
“We know that Brian Fleming lost a chunk of his empire tonight, but he may have gained something by the travel you made through the tunnel into the cemetery.”
“Where we went back in time?” Luz asked.
“Yes,” Mother Light said. “To be precise, where time went back into you. You received gifts that haven’t been revealed to you yet. Gifts of seeing. But Brian Fleming may have received a certain sight as well. And we know how he turns every gift into a curse. His operation has suffered greatly tonight, but he may be more dangerous than ever, even though he is not here.”
“Oh God!” Luz cried out. “Will this never end?”
Mother Light embraced her, and then with a movement that cannot be described, embraced everyone in the room.
“The ending is not yet written…” she said. “But now, we must get ready to fly.”
Months later, Angel and Luz shared that they thought Mother Light was literally going to make them fly. But in truth, she was using a common saying for urgency. For dear Guadalupe’s return to Luz and Angel and little Angelito depended on the family’s flight into the unknown.
Next chapter: An end that is a beginning.
Patrick Cabello Hansel is a retired pastor, having served with his wife for 15 years at St. Paul’s Lutheran in Phillips. He spends his days writing poetry and fiction, gardening and yelling at the TV.
