Caged: Reclamation

Chapter 4

He heard the bird sing every night. It was her heartfelt sorrow that had awakened him. She cried because she could not leave the cage to reclaim her lost love. He knew this because of the words to the song. He knew she was small, yellow, and fluffy—he could see her. He figured she was a canary. He loved her poetry, her puffed chest, and how her little beak reached toward the outside. But he wasn't sure canaries actually lived outside cages. He racked his brain for some recall of canary lives and came up empty.

Maybe your love is dead. You are singing to no one. There is no point to your song.

That thought sent him back to the pitch black and silence. On and on he'd drift until her song started again.

Every time he opened his eyes there was more to see. First it was the songbird alone. Then her cage. Then it was the earthy walls and ceiling. Then it was the windows and the moon. He'd awaken in a strange room and watch her and listen. And then…

Maybe your love is dead.

And back to the black.

At first, it was all darkness with little to see or hear or feel. Then he was floating in an underground river in a cave on something unidentifiable but then his inherent knowledge of things said it was like an inner tube. He just floated, head back, eyes on the rocky ceiling. He dragged his fingertips in the warm water, hands sometimes sliding along a mossy rock wall next to him. He drifted without purpose, without direction. Sometimes he wondered where he was going, where he'd been, but only in a mildly curious way. He didn't really care. He felt good and relaxed and was blissfully free of hunger or thirst or even the very human need of going to the bathroom. He was like a vampire from TV. And he worked out the biology of it. Like... they weren't even breathing because they were technically dead. No heartbeat.

That was him, wasn't it?

Oh shit, I don't think I'm breathing! Am I? Oh wait. Yeah. Never mind.

Drift, drift, drift.

And then the song started and he was kind of awake in a darkened room with earthy walls and round-edged windows and a moon and the singing canary in an iron cage…

Maybe your love is dead.

Back to the cave.

One night he saw a woman next to him. She looked familiar and he knew she carried a blade at her side. He didn't know how he knew that, he just did. He searched for the blade and it wasn't there. He tried talking to her because he thought maybe she was his mother except he had no idea what his mother looked like. He thought she was talking to him but he didn't understand a thing she said and he didn't think she could hear him so he settled back to listen to the song.

She is dead maybe so why do you still sing?

Back to the cave.

One day things changed. He felt strange sensations all over his body in that cave, as if hands touched him, rubbed him. No hands that he could see. It made him anxious and he hated the feeling of it. He'd jerk all over, making a hell of a splash in the cave's river. And then the feelings would stop until many hours later.

Again and again it happened and every time his discomfort grew worse. He yelled and splashed until the feel dissipated. This last time though, pain came. Oh, god, it was all he could do to survive the sensations. The hands were fiery hot, burning through to his insides. He screamed madly all to no effect. He couldn't make it stop—it simply stopped without his say.

It was then that he began to see a movie playing on the rocky ceiling above him.

The loops were sweet at first, a childhood he recognized as his own. A babyhood. A mother's hold of him. The smell of her, the safety of her. The images were deeply soothing and he felt what he saw down to the depths of him. Something in his head said…

Chicago, Illinois.

The loops darkened in the experiences they showed and they made him cry. He understood that the images were real and that these things happened to him. And they happened alongside sweet childlike things. He didn't cry gentle canary tears at that truth. No, he cried a kind of agonizing cry of death. He cried for the permanent loss of the ice cream cones and bicycles and cops-and-robbers TV, of love and happiness, in those bad scenes. He watched helplessly as that child's trust of the world disintegrated into ash. His hopes, his dreams, his fantasies, his beliefs, too. He hardly had a chance to even develop any.

He was destroyed, body, heart, and soul.

Chicago, Illinois.

He saw a child try to control the forces that had wrecked him. He saw him seduce his assailants for safety. It didn't work but he tried and tried. He got good at it. He made things hurt less.

I can do so many things to you… and you… can do them to me. I won't tell anyone what we do in this room.

And then he found love! Red-headed love. Beautiful love full of ice cream cones and bicycles and cops-and-robbers TV. And then it was gone in a horrible flash and he tried another route to control his world. A violent, furious, vengeful fight that occupied him for years. He got good at that, too.

It also made him cry.

Llanview, Pennsylvania.

Much more flowed past him on the ceiling above. A new city, pretty girls, friends, classes, football, more vengeance… prison.

Statesville.

Then more love, a marriage, a baby, money, a newspaper business. Another marriage. Then darkness again. Madness. A memory of Chicago bloomed to life that he had forgotten in his travels. There was a long descent into hell. The devil is in the details. Then… more love, more children. Prison again.

Statesville.

A long stint there and another effort at control of the world. Mambo Kings. This run at control seemed strangely more successful than his other efforts. More children came. A lot of love. He was swimming in it, rolling in it, drinking it. He was drunk on the love, on the madness of it. And he laughed at the wild head-banging irony that he couldn't control any of it. It was the most beautiful loss of control he had ever known.

She was not controllable. She was everything.

It made him cry just as much as the crimes against him made him cry and as much as his own crimes did.

Hey, Delgado. Where ya' been my whole life?

Then a great fall. Two bullets to his chest. God, that hurt. His world once again had been blown to pieces. Armageddon. Ashes.

Havana, Cuba.

Another love grew there, an orchid in the endless forest. Dark haunted eyes. A kindness he never expected on that humid island that had trapped him, a kindness that reached inside of him and squeezed. Hands on bullet wounds. Hands on his heart. A healing love.

I love you. I won't say it again.

And he, beautiful he, unwittingly led him back to the other love. Home. Everything. So much awaited him. So many possibilities. Such love. Such madness. Such loss of control.

Except...

No, no, no, no, baby, please… no...

She was gone. She, beautiful she, flew through him like an arrow into the forever black. And that arrow pierced his heart, causing the world to disintegrate again. Ash. The only reason he had to keep living on terra firma was gone. Obliterated. His meager, barely there, trust was gone. The wreckage of the arrow to his heart in that taxi was so vast, so complete, he couldn't even cry.

He needed control again and so he made the end happen. He watched the worst of the world, the thieves of trust and love and all that's good, disappear into a hot, fiery, crushing blast of heat. He knew he had taken thirteen evil bastards with him. He was number fourteen.

I am the King of HELL.

And here he was, a lonely king, floating on his back in a dark tunnel beneath the earth in warm black water going nowhere fast. The movie played above. The entire, god-forsaken movie, over and over and over.

Jesus… fuckin'… Christ.

Stop singing, you fat little bird. There is no goddamn point. Your love is dead. Canaries do not live outside fucking CAGES.

And you… whoever you are… with the fuckin' hands...

Stop touching me!


Mother Superior Beatrice sighed, disconcerted. The seizures had begun once more. Angel had gone an entire fifteen days without one and now he was in the midst of a grand mal. Three this week. In three days. If it continued, he'd have to be transferred to hospital. The anonymity may have to end.

"Let it run its course," she said. "You can't stop it by holding him."

Sister Maria stepped back, her hands in fists. He was not breathing other than the briefest of clamped intakes of air, his body fully seizing, muscles jerking. She and Sister Ana had already turned him to his side to make sure he didn't choke. Bloody saliva bubbled into the linens.

Ana pulled the pillow away. She whimpered, "It terrifies me!" She could not help herself, tearful at the sight, placing a firm hand on his shorn head and praying fervently with closed eyes and fast-moving lips.

Maria nodded, looking down at him. The sheet that normally covered him had fallen low and the Grim Reaper on his back watched her. She covered its face, her hand loose on hot skin that draped straining muscles. She waited for Angel to take the breath that always eventually came. But that was not a guarantee. Seizures of this sort could bring on cardiac arrest.

"I was hoping that medication would do the trick," she murmured. "Breathe, child, breathe."

The sisters both sighed in relief the moment he finally took a needed noisy more-complete gasp of air.

"Blessings!" Ana blurted, dropping to her knees, forehead to the floor, in a dramatic prayer of thanks just as Raquel arrived.

"A seizure again?"

"Yes!" Maria and Ana said.

They had done the usual bath and had been half-way through the massage when the seizure started. It was violent and worrisome. It happened at the same time, every day. Raquel had flown up to consult on just this return of symptoms because she knew him. She had history of him. Beatrice had already had the neurologist consult and he had no more to offer than before. They were reasonably concerned.

Abram had been barking the entire time. Sister Ana crawled to him and got next to him to comfort him, finally quieting him. She put a leash on and, now that danger was averted, they left for a tour of the town. Ana was his designated guardian.

"What do you think?" Beatrice asked as the seizure finally resolved, as it finally let him go. He breathed fast for a bit and then the breaths slowed and he soon settled back into his sleep. He was covered in sweat. Maria mopped his ravaged body.

Raquel grunted, "Any pattern?"

"When the bath occurs."

"Well stop the bath. Stop everything and re-introduce one activity at a time."

She had a suspicion.

The next day, they did not do the usual bathing. They only moved him to avoid the bed sores and fed him the appropriate nutrients through the feeding tube. They tended to the usual evacuation needs.

Raquel and the nuns noted that there was no seizure.

The next day they washed him and there was no seizure. The next day, they massaged his muscles without a bath and he went into a full grand mal again.

Once he was well into his sleep, Raquel moved close and studied his peaceful self. He was on his back and his arms were at his side with pillows there. Pillows under his knees too. Fully restful, the position mimicked floating. His face was handsome, smooth but for the three days growth of a beard. Most noticeable was the complete erasure of the lines he usually wore of worry and hate and judgment. She recalled easily his many months en La Habana. Quiet peace like this was only possible through heroin. Even in the arms of his lovers, Rico and Téa, after hours of physical love… he had required drugs to erase the world's assaults on him. She had checked on them the very morning before Téa was taken. She couldn't remember why she needed to enter. Maybe anger. Upset. She'd walked into the room and there they were. She hadn't expected it. It surprised her. The three lay naked, wrapped in each other like ivy on the bed. She'd laughed to herself and then didn't. She knew he'd not had heroin for at least a day and there on that bed, still, even so, lines between his brows and a tight jaw showed he was not free of his war.

Beatrice was at her side along with Maria.

"He is waking up," Raquel concluded. "He is responding to pain, to discomfort. The massages hurt, perhaps because of the healing bones on his left side."

She moved closer still. She glanced at Beatrice and did a common test of pain. She pressed her knuckle hard into his sternum and to the shock of the women, his whole body jerked in response. She did one more test. She pinched his nipple and he responded in the same way.

Beatrice agreed. He was waking up. It had been four months already. It was about time.

"He does not like to be touched so firmly," Raquel said. She leaned in close to his head and smiled, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You never want things that are good for you. The massage is good for you. Stubborn man."

Maria didn't understand. "Pain does not cause seizures."

Raquel explained, "Of course. But sometimes extreme stress can trigger a seizure if the brain is so inclined. If he is feeling pain and cannot cry out or seek help or at least gain understanding about the cause of it, he would be very frightened and very stressed."

"Ah I see."

So they adjusted how they worked his muscles. Bathing alone did not trigger the seizure. The lotion did not do it either. The firm massages did. From then on, no therapeutic touching of too much of his body at one time.

And it worked. The seizures stopped.

Another week passed. Raquel returned because Ana had seen him open his eyes during the day, one morning. They decided that because he knew Raquel, that she should be near when and if he should fully wake.

On this late afternoon as Maria read to him, as Beatrice prayed over him, as Raquel watched, he opened his eyes. To them. Raquel could hardly breathe. He tracked them one at a time as they moved around the room. This was consciousness.

Beatrice said softly, "Angel sees us."

Maria said, "He's following you, Mother!"

The Mother Superior went to his side. She glanced at Raquel, the two women excited by the change. When Beatrice returned to his eyes once again, she had to take a breath. That was some light in those eyes! Fire! So intense was his hold on her.

"Can you talk to me, child?"

He was silent in his new wakefulness but he seemed to be asking something of her. She made a natural assumption, a likely one.

"You are in Baracoa, Cuba. You are being made well here. We are taking care of you. We are Las Hermanas de la Misericordia. Sisters of Mercy."

He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut, and clenched his fists. His entire body seized in a kind of… fury. His breathing changed, speeding up, until he simply held it.

Maria got frightened. "Angel! Don't do that!"

Raquel shook her head. Eyes on Beatrice who was questioning her.

"He is alive and he knows it. He is angry. Not uncommon, very much him I think. The little I knew him, he always seemed to hate that he still breathed in the morning, that sleep did not take him."

Beatrice took his hand in hers and worked to unclench his fist. She spoke to him, a prayer, and after some moments he took a breath and then kept breathing, but they were undeniably angry breaths. Everything soon eased other than tight fists.

"Does he speak Spanish, understand it?"

"Yes, fairly fluent like street children."

Beatrice returned her focus to her patient, as she worked on his still tightened fist. "You are safe here. You do not have to return to your old life. You have a new name, papers. You are free to travel, to leave, or stay. The world that has hurt you so very deeply, will never do so again."

Maria fell onto the chair near the window. More prayers. "Angel will be the death of me. How do mothers even live? I have never felt like this before!"

Beatrice and Raquel laughed as they both worked to further unclench his fists. Which he soon did. He resumed his sleep and the women sighed at the miracle they were witnessing.

Raquel then said, "What you just saw, my sister, is a taste of his upset. When he wakes fully, you will have a roaring lion on your hands. He will be the devil. Are you ready for that?"

"He will not be the first lion in our home."

Beatrice had remained at his side, Raquel hovering and directing every ministering act, establishing new policies. "Careful," she said to the sisters who cared for him, "with every physical contact. Avoid all potential pain."

Night had since fallen. Two younger sisters had brought dinners to the room. Abram was lying on the bed, snoring lightly, tight up against Angel's side. Ana had placed his hand on the dog's warm body. They had fed Angel through the feeding tube that went directly into his stomach. Another scar that would remain once he woke.

Raquel had noticed a slight movement of his fingers on the dog's coat. She decided to test Angel. She dipped her finger into a bit of the sour yogurt they'd been eating. She stood. She squeezed his cheeks slightly to open his mouth. Then she delicately placed a pearl drop onto the tip of his tongue. She closed his mouth. Beatrice smiled when he pursed his lips and his features scrunched. He swallowed visibly.

Distaste.

"I have been caring for rebellious men and women injured in battle my entire life in service to God," Beatrice said. "Not a one enjoyed Maria's yogurt."

Raquel chuckled. "It is so sour."

The two quieted when he opened his eyes to Raquel. He held her gaze for long minutes, eyes full of familiar judgment. He searched the room and squeezed Abram, feeling the dog. He licked his lips. He followed the trail of the tube that hydrated him. An intravenous line. Eyes up to the bottle hanging. He had to move his head slightly to see it.

The sisters were enthralled. They themselves hardly breathed in disbelief.

He landed on the canary. They saw that he was thinking about it, his eyes narrowing, eyes hard on the songbird. But then his expression changed and his eyes watered, and soon tears rolled down his cheeks. His face crinkled and he shook with sorrow. It was so clear. There was no sound, a voiceless agony tearing through him. Raquel leaned down and reached an arm across his chest. She pressed her forehead to the side of his head as he sobbed in his limited way and soon he stopped and seemed to relax once more.

Raquel couldn't possibly guess the source of his pain, there being too much to draw on. She glanced up at Beatrice who shook her head in sympathy, her eyes reddened.

They were in a new phase now. Beatrice and Raquel needed to be careful with what they said around him. They shared knowledge constantly, almost carelessly around Maria, because they knew who he was, knew his real name, and what major crime he might have committed that brought him to the Sisters of Mercy. Raquel especially. They had discussed how to approach him once he awakened. They decided they would offer no information other than what he wanted to know. They could not anticipate the level of amnesia he might have, or even delusion. He'd need gentle, slow introduction to his life… unless he demanded something else.

Beatrice was firm on that. Every day from now on was his to direct.

Angel watched the twittering songbird a long while. And then he sighed and slept again. Peaceful again. All the lines of life lifted from his features and so they knew he had ducked back into his preferred quiet. Raquel confirmed it when she tried the yogurt again. He didn't react to it. He did not like the knuckle test though. He wasn't completely under water. The waking was certain.

"This will be a slow process and it will be rough seas," Beatrice said.

"Another week?"

"Impossible to say."

"I'll go and prepare for my absence. I'll stay with you through it."

Beatrice smiled and held her sister's hand across Angel's chest. "You don't have to, but he does appear to know you and his sadness, any upset, might need immediate answers. You're the best we have to do that."

"I'll be back then."

The canary sang into the night when midnight hit…

...and he refused to watch, squeezing his eyes shut to assure it.


Pedro Moreno surrounded himself with the few older members of Los Reyes del Mambo, the most loyal men he knew: Mario, David and Freddy. They sat at a table at the rear of a popular Llanview restaurant, Hank's, and tonight enjoyed the delights of the newest chef at the invitation of Hank Gannon, the titular owner who'd given up his position as district attorney in favor of the restaurant. He'd joke that he wasn't sure which was more risky.

The place had an old school Atlantic City feel to it, dark decor, a sea of red leather. The only thing missing was the layer of cigarette smoke. Hank's was located at the very edge of the business district. The owner's brother, RJ Gannon, owned the club down the road. RJ ran with the Jamaican Posse, old allies of the Mambo Kings. Things weren't as rosy however since the Serrano assault at the club, the same night Téa Delgado shot her husband and changed the trajectory of their lives.

Mario groaned happily at the taste of the shrimp dish. He was in charge of gambling, David managed the weapons, and Freddy worked the drug angle. Freddy's division had been seriously hit over the years thanks to Blanco's efforts to reduce liabilities in service of Pedro's vision of legitimacy. Freddy had fought the idea, saying rightly that giving away power was its own liability.

You want to stay in drugs?

Blanco-

Buy stock in Glaxo, Novartis, Merck…

What is he talking about, Pedro!

Better yet, open your own pharma company. You'll make a bigger killing than in street drugs.

It was a ridiculous plan, telling a long-time MK soldier who'd spent ten years in Statesville to go buy stocks… but Freddy stopped laughing, stopped threatening, and did just that, became a major stockholder in a company that developed an HIV drug. He made a lot of money, hundreds of thousands dollars, a million maybe, when the company went public. Freddy wasn't alone in that success. He was able to put a lot of young MK soldiers on the path to healthfulness. Pedro resisted an open hysterical laugh at the absurdity, at the pun.

A pretty waitress winked at Pedro as she brought him a fresh glass of scotch. He drank it for Blanco. He lost track of the conversation, an old man's tears stinging his eyes.

He was a crippled king. He had returned from Havana forever changed, weakened. He lost territories, lost soldiers, fell to competitors in every arena. He literally lost seven loyal men in his son's private war. He laughed to himself. Bitterly. Blanco denied it, passionately, with Pedro's gun at his chest on the patio of the beach house, his own son Jedediah at his side.

I have spilled blood for MK to proclaim my devotion, my commitment, my HONOR. How can you even question me? I would never harm an MK brother. I would never harm you.

Blanco! I trusted you!

You are KING, the only KING. I give my life to you to prove my loyalty. I give my beating heart to you.

He lifted the glass and twirled it in the light. He held no ill will against anyone. He was a neutered dog and the criminal underworld knew it. Profits were low, reputation too. Blanco was the real king. The men were demoralized, disappointed. A drug overdose?! They didn't believe it. They were certain Blanco was murdered, ready to fly down to Havana themselves to blow up many more houses. Pedro tried to follow the thread of the men's discussion. It was pointless. He missed Manuel. Oh he did not resent the presumed killing of him, logically, morally. His death was the only end possible, but… he missed his brother, their partnership. The two men talked every week, met often, worked out tangles together. He missed Blanco, too. Things would never be the same again.

Manuel Caro had been declared missing and not a person lifted a finger to find him. The American government didn't break backs to do it because… well… the sheer number of children that got saved, the massive trafficking bust, took precedence. Cuba didn't search for him because he was a stain that needed to be erased.

Rico Macias gave a statement that Téa had been found in Manuel's apartment and that Manuel disappeared into the city but Pedro knew that was a lie. The evidence didn't hold up- nothing of Téa's was found in that apartment. He considered tracking that maricon down and forcing the issue but Blanco loved him and gossip traveled and it was a strange culture change among younger MK men where Macias held their respect almost as if he'd been a spouse, another adopted MK brother, almost the same respect as they reserved for Téa Delgado. Young people did not seem to care that Blanco loved who he loved and if he did, whoever he chose, however many, man or woman or something else altogether… there was good reason for it.

Blanco's uniqueness reflected who these young people were today. MK was changing. Pedro knew of three soldiers who came out since the bombing. They remained in MK, they were safe, thriving. Five years ago they would have been ejected; if they'd been in Statesville, they would have been killed. Even three years ago, Pedro was able to control Blanco by holding his nocturnal fucks of his chosen prison lovers over his head. Today, if Pedro tried such a thing, Blanco would have laughed at him.

Welcome to the 21st century, bitch.

Pedro would never be out of danger on the Manuel Caro point. Blanco made sure of that. He held transaction statements that proved the connection between Manuel's companies and Pedro's; that was a way into the entire scheme that any D.A. or attorney general would give his mother up to have. Lazy accounting that Blanco stumbled upon on his many trips up here during his stay in Havana. He had a real way of getting information. Pedro had no idea where those transaction statements had gone. They were out there, lining the blade of a guillotine.

Neutered.

David turned to Pedro, "What is the matter, Padre? You are very quiet."

"Nothing… my 68th birthday is around the corner. Perhaps I feel the cold of the morgue already."

Freddy tilted his head, eyeing a space beyond Pedro. "Is that Blanco's wife?"

Pedro turned and his heart strangely jumped. "Yes," he murmured. He hadn't seen her in months, not since the memorial service. Téa Delgado held court at a table with people he didn't know. Two other women and a man. Moneyed people. She shined, drew his gaze, like a porcelain doll in a museum. Grief looked good on her. Her hair was put up and it showed her newly-delicate features. Her black cashmere suit and the way she spoke gave her a hardness that clashed with her pretty face. Her expression was fierce and he turned back to his dinner.

He lost his appetite. He waved away his friends. "Leave me… leave me, please. I will get the bill."

The men objected but one flash of upset chased them off. Pedro Moreno was still a king, weakness no matter. He moved to the other side of the booth. From here, he could watch her.

An hour later, two more drinks in, and Téa was saying goodbye to the company. She was headed his way, had to pass him in order to leave. She caught sight of Pedro and stopped hard in her tracks, blanching.

"Please sit with me," he said.

She looked around, unable to cover the hatred.

"Please," he repeated.

She slid into the booth. They were quiet some moments.

Pedro said softly, "I am sorry for your loss. I think of him everyday, todo el tiempo."

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Then she looked up and said, "Don't offer condolences when you were responsible for his death. No. I don't accept them."

"I did-"

"NO. Don't even start. His death is on you. Don't ever forget that. Don't deny it. Don't pretend that this was Caro or the FBI or even heroin. No. This is on you. Para siempre. Always."

Pedro nodded and kept his eyes on his drink. Rightly slapped. He studied her hand, ivory against the red tablecloth. Red nails. Short. She cleared her throat.

"I represent a soldier of yours," she said.

"You represent ten soldiers. They all flock to you."

She did not tell him that she represented fifteen soldiers, three higher-ups including Mario-in-charge-of-gambling, and several ex-Serrano soldiers who wanted to repair their relationship with their Cuban cousins. She had several pleas waiting for her on her desk and multiple negotiations on the books. She did not share that she was helping the lead Statesville MK man work his appeal to get out. Téa did not share just how broadly she'd made inroads with MK members over the past two months, including the prostitutes and several girlfriends and wives, since Rolon told her the way to gut Pedro was by attacking MK from the inside.

"They do flock," she said, her voice cool and sharp. "Because I save them from Statesville and your bullshit prison gang there. You realize heroin is making a comeback… right under your nose. Along with meth and all the pharmaceuticals with street value. Drugs are back in MK territory, controlled by MK. Drugs have been reclaimed."

He wiped his face, smoothed his mustache. "I heard."

"Well shut it the hell down, Moreno. You should look at Freddy… wasn't that his responsibility?"

He picked up his drink and sipped it. How did she know about Freddy? Blanco must have shared… a lot.

Neutered.

"I have lost the ability to control my men."

Téa sat back in her seat. Eyed him. He was thinner these days, older looking. His grey suit was wrinkled at the chest as if he slept on it. "What's wrong with you? Are you sick?"

He laughed softly, "No, mamita. Sick at heart maybe."

"Don't tell me Todd's death has affected you."

Pedro leaned forward on his elbows. He looked at her, sincerity dripping, thick as mud. "It has. I am still under the weight of losing Blanco. I… he… left me here, handing my crown back to me and I find it heavier than before. It is a crown of thorns longer, sharper, more poisonous than before. I never knew it to be this way."

"Are you bleeding from the cuts, are you sick from the poison in your blood?" She snorted with a choked laugh. "Que cojones tienes. You have a lot of nerve blaming grief… for you turning a blind eye to drug trafficking."

He nodded, not arguing, how could he? She was right.

So very neutered.

Disgusted, she pulled Freddy's glass towards her, picked it up and sniffed at it. She dragged David's glass over and sniffed at it too. Then she dumped the rest of David's rum into Freddy's and drunk the whole thing down at once like it was water.

He so wanted to talk to her, to really talk. He knew he was being intrusive with how he stared at her. Knew his thoughts were improper. He wanted to hold her to him, to comfort her. He hated that he could not stop the wrong thoughts. He was a father-in-law to her. He looked away, ashamed of himself, an erection actually forming. Her red silk blouse had opened far too much, her red lacy bra low, the fullness of her breast flashing openly. She did not correct the situation, allowing her suit jacket to stay loose.

She then glanced around for listeners. She dug into her purse and dug out a card. She slid it across the table to him. He glanced down at it.

Method Makers, Inc.

Dover, Delaware

"The New World Has Arrived"

Delaware. That allowed her to hide investors.

"My company," she said. "Your ten soldiers hold stock in it. They are getting out of illegal drugs and are now assisting in the growth and development of nutritional supplements based on marijuana research advancements. The company is sponsoring their attendance at Llanview University. Business degrees, of course. We have a subsidiary that will be growing marijuana and another subsidiary that is pursuing dispensaries across the country. We are national. We're changemakers in the industry. It is… a growth industry."

Pedro looked at her, stunned. "Téa…"

"Don't call me that," she spat, her full lips tight, her voice full of venom that reminded him of Blanco. "You have not earned that intimacy."

She stood up and stared down at Pedro. The diamonds in her ears glittered. "My company operates a loan business for marijuana startups. Your men… are very good, especially at collection. Real goddamn bulldogs."

She turned on her heels and began walking away, her hips swishing, the heat coming off her in waves. She stopped and returned to the table where she slammed her hands down, clutch bag swinging at her side, breasts pressed together and screaming at him.

"You do know that MK has women, yes? They are not official… but they have been the only reason MK has survived. You should acknowledge them. Maybe have a dinner or something. Maybe get them passes to Disney World."

She stood and turned again, continuing her catlike walk and exited the room and Pedro realized his palms were sweating. He did not know or understand what just happened. Ten soldiers working for her? Marijuana industry? Téa Delgado? What dinner? Women? The wives, the girlfriends, the whores?

She's the Puertorriquena queen to Blanco - watch her, brother.

Ages ago, David warned Pedro about her. He didn't trust her, didn't trust anyone from New York, much less anyone not Cuban. She proved to be harmless. She was quiet and never interfered, not until the end and even then. He looked at his email. A note from the Chief of Police in Havana. One word.

Awake.

If only he could have saved his son thirty years before, saved him from that evil father he had, saved him from Manuel. He would have. Blanco would have learned discipline, strength, would have-

Awake.

He was dreaming. He was delusional. Only twelve years ago he picked up fourteen-year old Gloria from the streets and raped her in his limousine. Nearly four years ago he forced her to have sex with Blanco, to tame him, despite the man not wanting to… she tamed more men than he could count. He forced Blanco to do it just the same in order to prove himself a man that indeed fucked women, that he was not a total homosexual because MK was so intolerant. And only last year, he sat downstairs and listened to the noise upstairs at the Havana beach house as his son violently raped Gloria to the great pride and joy of Pedro.

He had done nothing.

Pedro help me! Blanco, stop, oh my god stop! Pedro! PEDRO!

He was not the enlightened neutered man he was today. Had he adopted Blanco, he would have saved him from his father and Manuel, true, he would have raised him to be King, still, but his son most likely would have committed the same crimes he did before because one did not learn to respect women in MK, one learned to use them. One did not learn to avoid violence in MK, one learned to use it. In MK, one did not learn to stay out of prison but how to survive it, how to thrive in it.

Had he adopted Blanco, Pedro might still be mourning a dead son hidden away in a Cuban restored convent.

He opened a new email page and dropped a few lines. He needed to pack. His son would have questions… and a decision to make.

If he was still himself.

We leave to Havana on Saturday. Prepare the plane.


From outside Hank's, Rolon eased up on the pistol in his hand. A bodyguard had been inside the restaurant, instructed to be invisible to Pedro. There was a time when she angrily rejected security detail. No longer. He put the piece away when Téa emerged from the restaurant, followed by Orlando in his black suit, a former marine who spent time in MK but had been separated from MK due to his sexual orientation. No love lost for Pedro Moreno. She was sashaying towards Rolon as she pulled a pin from her hair and shook it out, shook the silky brown locks loose. She smiled.

"You saw him?"

"I talked to him. He waited for me. He knows now about the company. He was a bit nervous."

"Are you sure of this?"

"Am I sure I want to continue the downward dive? Yes, Rolon, yes."

She sniffed and walked to the car, to the back door. Rolon plopped the driver's cap on and opened the door for her, "La Reina?"

When she got inside, he closed the door and looked around, seeing Pedro at the front of Hank's. He nodded to Rolon, his rugged face a mask of curiosity. Rolon nodded back, respectfully, then got in the car and drove off, Orlando in a car behind them. In the rear view mirror, he saw Téa wipe her red lipstick off. She reached down and slipped off her stiletto heels. She closed her eyes and caressed the ring she wore on her necklace… and he heard her whisper her usual mantra…

"Fuck you, you fucking bastard. You did this, you did. I hope you're burning in hell on your fucking throne. Fuck you, you fucking bastard..."

He knew she spoke to Todd Manning, knew she'd say those words like a prayer all the way home, all the way nearly everywhere. Every day. Never tears, not once. Her rage took up every bit of her emotional energy. The only time he saw her let down was the every-so-often hug she needed, the climb onto his lap, tighter, tighter. He squeezed the steering wheel and drove her home to her wrap-around porch lit up, windows lit up, the forest behind black and endless. Jedediah Chant came to the car and opened Téa's door, eyes hard on Rolon's.

"How'd it go?" His light tone did not match the gaze he reserved for Rolon.

"As expected," she said, getting out of the Mercedes sedan. She waved to Orlando who took off. Another guard, another ex-MK member, stood watch at the front gates. Two more guards were installed in the rear of the house. The whole crew got replaced by another for the daytime hours.

Life had changed.

Rolon pointed at Jedediah, "See you tomorrow, kid."

"Tomorrow."

The queen had come home and MK proper did not know what was about to hit them. They could not see the fiery meteor heading their way.

To be continued...