Chupacabra From La Habra.

I am in the process of reclaiming my creativity. It started with this blog, then started to include my photos, which I'm about to start marketing. I'm also about two-thirds of the way finished with a book about our time in Vietnam. I'm going to publish this on Kindle and also as an iBook that includes photos and the original blog. And I have a lot of other projects in various stages of completion.

I've been a little scared of doing all this, because what if it doesn't work. But screw that; I love doing it, so I'm going to do it. As I realized the other day, really, looking back at my career, what I've been able to earn from my creative work over the years makes me a very successful writer already.

As part of this process I'm trying to get my writing out there as much as possible--increasing the number of blog posts, etc. So when I saw a contest for a piece of spooky, kooky microfiction (500 words or less), I entered. I didn't win, but I had fun putting together this little story. I hope you enjoy it.

Chupacabra From La Habra

We really fucked up, mi carnal Danny and me.

It started with that pinche corpse apple pie abuelita Rose made for mi hermana Josie who was having female spells. Abuelita believes that old-time bruja shit. I didn’t used to.

A corpse apple pie is made with apples from a tree growing in a graveyard. But finding an apple tree in a cemetery ain’t easy. Not in La Habra, CA.

One day this old guy brought Abuelita a sack of apples. He looked about 400—a couple yellow teeth, droopy bloodshot eyes, mustache singed brown from smoking these sick-smelling hand-rolleds, sub-kmart plaid shirt and cowboy hat—“puro indio,” whispered Danny sarcastically.

Danny was imitating this guy’s geezer walk, and we’re laughing so hard we never saw him come out of the house. “Pinches changitos,” he muttered as he walked by.

Danny got pissed. “Vete a la chingada, you old fuck!”

The old guy waved his stick at us, spewing words and spit, and gimped off.

Later, a delicious burnt sugar, brown butter, and cinnamon smell lured us. Abuelita warned us off. “This pie is just for Jovita. Hands off.”

But we were hungry, and anything that was just for Josie just had to be fucked with. So when Abuelita watched her telenovelas, we grabbed the pie and ran.

That night I dreamed of being chased by a man, an indio, who was naked except for a cape of human skin with a man’s face attached. My face.

The next day, it was like my insides were drying up and rotting. I felt hollowed out and squishy, like a Halloween pumpkin that’s been sitting out on the porch for months. Danny did, too.

Abuelita shook her head. “It’s a maldicíon. You offended Señor Alucardo. And when a brujo gets offended, híjole! I can save your life, but now you belong to him.”

“And Danny?”

“There’s got to be a goat, a scapegoat. And, mijo, you have to do it. As a chupacabra.”

“I can’t suck Danny’s life.”

“He dies anyway. And so will you if you don’t.”

So I did, eventually. What took the longest was the embarrassment of asking Abuelita how to do it. It felt like asking her to explain how to jerk off or something.

I stood over Danny as he slept. My stomach jerked, and I vomited a thin transparent tube that plunged into his chest. I gulped chunks of liver, shreds of heart and lung and gallons of thick, delicious blood, and I was crying and laughing with remorse and relief and the joy of being fully alive for the first time.

Afterwards, Abuelita wanted me to go to México with Señor Alucardo, but I said no. I don’t speak Spanish, and I don’t want a bunch of indios laughing at me like I’m some pinche gringo—la chupacabra de La Habra.

Maybe when Abuelita goes, I’ll go, but until then I’ll just hang.

I really got to try me some cabrito one of these days.