Into the Beautiful North(60)

He put his arm around her.

“I must have done something right,” he said. “For you to come into my life.”

And he won her heart forever, in that instant, for he broke into song. His voice was deep, a rich baritone. And he sang it! He sang: “ ‘Just like a gothic girl, lost in the darken world.’ ”

Vampi started to cry.

Alex knew!

He knew.



He had come north from León, Guanajuato. He was a guitarist for a darkwave metal band in Mexico known as Cuernos de Hielo. But there was no money in Guanajuato for a darkwave band. And Alex’s family was hurting—his dad had retired, and his mom was caring for him with little money. So Alex had sought his fortune in Los Yunaites. Wasn’t that where all the big metal bands came from? Black Sabbath, for example. No, wait—Sabbath was from England. Cradle of Filth, maybe? England again. He gestured at his shirt, but Vampi just smiled sweetly. The 69 Eyes were from Helsinki, maybe, some pagan, Viking nosferatu place.

“I think they worship Odin,” she noted.

To his astonishment, Alex found out that there was not much market for an undocumented Aztec death shredder without a guitar and without any English at all. He thought anybody could become a rock star in the USA. He thought you got on MTV and got rich. He thought he’d be opening for Motley Crüe on a world tour. He didn’t think you hid from authorities and felt the Americans’ eyes pass right through you in the supermarket. If nobody could even see him, how was he going to get famous?

It took him a year or two to admit that he never would get famous. He might never play in a band again. He fell into the slums in Logan Heights, southeast of the city, then worked his way up to a Taco Bell in Pacific Beach. He shared an apartment with five other chavalos from Chiapas and Guerrero. They were gardeners. They ate lunch at the pancake house one day and saw the cardboard sign in the window seeking busboys. They told Alex, and he found himself in the happy family of Velma! and her duffers.

He’d been at the pancake house now for six years. His dad was dead. (“May he rest in peace,” Vampi said—Alex turned and looked into her eyes and kissed her savagely, unable to contain himself.) He had some money put away, but he was afraid to go to the funeral, so he’d sent it all to his mom via La Western Union.

“Now what?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve got this truck. I guess I’ll work six more years.”

She nuzzled him. He smiled down at her. This sweet-smelling girl. She was so soft, so warm. She was better than a million bucks, right there in his truck. Alex hadn’t been with a woman in—well, it had been a long time. He wasn’t sure what to do.

“Are you my girl?” he asked.

“Is it crazy?” she said. “Is it too soon?”

“You might as well ask the moon,” he said. “You might as well ask the stars.”

In Vampi’s opinion, Alex spoke in song lyrics.

The La Jolla laser came back on and shot a vivid emerald beam over their heads.

It seemed like a sign.

Everything seemed like a sign to Vampi.

“My real name is Verónica,” she confessed.

She climbed into his lap and kissed his mouth. She sat on the horn and startled all the lovers—the honk echoed down the hill. She grabbed two handfuls of hair and gazed into his eyes.

“You could come back home with me,” she said.

And she told him her story.



Matt and Yolo looked in the phone book.

“S. Chavarín,” he called out.

“S.,” Yolo said. “Must stand for Salvador, you think?” Jou teen?

“Sí,” Nayeli said. “Salvador-Chava. That must be him.”

“La Osa’s boyfriend,” said Yolo.

“No! You think so?”

“Yeah.”

Matt and Atómiko didn’t know what the fuss was all about.

“You do it,” Nayeli said.

Yolo smiled nervously and punched the numbers. It rang three times; she scrunched her nose at Nayeli. A man answered.

“Hello?”

“?Se?or Chavarín?” Yolo asked.

“Yes?”

“We are from Tres Camarones,” she said.

“?Qué?”

“Tres Camarones. We have come from there, and we represent Irma García Cervantes.”

“Dios mío.”

“She is the Mayor of Camarones,” Yolo reported.

He gasped.

“Mayor? Irma?”

“She asked us to call you.”

He said: “I have to sit down.”



Don Chava worked the night shift at the Hillcrest Bowl. He didn’t want them to go there. Yolo could hear the tone in his voice. She thought it was embarrassment. What was there to be embarrassed about? She herself worked in the Camarones bowling alley. She promised to call him in the morning. She hung up.

“What’s he like?” Nayeli asked.

“Sad,” Yolo replied. “Old. Nice.”

She twisted the phone cord around her fingers.

“He told me where he works. But he doesn’t want us to come.”

Nayeli said, “Do you really think he’s Aunt Irma’s boyfriend?”