On the corner of Avenue 18 and Albion is a market called El Milagro (the miracle). Across the street from that market is an old Victorian house, painted avocado green with white lacy trim. Inside that house lives an ancient, but feisty lady named Isabel. At one time, the house was filled with kids and laughter. Now people walking by it cross themselves and cross the street so they don’t have to pass it. “*La Bruja” *lives there, they say, clutching their rosary beads fervently.
Inside the house, watching out her window, the bruja cackles. “Pendejos,” she says chortling out loud to her orange and blue macaw, Lalo.
“Pendejos, tapados, y malcriados,” shouts the bird.
Isabel laughs and feeds him a treat.
“At least they don’t come bothering me anymore now they think I’m a witch,” she thinks.
The phone rings, it’s sound discordant in the quiet of the morning.
“Must be Sara,” she thinks as she hobbles over to answer it.
“Tia,” a voice says.
She knows that voice. She thinks, tapping her foot, waiting for the name to come to her. It’s been harder and harder to remember names these days. Who the hell is it? She scratches her head as the voice comes through again, “Tia, are you there?”
Triumphantly, she shouts into the phone, “Rubencito!”
At home, Ruben puts down the phone and looks at Smiley.
“I think she has Alzheimer’s.”
Smiley nodded.
“Yeah she forgets a lot. Did she forget your name?”
“No,” Ruben said. “But it took her a couple of minutes to remember it. Anyhow, she says we can come over on Saturday afternoon and she’ll make chile verde for a crowd.”
“Yum,” Smiley said. “At least she’s not forgetting how to cook. Still, we should have one of the cousins go stay with her, she might leave the stove on or something.”
“Good luck trying that,” Ruben said.
On Saturday morning over Smiley’s chilaquiles and fresh, cold agua de tamarindo, the Jokers, Dopey, Ruben and Smiley all discussed Tia Isbel.
The Jokers looked at each other shrugged and then Little Joker spoke, “We can check on her and she’ll never know. That back door of hers slides right open.”
Ruben glared at him. “And you know that, why?”
Little Joker looked sheepish. “Well, you know how all the barrio calls her a bruja?”
Ruben nodded, still glaring.
“Well, I wanted to see if it were true. So I went in there one night and there was nada. No altar, no brujeria stuff, nada. So I left and she caught me on the way out, then fed me eggs with salsa.”
“She caught you and you’re alive?”
Little Joker nodded. “Almost pissed myself, homes. But she laughed and made me help her with those fucking ray guns. That’s how we know what she does.”
He added, “Me and Big, we help her every night and she feeds us. But we’re not supposed to tell anyone. She does the bruja stuff to scare people so they don’t know she’s selling that shit. She’s a smart lady.”
Ruben sighed.
“Okay then.”