“Forsooth, ese! Forsooth!”
Ruben, a tall, brown-haired, and good-looking guy, was yelling from the alley to his best friend, Dopey, who was shorter, stockier, but just as handsome.
“Ruben, homie, what the fuck you talking ‘bout?”
“The Grail, ese. The pinche Holy Grail.”
Ruben was clutching a big-ass book in one hand, neatly pushing the ends of his carefully ironed shirt out of the way with the other as he hopped the fence into Dopey’s backyard. He landed on the freshly mown grass, his knees bent slightly and a big, excited grin on his face.
“The Holy Grail?”
“Pues sí, ese. You know those Arthurian dudes never found it.”
Ruben crossed the yard and came into Dopey’s garage, where the Dopester, as usual, was working on his car, Lorca. Ruben was grinning and waving the book.
“The Grail ain’t real, homie. Chale. Also, the Templars were French, spoke Old French, and probably would have said certes instead of forsooth.” Dopey shook his head.
“It is! I found this old book in my abuela’s basement from some old vato said he was a Templar. Whatever about the French, vato, who cares? The book, ese, that’s the real thing.”
“Vato was probably on PCP,” Dopey said. He sighed, whispered to Elena, “We care.” She nodded from inside the silvery green car.
“Nah, homie, the book is old. Watcha.” Ruben laid the old leather book down gently on the hood of Dopey’s silvery-green carrucha.
Dopey picked it up and gingerly turned the old pages, his eyes growing bigger as he saw drawings, scribblings, and Templar symbols mixed with Aztec calendar signs.
“Antonio Carbajal, Knight Templar,” Dopey read.
“Yeah, my abue said that dude was a descendant of some Templar dude that left Spain for France to become a Templar.”
Read more: Arthurian Cholos on a Quest for the Grail (or maybe just tacos)He went on to tell Dopey about Jacques de Molay the Templar Grand Master who was tortured and killed back in medieval France, while Dopey listened, wide-eyed. He continued his story, occasionally reading passages from the book. He told Dopey of how eighteen galleys left France in secret before the raid that arrested some 2000 knights. The galleys split up, with some going to Scotland, others to Portugal. Three ships, carrying sacred relics, including the grail, left from Scotland with Hughes de Chalon in the year 1308, a year after the Friday the 13th raid on the Templars in France. The three ships of Templars sailed to Newfoundland where they apparently destroyed the ships and settled into the land there. Each of the Templars formed a secret brotherhood sworn to protect the grail, and split up, intermarrying with native women, but holding onto their secret history. Dopey kept interjecting real history at him, but Ruben ignored it.
Ruben’s ancestor and his group kept moving westward until they reached the land that would later become Tenochitlan. There they settled with the people known as the Mexica and to others, the Aztecs, keeping the grail and the book of their escape hidden. They passed on their oral history to their descendants. The family kept it up, surviving the Conquista, protecting the grail, and kept on protecting it, till the Mexican Revolution, when they escaped into the United States, still bearing the grail. Each generation added to the book, some of the writing was in Nahuatl glyphs, some in medieval Spanish, some in Latin, and some in French. Then, jarringly, the book’s notes became written in Spanglish, Calo, and English. Each entry becoming more and more disjointed and skeptical of the grail and the power it supposedly had.
Ruben was talking fast, tripping over his words, while Dopey just leaned against his car, mouth slightly open, taking it all in and occasionally interjecting questions.
“And that’s that, homie,” Ruben said. “The last entry is from my great-grandfather.”
“¿En serio?”
“Serio.”
“So what did he do with it, ese?”
Ruben shrugged.
“That’s the thing. No one knows what happened to it, unless you count this vato Mario, my great-grandpop. He says he hid it.”
“Dang.”
Ruben nodded. “I feel like we should look for it. I mean, I’m the oldest son, so technically, it’s my duty to find it and take care of it and teach my son that Templar shit.”
“Except you have no idea where it is or what the hell Templar shit is,” said Dopey. “Dude, you used Middle English instead of Old French.”
Dopey handed Ruben back the book.
“Well, this book has a ton of shit in it and every generation the oldest wrote more in it. It stops round 1930.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. That vato Mario, my great-grandfather was living in Hollywood and working in construction. He didn’t have time for Templar stuff, and he mentioned something about the old cup his father said was the Grail.”
Ruben was excited again and showed Dopey the last page, written in badly spelled Spanish in an angry and rushed hand.
“Egyptian,” Dopey read slowly.
Ruben nodded. “Yeah, I know. He says he was working construction in 1928 on the Egyptian and buried the cup there so it would be safe just in case it was the real Grail.”
“That cray-cray looking place on McCadden?” Dopey asked.
“Eso.”
“Says he stuck it in one of the heads of Ramses over the main entry.”
“It can’t be that easy.” Dopey handed Ruben the book back.
“Who says breaking into the Egyptian and ripping off the heads on the main entry would be easy?” said Ruben.
“True dat.” Dopey scratched his chin in contemplation.
“We need to talk to the homies,” he said after a while.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“But, I’m really hungry too, so maybe we should just go get some tacos over on Pasadena Avenue,” Dopey said.
“You and your pinche barriga. Always hungry and always complaining you’re hungry,” Ruben said.
“Yeah, well, we could go get some tacos then I can take you in my carrucha over to Hollywood so’s we can check it out,” Dopey said.
Ruben perked up.
“You got gas, homie?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“Well, then vámonos,” Ruben said, opening the door and sliding into the back seat. “We can be Arthurian Cholos on a quest for the grail, homie!”