There she was. The bitterness of the oversweetened cranberry juice mixed with cheap vodka stabbed within my stomach, sloshing violently as a guy led her into the men’s bathroom. My mouth tasted like nail polish remover. I tried to rush as quickly as possible through the crowd, my adrenaline spiking, afraid of what he would try and how she would handle it. Like Fernanda or the inhabitant with the priest?
I burst through the door. A single dude zipped up his fly. He looked at me, and then at the last stall with a quick flick of his head. The smell of piss and pot filled the air like burning incense, stinging my nostrils. I opened the stall ready to raise hell only to see that Fernanda wasn’t Fernanda. Her body was pressed against some guy, charcoal fingertips wrapped around his throat. Tendrils of black and red radiated from where his skin touched hers. Fernanda’s black lipstick was smeared on his face, which was turning from purple to blue. But it was her tongue that made me shiver in the claustrophobic, sweltering bathroom. It appeared bright crimson with raised bumps pumping and prodding his like one snake devouring another. Strands of saliva dribbled out of both of their mouths. Her throat bulged and contracted with unnatural elasticity like she was swallowing something. Pupils lit by candle flames swung in my direction. She let go of the paralyzed man. Chest heaving, a low, husky moan escaped her mouth with every slow breath.
I tried to steady my horror, looking directly into her inhuman, double-lidded eyes. The vertical black slits were surrounded by shades of green and yellow like a brackish pool of water.
“Fernanda. Please speak to me. Come back.”
The thing ran her tongue across her lips and cocked her chin, nostrils flaring like an animal sensing something approaching. Fernanda’s face went slack as her body convulsed violently. One of her hands had crushed a water bottle that was on the verge of splitting in two. I rushed at her, afraid she would collapse against the toilet. I needed help but knew the others wouldn’t understand. I was on my own. I took the bottle of water, hoping a drink might aid her recovery. As I opened the cap and brought it to her mouth, she shrieked, “No!” and knocked it onto the unconscious or dead guy slumped against the sharpie-graffitied wall.
Fernanda was back, her pleading eyes filled with tears. Her pupils fluctuated, trying to find their original shape.
“He drugs women. He is so bad. Check his pockets if you don’t believe me. It was so ugly what I saw him do. But we ate his sin.”
There were voices in the bathroom. Trying not to make a sound, I locked the door and then leaned down to assess his condition. His pulse was weak but he was alive as far as I could tell. If he was in fact trying to drug females, he could be in Satan’s bed for all I cared. More justice in this toilet than out in the world. I kneeled on the yellowed dirty floor to search his pockets and found keys, cash, credit cards, ID, and a bag of pills.
“Take it.” Fernanda spoke with an authority that she’d never asserted before, but this time in her own voice. She looked at the body with curiosity. The sadness of moments ago was now a cold hardness. Silent rage. I knew it. I carried it like a purse.
I looked up at Fernanda for any sign the inhabitant might return. “I don’t want those pills,” I said. “Call the police; there is money and pills. I’m sure he will get charged for something.”
“No. Keep the money. You need it. For school. Looks like a few hundred.”
“Thou shalt not steal.” I was a poor man’s Mrs. Garcia. As much as I wanted the money, I didn’t want to get into trouble.
“Eye for an eye,” she retorted.
“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.” I wasn’t afraid of the inhabitant. Time served in church had left me prepared for holy war.
Fernanda softened and kneeled next to me. “Lourdes, you will never get ahead if you don’t take every opportunity. Come on, you’re smarter than this. We will be blamed. Not him. We are underage, drinking, wearing makeup, looking for trouble. Look at that top you’re wearing with your chichis looking all perky.”
For once, I was good cop and she was bad. I couldn’t argue. Fuck it. I flushed the pills down the toilet and took the cash. The boys on Wall Street get bonuses, some stole millions. Hell, there were governments that siphoned off entire countries. Could the inhabitant swallow all their sin? Plus the money would come in handy because I had a feeling my mother might need to borrow it.
The voices had left by this time. I unlocked the door and peered out to be sure. Nothing. We cleaned Fernanda’s face with a rough paper towel, then walked out to everyone in the club. Ana, Perla, and Pauline were huddled at the bar looking like they were trying to hatch a plan for the worst possible outcome they could think of.
“What you pendejas clucking about?”
“¡Dios! Jesus! Fernanda, you scared us! What happened?” Ana threw her arms around us.
“She was talking to some dude. I got to talking to his friend. Let’s get out of this place. You go first. I need to pee.”
I nodded my head to Fernanda with a knowing look before walking to the least populated part of the bar to flag one of the male bartenders.
“Hey, there is a dude in the toilet that isn’t doing so well. You need to get him some help. Think it’s drugs.” Before
