The Misbegotten

It was just after 3:45 in the morning when my mother fucking cellphone rang. By the end first shrill warble, I was thoroughly pissed off. After all, it had been a long night.

Following Ramona’s straight-forward articulation of the unease we’d all been feeling - but not voicing. And, more to quell any further misgivings Tirza may have been experiencing, we decided, Ramona and I would sleep in my bed. My cousin and Tirza would sleep in the, heretofore, unused bed my parents had provided for Katie.

It had been an uncomfortable ten minutes following that decision. The rest of us made ready to turn in, knowing we had to get up early to make sure we hid Tirza from the rest of my family. We had a Saturday morning to contend with.. This just about guaranteed the rest of the ensuing day would be just as long and difficult as this last one.

For some reason, both my cousin and girlfriend changed from the bedclothes they were wearing already. Maybe they had felt them soiled after the intensity of Tirza’s appearance. I couldn’t tell you for sure.

Me, I was content with what I’d been wearing, so I didn’t follow suit.

Katie had put on the pajamas she had worn the night we had fucked our brains out. And, of course, that made it difficult for me to concentrate.

Ramona donned a pretty, form-fitting camisole and a matching pair of bikini briefs. I got an impression, the moment I saw her, why she had changed. She wanted to make a point. She was sending a silent message to my ex-girlfriend. She wasn’t going to alter an iota of her routine with me just because Tirza was present. If she wanted to wear sexy lingerie to bed, then, by God, she was going to wear them.

Tirza glanced at my girlfriend’s full breasts and firm, jutting butt, the edge of her mouth raised a fraction. The eye on that same side of her face squinted just as much. It was Tirza’s unspoken way of saying, Ok girl, I get it… but you didn’t have to go that far, and that's the truth. It was a look I’d seen a thousand times.

Nonetheless, that was Ramona, as subtle as an Alabama homophobe in the middle of a gay pride parade. She’d even gone so far as sticking her hand down the cotton pajama bottoms I was wearing when we had settled underneath the blankets. She had gripped my cock with a firm hand, the tips of her fingers caressing the top of my scrotum. She had leaned close and whispered in my ear, “If you want to make her jealous, now’s the perfect time.”

I removed her hand, gave her a quick kiss and rolled over. I was way too overwrought to stoop to making Tirza jealous. After the monumental loss she’d experienced earlier that night, it felt… well, it felt cruel.

Ramona’s giggled, but stayed otherwise silent and snuggled up behind me. Like usual, she pressed her body against the length of mine.

That was no less than an hour ago, and now, my fucking cell phone was ringing!

I was sleeping on the left hand side of bed, my customary side when any of my girlfriends stayed the night. Groggy as fuck, I slithered onto my side. I reached for my cell phone that had been charging peacefully - and fucking quietly - upon the nightstand beside the bed.

Ramona’s hand fell across my bare back and thumped upon the sheets. She hadn’t so much as twitched, which was typical. She slept like the dead.

My eyes danced over the digital display of my bedside clock.

You gotta be kidding me! I raged. 3:45 am! The god damned world better be burning, if some motherfucker’s gonna be calling me at this hour.

“What???” I asked, my voice dripping with accusation, and was maybe a bit petulant too.

“Hey, Eff, that you?” came a familiar voice on the other side of the connection.

My mouth gaped huge, I heard my jaw crack in my skull.

JACOB!?! Could it be true!?!

“Eff? Eff? Is that you?” said my dead cousin into my ear. “Oh God, please be you. Please be you.”

“Jacob?” I squealed like a new-crowned Prom Queen.

I felt Ramona stiffen on the bed beside me. Within seconds, she was sitting up, bouncing her ass across the blankets. She moved so close to me, I could feel a large breast pressing against my back.

One word had awakened her, where a 7.0 earthquake couldn’t - go figure.

“Estefan?” asked my cousin from beyond the grave.

“Yeah, man, it’s me,” I replied, though my tone was shrill. It didn’t sound like me at all.

“How can I be sure that it is you?” he challenged.

What, Jacob being cautious? Now the whole world was going to explode.

It came out of my mouth before I conscious thought could intervene, “Because, you’re a deeeeck.”

I heard a massive sigh through the cell. “Oh thank god, it is you! I was hoping the fucking NIA hadn’t snatched you up yet. It’s good to hear your voice.”

It was one of those rare times when we thinking the exact same thing. “It’s good to hear you too,” I mumbled, stifling a sob, choking instead.

My fucking cousin was alive! My numb-nutted, pain-in-the-ass, dip-shit cousin was ALIVE!!!!!

I couldn’t believe what was happening. “You fucken cockroach, I thought you were dead!”

“I thought I was dead too, cuz.” His tone made me frown a little. Was he tired or trying to give the impression he was tired? I couldn’t tell which. Then: “Cockroach? Why do I have to be all that?” A small bit of his former inflection returned.

“Yeah man, a fucken cockroach, that’s what you are,” I explained. “You could get hit by a ten megaton nuclear bomb and still walk away without a freakin’ scratch! Fuck, Jake, I thought you were dead, man.” Some of the emotion I had been feeling earlier crept into my voice.

It quieted Jacob. We didn’t talk that way to one another.

I listened on my end of the line, my breath ragged and harsh.

“I’m sorry, Estefan that you had to go through all that.” His tone was small and pregnant with regret.

I stayed quiet for almost a full minute, letting go of all the anguish and torment I’d been feeling for most of the night and early morning. I wasn’t completely mad at the dude, but, maybe I was, just a little, I guess. Through no fault of his own, I assure you, but I had mourned the fucker. It had taken a lot out of me.

“Hey Eff, you remember Aunt Irene?” he asked, the subject caught me by complete surprise.

Aunt Irene? I hadn’t thought about her in years. She’d been gang raped and murdered by her boyfriend and his friends half a decade ago. Later, the police found her stuffed in an oversized cooler under a railroad crossing somewhere in East Los Angeles. Which one, though, I don’t recall. The initial uproar our Uncles thwarted within weeks. They – even from prison – had the ability to reach out and touch those of us in the real world and they were good. By the time the funeral was over, the family had pushed entire situation aside, preferring it forgotten. Revenge had been sweet.

Most of the family failed to mention her within a year of her grisly demise.

[He pauses the program and types the following with a vicious smile etched upon his face.]

A quick note to the reader: If you’re ever bored and have nothing better to do and you find yourself wondering about Angel Free Town. If, for some reason, you find yourself in Preamber Park - it was Scholl Canyon in my day - just north of the old Pasadena cattle farm. If you happen to take the trail to its end at the waterfall two miles in and you walk behind it. You’ll be standing on the graves of the assholes that violated my Aunt centuries ago. Dig down a bit, take a souvenir – free of charge, courtesy of the Aegis Synod. ;) !

[He restarts the software, chortling to himself.]

“Eff, you do remember her, right?” implored Jacob, made impatient by my hesitation.

“Yeah, yeah, man, I remember. Why bring that up at a time like this?” I replied with a question of my own.

“You remember how she was always trying to find something we’d done wrong, so she could punish us?” went on my cousin.

The old memories were beginning to flood my mind. “Yeah.” I licked my lips still a little on edge whenever I thought of that mean old bitch. This was despite the fact, I was seventeen at the time and could’ve kicked the shit out of her without issue.

Some memories from early childhood just stick with you.

“Do you remember the game we used to play, so she couldn’t figure out what we were talking about?”

“You mean ‘the Op –‘,” I began, but Jacob cut me off.

“Yes! That one!” he blurted loud. Then, he paused and seemed to take a deep breath. Or maybe it was interference from a gust of wind. I couldn’t discern which. “We’re gonna play that now.”

My brow furled. Jacob was asking if I still remembered “the Opposite Game”, a game we played years ago. We would say exactly the opposite of what we really meant, to fool our mean aunt. That way she’d have no clue what we were saying to one another. It had worked like a charm back then.

Then, it all came together.

It made sense. I slapped my palm against my forehead at my own thick headedness.

From behind, Ramona whispered, “What’s going on, Eff?”

I reached behind me and gave her thigh a quick squeeze. It was a gesture we used between one another, signaling the other to be quiet for the moment.

She sat back a little, concern written on her face. Though we sat in the semi-darkness of my room, I could see her clearly. Jacob’s resurrection had heightened all my senses it seemed.

Jacob knew how easy it was to tap cell phone calls, and, because of that, he wanted to talk in code. This told me the NIA was still after him, likely close on his heels. But it told me something else also. He had information – intelligence vital enough for him to risk the call in the first place.

“First off, dude, are you ok? I mean are you in a safe place?” I had to ask. I had to know he was safe for the time being.

“Hell no!” he said at once, but he had put too much emphasis upon each word. Anyone who’d spent a significant amount of time with the kid would’ve known he was lying. He was already playing the game. “I’m fucking stuck here at Uncle Pablo’s scared as shit, man. You know how unorganized his stupid-ass is. Even if he did believe what I’ve been telling him, he’d still be fumbling around the house, trying to figure out what the fuck to do. Instead, the fucken bastard’s passed out drunk on the damned couch. Can you believe that, shit?”

As I think about it now, all these years later, I cannot help but shake my head at Jacob’s prowess with misdirection. Even back then, when we were nothing but frightened teenagers, he was a master at it. It was a mere five sentences, spoken to me in the middle of that night, during the summer of 2018. Five sentences, and yet they spoke volumes to anyone who’d grown up in our misbegotten family.

First of all, Jacob wasn’t scared, not in the least. Second, Uncle Pablo was dead and had been so for a decade and a half. He died in prison because he’d had a big mouth that needed shutting. At least, that’s what they told to us kids. Whenever one of us got the courage to ask about the disappearance of our wild, skinny uncle, it was the same answer. Of him, I recall a perpetual drunk, but always with a smile for every one of us.

Because I knew the truth of our collective past, what Jacob said told me the following. He was somewhere safe, maybe even secure. The fact he’d mentioned something about disorganization and sloth, gave over to a third line of thought. He was somewhere where shit was tight, where things were happening. I might’ve guessed, if he hadn’t mentioned something about no one believing him. By the rule of our childhood game, I knew someone took his story serious, as the gospel. When I put that together with the other things he’d said in code - efficiency, action and security - I knew exactly where he was. He was with our Uncles – Juan and Roberto Marquez.

They both got paroled in 2008 when the “so-called” housing crisis had crippled the economy. During the “big recession” the federal government told us it could no longer fully fund the vast prison system. Thus, they had no choice but to release many career felons back into society.

How a twice convicted, drug-trafficker and rapist (Uncle Juan) and a self-confessed murderer (Uncle Roberto) managed to eke their way out of jail, none of us ever knew. From what we heard in the streets way back then, the two of them had always had connections and that was enough. If one believed that, then the prospect of two career criminals beating the broken prison system didn’t sound that farfetched. In actuality, it seemed more typical to me than anything else.

So, I sat there on my bed with my girlfriend, anxious as she was awaiting some sort of news. I let it all sink in, and for the first time in days, I began to see a light at the end of the tunnel. It might be a small light, but it was illuminant nonetheless.

“What’da’ya think you’ll do?” I asked just to keep the conversation flowing, so that any unwarranted ears wouldn’t suspect. We didn’t want to give the impression we meant anything else. Those spying ears needed to take what we were saying at face value.

“I have no choice, Eff. I have to leave and ride things out someplace else. You know Uncle Pablo, he won’t do shit. I’m fucked one way or another with these fucking NIA assholes crawling up my bunghole.”

Which meant – he was going to stay put, our uncles were up to something. And that, for the time being, he had shaken free of the government Shock-troopers.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to see you anytime soon,” he went on.

I continued to translate what he meant in my head.

“So, if anything happens, you’re most likely on your own for now, Estefan.”

Translation: “See you soon and we’re going to have help – a lot of it.”

“Are things still bad on the streets?” I asked, trying to get a feel for what he knew. Because I'd been cooped up in my house for the past few days, so I had no damn idea.

“Naw.”

This was an emphatic “yes”.

“How’s the neighborhood holding up?” I continued.

“It’s pretty good, now that you mention it. Everyone seems to have weathered this ill-planned storm without much loss.”

I felt my eyes roll back in my head as the true import of his words I extrapolated. The raid by the NIA had been horrific, systematic, and left many dead in its wake. I wondered just how many had died just because something from the heavens had fallen upon them and changed them forever more. They had no choice in the matter, something they couldn’t taste or smell, invisible to them, was changing them. True, they would transform into beings unlike any other to walk the earth, but fuck, did they deserve to die?

Did I or Katie or Ramona deserve slaughtering?

“I think I’m going to go now, Eff. I have a lot of things I still have to figure out. I will try and contact you in a few weeks,” muttered my cousin.

Like I said, he was a master at disguising the fact he was lying through his teeth. He’d just told me a plan was already in place and he would be getting back to me soon. Maybe The Uncles had a way to get all us out of Dodge and somewhere safe before we ended shot through the head. Maybe.

It was a faint hope, but it was something. It was a hell of a lot more to look forward to than the situation I’d fallen asleep within an hour earlier.

“Ok, Jake… good luck,” was all I could think of to say.

“Thanks, cuz, I’m going to need every last bit of it.” He even sounded on edge, just that tab bit frightened, giving total credence to what he was saying. The opposite, of course, meant he was confident with what was going on - whatever it was. He was trying to placate my nerves.

He cut the line. My cell phone went dead in my ear. My cousin Jacob was alive and quite well, or so it would seem.

I took the smart device from my head and glanced over at Ramona. It startled me to see both Katie and Tirza sitting on the bed beyond my girlfriend. All three of them gazed through the semi-darkness with hope and anxiety mixing their expressions.

“Well?” prompted Ramona, seeing my surprise over the presence of the other girls. She couldn’t wait any longer. She wanted an explanation of the phone call.

I let my eyes meet hers and couldn’t help the smile. I felt it spread across my face, broad and boyish with glee. “Jacob’s alive!” I said as quiet as I could manage, though I wanted to exclaim into the night. Even then, my voice was somewhat loud in the confines of the Loft.

“You are shitting me?” asked Katie over Ramona’s shoulder.

I just smiled like a clown, my head on a swivel – the ubiquitous negative.

Tirza’s eyes never left my face.

From across the bed, I could tell she was glad for me.

Ramona leaned back, using one arm to support her. “Leave it to, Jacob, to get out of the shit without a single skidmark on his tighty-whiteys,” she murmured. She shook her head like I’d just done a few minutes before.

“He got away… even after being shot at like a thousand times, the motherfucken cockroach got away,” I repeated. How could I not find his ability to emerge unscathed amazing? It seemed my cousins could worm his way out of what seemed hopeless situations.

All three of the girls chuckled into their hands.

“Did he say anything else?” wondered Katie aloud, crawling across the bed on all fours. She came closer to me and my girlfriend.

Tirza stayed where she was. She gathered her legs underneath her, sitting cross-legged at the edge of the foot of the bed. She kept her hands in her lap, fingers twiddling.

“Yeah, he did,” I began, and then explained the details of our childhood game. “So, by sticking the rules of the game, Jacob was able to tell me in code, he was safe. He was with our uncles Juan and Roberto. They are working on a plan that might be able to help us all. And, that’s the most important thing of all.”

“Wait!” interrupted Tirza, which sort of caught us all off guard.

We all turned toward her.

“Jacob is with your uncle Juan?” she continued, the ire and aversion already seeping into her tone. “Juan Marquez?”

“Yes, Teezee, he is,” I answered with reluctance, already aware of where this was going.

The other two teenage girls were looking back and forth between us, trying to figure out what was going on.

“He’s a fucking pervert, Estefan!” she accused. Her voice was loud. It had to have carried down to the second story below us.

“Shit, Tirza, would you keep your voice down!” I admonished, placing my hands face down before me. I jockeyed them up and down a few times to get my message across.

“Sorry,” she said, almost at once, “but that still doesn’t change the fact the asshole felt me up at your uncle’s wedding.” She was standing now, a fist before her. Her entire form was rigid with anger and defiance.

“What?!?” inquired Ramona, her question laced with nausea. Her eyes were like liquid fire when she gazed upon me.

God damn, girl, it wasn’t me that had groped Tirza’s tits!

I exploded with a sigh. “It was some time ago, when Tirza and I were first going out. My uncle Juan III was marrying my aunt Susana. This was back in 2014. My uncle Juan Jr. somehow got Tirza alone, in a corner. He began grabbing at her for a few seconds, before she could get away. He didn’t get the chance to do anything worse, but still knowing that fucker’s past, he would’ve if he had the chance. Still though, my step-dad and Johan got pissed off. They gave good ole Uncle Juan a nice beat down in the parking lot afterward.” I gave Tirza a crooked smile.

She sort of grimaced, but did sit back down upon the bed.

“Tirza got one good kick in before we left him there, a little bloodier than he had been before…” I trailed off into silence.

“Fuck, Eff, you think it’s a good idea to get help from your uncles?” asked Katie, her eyes wide and skittish. “I mean, especially if one of them might be like a fucking rapist and shit.”

I shrugged. “What other choice do we have - them or a bullet in the head? I’m just saying, because Jacob said the streets are running with fucking blood. The NIA has flooded the entire neighborhood. They are out to kill all Mutos on sight.”

“Choice or not, Estefan, if that fucker better not so much as looks at me the wrong way. Or I’m gonna slice his nutsack wide open with a butcher knife,” warned Tirza. She had moved closer to the rest of us.

The emphatic tone of her voice made Ramona giggle with appreciation. Ramona had always gravitated toward tough bitches… even if they are rivals for my affection. She didn’t care; she loved them all the same.

“I will make sure to warn him, Tirza,” I said, hoping to placate the woman in miniature. But, I knew it was an effort wrought in futility.

If Tirza didn’t like you, there was precious else one could do to change her mind. She was sometimes the most stubborn person I had ever met, Leda included.

Her eyes flashed in the absence of light.

I knew what I had said hadn’t amounted to a three-foot shit pile. If Uncle Juan Jr. tried something with her, he would most definitely pay for it.

“Estefan?” queried Katie after a few heartbeats.

“Yeah?”

“If ‘The Uncles’ are so bad ass and all, how come they didn’t seek revenge after they Uncle Enrique and Johan up your Uncle Juan in the parking lot?”

No one ever said Katie was stupid.

I laughed, uncomfortable again, and ran a hand over my scalp. “Because my Uncle Roberto put a penance on him,” I replied out of instinct. It was a family thing.

“A penance?” asked my girlfriend.

“Yeah, exactly that,” I answered, nodding. As I glanced around at the girls, I realized not one of them would know what I was talking about. This was family terminology, our lexicon. I tried to explain.

“Because Tirza was my girl at the time, she was considered off limits, a civilian so to speak. Since my stepdad had always been on their good side, this distinction had to be honored. When Uncle Juan overstepped that boundary, it was, in the eyes of my uncle Roberto, an offense punishable by penance. Should one be dealt, and one was, there would be no form of retaliation allowed. After all, my uncle Juan had fucked up in the first place. If Juan had come after my Stepdad or Johan, then he would’ve had to face Uncle Roberto.

“It’s actually kinda simple when you think about it,” I finished, surprised at my sudden smugness.

“But isn’t he younger?” asked Ramona, tentative.

I nodded. “That doesn’t mean shit, Mona.”

“Why?”

“’Cuz no one fucks with Uncle Roberto.”

It was silent for almost a minute, until:

“We should go to bed,” urged Katie, “we still have a ton of shit to figure out.”

“Yeah,” agreed Tirza.

“All this crap is just getting way too weird,” commented Ramona, shaking her head in resignation.

“Well, that’s my family.” It was the only phrase that encapsulated the circumstances as I knew them.

[Another pause.]

My family was so many odd things, all wrapped into one gigantic ball of good and bad, the righteous and the wicked locked in battle for all of time. The complexity from which I originated was the wellspring of my ability to cope. If I hadn’t witnessed so many undesirable things as a child, I don’t think I could’ve survived the months that followed. I would’ve crawled up into a ball, on the floor, and gone insane.

You don’t get to choose your family.

[Another restart.]

We all made our ways back to our beds. Within half an hour, we were all fast asleep.