His family calls him "Rocky" but his Mexican roots, first generation in Arizona, Jose is his given name.Catholic, of course, and church every Saturday night as Sunday morning most of the family took that day off from the hard labor that kept food on the table, and kept medicine for Rocky.
Nobody seemed to know what was wrong with him. He was young when the problems started. His ability to walk began to wane.
Though as a child he was able to crawl normally, then began pulling himself up on the furniture.
His mother, who worked three jobs, had little time for Rocky, as his grandmother, Abuela, was his keeper.
He never knew much about his father, though his grandmother had plenty to say, mostly in Spanish, which Rocky was only slightly able to understand. But her anger was a universal language.
Rocky stayed home from school, he didn't have a wheelchair until he was almost 12, which meant mobility was difficult, and he spent most of his time in the two room shack where he and his mother, and sometimes her boyfriends lived.
His grandmother had her own home, one with better insulation to keep the hot Arizona summer heat out.
After years of watching him struggle to get to tables, sit on the couch, or try to walk with a cane, his grandmother wanted to change his life.
"I can make you normal, Rocky, make you walk upright like a man."
Rocky was now 16, he had a wheelchair, a girlfriend who brought him fresh fruit and vegetables everyday she returned from the fields.
He would roll outside at sunset each night to await her arrival. His pants protruding, as his legs may not work, but his dick could get hard, and that was something he enjoyed.
Laticia, a small woman, short, heavy set, could do the work of three men in the fields. The boss was a macho Mexican man who didn't appreciate this young girl showing up his crew of part-time American workers.
One night after work on a Friday night, payday, Laticia, with a rag full of squash and beans, thrown over her shoulder, stood in line to pick up her pay.
The boss told her to wait he had run out of money.
All she wanted to do was get back to Rocky who would be waiting for her by the dirt road where the truck dropped off the workers at night.
She would hop on his wheelchair, feeling Rocky's hard-on beneath her, and he would roll the chair toward her house.
But on this night, Rocky would wait, getting angry and frightened that she didn't get off the truck this Friday.
He yelled at the workers, who knew the boss had Laticia somewhere for something they wanted to know nothing about.
Why tell and lose a job you can't lose. "Rocky, she will be okay," one man yelled to him.
Others were laughing at Rocky who was furious as he could not himself go off and find her. His wheelchair, a carriage to the house, the local store, and the dirt road: but he knew he could not get very far.
The truck pulled away, dirt in the air, clinging to the wetness of his tears and sweat, as he worried desperately about his lover.
He swung the chair around and went to his grandmother, busting through her door, a dirt cloud hanging over him as he tried to breath so he could talk.
"They took her, abuela."
"Took who?"
"Laticia, they took her. She wasn't on the truck."
"Maybe she needed a night off from you Rocky, you stalk her like a coyote, now sit down and eat."
"NO!" He yelled. "Help me find her grandmother, you have a car."
"That hardly runs, chico, just sit down she will come back."
"I am sitting down, I sit down all the time, I want to find her, please help."
His grandmother, pressed the wrinkles of her forehead together, looking like she was deciding on something.
"All right, my boy, let us go and look for her."
Rocky looked relieved, as his abuela found her purse and keys, and they went out to the car. The car, with little paint, rust mostly, started up with a couple of pops like gun fire, but the engine kept churning, and gasoline odors surrounded the car.
The tiny Indian woman got into the driver's seat, her head hardly above the steering wheel.
"Where do you want to go Rocky?" she asked.
"To her boss."
Though there was much squealing coming from the car, it made it down the dirt road, onto the highway, spewing some smoke, but still running.
It was pitch black when they arrived at the office, or actually just a shack. The backfire from the car announced their arrival.
A man came out of the darkness, only his white shirt could be seen.
Rocky thru his wheelchair out of the car and jumped in the seat. He wheeled over to the man.
"Laticia, she works for you and has not returned."
A cigarette being dragged on, lit up the man's face. Rocky could see the cuts and scratches. In horror, he suddenly knew that Laticia fought him off, but she didn't win.
"I don't know what you're talking about cripple, but I suggest you leave now."
"He's not leaving unless she comes with us," his abuela yelled out of the car.
He blew smoke into Rocky's face then took the cigarette and put it out on his left leg, smelling burning denim and flesh. Rocky never made a sound, but his legs were not without feeling, only strength.
Rocky got back in the car and told his grandmother to drive away. Which she did about a mile, backfiring all the way. "Stop and let me out."
"You can't do anything Rocky, you're not strong enough." she begged him not to get out of the car.
She could feel the future sometimes and now she had chills waiting as Rocky left to go back and find Laticia, the only girl who cared for him.
It wasn't a backfire, it was a shotgun blast, and then silence.
In an instant his grandmother started the engine pulling around and heading for the shack.
With the headlights dim as the alternator was about as effective as the rest of the pile of junk, she could hardly see. But you don't need to see what you can feel, as the car crashed into the side of the shack.
She hit her head on the steering wheel and was unconscious for a long time.
When she awoke, there was some light on the horizon. She opened the door of the car, and got out.
Rocky's wheelchair lay on the floor on it's side.
"Where's Rocky," she yelled.
She heard a few groans and found her grandson, with his face down, blood trickling down his neck.
"Oh, my god Rocky, don't die on me."
The diminutive woman who had spent her life working hard, was able to drag Rocky to the car.
"No, he has her, we have to go find them."
"We can't Rocky, I have to get you to a doctor."
"There are no doctors, what are you talking about, we have to, please."
He passed out cold.
She put him in the car, grabbed the wheelchair, and backed out of the shack as the sun began rising.
"I'll help you Rocky, my sweet boy. No more of this. No more."
Chapter 2
Witch doctor?
She made a sharp turn away from the house and down a river bed. The old car shook, rolling Rocky around in the back seat.
Blood spattered all over the car as his wounds were open and still bleeding.
"I know a doctor Rocky and she will take care of all of this." She looked behind the seat at her grandson covered in blood.
He was groaning in pain, starting to wake up.
The old woman got out of the car and walked to the shack built up against the rocks, hiding the framed hut.
"I know you're in there and I need you to help my grandson."
"No, go away."
The old woman was not going to take no for an answer. "You are shit. You can't do anything anyway."
She could hear the scuffing sounds of wood being dragged across the dirt.
"You don't scare me witch, I'm too old to be scared."
"You will be scared soon." A voice threatened and then coughed.
"The woman came out, black skin, hair rolled into stiff pieces, sticking out atop her head. She was taller than the door she exited thru and she carried a crooked limb from a tree.
"Old woman you are not welcome, you know nothing of me."
"I know you saved my daughter."
The woman's black face lit up, as if she remembered the day it happened.
"Come to the car and save him," she paused, "please."
The woman laughed at her. "You save him, you have power too."
"I don't use it anymore."
"Well, maybe you should," she looked down drawing a diagram in the dirt with her stick.
Rocky had awoken and pushed open the back door not knowing where he was at or who this dark woman was.
"Abuela, what are we doing, we have to find Laticia, we have to go." After his last word came out, he spilled out of the car like a fish from it's tank.
"He's worth saving?"
The old woman didn't like what she had said about her grandson. Suddenly, out of a clear sky, came a small rock, straight down onto the top of the witch's head.
Indignant, she told the interloper to use her own powers.
She picked up Rocky and brought him into the hut. "Now do what you need to do, I don't care. Fix him so he can be the man he was meant to be."
"I have a policy of one fix per family and you chose your daughter."
"And you gave the evil to my grandson."
"I told you what the price was and you didn't listen."
"I've changed my mind. I want him well. I want him to be able to work, have a family." She began to sob.
"With the power of evil inside the boy, I call upon the spirits of sickness to remove the evil, and allow the boy his life back. But his mother must die if this is to happen."
"What?" The old woman couldn't believe what she heard. "You cannot kill my daughter."
"That is the only way old woman or go away now."
She looked at Rocky and remembered the first visit to this woman more than 30 years ago. Her daughter, legs lifeless, was on her way out. And she had made a deal her daughter's life for her first grandson.
Only Abuela knew the truth.
"Why can't you just take the evil back to my daughter why does she have to die."
"She doesn't, you decide."
Moments of silence passed as the Sun was atop the two casting down rays of hot sunshine.
"Save him," the old woman finally relented.
"Done."
The grandmother cried as she sat over the prostrated body of her daughter's first born. She had no other choice she kept telling herself.
Yes, feeling the guilt for all those years, being the only one who knew how her daughter had healed and why her son had not. Her husband left shortly after: he felt the evil.
Rocky awoke, his grandmother, sitting next to him, wet with tears, not moving. He tugged at her sleeve.
Her eyes were glassy and did not respond.
Rocky shouted to her but she said nothing. In a panic, he stood up and grabbed her and carried her to the car.
He looked back at two candles burning in the tower of rocks, somehow knowing he must leave if anyone was going to live. His grandmother had known evil and he knew that it was only a matter of time.
Not realizing he was suddenly healthy, he began to drive away in the car, back to his house. He ran inside, knowing what he would find.
His mother, was dead, lying on the couch, eyes open.
He quickly picked her up and ran to the car with her. His grandmother was still in a trance.
Moments later the car spun up to the office where he had last left off.
Chapter 3
Making it right again
With his mother dead in the passenger seat and his grandmother in a trance, unable to move, he looked at them, raised his hand making the sign of the cross Jesus had died on for their sins, and believed.
He knew the sins that had taken place. Not that people talked about it, they just understood it, those who lived in the Valley of the Blood Rock.
No longer encumbered by his weakened limbs, and the gunshot healed on his face, he pushed his way into the office.
Lying on the floor was Laticia, her clothes torn, and her face burned by cigarettes. He leaned down to her listened to her breath, he could feel the relief. He gently pulled her up into his arms and ran for the car.
When he got there, the boss, sporting reflective sunglasses and a hand rolled cigarette, was standing next to the car looking inside. Two other men stood next to him.
"The old bitches are dead, I guess," he was telling the other men.
Rocky walked up to them with Laticia in his arms.
"Get away from the car before I kill you."
The three laughed. But then they realized he was no longer in his wheelchair and he had no wounds on his face or hands as he did the night before when the shotgun pellets pelted him.
There was a sudden shift of fear.
The three men began walking away, calling out prayers, afraid, and asking for forgiveness.
Rocky couldn't see the apparition, an angel, glowing, and humming, as she carried a small bird in her hands.
The bird, began to talk, "evil dies here today."
The men now ran.
Rocky was perplexed as he could see none of it, only the reactions of the men. He thought they had gone out of their minds and maybe they had.
The angel released the bird who flew into the car. Now Rocky could see that there was movement. His mother sat up, white dove, on her arm.
She looked at it, smiled and it flew off into the horizon.
Laticia, from a family of "believers" who fought the "evil ones" awoke to see she was in the arms of Rocky.
He smiled at her, holding her close to his face. She smiled, in awe of what she was witnessing, an angel stood behind Rocky, her delicate arm resting on his shoulder.
Epilogue: Several weeks later, the three women sat around the table husking corn and making tortillas for the party which will take place after the wedding. Rocky had asked Laticia to marry him a hundred times, but it was not until she knew that the evil was gone and the curse had been lifted, that she could be with him.
But she had known the day would come.
The witch in the desert had learned that the power over others, the power to torture and torment in the name of healing, would forever be her own curse. Each time she came out of her hut, the sun would burn her skin, and she could no longer live in the light.
She no longer had light.
The angel stayed on with Rocky and Laticia as their hearts were always in the light.
Laticia laughed as she realized Rocky could not see the Angel, but that he had brought her into his life, by his faith in the good of the world.
He never knew what his grandmother did, the decision she made. He didn't need to know. However, his mother would look at his grandmother with complete grace and understanding. Forgiveness had taken the place of the curse.
The evil had gone....
