Nails

By Melody Romancito

Great beads of sweat stood out on the forehead of Frank Velarde. One at a time they broke cohesion and streamed down the sides of his face, into his eyes and mixed with his tears of frustration. He wrestled a heavy ladder under the opening to the garage attic.

"Damn you!" he seethed quietly in the dusty, cluttered garage. "Damn!"

In the house everything was upside down ­ drawers pulled out, cabinets and closets ransacked. Tumbled contents blocked hallways.

Frank searched for his special box. At first, he was only slightly agitated that he couldn't lay his hands on it immediately. Through the years Frank realized getting upset never helped him find it. Frank knew if he sat down, closed his eyes, breathed deeply and regularly, the box would eventually tell him where it was.

While Frank searched the house he had plenty of time to reminisce about how the box got started. Since the day before, except for a brief nap and a couple of quick, standing meals, Frank had every opportunity to think about the box as he searched.

When he first noticed it was gone it was like a cold scalding rush that nailed him to the spot.

Where was the box? Now, that question hung in every room, with every breath Frank exhaled. In every drop of sweat that rolled off his brow.

If anyone were to peek into the small, dark windows of the old Velarde house, they would see a tall, heavy man with pale skin and thick, curly black hair, somewhere in his early forties. He might have looked as though he was praying.

When Frank's memory took him by the hand, he always found Tia Tita sitting by the fire in the great kitchen in the old part of the house. Frank rarely went into the old part now, but as a boy, he found its cool, dark recesses comforting.

Tia Tita was the one who made him start his box. Actually, he thought, he never really had a choice.

When Frank remembered Tia Tita he always recalled her smell. Never flowery or powdery like the other old women he knew, she smelled of earth and other things. Roots. Green. Brown. The dirt ­ leaves and rot of the garden ­ not the flowers or the fruit.

"Always burn your hair, Frankie. If not, one of these Madera witches will wilt you," she would say to him privately.

Frank remembered the stories she would tell ­ all of them set in the vicinity, either in Ojo Caliente, La Madera or El Rito. There were sorcerers, witches and enchantments. Embrujadas, she called them. A long-standing rivalry between the villages of La Madera and Ojo Caliente added to the fuel of witchcraft, retribution and other bad luck.

Tia Tita was from Ojo Caliente, and relished telling wide-eyed Frank the story of how she ended up in La Madera. And whenever she mentioned the name, "La Madera," she always spat on the ground.

She frequently mentioned that she was part of the booty ­ along with a sizable chunk of land West of Embudo and a decent horse ­ in a wild bet placed by her father during an especially well-matched cock fight.

While she told her stories she fed hairs from her brush into the fire. They sparked and fizzed with flame, one by one. She assiduously fed her fingernail parings into the fire as well.

If a witch ever got a hold of his hair, she informed him, that through black magic the witch might as well have Little Frankie himself.

Quicker than he could have ever anticipated she reached out and with a viper-like strike of the scissors clipped a lock from his head.

"Go stand in the corner, over there, and face the wall," she commanded.

He did as he was told, and closed his eyes tightly. Maybe he had done something wrong? Tia Tita was always a little scary anyway.

Tia Tita muttered and repeated three words Frank can never again recall. But with striking clarity, Frank has no problem bringing to mind how, with each repetition, her voice became more and more poisonous. Soon, a hot, tightening band of fire constricted his chest. It grew tighter and hotter until, finally, he cried out.

Tia Tita stopped chanting and clapped her hands. The tightness ceased. When he turned around, Tia Tita called his name and motioned him to come closer. He cowered but obeyed her nonetheless.

"You take this jito," she hissed and held out the hair. Watch yourself," she cautioned, "Or you'll be under some witch's thumb. Now take this and put it somewhere safe."

She roughly pulled out his hand and returned the lock to Frank who closed his hand so not a single strand could escape. He fled to his room, and with his free left hand, got out an old wooden cigar box his grandfather has given him. Frank placed the lock of hair carefully inside, and that was the beginning of the box.

He felt the weight of his responsibility finally settle on his shoulders at the age of five. If he had given it any thought, Frank would say he became an adult, not some belated and arbitrary age like eighteen or twenty-one. At forty-three, Frank had been an adult for a long, long time.

Oh, he knew he couldn't possibly keep everything that sloughed off his body. And he knew his obsession was not about feces or urine ­ products of elimination.

As long as he didn't think about it too much, he could cope with the idea that he shed skin cells all day long. It only marginally bothered him when he saw the old cleaning woman, Mrs. Quintana, shake out her rag or dust mop into the wind out the back door.

When Frank allowed himself to think about that, he saw millions of skin cells, like little genetic maps being born on the winds and scattered over the surface of the earth. And each map led back to him. And this simple principle of sympathetic magic was why Frank had to kill Elidio Quintana.

Elidio was Mrs. Quintana's son. Even though Mrs. Quintana had retired five years earlier, Elidio still helped Frank with the occasional odd job. They had known each other for years. And even though he would never have thought of himself and Elidio as friends ­ because Frank had no friends ­ Elidio's death was still a great loss to him.

Frank had been so careful when he cut up the body. Latex gloves and a big, green, oil-treated canvas drop cloth had been perfect for the job. They smelled horribly when he finally was able to burn them. The pieces of the body had taken some time, the smoke greasy and hot. But since that time of year he always burned trash or weeds ­ the trimmings of his mother's modest estate ­ he attracted no particular interest. Anyway, his neighbors were all eager to avoid having to talk to Frank Velarde.

Yes, Frank knew how the people of La Madera perceived him, but he was unmoved. He knew who he was and who they were.

As he stood and fed more fuel to the fire, along with small tree limbs and leaves, he heard Tia Tita's voice whispering to him ­ confidential, saying, "You can't be too careful, Frankie. They'll as soon stand on your shadow as spit on you."

But now, as Frank made his way through the house, appraising the disruption, he realized how getting rid of the body was actually the least of his worries. He still didn't have his box.

Several times while he monitored the fire, he asked himself if it had been absolutely necessary to kill Elidio. Then he always was able to follow through with his logic and saw that he had acted out of self-defense. Elidio had seen the box, knew it for what it was and had taken it. Frank had no choice.

Clear as a bell, Frank recalled how it had happened. He was in the television room, getting ready for his favorite afternoon movie and thought he'd trim his fingernails. Forgetting that Elidio was still around, trimming the apple trees on the western side of the property. Elidio never bothered to knock and his footfalls were so quiet Frank had not heard him enter the hallway.

In the brief time that it took to take in the scene and see it for what it was, Elidio, who was no fool after all, had seen Frank poised with nail clippers and a wooden box, open, ready to receive the precious parings. Drifts of previous clippings and dusty hair heaped the box more than three-quarters full. It had been about a year since Frank had carefully burned the accumulated contents of the box.

Adrenaline, taking the form of constricting bands of heat burned across Frank's chest and forehead. He watched disgust and knowing cross Elidio's face, the way an accident victim witnesses the windshield spider into a thousand fractures, a second elongated to infinity.

Before he could stop himself, Frank slammed the box's lid closed and shouted, "Get out of here!"

Elidio held up his hands and backed out of the room and down the hallway and out the side door.

Frank wrestled internally about following him out and trying to make excuses. He went out the side door and into the wood shop through its door and out to the driveway. Frank couldn't see Elidio anywhere. He looked in the side yard and around the back. Elidio's car was still in the driveway, so he had to be around, Frank thought.

He went back inside and returned to the TV room. But where was the box? Where was it? Then he heard Elidio's car start. Frank rushed to the front windows in time to see the car disappear from view.

The hours of that night and the next morning, while he waited for Elidio to return, were hell for Frank. He spent much of the time searching for the box. Four hours were consumed with waiting in the kitchen pantry, where he hoped to surprise Elidio when he came in for water. As the morning drew on and on, Frank was concerned that Elidio might not return at all.

But at last, at about 9:30 Frank heard Elidio's car in the drive, and soon enough, heard him enter the kitchen.

Frank had strangled him with a clothesline because he figured it would make the least mess. He hadn't reckoned on Elidio's strength and how much of his own would be required to choke him to death.

Frank remembered how Elidio regarded him as the light went out of his eyes and how Frank had said, "My box. You took my box," as Elidio went limp in his grasp.

After taking care of the body and the car, Frank didn't know what to do with himself so he continued to look for his box. It occurred to him that we was going to have to leave his home. Eventually, they would come looking for Elidio.

It took him most of the next day to put the house back in order. He took one last look around before he closed the door that connected the house with the old workshop. He stood for a moment in the dark and smelled the tools. Rust, oils, polishes and gasoline, along with the elemental odor of wood. Shavings and sawdust lay on the floor ­ and maybe, thought Frank ­ the sawdust from the wood that made those doors.

The very sawdust of this place made him think of his box again. Like all things in the house, it was a part of his life he would have to leave behind.

Frank stood quietly in the dark workshop for five minutes thinking about his future and regarding his past. A shame, he thought. He was no longer thinking about Elidio or anyone else now. Not his mother, Tia Tita or Mrs. Quintana.

He was thinking about himself and missing his box and how he could never, ever be whole again.

A profound sadness enveloped Frank and almost clouded his vision. He was doomed, he knew. Then, as he turned to finally leave the house, he noticed something by the door to the outside. He froze because he recognized it immediately. A mixture of relief and regret buckled his knees and he stumbled to the floor of the workshop.

It was his box. He must have taken it with him when he ran after Elidio. Frank's relief was so great tears formed in his eyes. But what of Elidio?

Too late for regrets, Frank reasoned, and pulled himself up off the floor. As he reached for the box and opened the lid to check its contents, he heard a car in the driveway. When he peered though the window, he saw it was a sleek black state police car.

THE END

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