Brujo


The *Michael, renamed for a singer
by her new, reclusive owner-captain,
labors to skirt the shoals east of the island.
The coast, monochrome and barren,
is thousands of stones of decreasing width,
placed by the wives of fishermen,
the youngest pile four decades old.  The healer
leans on the rusty rail and seems
to talk to them and nod when they respond.
Two crewmen watch.  The younger, new,
catches the eye of the elder and twirls
a finger round an ear.  The elder
approaches the healer and asks, as he has
before, respectfully, if he’s praying.  “I’m only
chatting,” says the healer, a little
frog-eyed man, his features worn and stiff,
his shapeless jacket damp.   “Do the dead hear?”
the crewman asks, as he has before,
and expects and receives no answer.
“My wife died,” he goes on.  “Last week.
This will be my last voyage.  I’ll stay in town
and drink.”  “Do you want to join her?”
the healer asks, and the sailor looks
at the bag the healer carries at his waist.
“I can sell you something to add to your rum.”
“No,” says the sailor, “I’d like you
to pray for her.”  “I’ll talk to her.
You lived in Shaba?”  His friend nods,
and the healer turns in the direction of Shaba
and mumbles, turning northward
as the old refitted tugboat wallows south.
“She’s fine,” he says at length.
“She can wait for you.”  The sailor
says nothing; then: “The new skipper
is a strange one.  He may kick you off.
He may not let you ride for free
any more.”  “He’s fine,” says the healer.
“He’s scared of bigger things than me.”
“But what if he does?”  “Then I’ll find
another way to travel,” says the healer
with something like a smile.  “Maybe a jet,
like the cartelistas have. – I like this boat.
Whatever she’s called.  She’s honest.
Too poor to carry drugs.”
By now the *Michael has rounded
the southern cape of the island.  The old refinery,
now only a storage facility,
moves into view.  The healer follows
his friend as he checks winches, ropes,
and the short cargo manifest,
annoying him with old tales of the German sub
that meant to shell the refinery but was spotted
and sunk.  The crew, he says,
are very sullen fellows, still
under some kind of discipline;
he likes to nag them, saying if they had won
they would have killed us all, all the brown people.
The sea here is murky.  Objects
bob, a plastic shoe, a board
that came from roof or hull or crate.  The healer
gazes at it, learning
perhaps about its travels.  Beyond the refinery,
in calm and reefless waters now, the vast
desalination plant, at which
the healer nods in pure approval.
Farther north he can see
hotels and casinos glinting in the sun;
another tower has been added.  Past
the nearer scruffy houses, he imagines
the dusty inland plain, with malls
and office buildings, empty, dark
like unworn gowns, yet magically
cleaning, just by being there, druglords’ money.
The boat docks at a pier far south
of the marinas.  For a moment, the captain
steps from his wheelhouse; retreats
at the healer’s gentle wave.  Ashore,
a fat and wheezing cop
ignores the other passengers,
a woman with chickens, two shifty men, and,
as the *Michael unloads, approaches
the healer.  His expression states
that the jokes which could be told
and gossip spread about the box
of herbs the latter hands him won’t be.
The healer runs a hand over the box
and mutters something solemn.
The cop drives off; the healer pockets dollars.
The usual kids have gathered, standing
just out of reach by their bikes,
to insult the healer’s strangeness, age,
and smell.  He doesn’t disappoint them:
gesturing toward the hotels,
he shouts, “You think you’re as good as them!
You’re not!  You think you listen to
exactly the same sounds as them
on those plugs in your ears.  You don’t.
You dream of their girls lying naked
on the beaches.  You’ll only ever bring
them drinks.  They’re the center, you’re the edge.
You know this; it’s why you come.
You think I keep you there.
It’s why you’d like to hurt me,
to kill me.  You’ll never learn – “
But here, as if on cue, a plane
full of tourists and mules rises
from the airport, and the boys can barely hear
him say that the edge
sees things; can’t hear at all
when he says the edge is better.
A man as short and pop-eyed as the healer,
but wearing a dark suit, which gives him
authority, tells them to leave.
His voice turns soft as he asks
the healer how he is.  The old man shrugs.
The other asks if he’ll be staying with him
this time.  “You got your degree,” says the healer,
“from that school in town.  In Leisure Management,”
he adds, drawing out the words.
“Long ago,” says the man in the suit.
“I’ve just been named First Deacon at the Church.
I wish you’d come.  You’d be welcome.”
“I’ve work to do,” says the healer,
embracing him briefly, and turning
to the women patiently waiting.
They were distressed by the boys
and jealous of the man in the suit.
Now they surround the healer and make much of him,
but there are only three of them this time.
That afternoon he visits each in turn
in their shanties, up the various mud roads
of the south end of the island.  Finds
in his bag the proper herbs, ground shells, dried
creatures for their ancient pains and griefs,
the powders to burn on their altars.
They listen, rapt, to his spells,
which are so powerful they accept
the one he always adds, turning
his eyes on them a moment: “There are no gods.”