MAXIMÓN

by

Richard D. Treat

My knees were pressed up against the vinyl seat in front. I couldn't see what was going on. Some lady with gold incisors kept blocking my view, shouting in Tzutujil, Kakchiquel, or whatever Mayan dialect.

All I could make out was a mess of cowboy hats and traditional wrap-around skirts, moving all chaotic, as if their anthill had just been stepped on.

Some people were pointing outside and shouting. Others were pointing at me.

So I nudged my way to the window, and that's when I spotted his ponytail and the guys pushing him through the crowd. He was in handcuffs. Kids were weaving in and out, ecstatic, seeing how close they could get before the men in uniform ran them off. Some were throwing rocks at him.

"Te va a matar," the woman said. I was surprised she used the second person pronoun. I didn't know what the hell.

"I didn't get him arrested," I said.

I'd only met him a few days beforehand when he came up with his ponytail and sleeveless shirt, asking if I wanted to buy some grass. Then he pointed at a neon gecko and said it was his.

So, next day, I go.

The place was empty, but I stayed because I could hear the clang of bottles in the backroom. I just sat at the bar, squinting into the mirror, and he comes out wearing the same shirt. He asked if I wanted a drink, then told me his name was Corbin.

I saw he had the word 'peckerwood' on a forearm and complemented it. I thought it was funny: of all the words. Then he said most of the tattoos were from Angola and laughed. "You know how it is," he says.

I thought the guy was talking about Africa.

So I drink my beer, and he asks me if I needed anything else. And that was it.

Mitch and Tim were still at the market stalls, buying handicrafts and whatnot, so I went to look for them. We were planning on staying across the lake in Santiago de Atitlán. I thought we'd go there and see Maximón because I'd seen a book that described him as a mixture of Saint Peter and some pre-Colombian god -- I don't remember the name -- and I liked the idea of a folk-saint with vices. I wanted to see the Mayans tilt his head back and pour alcohol into his slit-mouth. So we took a boat and got this cinderblock room for six dollars.

Mitch and Tim threw their backpacks down. Then they went off to find a bar, but I stayed -- with the door open -- and that's when this guy Andy invited me over to his room. It was a real hamster cage. Newspapers. Cups. Half-empty beers on the floor. "Just clear the chair," he said.

Then he sat on the bed, and I told him how I'd finished a six-week Spanish course in Antigua, how I'd come to the lake for the weekend.

Andy pulled on his beard and laughed. "The weekend, right." He reached down and put a newspaper on his lap, shaking his head. I just sat there as he separated the seeds, waiting for him to explain. His tongue was curled upward, touching his moustache. Seeds were rolling all over the place.

"I knew he sent you, guy,” he finally said. “I could tell right off. I mean, I'm not vindictive, but this place is overrun.” He didn’t bother to look up. He was too busy rolling seeds onto the concrete.

I didn’t know who the ‘he’ referred to, but every time I asked, he just laughed, telling me I’d come just in time. I just went along and listened to him talk about some woman from El Salvador -- I assumed his girlfriend. "She's more powerful than all of us," he said. "It was like 'phoom,' right through the Pleiades."

Then he picked a spoon up off the ground and put baking soda in it. "You hear them? Where the fuck's my lighter?" he asked.

"What? The roosters?" I pointed to the nightstand, and he grabbed at his beard, then coughed. "The frogs," he said. "They protect me. Cats too, because they have night-vision. And birds, they can fly."

He was really talking out his ass. But I’d been around Mitch and Tim for the past six weeks -- all the time -- and hearing him talk about magic spells and animal protectors was amusing. Anyway, next thing, he puts a lighter under the spoon, and a woman in her 30s opens the door.

"Speaking of the Devil," he said. Then he kissed her.

***

So, next day, I walked to the shore. Some women were washing clothes, knee-deep in the water, and two boys came up, looking like they had something to say. The one in a Knicks T-shirt poked at his friend.

"¿Qué haces?" the friend said. He had his hands behind his back, his toes tunneling in the mud. Trash was all over the place.

"Nada," I said.

Then I asked about Maximón's shrine, and they smiled. The taller boy agreed to guide me there for two Quetzales. So I followed them up the hill, to a door with a Gallo Beer ad. It didn't look any different from the other doors.

"Allí está," the one said. So I went in.

Except for a string of Christmas lights and the candles around his boots, the place was dark. In any case, I handed over the aguardiente and cigarettes I'd bought for Maximón, then sat on a bench. There was a mess of discarded saints around the edges of the room. The floor was dirt.

Maximón was in the center. He looked just like the book, maybe four-foot tall, a couple of cowboy hats on his head, colored scarves covering his torso. He had a cigarette in the slit-mouth. I just sat on the bench, hoping the attendant would pour the alcohol. I don't know why.

Then three men with scarves around their heads entered. The first put a basket of bananas in front of Maximón, and they took turns, bowing and touching a strip of cloth to their lips.

Andy entered and did the same.

He kneeled over and lit a black candle, and the four Mayans left with the bananas. I'd read about the candles -- green for wealth, red for love, black for revenge, and whatnot -- but people have all sorts of superstitions.

After he lit the candle, he looked at me. "That ought to do the trick," he said. Then he put his hand under the folk-saint's cigarette and tapped the ash.

***

So I waited another half-hour, then got a boat. I sat beside two backpackers that debated the difference between a 'tourist' and a 'traveler,' or something foolish, but the sound of the engine kept me from catching it all, so I looked at the volcanoes and tried to ignore the kids who giggled when we made eye contact. The smell of gasoline was making me nauseous.

On the other side, I stopped by the Groovy Gecko.

Elvis Presley was singing 'Fever' on the computer when Corbin walked out of the storage room. The song reminded me how my parents played his albums on their record player, how Jenny and I would dance around in our pajamas.

"Sorry about that," he said. Then he opened a Gallo and wiped off the bar. He was always wiping the bar.

"So where are you staying anyways?"

I answered, the Miraflor, but it didn't matter. Corbin smelled the perfume before she walked in the bar -- snapping her fingers, singing with an accent -- like something out of Twin Peaks. He winked at me. "You got to watch out for this little firecracker," he said. Then he filled three-quarters of a glass with rum, topped it off with Pepsi.

It was Mariela, the girl from El Salvador. Corbin smiled and started singing -- You give me fever when you kiss me/Fever when you hold me tight -- and Mariela laughed with ice in her mouth.

Then she started outlining the barbed wire Jesus-cross on his bicep. "Look at those arms,” she said, and Corbin smiled -- without stopping his impersonation of Elvis. She was going on about his tattoos. She wanted to see them all. "Come on, papi," she kept saying. Then she walks behind the bar, and they start dancing together, her arms around his neck, his hands on her ass. Their lips were almost touching.

"Come on," she whispered into his hear. Then he nodded, and she lifted his tank top over his head. There wasn’t anybody else in the bar.

In any case, Corbin’s body was covered in tattoos. Some looked professional; others were shit. Like they’d been done with an ink pen. But she oohed and ahhed just the same. Then she took his the hand and led him out from behind the bar. "You want to join in?" she asked me.

I didn’t. I just drank my beer.

"Don't just sit there. Take some pictures," she said.

I figured it wasn't worth causing a scene, so I took some photographs of them spinning each other around the bar, dancing to "Ding Dang Doodle," by Koko Taylor. I'd seen it on the play list.

So they were laughing and spinning -- really getting into it -- and I was taking pictures until she let go of Corbin and said it was her turn. I was afraid she was going to drop my camera.

***

Corbin shook his head and laughed as he wiped off the liquid from where she'd left her drink. "What was that all about?" I asked, turning the camera on to delete the pictures -- I didn't need an inventory of his tattoos.

He shrugged his shoulders and snapped the rag against the bar. "So you're staying at the Miraflor...” He looked like his was holding back laughter. “Isn't that where what's-his-name stays?"

"Andy?" I said, looking down at my camera.

It wouldn't turn on, and I'd just replaced the batteries with some good AAs from a camera store, not market rip-offs. I didn’t know what the hell. I must've pressed the button twenty times before I finally opened the door that says: 'card open.' There was no card in the memory slot.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," I said. "I just need to get some money from an ATM."

There was a crowd of people getting onto a bus for Guatemala City. The same bus I took the following day.

I made my way through the mess of cowboy hats and huipiles, getting all worked up as I walked up and down the street, asking the hippies who sell the necklaces and little clay pipes, asking if anybody had seen her.

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Richard D. Treat lives in Seoul, South Korea, where he teaches at Korea University. His short stories have also appeared or are forthcoming in Flashquake, Verbsap, Hobart, Tattoo Highway, and elsewhere.