La Fantasma Contenta, The Happy Ghost

La Fantasma Contenta 

La fantasma vino en una mañana en marzo.

Tuve vergüenza por mi cuarto sucio,

pero a ella no importaba.

Fuimos a caminar juntos, mano en mano, el aire fresco.

Caminábamos lentamente, cruzando la sombra de los árboles.

Me miro con sus ojos curiosos, contenta y calma. 

Monto mis hombros, yo era el caballo.

En la noche, acaricie su cabello negro, suave, 

y dormimos juntos, seguros, el espíritu y yo.

Así había por una semana,

y antes que se fue, sin el dolor de una despedida, 

yo sabia que la muerte no existe,

porque ella vino contenta y así se fue.

The Happy Ghost

The ghost came on a morning in March.

I was embarrassed by my messy room,

but she didn’t mind.

We went walking together, hand in hand, the air cool.

We walked slowly, crossing the shade of the trees.

She looked at me with her curious eyes, happy and calm.

She rode on my shoulders, I was the horse.

At night, I caressed her soft, black hair

and we slept together, safe, the spirit and I.

It was that way for a week,

and before she went, without the pain of a parting,

I knew that death does not exist,

because she came content and that’s the way she left. 

   
Paul Staley

Drive-by Meet and Greet

The rogue WiFi signal coming from the Day’s Inn was booming that night.  I was laying on the bed of my camper taking advantage of the normally fickle signal.  Relaxed by a half a bottle of cheap pinot noir and a wad of Grizzly straight chewing tobacco that delivered warm nicotine from my gums directly to my heart then back to my brain.  That’s when I heard, “bang, bang-bang bang, bang, bang-bang!  Anyone else would have been surprised, would have known, not me.  I thought the shots were fire crackers.  You see, I was new to Chula Vista.  In Oaxaca, Mexico, where I came from, where I had been living for the past year and a half, rude explosions throughout the night were the norm.  In Mexico there is no such thing as a city ordinance against noise, or fire crackers-and let me tell you, Mexicans take advantage of that fact.  It wasn’t until I saw the blue lights bouncing off the walls of my camper and heard the sirens that I realized those crisp explosions were gun shots.
 
    I jumped into my dirty jeans and slipped on my fake crocs to go outside and investigate.  I walked through the trailer park, Fogerty Brothers trailer park on Broadway and E street towards the blue lights.  My neighbors were already gathered together on Broadway gossiping and pointing, a motley crew.  As I found out that night, nothing brings a trailer park together like a drive by shooting.  There were about seven cop cars lined up across Broadway, in front of a Mexican restaurant, their lights were flashing like blinding blue lightening.
“What happened?” I asked Bruce, the boyfriend of the Park’s manager, Michelle.
“Just a drive by,” Bruce said with his normal grin.
“Anyone hit?” I asked trying to be as nonchalant as him, a longtime veteran of Chula Vista and the trailer park.
“Nope, I think they tagged that Explorer though, I think I see some holes in the side panel there.”
Embolden by the pinot noir, I left my pack of neighbors and headed closer to see if I could get substantiated information.  I stopped about ten feet from the supposedly wounded Ford Explorer.  I couldn’t see any holes in it at all but a man was lying in the back seat and a cop was scribbling on his clip-boards.  I asked one of the cops what happened.  He ignored me.
“Can’t tell me anything, huh, ongoing investigation?” I asked.
He nodded, and walked away from me.
I walked back to my group of neighbors and they all wanted to know what information the cop gave me.  I was an anomaly, nobody had even considered walking up to the cops to ask what happened, a lot of the people in the park have good reason to stay far away from the police, but I have nothing to worry about, I have never been caught.
We all stood gathered together and I shook hands and introduced myself to some of the neighbors that I still hadn’t met.  The drive-by was like a meet and greet.  Stories were recounted of past drive-by shootings and the party lasted about half an hour, the blue strobe lights were still gleaming when I said goodnight and headed back to the camper, the rouge WiFi, my pinot noir and Grizzly straight.