“¿Hola Vampiro? Lo siento, estamos aquí en Culebra pero olvidamos de traer sangre.” Leaning back in a chair like this feels great when you’ve got some beer in your guts Not those prissy, expensive, beach chairs that folks like us can’t afford with their “collapsibility” But those cheap, white, plasticky pieces of shit with their (let me gesture a little) Bendy rubber bands that melt right into your skin after you’ve been staring at the sun smiling. Practically, basically, um, I brought El Vejigante out here today because I like the way he looks. In the coastal sun of the islands by Vieques, he really glows when it’s about noon, And the sand goes bone white so it starts to serve as a backdrop. He’s got this massive fucking mask, something really fruity, covered in pink drooping flowers, Band stickers, smoke stains, dazzling horns that frame his yelling face like a lion's mane, And the fresh phone numbers written in stenchy permanent marker of the people who find him, Sexy. His eyes are glossed over as he lays back on a towel by my right, his hands protruding upwards, Like a sleeping mutt, Whimpering names of men and women I’d never thought he’d remember, Like a bastard, If I’m lucky he’ll start groaning about needing another drink as soon as he sleepwalks, Like Zombie, Digging his hands into the skin-warm sand of a 4-o’Clock bender, crawling mannishly, Like Wendigo, To the frost breathing cooler, his wooden teeth hushing whispers of Cerveza… Cerveza. How can he always be so thirsty? Chupacabra sleeps soundly despite our blaring speaker, Curled up into a ball of scales, spines, and fangs, She rests (as dogs do, unlike mutts), To the rumbles of Yankee’s Reggaeton and Bunny’s Accent. She’s had a full day of chasing frisbees and playing catch with goat heads from the market, And even though she’d never pass up on the opportunity to stretch her aching incisors out, She sleeps, happily, in the warmth of the too friendly sun. Its orange tendrils like fingertips petting her scaly form into slumber, The sunset coating her dreams of running amok in Baja as she’s lounging on this island, Thousands of miles away from (and into) wherever she calls home. But, with just one whiff of scented seltzer breath, And the distant country acoustics of some late night dixie anthem drawls, Beneath the light of a freshly risen Moon, I could sense the tide of something gringo coming. White, blond, and tomato red, these walking pasta plates marched up from the east of the beach, Underneath a star spangled sky, they brought this sense of presence once again, (Though their rifles now look more like expensive folding chairs and clamped up umbrellas, Their mechanisms lying in wait to SPRING and shock you with a microdose of colonization) Flags planted on the sand, Smiling faces above some land that isn’t theirs. I almost let them live. But one came over with his bleached, sultry, sand dusted hair, past our roaring trash fire, His achillean body beckoning me to ask him what he keeps under those red swimming trunks, And then, politely, like a fucking dick, he asked me to turn down the music. Chupacabra beat me to it as she uncurled like a whip and lunged right at his bulging neck, His jugular exploding into a mist of red moonshine as his throat, in tatters, fell onto the sand, And then, Right into my cocktail. “¡Vampiro, ven aqui!”
Jorge Biaggi, ’23