A TALE OF SUSTO, LECHUZAS, AND MYSTERY FOR HALLOWEEN

By Juan Montoya

It was a Sunday afternoon when Andres met his friend Esteban watching the Dallas Cowboys at the Palm Lounge in downtown Brownsville.

Usually jovial and ready with a back slapping abrazo as a saludo, Esteban was abnormally subdued that day. Even the tight football game and the surprisingly good performance by the Pokes didn't seem to hold his attention, and he seemed distracted and only looked up when he heard a group of women laughing from a corner table near the entrance.

"What's the matter, Steve?," Andres probed. "You're kind of quiet. Did you get in a fight with your girlfriend again?"

Esteban leaned over to Andres. He looked around to see if anyone was listening and began his tale.

"On Friday night me and the babe decided to go to Pava's on 14th Street to close the night with a last beer," he began. 

"Well, you know how she is. She is kind of jealous and she began accusing me of having wandering eyes and Roman hands. I protested, but things got worse when a new waitress came over and was making small talk with us. I said I didn't know her, but it didn't help when she called me by my name from across the bar asking if we were ready for another. She got mad and stormed out of the bar and I was left on foot to hoof it home.

"Since it wasn't closing time and I had a good long way to walk, I decided to stick around until closing time and I sat with some friends until then. I could have called taxi, but I'm kind of a tightwad and I decided to walk instead. It would take me between half an hour to 45 minutes with shortcuts and I started off. I was angry that she had left me on foot and thought nothing of it.

"I cut across the county courthouse on Harrison and then over to Seventh Street and hit the hike trail in the Linear Park front of the federal courthouse. From there it was a straight shoot across the expressway, and then on to Paredes along Buena Vista Cemetery. 

"I had hear stories about scary stuff happening there, but I thought it was just shit people make up to scare you. There are stories about an old lady dressed in black asking for a ride to the Palo Alto Battleground to look for her son, insisting on getting off there on the dark, lonely stretch of road on the way to Los Fresnos, and then simply disappearing.

"Anyway, I crossed over the frontage and started up the sidewalk toward the HEB at the corner of Paredes and Boca Chica.

"I hadn't gone but a few steps on the sidewalk along the cemetery when I thought I heard the sounds of a group of women laughing from inside the fence," Esteban told me at a lower voice. "I thought maybe some kids from the Villa Verde housing project were drinking because they sounded 20 or 30 feet way in the darkness. But it was getting close to 3 a.m. already and as closely as I could squint, I could not see or hear anyone, except for the laughing. The laughter of the flock or whatever they were was mixed with the sound of wings and the flutter of feathers, but it was too dark to see. It almost seemed like I could reach out and touch them, but it was too dark.

"It wasn't the usual laugh of people drinking," he continued. "It was high cackling laughing as if there were a group of women floating along together parallel to me on the other side of the fence in the darkness. As I walked along the outside of the fence, the laughing – a kind of taunting, mocking laughter – seemed to follow me along the inside of the fence, sometimes erupting into raucous shouts of laughter. At one time I thought one of the voices of the mocking laughter sounded a bit like my old lady, but I thought I was imagining things and kept on walking.

"The half-dozen or so voices seemed to hover above the ground and followed me as I walked toward Boca Chica. But I was so mad at my girlfriend for having made me walk I put it out of my mind. I think I called out once or twice asking who it was, but there was only another peal of laughter in response. It was strange."

Esteban then said that as he neared the end of the cemetery, the voices subdued and when he crossed into the HEB parking lot they ceased altogether.

"I never believed in ghosts or stuff like that," he said. "But I can't explain the laughing of the women who seemed to be floating parallel to me inside Buena Vista. Hasta el pedo se me quito. If I have to walk from now on, I'm staying on the trial and forget about walking anywhere near the cemetery."