Don Jesús
Reymundo de la Cruz slept with the Devil. No, this is both too
genteel and inaccurate. Don de la Cruz screwed the Devil, fucked
the Devil, but never slept with the Devil. La Diabla. As
most of us know, the Devil who lived in Southern California was a
female so she was La Diabla, not El Diablo. Because the Devil
is legion, the Devil resides in most towns and cities and may be a
man or a woman. It all depends on what is needed. So, in
Southern California, the Devil is a woman. In New York, a male.
Anyway, Don de la Cruz was La Diabla's sex mate and for that, he gained
great power and wealth as payment.
La Diabla
lived in Malibu. But this is not the Malibu that you're imagining
right now. No, she did not live in the Malibu of Johnny Carson
and Olivia Newton-John and Gladstone's and the Pacific Coastal Highway
that was used for the opening credits in the 1960s sitcom with Sally
Fields, "Gidget," before Sally Fields was the Flying Nun and Norma
Rae and before everyone REALLY loved her. No, this was the Malibu
of 1822 long before any of that bullshit. But I get ahead of
myself. First, a little history. Because without history,
stories cannot settle in a place that elucidates and adds shadows
and meaning. And, as the Devil well knows, without a sense of
history, holocausts are repeated and the Devil wins another battle.
If your
fathers and mothers have not already taught you, forty-four poor Spanish
settlers founded El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los
Ángeles de la Porciuncula on September 4, 1791. The pueblo
eventually became known simply as "Los Angeles." The Spanish
settlers converted to Catholicism the native Indians, known as the
Tongva, who had already occupied the region for thousands of years.
When Mexico severed its ties with Spain in 1822, Los Angeles became
an important Mexican colony and would remain so until, twenty-four
years later, the United States waged war on Mexico after gold was
discovered in California. President James Polk called it "Manifest
Destiny." But that's a different story.
In 1822,
Don de la Cruz was a wealthy man of thirty-two. For twelve years
he had fucked La Diabla and, as I said earlier, she paid him well
for his services. Don de la Cruz owned and operated the largest
bank in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Ángeles
de la Porciuncula. Through very little effort, he held one, two
sometimes three mortgages on most of the town's prime and not-so-prime
properties. He lived in a thirty-room mansion built in the French
style and ten servants met all his needs. Don de la Cruz dressed
impeccably and he looked handsome with a trim figure and white skin
and black hair. He said he was Spanish not Mestizo -- not an
ounce of pinche Indian blood ran through his veins, he said.
When he walked the streets, people bowed and lowered their eyes and
Don de la Cruz felt important like a king.
But at
the age of thirty-two, Don de la Cruz grew bored and weary of his
success. Not that his success was not earned. Oh, no! Fucking
La Diabla was a painful and ugly chore! She had a voracious appetite
for Don de la Cruz. Though La Diabla was as beautiful as any
creature that walked this earth, her various orifices let out the
rank stench of rape, mayhem, torture, and all things horrible and
terrifying. And when Don de la Cruz inserted himself into La
Diabla, a burning, gut wrenching pain traveled up through his lower
intestines, up into his stomach towards his heart where the pain wrapped
itself like the clenched fist of a drowning man. And La Diabla
would squeeze Don de la Cruz with her beautiful thighs and scream
such hideous screams that Don de la Cruz had to grasp his ears and
close his eyes and put his mind some place else far from this atrocity
that he fucked.
All this
happened in La Diabla's home under the rocks of Malibu in a cave --
lined with the souls conquered by her -- just out of sight of the
wandering Chumash Indians, for they were the Malibu people, different
from their relatives in town, the Tongva. And it was one day
in April 1822, after fucking, Don de la Cruz lay by La Diabla and
broached the subject of his boredom.
"I need
a challenge," Don de la Cruz began slowly knowing that La Diabla had
a horrible temper and reacted with lightning speed to anything resembling
a threat to her power.
La Diabla
turned to the man who lay near her in her bed of seaweed. "I'm
not challenge enough?" she hissed.
"I mean,"
continued Don de la Cruz, "my wealth and power within the town doesn't
mean much to me anymore. It's too easy. Do you know what
I mean?"
La Diabla
smiled. Of course she knew what he meant. She had expected
this day to come and so she had planned a response for his plea.
"In one
month, you will have a challenge."
Don de
la Cruz jumped. "What will it be?"
La Diabla
smiled and grabbed her man's penis and squeezed until Don de la Cruz
almost screamed.
"You
will know it when it presents itself to you," and with that, La Diabla
mounted Don de la Cruz and fucked him again. "And, in order
to prepare you for that day, you will not share my bed during that
time. So, my love, fuck me so that I can remember what you feel
like!"
And after
they were done, Don de la Cruz got dressed and went to his thirty-room
mansion built in the French style with the ten servants who met all
his needs and he waited for his challenge.
Throughout
the month of April, Don de la Cruz wondered who or what his challenge
would be. A warrior, perhaps? A natural disaster? What,
he wondered, did La Diabla have in mind?
As he
thought and the days passed, Don de la Cruz noticed subtle changes
in his town. Slowly, one by one, the landowners paid off their
mortgages and withdrew their money from his bank. And, as Don
de la Cruz walked through the town, people no longer bowed and lowered
their eyes as they had before, but instead they whispered and pointed
and sneered and showed no respect for the great Don de la Cruz. Finally,
the greatest insult occurred: each and every one of his servants
left his mansion. There was no one left. No one to cook
for him, to dress him, to keep the horses brushed and fed, no one
to care for his every need.
And Don
de la Cruz grew angrier and angrier and angrier. But he dared
not go to La Diabla. He knew better. So he waited. The
twenty-second day, the twenty-third, and finally the thirtieth day
arrived on a sunny spring morning. And Don de la Cruz rose from
bed and bathed and dressed and cooked for himself a big bowl of menudo
-- for he had taught himself to cook because he no longer had any
servants! -- and he drank much brandy and waited.
At ten
in the morning, he still sat at his dining table after finishing three
bowls of the tripe and hominy soup and a whole bottle of brandy. And
he sat and waited.
"¡Bastante!"
he finally yelled and shoved his bowl and glass and bottle and candelabra
onto the hard wood floor and stomped towards the front door of his
mansion. He took a long breath from his narrow Spanish nostrils
to prepare himself, grasped the large brass doorknob with his powerful
pistol hand and threw the door open. Don de la Cruz marched out
of his mansion with all the resolve of his brave stallion but suddenly
he froze in mid-stride, in the dead center of his grand porch.
Standing
before Don de la Cruz was the entire population of the town. Just
staring at him. All he could hear was their breathing, in unison,
and not one bird or other creature dared make a sound. He stood
on his porch, frozen, in mid-stride for one full minute as his brandy-soaked
brain tried hard to absorb what faced him at that moment.
And then
he noticed her. A little girl, maybe thirteen or so, standing
in the middle of the crowd. She looked like -- no, I can't describe
her -- that would be impossible. But let me say that to Don
de la Cruz, she looked like everything that La Diabla was not. And
she wore a simple brown dress and her skin was brown as well, like
the Indian that she surely was, and she wore no shoes. The girl
carried a large wood box and Don de la Cruz could see that carved
on the box was an eagle with a serpent in its beak and the eagle was
perched on a cactus.
Ah! thought
Don de la Cruz. Pistols! La Diabla has sent her challenge
to me.
"Little
girl," he said. "Are you my challenge with your box of pistols?"
The little
girl said nothing but motioned to a man next to her and the man quickly
brought a table and then two chairs and put them between the girl
and Don de la Cruz. She set down the box on the table and opened
it. And she said: "No pistols. Dominoes."
Don de
la Cruz stood on the porch. He started to shake and the crowd
murmured in confusion. And then he started to laugh. And
he laughed with all the strength of his body. "Pinche dominoes!"
he yelled. "That is my challenge!" And he laughed some
more.
The crowd
remained dead silent. And the girl threw down the challenge: "If
I win, you will leave this town forever."
"And
if I win, mi hija, what do I get?"
The girl
smiled: "Whatever you want."
Don de
la Cruz thought for but a moment and said, "¡Tú!
I will have you and you know precisely what I mean, MI hija!"
The crowd
let out a gasp, a sound of revulsion and fear.
"Yes,"
said the girl. "Yes, that is a bargain." And she sat down
and poured out the dominoes on the table and they made a rattling
sound like the sound when an old man dies and lets out his last breath.
Don de
la Cruz walked slowly down the porch stairs, his beautiful black boots
making a loud and majestic pound with each step. And he sat
down and said to another gasp of the crowd: "I can't wait to
take you to my bed, MI hija."
The girl
did not blush nor did she betray fear. She simply said: "Choose
your dominoes."
So, the
man and the girl chose their dominoes and each lined them up and examined
their choices. "You may go first," said the little girl. And
the crowd laughed.
"NO!"
yelled Don de la Cruz. "I will not be embarrassed by a pinche
little Indian girl! You will go first."
The little
girl shrugged a little shrug and complied. She put down a double
six. Don de la Cruz's face turned as purple as a ripe fig. For,
as any child knows, the person who picks a double six always goes
first. So! he thought, she was trying to humiliate me!
"¡Puta!"
said Don de la Cruz through his perfectly aligned white teeth. "You
will lose and you will be mine!"
But the
game continued and lasted for two full days. Piece by piece,
the pattern of dominoes grew into an angular snake with many eyes
and the girl remained calm.
At one
point, hours into the game, Don de la Cruz remarked: "MI hija,
you look familiar. Who are you? Do you live near our pueblo?"
"We
have never met before," she said and put down a domino with a one
and a five on it. "Never before."
And Don
de la Cruz shrugged and continued the game. It was now the first
day of May and finally, the little girl put down her last domino and
there were no more to pick from the pile of dominoes that had once
sat on the side of the table. Don de la Cruz's eyes widened. He
felt ill. He was hungry and he had to piss and crap but he had
not left his chair for two days. And now he had lost to a little
bitch of an Indian girl! He grabbed the table and threw it to
the ground almost hitting the little girl's face with the edge of
the table. The crowd held its breath.
She stood
up and said: "I win. You lose. You know what to do!" The
crowd drew near so Don de la Cruz decided not to pull his gun.
"Okay,
MI hija. I may be many things, but I never cheat when I gamble. I
have lost. And I will honor my part of the bargain." And
he went into his mansion and shut the door. The crowd stared
at the door hoping that Don de la Cruz would come out with a saddle
and some food so that he could simply hop on his stallion and leave
the town forever. Instead, he put his pistol into his mouth and
blew the back of his head off. And as the crowd realized what
had happened, a large roar of a cheer filled the air and the townspeople
carried the little girl on their shoulders to the plaza to commence
a wonderful fiesta that lasted two weeks.
And what
happened to that little girl? Well, she eventually was given
the honor of running Don de la Cruz's bank and she grew wealthy and
powerful and eventually held one, two or maybe three mortgages on
most of the town's prime and not-so-prime properties. She lived
in Don de la Cruz's thirty-room mansion built in the French style
with ten servants who met all her needs. She also dressed impeccably
and she looked beautiful with a trim figure and brown skin and black
hair. When she walked the streets, people bowed and lowered their
eyes and she felt important like a queen.
And she
laughed to herself when she remembered how Don de la Cruz thought
he remembered her. She did not lie. They had never met. But
she looked familiar to Don de la Cruz because she was his daughter
-- the result of Don de la Cruz's many years of fucking La Diabla. She
was born fully formed that month when the devil and her lover were
separated.
And La
Diabla continues to run El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina
de Los Ángeles de la Porciuncula which today is simply known
as "Los Angeles." And she still lives in Malibu. But not
in the rocks by the ocean with all that seaweed. No. La
Diabla submitted a building permit application with the California
Coastal Commission in 1986 so that she could build a luxurious townhouse
not far from Johnny Carson's beautiful home. The Coastal Commission
granted her permit application, with a few conditions, but the townhouse
was eventually built and La Diabla enjoys life very much living in
Malibu at the beach.
