I stood at the high bay windows looking out at the gravel road I had just drove on. I could see the creek, the railroad tracks, and, further out, the tree line, behind which ran South Presa Street. Three parallel lines. And back behind me was the San Antonio River. It was close, and I knew I would be able to see it, if there was another window there, instead of a row of bookcases.

“It’s called Asylum Creek,” said the woman, Irma, who handed me a glass of iced tea. “On account of, you know, the State Hospital just up the road.” Irma turned and nodded at the pale woman with braids who sat on the sofa leafing through a used coloring book.

“Maisie here used to live there, at the State Hospital. Isn’t that right, Maisie?”

“C’est un peu vrai,” Maisie said softly, without looking up.

“Oh, it looks like she’s French, today.” Irma smiled and walked over to adjust Maisie’s braids so that they fell behind her shoulders. Maisie kept her attention focused on her coloring book.

“Well,” Irma said to me with a sigh, “I’ll leave you to it. Don’t mind Maisie. She’s a quiet one.”

I watched a sly smile flit across Maisie’s lips as Irma left. She turned a page and, without looking up, mouthed the words “C’est un peu vrai.”

There was a desk in the corner, and it was clearly set up for me. The gooseneck lamp was turned on, and a large Royal manual typewriter had been pushed aside. I placed my shoulder bag on a folding chair and set my laptop on the desk.

I’m not sure how Irma found my contact information. I’ve been out of the rare books appraisal business for at least five years. But I needed the money, and well, South Presa Street was not too far from home, so I said yes.

I walked up to the bookcases. There were five cases, each with five shelves. If soon became obvious there wasn’t much—the basic reprints of classics, mid-century fiction in book club editions, some later printings of art books. All in all, the sort of books one can find used on the internet for a few dollars each. There was one, however, which stood out. I instantly knew what it was, but I kept combing through the shelves, saving it for last. When I was done, I turned towards the middle bookcase and bent down to the bottom shelf. As I lifted up the large, slim volume, and placed it on the desk beside my computer, I heard Maisie clear her throat.

“Cela n’a pas pris longtemps,” Maisie said, placing her coloring book in her lap. “Nothing of much interest, right?” she continued in English, with a French accent. “Just that one. The obvious one.”

At that moment Irma walked in.

“Don’t let her throw you off,” Irma said, patting Maisie on the head. “Our little girl here grew up in a tiny town outside of Beaumont. She has an east Texas accent thick enough to march an alligator across. Poor child. Grew up in the bayous of Jefferson County, and then off to the San Antonio State Hospital after her daddy died. All the while her momma’s waltzing across Europe, Hawaii, and Cuba.”

I’m sure much of the juicy parts of the family history were left out, but from what I gathered, the mother came into some money and bought this little house to be close to her daughter. One day she moved Maisie out of the hospital and hired Irma to help out. Irma eventually found herself taking care of both mother and daughter. When the mother died, Irma stayed on. They’d been scraping by, barely making the monthly mortgage payments. Nothing much left, just a lot of furniture and kitchen appliances which were purchased back when avocado was a color. And, of course, the library.

Irma explained that she had some errands to take care of, but Maisie would be no trouble. Normally this is when I’d explain that there was really nothing of value, waive my consultation fee, give the names of a few local book dealers who might buy the lot on the cheap—and then, make good my escape. But there was the matter of that lone, slim volume.

I sat down at the desk. As I waited for my laptop to warm up, I saw Irma crossing over Asylum Creek in an old rusty Impala.

The book was a collection of poems by Charles d’Orleans. He was a 15th century French nobleman, the bulk of whose poetry was written as a prisoner of war in England. The book’s value has very little to do with the poetry of the Duke of Orléans. In fact, the selected poems are not even in their original state. The illustrator took it upon himself to rewrite the poetry into a more modern French. The book is notable because of the illustrator, Henri Matisse. Matisse provided 54 color lithographs, as well as some additional illustrations. The edition was limited to 1,200 copies, each signed by Matisse.

I know the book well. I had been working at an auction house in Dallas several years back and had written a description of a copy consigned by an elderly man from Pauls Valley.

Maisie pulled a chair next to mine and sat down. She ran her hand over the cover of the book. This collection of poems is not what everyone would recognize as a proper book. It is what is often referred to as “livre d’artiste,” that is, an artist’s book. The publisher, printer, typesetter, designer, bookbinder, all of them, worked to showcase the work of the artist—the text, often, being quite supplemental. Poèmes de Charles d’Orléans resembles more of an unbound portfolio. The front and back covers are stiff pasteboard, with an illustration on the front. This unattached cover (often referred to as a chemise) was wrapped in the publisher’s original glassine paper. The pages, inside, were loose gatherings, never bound by the publisher. Strictly speaking, it was not a rare book. If all the plates were present, and lacking any notable flaws, it was worth maybe four to six thousand dollars. Not enough for Irma and Maisie to make it through more than a couple of months, was my guess.

“I love this cover illustration,” Maisie said. “It looks like it was done by a child with crayons. I think Irma believes it’s one of my coloring books from when I was a girl.” She placed her hand palm down on the book and looked into my eyes.

“Charles d’Orleans was imprisoned by the English for 25 years. For me it’s been longer. Well, not by the English, you know. The doctors.”

I opened the book. On the preliminary limitation page, I saw Matisse’s familiar signature.  The letter “h” followed by a period. And “Matisse” was written out with a long “s” (crossed like an “f”) followed by a short “s.” But there was no printed number to identify this copy between 1 and 1,200. It’s what is called an out-of-series copy. Sometimes these were test copies where the printer was checking the general layout or various types of paper or ink. Often they served as proofs for the scrutiny of publisher or author. But mostly, they were extra copies to be used for any unforeseen contingencies. This copy wasn’t blank, however. Instead of a number, there was a small red heart inked with a broad nib in a hand firmer than that of an 80 year-old Matisse.

“It’s a heart,” Maisie said. “You know, for love.” And she pushed back her chair and left the room. I could hear her rustling around back in the kitchen.

I checked some reference material on my computer to see the proper pagination of the book, with the number of leavers and lithographs and other illustrations, and began the process of collating, making sure that the book was intact and complete. It didn’t take long. All was as it should be. At the back were three envelopes. I love finding things like that. It’s where things can get interesting. Before I could dig deeper, I heard Maisie return.

She wore an apron and set down a chipped Wedgwood platter with celery stalks stuffed with peanut butter and topped with green olives. “I would have brought the jam. But there were ants. So many ants.”

She wiped her hands on the apron, sat back down beside me, and gathered up the envelopes. “There’s a story that goes with these. And I thought you might want a snack.” She waited patiently, leaning in a bit towards me, her eyes wide and expectant. When I finally took a bite of one of the celery sticks, she began.

“Her name was Lilly, short for Lillian. It was 1943 and she was young, traveling alone through France. This was during the second world war. I think she was a spy. Irma says she was just a loose woman. I don’t know why she couldn’t have been both. But she was my mother, so I’ll never know the whole truth. Anyway, this is way before I came into the picture.”

Maisie lifted up one of the envelopes. She removed a crisp sheet of paper folded into thirds. She handed me the envelope and read from the letter. “Mon cher monsieur Tériade….” Maisie looked up. “How’s your French?” I shrugged, and shook my head. “Pity,” she said. “It’s from Fernand Mourlot. He did the lithography for this book. He and my mother were also lovers. It’s all in the letter. You have to read it right. He quotes some of Charles d’Orleans steamier couplets. Anyway, the letter is written to Tériade, who my mother said was a snake. Tériade published this book. He and Mourlot did all sorts of things together. They created Verve magazine. Verve. Hmm. Verve. That’s a sexy word in any language. Here he’s instructing monsieur Tériade to track down my mother and deliver this copy to her, heart and all. The book took a couple of years to get published and Lilly had moved on with her travels.”

Maisie opened the book to a page with a nude woman seated with her knees to her chest and holding her hair back with a hand.

“That’s my mama, Lilly. She would have been 19 when this was done. Here’s another picture of her.” She handed me the larger envelope.

I pulled out the original charcoal drawing of the print in the book. It was signed and dated by Matisse. Maisie tapped the back of the drawing. I turned it over. Even my poor French could translate “ma flour préférée, Lilly” as “my favorite flower, Lilly.” I noticed there was another piece of paper in the envelope. I pulled out a slip of pale blue paper with a one hundred franc note pinned to it. There was a short paragraph in ink on the paper.

“It’s Matisse explaining that he had forgotten to pay Lilly for the sitting. 100 francs? In the ’40s? What a cheapskate!”

Maisie handed me the final envelope. It was thicker than the others. I removed a folded panel of brown butcher paper which had clearly been used to wrap up the book for mailing. It had French stamps, a return address for a M. Tériade, in Paris, and was addressed to Lillian Calhoun, 7300 South Presa Street.

“I don’t know why the book took so long to find mama. I like to think detectives were employed. It arrived in the post while she was living here, running through a small inheritance with cheap wine, palm readers, and therapists. One day she cleaned out a little room in back and moved me out of my prison across the road at the State Hospital into this new prision here, on the creek.”

We heard Irma come in the back door. Maisie took the book and returned to her sofa.

“Not much of interest?” Irma asked, pointing to the wall of books. “I use her mothers cookbooks every now and then.” She looked over at Maisie. “I hope she wasn’t too much of a pest. She’s good one-on-one, but put two people or more in a room with her and she just shuts down. It’s not that hard to imagine. But for some reason, the doctors don’t even have a name for her condition. And all this talk about being in prison….” Irma shot Maisie a look. “Yes, Maisie, I know what you get up to when I’m not around. Anyway, don’t believe a word of it. She comes and goes whenever she wants, but she will never cross that creek.”

Irma sighed and ran a hand over the spines of some books on a shelf. “I was hoping that these would get us some money. I work when I can. And Maisie helps out, too. She cooks at least one meal a day for us. Isn’t that right, Maisie?” And then, quieter, but still loud enough for Maisie to hear. “And it’s awful.”

When Irma had left, I shut down my computer, gathered up my things, and told Maisie that she had a wonderful book and I thanked her for telling me about her mother and Matisse.

“It belongs to me,” Maisie said, holding the book tight against her chest.

“I know,” I said.

“I kept it safe all these years, saved it from the roaches and the silverfish.”

“You’re doing an excellent job of it,” I said. “You really are.” And I placed one of my business cards on the table beside the gooseneck lamp.

Maisie got up and walked over. She picked up the business card and returned it, and then she handed the book to me. I looked at her, but she just lowered her head and shrugged. So I walked into the kitchen to tell Irma that her life had changed. I wrote out a description of the book, the letters, and the original drawing by Matisse. I gave her the phone number of a friend who worked at Christie’s. “Tell him everything I’ve written. Mention my name. He’ll fly out and take it from there. He can call me if he needs to.”

I walked out. Maisie never looked up from the sofa. I got in my car, drove across Asylum Creek, over the railroad tracks, and then I turned left on South Presa Street.

I never did learn what Maisie’s affliction might have been. Certainty something more than just being, well, “French.”

I wonder what ever happened to them.

(A stagehand comes on stage unrolling a length of string from the backstage area. The string ends at the center of the stage. The stagehand walks off. A woman enters. She carries a little box and walks along the string like it were a tightrope. She comes center stage and looks out.)

Silverfish. I love that word. That way it feels in the mouth when you say it. Silverfish. The way it tastes! Silverfish. Go ahead. Slow and soft like you’re whispering it to a baby. Silverfish. When I told my mom I wanted a silverfish, she thought about it. And guess what? She said yes! So we went to the pet store. I was so excited. We went to Papa Jim’s on that street where we buy our tamales. But she took me to the fish section. I told her a silverfish isn’t a fish. “But, here’s one,” she said, pointing to a big one swimming around. “And those are also silver,” she said, tapping on another tank. “These are little, you can get two.” That’s when I realized my mother isn’t very smart. I think she thought a silverfish is like a goldfish, just cheaper. When she finally realized what I meant, she just rolled her eyes and told me that they were pests. Silverfish. But that was fine with me. I’m a pest too. That’s what they say.

Silverfish. They are closely related to the very first creatures to emerge from the oceans. Their Latin name is Lepisma. That’s fun to say, too. Lepisma.

I saw my first Silverfish when I was sitting in bed reading. It was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This frisky fellow wiggled across the page and just stopped right on top of a question mark. He sat there, staring up at me. I moved my finger in close, and he took off, down into the valley between the pages and up to the top of the book. He went over the edge, but I found him again on the next page, skittering across that picture of the Dodo bird with the walking stick. He took off across my bedspread and I followed him down to the floor. We had many adventures that day before he disappeared into a crack at the back of my closet. I never saw that one again. That silverfish.

He’s not the same silverfish as this one in my box. No. His name is Ambrosio. My mother says it sounds like the name of a gigolo. But I don’t know what that is. I found Ambrosio in that little bookstore in the basement of the library. He was just sitting there, on top of a used coloring book in an open box on the floor. His antennae twitched but he didn’t move as I scooped him up. I put him in the little pill bottle where I keep my medicine, and no one noticed when I snuck him right out the front door.

Silverfish. They are arthropods. Like insects, spiders, and shrimp. It’s my opinion that were silverfish big enough, they’d taste as good as shrimp. And you want to know something? My silverfish is the biggest in the world. Ambrosio’s the size of my pinky finger. I’d take him out of the box, but, you know, he doesn’t like all the lights. Or all the people. They’re very shy creatures, you know. Silverfish.

They say silverfish eat books and old photographs. That may be true. But my Ambrosio eats nothing but french fries. One will last him for a long time.

My mother teaches art for the kids at the State Hospital. And one afternoon I wandered over to the gymnasium to play with Ambrosio. The place was deserted. I unrolled a length of string all the way down the basketball court. I’d taught Ambrosio to walk along a string on the floor. It might curve, or go straight, but he’d always follow it. Maybe on the left, right, or on top of it. But he’d always follow that string. I had it straight. On the floor from hoop to hoop. He did it in 27.5 minutes, without a break!

They say silverfish can live for a year without eating. I find that hard to believe. After crossing that floor, Ambrosio was famished. He put a big dent in a french fry that day!

That day was the first time I ever heard my mother say a kind word about Ambrosio. She said he was a very disciplined silverfish. Well, actually, she called him a bug. That’s a vulgar word. Bug. But I kept quiet about it. I let it slide. Silverfish. Much better than bug. Don’t you think?

I had been asking around about a book on silverfish. There must be some, right? One day this guy my mother was dating gave me a book. It was “The Care and Feeding of Your Golden Retriever.” But he’d put a piece of white tape over Golden Retriever and written Silverfish. Hilarious. It wasn’t a total waste. I mean, we did have a golden retriever. But a book wasn’t much help. I don’t know about you, but what do you do with a dog that doesn’t chase a ball or bark at the mailman anymore. If you ask me, he’s outlived his usefulness. But I guess people like having them around. Sleeping on a pillow in the corner.

There are whole sections in the library for dog books. But for silverfish, I had to research. I’d get a little sentence here, paragraph there. I do know that a silverfish can live as much as eight years. Not bad. But I can’t figure out how old Ambrosio was when I saved him from the library.

He still seems pretty lively. I think I’ll teach him to fetch a tiny little ball. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it, Ambrosio? People and their dogs. Silly, right? I mean, when you have a silverfish.

Well, my time seem to be up. I’d better go back into my box.

(She turns and follows the string backstage.)

It was a quiet afternoon in May. I sat on the second floor balcony of Alex’s apartment above the defunct Michoacán Bar on the western fringe of downtown San Antonio. On the thrift shop table between us lay scattered a dozen tubes of oil paints in many colors which he insisted he had stolen from the Southwest School of Art and Craft.

Alex had been living over the bar for maybe a year. It’s along the railroad tracks between a light industrial area and a brutally impoverished residential neighborhood. There were two apartments above the bar. He had a kitchen, bathroom, and two other rooms, all arranged in a row from the front balcony to the alley. Across the central corridor was the other apartment. Four undocumented Guatemalan laborers lived there. Quiet, polite young men, all from the same town.

We were painting on one-foot squares of Masonite that Alex had cut earlier in the day with a Stanley blade. I was working on a study of the downtown skyline, and in the foreground I had balanced on the railing a coffee can with rosemary growing from it. Alex was working on a new piece for his Modern Lotería series — this one had crack pipes, sex toys, and Alberto Gonzales.

“You should come over here at dawn,” Alex said, adding some shadow to a butt plug. “The sun comes up from over the Alamodome and this whole porch glows with warm morning light. You can hear the doves, the ones nesting under the eaves of the abandoned shop across the street. I make a pot of cafe de olla and sit out here watching the city.” Alex stopped and leaned in to his painting. He muttered a bit of profanity in Spanish and over-painted the cartoon fart cloud emanating from Gonzales’ ass so that it became an enormous mushroom cloud. He smiled in satisfaction.

We heard footsteps from the inside corridor. The door opened and William stepped onto the balcony with his nephew, Abel. Alex, William, and I were all about the same age — pushing forty. Abel was in his late twenties. William was the product of an anglo father and a dark-skinned Mexicana mother; he grew up blond and blue-eyed in the barrio, and, no doubt because of that, he could be a pretty tough customer. Abel was just a drunk. He followed William, tottering out in flip-flops, cut-off jeans, and a denim vest with no shirt. He sat on the floor of the balcony and placed a twelve pack of Lone Star beer beside him. He tore the box open and cracked a can for himself. It was clear he’d already been drinking.

William fished out drinks for the rest of us. He looked at Alex’s painting.

“Still doing that Lotería stuff? The condoms and sarapes?”

Alex chose to not respond.

The two men knew each since they were children. And, late in life, each had decided to become an artist. With the rise in popularity of outsider art, they were getting some interest in the local art scene. A competitive streak began to grow.

Alex opened his beer and looked up at William.

“Compliments of the loco check?” he asked.

William collects a disability check. Something to do with mental illness.

“Naw. I’ve been getting some money painting apartments on Zarzamora.”

Abel turned his moist eyes in my direction. He tapped on my boots.

“That your bike?” he asked. “The one in the hallway?”

“Yeah,” I said. I squeezed out some light blue onto the pizza box lid I was using as a pallet.

“I used to have a bike. Rode it everywhere. But I’m diabetic, and I can’t do it anymore.”

William turned from Alex and glared at Abel.

“Then you shouldn’t fuckin’ drink.”

Eventually the painting supplies went back into boxes, and we silently drank and watched the traffic over on Frio Street. As dusk began to fall over the neighborhood, the Guatemalans stepped onto the balcony with a six pack of beer, a bag of charcoal, and a package of frankfurters. They nodded to us and turned toward the little hibachi on their side of the balcony. Alex bounced over, and after a quick exchange that had the men blushing and laughing, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of twenties.

“William, go with one of these guys to the Culebra Meat Market over on Flores. Get some good meat and more beer.”

“Fuck. I just got here. I’m not going anywhere.”

At the moment, Renaldo Salazar flung open the door. He’s an established local artist with a flair for the dramatic.

Alex beamed. “Naldo! It’s officially a party now!”

William made a sour face. “Okay, I’ll go to the meat market,” he said.

“What’s this?” Renaldo asked, ignoring William. “Meat market?”

Alex filled him in.

“No one knows the subtle code of the barbecue better than I,” Renaldo said with gleeful electricity. He snatched away Alex’s money and pulled Abel to his feet. “You’re coming along, wallflower.”

With Abel in tow, in mute inebriation, Renaldo separated the smallest and prettiest Guatemalan from his people and whispered soft words in his ear. Renaldo departed with his baffled yet committed entourage. A man on a mission of barbecue bacchanalia.

Years ago in Dallas, during another occasion in my life where I played at being an artist, I remember a night much the same. I was living in a drafty loft in an old downtown warehouse. It was the Forth of July and I was out on the roof with some friends. There were maybe five of us, all drinking from big jugs of wine. As the fireworks began going off about a mile away at the Cotton Bowl, Keith wandered to the far end of the roof and began to fire off rounds from a little Italian .25 automatic I had given him earlier in the day in trade for some hash. I wasn’t too concerned as the clip only had four rounds in it and I could hardly see what sort of trouble he could get into shooting down into the railroad tracks between two abandoned warehouses.

Giving the matter no more thought, I returned to watching the explosions in the sky. Moments later Keith was tugging on my sleeve. He pulled me aside and placed the gun in my hands. He whispered to me in a panic that he thought he shot a homeless man sleeping beside the tracks. The first shot he said was to see if it was in fact a person. “I think it moved. I think it was a man. I don’t know why I shot three more times.” I checked the chamber. It was empty. There were no more rounds in the clip. Keith was trembling and whispering to himself what I assumed were prayers.

I slipped the gun into my back pocket and took the fire escape down to the loading dock and jumped down and walked up and down the tracks. There wasn’t anyone down there. Nothing that even looked like what might be confused for a sleeping person. When I got back to the rooftop, Keith was gone. We sort of drifted apart after that.

Strange I had forgotten all about that night so many years ago. But it was brought back with beers on the balcony and the fireworks display from the direction of Woodlawn Lake commemorating Cinco de Mayo. I guess I had been oblivious as to the date, and I was as surprised as the Guatemalans with the colorful flashes throwing quivering shadows on the walls behind us. Alex and William were giving a running critical commentary, comparing the display to previous years.

Renaldo returned while the fireworks were in progress. As the rest of us watched the sky, fascinated, he fired up a joint, examined the coals in the hibachi which the Guatemalans had already prepared, and busied himself with food preparation.

A bit beyond midnight, after I had lost count of beers and brisket tacos, I realized I had been nodding off in Alex’s lawn chair. I looked around. The stereo inside was playing Lila Downs. Alex and William were arguing about a girl who had died twenty years ago. Renaldo was dancing with one of the Guatemalans, while the other three looked on uncomfortably.

I eased up and walked inside. I walked my bike down the hallway and carried it down the back stairs, almost falling over Able who was snoring slumped on the bottom step. The moon light struck a streamer of saliva from his mouth and it glowed blue like a fiber optic cable.

I rode south down Colorado Street, and paused for a few minutes to watch a couple of kids throwing lit firecrackers at each other in their front yard until their father yelled for them to shut up. I continued through the peaceful neighborhoods ripe with the blossoms of mountain-laurel and huisache marinading with the odors of barbecued meat. The measured thump of norteño music drifting through open windows followed me all the way home.

My friend Kat makes an appearance in my life maybe three or four times a year. It all starts with a phone call, which leads to lunch over sushi or a couple of drinks at the Cobalt Club or some other downtown dive. Then some follow-up phone calls over the next two days. And that’s that, until three or four months later. And the cycle repeats. Halloween is a constant. I can always count on her touching down into my life during the tail end of October.

It’s my neighborhood. She’s attracted to it much like the kids. The homes are old and spooky looking. Many of the people living in them are rich. They can afford the good candies. And so children from all over the city come down my street to load up.

Last year Kat sat out on my front porch with me and we handed out treats to hundreds of kids. She was a mermaid, in a black vinyl outfit, complete with tail. I was, well, just me.

This year I’m in on the game. We’re back on my porch. I’m in medical scrubs and a surgeon’s mask. Kat’s in a very revealing nurse’s outfit. white stockings and garter belt with a mini skirt and stethoscope. We stand at a medical examining table, looking down at a dummy stretched out. As the timid kids creep up the steps, I use a pair of forceps to pull back the sheet, revealing an opened abdominal cavity filled with entrails and bags of candy corn.

Earlier in the year I picked up the exam table from Kat. She was moving to Shreveport to be near the man of her dreams, who was fifteen years younger than her, very rich, and just a hair less possessive than the last love of her life, who I believe is still stalking her, restraining order be damned. I haven’t the heart to ask if she’s still with the rich kid. I haven’t even asked if she’s still living in Shreveport. I’ve learned not to ask questions. She prefers to keep a low profile. In fact, when I helped her move, it was the first time I had visited her house. She wanted my assistance because I have a truck, and also because she knows me to be discreet and nonjudgmental. You see, Kat’s a dominatrix. And she needed someone to help her empty her dungeon so that she could then get her father to help her clear out the rest of her house. Daddy doesn’t know what she does to pay the rent. I took her cages, racks, and restraint tables to a storage facility on the south side. The examining table was something she didn’t want to keep. “I hate that naughty nurse bullshit!” I told her I’d take it. And so I did.

“Come on, sweetie,” Kat says to a cautious girl in a ballerina outfit who is looking up at us on the porch. There are candles in red glass burning all around us. “We have candy.” That last doesn’t seem encouraging enough. The father laughs. He scoops up his little ballet dancer and holds the giggling girl over the body with the gaping belly wound. She grabs candy and they are gone.

“Wasn’t she the cutest thing?” Kat gushes.

There was a Halloween, it must have been twenty years ago. I was living in San Francisco, working in the warehouse of Rough Trade Records. After work me and three of the women who worked the phones, placing and receiving orders, were tossing back a few drinks at the Metro Bar before heading to the I-Beam for some punk show. Jill had the whole dark goth look to the hilt, which wasn’t really her scene. But it was Halloween. Alex was super butch, like Brando in “The Wild One.” Actually, this was pretty much how she dressed every day. And Erin had on this pink tutu with matching ballet shoes. She started out the night with a tiara, but a drunken drag queen had bought it off her with a bag of mushrooms.

The four of us took turns heading off to the restrooms at the Metro to choke down the mushrooms. They were dusty, leathery, and tasted like dirt.

Erin held back some for her boyfriend, Derrick. But when he showed up, he was so cranked up on meth that he didn’t care about much of anything … except that we should finish up our drinks and grab a cab because the club was going to fill up fast. He glanced at the mushrooms with impatient disdain.

The mushrooms were starting to hit me, ever so gently. And Derrick looked like some evil robot, fixated on a single, pointless task.

Erin seemed of the same mind as me. She leaned back from her boyfriend (she was on a bar stool, he was standing, tugging at his watchband). She helped herself to my beer, and began, indiscreetly, to eat up all of Derrick’s share of the mushrooms, washing them down with my cheap draft beer.

The bartender, Donny, clutched at his throat melodramatically. “Girl, put that in a Denver omelet and it’ll sure go down a lot easier.” I liked Donny. He always managed to comp at least every third drink of mine.

Erin threw a ten on the bar top.

“Okay,” she said, turning to Derrick. “Let’s go find your fucking cab.”

Jill and Alex laughed and followed Derrick outside. I grabbed Erin and she stiffened like she could stab me if she had a knife.

“Be like that Denver omelet,” I whispered into her ear. “Warm and savory.”

She relaxed and leaned back her head. She looked up at me with a playful smile. “You want me to be all hammy and sweet peas?”

“You get locked into some shit with Derrick, it’ll be a long long night for us all.”

“I’ll be like a soufflé,” she squealed.

I turned to Donny. “She’s a soufflé!” And I fluffed up Erin’s tutu.

Outside, Derrick was hustling Jill and Alex into the back of a cab. I jumped in after them. Derrick pushed Erin in after me. She slid in, laying across all our laps. We all started laughing. Derrick took the passenger seat up front. We were off. The girls were singing a Woodentops song. I was gauging the strength of the mushrooms by looking at the fabric of the seat in front of me, and seeing how busy were the shifting of patterns. And then I heard Erin shout.

“Stop the car!”

At first I thought it was a Woodentops reference. But Erin was sitting up in my lap, with the door half open. The cab driver pulled to the curb. We were on Haight Street at Buena Vista Park. Erin took off at a run up the hill. The street lights made her pink outfit all orange. And I noticed that sequins had been sewn into her tutu — they splashed light like a puppy shaking off water. Halfway up the hill she stopped running. She gave us a little hop. She began dancing in a slow serpentine manner. Soon she was totally lost in herself. Not dancing for anyone.

“Christ,” Derrick muttered. “Who’s going to go get her?”

He actually looked at me.

“Hey!” I said. “She’s a soufflé, fully risen and clearly off the leash.” That made me laugh, and I turned to Jill. “I think I mixed my metaphors.” Jill ignored me. She was staring raptly at the lighted radio in the dashboard.

“It’s like Jesus.” She turned to me. “A light … you know, in the darkness.” And she grabbed my arm, grinning. “I’m so fucked up.”

Alex was trudging up the hill. When she got to Erin, she sat down and just watched her dance.

I squeezed Jill’s knee. She focused on my face, with a questioning smile. I pointed up the hill.

“There’s a show up there.”

Jill looked up and saw Erin and Alex. She got out of the cab. I followed. Soon we were seated on the grass watching Erin dance slow and lost and happy. The cab driver sat next to me with a grin and he lit up a cigarette. Derrick stood over us, glowering.

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

The cab driver looked up, puzzled. “Well, she sure is a pretty thing, isn’t she?”

Derrick zipped up his jacket. “I’ll go ahead, right?”

We nodded. And we waved to him.

“Okay,” he muttered. And finally, he left.

We never did make it to the I-Beam. In fact, I never saw Derrick again. But what I do remember is that a couple of white guys in dreadlocks were out walking their Dachshund. For some reason they both had drums — one with bongos, the other with a djembe. They joined us. They provided a beat, and soon it wasn’t just Erin dancing.

Tonight, however, the strongest drug I’ve got going is the sugar rush off the candy corn. Kat’s working her way through a bottle of Boon’s Farm. But it all seems so innocent.

I want edgy. I want Dionysian. And here I am on a porch in a proper, polite neighborhood with candy for kids.

“It’s Harry Potter!” Kat says, pulling on my sleeve. “Isn’t he adorable?”

I agree, and I smile behind my mask. And I reveal the candy for the kid with my forceps.

There’s a lonely stretch of road on the south side of San Antonio between the old Spanish Missions of San Juan and Espada. It’s a mile-long straight shot running parallel to the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. Many people in town are familiar with this region, as the southern reach of the road crosses the notorious “Ghost Tracks,” a railroad crossing purportedly haunted by the children who died when their school bus was struck by a train. The problem is, no one seems to be able to track down any newspaper report of this event. I ride this road maybe three times a week on my bicycle, and from my experience, if there are ghosts haunting this area, most likely it would be from the carcasses of the family pets dumped out here. It’s no doubt easier than digging a hole. Every few days I encounter a new box or trash bag surrounded by a cloud of flies and stench. There are also live pets abandoned here–I see them eyeing me hopefully as they cringe at the fence-lines of the surrounding farms. There are also three roadside altars along the road: markers where some drunken or dozing driver lost control of his car and perished unseen and alone.

I had wrangled a photography show at an Alamo Street gallery for Día de los Muertos, which was just a week away. The plan was to shoot a dozen of the more interesting roadside altars around town, but I hadn’t yet done a single photo.

I decided to begin with one of the alters about half a mile from the “Ghost Tracks,” as it was the only one of the three on that road which showed any signs of upkeep. It was early afternoon when I pulled off the road in my truck. There was still a chill in the air and the trees clustered across the road from me were still dripping from the heavy rains that morning. I grabbed my tripod and camera and walked up to the large live oak tree. There were four tall votive candles at the base of the tree each with about an inch of rain water in the glass holders. Further up the tree trunk a heavy iron grill that looked like it belonged to a backyard barbecue had been hung with huge nails driven into the tree. Attached to the bars of the grill were all manner of sentimental objects: a little weathered and sodden teddy bear, white silk flowers, plastic beaded necklaces, some cards with pictures of saints, a tiny gift shop acoustic guitar, and a rosary with pink beads and a silver-painted crucifix.

The clouds, which had been running low and fast on my drive out, were breaking up and the sun began throwing some pleasing shadows. I set up the shot with the grill in the foreground–I was zoomed in as tight as my lens would allow, so that the train, when it finally made its appearance, would be massive and imposing in the background. A slow shutter would leave it’s motion smeared like a river surging by.

Now it was just a matter of waiting. I was toying with the idea of reframing the shot to include a crude carving on the tree which read “Yolanda 4 Ever,” but I wasn’t sure if it was part of the altar. At the sound of a car approaching, I turned around. It was an old green El Camino. I watched as it slowed and rolled to a stop in the grass between me and my truck. Conjunto music with a heavy bass line and a strident accordion came from the open windows. A young woman sat in the driver’s seat watching me from behind sunglasses. Beside her sat an old man in a baseball cap reading a newspaper. The twisted front bumper was held fast with a large link chain and bailing wire.

The music stopped abruptly and the woman cut off the engine, which dieseled onerously with a low throaty cough before finally dying. That’s when I heard the long, wavering train whistle. I looked back toward the tree, and the train track beyond. I could see the bright headlight from the train–it had just turned that little bend near the cemetery across from Mission San Juan. It was coming in fairly fast, and I tried to ignore the woman as she climbed out of the car and began walking toward me. I needed to get this shot, because who knew when another train would come along. I could see, from my peripheral vision, that she had come to a stop about fifteen feet from me. She took off her glasses and crossed her arms.

The train was about to enter the frame–the rumbling of steel wheels along iron rails and the whistle screaming all came crashing into me like physical thing. That’s when I squeezed off a shot. I took another three exposures with slightly different settings and placements. Then I put on the lens cap, like a diner placing his napkin on the table, to indicate he was done with his meal. I turned to the woman with what I hoped was a pleasant and cordial smile.

As we stood there, facing one another with the train lumbering by, she pointed with her folded sunglasses at the tree.

“You’re not messing with that, are you?” she shouted over the noise. I didn’t make out the words at first.

“What? Oh, no,” I said slowly and loudly. “I’m just taking pictures.”

She furrowed her brows. At that point the final train car sped past, snatching with it all the thunder and high-pitched metallic squealing.

“It’s for a photography show.” I added: “At an art gallery.”

“Oh,” she said, with an understanding dip of her head, as if art explained everything. “It’s just that if my mother saw anyone messing with this, she’d be sick. This is for my sister, Yoli.”

She walked to the tree and fussed with the silk flowers by reshaping the petals with the wire inside the fabric.

“You should come back out with your camera next week. Me, my mother, and my nieces, we’ll redo it. We freshen it up every few months.” She was wearing an orange t-shirt, faded jeans, and flip-flop sandals. Her hair was held back with what looked like a strip torn off a dish towel. She looked like she was about twenty.

“She was in a car accident?” I asked.

“What?” She turned around and was looking down at my camera.

“Your sister.”

“Oh.” She slipped her sunglasses into the front pocket of her jeans. “It was up there,” she said, pointing to the rise of the train tracks. “She was walking along the tracks with her boyfriend. They were drunk. Someone said they saw them pushing each other when the train was coming up. You know, pretending. Kids do stupid stuff. Sergio, her boyfriend, well his parents sent him to live with his grandparents in Laredo. It was an accident, everyone knows that, but, you know, the kids at school and everything.”

She bent down to empty the water from the candle holders and stood up with a sigh. “Come on back next week, it’ll be pretty.” She smiled at me and nodded and walked back to her car.

“Hey,” I said. “When did this happen?”

She turned. “On her birthday,” she said. “On Yoli’s birthday.” And I watched her get in the truck with the old man and drive off.