Pedro Santos has lost everything. He lost his freedom when he was sent to prison, lost his wife, his kids. Pedro lost his mother, who died while he was locked up, without ever getting a chance to say goodbye. Ultimately, Pedro even lost his faith. That doesn’t stop his mother’s followers from turning to him for help once he gets out. Pedro’s mother, Paloma, was a powerful Santeria priestess, dedicating herself to using the mystical mesh of Catholicism and African Yoruba religion that rose out of slavery to aid anyone who came to her. Pedro wants to help, but can’t understand why anyone would look to a faithless loser, like him. Yet, all they see is El Milagrito, the “little miracle” that beat death twice by the time he was nine, and must therefore be destined to be a healer. If only he could heal himself...
In my novel, Chango Crying, we meet Pedro as he’s released after four years of incarceration near Baltimore for selling cocaine to help support his own young children after his wife abandoned their family to try to make it as a stripper in New York. Having nowhere else to go, Pedro returns to his mother’s tiny apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey. When people hear that El Milagrito has come home, they flock to Pedro. Despite no longer believing in the magic promised by Santeria and its rituals, he is obligated to help. Paloma only had two rules: turn no one away, and ask nothing in return. Saying no would dishonor his mom’s memory.
It’s not long before Pedro finds himself in way over his head. A desperate Manhattan socialite turns to him for help in finding her son, who disappeared in Mexico during Spring Break. Reluctantly, Pedro fulfills his obligation to 'turn no one away' and risks his newfound freedom by leaving the country while on probation. Pedro is able to track the socialite’s son to a pair of brujos, evil Santeria practitioners who sacrifice humans in dark, brutal rituals designed to protect a powerful Mexican drug cartel, and is soon caught in the midst of a violent drug war. He suspects the socialite’s son is already dead. Once the brujos discover his presence, Pedro needs to find his faith, fast, just to stay alive. Otherwise, he's going to need another miracle.
Your Eternal Dance
Some say you should be my queen,
but I am more Fool than king.
A Fool will not rule
or be ruled,
but is always open
to worship,
drawn to it,
like the flame
to the moth
fluttering
close enough
to be illuminated,
to have its magic
made clear.
I will not crown you
my Queen;
instead I will adore you,
pray under your divine light,
whisper your name
to the sky
to invoke you,
venerate you for the goddess
I know you to be.
Some say you should be my queen,
but regents are too prone
to tyranny, to staking claims,
to bending nature
to their own whims;
these things are beneath you.
Your proclivities lie
in creation, inhaling
death to exhale stars,
consuming stars
to excrete Life.
Some say you should be a queen,
but you rise
above titles,
beyond law,
past present or future.
I bow before you,
not out of obeisance,
but in reverence, hoping
that, given your place
in the pantheon of my heart,
you will allow me
to partake in your eternal
dance.
