The Mictlan Murders

Chapter 1-2

I WAS TWELVE-YEARS-old during my first trip to El Paso Texas. Before then all I knew was sunny Southern California, so a trip anywhere would be quite the adventure. There was excitement, although doused in a little disappointment as the news of the trip came right on the heels of a semi decent Christmas. As fate would have it, tearing into all of my Christmas presents would be put on hold. This was not an easy thing to do, especially for an overly anxious pre-teen, which I most certainly was. I had to get busy packing for an unexpected trip to some weird place called “Paso” something. A distant relative had just passed away and we were heading out there for an untimely funeral. Death it seemed had no respect for time. Before long the family camper was loaded up and we were cruising down Interstate 10. I fell asleep and awoke a few hours later as we entered the vast Arizona desert.

The sun was just beginning to rise above the rough terrain revealing a natural wonderland I had only seen in pictures. I was mesmerized by the miles and miles of cactus and brush both beautiful and desperate. Fitting for what I called our “funeral caravan.” I stared out the window trying to imagine what could be ahead as we motored deeper into the abandoned. I would get my first taste of death as we pulled off in New Mexico for lunch. It was an old and deteriorating rest area off the interstate called Lordsburg. I remember this place being very quiet and just as lonely as the desert that surrounded it. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that folks actually lived here. I remember my Grandpa (our driver) telling me a story about how Lordsburg was the only rest stop that was “black people friendly” back in the prohibition days. Grandpa was always full of neat and interesting historical facts all of which were usually right on the money. Sometimes.

After filling up the tank we pulled into a deserted parking lot on the outskirts of town and enjoyed Grandma’s homemade chorizo burritos. As Grandpa did his final inspections of the camper, I wandered out into the nearby rough desert to explore.

There was a small statue, placed like a tombstone buried in the hard dirt. Around its base were small votive candles placed in different colored glass jars. There were remnants of flowers and a few homemade crosses surrounding the base. It looked like it had been there for quite some time but visited frequently. The statue itself was worn but resembled the catholic Virgin Mary in skeleton form. I recall feeling frightened, like I was trespassing on someone’s private property. I high-tailed it back to the camper.

Driving down I10, I was overwhelmed by the thought that someone might have been buried there or even worse, had died in that actual location. Even now, when I pass a roadside memorial, the same thoughts go through my head and I always recall that spot in New Mexico.

It was late evening when we pulled into my great aunt’s house on the west side of El Paso. From just beyond the camper’s dirty window I could see that the neighborhood was not much more developed than Lordsburg. We were greeted with open arms by my Great Aunt and her three kids. The house was old and had been built in the late forties. My Aunt had been the only tenant and sole owner.

The back yard was a junk yard of sorts. Remnants from four decades worth of wheel barrows, farming implements and failed attempts at keeping a storage shack intact. It strangely resembled our house and backyard back in Southern California but not as new. The house had a few rooms that were added on including the “new” bathroom. One could see where the old house stopped and the new one began, especially the “old” bathroom which looked like a mid-forties jail house shower and toilet. It was dead quiet that first night, so much that I didn’t sleep at all. Looking back now this all made sense, I was from the city after all.

To this day I’m still unclear as to exactly who’s funeral we were at. He was either a Great —Great Uncle or some other kind of distant cousin. Nevertheless, his service drew a small crowd of extended family. I met all sorts of long-lost great aunts, uncles and cousins all there to pay respects. The service was held at a small (and very old) church in nearby Anthony, New Mexico. The ceremony, which lasted well over two hours, was spoken completely in Spanish. A mere few steps outside was a cemetery as old as the church itself, to which a hole had been dug amongst the ageing graves and tombstones. This hole is where my late relative was to be buried immediately after the church service.

I watched as they blocked the hole with large sheets of plywood then lowered his casket into it. We all took turns grabbing a handful of earth and tossed it in. After everyone had contributed to the grave the men of the group grabbed shovels and completed the job. The whole process took several hours during which I wandered deeper into the cemetery.

Death was all around me. I explored the different plots and intricate graves both plain and elaborate. I was completely captivated by the different representations of people passed. The cemetery was old with some graves dating back to the turn of the century or earlier, all in Spanish. I remember my twelve-year-old self having that same feeling back in Lordsburg —quiet, lonely. There was no rhyme or reason to the way the plots were placed. They simply found a spot then dug. It was very unorganized and random but with a chaos that seemed magical.

On the back ridge, which was the last “row” of graves, a small figure caught my eye. Another Virgin Mary skeleton like statue, surrounded by candles with both flowers and homemade crosses around the base. It was almost identical to what I had seen the day before. I realize now it wasn’t a grave, but an altar.

We would stay the next few days visiting with relatives and exploring El Paso. On this particular day we decided to take a trip across the border into Mexico. As it turns out I had lots of history here in El Paso and also in the nearby Mexico town of Juarez. It’s here my Grandma crossed over into the U.S and this Texas border town was where my grandparents met then settled. If my Grandpa, being the eccentric that he is, had never had the idea to move the clan to sunny Southern California, El Paso would of most likely been my home.

Getting to and from Juarez back then was easy (83’). You just parked and walked across the border then waited in a short line to come back. It’s quite different now requiring a passport to re-enter the U.S. and waiting hours on end.

I have vague recollections of our trip across the border, basically just these three things: 1) The man laying face down in an alley, 2) A really creepy puppet my mom bought me and 3) Another one of those skeleton lady statue/altars —they were almost everywhere but in different forms.

When we returned to my Aunt’s house, I asked my cousins what the altars were and the fact that I had seen them starting back in Lordsburg. They made the sign of the cross and asked me if I had touched any of them. Of course, I hadn’t. “Santa Muerte” is what my cousin told me. I could see my Great Auntie mutter a prayer under her breath. The tone in the house changed.

That night, my cousins and I camped out in the front room. They wanted to know what life was like in So. Cal but all I wanted to know about was this Santa Muerte thing. After an hour of explaining to them what the beach is like, they opened up.

They told me story after story of strange and bizarre things they either saw themselves or heard of happening. They told me about young women going missing then turning up dead along the border with their hearts cut out. Those Santa Muerte altars popping up around the region. Odd people lingering around at night speaking a strange language. Local churches holding emergency meetings. Underground kitchens serving human flesh. They went on and on about how the gates of hell have opened and that we’ll see lots of evil and death in the world. They also talked about a woman reporter who vanished a few years back and how it was big news around there for a while.

I asked them what the Santa Muerte altars were for and they didn’t know exactly. These altars weren’t part of the catholic church or used in anything related. They seemed to think that the times were changing for the worse and people turned to their own religions to keep them safe. Even if that meant killing and torturing others.

After these ghost stories, and another sleepless night, I was ready to come home. In the morning we packed up and headed out. I slept almost the entire trip home. I would not return to El Paso until almost two decades later.

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