Doña Cuca

Castle Hill Ave is a bitch on Sunday mornings.

People who smile at passersby are usually in church by then and from 9am to about 3 in the afternoon those left in the streets just, stare.

It was impossible not to notice

the tangible shift in the air

Faces cooled and froze over;

drawn grey like they were old tattered pictures of themselves.

Doña Cuca was the exception.

She owned the only available smile left on the block while church was in session.

The neighborhood Santera.

“Ella es una bruja”, my father would say, a witch.

But Doña Cuca was always nice to me.

More Glenda than Eveline.

I don’t think I ever saw her offering anyone

a suspicious looking apple in my life-

and unless platanos can render you unconscious when marinated in brutal honesty, I was pretty sure she was harmless.

The cute little old lady in the white dress.

For $40 she’d read your cards and for $50 she’d throw the caracol

All flaming rollers and cracked bottles of Palo Viejo, arroz con habichuelas y no jodas.

Her sense of humor was mojo soaked razorblades Bachateando with you ego.

Hanging out her window like some kinda barrio newscaster.

You wanted gossip, she had you covered.

Talking, laughing, asking for her advice on everything from men to how to cook the perfect pot of rice.

Neighborhood women adorned her stoop all summer & for a woman who never let anyone into her apartment I was amazed how she always knew who did what to who & for how much, the real reason the tenants in 3J wouldn't answer the door or how you could use an egg together with sea salt and a picture of your dead grandfather to stop arguments between invisible roommates, keys misplacing themselves over and over again and doors a lamming around your house in the middle of the night.

Doña Cuca could speak to your ancestors.

She always kept her window closed when she felt death coming to someone she knew.

A shut glass pane on the first floor of my building before sundown sent shivers down the block.

She said it felt like the vibrations on the train platform just before the 6 pulled up.

She lit colored candles for different fortunes on her window sill; a rainbow of possibilities - lighted prayers splayed out for the Santos to dance in.

The Saints have heavier footsteps after dark.

When I listened closely enough I could hear them on my ceiling dancing with Cuca,

She danced for the souls who would soon join them.

She danced for those they left behind; for the people on the block who would finally get invited into her house “after” they passed over,

for all her old friends turned guests of honor.