Sierra Santiago and the Invisible City

Chapter 11 - Trash

No one in Sierra's neighborhood had been able to tell her a single useful piece of information about Robbie or Treme. Carlos and his band of gossiping corner store Dominicans had plenty of baseball trivia, he-said-she-said about various bachata singers and a few stupid jokes. Manny the Domino King, Rutilio and Mr. Jean-Louis looked genuinely concerned, exchanged that same serious glance she'd seen them with the day before when she mentioned the Vault, but they had nothing new to add to the story.

"Where do lonely women go to dance?" she'd asked them after they toasted both Robbie and Treme and taken several more swigs of rum.

Rutilio shrugged, "Yo no sé, mami, but lemme know when you find out we can send Manny there to find his wife." The three friends let out a ruckus peal of laughter and toasted again.

It was three in the afternoon and the throbbing heat made sweat roll down the back of Sierra's neck and stain the armpits of her gray t-shirt. She wrapped her hair up in a silky blue scarf. Her brother Juan's crazy band screamed through her headphones. Culebra played a bizarre fusion of traditional salsa and hardcore death metal and somehow they made it work. Every time the music soared to some new height of thrashing, static-laced madness it got suddenly extra chill and the syncopated bass tumbao would break out, followed by the clack-clack of the clave and then the swinging salsa horns and warbling keyboards. All three Santiago kids grew up with salsa playing every day and night but both Sierra and Juan ended up preferring punk and hardcore, while Jimmy tended towards the corny pop ballads.

The song came crashing to an end and Sierra took the headphones out of her ear. She stood on a deserted corner in front of one of those abandoned lots that was overflowing with weeds and rusted out car parts. Tinibu crawled carefully out of the courier bag and perched in his spot on her shoulder. He looked like he'd just woken up from a very pleasurable nap. He nestled his head lazily into the side of Sierra's neck and let out a purr.

"I don't know what to do, T," she said. "No one knows anything. I'm no closer to finding Treme or Robbie. I don't know where lonely women go to dance. I don't know why the murals keep moving or what any of this has to do with bridges. I'm tired and I'm hungry." Tinibu had fallen back asleep though, and was snoring softly into her collarbone.

Sierra remembered the snacks they'd packed and reached her hand into the courier bag, moving carefully so as not to wake up the young hunterfly. The bag seemed suspiciously empty though, and lighter. She swung it around to her front and dug through it anxiously. Her i-pod, notebook and phone were there, along with several empty potato chip bags and crinkled up juice boxes. She looked at Tinibu.

"Really?" she said, letting the day's frustration seep into her voice. Then louder: "Reeeeally, T?" Tinibu stirred slightly but remained unconscious. She wound up and hurled one of the empty juice boxes into the dingy lot. A cloud of dust shot straight up into the air and a monstrous pile of dirt, weeds and trash rose suddenly and wrapped itself around the juice box. Sierra jumped back in horror, waking up Tinibu. Having collected its prize, the trash heap lunged towards where Sierra stood and paused at the edge of the lot, panting.

"Why thank you," a gravely voice said from somewhere deep inside the trash heap. "Many pretty colors on the outside and shiny on the inside. For my collection." It was just that kind of a week, Sierra supposed, and Tinibu didn't seem alarmed, so she took a step towards the pile.

"My name's Sierra," she said. "You're a—a keeper?"

"Corrales," it responded, gesturing towards itself with a tentacle-like appendage made from banana peels, empty paper towel rolls and stained ice cream cartons. "I keep the vacant lots. Even the little ones, like where once was tree, but now only dirt. That's I."