El Primo, by SG Huerta
CW: violence, suicide, sexual assault
The lobby of the afterworld is serene. Uncanny. There’s a set of elevators ahead of you. Before you can push any button, the doors of the furthest elevator slide open. Suddenly you’re inside. You meet an attendant who is also a bald eagle. You notice the destination is the 14th floor, and you’d rather die than–– It’s too late for that sort of bargain, so you kindly ask her to take you to the 23rd or even 24th, but she just looks at you and ruffles her feathers because she is a bird but also a metaphor. Hey, ¿how many floors are actually you start to ask, but the lights go out, the elevator halts its ascent. This is like that amusement park fake-elevator ride your dad peer-pressured you to get on. (Remember gripping his arm despite being 13 and beyond needing anyone’s arm?) That elevator was also not real, but not exactly a metaphor… simply a digression. But that amusement park feeling in your stomach is back, minus the innocence. The elevator rises, and you start to sweat. Espérate. Were you wearing that gray sweater and those tacky maroon pants when you arrived? The ones your Tía bought you for Thanksgiving a decade ago. Where are your shoes? You are frozen. Why are you frozen?
You’re both dropped to the ground floor, or perhaps the basement. Your eyes adjust to the dark and Susan is still there– that’s the eagle’s name– and so is El Primo. And so is your dad! El Primo is alive and growing larger as the seconds roll by. Your dad is not alive. He has more lived experience as a ghost than you. Maybe you can hold his arm again. Maybe he is going to avenge you. Not you in the elevator, you suppose, but sleeping you, teenage you, you the morning after. The morning after you left your body for the first time, rising up to the ceiling, staring down at a dingy bed with your all-but-disemboweled teenage body in the middle of it, El Primo’s claws and fangs dripping with virgin blood. The morning you started your journey to the afterworld. That is the you who your dad might avenge. And afterwards, maybe he’ll tell his friends to disappear another police report, kill the rumors before they even learn to crawl. Why are you frozen?
You fall back against the clamped-tight doors when the first shot from your father’s gun reverberates in the elevator. El Primo lets out a deafening screech and then a pathetic whimper. You dig deep inside your ghost self to try and sympathize when a second gunshot rings out. El Primo is here, but gone. Your dad is here, but gone. It is a bloodless death scene. The eagle just looks at you. She is an eagle. Susan gives her wings a stretch, the lights come on, the pop instrumentals you hadn’t noticed playing when you first stepped on resume, and her talon presses 14. You think you see her yawn. You can bring the bodies back where you started. Or you can stay frozen.
SG Huerta is a queer Xicanx writer from Dallas. They are the poetry editor of Abode Press and author of the poetry chapbooks The Things We Bring with Us (Headmistress Press 2021) and Last Stop (Defunkt Magazine 2023). Their work can be found in Bodega Magazine, The Offing, Split Lip Magazine, Infrarrealista Review, and elsewhere. SG lives in central Texas with their partner and two cats. Find them at sghuertawriting.com