“Road to Gascón”, by Eva Alcaraz-Monje
Based on true events, dialogue translated from Spanish.
The clunking giant shakes as it trudges along the dirt path, encountering every rock that stabs
itself in the rubber of the thick wheels. You can feel it most in the backseat, yet Praga is lulled
softly to sleep in her baby carrier next to me. She must be used to the rocking of her fathers’s
dusty truck, letting her tiny eyes drift close under the piles of white and pink hand-stitched
blankets. The gray plastic digs into my ribs as I sit sandwiched between the newborn in her own
chariot and her older sister, Paloma. Her dirty princess sneakers swing above the tattered black
floor as she stares out the right-hand window at the rolling hills of dead grass and bare trees that
beg you to look away. Her thick black curls hide part of the view, only leaving her chubby pale
face to be seen in the reflection emitted from the glass. As the sunset turns the sky into a smear
of purples and oranges, my eye is drawn past the hand-streaked glass to a leaning wooden house.
It’s far into the pale, tan weeds of the countryside, shrouded by the outstretched hands of
surrounding trees. The strangeness draws you in, the misplaced feeling of the dying structure,
pleading you to make your way to it and enter its fallen slates.
“That’s where the man with the siren head lives,” Paloma drags out as her eyes, like mine,
fixate on the house. “I hope he doesn’t smash our car,” turning to face me with her vast dark
brown eyes. Her mouth curls into a smile, the circular mole above her lips creasing along with it.
“What are you talking about, Palo? What man?” I try to match her sweet look, yet concern fills
my face to the point she can notice.
She doesn’t waver at my expression, continuing, “The man with the siren head. He lives there
in that house. He smashes cars on the road with his big head.” She stares back out into the view
that has begun to blur as the truck accelerates. Our bodies become jumbled as Tio Fede holds the
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wheel with rough hands, jerking slightly as he stays steady on the unpaved road ahead. As our
limbs dance around in a frantic dance, my cousin’s high voice grows louder. “He was a
policeman a long time ago, but he had no money. Back then, you had to pay to be a policeman
and it was very expensive.”
I look at her intensely, nodding along as she turns again to face me. Her expression seems
warped, the smile stretching into the corner of her cheeks. Her eyes are voids now, catching the
lights in all the wrong ways, the unnatural ways. “What happened to him, Paloma?”, I ask her as
I grip onto the bottom of my seat, forcing down the concern growing in my throat.
“One day, he went to an old store to sell his dollar bills to get more money,” she continues as
she forces her smile wider. She won’t let up her childish glee, or at least something twisted trying
to disguise itself. She giggles “But he didn’t know, Eva, he didn’t know they secretly sold
sirens.”
The truck increases its rocking, suddenly sliding me into the baby carrier. A sharp cry of pain
escapes me as I hold onto my bruised side. I look over at my baby cousin, beginning to fuss and
attempting to outstretch her hands trapped in the fabric “When he tried to sell the bills, the owner
refused to buy them, no one knows why,” Paloma continues while ignoring her little sister,
digging her gleeful gaze into my soul.
“But the man kept pushing and pushing until the owner was very very mad. The owner took off
his fake human head to reveal a siren head underneath.” The young girl points to her head, taking
both of her hands and spreading fingers wide near her neck to make gills. She still stares at me,
but now through her hair that has begun to fall into her face.
“He grabbed the man and took him to the cellar of his store, where he had his sirens. The owner
put the biggest siren head on the man and turned him into the man with the big siren head as a
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punishment for making him angry.” She begins to chuckle, turning into a sharp laugh, throwing
her head back as her body bounces up and down with the rhythm of the truck.
I see my reflection in the muddy pane next to her curls, my face contorted with visible terror I
didn’t know was creeping across it. My eyes have grown wide, my mouth agape as I look back
down to my cousin. “But why does he smash cars? Why? We didn’t do anything wrong, right?”
“He’s trying to find the man that did this to him. He’s angry, Eva,” her glee is uncontainable as
the truck vibrates around her. As if she’s causing it to move under her small frame. The truck
swerves and my hand grabs onto her thin arm for support. The babe has now begun to shriek,
high-pitched wails filling the stuffed car as my uncle unleashes a string of curses that drown out
quickly. The small girl, still with her smile and dead eyes, leans close to my ear.
“I’ve seen him before.” My breathing thickens as my eyes fixate on the rolling countryside once
more. But now, the naked trees have turned into leaning figures, the sunset now hanging gray
over them like ominous controllers of their sickly frames.
I utter back at her, my voice trembling under my shaking body, “W-Where did you see him,
Paloma?” Her voice enters the air around me, numbing the rising rumble of the road to where
only she can be heard.
“Right behind us.”