A cuento told by my uncles about their own father, my grandfather. Told usually once it dark and we all gather around the fire.
My grandfather just wanted to party. . .
My grandfather was not a good man. As told by my father and my uncles. He was known as the village drunk and had a habit of beating both his kids and his wife. He liked to walk into town and drink. This particular story starts with my grandfather Tomas’ days-long binge. Having had enough of his behavior my grandma demanded that he come home or go to work as they had 12 kids to take provide for. With a man like him, you can guess how it went for my poor grandma.
To spite her further, my grandpa got the drunkest he’d ever been. He got so drunk most of the local bars closed their doors to him. But my grandpa wanted to continue the party, so he wandered the empty streets of Zacatecas looking for a place where he could continue to party.
Off in the distance, he heard music so he headed in that direction.
When he got close enough, to the point where the source was just around the corner the music stopped. Then he heard it farther away. Maybe, my grandpa thought, he was just too drunk the first time to notice that he had been going the wrong direction. So he continued on towards the new source of the sound stumbling over the cobblestone streets in the dead of night. When thought he was close enough, the music shifted yet again. He was sure that it was just the drink that was muddling his mind so he continued chasing the party, street after street until the party was sounded right ahead of him from within the sacred walls of the Catedral Basílica de Zacatecas.
Tomas was not a religious man. The music playing his favorite music and the windows emitted a warm glow, in his drunken stupor he only thought it mildly strange, but he couldn’t find anywhere else the music could have possibly be coming from and her certainly didn’t want to go back home. He decided to enter, the music pulsing through the wooden doors as he pushed it open.
The very second he entered, the music ceased. Inside, the church was lit and utterly silent. There was only a single nun sitting in one of the pews.
Tomas grew angry. He had chased this party all through the night and all over the city. He was so sure this was the place of the party. Surely this nun would know where the party was. So he shouted to her “Oye, que pasa! Un ta la fiesta!” (Hey, what’s going on? Where’s the party?)
And the woman turned, and when she did she didn’t have a face. What stared back at him through pitch-black eye sockets was La Santisima Muerte. Veiled with a skull in place of a head.
My grandfather had never run home faster and he stopped drinking. . . . for a whole week.
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