LETTER FROM RAMON

 

August 15, 2013—

Dear Ernesto, 

It’s me Ramón. At least, that’s what my ID says. Sometimes I forget. The voices call me other things—"El Perdedor," "The Ghost," "El Hijo de la Luna." They whisper, hiss, sing. Right now, they’re laughing because my stomach growls. I press my hands against my ears, but it doesn’t help. The voices aren’t outside. They’re in the meat of my brain, tangled like old headphones.  

Koreatown at night is all neon and shadows. Red signs bleed Hangul into the sidewalk. I don’t know what they say, but the voices do. "They’re watching you," one murmurs. "The letters are cameras." I keep my head down. My sneakers are split open like overripe fruit.  

I sleep behind the dumpster of a karaoke bar. The smell of stale beer and fried chicken sticks to my skin. Sometimes, when the voices get loud, I hum to drown them out—songs my abuela used to sing. "Cielito lindo, ay ay ay ay…" But then the other voice, the one that sounds like my tío (the one who used to lock me in the closet), sneers, "She’s dead because of you."  

I wasn’t always like this. Two years ago, I was in Vancouver, sharing a shitty apartment with my cousin Mateo. Then the cracks started. First, it was just shadows moving wrong. Then the radio talking to me. Then the night Mateo’s face melted into a stranger’s, and I ran.  

Now I’m here. The pavement is my bed. The voices are my family.  

Sometimes, people give me money. A Korean ajumma with kind eyes leaves tteokbokki outside her restaurant. I eat it fast before the voices tell me it’s poisoned. One night, a man in a suit spat on me. "Puto loco," he hissed. The voices cheered. "He sees you. He knows."  

The worst is when the walls breathe. The bricks swell like lungs, the graffiti twisting into faces. "They’re coming," the voices chant. "Los hombres de negro." I curl into a ball, press my forehead to the concrete. Count to ten in Spanish, English, then French—the languages of the people I used to be.  

"Uno, two, trois…"  

The meds would help. That’s what the social worker said before I bolted from the clinic. But the pills turn the world into wet cotton. Without the voices, it’s too quiet. I’d rather be crazy than alone.  

Today, it rains. The water slithers down my neck. A cop car slows near me. "Run," the voices scream. But I’m too tired. The cop rolls down his window. For a second, I think he’ll drag me away. Instead, he tosses a granola bar. It lands in a puddle.  

"Eat it," the nice voice says (the one that sounds like my mom, before the sickness ate her). "He’s trying to help."  

"It’s a tracker," the other one snarls. "They’ll follow the signal straight to you."  

I leave the bar in the water.  

Night falls. The neon buzzes. The karaoke bar throbs with off-key singing. A group of drunk guys stumble past. One sees me, mutters, "Fucking psycho." The voices cackle.  

I close my eyes.  

In the dark, I’m not Ramón the homeless kid. I’m not the ghost of Koreatown. I’m back in Vancouver, before the cracks. Mateo is laughing, shoving me playfully. Abuela’s hands are warm on my face. "Mijo," she whispers.  

The voices go quiet.  

Just for a second.  

Then the neon flickers, and they’re back.  

"You’ll die here," they sing.  

And I know they’re right.

———

ATILA

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