Don Juan Manuel

My mom, younger cousin and I were sitting in the car, waiting for the bus that my abuela was arriving in. She was set to arrive any minute now. Originally, she was supposed to be here a week ago but I guess that something came up so she had to move the visit.

A few minutes passed and we could see the bus pulling up. After a while, we had all of my abuela’s boxes packed up in the trunk and ready to go. On the drive home, curiosity ended up winning the best of me.

“So abuela, why didn’t you come last week like you had planned?” I asked.

“Something happened in the family,” answered my abuela.

I could see that my mom was immediately concerned, and my abuela noticed as well so she was quick to mention.

“Your tio Juan’s nephew died. The boy was from the other side of the family. So you didn’t really know him, mija.”

My curiosity was just growing and I wanted to know what happened but I decided to hold off for a little bit. But then my mom took the option right out of my hand.

“What happened?”

“Well, you know how your tio is, he’s always drunk. I don’t know exactly what happened but he mixed some type of insecticide with a drink or something. But poor Alberto drank it and I guess he drank enough for it to affect him like that.”

We all stayed quiet when my abuela finished. Stuff like that is hard to digest for the most part. My mom finally spoke up after a little while.

“And how mi tio Juan dealing with this?” she asked.

“Not very well, mija,” replied my abuela. “He’s been at the church all day, praying. He’s stopped drinking and is the soberest he’s ever been but it’s hard to see any good coming out of this.”

“I feel bad for him, this is really sad,” commented my cousin, Alex.

“This, mijos, is why you don’t look for answers in the bottom of a bottle. It just leads to more problems.” Abuela closed her eyes and whispered, “Nada mas causa nuevos problemas.”

After a prolonged silence, the mood got better with a change in subject but I noticed that my mom looked like she had something more she wanted to ask. Once we finally arrived back at my parent’s house, I found out what my mom had on her mind.

She turned the car off and then turned to my abuela.

“Who else?” she asked.

My abuela without missing a beat replied, “Juliana from down the street and from what I heard, the man that lives near cousin Arnulfo.”

“What do you mean, who else, ma?” I asked; my brain to mouth filter sucks.

“Well, mijo, every time one person dies, it’s said that two follow so I just wanted to see if there was anyone else.”

“Now help me bring this stuff in or you boys aren’t getting any of the candy that I brought back.”

Author's Note: The original story is about a rich man who every night, like clockwork, goes out and kills someone, which he had been doing for years. He's been fine with the fact that he kills people, until he accidentally kills his nephew by mistake. It served as a turning point in the legend because then he asked to be forgiven. To do so he would have to perform a task at the church, and he was unable to complete the task the first couple of times he tried. Then he finally finished the task and when morning came, he was found dead at the church. Legends says that he was hung by an angel. I decided with my retelling to modernize it and to do so I had to get rid of the murders. The idea behind these changes came from an actual incident that happened recently in this town, where a man died from swallowing ant poison. The idea of the three deaths is also something common in the town this story takes place and my mother reminded me about recently, so I wanted to include in this story. I want to keep the role of the church in this story but I kept the part of Don Juan’s death out of my story. I chose this specific image because whenever I think about my family and the relationship between an uncle and nephews, I think of this picture. Mostly because I find it humorous because my dad is the oldest in the picture but he’s the shortest one there. I felt like the image could have provided a relief to the tragic story.

Bibliography: "The Legend of Don Juan Manuel" by Thomas J. Janvier from Legends of the City of Mexico. Website: Project Gutenburg