IS SOMEONE PUTTING THE HEX ON MELISSA CASTRO?

By Juan Montoya
A few years ago in a previous lifetime when I was a road and bridge precinct supervisor for Cameron County, we had just won the position for Precinct 1 commissioner in a heated election by a mere nine votes after a runoff election.
The battle in the trenches was vicious, with supporters of our candidate and supporters of former Judge Ray Ramon fighting over every vote. It came to a recount after the runoff and our candidate Lucino Rosenbaum Jr. won that by a mere six votes.
With passions running high, Rosenbaum was sworn into office and took over the warehouse behind the then-Rancho Alegre Cafe on 14th Street. When we took ove rthe offices, the place was in shambles and had to be remodeled almost from scratch. Nonetheless, the commissioner started his two-term tenure there.
About two months into the job we came to the office on a Monday at about 7 a.m., and Rosie, the secretary of the office, a woman normally tough as nails and as good an office manager as you would want running a crew of laborers, truck driver and heavy equipment operators met me at the office door. Normally a guera with freckles, she was now white, her face drained of color.
"What's the matter?," I asked her noticing her demeanor.
"Look at the commissioner's office door," she pointed.
I went inside past the coffee pot, and then leaned into the corridor.
There was a small raised row of dirt stretched like a boundary along the bottom of the door. There was also a weird odor coming from the dirt.
"Son brujerias," she said. "It's probably cemetery dirt that someone came in here over the weekend and put there."
Although the building was old (it had an asbestos tile roof), there was no sign of forced entry or broken doors or windows. Whoever had come in had a way to get inside the gates and doors. The workers said the person who came in probably didn't need a key. They insinuated it had to be a witch or some other demonic thing that could walk through walls.
I, of course, didn't believe in any of that stuff and told Rosie and the workers just as much. But when they called the commissioner, he told every one to stay away from the dirt and to  wait until he consulted with someone who "knew about these things."
About an hour later he showed up and said that someone (me) should take the dirt and place it all in a plastic bag without touching it and then throw it into a body of water while saying an incantation  to the effect of "Go back where you came from and return the curse to the person who put it there."
I talked to the supervisor and told him that if that's what he wanted to do to have one of the workers do it out in the precinct somewhere. I grabbed a broom and dustpan and swept the area clean and handed them the bag because no one would come near it. Later, I heard that they had done as the commissioner had been advised by the "woman who knew."

I recount this story because I learned that someone did something similar to Melissa Castro, the local community activist who has worked with children and has tried to invigorate the downtown Market Square area with community events, crafts and music. She is also somewhat religious in her Internet commentary. In other words, one of the good guys.
Melissa posted in her Facebook site that someone driving a car stopped by her house and threw a poor sacrificed chicken (or some type of poultry) onto her front yard. The luckless bird is pictured above. Melissa described the car as looking like the one she posted on her page.
"Miren lo que acaban de dejar en la puerta de mi casa," she wrote. "Pobre gente no saben que el mal que intentan hacer se les regresa. Que Dios los perdone."
It was very similar to what happened to us at the county warehouse in the mid-1980s and it brought back memories of that event.
In talking with some people, everyone seems to know something about hexes and brujerias. The dirt that was deposited in our office was probably collected by someone from a cemetery at midnight and then deposited at the office with a curse they tell me. The chicken that was thrown in Melissa's door was part of a ritual also, they said.
It's interesting to me that in the 21st Century we still have these lingering belief systems that still strike a chord in local residents. Is it true? Probably not. But their effectiveness proabably depends on the target. Judging by Melissa's response, it probably won't make much of a difference. Still, it wouldn;t do any harm to cross yourself Melissa. Just in case, you know.