21 Tales

by Jerry L

  “Don’t expect me to thank you Maria, I think the fact that you’re alive is enough. Good Bye Maria.”

  July seventh:

  “Hallo.”

  “Hello, Dreyfuss here.”

  “Hello Sir, this is Peter.”

  “Peter, I received a note from the florist, the “call you” signal, is everything all right?”

  “Yes Sir, but I’d like to discuss a couple things if I might.”

  “Certainly Peter, what is it?”

  “First Sir, there is the matter of the overpayment.”

  “Nonsense Peter, you did a remarkable job and I wish you’d accept it with my thanks.”

  “Very well Sir and Thank You. Now for the second item: It’s about number five.”

  “What about number five? I told you that number five was to live.”

  Peter sounded as if he were talking to a recalcitrant child, “Sir, we made an agreement that should one of us waiver in our task to bring your wife’s killers to justice… that the other would endeavor to accomplish our task, did we not?”

  “Yes, yes, of course we did.”

  “Sir, I just wanted to let you know that number five slipped from a platform in her home town and was this morning killed by a train. A most unfortunate accident it seems.”

  “Oh! I…I see.”

  “Sir would you like to reconsider that overpayment?”

  “No, no Peter, that was the agreement we had…”

  “Will there be anything else Sir?”

  “No… no thank you... That will be all… Good Bye Peter.”

  “Good Bye Sir.”

  10: The Banyan Tree

  Sangee was a scissors grinder. He was neither high caste nor low caste. He ground scissors and knives, but was not allowed to grind swords so he was somewhere in the middle you might say. His wife was the most adept Henna artist in the lower town. To the neighbors they seemed to be successful. They, as yet, had no children. But, they did possess a small two room business, a well-kept house and a small garden. Sangee laughed “There are many sharp things in a house and, all of the women needed his wife’s services.” So they were kept very busy. No one questioned their obvious success.

  Sangee’s wife had left on her monthly buying trip to Calicut when the message came. It was wrapped around a Mogul gold coin as was usual. The message was written on a piece of human skin and was made up of four words: Sahib Jate Slocum, Calicut. A silk scarf wrapped the package. A picture of the Goddess Kali was embroidered into the fabric of the scarf.

  As was expected, Sangee cut up the piece of skin and threw it into the fire as a sacrifice. He then secreted the gold in the hiding place among the rafters. The scarf he spread in front of the shrine and kneeled down upon it. After asking for the goddesses’ favor he rose and went next door. He arranged for his parents to watch the small store and house. The trip to Kanpur for the new motor would only take two days he assured them, but, he must leave this afternoon.

  The train deposited him at the Calicut station just as it was getting dark. The one eyed man took him on a tour of the Sahibs mansion in a mule drawn jitney. Later they drank sweet tea and Sangee explained to the man what he would need. The man rose and hurried to the market. About a half hour later he returned with a cloth sack. Sangee removed a small pouch from his waistband, opened the sack, and scattered dust from the pouch onto its contents. Lightly he shook the sack. After giving the one eyed man a silver coin he left the small inn. Outside he spotted one of the many street curs. He reached into the sack and removed a small piece of the sweet meat inside. He threw the meat to the dog. The starving animal wolfed it down. A shudder ran through the emaciated animal’s frame and it’s eyes closed. The dog lay down, head upon paws, and its breathing stopped. A heavily laden cart ran over the animal’s body. Sangee wiped his hand carefully and turned his steps toward the Sahib’s mansion.

  From the shadows of the wall he tossed the pieces of meat over the top and waited until the sounds of the Sahib’s guard mastiffs faded. Patiently, in the darkness Sangee watched as the servants left for the night. Sangee, now a ‘Thuggee’ shadow dressed in black and gray silks scaled the brick wall and lay on top of it. Inside the mansion a light showed in the room the one eyed servant of Kali had told Sangee was the Sahib’s sleeping room. Finally the light went out and Sangee slid to the grass.

  It took the assassin almost an hour to make his way past the dead dogs on the lawn and the Sikh watchmen. As he crouched below the double windows he was pleasantly surprised when someone inside opened them to let in the cool night air. He heard the murmur of a man and woman speaking quietly from inside. The woman softly laughed. He heard the bed creak as someone got onto it. Then, it creaked again.

  Sangee patiently waited for the rhythmic sounds that he was sure would soon begin. The woman moaned and he rose from the flower bed. Without a sound the shadow slid through the opened sash, and silently entered the darkened room. The woman with the Sahib was a native woman Sangee could tell almost immediately. The scent of Jasmine and Cinnabar hung heavy in the night air. The large bed stood, bathed in moonlight, at the far end of the room. Sangee crept soundlessly along the floor to the foot of the bed and stopped.

  The woman was on top of the man straddling him. The muscles on her upper body moved in the moonlight. She moaned and leaned over the man. She gasped and froze as Sangee watched spasms ripple through her body. For the first time Sangee noticed the designs that covered the woman’s back. It was a pattern developed by his wife that she called ‘The Banyon Tree’. There on the woman’s lower back the cobra uncoiled beneath the Banyon tree’s roots and disappeared between her buttocks. Sangee knew where the snake’s mouth was drawn. He had seen the same design on his wedding night.

  The woman slowly disengaged her body from the man and lay down beside him. The man murmured something to her. She moaned as he kissed her while positioning himself on top and inside of her. She wrapped her hennaed legs around him and picked up his rhythm. Sangee waited patiently as the two people rode towards their climax. The woman screamed softly as the man thrust forward and moaned. Sangee was up on the bed and behind the man before the fact could register with the two people. He waited politely as the last of the man’s seed left his body before, wrapping his arm around the man’s throat and driving the long thin dagger through his back and upwards into his heart. He rode the man’s body down on top of the woman, pressing her breath out with their combined weight.

  Over the dying man’s shoulder Sangee watched as his wife’s kohl lined eyes opened wide. They registered both fear and surprise. Trying to get her breath she saw only darkness inside of the smoke gray hood covering the assassin’s head. The Thuggee hissed out a warning to her. Inside she felt the ’Sahib’s manhood shrivel as the blood flow ceased. His heart stopped racing, stuttered, missed a beat and stopped.

  The ‘Thuggee’ waited a few more seconds, making sure the man was dead before withdrawing the dagger. The man beneath Sangee lay still and motionless between the wide eyed woman’s legs. Her body shook with fear, but she knew better than to make a sound Above her the assassin unwound the silk scarf bearing the goddess Kali’s image from his waist. Holding up the man’s head by its hair he wrapped the scarf around the dead man’s neck. Sangee tied the ‘Thugge’ knot and slid from the bed. Quiet as smoke he left the room.

  Within twenty minutes the “Scissors Grinder’ entered the Calicut railroad station dressed as a wealthy Bengali. He caught the night train to Kanpur. The next morning he boarded the morning train home. The heavy motor lay in its wooden crate in the baggage car. At the station he arranged with his brother, who had a bullock cart, to deliver the motor and Sangee home.

  He acted surprised that his wife wasn’t there. It was instead, her Father and Mother who greeted him. They had sweet Ceylon tea and cakes sat out for his pleasure. They explained that his wife had fallen very sick all of the sudden. He inquired, seemingly very concerned, “When would she be well enough to return?”


  The parents threw up their hands, “Oh, but it was a very bad illness!” They declared. “Certainly weeks, maybe months, if ever!”

  That was the purpose of their hasty visit. They were asking him to allow his wife to stay in Calcuit. While she was recovering. She could open a henna design shop in Calicut. The Father had the money and the Mother would help the daughter get started. The women in Calcuit would spend many Rupees on their daughter’s exquisite designs.

  Sangee sadly observed that “It would be very hard to maintain a harmonious marriage from so great a distance! Why, when the rains came it would be almost impossible for him to journey to Calicut every weekend so that she could perform her wifely duties!” He smiled inwardly at their discomfort.

  His wife’s mother suggested that “Maybe it would be easier if she and her husband were to discuss further arraignments with Sangee’s parents. Sometimes, those with more experience and wisdom would be able to arrive at a fair and equitable solution to their dilemma.” Sangee frowned and ruefully agreed.

  “There were of course no children to be concerned about, after all!” The woman added spitefully. “They were not presenting him with an insurmountable problem.”

  He excused himself and went next door to his parent’s house. He quickly explained to them that his wife wanted a divorce, and that her parents were next door. His mother’s face turned dark and she hissed through clenched teeth “The ‘Slutta’ will pay Dearly, of that, I assure you my son. Dearly!” His father noted the small smile on his son’s face and smiled back. He said before leaving “Rest, my son. This may take a while!”

  Sangee poured tea and settled down on a mat. The ‘Goddess’ knew, that by having a man, a Ferengi foreigner, murdered while between her legs, made his wife the most unclean thing on earth. Kali, in her mercy and wisdom, had provided him with an honorable way out of this marriage.

  That presented him with a whole new set of problems! Winter was coming and he needed to find a new wife. He thought of the lithe girl he had admired many times going to the well. The green eyed Afghani girl would be suitable. She was rather young, and her family would want a small fortune for her, but, after tonight he would have a small fortune. He would send his mother to inquire about her tomorrow. Kali would provide! Her servant could rest assured of that!

  11: A Stroll in the Moonlight

  Nothing scared Willie Mae any more, not spiders, or snakes, not gators, nor “Haints”, and certainly not Death. Well, not much anyway. Nonetheless she felt uncomfortable as she lay propped up in the bed with the rails on each side. The sheets were crisp and clean-smelling, and Willie Mae liked that, even if she did tell everyone, “It was jes’ to damn much fussin’ fer the likes o’ me.”

  The “chinery” in the room hummed and purred, or just sat there and quietly communicated its messages with no real intrusion but an occasional blinking light or an occasional click from the Oxygen outlet. No, none of that bothered Willie Mae, what bothered the old woman was the moonlight.

  It had taken an act of God and a temper tantrum to get the staff to turn off the lights in the room so the old lady could sleep, then they insisted on propping the door open. But, Willie Mae was of another age, one that was tied to the seasons and the tides, both of this world and those that ride on the coat tails of Earth’s nearest neighbor, of Luna, the Moon. The last thing Willie Mae had asked of ShawnTee before the girl left was that she open the drapes; and dutiful granddaughter that she was, the girl had done as she was bid.

  The granddaughter had never understood why the old woman never had curtains or drapes in her bedroom; but, it wasn’t her position to ask and she didn’t. And because the girl had opened the drapes, the light of a brilliant moon flooded the room and washed across the floor, and out into the hall.

  The flowers on the bedside table were highlighted in crisp detail and Willie Mae could almost imagine that she could see the mojo bag that Muriel said she’d tucked down into the bouquet, but, of course she could not otherwise The’dore’s wife Ariel would have discarded the

  gree-gree. Naturally, Ariel would have first made a fuss over the conjure bag, calling it an evil 'toby or 'jomo, and eventually she would have taken the scissors from her purse and as she cut apart the charm she would have loudly exorcised the process.

  Willie Mae could hear the righteousness as her daughter-in-law performed her Christian Duty in cleansing the room, “Our father,” snip, snip,”who art in heaven”, snip, snip, “thy kingdom come,” snip, snip, “thy will be done.” By that time, Ariel should have emptied the contents onto a napkin or paper towel, careful not to touch anything, “Um, Um...lookie here at dis crap!” The emphasis would of course be on “crap!”

  “This here nation sack’s got some charcoal, some dirt, some kind of’ leaf, some hair, some bone, and…What the Hell is dies?” The piece of John the Conqueror root would most likely bring an outburst that would result in the nurse’s intercession. Willie Mae chuckled to herself, yep, if Aerial got aholt of the bag, it was destination: toilet for the majik.

  “Willie Mae, it’s time go.”

  Willie Mae was startled; she neither saw nor heard the dark man who now stood beside her bed.

  “Huh?..where we a goin?” The startled woman asked.

  The man chuckled just like Ruben Lee! Course her husband had died under the wheels of the ‘Richmond Express’ over fifty year ago. He cajoled, “We goin dancing on down at the ‘Texas Star’ Them boys from over Louisiana be playing tonight. It’s time to go.” And with the words, the big man laid a two piece suit across the foot of the bed and deftly flipped the covers back exposing the woman’s thin legs and the thin hospital pajamas. The man held out his hand and Willie Mae, unmindful of the tubes and connections swung he legs over the side of the bed and stood.

  With no sense of embarrassment the big man carefully helped the woman into a skirt and a silk blouse and to her amazement the “walkin’ about” clothes fit well. They fit very well, indeed; despite the fact that Willie Mae hadn’t seen the suit in over sixty-five years. For some reason, the usually curious woman didn’t care where the suit came from.

  Then the shadowy man seated the old woman in one of the institutional chair and handed her the shoes. She looked at the shoes and was puzzled; she wasn’t at all sure what she was to do with them. Willie Mae hadn’t walked for over five years and the shoes, although quite attractive, sported stylish pointed toes and spike heels. The man acted as if none of that mattered as he gallantly fitted each foot to a shoe; and in fact, it didn’t matter; Willie Mae stood and looked in admiration at the footwear.

  The dark man handed Willie Mae a hat and she was for the first time surprised; the suit and the shoes she had accepted as if the appearance of a man in a hospital room at half past three, and carrying a fashionable, well-tailored suit from over half a century earlier were normal events; but the fact that a man would also understood that a chapeau was necessary, now that was something to wonder at.

  As Willie Mae was adjusting the quite-perky headgear, she took a moment to fluff one side of her do, a fashion once admired by Anita Baker, and she caught a glimpse of a shadow as the image of a man plucked a small rose bud from Muriel’s bouquet. The man removed the jacket from the bed and neatly slid the flower into the button hole on the lapel of the woman’s suit. Next he held the jacket as she slipped her arms in and holding one side of the jacket open he dropped something in an inside pocket, and then, he carefully buttoned the three buttons the fronted the trim jacket. Willie Mae could feel the mojo bag comfortably nestled under the swell of her left breast.

  The man motioned to the door and Willie Mae stepped from the small room and waited as he followed her into the hall, and then, she accepted the arm the man offered. As the handsome couple strolled past the nurse’s station, an alarm sounded and one of the nurses punched a button on a panel and in a firm voice said, “Room 1214, Code Blue, STAT!”

  12: Human Interest

  That newspaper man called my granddaughter on
Monday and asked if he could come on by the house and interview me on Friday. She gives me the phone and I asked, “Why would he want to do something like that?”

  He tells me, “Human interest!’ I don’t say anything, “Well then”, he says “Since widow Jones died, I was the oldest resident in the county. People was interested in that kinda thing.”

  I says, “I guess it’d be OK by me, if it would make the nosy bastards happy I’d do it.” That kinda took him by surprise. I apologized. Of course I didn’t mean him! His job was

  being a ‘nosy bastard’, I didn’t hold it against him none. Mans gotta make a living, even if it is producing hot air that they called news! Although any hog could produce a fart and accomplish the same durn thing as far as I was concerned!

  Come Friday, a pretty girl pulled up in one of them little ‘Bug’ Kraut cars and got up outta it. I was a sittin’ on the porch like most hunnert-year old men do. I hadn’t moved but she insisted I not get up so I didn’t. I liked that girl already!

  “Well then”, I asked, “What is it you want to know?’

  She said, “It sure is a scorcher. Isn’t it hot though?’

  I sez “Well, God Dammit girlie, you drove clean over here jist to ast me ‘Is it hot’? Well hell yes it’s hot, it’s the galdurn 8th of July, you darn fool! It’s supposed to be Hot! Wasn’t it hot when you left town? Hell fire, it’s only eight miles ouer here.’

  She turned a little pink and seemed surprised at my statements. “Well” she says, “I was only making conversation. Kinda like breakin the ice.”