Skin

by Christian Baines

  This tapestry would have made McAlistair flip his shit. On either side of the Virgin, sat or stood a row of black faces painted with either white death’s heads a touch larger than life, or just purple lipstick and eye shadow. A banquet of fruit, peppers, and the odd dead chicken, still unplucked, was spread on the table in front of them. A weird-ass picture, even by Voodoo standards, Kyle guessed, not that he had any idea what those standards would be. He couldn’t decide if it was sacred, or a sacrilegious mockery of an old, famous painting of Jesus he thought he remembered, put up to please or shock visitors.

  He cast his eye down the figures. He recognized Baron Samedi, the grinning poster child whenever somebody needed Voodoo to look flashy enough to spook the crowds. An old man sat at the end of the table, dressed in only a long red brown loincloth, a stick laying on the ground by his side, watched over by a shaggy brown dog. Legba, of course. At least the miniscule amount Kyle had learned about Voodoo in the past week wasn’t letting him down completely.

  He turned his attention away from the touristy centerpiece, letting the repetitive drone of the record wash over him. The melancholic gospel lilt was so strong he could barely make out the words. He cast his gaze down the smaller paintings and plaques that interpreted the spirits. Baron Samedi. His wife, Maman Brigitte. Kyle had started French in junior high with the best intentions, along with a half dozen or so others in his class. One by one, they’d dropped out, cursing the name of the teacher who’d told him plain as dirt that his accent rendue malade.

  No fewer than ten loa had earned a spot on the museum’s wall. But save Samedi, Brigitte, and Papa Legba, they all seemed to read the same, at least to Kyle. Intermediary between our world and the spirits. Guardian of the dead. Likes offerings of cigars, hot peppers, chickens, or sugar. Tied to the Catholic saint of, blah, blah, blah, blah… Sure, the guy at the front counter could probably set him straight on most of them, but going another round with the cantankerous old fart was the last thing Kyle felt like doing. Besides, he’d thrown down his six fifty and still not found nothing useful. Nothing about the so-called ‘psychopomp’ the man had felt warranted such a warning.

  The eleventh portrait was tucked away in the shadow of a human mannequin, which had been topped off with a stuffed alligator’s head, a small top hat completing the look. Pure class, Kyle sniffed. He peered past the leathery green snout, squinting at the words. Nibo. Another ‘guardian of the dead.’ But what the fuck was he looking at?

  The figure in the portrait stood with its hips cocked in a pose so sissified, even the drags at Oz would have cringed. Around those dark hips were a pair of lacy pink girl’s underwear, which topped what seemed to Kyle—he couldn’t really tell with the poster in shadow—to be a long pair of black stocking-clad legs, which stretched down into knee-high purple boots. The boots were the same purple as the long coat that hung from the figure’s shoulders. As Kyle peered closer, looking at the figure’s face, the one feature he could see clearly in the dim light, he saw the eyelids and lips had been painted the same garish shade. From between those lips, the thing grinned at him in a way he didn’t like one bit.

  He cast his eye down to the description. Ghede Nibo. An intermediary between the living and the dead, and the patron of those lost before their time. Those who were murdered, or who’d died in horrible accidents. Even the circumstances surrounding Nibo’s own death were open to interpretation, though most agreed he’d died young, only to be adopted in the spirit world by Samedi and Brigitte, from whom he’d inherited a foul mouth, a taste for the familiar offerings of the Voodoo faithful, and a trickster’s sense of humor.

  A sense of humor? A sense of fucking humor? The supposed patron saint of young murder victims was laughing about it? Kyle looked again at the portrait. At the boots, the stockings, the panties, the lurid grin. Grotesque.

  Antoine would never have worn that shit. Sure, Antoine would put on lipstick, maybe some bling like dangling earrings or a bracelet. A girl’s belt cinching trim pants around his waist. Or maybe a girl’s jacket. But when Antoine wore it, he was his own man, carrying himself so confidently it didn’t matter what anybody thought. Six foot two of skinny black boy, whose mere presence let you know he wasn’t to be fucked with. And whose voice…

  Kyle knew Antoine had sensed something different in his stare, different to the stares from the rest of the bar. Different enough to draw Antoine in, his fingers like velvet as they slipped over the flesh of Kyle’s arm. That first touch was what Kyle remembered most. The first time he’d felt Antoine’s skin against his, sitting there with two stupid grins on their lipstick-smeared faces.

  He also remembered the laughter. Not the laughs he’d shared with Antoine, but the laughter of the people around them. Most of it had been quiet, leaking from behind colorful drinks or cocky sneers. But the eyes had been the tell on every last one of them. Everyone enjoying the same joke. The dumb white hick, his face smeared from kissing the silly, pretty black faggot. He’d felt their stares. Maybe even their pity. But at the time, none of it had mattered. Each time they’d started up, either Kyle or Antoine, sometimes the both of them together, would draw closer, shutting the world around them out behind the sweetness of another kiss.

  He looked again at the ridiculous grin and distinctly sexual tilt of the spirit’s bearing. That was it. The fear Antoine had taken away. The fear that that’s what strangers saw, even in a gay bar. In Antoine. Maybe even in him. It was definitely what his father and uncle saw.

  Then, he noticed it. In the top right-hand corner of the description, that fucking ‘veve.’ The design he’d had stuck under his skin. A permanent symbol of this grinning faggot. Protector of the dead? What kind of bullshit was that? That so-called protector was laughing at him now. Just like they all had.

  He turned away, facing a small altar draped in red, gold, and brown cloth. A statue of a saint he didn’t recognize sat in its center, flanked on either side by low burning candles. Small bowls of orange and brown powders sat in front of the statue. They could have been pepper, cinnamon, or fucking dirt for all he knew. A trio of bare stems lay spread around the bowl, surrounded by the colorful petals he guessed had been scraped off them, probably by the small, ornate knife on the altar. On the wall beside it was another portrait, so old and dark he could barely make out the figure at its center. Probably some other so-called god or hoodoo witch who watched over the graveyard or whatever. Or maybe the old guy out front had a crazy aunt who owned half of this shit and put her own portrait up for shits and giggles. He didn’t care anymore. The clearest image in the frame was his own, reflected back at him in the dusty glass.

  Even in the dim reflection, he could see the dark circles around his eyes. When had he last slept? Really slept through the night proper? He couldn’t remember. Sleepless. Stupid. Now he was getting fucking Voodoo spirits tattooed on him without even knowing what they meant?

  “Two minutes, son.”

  He barely heard the old man’s voice from the front as he took hold of his shirt and pulled it up over his head. The reflection of the tattoo was clear. Dark, crisp, and new against his pasty skin. The spirit’s mailbox, so the old man had said. The leering faggot’s mark.

  He hated it. He hated the spirit. He hated himself. He hated the damned symbol.

  He snatched up the knife and felt it pierce his chest before he could think twice. He then gritted his teeth, forcing down the scream. Just what the hell had he planned to do? Was he nuts? He couldn’t just cut it out. They had lasers and shit for that stuff now, not that he could ever afford that. But it was too late. The first cut had gone deep. It bled all over his fingers as he tried to stem it. Shit!

  He looked around for a cloth, a handkerchief, or anything else he could use to wipe his hand and if he was lucky, cover his ruined tat until it finished bleeding. Fuck! Stupid shithead! What the hell had made him think he could grab a knife and do that shit himself?

  “Son?”

  “I’ll just be a minute!” he yelled back,
wiping his hands on a red cloth covering the altar. He cursed, seeing the vivid, ugly streaks of blood, then cleaned the rest on the purple cloth. Better. He could still see it, but it didn’t seem as harsh and dirty as it did on the red. He picked up the knife again and cleaned it on the same cloth. But there was too much blood. Far more than he’d expected. Damn. Did he need a hospital? He couldn’t afford that shit either.

  He looked around for something to wipe the blood on, jolting as he caught a glimpse of the portrait. Ghede Nibo was every bit as obscene as it had seemed in the other picture, blown up to a size that filled the frame, leering down at him. Kyle backed away, tripped on a fold in the rug and fall hard on his ass, crying out as he cut himself again with the knife.

  The old gramophone continued its steady droning, the gentle hiss of vinyl under the needle as the spirit faded from the picture frame, leaving only the darkness of the indistinct figure he’d seen before. The words of the song seemed clearer now, as Kyle tried to steady himself, if only to stop his stomach churning.

  Time for judgment. Time for pain. If the good Lord will give a righteous man his…

  Kyle jumped as someone hammered at the door to the small room. He couldn’t remember closing it, and it sure hadn’t slammed shut.

  “I don’t find this at all amusing, son. You hear?”

  Oh Lord, take this wretched fool away.

  “Be…be right there,” he stammered. “Sorry.”

  “Goddamn it.”

  Let him be restored anew. Restored anew…

  Kyle would have given anything to rip the record off the gramophone and smash it on the altar. But the old guy was probably pissed enough with him already. He winced as he brought the cloth up to his bleeding chest. It burned like… Fuck! That wasn’t normal, was it? Was there ground pepper or something on the cloth?

  Let him be your righteous hand…

  He glanced up at the portrait again, sure he could see the grinning faggot once more. He couldn’t be sure. The light on the portrait seemed to flicker on and off. But that was impossible because… Fuck! He turned to face the door, then he kept on turning. Or maybe it was the room, turning around him, another nasty hoodoo trick on his senses. Maybe from something on the cloth he used to stem the bleeding. Maybe from the weird smelling candles on the altar. He couldn’t be sure. The room seemed to spin over and over and over, until he steadied himself on the altar, sending the two bowls of powder skittering off the surface and onto the floor with two sharp thuds.

  The wound started burning again. He’d thrown away the cloth, but his tattoo still itched like crazy. The song on the record had stopped, leaving the soft hiss of needle on vinyl as the only sound in the room. Even the hammering on the door had fallen silent.

  The portrait seemed even darker when he looked at it again, staring mostly into his own reflection, his eye drawn to the blood that still trickled down his chest. Could he get it fixed? Would it heal on its own? He touched it gingerly, wincing as it stung.

  “What wounds your heart, little boy?”

  The voice had been soft and high, like the rustling of a snake in long grass, the record player crackling quietly beneath it. Kyle shivered as a sudden chill broke over his naked shoulders. He brought his bloodstained fingers up to his face, staring into the red drop at the end of them.

  “There is no shame in pain, little cocksucker,” the voice purred again. “What would soothe a broken soul?”

  Kyle shook his head, wiping the spot of blood on his pants. “All right, I’ll go!” he yelled at the old man he guessed was still outside. “Real fucking funny, man. Real cute.” His shoe caught in the rug before he could take a single step, sending him sprawling onto his stomach. He groaned, hoping nothing was broken as he lifted his gaze to the door, then looked back over his shoulder.

  “There is no shame in blood.”

  The voice was coming from the record. He didn’t understand how. He didn’t try. It was all he could do to lay there, barely breathing until it stopped. If it stopped.

  “He bleeds for you, too. He cries for you.”

  Kyle swallowed, awkwardly flipping onto his back as the voice continued. What was it? How did it know anything about him? About Antoine? “What…” How could he know what to ask? Especially if the thing already knew so damn much.

  “What do you seek here, little boy?” the voice purred. “You wish to be with him again?”

  His gaze fell on the knife once more. He’d sure as hell thought about it. Ending it quickly. Antoine had been the only one who’d accepted him. Shown him any kind of respect. Maybe even love. He slowly lifted up the knife, wincing as its cold blade touched his throat. Come on, chickenshit! Make it quick.

  A slow, high-pitched laugh mocked him from the record player. “Oh, that’s a plan, little cocksucker. You think you will find him on the plain of the dead? There are millions on that plain. Millions hurting, like him. Like you.”

  Kyle tightened his grip on the blade hilt, lowering it. He briefly considered throwing it at the damn portrait. Or the record player. Or just at the wall, somewhere. He had to be imagining this. Some weird hoodoo shit had to be fucking with his brain. He’d been less than an inch from offing himself, probably in the most painful way he could imagine. Quick? Like hell. He’d probably even fuck that up. The result would be anything but quick.

  “What else do you want, little boy? Forgiveness, that you could not help him? Justice?”

  The word fired through him like an electric charge. He hadn’t much thought about that. If the cops hadn’t caught the bastard, what hope did he have? But had they really tried? Some black faggot wearing heels and makeup shows up dead near the Quarter? Hell, Antoine’s parents didn’t even want the story out there.

  “You feel it, little boy. Do not lie to me.”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Yeah…yeah I—”

  “Yeeeeeees,” the voice hissed, its voice rising into strange, mewling laughter. “Old Ghede can give you what you want.”

  Kyle shivered. He’d known who it was, of course. He’d known it the moment he’d accepted he wasn’t going crazy.

  “You…you can bring Antoi—”

  “What you ask is no small favor. If a lost soul is to be found, then one must take its place.”

  Kyle swallowed, staring at the knife’s blade once more, touching his fingers to his throat.

  “No, little boy. Why should your own blood pay for an evil man’s sins? Love for love. Blood for blood. Old Ghede can bring this evil man to you.”

  “You…you can do that? For me?”

  “It will take time, little one. This man knows your face. Knows your lust.”

  Kyle’s grip tightened around the knife, so hard it almost hurt. No. It couldn’t be. No fucking way!

  “A daemon with the face of angels,” the spirit purred. “How did it feel, to grip the cock of the man who would be your lover’s murd—”

  “Fuck you!”

  The record hissed, faint cracks popping every few seconds as he listened, barely breathing.

  “You must approach him with a face he does not know, little boy,” the thing said, finally breaking its silence. “And play the part for as long as you will, to gain his trust.”

  “A face he doesn’t know?” Kyle spat back. “And just how the hell am I supposed to do that? Hell, I don’t need this shit. I’ll follow that bastard home right after he’s done dancin’.”

  “Oooooh, clever plan, little boy. To murder a man so close to you? Try using whatever stuffs that pretty faggot head of yours! The secret of your crime wouldn’t last a day.”

  The thing had a point. What had he been thinking? Follow the son of a bitch home and then what? Go back to the bar where everyone knew who he was and how much he hated that bastard?

  “I…I want to do it myself. I’ve got to, damn it!”

  “Don’t worry, little cocksucker. Ghede will hide your beautiful face until the deed is done. And he will hide your memories, lest they betray you.”

&n
bsp; He noticed the light growing brighter on the portrait. A stranger stared back at him from behind the glass. A stranger with short cropped hair, its deep, dark brown dotted with tiny flecks of grey. The jaw seemed harder, a little squarer than his own, while a distinctly harder nose cut the line between two plain brown eyes. Handsome. Hell, it reminded him of one of the guys he remembered from his uncle’s farm. He frowned, and the image frowned back.

  Shit.

  He touched a hand to the glass, only to have the figure return the gesture in kind, staring back at him with those mournful, brown eyes. They might have been a different color, but they held all of his uncertainty. All of his fears, sadness, and hate. Hide your beautiful face until the deed is done?

  Oh, shit.

  Hell, if the spirit was offering him this chance, he’d be stupid not to take it. He gripped the knife again, liking the sound of this deal more and more. If the spirit led Antoine’s murderer to him, he’d kill the bastard then and there. And if the guy had friends, or if any son-of-a-bitch got in his way...

  “Ghede knows your heart, little cocksucker. Best to arrest your bloodlust. Ghede cares not for it. Abusing his offering, violating his law has consequences. Blood for blood. Love for love. No more. No less.”

  Kyle swallowed, still unable to quell the anger that gripped his throat. Could the thing read his thoughts? Because he’d meant every one of them. “What do you mean by that? What if this guy had friends? Hell, maybe he didn’t do this by himself!”