FSF, May 2008

by Spilogale Authors

  A marble-topped table nearly filled the conference room. At the end, silhouetted by the turquoise water, sat a man with a big square head and sideburns razored within a millimeter of extinction. On the man's left sat Adler, looking even smaller and more stooped in the presence of Terrance Vanguard himself; on his right, a curly-haired woman in a frilly white shirt and cat's-eye glasses whose name, according to the pin she wore, was Lourdes. Billy strolled forward.

  "This is your exorcist?” Vanguard said.

  "Can't be,” Billy said, “Exorcists're Catholic.” He sat down next to Adler and realized he still held the brochures from the lobby. He spread them on the table.

  "Billy Black,” Adler said, “meet—"

  "No introduction necessary. Mr. Vanguard, I recognize you from the billboards,” Billy said.

  Vanguard frowned. “Mr. Black, I'm glad you're here. Your boss here was just telling me that his project is fourteen months behind schedule because of ghosts. Would you agree?"

  Despite a snort from the woman, Billy nodded. “As far as Mr. Adler can grasp the situation, yes."

  "Haunted?” Vanguard raised an impressive eyebrow.

  "More or less,” Billy said.

  "Bullshit.” Vanguard smashed a file to the tabletop with a crash that made Adler flinch. “Bull shit. You expect me to believe that ghosts, things I can't see, are warping drive trains and cutting cables and terrifying the men?"

  "No,” Billy said.

  During a long, silent moment, Vanguard stared at him, lips pressed together. Billy thought maybe he'd thrown Vanguard off his stride. The silence stretched long enough that Billy opened one of the Circle promotional brochures and asked, “What's reiki massage?” He was genuinely curious.

  "Oh, it's the most amazing thing,” Lourdes said. “A masseuse specially trained in Eastern healing techniques aligns the energies in your body. It's so empowering, it's unbelievable."

  "From these pictures, it looks like they don't actually touch you?” Billy squinted at the small graphic in the brochure.

  "Of course not,” she said.

  The silence stretched longer. Billy took the time to enjoy the view. Far below, a flock of gulls white as spindrift circled a charter fishing boat.

  Finally, Vanguard laughed. “I take your point, Black. You're no moron. But that's stuff for guests, you understand? Marketing. This is real estate, and all buildings are the same—just buildings, right? So you have to make people believe that your building is different. So you give them a spa where they can get the New Age fondling of the week, you give them a Humpback Salon where they can lie on couches and listen to whalesong through headphones, you give them a dedicated vibe consultant in case they need help picking out a color of carpet or choosing the incense that says ‘cool.’ Do you understand?"

  Adler cleared his throat. “These are somewhat sophisticated ideas—"

  "Of course I understand,” Billy said. He dropped the brochure. “I've lived in Florida my whole life. I've seen the real estate cycles come and go, and we're right at the peak here. You've gotta compete with the other 134,000 units opening up in the coming year."

  "Yes, and before we can do that this building has to be finished. And at this rate it's not going to be finished until—until when, Adler?” Vanguard cut his eyes to his manager.

  "That's hard to say."

  "That's the problem.” Vanguard leaned forward and tented his fingers. “And imagine my situation—here I am, trying like all hell to figure out how to get this project finished, and I learn there's one worker, one guy out of two hundred who's never cursing and complaining or breaking his ankle, but just quietly and efficiently doing his job. We offer to make him a supervisor and he declines. What would you do in my situation, Mr. Black?"

  "I'd listen to that one lucky man. Or else I'd just go back to my golf game."

  Vanguard's assistant gasped. But Vanguard threw his head back and laughed. “All right. You say it's haunted. By more than incompetence? I've been looking over the reports. Did you know the Circle site has more injuries than every other Vanguard Group project combined? It's 352 percent over budget and my backers are furious. What would you do in my place?"

  Billy considered, watched a cruise ship trundle out to sea, churning its jettisoned garbage into the ocean with massive engines. “I'd turn it into a park. Level the building, landscape it, donate it to the city, take a fat tax write-off and good-guy credit."

  Vanguard chuckled and shook his head. “You'd make a good marketer, Black, but you're no developer. That wouldn't work. Besides, accounting says I wouldn't get out a tenth of what I put into it. No, that building is going up."

  "In that case, don't I need to get back to work?"

  "Not just yet. You saved a man's life yesterday."

  Billy shrugged. “I was trained as a medic in the Navy."

  "And an authentic Seminole shaman, too,” Vanguard said. “You're a man of parts. Why are you pushing a wheelbarrow on a construction site?"

  "Why are you throwing up another gleaming phallus on the waterfront?” Billy said. “For money."

  "Not much money,” Adler said.

  Billy shrugged. He couldn't really argue with that. But the truth was there wasn't a lot of call for a dishonorably discharged Navy medic, or a Seminole shaman either, for that matter.

  "I need you to get rid of Adler's ghosts,” Vanguard said. He leaned back in his chair and watched Billy through slitted eyes.

  What does he expect me to do, Billy wondered, sing? Break out a war bonnet and dance around the table? “There aren't any ghosts,” Billy said.

  "See?” Vanguard cut his eyes at Adler.

  "They're spirits. The ancient Greeks would call them daimons."

  "Demons?” Adler said. Across from him, Lourdes's eyes widened and she crossed herself.

  "Daimons. Spirits of a place."

  "And these daimons can break equipment and push men out of windows,” Vanguard said.

  "Not exactly. But they can influence the physical world."

  "See?” Adler waved a hand at Billy. “Just like I told you."

  "If they really are daimons you can't just chase them off with a little holy water and some Latin,” Billy said. “They aren't going away if they're tied to the land. You have to figure out how to appease them."

  "How?” Vanguard asked. “Don't tell me money, either."

  "Not money. There are some things you can't buy,” Billy said.

  "But you, I can,” Vanguard said. He named a figure that made Billy think. He considered himself incorruptible, above such things as filthy lucre. But it would be enough for a downpayment on his grandfather's funeral plot. It took a moment but Billy had to realize that Vanguard was right—Billy Black could be bought. Or at the very least rented for a little while.

  * * * *

  "Oh, it's around here somewhere,” the secretary said, and knocked over a Styrofoam shot glass of Cuban coffee. Billy helped her pat the stacks of memos dry with an already stained cotton shawl before allowing her to return to her own excavation in miniature.

  The University of Miami campus was like all college campuses everywhere, Billy imagined, with the addition of royal and coconut palms. He'd fallen in love six times between parking his car and locating the building that held the department of archaeology and anthropology. When Vanguard's development had turned up the ancient relics that gave Circle its name, UM professors had been first on the scene. That was more than two years ago. When Vanguard retook possession of the site, the archaeologists hauled their loot back to UM. A single locked door now stood between Billy and the surviving evidence of the oldest human inhabitants of Florida.

  "Ah-ha!” The secretary showed Billy a brass-colored key knotted on a rotting rubber band. She shuffled down an empty corridor and opened a fist-sized padlock. The hinges of the door squealed like souls in torment.

  "When's the last time anyone was down here?"

  The secretary shrugged.

  Inside, shadows and the smel
l of dust. One of the overhead lights fizzled out when Billy flipped the switch. Maybe a fragment of the curse was operating over here? Billy stared at flint knives, piles of turtle shells carved with strange glyphs, and even the altar stone itself—a hunk of schist the size of a kitchen table, with blood grooves along its sides. A framed diagram of the site hung on the wall. The turtles had been sacrificed, it was believed, and buried with their faces pointing to the east.

  This strange thing we call reverence, Billy thought, and the strange ways we practice it. He sat at a sticky plastic table at a UM outdoor cafeteria, eating a burrito and pondering the ineffable. The ancient inhabitants showed their reverence by decorating and burying their sacrifices in their holy place. Vanguard's customers equated reverence with commerce and showed reverence by spending lots of money. What about himself? Billy wiped his chin with a paper napkin. How did he show reverence? He thought of his grandfather. By carrying on, he decided. By continuing the tradition.

  * * * *

  "What in God's name are you doing?” Adler said.

  Billy stood just inside the door of Adler's trailer, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. The bells and metal charms on the heavy buckskin leggings chimed. Billy adjusted the feathered war bonnet and wiped his forehead.

  "Go out there, get the workers to make a pile of scraps. Wood, paper, anything that'll burn,” Billy said.

  "You look like an ethnic joke,” Adler said.

  "You know what paleopsychology is?"

  Adler shook his head.

  "Exactly. Now, go outside and get that pile made. Then gather the workers together. Ten minutes."

  After a long goggle-eyed stare, Adler stood and shuffled out the door, leaving Billy in the dark trailer with the wheezing air conditioner.

  * * * *

  The idle crowd of workers stood clotted into small murmuring groups, arms folded, cigarettes tucked into corners of mouths. All fell silent when Billy walked out. He set the boom box down, turned the volume up to maximum and pressed play. The CD inside began to spin. Billy let his eyes widen to their limits, his face frozen into a wild, fierce expression. The kettledrums pounded, and Billy shouted. “Hi-ya-ya!” Everyone looked now—no more murmurs. He raised the turtle-shell rattle. Drums boomed. Billy shouted and spun—the twin tails of the war bonnet lifted like wings. The beaded tassels of his leather leggings rattled and clashed. He danced around the shoulder-high pile of scraps, chanting and surreptitiously squirting lighter fluid so that, in the pause when he lit a wooden kitchen match against his bared teeth (taste of sulfur) and cast it into the pile, flames flared ten feet high. A gasp from his onlookers—Billy knew he had them now. A few muttered, “Brujeria,” and crossed themselves. Billy chanted and danced, cast handfuls of dust into the air, sketched out runes on the ground and stomped on them. Sweat poured down his face, his body—the gear weighed about sixty pounds and the bloated, declining sun was punishingly hot. Billy sang every chant he knew and made up new ones. He leapt and spun, breathed fire with the help of a mouthful of PGA, and shook his rattle over each of the men. A few grinned but most kept their faces still and noble.

  Within an hour, the fire had burned down to ashes and blackened scraps. Billy's arms and legs felt limp as ropes and the CD was almost over. He stood tall, raised his hands, and clapped along with the last three beats, “Hi-ya-ya!” Then he spun and danced away, behind a huge spool of thick electrical cable. Over his own panting he heard Adler dismissing the men. He smiled. In a few minutes he could change out of this anchor-heavy outfit and back into his jeans. Rivers of sweat coursed down his body and his shoulders ached from the weight of the metal-studded buckskin coat. Now he remembered why he didn't take the ritual gear out more often. He thought about asking Adler to procure the tools he needed for Phase Two of the exorcism and chuckled between gasps.

  At the moment, the curse was lifted—at least as far as the workers were concerned. Now all he had to do was figure out how to appease the restless spirits of the Miami Circle.

  * * * *

  Later that evening, after the sun slid behind the concrete city walls and all the workers had trudged to the bus stop talking about the show, Billy returned to the now-locked Circle site. Adler had given the security guard the night off and slipped Billy a gate key.

  Billy found an aluminum ladder and climbed up to the highest point on the embryonic building—a naked I-beam between two support pillars—with a heavy convenience store bag dangling from one hand. To the east, he could see the dark sweep of the Intracoastal waterway and the rainbow spangle of Miami Beach. Lights shone in many high-rise windows. He couldn't see a single star.

  Billy opened the plastic bag and took out a six of Mickey's and a pack of unfiltered Camels. He gulped down one of the bottles of cool malt liquor, trying not to taste it, and set the empty on the I-beam beside him. He could already feel a dim gray veil, like mental glaucoma, descending on his mind. Twofeathers had taught him that, to commune with spirits, one must befuddle one's senses. Mesoamerican shamans used ritual preparations of hallucinogenic jungle plants. But pot always made him throw up and peyote was impossible to find these days, so Billy worked with the tools at hand.

  Billy belched and set the second empty next to the first. He lit a Camel and puffed it to life. He'd learned the sacred uses of tobacco, and how the white men had perverted it into a recreational activity, from his grandfather. We Indians take our drugs seriously, Billy thought woozily. He blew puffs of smoke in the four cardinal directions, then up at the sky (still no stars), then down at the ground. He kept cigarettes burning like incense while he drank.

  A curious arrangement of buildings and security lights cast this half of the construction site into dark, blue-edged shadow. By the light of the burning cigarette Billy found the sweaty Mickeys and killed them, one by one.

  Midway through the fifth, just when he was feeling bloated and gassy with carbonation and trying to figure out if he could pee without leaving his perch, he noticed the figure sitting next to him. Billy teetered on the edge of panic for a moment, but he recovered and grabbed hold of the I-beam. When had this guy climbed up? And why wasn't he wearing any clothes?

  The lean figure glowed with a silvery light and leaned forward, staring out to sea. Billy stared owlishly at the skinny limbs and tried to decide if the other was really there. He wasn't sure if the other had even noticed him. Billy gave up when it turned to him and said, “Isn't this a little dangerous? I mean, couldn't you do all this down on the ground?"

  "What's your name?” Billy said. By stating its name, a spirit announced that it was benign and had no evil intentions toward the summoner. He kept his cigarette poised like a hypodermic needle, just in case.

  "Eschewherry. That's my name, Billy Black.” The onyx-eyed face turned toward the strip of ocean.

  "Thought the view was ... pretty,” Billy mumbled, suddenly embarrassed. He felt a distinct sense of relief—Eschewherry hadn't flown out at him, seemed cooperative. At least he could stop drinking this disgusting stuff now. He saw, through the spirit's gleaming form, the line of fat empty bottles. Holy crap, he thought, surprised as he was every time. It worked!

  The bald head turned back to him. “And why are you sitting here enjoying the view and evoking spirits in the dark?"

  Billy told him. At length. First about the condo, but then about why he'd taken on the task, about the unsustainable overdevelopment of the region which made rejuvenation projects like this one, paving what was already paved, a good idea. As he talked he gradually realized that the spirit wasn't bald—not exactly. The top of its skull was a bone-smooth turtle shell. Sort of like one of the cheap special effects you'd see on one of the old Star Trek shows. The thought made Billy laugh, and the laugh interrupted his rant.

  The spirit considered him for a long moment. “What do you want me to do?"

  Billy shrugged and waved his hand at the lot. “Let ‘em build the thing."

  "No."

  "Well, why not?"

  T
he spirit shook its turtle head and made a small sound that could've been a sigh, or perhaps a small wave breaking on a sandy shore. “They've disturbed a holy site. A quiet, peaceful, sacred place.” The spirit shrugged. “At least it used to be. You can't just let people get away with that. If you do,” it pointed across the Intracoastal, at the neon and glitz sprawl of South Beach, “the whole world will look like that."

  Billy squinted in thought. The spirit's form faded, and for a terrified moment he thought he'd heard its final word on the issue. Then he realized his cigarette had gone out and he lit another after a long fumbling moment that left white cylinders and kitchen matches scattered in his lap. The gray smoke curled into the air and almost immediately the spirit's body seemed to solidify. Whew.

  "What if,” Billy said, “they put everything back exactly like they found it?"

  The spirit stared at him. “And then just paved over it? That's not acceptable."

  "You let ‘em, somebody, do it before.” Billy pointed at the ground. “This is hardly virgin real estate."

  The spirit spread his empty hands wide. Billy saw its fingers were webbed, which threatened to set off a new burst of hilarity that he managed, just barely, to smother. “True,” it admitted. “But that was before they violated our sacred site. Before they even ripped into the earth and discovered the offerings. Your people know. They know and just don't care."

  Billy chewed on that for a moment. Somewhat at random, he asked, “What about Adler?"

  "Adler's a putz."

  Billy sat quietly for a time, trying to jump-start his malt-liquored brain into thought. He puffed another Camel alight and, in the brief orange flare, he saw the spirit had no ears. He'd never really believed Twofeathers's teachings about spirits, that they were independent intelligent entities who had their own cares and concerns. Himself, he'd always thought spirits were an artifice constructed in the mind of the shaman who was really communicating with something transcendent—something both more and less than this figure sitting beside him. Besides, would a spirit really call someone a putz?