DESCENT

by Sandy DeLuca

  When I opened the trunk I saw the waitress from Jersey. Her lovely red hair spilled out over our clothes, her white skin still flawless in the moonlight. But she had no eyes and her lips had been removed.

  She had no eyes. What did he do to your eyes?

  Sammy’s shovel was nestled in the corner. I reached over her to get it, no longer feeling much of anything. Maybe I was in shock, maybe I’d gone as crazy as he was. Maybe none of it mattered anymore because I was in Hell and no amount of tears or screams could ever get me out.

  I stood there stupidly, watching as Sammy dug a hole deep enough for three bodies. He took a ruby ring from the waitress’ pinkie finger, found forty dollars in Randy’s shirt pocket and tossed the rifles in the trunk. From one of the bags in the trunk he removed a small black book, but gave me no explanation.

  The burying was done by the time the sun came up.

  CHAPTER 26

  There’s a documentary on TV. A circle of African men and women covered with white powder dance with frenzied, jerking movements.

  “Voodoo,” says the commentator in a monotone voice, “was brought to this country by African slaves. It’s a healing religion. However, there are those who use its beauty and power for sinister means, just as some Catholics use the power of the Holy Mass for evil—”

  There are crosses and saints painted on the walls. Dancers’ shadows distort the images; make them look sinister. I see Sammy’s face among the dancers and I quickly change the channel.

  It won’t be long, sweet Julia.

  * * *

  Between the drugs and what had gone down I felt numb, as though my body was somewhere else once more, and by the time I got back in the car I swore I saw my Aunt sitting in a tall tree, tossing Tarot cards onto the ground. Blood poured from the tree’s leaves and demonic shapes slithered down the trunk like serpents.

  Sammy put the keys in the ignition, slid the book in his pocket and touched the rosary beads dangling from his rearview mirror. “Blood and semen in your honor, my Lord.”

  He looked at me, his eyes cold.

  A blackbird swooped down, settled on the grave, flapped its wings and screeched.

  “Chants from the Underworld.” Sammy laughed.

  I whispered a novena I’d memorized. It was to the Virgin Mary. Aunt Lil had given it to me when I was ten, scrawled in spidery writing on crumpled yellow paper. Sister Catrina from our parish church—a nun who often joined in my aunt’s witch ceremonies on full moon nights. The nun combined Catholic teachings with ancient Pagan beliefs. She said that it was a common practice, something never revealed to the masses.

  At the top of the paper a warning was printed—MAKE SURE WHAT YOU ASK FOR IS WHAT YOU REALLY WANT. THE VIRGIN ANSWERS ALL PRAYERS.

  I memorized the prayer, whispered it over and over whenever things seemed bad. Maybe Mary answered me; made things happen for the best and someday all the pieces would fit together.

  Sammy turned the key. The engine rumbled to life. There was blood and dirt on his fingers.

  Lil said the prayer with me as she lit notched candles and sprinkled salt around the tree. She stopped, turned to look at me as Sammy kissed me gently on the lips.

  I tried to stop it. Be strong, Cara Mia.

  I had to believe.

  * * *

  We all have free will, Ma. It’s not God’s fault if we fuck up. My mother doesn’t understand that, but then, there are many things she doesn’t understand, many things she chooses not to understand.

  She believes she’s a righteous woman, that she’s been a good mother.

  What she doesn’t believe; doesn’t know, is that her beliefs are responsible for almost everything, the way she raised me and allowed me to become the perfect victim for someone like Sammy.

  A Voodoo priest is standing before an altar. His back is to the camera. He’s wearing a green and purple robe but some-thing is wrong. The commentator doesn’t utter a word. The TV crackles and smoky tendrils curl from the screen.

  I step closer. The priest’s hand is wrapped around the neck of a young woman. He slices her neck, allows her limp body to fall onto a bed of rose petals then pours her blood into a clay bowl.

  He slowly turns to face the camera.

  Sammy.

  He holds the bowl out, stares into my eyes and laughs.

  The rocking chair creaks. I open my eyes. Mother cat is in my lap. The TV is silent.

  Just another nightmare, I assure myself. It’s all right, it can’t hurt you, it’s just another nightmare.

  I look down. There are rose petals at my feet.

  CHAPTER 27

  Mother cat licks my hand, purrs softly then leaps from my lap. She sniffs at the petals and stretches.

  I look to the mantel. The roses I brought back from the hospital are dying. How long ago was that? Who sent them to my mother? The leaves and petals are falling from the stems. I reach down and pat the cat on the head. “Time to feed you and your babies.”

  She flicks her tail and nudges her head against my leg.

  I rise from the rocker, look out the window. It’s snowing lightly.

  Just as I start to feel a bit better, the phone rings, and I begin to cry.

  * * *

  Everything was silent. The smell of death seemed to permeate the car. Sammy lit a cigarette, with his usual cool demeanor, as though nothing had happened, as though we hadn’t just buried three human beings.

  Sammy wore a gold medal of Saint Christopher around his neck. He said a guy who owed him money for a favor had given it to him. In a soft, almost lyrical voice he said, “Saint Christopher watched over travelers. He made sure their journeys were safe.”

  I just nodded, unsure of what to say. How could he be such a hypocrite? He’d murdered three people. Would one of God’s saints really protect him?

  “In Santeria he is called Aganyu, one of the things I learned. I was taught that the people who practice Santeria and Voodoo use Catholic saints a lot to disguise the Gods that they worship. They combine the two beliefs.”

  “Same as my aunt taught me,” I heard myself say. I was still out of it, but I wanted to keep Sammy talking. I was frightened, fearful that anything I said or did could set him off, that I might be his next victim. I wanted to get away from there. I was afraid the dead would rise, would pound on the car windows and reach inside and drag me with them into shallow graves. “So this God does the same as Saint Christopher?” I asked.

  “He helps the believers across great obstacles. Helps us to carry out our sacrifices to him and the other gods who can give us power.” His speech was unusually stilted, and he sounded as though he’d memorized the words from some book or something.

  Sammy stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray, lit a joint and flicked the match out the open window. He took a long pull and rubbed a finger gently over the medal. ”I learned to combine lots of religions—using prayers—spells—and ceremonies until I felt they were right for me.”

  The word perversion came to my mind.

  Sammy sucked on the joint, looked thoughtful for a moment. “My mother had a john who used to come around. He was a Santero—a priest of Santeria. He taught me some things. Initiated me. He lifted the lid off the dark things that most people are afraid of.”

  I was drifting in and out of consciousness. Sammy’s voice seemed far away at times. I thought I heard footsteps, Randy’s soft Southern drawl.

  “Did you have religious study when you were in school?” he asked.

  “Yeah, every Tuesday after class. I hated it. Mom made me go to church every Sunday. Sometimes in summer, when it was hot, I’d start to feel faint and Daddy would have to take me outside.”

  I saw the waitress’s face glaring at me from a passing van. I blinked it away, gripping tight to what remained of my sanity.

  “I used to think that it was God’s way of saying that He didn’t want me in His house,” I said. “My aunt Lil taught me how to combine the prayers I learned at church with beliefs passed down f
rom olden times.”

  “Lil, so pretty for a woman her age. So hot.”

  I thought about the smell of Lil’s perfume, of how that scent had once lingered on Sammy.

  He chuckled. “You learned to pray, though? You know the rosary and all those prayers they do at mass?”

  “Yeah, all memorized—just like my history lessons.” I bit my lip. “My lessons aren’t finished. Aunt Lil is waiting for me. She said I’d have great power once I got on the right path.”

  He ignored me and focused on his own thoughts spilling forth. “I used to stand outside church on Sundays, watch people come out of mass. I envied them with their silver rosaries clutched in their hands.”

  He shook his head. “I never learned to pray—not like that anyway.”

  “You never went to Catechism?”

  “No, getting to school most times was a chore in itself.”

  Let him talk, Julia. Don’t interrupt.

  “I’d sneak in the church—the one on the corner of Broad and Elmwood—when it was empty and quiet. I loved to look at the stained-glass windows, the statues, and the wooden cross.” He took another pull. “Sometimes a priest or a nun would be at the altar, lighting candles. I loved the smell—watching the flames. Then I’d look up at the face of Christ on that cross, swear He was mocking me. I’d look at Him and tell Him I’d pray to Him if I knew how.”

  Sammy turned to me, his eyes filled with glee. “Your aunt isn’t a saint, you know. She fucks like an animal. Did you know that?”

  “Stop—don’t lie—”

  “She thought she could stop the Devil with her magic. She made a fool of herself.” He laughed. “Damn good piece of ass, though.”

  “Stop it. Just stop. It’s not true.”

  But deep down, I knew it was. I knew Lil tried to change fate, tried to use dark magic in an attempt to get Sammy the hell away from me.

  What’s set in motion can never be stopped—never.

  * * *

  I hold the receiver in my hand. My palm is sweaty. The voice is soothing, sensual and at the same time wicked and filled with dread.

  “I can never be free, can I?”

  What if I am your freedom?

  CHAPTER 28

  I put the receiver back in its cradle. The snow is sticking to the windows and the wind howls long and low. It looks as though several inches have fallen. Did it fall quickly or have I been lost in a trance since it began?

  I think about my exhibit in New York. Was the opening tonight? The date is circled on the calendar in red.

  Does it matter? Does anything matter?

  * * *

  I had to keep Sammy talking.

  “It’s sad you never learned to pray,” I said. “I could teach you.”

  “I have what they’ve taught me. I don’t need anything else now.” He left his words hanging in the air like icicles dripping with something vile.

  He flung a beer bottle out the window. It landed on the fresh grave as we drove away, heading into the bright Southern sunshine.

  I don’t remember how many Black Beauties we popped, but the hallucinations kicked in real strong that afternoon. I kept seeing the people Sammy had killed. They rode by in cars we passed, the waitress from Jersey handed us change at the drive-up window when we stopped for cold drinks, Randy pumped our gas in Charlestown—smiling, telling Sammy to put air in the right tire.

  When I managed to get a hold of myself, things returned to normal. He was just a kid dressed in faded jeans, checking our oil and humming a tune by the Stones.

  I made my way to the ladies room, once more feeling apart from my own body somehow, as if I were a spectator to my life rather than a meaningful player in it. But I was scared, and the fear kept me alert more often than not.

  I spotted a pay phone outside the bathroom and after quickly checking my pockets realized I had enough change to make a quick call home. The phone took my change but there was no dial tone and the coin return was broken.

  If I hadn’t been so frightened, I would’ve laughed at how futile everything seemed just then.

  I slipped into the bathroom, slammed the door behind me and bolted it. I gazed into the full-length mirror opposite the stall. A stranger glared back. She was just a girl, face so white she looked like she’d died. Her hair hung in greasy strands down her back. Her eyes were big, blue, seemed like they belonged on the face of one of those freaky-looking dolls they give away at carnivals. There was a dark bruise on her cheek, and she was thin—bone thin. Her short dress hung on her, wrinkled and ripped in a few spots. A small reddish brown stain made a surreal pattern on the hem.

  It took a few minutes for me to realize I was looking at myself. I thought about the people Sammy had killed, and tried to convince myself it hadn’t really happened, it was all a dream, a drug-induced nightmare. But Sammy told me over and over that they all deserved it. The waitress tried to rob him, threatened him with a knife on his way to the restroom, it was self defense. The brothers from Carolina were going to kill me after they were done with me. He’d saved my life.

  But Sammy knew even I didn’t believe any of that. Later, he would say, “I need to quench the thirst of my master, you understand? What a perfect plan. Imagine him putting all these people in our path? Imagine giving me the chance to take their blood—for Him?”

  It felt as if soft feathery fingers were running down my back, and I wondered if I’d eventually be one of his sacrifices.

  I washed my face, combed my hair and dabbed my cheeks with some blush. I checked my purse. I thought I had a few dollar bills. He thought it’d be best for him to hold the serious cash for the time being.

  He’d taken my bankbook too. It still had five thousand dollars in it. He said when we got to Miami I could have more cash wired down there.

  I had ten dollars in my bag, some makeup and a silver unicorn charm my aunt have given me for my last birthday.

  “The unicorn is pure, a sign of innocence,” she’d said to me. “Keep your innocence and he’ll stay near, lose it and he can only watch over you from afar.”

  I touched the charm and felt deep sorrow. I closed my eyes and saw the color red but was too frightened and disoriented to think about it.

  There was a small drugstore connected to the service station. Sammy wanted to have the oil and transmission fluid checked and had said it would take a while. He told me to keep myself busy, so I wandered into the store, feeling a bit dizzy. It stung between my legs and I was thirsty. I plucked a can of orange juice from the cooler in the back of the store then checked out the stationary aisle. A small sketchpad caught my eye. I bought it, the orange juice, a big manilla envelope, some stamps and a package of charcoal pencils. I tucked everything but the juice inside my purse because I didn’t want Sammy to see those things, didn’t want him to know what I’d be drawing, or doing.

  I knew one thing about myself. I was a talented artist—even if my mother disagreed—and I wasn’t going to let anyone take that from me. Not even Sammy.

  I walked back outside. Sammy was talking to a woman and they were both laughing. Though his back was to me, I heard him speaking in that low sensuous voice he used whenever he wanted to turn on the charm. The woman wore an old pair of sandals, had a backpack over her shoulders, and looked like a million other girls from that era: tie-dyed dress, love beads, wild, long and wavy hair. “Sammy?”

  He spun on his heels. The reflection of the sun made him look like a beam of light glowed all around him in some perverse full-body halo. He was so beautiful; even with that shaggy hair and stubble on his chin, he was still gorgeous—like one of the angels I’d drawn for Father Mancini for the Nativity scene at church the Christmas before.

  “Julia,” he said with a devilish grin, “I want you to meet Star.”

  * * *

  I’m already wired as hell, but I do a few more lines of coke in the hopes that it’ll level me out.

  I’ve painted a pretty young girl so many times since 1971 I can barely remember
a time when I hadn’t put her to canvas. Again and again, I have tried to give her life in my paintings…

  I decide to paint her portrait again tonight. This time she’ll be the hitchhiker we brought to the shore in Miami. She’ll dip her toes in the clear water and smile as she gazes at the palm trees and smells the salty air.

  I dip my brush into blue paint and remember her eyes.

  CHAPTER 29

  The smell of fresh oil paint fills the air. A beautiful face manifests upon the canvas.

  The cats curl up on my bed, blink their eyes and let out soft meows as the girl in the painting seems to beckon me to her world of fantasy, a world that never was.

  And never will be.

  * * *

  The girl waved, wiggling the fingers on her right hand. “Hi, Julia.” She had a slow southern drawl. “Sammy, here, was just talking about you.”

  “Star’s going down to Miami, too,” Sammy said quickly. “We’re gonna give her a lift.”

  “Sure, whatever.” I shrugged. “Is the oil and everything else okay?”

  “Yeah, the car’s fine.” He smiled at the girl. “I’ll move some of our things into the trunk... now that the other stuff is gone. We gotta make room for our guest.”

  I didn’t answer. I just thought about the drawing paper and pencils hidden in my purse.

  Once we were on the road, Star talked nonstop, directing most of her chatter at Sammy, who grinned at her in the rearview mirror like some infatuated kid.

  “I was all the way over in Los Angeles,” she said. “Thumbed right across the country.”