by CP Patrick
Always had a way with the spirits. Ever since I was young, the spirits and I been connected in a special way. I ain’t have many friends, ’cause kids wasn’t allowed to play with me. They mamas told them to stay away. Afraid some of my voodoo powers might rub off.
The kids did as they was told. But they made sure when they crossed me to call me all sorts of names—Hoodoo Voodoo, Devil’s Child, Crazy Crawfish, and Evil Eyes was just a few. Names I’m sure they learned from they mamas. Funny, though. First time any one of they mamas needed some special potion to trap a man, keep they man, or needed to talk to someone who passed on, first house they came to was ours.
It was my grandmama’s house. Everybody call her Mama Obeah. She more like my mama than grandmama. When I was young, my real mama would stop by from time to time, stumbling in drunk and smelling like all the things the streets is made of, especially sadness. Believe it or not, sadness has a smell. Sadness smell like my mama.
When Mama hugged me, I could smell that sadness, liquor, the bayou. She’d hug me so hard, sometimes both of us would fall to the floor. Mama Obeah would help me up, then she’d pick up her daughter and clean her before she’d lay her down in the bed.
All we heard for the next day or so was Mama throwing up, crying out, and yellin’ ’bout how life ain’t fair. Once she felt better, Mama would swear us up and down she was gon’ get herself right, that things would be different. And then she’d be right back in them streets again.
Finally, when I was around eight years old, my mama left me with Mama Obeah for good and said she leaving to find a new life. Once she got settled, she said she was gon’ send for me and get me out the bayou too. Told us she was tired of them haunts speaking to her.
“They been driving me crazy all my life,” she yelled at Mama Obeah.
Mama Obeah didn’t say nothing. She let Mama ramble on in her drunken rage. Mama was convinced that if she left the bayou, she’d leave the spirits here too.
When my mama passed out, exhausted from all her yelling, Mama Obeah picked her up like always and took her into the back room. Mama Obeah let her sleep away the pain. The next morning, my mama was gone. I never saw her again.
“Ain’t no way you can fight hearing the spirits,” Mama Obeah always said. “They always gon’ be there, so you might as well make ’em ya’ friend and not ya’ enemy. Remember, what we got is a gift. Spirits chose us to listen to ’em, and that’s mighty important.”
Unlike Mama, the gift never bothered me. I kind of liked hearing the spirits around me. I never felt alone.
Like Mama Obeah said the day Mama left, “The gift is all we got, and God ain’t give it to just any ol’ body.”
Mama Obeah the one who taught me to be proud the spirits speak to me. All the women in our family got the gift, all the way from when our folks came over from Africa. She say we came from one of the tribes that was known to have powerful medicine women. And they passed the gift on to us. It’s in our blood.
“We blessed to be chosen,” Mama Obeah would say while she stirred up some requested magic potion.
Sounded like we was lucky to me too. But Mama had thought otherwise. Mama Obeah said the voices of the spirits drove Mama to the bottle, and the bottle drove my mama to the grave. I didn’t know my mama well enough to miss her all that much. Just remember that smell of sadness.
Everything I know I learned from Mama Obeah. Folks came to see her from all ’round the bayou. Mama Obeah was real tuned in to the spirits. It was often folks left our house crying happy tears ’cause they got some answer they was waiting on.
Mama Obeah knew potions to stop men from cheating on they women, make somebody repay a debt they owed, all kinds of remedies. Folks was so grateful to Mama Obeah for helping them.
Sometimes the folks she helped paid Mama Obeah with money. But most of the time, folks didn’t have the money to pay, so they gave her food or did work ’round the house. She was fine, s’long as they paid her somehow or promised to in the future. Mama Obeah never turned nobody away who came calling for her help, whether they had a way to pay her or not.
“The spirits speak to you because you got the gift, not because they want you to earn a living. Don’t never turn anybody away who need you—people or spirits,” Mama Obeah would say.
Soon as I was old enough, folks started to ask me to help them too. Mama Obeah told folks I was best at talking to the spirits, so people asked me to talk to their children who died. That’s how they came to call me Baby Obeah. I didn’t mind much. Made me feel important to help folks, like Mama Obeah. Most times, after a family spoke to a child who passed and said they last goodbyes, the children would find peace and cross over.
“It’s not the babies who have a hard time crossing over, it’s the adults. The ones who can’t seem to get over that they been wronged,” Mama Obeah would say. “They can’t let go of the pain and the folks who wronged them.”
As I got older, Mama Obeah taught me lots of ways to deal with the living and the dead. Soon more folks was coming to see me than they was seeing Mama Obeah.
“That’s how it supposed to be,” she said in a proud voice. “Now I can sit back and let you do all the work.”
We both laughed when Mama Obeah said that, ’cause everybody knows she never could sit still.
Although the living people love to come see me for help, the spirits love me more. The spirits love to talk to me, ask me questions about the past, or some of ’em like to talk about themselves. They likes to reminisce about who they once were and who they woulda been if they was still living.
Spirits stayed ‘round Mama Obeah’s house, especially if we been friends for a long time. I can always feel when they there, so I never feel alone.
When Awiti first came to see me, a sadness filled Mama Obeah’s house like never before. The air felt heavy and thick. And that was the smell of sadness. Mama Obeah felt it too, because she kept moaning in her sleep. That’s how I knew. Most time you felt a spirit before they spoke to you.
“Who here?” I asked.
“Awiti. How are you?” she asked.
I responded quickly because don’t nothing make a spirit more upset than knowing you heard them and you act like you didn’t. That’s what Mama had tried to do. It only made them spirits mad; made they voices more loud and forceful. Spirits don’t like to be ignored.
“Hi now. I’m good,” I responded. “What you need?”
Because they all needed something. They all had something to tell you or something they needed you to tell them. No spirit ever came calling to say hi ’less they knew you.
“What’s your name?” Awiti asked.
Of course, Awiti already knew my name. She knew about me or she wouldn’t have come. That’s how it worked. The spirits know who got the gift.
“Name’s Baby Obeah.
“Baby Obeah,” she said. “I like that name.”
Then Awiti was quiet. I knew she was taking it all in. Mama Obeah tossed and turned in her bed.
“What you need, Awiti?” I asked again.
I don’t mind spirits lingering ’round s’long as they speak and let me know what’s on they mind. We ain’t friends yet, so she ain’t got the right to hang around like some of the spirits I know.
“Oh, Baby Obeah, I don’t want much. I want you to hear my story. I want you to help me find peace,” Awiti said.
They all wanted you to listen to their story. Wanted you to hear how they was wronged so you would agree with them and say, “Yeah, that wasn’t right what was done to you.”
Some spirits used their stories to justify the evil things they did.
That first meeting of ours was in 2000, and Awiti stayed ’round me for a whole year. Took some time before she showed her face. Not much older than I was when Mama lost her last battle with the bottle. But I knew Awiti wasn’t never gon’ find peace.
First, she’d made a bad deal. If someone come along asking you to be immortal because they tired, they telling you a lie. Immortal
one of the best things to be, and if somebody don’t want it no more, well, they ain’t telling you the whole story.
Seemed like the man who did the Exchange tricked Awiti. He didn’t tell her the whole truth about the deal she was making. Immortals supposed to stick together, because unless you spend your life with someone like you, someone who can understand you, life is a curse.
Man who switched with Awiti was wrong. Selfish to do that to a young girl. He was trying to get out of his own mess. And he tricked her with life’s greatest trap, love. Awiti was trapped in that space in-between, and that’s a hard place to be.
She wanted me to make her mortal so she could die, but I can’t. Then she wanted me to make her spirit cross over. I can’t do that. I ain’t got that type of power. Awiti was gon’ have to keep living. That was gon’ be hard to do forever.
I told Awiti to stop the suffering. She had to stop hurting folks because she got wronged. All of us been wronged one way or the other, by our choices or life dealing us a bad hand.
“What you gon’ do? Keep getting together with them other angry spirits and stir up trouble? Every time you have a bad memory, you gon’ keep hurting folks?” I asked her one day.
I was glad to have her to talk to. Mama Obeah didn’t talk much anymore. She’d lie in the bed and do things only when she had to—talk when she had to and move when she had to. Otherwise, Mama Obeah was still and quiet.
Awiti said nothing, but I knew she was listening. Whoever her folks was trained her real good, because she minded her elders.
I always told her, “I know you older than me, but I’m older than you!”
This always made her laugh. Even though she was immortal, Awiti was still very much a child.
“You gots to let go, Awiti. You got to find you some place you can be where you ain’t got no ties. Some place your spirit can rest and be easy,” I told her.
“I don’t know a place like that,” she said. “Everywhere I go, trouble follows.”
“So what? You trying to tell me you done visited the whole world? I know you ain’t. I know it’s places you ain’t been or places you passed through quick,” I scolded her.
She was being difficult.
“I wouldn’t mind you staying with us, but you know, Louisiana, ’especially New Orleans, is a place of pain for you. And then what you gon’ do when Mama Obeah and I die?” I asked. “Then you’ll be looking for a new place to be. You gots to think things all the way through, Awiti.”
She was quiet again.
“You need to go far from this place to find some peace,” I told her. “Too much hurt here. The peoples you hurt, the hurt you lived, and the hurt you caused. You gots to stay away from Louisiana.”
“Once, I passed through an island called the Bahamas. I followed another spirit there,” she said.
She was trying.
“Let me look it up in my book,” I said.
I pulled out my book with maps of the world. The Bahamas seemed nice. Not a lot of people, and far away from most of the places Awiti couldn’t seem to stay away from. I was worried because Haiti was close enough, Florida too. But Awiti was certain she could be strong.
“Haiti doesn’t call me as often as Louisiana,” she reasoned. “Florida either.”
“So go to the Bahamas,” I said. “You ever need me again, I’ll be right here.”
And then, Awiti was gone.
I ain’t hear from Awiti for a few years. I thought she had found the peace she was looking for. That’s why I’m surprised she’s speaking to me again, this time from afar.
“I’m angry, Baby Obeah,” Awiti says. “I’m angry again. Why did they do those things to my people? Make them suffer? Enslave them, beat them? Why did they put their heads on poles all around the levee? It ain’t right!”
Mama Obeah starts moaning and tossing in her bed.
I know what this means. Awiti thinking about Louisiana. The pain is calling her again; the memories that haunted her have returned. She’s still trying to avenge all those slaves’ heads on the poles that lined the streets and was posted on the levee. Can’t imagine these are easy things to let go of, but she has to try.
“Awiti, you have to let it go. You was wronged. Those you loved was wronged. Innocent people was wronged, but you have to let go.”
“I need you to leave, Baby Obeah,” Awiti says softly. “I need you and anyone you love to leave, because I’m coming back.”
“No, Awiti,” I say.
I try to use the best mama-like voice I can. I want Awiti to hear me speak to her with love. But I know it’s gon’ be hard to stop her. Once a spirit put they force in motion, it’s already too late.
“Awiti, why you coming? You gon’ kill more of ya’ own kind than anybody. We the ones down here now, suffering. You want to make it even harder for us?”
I hope she will consider this and change her mind. Maybe the storm will be mild if she isn’t so angry.
“I can end that. I can help people get to the afterlife. A place of peace. No more suffering.”
All spirits think this is the best way to do things. They think that by killing folks, they helping them to get to the afterlife faster. They think they helping to stop the pain. In Awiti’s childlike mind, she don’t understand she ain’t ending suffering. She bringing more.
“You can’t end all the suffering this way, Awiti. Besides, it ain’t your place. Who you to decide whose suffering gets to end and whose don’t?”
We go on this way for some time, bickering back and forth. Mama Obeah gets up out the bed. She moves slow as she starts to pack up her important things.
“You wasting time, Baby,” Mama Obeah says. “You need to get to packing because Awiti coming, and it’s gon’ be bad.”
Mama Obeah moves now only when she has to, so I know things is serious. I call out to Awiti, but she don’t answer. I start packing, little things here and there because we never had much. I turn on the TV. The forecast say a hurricane brewing off the coast of the Bahamas.
“Damn, Awiti.”
I try to tell as many folks as I can to come with me and Mama Obeah. We can fit a few extra folk into our old station wagon. Folks need to get to higher ground. But folks here never run from no storms. They stay and fight them.
The only people leaving got the gift like me and Mama Obeah. They done heard Awiti is on her way again; most of them done already packed up they cars and on they way. I’m the only one don’t want to believe Awiti is coming.
I call out to her one more time. No answer. She’s coming.
Mama Obeah and I finish packing up the things we love the most. We say goodbye to our home because deep down we know we ain’t never gon’ see it again. Even though she wrong for coming, I feel sorry for Awiti. I truly do.
30
in the end
They say the pain from heartache and suffering eventually passes. That new moments of happiness replace tormented memories. Dark stories that were once told as an explanation for the sadness become cautionary tales, perhaps even shared with candor and laughter. The heartache becomes a lesson disclosed to others about overcoming adversity. Proof that time heals all wounds.
I can say with certainty such reconciliation is not true for everyone, and most certainly not for me. I have never resolved what was taken from me. There have never been moments more beautiful than those from my youth. I cherish the remembrances of my family and village. But I believe time has made matters worse. Time afforded me more opportunity to ponder as anger and resentment hover over my memories like flies. And there is no way to swat away the bitterness.
They say that when you are truly loved, even in death, you still exist. You live in the hearts of those you leave behind. And that is what my heart encompasses. It is filled with images from my past. I dream of the faces and voices of those I love. Some speak to me with happy memories, while others beckon for restitution, pleading with me to make things fair. To make the world pay for what was done to them. When the latter occurs,
I often call on Flying Eagle.
I cry out to him,, “I wish you were here with me. I need you.” For aside from Father, he was the only man who truly loved me. And just like Father, Flying Eagle was taken from me. He has crossed over, so he does not answer.
I only hear words from our past as Flying Eagle says, “Find peace, Awiti. Promise me.”
“I promise.” And I do find peace occasionally, but it is always temporary.
And that is the difficulty. The peace is never longstanding. It is only enough to sustain me for a short time. And before I know it, the heartache returns. Although I tried many times, I have never found peace that eradicates suffering. The type of peace that brings stillness and calm. Does there even exist such peace to overpower the hate?
As Amos once told me, “Even God’s tears can’t do that.”
Yes, even children know the lasting effects of misery. Sometimes it stays with you forever.
And I am never alone in my sorrow. Many have been wronged, for suffering is a part of the Great One’s design for humanity. Good and evil remain in a constant battle to ensure a proper balance in a world filled with uncertainty and free will. Ill-fated circumstances plague some and not others. Evil strikes at random. There is no way to protect one’s self from suffering. The mere act of being born makes you vulnerable to heartache.
They say this is what happened in the beginning when I was simply a girl in my village. Random acts of evil descended upon Africa and cursed our people. We became slaves, and even when our chains were removed, our minds remained in bondage. The world continued to look down upon us and treat our descendants as though they should still be enslaved. Yes, hate can be diminished with each generation, but it will always remain. No way to outrun it. No way to out-love it. Hate just is, and it’s always going to be.
The strange men took what was most valuable to our village, to any man, really—our freedom. I can still see the fear in Mother’s dark eyes as she looked at her children. Surely she knew she would never see us again. I can hear the voices of the women and children outside our home, screaming as they watched the strange men descend upon our village. I can still hear Father saying,