by Multiple
“Brother drowned. Wants to come back. Moth says you can show me how to do it. Goes against everything I was taught about keeping the Harmony, but she says I’m just narrow minded and you do it all the time.”
He crossed his arms. “I’ve done it.” He turned away from me, “Wouldn’t describe it as all the time. It requires a lot of prep work. We’ll need Papa Ghede. He’s the Loa that will permit your brother coming back.”
“Like a gatekeeper?”
“Yeah,” he laughed, “and he expects to collect a toll. One thing about the Loa is they always have their eyes on the tab.” He looked very serious. “Nothing is ever for free.”
“How does it work? Will he get to keep his old body? It’s pretty rugged looking at the moment. They dragged his body out of the River.”
“Flesh is flesh,” he said dismissively, “think of it as clay that just needs reshaping.” I shuddered, remembering having to endure the pain of having my body reconstructed with the baking clay. Reshaping Scorpio in the everyday world seemed to me to be different than doing it in the in-between space. I could be faux Coyote in the in-between space, but not the Everyday World—not now. Or could I? In a world where the dead could rise again, maybe Coyote could be anywhere. My head felt full again. Did I really want to live in a world where Coyote existed 24/7?
He picked up my yew staff that just happened to be there, and pounded it into the ground. “We need a Poteau-mitan for the Loa to slide into this world. This is raw, Pocahontas—normally we’d be a lot more formal and we’d be surrounded by drums.” I knew something about drums.
“This is new to me,” I said, walking about my staff. “What should I expect?”
“The last time I saw Papa Ghede he told me he had enjoyed a Saturday night in the Ginen while drinking Christ under the table with shots of chili rum.” He must have seen my surprised expression and said, “Which means you don’t always believe everything he says because he considers himself a comedian. He loves children and loves even more to scare the living hell out of adults, reminding them to enjoy life because it’s always on the edge of ending. He is the only one of the Loa who never disguises himself when he mingles with humans and will stroll around Bourbon Street to allow people to take pictures of him, but they never come out. They say he places HIV on every ninth needle.”
He made some adjustment to my staff and added, “He is the Loa of eroticism and his best trick is to pick out the most sexually repressed person in the room and possess him or her. He then has his cheval act out in the most lascivious of ways.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.
“What’s a cheval?”
“It means horse in English. A cheval is the person the Loa will mount—possess.” I thought about this. Normally I’m pretty sure I would never be considered “the most sexually repressed person” in any room, but if my chances were fifty/fifty, I don’t know if Ghede would pick Lady Chartreuse over me. People often were ridden by their Spirit Power during the Winter Spirit Dances. In some cases, the person with the Spirit Power would have another dance in their place, or have a ritual object that they’ll make dance like my grandmother and her dolls.
He started to sing an unfamiliar song and in the distance I thought I heard the seven drums of our Longhouse. He said something that I recognized as French. “We honor the Legba,” he told me. “None of the Loa may pass into this in-between place and then enter the Everyday World without his permission.” He glanced my way. “You owe me, Pocahontas—consider this put on to your bill. You will pay. If you don’t pay by the second of November, then it will be all hell to pay.” In one hand he held a bottle of some sort of alcohol he poured on the ground and the smell hurt my nose. He flung five coins unfamiliar to me and when they hit the spilled liquor it all burst into flame and formed a circle around my yew stick, and then spread out into a design I thought I had seen in the Voodoo Museum where it was labeled a veve. There were four medicine wheels in the center, like the ones Scorpio had drawn on the tomb of Marie Laveau when we were in New Orleans.
An elderly man was suddenly there, leaning on a cane, his skin the same color as Valentino’s had been. Lady Chartreuse spoke to him rapidly in French and he stepped aside and extended his hand to my yew staff. The flames of the veve wavered and formed a different pattern that looked more like a plain Christian cross. The old man disappeared and in his place was a man in a fancy tailed coat and a black top hat like the one Mr. Peanut wears on the can of nuts. He had his back turned to us. He was holding a smoldering cigarette in his left hand. He turned slowly to face us, shirtless beneath the coat and wearing dark aviator glasses with one of the lenses missing. He took them off and smiled at me. “I have missed you, my little fishy,” he said. His large almond eyes were a disturbing purple, but as I watched, they shifted to match my own color.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You know each other?” Lady Chartreuse looked at me with suspicion.
“Surely you realize Papa Ghede knows everyone.” Then he laughed and added, “Or will know everyone.”
“He wasn’t calling himself Ghede when we first met,” I told Lady Chartreuse.
“If it makes you feel better, Moon of the Singing Frogs, think of me as moonlighting.” He laughed again, obviously finding this a funny comment.
“Are you moonlighting as Ghede or Coyote?”
“Do you really care about what uniform the pizza delivery guy is wearing as long as you get your pizza?” He tipped his top hat to me and then tossed it to Lady Chartreuse but as the drag queen reached to catch it, the hat vanished with a little puff of purplish smoke.
He moved gracefully towards me, picking me up effortlessly and kissing me gently in what felt like sincere affection. Then he turned me around and forced me forward and ground himself into my ass. “If he rides you,” said Lady Chartreuse, “Papa Ghede will definitely be getting his rocks off tonight. When I said he’d claim his price, I wasn’t just talking about rum or hot peppers.”
“I don’t bottom,” I said, pulling away. “It only seems fair if anybody gets ridden it should be Scorpio, since he’s the one getting resurrected, not me.”
“Oh, baby,” Lady Chartreuse whispered, “You never refuse a Loa. If he say you dance the Massissi dance, then you damn sure start shaking your money maker!”
“Oh, mon petit Chartreuse, he does not refuse me. He is but playing hard to get. He knows how much I enjoy the chase.”
“Let’s get back to Scorpio. I like the idea you bring him back and then you get to ride him. He’s the one who deals with the dead!”
“He’s no longer the only one,” Moth laughed. She landed on the shoulder of Ghede who was beginning to look more and more like Coyote. His fancy coat was gone.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll drum.” What the hell, I figured we were still in the in-between. “In the name of Coyote, I Call seven drums.” I reached up and in one hand I held the drum I had used when Justin had attacked me and in the other my familiar drumstick. Six other drums from the Longhouse formed a line as if invisible drummers were holding them and we were ready to sing our worship songs. I automatically turned in a circle to begin and the other drums spun in mid-air.
“Oh, my little fishy,” Ghede laughed, “You are truly imitating the Imitator!” In response I began the drum call that lets the community know a ceremony was about to begin.
I had no idea what song to use so I began with the Moth Song. Moth launched herself from Ghede’s shoulder. In mid-flight she shimmered and took on her human shape. She plucked a drum and drum stick from where they were fLoating in the air and joined in her own Song. Lady Chartreuse began to dance in a way that looked a lot more like twerking than anything I had ever seen in a ceremony. His ass looked really huge as he lowered himself so close to the ground as he kept up the rhythm of the song I was worried he’d split his dress.
Ghede took a swig out a bottle in his hand that I swear was smoking. He laughed and then drained it, letting it drop but it vanished before it struck the gr
ound. He was now holding a gourd rattle that was webbed with bright colored beads that seemed to be glowing. When he would shake it, the beads slid across the surface, giving an additional sound. “Why did I not think to make the drums play themselves?” He laughed again and suddenly six more of the rattles materialized and fLoated above the drums around me blending in their sounds. Ghede danced in a circle around my staff, using the movements I knew from the Medicine Dances we do in the Spring. When he had completed seven circuits, he held up his hands and all the drums and rattles sped up the way we would do in certain healing songs. Then the drums were struck so hard I feared they would split, but there was a moment of silence and Ghede began a different Song that I assumed was his.
A bright purple glow grew in front of my staff and Ghede looked me in the eye. He no longer looked like Coyote, but his face and body had become as dark as my hair and his face was a skull. From the glow a procession of dancers emerged, picking up his song, but blending it into harmonies we would not use in the Longhouse. It was very pretty and I concentrated on keeping up with the shifting rhythm. More dancers dressed in strips of white cloth continued coming out of the purple light and they carried the ruined body of Scorpio, lifted above their heads. Keeping up the rhythm of the dance they placed his body on the ground and I regretted he would not lie on a Pendleton or the more traditional woven reed mat. I kept singing, my throat feeling raw as I added a part of myself to the song. Moth looked at me, seemingly surprised and I wondered if I had managed to piss off the spirit world again.
Ghede was suddenly facing me across from Scorpio’s body, wearing the top hat again. He held a bottle once more in his hand. He drank from it and then he did what I had seen two of my uncles do, spitting it out in a fine mist. For us this was Alquat Power—Frog Power. It was considered one of the strongest of the healing rituals. It was as if a cloud suddenly covered my brother and my nose stung from the strength of the alcohol. Ghede snapped his fingers and the mist burst into flame. I had sympathy for Scorpio because I knew only too well the pain of this fire. But when the mist burned away, his body was once again whole. He remained in the stillness of death.
Then Ghede stretched his arms above Scorpio’s body and he sang with such strength my ears felt as though they would bleed. He brought his hands up and down while flexing his fingers as if he were a puppet master and suddenly Scorpio began to jerk to match the movements. His eyes were still shut but as Ghede seemed to pull at him with invisible strings, he sat up and then impossibly he was standing. Human bodies don’t bend that way. I wondered just how human his body was at this point. The white clad dancers lifted him up above their heads and took him around my staff, turning him in a circle at each of the cardinal directions, the way we would do with a casket in a true funeral—as they might even now be doing in the Longhouse. The time of the in-between space continued to confuse me.
When they had completed the circle, they placed his feet upon the ground once more and he unsteadily tried to keep standing. He opened his eyes and looked into the skull face of Ghede and he screamed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The music stopped and there was so much silence I could hear Scorpio’s shallow breathing. Holding on to my drum, I stepped between Ghede’s entourage and let Coyote and Scorpio both see me. “Looks like it worked,” I said. “There were some conditions we didn’t get to discuss, Scorpio, but here you are.”
Scorpio looked at me while trying not to take his eyes off Ghede. I had to admit in this form he was frightening. This close it appeared his eye sockets were like black caves and his eyeballs were small round burning coals that rolled around independently. I frowned. “Is that really necessary? Can we get Coyote back? You’re very beautiful as Coyote.”
Ghede laughed and shifted back, looking suspiciously as if he could be our older brother. I put my hand on Scorpio to comfort him, and then took it away because I have little talent for comforting. I’d probably screw it up.
“Coyote doesn’t have a skull face in any of the legends,” Scorpio muttered. His voice was raspy and I wished I had some water to give him. Then I realized I was thinking in an everyday way and told a cup of water to appear in my hand and placed it into his. “And you don’t materialize things out of the air.” He drained the water and said, “Many changes.” He looked at me as he fingered the empty stone cup. “Is it really you?”
“I can ask you the same thing. I just watched what seemed to be the body they found beneath the River get covered in a burning mist and—here you are.” He was studying Coyote intensely. “Let’s just say the world is apparently a lot more complicated than we used to think.”
“In New Orleans they called you Baron Semedi,” Scorpio said to Coyote. His voice still sounded a bit shaky.
“I have many names,” he replied. “It would be so boring to wear just one all the time when I have all the time.” In my head I heard a rim shot. My Coyote didn’t go for jokes like this. Maybe it was the influence of the alcohol he kept drinking.
“He’s back,” I pointed out, “Shouldn’t there be a feast or something and then we all get to go home and try to convince our people this isn’t the start of a zombie invasion? Any suggestions on how to let people know he’s just returned from the dead—no problems—no eating of brains, and that the funeral has been canceled?” Both looked at me as if they couldn’t understand what I was saying. I felt like I was starting to babble. “Maybe we could tell them they can keep the funeral giveaway stuff, so everyone walks away with something?” They continued to stare silently at me. I could hear Ghede’s followers starting to stir. That made me nervous.
“Pocahontas,” Lady Chartreuse said, “this might be a good time to pretend you’re a cigar store Indian and just stand there and be silent.”
“Did somebody say Feast?” Coyote shifted to Ghede again and his followers started up his Song and began a wild dancing, grinding against each other and I could smell different types of food and my nose burned again with the smell of the alcohol he had been using. Ghede laughed and spun around so quickly his coat tails wrapped around him when he stopped, his hands on Scorpio’s shoulders. Startled, my brother dropped the cup he had been holding and it vanished before it hit the ground. I realized after years of Longhouse clean up duty picking up here would be pretty easy.
“Just call me Ghede, Moon of the Falling Leaves. Baron Semedi sounds so formal, and I think we’re going to be very,” he moved next to Scorpio, “Very close. I have every intention of sucking out the last bit of juice from your Adam’s apple.” He stuck his skull face against Scorpio’s mouth and I saw a flash of a tongue that looked like the tip of a snake’s tail force itself into my brother’s mouth and he screamed again.
“Crap,” I thought, “why couldn’t we have a nice simple culture like Christianity where things are clean and holy or just evil. Coyote has to be a balance of rapist and hero.” I held myself back. I remembered Lady Chartreuse explaining the Loa made you pay. Looks as if Scorpio was going to get stuck with the bill. “Moth,” I hissed, “is this necessary? Is there anything I can do to help him?”
“Oh, Ghede doesn’t need any help.” She looked at me. “He has to test your brother the way he had to test you. If he’s going to break it needs to be here where others don’t get hurt if he can’t handle the gift of a second life.” She looked back at Ghede either giving Scorpio a hickey or about to rip his throat out. “Although I will say your refusal to be the cheval and shoving your brother in your place shows once again what a dick you can be. If you spent half as much time accomplishing something instead of avoiding responsibility we’d all be a lot better off.”
“Is this the way it normally goes?”
“No. Usually there’s a wonderfully elaborate and beautiful ceremony that goes on for hours along with a lot of drinking, feasting, prayer and dancing. But you had to jump in and interfere as soon as your brother started twitching. You can just look at something and break it.” She had another bottle of alcohol in her hand an
d took a swig. “That’s one of the reasons you’re his new favorite.” She took another drink and passed it to me. “So you can just see how that’s going to work out. There’s a reason why your father’s people tell children to watch what Coyote does and do the opposite.”
I smelled the bottle and my eyes watered. “What is this stuff, anyway?”
“Rum, Pocahontas,” Lady Chartreuse said from behind me. “White rum, raw rum—and Papa Ghede’s favorite rum is one where twenty-one chili peppers have been infused into it. That would burn your tongue off.” He looked at me as if he was considering that might be a really good idea. Gag—ganged up on by a drag queen and a Moth. Disgusted I handed the bottle to him and he took a mouthful.
“What’s with the sunglasses that have a lens missing?” I asked.
“It represents the fact he can look into the Spirit World and the Everyday World at the same time,” answered Moth. She had the bottle of rum again and her voice sounded a little slurred.
“Hell to the No,” laughed Lady Chartreuse, “the glasses symbolize the one-eyed trouser snake, and baby girl, there is only one thing he be looking for.”
I was starting to wonder if maybe I really was the most sexually repressed person in the room. It would be a good time to leave. Ghede seemed to be taking the idea of mounting Scorpio literally. It wasn’t fair. Scorpio wasn’t gay. I could see how he was fighting his fear. Crap.
I threw my drum into the air and it circled about the two of them in a rapid beat and the Ghede Song stopped. He turned away from Scorpio and looked up at me expectantly with one red coal eye burning from the empty lens of his sunglasses. Crap. Bet I broke something again.
“Long ago a young man went out hunting and he saw a large bear.” Ghede brushed his rough hand over Scorpio’s hair, and then turned to face me. “He pulled out his bow and arrow and shot the bear in the chest. The arrow bounced harmlessly off the bear who then grabbed the youth, turned him over and screwed him. Humiliated and angry, the young man returned home. He spent the night fashioning a sharper arrow and then the next day returned, looking for the bear and vengeance.