Love Charms

by Multiple

  “When he saw the bear, he fired his arrow and it broke when it struck the bear in the chest. The bear reared up, grabbed him, turned him over and reared him. His face red and his heart pounding, the young man rushed back to his home. He spent many hours making the strongest and sharpest arrow he could. At dawn he returned to where he knew the bear would be. He fired his arrow which bounced off the bear as if it had simply been a small twig. The bear grabbed him, flipped him over and once again ravaged him. Boiling over with his humiliation and determination, the young man returned to his home, admittedly walking slowly because the bear had been quite rough this time.

  “He did not sleep, but focused only on making the strongest and finest arrow that had ever been made. The next day he returned, looking for the bear. The bear was waiting. The young man fired his arrow which shattered when it struck the chest of the bear. The bear grabbed him and said, “You’re not really here for the hunting, are you?”

  I let the drum do a true rim shot. “Why waste your time frightening a poor little One Who Buries boy when you could be possessing me? I sure as hell didn’t come here for the hunting.”

  The silence exploded with the braying laugh of Ghede who pulled away from Scorpio and shifted back to Coyote. “Well, fan your pussies, ladies—things just got interesting.” He took another deep swig from the endless bottles of rum and said, “Here’s to alcohol! What great Story ever started with a salad?”

  God he was beautiful. And still as erotic to me as that damn piece of commodity cheese. I glanced over at Scorpio and he was crying. What if he really wasn’t strong enough to survive resurrection? Crap. He was the strongest one in our generation. Other than me. I smiled at Coyote. “Maybe,” I leaned my head back, exposing my neck to him, “Maybe this time I should mount you.” I had no idea what I was doing. I jumped at him from across the space, remembering how I had done it when I was faux Coyote. No. When I had been Coyote. I became Coyote again. I flew across the room and when our bodies struck we became one.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I fell forward, hitting the ground heavily but not feeling any pain. I pushed myself up and looked around. Things were off and I realized I was taller. I looked down and my body was the body of a man. Well, in truth, it was the body of Coyote. “Where am I?” I asked out loud. My voice was deeper but didn’t really sound to me like Coyote’s. Maybe it was the way when you hear a recording of your voice it doesn’t really sound like you.

  “The true Spirit World,” I heard inside my head. “We had been in the in-between space.” At first glance my surroundings looked pretty much like I was out in a forest that seemed familiar. Close by I could see where I was standing immediately dropped off into a deep valley. Then something that seemed to be a jellyfish fLoated by and apparently caught some sort of insect in its tendrils and brought it up into what I assume was a mouth. “Yeah, little fishy. Definitely not in Kansas. There is a correspondence between this World and yours, but as you can see, it’s not exact.”

  “What happened?”

  “You know me well enough to understand I can’t resist trying something new?”

  I searched my memory for anything that contradicted that, but came up empty. Lots of stories about Coyote seeing others doing something he hadn’t seen before and then wanting to copy their actions. That’s one of the reasons he was called Imitator.

  Long time ago, Coyote was going there. He saw something very strange—something very mysterious. He saw a wílaalik—a rabbit. But this was no ordinary rabbit—this was a Twatee—a medicine person. As Coyote watched, the Twatee began to sing. Suddenly the eyes of the rabbit flew out of his head and landed above them on the branch of a tree. This amazed Coyote. Then the Twatee yelled, “Weenum!” (“Come here!”). His eyes flew off the branch and settled like falling leaves, entering back into his eye sockets so he could see again.

  Coyote ran up to the rabbit and begged, “Show me that trick! I want to learn that trick!”

  “Oh, no, Coyote,” the Twatee told him. “This is not for you.” Coyote kept begging the Twatee, and finally the rabbit agreed. “I will teach you how to do this thing, Coyote, but you must never do it more than four times in one day. If you do it more than four times in one day something terrible will happen to you.”

  “No problem,” Coyote said. “Just show me the trick!” When Coyote learned the Song, he sang it, and sure enough, his eyes flew out of his head and sat on the branch of the tree above him. Meanwhile rabbit left to go into another legend.

  Proud of what he could now do, Coyote called his eyes back to him and they obediently returned and he could see again. He did this a second time, then a third time. He did it a fourth time and thought, “Why am I wasting my time doing this here where no one can admire how clever I am?” So Coyote set out for the closest village. He called all the people together and said, “Now, check his out!”

  He sang the Song, and sure enough, his eyes fLoated up and landed on the branch of a tree. Everyone around him was very impressed, just you’d be impressed if my eyes fell out of my own head.

  “That’s nothing,” laughed Coyote. “Now watch this!” He yelled “Weenum!”

  And nothing happened. He yelled it again, and the eyes just sat there, looking down at everyone. The village people could take a joke, so they laughed and left Coyote alone. Coyote was very worried. He thought and he thought about what to do, but he couldn’t think of anything. Finally, in desperation, he turned to his sisters for help.

  Now Coyote has three huckleberry sisters who live inside his stomach, and when he can’t think of what to do, he’ll ask them to assist him. He called on his sisters, and they jumped out of him and landed before him on the ground. “What is it this time, Coyote?” asked the first one.

  “Always bothering us,” said another. “Always asking us what you should do.”

  “And when we tell you what to do you always say, “Oh, that’s what I was going to do anyway.”

  “We’re sick and tired of this, Coyote,” said the first one. “You can just figure it out for yourself this time. We aren’t going to help you.”

  Coyote grew angry at his sisters. He began to sing a Song of his own. The clouds above grew black and heavy looking. There was a flash of lightning and the roll of thunder because Coyote was calling forth hail.

  Now huckleberries hate hail because it hurts their little leaves and branches.

  “No, no,” yelled one, “Call off your hail, Coyote.”

  “Yeah,” said another—anyway we know what it is you want to know.”

  “You want to know what to do about your eyes,” sighed her sister.

  “Use flowers for your eyes,” said the oldest one.

  “Flowers?” Coyote repeated.

  “Yeah, Flowers,” said the youngest one. But in our language she meant a very specific type of flower that even today we literally call “Coyote’s eyes.” It looks a lot like a daisy.

  “Oh,” said Coyote. “I knew it all along. That’s what I was going to do anyway!” His sisters were disgusted and jumped back inside of him. He quickly felt his way around and finally found some. He put them into his empty eye sockets—and he could suddenly see again. He was thrilled and he spent the rest of the day wandering around and looking at things. Everything went fine until the sun began to go down. Now this flower does something very special when the sun sets. It closes up.

  Suddenly he was blind, and he realized his sisters had tricked the Trickster. He had to spend the whole night blind. The next morning when the sun came out, he had to feel his way around in his blindness until he found a fresh pair. Then he went to find someone he could trick. He had gone so far, it wasn’t until late afternoon he saw anyone. It was a Native woman, who had a very large basket on her back, filled with berries she had been picking.

  Coyote showed off his flower eyes. “Do you see how wonderful and magical my eyes are?” She looked at him and he said, “And I can see so many things.” He leaned to his side, looking around the
woman and into the distance. “Why I can even see what your husband is doing while you’re working so hard over here.”

  “Gee,” she said, “I’d sure like be able to see like that.”

  “You do?” Coyote smiled. “I’ll tell you what—let’s just make a straight trade. You give me your old ordinary everyday eyes and I’ll give my magic flower eyes!”

  “Will it hurt?” she asked.

  “Nah,” he said, “I won’t feel a thing. Give me your eyes!” So they traded and now Coyote had normal eyes again and she had Flower eyes. She was looking around and just about then the sun started to go down and she went blind.

  “You tricked me!” she yelled. “I don’t want these old things! Give me my own eyes back.”

  Now Coyote grew angry with her and said, “If you don’t want these eyes, then you’ll have no eyes at all! You’ll spend all eternity having to feel your way around the way I had to feel my way around.” Then he used his Tamanawis (his Spirit Power) on her and she began to shrink. She became smaller and smaller until she became Shuckshya—the Snail. The big basket on her back became her shell. And even now when you see the Snail, she has to feel her way around the way Coyote did.

  “And what about this is new?” I asked.

  “For the first time in the history of the World, someone has mounted me. I’ve never been possessed before.” I felt my right hand close into a fist. I opened it up again. There was no resistance. “Frankly, I thought it would be a lot more interesting. That’s the way it usually turns out.” I heard a mental sigh. “What I didn’t realize is I can only really be possessed in the Spirit World—not in the Everyday World, or the in-between space. Even I’m not sure, but I think the only way you could have managed this is by having become me again while we were both in the in-between space.” I felt a sense of impatience. I laughed because I realized I couldn’t tell if it was mine or his. God knows it was a feeling I had a lot. Next stop, bored.

  I decided I wanted to explore. “Anything dangerous I should know about? Anything that wants to kill you I should watch for? I know a lot of stories about you and I don’t want to end up running into an angry jilted lover and get blamed for something I didn’t do.”

  “That sounds more exciting than what we’re doing.” He seemed to think things over. “Mounting someone in a ceremony is nothing like a solitary mounting in the forest. I’m sure if I thought about it, I could make a clever comparison to the difference between a wild orgy and a halfhearted wank in the dark.”

  Knowing Coyote was a shifter I decided I wanted to try flying. This would be fun for me because while I was used to borrowing the eyes of birds, I should be able to turn into one. I thought about my options and after having seen a flying jelly fish decided I should be careful what sort of bird I chose to be. I remembered a poster Uncle Sly had put up in his room: “I shall fear no evil for I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.” I decided to be the biggest bitch of a bird in the sky.

  I spread my arms letting them shift into wings and became a Quetzalcoatlus. Thank you, Satellite Science Channels. I was now a flying dinosaur with a thirty foot wing span. I spread my wings and took off on a running start and launched myself over the cliff.

  “This is more like it, little fishy! What are we?” My wings caught an updraft and I soared upwards. Below me the valley spread out and I could see with a lot more clarity, just as I could when I was borrowing the eyes of an eagle or a hawk.

  “This is called a Quetzalcoatlus, one of the largest of the flying dinosaurs,” I answered. “Named after the flying serpent spirit of the Native people to the far south of us.”

  “Oh, Quetzalcoatl. In those days one of my names was Itztli. In your language you would say Obsidian Blade. The Aztecs would have ten who would impersonate me. Like you, they would imitate the Imitator. They would be celebrated, and after a year they would be sacrificed.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” I said.

  “It was a different time,” he said simply. I didn’t want to think about it. “I felt really appreciated in those days. I never cared about the bloodshed, but it sure showed their commitment.”

  “I think it probably showed the commitment of the sacrificed more than that of the Priests. It’s the difference between the chicken and the pig when it comes to making breakfast. An egg isn’t that big a commitment for the hen, but for the pig, bacon is a major commitment.” I glided easily across the valley, not having to flap my wings. I simply rode the air currents.

  “I wonder what it would take to bring back that time,” I heard him say. That was it. This wasn’t my new BBF that was hitchhiking in my head. This was Coyote. He might sometimes do something heroic, but mostly he sought to satisfy himself. I wanted this to be over. I wanted to go home and not feel my world keep turning upside down whenever the trickster decided to show up.

  I felt around for a way back. As I reached out with my mind (Coyote’s mind?) I realized the Universe didn’t really care where I was, which meant I could be anywhere. I headed for home and heard Coyote scream inside my head because before we could leave the Spirit World I had to become Coyote again and that meant we were suddenly falling straight down. Crap. I closed my eyes and dove for the way we had come.

  Suddenly we skidded across the chamber floor where the ceremony was. We were both apart again and back with Scorpio and Moth. Ghede’s entourage was scrambling to get out of our way. I wondered what they’d think about this particular night. Maybe this was how legends got started. The Youth Who Possessed Coyote. I’d read it. I wanted to know how it turned out. I put my hand in front of my face and willed myself back to myself, watching my hand shrink a little and become less blocky. Coyote was handsome but the universe just isn’t big enough for two of him. I moved my head, gratified to feel the brush of my braids. I was back to normal. Hah! As if.

  I don’t know how long we had been gone—no one seemed to have moved and Scorpio still looked frightened and pale. The way my luck ran instead of a few minutes being a few years in real time, I probably came back before I left. I shoved myself up from the floor and instinctively positioned myself again between Scorpio and Coyote. “Seems as if the possession portion of the ceremony is over, right?” I thought again about how the Loa kept track of the tab. Would Ghede/Coyote be willing to write this off under technicalities? I’m usually up for sex, but this time around I felt my balls trying to crawl up inside of me. I didn’t want Coyote possessing me or Scorpio. It just struck me as plain wrong. Not that Coyote was a stranger to wrongness.

  Long time ago, Coyote had seven daughters. The story says they were beautiful and as they grew older Coyote began to lust after them. When he tried coming to them at night, they ran away and climbed to the top of a great tree. They kept on climbing, higher and higher until they entered the sky and became the constellation the non-Natives call the “Pleiades.”

  Moth sighed. “You are the eternal optimist.”

  “There’s a tradition,” said Lady Chartreuse, “that when Ghede is summoned for a request one keeps a cow’s foreleg around. When he reaches out to shake your hand you offer him the cow foreleg, because when he’s ready to leave he often takes with him what he holds. With the foreleg trick, you get to keep your hand.”

  “So whenever you shake hands with Coyote you should count your fingers afterward. That sounds about right.”

  “Hey—I’m still in the room,” Coyote laughed, upending another bottle of rum. “One of the teachings of Ghede is that death is beyond all rules. I can do anything I want.” The bottle he was holding turned into a flame that shot upwards. “Death, humor and sex, little fishy. Name three things that level all playing fields.”

  “In the presence of Papa Ghede,” recited Moth, “At birth, at making love, or in your coffins, Ghede will strip you down to your basic humanity.” Scorpio seemed to nod in agreement.

  “Are you ready?” He was back into the skull face horror, but I suppose he was playing to the crowd of the white clad followers who filled t
he area. I wasn’t sure which of us he was addressing or if he meant all of us.

  He lifted his skeletal hands (when did that happen?) and the atmosphere grew heavy and humid and reminded me of being in a sweatlodge or a sauna. The purple glow increased, encompassing the acolytes and beyond. Moth started up Ghede’s Song, her voice sharp in the emptiness.

  “This is delicate,” Coyote said. “This is the moment you must all put your heart into the ceremony. This is the moment you must push what you are into the Song.”

  I thought about this. I remembered my father’s people always told us to watch what Coyote does and to do the opposite. I thought of that spiritual string I had bound my White boy Nathan with, and how I had felt for it. I reached out for a similar string that was tying me to Coyote. I found it and wrapped my hands around it in a spiritual way. And then I PULLED. It felt as if I were watching dominoes toppling. The energy in the room spiked and it would appear I had switched the polarity.

  Coyote had fallen on his ass. He started laughing and suddenly had a new bottle of rum in his hand as he stood up. In the other he was holding a black walking cane. He caught my eye and then pushed it between his legs as if he had a massive hard on and he poked the tip of it towards the crotch of one of his white dressed followers. When she echoed back his laughter, he lifted the cane up and began to twirl it.

  Lady Chartreuse said something that sounded like he was mispronouncing “balance.” Seeing the confusion in my eyes he said, “Papa Ghede is calling up the life energy by rapidly swinging between the two extremes. What he does with a rattle or with the cane is just the representation of that alternating current. Papa Ghede calls to the surface the connection between life energy and sex that permeates the spirituality of Voudon. All of the ceremonies have a goal of what we call in New Orleans echofe. It means to heat things up. It’s all about raising heat—raising luck—raising life energy. Or to intensify sex in the wildest way. These are pretty much all the same process. Papa Ghede gives an extra spurt of the intense power you need to conquer life—to use it and embrace it rather than be conquered by it.”