Holiday of the Dead

by David Dunwoody; Wayne Simmons; Remy Porter; Thomas Emson; Rod Glenn; Shaun Jeffrey; John Russo; Tony Burgess; A P Fuchs; Bowie V Ibarra

  ‘Okays then,’ he nodded. ‘In you go.’

  The bar was empty of customers. A lone bartender was polishing glasses behind a chipped and stained worktop. The floor was wood, varnished with age and decades of spilled alcohol.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Michael. ‘Do you know where I can find Blind Willie?’

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Slim sent me.’ He took another twenty from his wallet.

  The barman pocketed the bill. ‘Drink’ll be extra. You need to wait awhile. Willie does his drinkin’ after sunset. Darkness means nothin’ to him.’

  ‘Any bands playing?’

  ‘Not until after dark.’ The barman was a man of few words.

  ‘A beer then, please.’

  Although the bar stank of stale liquor, it was cool and dark, a welcome relief from the heat of the street. Michael felt the tiredness drain from him as he sipped the ice-cold bottle. He lifted up his bag and took out his small laptop.

  ‘Wouldn’t be flashin’ that around here, man,’ warned the barman.

  Michael took out his notebook instead. He scribbled down his impressions of the city, from the airport to the hotel and the famous Bourbon Street.

  ‘Another beer, please.’

  He read through a guidebook he had bought at home, intending to read on the aircraft, but which had been mistakenly packed in his suitcase. The city had been founded by the French Mississippi Company in the early 18th Century, named for the Duke of Orleans. It had passed from French to Spanish control, then back to the French before being sold to the United States in 1803. The cosmopolitan environment of the city was partly the result of the slave trade, and the migration from Haiti following their revolution of 1804, bringing a rich fusion of French and African cultures, also Catholicism and African Voodoo beliefs.

  He finished his beer. It was getting dark outside, so he checked his watch. 7.30pm.

  He signalled the barman, who pulled out another beer from the fridge. The barman was about to pop the cap, when he put the bottle down unopened. He pulled a dusty bottle from a high shelf and poured some clear green liquid into a shot-glass. He balanced a spoon over the glass and gently placed a sugar cube on top of the spoon, pouring water from an ice-jug over the sugar cube. The liquid turned cloudy.

  The barman popped the beer cap and thumped the bottle down beside Michael. ‘Man’ll be in shortly.’

  A few minutes later, a blind man walked in. He was dressed in a white suit, waistcoat, shirt and hat and black glasses obscured the milk-white eyes which were occasionally visible from the side. He was black and very old, with fissured ebony skin and a clipped white beard.

  He sat on the stool next to Michael, leaning his silver-topped walking-stick against the bar.

  ‘Slim said you should go lookin’ for me.’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  Blind Willie laughed. ‘Easy. Slim drove me here, in his taxi-cab. Now, what you be wantin’ to know?’

  ‘Well, I’m writing a book, you see,’ said Michael. ‘It’s about haunted graveyards and cemeteries. And nowhere’s as famous as New Orleans for graveyards.’

  ‘You got that one right,’ said Willie. He sipped his absinthe. ‘We got the Saint Louis graveyards just uptown from here. You’ll have heard of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ said Michael eagerly. ‘What do you know about her?’

  ‘Nuthin’,’ laughed Willie. ‘That story is voodoo bullshit! They say you need to knock the tomb three times and put three crosses on the tomb, but that ain’t no more than a tale to scare children. That lady ran a cathouse and was a hairdresser to rich white folks. She peddled voodoo charms on the side, to the poor and stupid. Plenty say she’s not even buried there.’ He spat, onto the ground.

  ‘Nope, that is just horse-shit. But there are plenty spirits in there. The dead are restless. And not just in Saint Louis. But all over Louisiana.’

  Willie sipped his drink again. ‘Git yersef a beer, my man. And listen good. Only one phantom around here that’ll freeze your blood and kill you where you stand. And that’s Monsieur Fouet, or Mister Whip.’

  ‘I heard this story from my grandma. She told me stories a lot, seeing as I couldn’t read them. I was blind from when I was born, but she always said I had the Sight. I can walk down Bourbon Street outside there, and know when trouble is a’comin. Then I mostly get out of the way. And whenever I can’t get out of the way, I use the stick. I can hear them as they move and breathe, and the head of that cane is solid steel. Broken quite a few heads. There are other ways, of course, to protect yourself, but that’s another story.

  Monsieur Fouet. Mister Whip. No-one could remember his real name. He came across from Haiti at the start of the century before last. Some said that he was a revolutionary, and others said he worked for the slave-owners. But he was fleeing something all right. Because he was a free man, he was able to hire himself out. And it wasn’t long before a plantation owner’s agent took him on as an overseer. For that man was good with a whip. Very good.

  Didn’t matter that he was a black man. Some said he was a delicate featured mulatto, other that he was as black as darkest Africa but as beautiful as a Nubian. But he only cared for the red flesh under people’s hides. The cotton was planted and gathered in record times, because of that whip. Didn’t matter that people died under it, there was always plenty more and Fouet always knew which slaves were prized and which were not. He took to wearing a white coat, a bit like mine, but he needed to change it every day because of the blood. And he put on airs and graces, no matter that he was a nigger at the heart of it. Mister Whip. Monsieur Fouet.

  His employer loved it, a man called Louvière. That was one sick motherfucker, both of them in fact. He was French, had all the decadences of the salons of Paris and then some. He had fled the Revolution and the guillotine. Rumours that he drank the blood of the slaves and even sacrificed their babes in black masses. Plenty of Society back then wouldn’t go near him, only bought his cotton because it was cheap. So he kept to his own devices. Took to listening to some of the wise men and women, the voodoo priests and such like, and learned even more devilry, visiting rituals in disguise, in a cloak and hood like a ghost. Some say that is where the Ku Klux Klan took their sheets idea from. Anyways, Mister Whip and his employer got on just fine and dandy.

  Until Louvière came back from some midnight soiree, and found Fouet on top of his lady wife. What he was doing to her was never said, but that man was dragged out into the courtyard in burning torchlight. Plenty of slaves were willing to hold him down while the boss sliced off his lips and tongue and made him swallow them whole. Fouet knew he was lucky to escape with his life, as well as his balls, and didn’t seem to care much for his disfigurement. He went around with those grinning teeth and started painting his face like a skull, taking the lash to more and more of them, to the point of death.

  One night, not long after, he whipped the hide right off one poor soul, laid his back open. When the fellow was still dying, Fouet took that knife from Louvière and cut the spine right out of his back and ribs. He hollowed those bones out in front of the poor man, carved them with voodoo symbols and threaded them onto his whip. When he cracked it, the bones would rattle. Plenty of things changed that night. It was a full moon, evil in the air, spirits in the bayous and swamps. Some said that Papa Legba had opened the gates to the Loa, and Baron Samedi himself walked that night. Anyhows, Louvière dragged his lady wife out and cut her heart out, in the light of the moon. They feasted on it there and then, Louvière and his overseer. Then they killed every last one of those slaves; men women and boys.

  But they didn’t die.

  Fouet lashed them with his voodoo whip, every one. And they bled and fell as the flesh was torn off them. But then they rose. And they were put to work in the fields, far cheaper than living slaves, the corpses that they were. But only at night time. The sun was no good for them, and no good for the Louvière either, who had taken to blood-
drinking every day. Those fields sat unworked during the day, and no one would dare venture near them at night. Louvière sent his agents to get more slaves, who were bled and whipped to death, and who then rose again. And his cotton got cheaper and cheaper, and folks held their nose and bought from him. He used the money to buy more and more fields and to extend his plantation even further across Louisiana. He might have bought the whole God-damned State if things had carried on that way.

  But it could never last, even if only because of economics and not morality. No morality among slavers anyway. Plenty of people with money saw plainly what was happening. They knew they could not compete with the undead slave-fields, and that they would end up ruined, their own fields trodden under decaying feet. So, one night, they formed a small army. Worthy men and city fathers amongst their numbers, so they said, but they were afraid of voodoo vengeance. So they put on white hoods and cloaks out of fear, like Louvière had done out of deceit, and as their descendents would later do out of hate.

  They killed Louvière. He did not die easy, until someone hammered a length of wood through his heart. The slaves did not put up much of a fight, and were burned. But Fouet would just not die. They hung him from a tree and burned him, but still he twitched and jerked. Not knowing what to do, they wrapped him in that twisted whip, which seemed to still him. Then they nailed him in a hardwood casket and placed him in a vault, in the Saint Louis Cemetery, where he lies until this very day, unable to move. But, even if he could move and shrug off the whip’s cold embrace, he would be damned to scratch on the inside of that casket until Judgement Day. And, even if he managed to claw his way out, he would be damned to drag his bony fingers down the brick walls of the vault until Judgement Day. And let us pray that he never manages to wriggle loose, scrabble free, and pull down those walls, otherwise we will all be doomed. For he will bathe in blood and will raise all the dead around him.’

  ‘Where can I find his vault,’ asked Michael, draining his fifth beer.

  ‘Dunno,’ shrugged Willie. ‘Some say it is unmarked. Others say he is buried in the Louvière vault. That’s a common name here though.’ He sipped his absinthe, the third drink that had been prepared for him.

  The wail of an amplified guitar cut through their conversation.

  ‘Anyhows, mister,’ said Willie. ‘Leave me be. I want to listen to the music in peace. Come around tomorrow at the same time and I’ll tell you more.’

  Michael felt too tired to enjoy the bustling bars on Bourbon Street, which had burst into life in a river of noise and colour. So he had an overpriced sixth beer in the hotel bar, watching the silent newsreader on the TV screen as the subtitled headlines crept by.

  Tropical storm has passed over Florida, but now diminishing …

  Then, he went to bed.

  Next morning, Michael woke early. Partly because of jet-lag, but mainly because of the noise outside. He looked out of the window. Canal Street was blocked with stationary traffic, engines idling and the occasional blast of a horn.

  He switched on the TV. The newsreader sat in front of a satellite image of the south-eastern United States, with a cloud mass over the Gulf of Mexico. Michael recognised the significance of the telltale hollow centre before the newsreader mentioned the word ‘hurricane’. Named Katrina, it was heading towards landfall on Louisiana and was gaining strength after apparently dying down over the Florida panhandle.

  ‘Many citizens have taken it upon themselves to evacuate or stormproof their homes,’ said the newsreader, a glossy blonde woman. ‘At this stage no evacuation has been ordered, although the surge from Lake Pontchartrain threatens to overwhelm the levees.’

  Michael looked out of the window again, overwhelmed with indecision. He packed his suitcase as the newswoman talked on in her breathy over-enunciated voice. Then he emptied the suitcase on the bed and pulled out a rucksack. He stuffed it with a change of clothes including a waterproof jacket and trousers, and wrapped his laptop in thick plastic duty-free carrier bags, placing it at the back of the rucksack. He had a meeting planned that evening, and somehow he thought that the doors of the Rising Sun would not be closed by a hurricane and that Blind Willie would be sitting at the bar again that night.

  He put his passport and money in a pouch, slung around his neck inside his shirt. As an afterthought, he tore a street map page from the guide book and shoved it in his pocket. He packed the rest of the clothes back in the suitcase and locked it in the wardrobe. Then he went downstairs to the lobby. The lift doors bore a hand-lettered sign reading ‘lifts shut down as precaution.’ Other guests were gathered in the lobby, some with bags packed, trying to arrange taxis. Michael approached a harassed looking manager.

  ‘No sir,’ the man said, ‘we’re not closing the hotel yet, unless there is a general evacuation order. I think they’ll use the Superdome as a refugee shelter. But we’ve lost some staff members already and we may not be able to offer anything beyond a room and bed.’

  Michael grabbed a coffee from the self-service machine in the hotel bar and sat down with a few dozen others to watch the unfolding news. He felt jittery after downing the coffee and ordered a gin and tonic at the bar. The barman, unmistakably gay with cropped blond hair and a diamond earring, grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere, at least not until after Decadence next week’ he said. ‘And who wants to give up a ringside seat at a show like this?’ He passed over a couple of half-litre bottles of water to Michael. ‘On the house. You might want to put these in your backpack.’

  The breakfast buffet was overwhelmed by hungry patrons, but Michael managed to grab a plate of cold meat, boiled eggs and bread. Fortified by his gin and tonic, he decided to venture outside. He took plenty of digital photographs of the queuing traffic, the people dragging suitcases and the residents and owners sandbagging their properties.

  The Rising Sun was open for business. The door had been half-sandbagged, reinforced by sheets of plywood and two small stepladders were propped up on either side. The same tall man stood outside as the previous day.

  ‘Man, you ain’t gettin’ in here this time,’ he growled. ‘Regulars only.’

  Michael turned away. But a gravelly voice called out from inside the bar.

  ‘Let the boy in. He stood me two drinks, so he’s a regular.’ It was Blind Willie.

  ‘Okay,’ said the door-guard. ‘But if you come in and goes away, you ain’t gettin’ in a second time.’

  Blind Willie was sitting on the same stool as the previous evening. ‘I don’t normally take a drink durin’ the day,’ he growled, ‘but this is a special occasion. Storm comin’ down.’

  The barman popped the cap off a beer and passed it to Michael. ‘On the house. One less for the looters to take.’ He placed an oil-shined pump shotgun on the bar. ‘If they want to try, that is.’ He dragged a TV on top of the bar and fiddled with the cable at the back. ‘Might as well see what’s comin’ down.’

  They followed the path of the storm on the TV, drinking all afternoon. The number of patrons grew in number as the storm progressed and rain battered down outside. Michael was the only white man in the bar, but he didn’t feel particularly conscious of the fact, as he seemed to be accepted as a friend of Willie’s.

  ‘Man’s declared an evacuation,’ shouted one of the drinkers as he watched the mayor speak at a podium.

  ‘Too fuckin’ late for us,’ roared another man. ‘Not that they gives a shit anyway.’

  Not long afterwards, the power went off. ‘Shut that door, Marvin,’ yelled the barman, who Michael had found out was in fact the owner, named Louis.

  The door was closed and bolted. It was solid with no windows and little enough light penetrated the small windows on the street front. Marvin dragged sandbags to the other side of the door.

  ‘Now listen up,’ called Louis. ‘This bar is all I have. No insurance or nuthin’. Drinks are on the house as long as you boys stay here to keep it safe. Don’t think that Bourbon Street will flood much, but it’s people that
worry me. Half the cops will have run away and none of them ever gave a shit anyway. Got food and water in the storeroom and four solid walls, all that we need.’

  One of the patrons wandered around with candles stuck into bottles, placing them on tables where they cast flickering light. A man sat on the stage and plucked a guitar, strumming blues chords. ‘Woke up this mornin’ … storm was a-comin’ …’ Some others began to clap and stamp their feet, and a short fat man pulled a harmonica from his pocket.

  Michael smiled through a hazy beer glow. This was New Orleans proper. And he’d completely forgotten about cemeteries or graveyards.

  He was woken by noise. He had no idea of how long he’d slept, and had a pounding hangover headache. He had fallen asleep on the floor, using his rucksack as a pillow. Others were sprawled around and some were still drinking.

  Louis was listening to a portable radio. Some of the noise was from the radio; the rest was from screaming and shouting from outside. Firelight flickered outside, glinting in the windows. Some water had trickled in through the sandbags, forming a pool near the door.

  ‘Situation’s bad, fellers,’ he called out to a hushed bar-room. ‘Plenty flooding and the roof’s nearly off the sports dome. It’s full of people and they’re all fighting and stealing. Mayor’s declared a state of emergency. We need to wait on the National Guard comin’ in, to clear away the looters.’

  ‘Most of the Guard are in Iraq,’ yelled one man. ‘My brother’s with them. How the fuck they going to get them back from there?’

  ‘Let me take a look outside,’ said Marvin, picking up a baseball bat from next to the door.

  ‘Okay,’ said Louis, grabbing the shotgun. ‘But I’m right behind you.’

  Marvin threw back the bolts on the door. Bat in one hand, he kicked the sandbags away and pulled open the door. He clambered onto the sandbag revetment and looked around the corner.