The Virgin of Flames

by Chris Abani

  “Santa Monica Boulevard, here we come,” she said.

  Black smiled. The smile became a full-bodied laugh as she dressed the now hard-penis Jesus in a purple miniskirt, a black tank top and red knee-length boots.

  “Gives Jesus Christ Superstar a new spin,” he said, between guffaws. “Playing with Jesus dolls seems dangerous,” Black continued, looking around as though expecting a thunderbolt. Iggy laughed. Collecting herself, she called:

  “Hey, Ray-Ray, two chais over here.”

  “Coming up.”

  “So, Black,” she said, turning back to Black. “What’s wrong?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You seem distracted. What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Actually, that’s not true. I just began working on a new mural.”

  She nodded. She knew only too well how he got when he was working, or about to begin a new project. She could sense it, read the signs: the return to the mural in the café; the disappearance of her dress; the odd moments earlier when she’d passed him in the hallway, moments too small to mention, but in which she could have sworn he was wearing makeup. Iggy had felt a strong pull to Black when he first arrived: a silly, blushing schoolgirl kind of attraction. It had persisted for years, then died down to a dull glow, but at moments like this, when he was in flight as an artist, she felt the familiar stirrings. However, sixteen years of living under the same roof had brought it home to her that they were better as friends. She couldn’t handle his mood swings—elated one moment, euphoric even, then angry and suicidal the next. Talking about going over the side of a bridge. Of course he never did, and even that chain lost its yank after a while.

  He had come home one rainy night, bleeding from a cut to his face, babbling about the dogs. He claimed he couldn’t remember much about what led to him carving up his face, but said it had been to stop himself from going over the bridge that night. She never totally understood him, he was by far the most complicated man she had known. It would be clearer if she could read him, but he always resisted. Said the idea of needles was too scary. Still, maybe it was time to try again.

  “How’s it going?” she asked, meaning the mural.

  “Really well. Actually, that’s kind of premature since I’ve only just prepped the wall today. But this one is different, Iggy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. It’s a woman.”

  “Almost all of your figurative paintings are women.”

  “Really? Well, this time it’s different. The image just hit me.”

  “Really? I thought you’d been working up to this painting?”

  “Started that way, as the Virgin, as Mary. But now, well, this is different.”

  “It just came to you?”

  “Whole. Not in parts that I had to put together like a jigsaw puzzle, but whole. That’s the first time. She is great.”

  “She?” Iggy couldn’t keep the jealous tone out of her voice, but Black was oblivious to it. “Does she have a name?”

  “Fatima.”

  “That’s the first time you’ve named a painting.”

  “Yeah? I was thinking of my mother.”

  “I thought her name was María.”

  “Yes. But I was thinking about the way you say I attend to my ghosts and I thought if I confronted this one, I could finally move on, you know?”

  “So the mural is of María?”

  “No. It’s about release from María, about something inside me, I don’t know what.”

  “I know I’ve said this before, but your mother messed you up bad, you know that?”

  Black nodded.

  “I know, I know.” He paused, then continued. “On the one hand I couldn’t wait for her to die, and yet on the other, I dreaded the moment that was coming.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged.

  “It’s funny. My father died before I really knew him. I mean, I have memories of him, but I can’t be sure they aren’t things that I made up. So much of who I am, could be, is tied up in the ghosts of my parents. It seems like I turned a corner one day and ended up in an alternate life, an alternate city, and you’re right, I have to do something to find my way back.”

  Iggy held his hand, squeezed it, then ran her palm tenderly down the side of his face.

  “Well, it sounds to me, Black, like you’re lost in the forest and need a trail of bread crumbs,” she said.

  “What do you suggest?”

  She made a buzzing noise while running her finger over the back of his hand. He’d never noticed them before, but he saw that her fingers looked more like a man’s than his did.

  “A reading?” she said.

  “A tattoo?”

  “Yes.”

  “No way,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded.

  “Come on, Black. You’ve seen me work.”

  “That’s right, you crazy white witch. I have seen, and it looks painful.”

  “So what’s a little pain between friends?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll use the henna. No pain.”

  “No.”

  “Fine, Mr. No. You seem in such a negative mood for someone working on a new painting.”

  He laughed.

  “No.”

  “Sounds better with a laugh,” she said, relenting. “But a girl never likes to hear no. Well, then can I share an idea with you?”

  He nodded.

  “Promise to be positive?” she said, reaching for his Marlboro, wanting to distract him.

  He nodded again.

  Just then Ray-Ray set two big steaming mugs of chai before them, and Black asked: “How’s it going, Ray-Ray?”

  “I feel old, ‘like a fly with one wing,’ ” Ray-Ray said, with a shrug. Smiling at Iggy, he turned and returned to the bar. When he was gone, Black said:

  “Why does he keep doing that?”

  “What?”

  “Quoting from Farewell, My Lovely?”

  “Raymond Chandler was his mother’s favorite writer.”

  Black scratched his nose. It didn’t explain anything.

  “But why does he do it?”

  “I don’t know. Because he’s Ray-Ray.”

  “Tells me nothing,” Black mumbled under his breath.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me about my idea?”

  “I was just going to. Jesus!”

  She laughed.

  “So what is your idea?” Black said with mock seriousness.

  “Live music.”

  “Where? Here?”

  “Yeah, it would be a good way to keep things going here at night.”

  “This place keeps going till nearly midnight every night as it is. What you need are stronger sleeping pills.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I want it to go all night.”

  “I don’t know, Iggy.”

  “I’ve already spoken to a few people, bards, you know. Anyway, this guy I saw in Leimert Park the other evening and really liked, said he and his band would do a late gig here for gate takings only. And tips.”

  “Who?”

  “Damian Thrace.”

  Black knew Damian and loved his band: Rakim on sax and flute, Taylor Ryan on bass, Raul on piano, Jo-Jo on drums and Walter Henry on percussion. The idea sounded good but he wasn’t sure if people around here would pay to come and see jazz, and late. Most of them began work at four a.m., and he said so.

  “Not everyone around here is an illegal and has to work at ungodly hours. Have some faith in your community.”

  He just shrugged. Iggy studied him for a minute, marveling at his ability to be so self-involved. Part of her wanted to slap him, the other part wanted to help him, be near him, part of him. They were quiet for a while until she spoke.

  “Remember my goodoo dolls? I told you about them,” she said, leaning forward, seeking common ground.

  He shook his head
.

  “Men,” she muttered. “I was working on the catalog copy earlier. Read it over, let me know what you think,” she continued, pushing the laptop across to him. He popped the lid and waited for it to boot up. It was on standby and so didn’t take long at all. He read quickly.

  The Original Goodoo®™ Doll: directions for use. For good luck hang your goodoo over a doorway or place on your desk or table to bring you good luck all day and ward off any evil spirits. Write your wish on a piece of paper. Fold or roll the paper and using a string attach the wish to the goodoo’s arm. Tie the wish to the goodoo’s left arm for attraction wishes (love, peace, money, happy home, etc.), tie the wish to the goodoo’s right arm to release or let go (past loves, old resentments, etc.). Bury the goodoo doll. The black eyes of the goodoo guard against evil spirits. If your goodoo has different colored eyes, you are in luck! Your goodoo has a unique and special gift! One blue eye—brings clarity and intuition. One yellow eye—brings happiness and laughter. One red eye—brings love and beauty. Two nonblack eyes—Expect the unexpected!

  The Original Shithead®™ Doll: directions for use. This doll has only one function. Its head is made of compacted manure and its body of clay. It comes in an attractive coffin-shaped presentation box. Send it to a hated boss, a rival or a lover that has jilted you. Set on fire.

  Goodoos®™ are made from all natural ingredients and will not harm the earth. After 3 to 6 months the goodoo power will wane.

  Goodoo®™ types: Long Dong Goodoo (for virility and potency, this goodoo has a substantial third leg), Royal Goodoo, Original Goodoo, Love Goodoo, Blank Faced Goodoo (master goodoo), among several others.

  He snapped the lid of the laptop closed and laughed. The sound was unfettered, his first moment of release that day. It startled him. Iggy smiled in relief.

  “You like?”

  “I love it. The shithead doll’s my kind of doll.”

  “Yeah? I can’t get it off the ground, though. I’m broke.”

  “Do they work?”

  “Of course they work. What kind of question is that?”

  He shrugged.

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way,” he said.

  She looked at him quizzically, collecting foam from the surface of the chai with a finger. Transferring the foam to her mouth, she sucked on her finger for a while.

  “You know, Black, sometimes I can’t read you,” she said.

  “Good,” he said.

  “Hey,” Ray-Ray called across, “hey, I have a business idea too.”

  Iggy shook her head. Privacy was impossible in this place, she thought.

  “Yeah, I want to set up a web business called dwarves-for-hire or rent-a-dwarf or something,” Ray-Ray continued.

  “Shut up, Ray-Ray!” Black yelled. “We’re talking here.

  Jesus, fucking cabrón.”

  “What? Dwarves are people too!”

  “Shut up, Ray-Ray!” Iggy snapped. She looked away and then glanced back at Black, who was playing with the transvestite Jesus.

  “I don’t mean to get into your business,” she said to him, “but have you figured out the deal with Gabriel?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “That’s such bullshit, Black,” Iggy said. “You can ignore it, but it won’t be wished away.”

  “What won’t?”

  “This thing that you are.”

  “Which is what exactly?”

  She shrugged again.

  “This thing that I am,” Black said, rolling each word around in his mouth as though it were the pit of a succulent cherry he was reluctant to let go of in case he missed a shred of sweet flesh. And the way he let each word roll, Iggy expected him to come back with sarcastic wit. But he didn’t. He asked her: “When were you married, Iggy?”

  “Married?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was almost married. Look, Black, what is this? A pathetic way to divert the conversation?”

  “No, I want to know. What do you mean, almost? What happened?”

  “All this time you’ve known me and now you ask. Why?”

  He shook his head, not wanting to say, “Because I wear your wedding dress sometimes,” saying instead, “I wasn’t curious before.”

  “My fiancé, Raul, he . . . left me at the altar.”

  Black stared at her. From the tremolo in her voice he could tell this was hard for her and part of him wanted to comfort her. Hold her and tell her it would all be fine. But he wanted to know. It seemed important since he was wearing her wedding dress now, even if she didn’t know. But as he had been thinking, the pregnant pause, the silence between them, had grown heavier. He knew she wanted something from him, some prompt, but he wasn’t sure what.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Iggy,” he offered, trying to sound like the doctors on daytime soaps.

  “I don’t want your pity.” But she didn’t sound angry, just matter-of-fact. That bothered him, always had, the way she could say something difficult without rancor, but just because it needed to be said. The truth was, he didn’t pity her, he was more curious than anything, and he said so. She smiled. This she could deal with.

  “It’s alright,” she said. “God, men are such fuckheads anyway.” And there was humor in her tone.

  He lit a cigarette, took a drag and passed it to her. As she took a drag, he asked: “How old are you, Iggy?” He figured since she was talking, he might as well ask all the questions he’d always wanted to. When he first arrived at The Ugly Store, he’d been attracted to her, and he had declared his love for her. Black was drawn to overly dramatic gestures, and the first time he declared his love for her was by building the spaceship and offering it to her as a gift. Wisely she had declined, saying:

  “Seems this is too much a part of your soul. I think this spaceship is for you. Anyway, I’m too old for you.”

  The second time he had been drunk, and from a tabletop in the store’s café he proposed to her. Both times she’d deflected him, saying she was too old for him. Now he wondered what might have happened if he’d persisted. Would he still be obsessed with Sweet Girl? He felt Iggy watching him, searching his face as though trying to read the motives behind his questions.

  “Old enough to be offended by your asking,” she said finally.

  He laughed, startling her. There was a contained wildness to her that he loved. Maybe that was it. Perhaps he had never been in love with her, but in love with the tempest of her. She was a woman in the way he had seen only in women like Cesaria Evora—earthed lightning. The pull from Iggy was powerful but frightening, the way the pull to his mother had been. He knew that in his mother all that fire had turned to perversion, and Iggy held none of that, but still, the fear was deep and irrational. Is that why I’m drawn to Sweet Girl? he thought. Sweet Girl was alive and powerful, but in that soothing way water can be. It was all so confusing.

  “How old were you when Raul left you?” he asked, changing tack.

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Is that why you came here?”

  “Look, let’s not talk about it anymore. Origins aren’t important, what happened, who did what to whom, that whole postmortem crap. Matter of fact, even the change away from it isn’t important. What’s important is committing to the new life, whatever it is. Some things you just put in the ground and leave alone.”

  That phrase about origins not being important echoed in his brain like a Ping-Pong ball ricocheting off the insides of his skull. The fact of the matter was that he was obsessed with origins, and he believed that in his case, origins held the key to self-discovery. It seemed, though, that those with a clear sense of the past, of identity, were always so eager to bury it and move on, to reinvent themselves. What a luxury, he thought, what a thing, to choose your own obsession, to choose your own suffering. Him, he was trying to reinvent an origin to bury so he could finally come into this thing he wanted to be, and he knew that if he didn’t find it soon, it would destroy him, burn him up. But he was unable to f
ind the words to say what he wanted, unsure even what he was feeling or why he felt he needed to fill it with words.

  “Iggy,” Black said, and Iggy looked at him with eyebrows raised, but he shook his head. They sat there in a comfortable silence until Ray-Ray turned the frother back on and Black stirred.

  “Want me to lock up?” Ray-Ray called from across the room.

  “No, I got it,” Iggy said.

  “Can I get a salary advance?” he asked.

  “Why? Are you going to buy more drugs? That shit, what’s it called? Wet? I don’t want the karma, Ray-Ray.”

  “How you goin’ ask a grown-ass man how he’s gonna spend his money?”

  “Ray-Ray! Those drugs are going to kill you.”

  “How do you know? Did you do a reading for him?” Black asked.

  “I don’t need a reading to tell, Black. Look at him.”

  “It’s his choice.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “Anyway, perhaps death will be a welcome release for him.”

  “Should we talk about this here? He’s just across the room, he might hear.”

  “I’ve told him to his face already,” Iggy said.

  “Just now?”

  “No. Calmly, before. It’s the cold truth.”

  “Do you tell all your clients that kind of cold truth?”

  “He’s not a client, he’s my friend.”

  “Damn, you’re cold,” Black said.

  Ray-Ray had been addicted to some kind of drug or the other since he was about ten. Black knew he used to huff gas, then urinal cakes, and last time he heard, Ray-Ray had been doing crank. It wasn’t that Black approved, but he didn’t think it was his place to lecture Ray-Ray.

  “Iggy?” Black said. Iggy relented.

  “Okay. Take a hundred from the register,” she said. “A hundred, Ray-Ray,” she added as the machine pinged open.

  When Ray-Ray left, they smoked some more Marlboros in the gathering gloom of the store, not looking at each other. Now that the espresso machine had fallen silent, now that the store was dark and full of the creaking of wood and metal relaxing, the sounds of the faithful just outside filtered in. Their shadows filled the windows and the sound of prayer was a low but steady hum, broken only by the occasional scream as the Holy Spirit anointed someone. There was an odd comfort to it, and they both hid in it. Finally, Iggy turned to Black.