Pentacle - A Self Collection

by Tom Piccirilli

  Self writhed and flailed, thrashing wildly. I remembered Sunday mornings and bible studies and the way she gazed at the crucifixes in our house—not in awe or splendor or rapture, but with the sorrow of someone who knew intimate, perhaps woeful secrets about a loved one. Before my father burned the crosses, and retribution followed us up the porch and into our small, blessed house.

  My tongue grew too heavy for my mouth. I watched Self burn and beg, and knew neither of us had the fortitude to face up to what mattered most, and like all the overcome and overthrown we were simply too cowardly to battle the face of our failures. His pain was my pain, and the sound of the church threatened to shear us apart.

  I stopped, and the blues ended.

  I stared at Self. He let loose with a loud gasp, eyes rolling as the agony eased, so much of me in him showing.

  Sugarfoot drew back as Nice-Foot Byjohn squealed in the sax, flinging blood onto the floor. "You're here to free me! That ain't the way! You ain't supposed to play like that!"

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  "What?"

  "I can't help you."

  "But you you're the one. You're supposed to save me, to save all of us."

  "I can't."

  "My daddy told me so. He had the vision. He seen you." Sugarfoot Scalder leaped up and his sax fell over, spilling out slime and viscera and his own heart. Nice-Foot screeched and tumbled free, rolling end over end and dropping off the stage into murkiness. "I know your name! You can't leave us! Damn you, I know, I know your name! You supposed to save me! It's your fate!"

  "Fuck fate."

  I stooped, grabbed the knife, and slit his throat. Spinning trails of white energy scurried from my hand as I drove my fist deep into him, to that space where he took the air to wail his blues. The music ended.

  Elise slumped and I caught her in my arms. The dead stared with hatred, even Sugarfoot's son, who’d expected so much. I hadn't eased them off this plane. They'd be trapped here until Armageddon, exiled in this purgatory because I hadn't beaten back the endless misery that tied them, all of them, to the harsh, hard, living world. Sugarfoot Scalder remained an anchor that would hold them here in the silent, packed night club forever.

  Elise said, "This isn't right. You were supposed to help. My family's been talking about you and this night all of my life. You're supposed to save them."

  I shook her ferociously for playing games. "You know better than that."

  Self limped ahead of me, frowning and staring back over his shoulder, tongue unfurled between his teeth.

  Are you all right? I asked, but he kept silent.

  Gurgling and gagging, Sugarfoot Scalder grabbed his sax and tried to play with his throat cut, but nothing came loose. He pointed at me and grimaced, reaching for Elise. She made as if to move back towards him and the mike—whether out of pity or pretense or prayer—but I grabbed her wrist and pulled her away, shadows erupting in front of us until we got out the door.

  Elise followed me out, and together we walked Beale Street. Her weeping echoed in the early dawn.

  "You were the one who tried to keep me away," I said.

  "I saw how it would end. We had the sight, in my family, some of us, except for grandpa. Cloudy for some, clearer for others, my aunts remembered a few of the prayers and customs. I was hoping I could make it turn out differently."

  "Me too." The depth of what she'd done didn't seem to reach her—perhaps, in its way, that was best. "And knowing he'd be doomed there, you nailed souls and shadows to the trees in Handy Park, because you didn't want him to be alone."

  "I would've stayed with him if you'd had let me."

  I doubted it. In a few minutes I turned and noticed she had left me, fleeing Beale Street and heading for home where she wouldn't have to feel responsible for anyone's fate. I got about halfway back to the Baptist Church when the trembling hit, and I dropped to the ground and lay there on my face pounding the street; the wailing drove upwards and kept driving, and I howled like a disemboweled dog licking at my wet guts, and lay there screaming for my mother in the light of a golden-rose dawn.

  Self stroked my cheek and kissed me.