Southern Nights

by Barry Gifford

  ‘The mist clears and reveals Lita asleep under the old tree, her head resting on her schoolbook. Philip finds her and wakes her up. He is excited and shows her the magic scepter, which he has found by the river. Lita rises and embraces Philip. She touches the scepter and together they dance.’

  Just as the bug ballet concluded, Sailor, Lula, and Pepe Pescuezo pulled up in the Buick.

  ‘Look!’ Cris Chew said to Baby and Sugar, pointing at the car. ‘Let’s run for it!’

  The three of them piled into Sailor’s Limited and Cris shouted, ‘Drive, man! Get us outta here!’

  Without questioning Cris’s command, Sailor wrenched his vehicle into reverse, spun it around, and sped away.

  ‘They ain’ followin’ us,’ said Baby Cat-Face, looking out the rear window.

  ‘What’s goin’ on back there?’ asked Lula.

  ‘Girl, you wouldn’t believe it if we told you,’ Sugargirl said. ‘Best you please jus’ give us a spell, recover, you don’t mind.’

  ‘My daddy went gator huntin’ once,’ Sailor said, as he guided the car back toward the main highway, ‘down around Immokalee, in the Everglades. Told me he and a fella name of Destrozo Chusma, man he done some county time with he was younger, was out in a airboat with a harpoon gun. Daddy said this Destrozo Chusma, who was half Seminole, harpooned a bull gator direct in the ass, instead of in the head like you’re supposed to. Destrozo reeled in the gator and damned if it didn’t bite him on the hand. Daddy wanted to get him to a hospital but Destrozo was a tough old boy. Just took a fifth of Cuervo Gold he had in the boat and poured about half of it over the wound, then wrapped his hand with duct tape. Told Daddy he’d have it taken care of proper later. You folks look pretty shook. Take all the time you need.’

  TOO WICKED FOR WORDS

  lula was awakened by a bloodcurdling scream.

  ‘Sail! Sail!’ she said, sitting up in bed. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Couldn’t help it, peanut,’ Sailor answered, propping himself up on his left elbow and blinking his eyes open. ‘Sounded like that British guy in Arabia in that movie we seen, when he got took captive and had a hot tire tool shoved up his ass.’

  ‘Jesus, Sailor, you would think somethin’ uncouth. This noise was too wicked for words.’

  Sailor and Lula were in their room at the South China Sea Motel. They had stayed up late the night before with Pepe, listening to Baby, Sugar, and Cris relate the story and their impressions of their bizarre ordeal. Sailor got out of bed and began to put on his clothes.

  ‘Sail, where you goin’?’

  ‘See who got their throat cut, prob’ly.’

  Sailor opened the front door and was immediately confronted by Pepe Pescuezo.

  ‘You hear it, too, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, Pepe. You know which room it come from?’

  ‘I think Señorita Bebé Gata y Señora Azúcar.’

  Sailor and Pepe went to room seven and knocked on the door.

  Sugargirl Crooks opened it and said, ‘Yes, Lord, it was her. “Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations.”’

  Baby Cat-Face was still in bed, her head and back resting on pillows.

  ‘I was jus’ tryin’ to get yesterday out of my mouth,’ she said.

  THE SHADOW OF EGYPT

  ‘jimbo, sweetie, it’s me.’

  ‘Baby! Where you at?’

  ‘Carolina, honey. Motel call the South China Sea.’

  ‘I been missin’ you so bad, Baby. When you comin’ home?’

  ‘Takin’ the Southern Trail at midnight. Call my aunt Graciela an’ turn out she up in Chicago visitin’ Cousin Roscoe, her son now call himself Majeed. Shoulda check before I come, I guess, but I was crazy to jus’ get.’

  ‘I know, Baby.’

  ‘Lord, Jimbo, you wouldn’t believe what all been happen. Firs’, bus get hijack by a bigass sister wid a machine rifle.’

  ‘Esquerita, you okay? Baby, tell me you okay.’

  ‘I’m okay, Jimbo, but jus’ listen what else. I hook up wid guess who?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sugargirl Crooks!’

  ‘You serious? Gal sung “Dude Don’t Get Much Res’ When He Be Sleepin’ Aroun’?”’

  ‘She on the bus wid us. But dig, darlin’, dis big mama make the driver detour to a place where a Oriental lady midget name Imelda Go got a buncha half-mental girls in bug costumes be makin’ a ballet!’

  ‘Shit, Baby! Say what? ’

  ‘Dis ain’ no bull, Jimbo. We was kidnap so dey have ’em a audience.’

  ‘Don’ make no sense.’

  ‘Don’ need tell me dat! But it happen. Finally, we was rescue’. Sugar, Chinaboy from New York name Cris Chew, an’ me.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘Some young white folks, boy an’ girl name Sailor an’ Lula, an’ a Mexican name Pepe. Happen they come along lookin’ for da Holy Spot.’

  ‘Baby, maybe bes’ I get da details you get back home. I already confuse’.’

  ‘Easy be confuse’ these days, Mister Deal.’

  ‘Peoples be puttin’ they faith in false prophets, Baby, ’stead of the Lord. Why they lost and uncertain. As Isaiah say, “Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, an’ the trust in the shadow of Egyp’ your confusion.”’

  ‘I trust you, Jimbo. Ashame’ I lef.’

  ‘Baby Cat-Face, I be there to meet the bus.’

  LIVE BODIES

  baby cat-face descended the steps from the Southern Trails bus and fell into the big arms of Jimbo Deal.

  ‘Oh, Jimbo,’ she said, snail trails staining her mahogany cheeks, ‘I decide on the way, I ain’ never gon’ quit you again.’

  ‘You know how glad I am to hear you say dat, darlin’.’

  After they were back in their apartment on Martinique Alley, Jimbo Deal sat next to Baby Cat-Face on the fake-leopard-skin sofa.

  ‘Esquerita, I do got somethin’ less’n fine to tell ya.’

  ‘Oh, Jimbo, what?’

  ‘Tricky gone.’

  ‘Tricky gone? What you mean?’

  ‘I mean, she dead. She been kill. Police found her body day before yesterday. Smother to death, they say.’

  ‘Aw, no. Jimbo, what really happen?’

  ‘Got the article from the paper.’

  Jimbo took a clipping from the breast pocket of his brown guayabera shirt and read aloud.

  ‘“A woman identify as Miguelita ‘Tricky’ Divine was foun’ Saturday in da John Sinclair Public Housin’ Complex. An autopsy show she had been smother to death. The woman had been dead three to seven days when she was foun’ partially nude in a stairwell about two-thirty P.M., chief coroner’s spokesman Deuce Coupée said. The thirty-five-year-old woman’s body was identify by two tattoos: ‘tricky’ on her inner right forearm, an’ ‘sweet lil angel’ on her inner right thigh.”’

  ‘That Tricky, sure.’

  ‘“She also had a vertical—”’

  ‘What that?’

  ‘Vertical mean up an’ down, ’stead of runnin’ across. “She also had a vertical surgical scar on her stomach, an’ a gold cap upper right tooth wid a cutout of a star.”’

  ‘Tricky widout no doubt.’

  ‘“Her neighbors at da housin’ complex could provide no information on who might have commit da murder, which is da sixty-third reported homicide in da city dis year.”’

  ‘Shit, Jimbo, I can’t stand dis no more. New Orleans jus’ too violen’ for me.’

  ‘Don’ soun’ like things any better in North Carolina. Where you propose to go?’

  Baby curled up in Jimbo’s lap, allowing him to cradle her against his chest.

  ‘Don’ know. Suppose they ain’ really no place folks like us can go. Prob’ly bes’ I jus’ put my trus’ in you, Mister Deal.’

  An mine in you, Miz Bug. ’Bout all a live body can do.’

  ‘Oh, darlin’, I love
when you call me bug, even though I seen a strange sight involvin’ bugs in Carolina.’

  Outside the window two gunshots went off, followed by the sound of people running. Baby Cat-Face held on hard to Jimbo Deal.

  PURIFIED

  dear sugargirl.

  I owe you a letter let you now what I doin back in NO. Jimbo bein bes to me he ever hav. I tol him all what happin an how you an me an the China from New York wood probly be dead didn Sailorboy an Lula an Pep come by. I now defitly I needen somp mor in my life an now I found it. I join Mother Bizco Temple of the Few Wash Pure By Her Blood. Revern Mother Fenomena Bizco our pastor she take in junky hos an young girls need abortin get em medical care then puts em to work. I workin for her fi days a week sometime six or sevn. Coleck funs an perform all sorts charty works. She bout the bes preacher you ever here. Talk about her mama Virguenza Bizco y Fea give birth her dauter by hersef without nobody attenden duren blue moon of Septembr wen shes 17. Virguenza be blin sins age of 7 follow fall from a diseas chinabery tree. She was rape in St Louis cemetary number 2 by 4 skimask yahoos from Alabama be in NO for Sugar bowl say yella pusy rednek idea lagnap. Virguenza ain never tol her parents wat happin bein chuby begin wit the baby don show an she return to St Louis cemetary number 2 hav the child. Wen she turn up home wit it say she find her baby abandon cryin in a trash can. Virguenza mama Katy Jurado Bizco they part Spanish cordn to Mother Bizco xclam que fenomena wich is how her girl come to be name Fenomena. Inclos a card nex time you in NO I take you fo sure. Mother Bizco do such good work Sug you be mihty impres she got more storys den enny 1. Even Jimbo come on Sundy. Mos now I work wit Aid peepls prefur die at home in they on bed I don blam em. Lord have mercy on em an us Sug Mother Bizco say nobody xcap.

  Love

  Baby

  mother bizco’s temple of the

  few washed pure by her blood

  2308 1/2 Burgundy Street

  New Orleans 17, La.

  reverend mother fenómena bizco, Pastor

  ‘And when the ship was caught,

  and could not bear up into the wind,

  we let HER drive.’

  —the acts, 27:15

  interlude:

  the assassin’s

  last letter

  INTERLUDE: THE ASSASSIN’S

  LAST LETTER

  dear son,

  I have been singing this song lately.

  Oh Mammy, Mammy tell me,

  Why do they call me Snowball?

  Why do they call me Snowball

  when Snowball ain’t my name?

  My mommy calls me Sugarplum,

  my daddy calls me Appledump.

  Oh Mammy, Mammy ain’t it a shame

  when Snowball can’t my name.

  When I was a boy my mama would sing it to me most nights. She was drunken she couldn’t, then I’d sing it to myself. Never have forgot the words. Funny tune, isn’t it? Always I could picture that pickaninny rocking on his mammy’s knee, asking. Way it is in life, though, some folks knowing and others always and forever wondering why. You know I am an educated man, high school plus two years of college. I have read so many books but the only book where the answers are available, the answers to every question, is the Old Testament, the one and only truly Good Book.

  As Moses wrote in Numbers, when men of the Lost Tribe began to consort with nigger whores and bow down to false gods, the Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before Me against the sun. And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor. Then Zimri, one of the tribe, brought home a darkie bitch named Cozbi, front of Moses and everyone, right in their face. When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron, saw this, he took up his javelin, followed Zimri and his Midianite whore into their tent, and thrust both of them through, the woman in her belly. Because Phinehas so acted, the plague that killed twenty and four thousand was stayed from the children of Israel. The Lord rewarded Phinehas with the covenant of an everlasting priesthood.

  Phinehas is the inspiration for right-thinking Caucasian men, the vanguard assassin of the enemies of God. He knew his duty without being told what to do. This helped make it possible for the Lost Tribe to find their way out of the wilderness, to depart from Moab and head north through the Caucasus Mountains to Scandinavia and the British Isles. The Israelites were Caucasians, those who crossed the mountains, and their descendants, the Anglo-Saxons, are the true Chosen People. You are one. The Jews are numbered only in satan’s synagogue, along with the niggers. As Phinehas heeded the Lord’s disapproval of miscegenation and slew Zimri and Cozbi, so is it meant that His Chosen Sons behave.

  I am telling you this so you understand I am no mean individual, that any acts of violence I committed were as that of Phinehas and sanctioned by the will of God. When the Lord told Moses to decapitate those sinners and string their heads up against the sun, He meant men to know His word was law. When Phinehas smote the whoremonger and his darkie, like they claim I murdered Miguelita Tricky Divine, the Lord blessed him. I am informed by God, dispatched by Him to do battle with the mud races and rid The earth of satan’s offspring.

  They can execute me but they cannot defeat my Soul, for I am as Jeremiah: the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one, therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail. They shall be greatly ashamed, for they shall not prosper and their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.

  See you in Heaven, Son

  Dad

  mother bizco’s

  temple of the few

  washed pure by

  her blood

  CONTENTS

  Buzzard’s Luck

  Waldo Regrets

  Revelations

  In the Line of Fire

  White Narcissus

  Bad Dudes

  Snake Heads

  Laughter in the Dark

  Sanctum

  Angel Baby

  No Rain in Egypt

  Beautiful Phantoms

  BUZZARD’S LUCK

  sister esquerita took the .30/06 caliber 1917 Enfield rifle fitted with a six-power Golden Hawk telescopic sight and held it up for everyone to see. As usual for Sunday night’s sermon, more than five hundred people were in the temple to witness Mother Bizco’s testimony.

  ‘The very weapon, people, employed by the murderer Ezra Nuez when he struck down in the coldest blood our own Brother Sheshbazar. Thank you, Sister Esquerita. You may now return the instrument of destruction to safekeeping.’

  Sister Esquerita departed the stage as Mother Bizco continued.

  ‘As most of you already know, we at the Temple of the Few Washed Pure by Her Blood have cleansed the world of this assassin Nuez. We take care of our own business, needing no service of outsiders.’

  ‘Amen!’ chorused the congregation.

  ‘Now there was a certain man of Elohim, of Mount Toil, and his name was Desire, the son of Love, the son of Vainglory, the son of Right-Thinking, the son of Over-and-Back, an In-Time man.’

  ‘Hallelujah!’

  ‘And he had two wives. The name of the one was Honor, and the name of the other Pain. And Pain had children, but Honor had no children.’

  ‘Hallelujah!’

  ‘And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Denial. And the two sons of Offal, Fill-It and Do-Wrong, the priests of the Lord, were there.’

  ‘Hallelujah!’

  ‘And when the time was that Desire offered, he gave to Pain, his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, permission to take revenge when necessary.’

  ‘Hallelujah!’

  ‘But unto Honor he spoke of forgiveness in all things. This way did Desire cover his ample posterior.’

  ‘Hallelujah!’

  As Mother Bizco sermonized, Sister Esquerita, known to intimates by her nickname, Baby Cat-Face, locked away the rifle in the temple’s weapons chest and stole out the side door of the building into Spa
in Street to light up a cigarette. She leaned back against the brown bricks and inhaled deeply. As she exhaled, tears flowed from her eyes. Late that afternoon, Baby had learned she was pregnant for sure, a situation that would not mix, considering the vow of chastity she had taken when she became a full-time sister to Mother Bizco. As a member of the temple’s Almost-Perfect Flock, Sister Esquerita was expected to devote her entire being to the furtherance of charity as defined by Mother Bizco’s book; to give herself up to pure works. Baby had instead given herself up, in what Mother Bizco would define as an unreasoning moment of unheavenly forgetfulness, to a funky piece of the devil’s work called Waldo Orchid, an acquaintance of her former boyfriend Jimbo Deal.

  ‘Jus’ my luck,’ Baby Cat-Face confided to the wet air.

  Esquerita’s tears mingled with sweat hoovered from her pores by the unholy heat that crept up in the summer from the Amazon Basin to New Orleans.

  ‘Buzzard’s luck,’ she said, then took a long drag on her Kool and closed her eyes, letting the bitter water drip down her face and into her mouth as she moaned.

  ‘“My soul is continually in my hand, yet I do not forget the law. The wicked have laid a snare for me.”’

  A giant cockroach scooted up the wall next to Baby and she scrunched it with the fiery end of the Kool.

  WALDO REGRETS

  waldo orchid lived in a shotgun bungalow on Lapeyrouse Street with his widowed mother, Malva, and his spinster Tante Desuso, Malva’s older sister. Waldo’s father, Tosco Orchid, had died when Waldo, his only child, was six. Tosco, an electrician, had been rewiring the tower of the Lighthouse for the Blind building on Camp Street when a sepia-puce Norway rat the size of an average javelina exploded from a dark corner of the crawl space Tosco had wedged himself into and sank its diseased incisors into Tosco’s carotid artery. The elder Orchid had bled to death even before he could extricate himself from the cubbyhole.