This paternal loss so enervated the juvenile Orchid that until the age of fifteen he barely ate. Waldo was such a skinny kid, and had such a prominent overbite, that, to his horror, he became known in the neighborhood as Rat Boy. In an effort to eradicate this image of himself, Waldo began to eat upon waking and continued until bedtime every day. By the age of twenty, the former Rat Boy stood five foot nine and weighed 325 pounds; even then, upon self-appraisal in a mirror, Waldo thought he could do with some fattening up.
It was a steamy gray morning when Baby knocked on the door of the house on Lapeyrouse Street. Tante Desuso, whom Baby had never met, opened up a crack and said, ‘What you wan’?’
Baby was startled by the old woman’s eyes, which in the dimness appeared to be perfectly yellow.
‘Is Waldo Orchid at home?’
‘He is, he sleep. Who wanna know?’
‘My name is Esquerita Reyna. Sister Esquerita.’
‘Sister? From what church?’
‘Temple da Few Wash Pure by Her Blood, down Burgundy in da Marigny.’
‘Dat crackpot quadroon Mother Bizco’s church, ain’t it?’
‘Yes, ma’am. But Mother Bizco ain’ no crackpot. She help all sorts of folks.’
‘Our Lady da Holy Fantômes where we belong.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Can you see Waldo be in? Tell him Baby need to see him.’
‘Baby? Who dat?’
‘Be me.’
‘Thought you was Sister Esquerita Raymon’.’
‘Reyna, mean queen. I am, but he know me by my familiar name.’
Tante Desuso closed the door. Baby waited on the porch and thought about the night she had backslid and gotten nasty on Crown Royal with Waldo and his one-legged Hungarian-Creole partner, Balzac Kicz. Baby had encountered the two men in Elgrably’s Grocery on Mandeville, around the corner from the temple, where she had gone to buy cigarettes. Waldo Orchid had introduced himself, reminding her that they had met once before at the Evening in Seville Bar on Lesseps Street, back when she cribbed with Jimbo Deal. Orchid and Deal had both belonged to the Lost Tribe of Venus Pleasure & Social Club on Claiborne before it burned down under mysterious circumstances two Christmases back. Baby remembered Jimbo saying that a former member named Bambola Schmid, who had been thrown out for welshing on card debts, was suspected of having torched the building. Bambola had disappeared from New Orleans after the fire and apparently found a haven with cousins who operated a hotel in the Swiss Alps named Die Müssigkeit. Nobody from the Lost Tribe had been able to get to Switzerland to verify this, however.
Waldo then introduced Baby to his pal Balzac Kicz, and they invited her to join them for a beverage. The two men were extremely polite, and since Baby had no duties that afternoon, and no plans in particular, she went along with the strange pair to Enrique’s Birdcage on Almonaster Avenue.
What happened after that Baby had mostly dismissed from her cerebrum. Blasted as she had been on Crown Royal, she now remembered only her mirthful reaction to Waldo Orchid’s obesity necessitating that she mount him in order to sufficiently effect intercourse. Baby had not had sexual relations of any kind since she and Jimbo had split up, and Waldo caught her at a weak moment. She was certain, however, that she had not been intimate with the rail-thin and gimpy Balzac Kicz. As far as she could recall, Kicz had injected himself hypodermically in his remaining ankle with a purplish substance he referred to as ‘cobra come.’ The Magyar druggie then passed out in the bathroom of his apartment on General Diaz, to which the trio had repaired following the frivolities at Enrique’s Birdcage.
Baby had dated Waldo Orchid twice since that night, and on one occasion he showed her where he lived, although they had not gone inside the house. Waldo told Baby that he and Balzac Kicz were weapons importers, most of their product coming from China, and the majority of their sales being made to the white religious right in Idaho and black separatists in California. After her last secret date with Waldo a month or so before, Baby had decided to end their association, such as it was, mainly because of her guilt about transgressing Mother Bizco’s dictum that her Almost-Perfect Flock abstain from alcohol, drugs, and sex. The other reason was that Waldo had backhanded her across the mouth after she refused to give him beso negro. All she wanted of him now was money for an abortion.
The door cracked open and Tante Desuso said, ‘Waldo regrets he unable to talk today.’ Then she closed it again.
Baby Cat-Face stepped down from the porch and into Lapeyrouse Street. A few raindrops hit her, a breeze came up, and then a platinum bolt of ribbon lightning discharged about twenty-five coulombs of negative energy from the N-region of a cumulus cloud into the ground directly in front of her, the force of which knocked Esquerita flat but not out. Next came an almost deafening bang, followed by a torrent of water that totally soaked the prone enceinte.
Baby lay on the sidewalk with her eyes closed, allowing the rain to cleanse her body. She shouted out, ‘Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man! Preserve me from the violent man who have purposed to overthrow my goings!’
There came another thunderclap, and Baby whispered, ‘I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, Waldo Orchid, that ye shall soon perish from off the land. Ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.’
REVELATIONS
baby cat-face considered going to Mother Bizco with her problem, but decided that the revelation would preclude the Sister’s ever again being deemed worthy of what Mother called ‘a balance beyond trust,’ and most certainly would result in expulsion from the temple’s Almost-Perfect Flock.
‘That’s what I be, though,’ Baby said aloud to herself, ‘almos’ poifec’.’
Sister Esquerita lay on the narrow bed in her room in the attic of the temple, listening to rain gust against the window. A big storm was blowing in. An early-season hurricane had already hit hard around Pinar del Río, Cuba, turned north-northwest, and was presently pushing steadily toward the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Louisiana.
Baby fell asleep and dreamed that she was wandering alone through a big city, someplace she had never been. The streets were entirely deserted, though everything seemed in working order: stoplights and clocks functioned, but there were no birds, no pedestrians, no traffic. She seemed to be the only living thing on earth. A red hatbox appeared in front of her on the sidewalk. Baby stopped and opened it and saw her own head, eyes closed, lying on a bed of golden lettuce. The eyes opened and in a deep voice that was not hers, Baby’s head said, ‘This shall be a sign unto you, that the pride of thine heart hath deceived thee. But now, my daughter, fear not. I will do to thee all that thou requirest, for all of the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman. Take the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Your child shall be my child, and his sword shall be my sword, and the slain shall be many. He shall go forth like a whirlwind to render his anger with fury. Your enemies shall be as mine own, and it shall come to pass that his acts shall be as my acts. He will be a wild man, his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.’
Baby was awakened by a crash of thunder. She stared at the spiderleg cracks in the ceiling and held tight with both hands to the sides of her bed, which began to rock from side to side. Esquerita felt as if she were being torn from the bed by an unseen force, and then her body was above it, levitating, her fingers grasping desperately for purchase. She was on her back in midair, halfway between ceiling and bed, frightened in a way she never could have imagined possible. Baby heard the water, the wind, and then she heard a voice similar to the one that had spoken in her dream.
‘Hear me, mother, for I am your son, and my name is Angel de la Cruz. My life shall be your protection and glory. The fearful and unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers and whoremongers, the sorcerers and idolators, and all liars, shall drown in the lake which burneth with fire and sulfur. Wipe away all tears from your eyes, for there shall be no more pain u
pon you. The former things are passed away.’
Sister Esquerita slept again, and when she awoke she lay on her bed, bathed in a finger of rosy light. She placed both of her hands on her belly, caressed herself, and whispered his name, ‘Angel, Angel de la Cruz.’
IN THE LINE OF FIRE
fenómena bizco was born in Quincy, Florida, the fourth daughter of Vasco da Gama Bizco y Caprichoso and Cora Roosevelt. Her parents worked as migrant fruit and vegetable pickers and were, at the time of Fenómena’s birth, gathering strawberries. Vasco da Gama had come to the United States from Arco Iris, Cuba, and met his future wife in a peach orchard outside of Tampa. Bizco was twenty-two years old and already considered himself a minister in what he called La Iglesia del Espíritu Santo Viajero, or the Church of the Holy Ghost Traveler. He converted the fourteen-year-old Cora Roosevelt, who had been raised an African Disciple of Paul, married her, and together they preached the gospel according to Vasco da Gama Bizco in migrant camps across the Deep South.
Bizco’s belief was that the Holy Ghost protected poor people and guarded their souls against theft by the rich, thereby ensuring their only true means of salvation. Each of Vasco and Cora’s first three daughters died almost immediately after birth. That their fourth survived Vasco considered a genuine phenomenon, and named her appropriately. Fenómena had no formal education, learning only what her parents taught her, which was mainly Vasco’s interpretation of the Old Testament as it related to current events.
When Fenómena was sixteen, both Vasco and Cora were crushed to death by a crop-dusting plane as they slept in their tent in a pickers’ camp close by a cotton field in Lillian, Alabama. Fenómena escaped death only because she had sneaked away after her parents had fallen asleep in order to tryst with a beautiful deaf boy named Sordo Perobello. When the plane’s engine conked out, causing the Cessna to suddenly dive and crumple on the Bizcos and many others, Sordo did not stop pumping away at Fenómena, who was pinned firmly beneath him. Despite her attempts to push him off, Sordo’s superior strength and fierce concentration on the matter at hand kept her from immediately aiding her parents. Not until fuel leaked from the downed duster’s fuselage and sparked an explosion did Sordo desist, it being impossible to ignore the white ball of flame that instantly transformed night into day.
Following this tragedy, Fenómena continued toiling as a migrant picker for several months until a girl named Viridiana Temoign told her she knew of a way they could make a lot more money without working so hard. Viridiana, a fifteen-year-old runaway from Daytime, Arkansas, convinced Fenómena that fucking for cash and clothes in New Orleans would be a better deal than plucking fruit and getting their asses scraped and soiled while giving it away for free to half-wits in cotton fields, and together they split for the City That Care Forgot.
So began Vasco da Gama and Cora Bizco’s only surviving progeny’s sojourn as a prostitute, a path that led her into heroin addiction and a life of fear. Never during her many years of enslavement to Satan, Fenómena told those who came under the sound of her voice at the Temple of the Few Washed Pure by Her Blood, did a day pass when she was not afraid. Only after her return to the teachings she had first heard from her father in the peripatetic Church of the Holy Ghost Traveler did Fenómena force Satan to relinquish his horny-handed hold on her soul. She had snatched it back from him in the hour before dawn of a new and glorious day as she lay in a puddle of her own filth in a cell at the Orleans Parish jail. It was desperation that put her there in the first place, Fenómena preached, and desperation that took her out.
‘Raise up!’ Mother Bizco called to her flock and those not yet converted. ‘Raise up out of the slime and degradation the devil desire to drown you in! Gettin’ down ain’t no unforgivable sin! Despair the onliest unforgivable sin, and it always reachin’ for us! Get out that trick bag and take hold of your soul! The Holy Ghost wash you clean, an’ be with you wherever you go!’
When Sister Esquerita confronted Mother Bizco with the truth of her situation, and related the experience of her epiphany and the coming of her son, Angel de la Cruz, Fenómena embraced the Almost-Perfect acolyte and told her, ‘Child, the Holy Ghost is come upon you. He descended in a bodily shape like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, which said, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.”’
Later, back in her room, after she had been brought before the congregation by Mother Bizco, received a public blessing, and been pronounced an Immaculate Receptacle, Sister Esquerita could not keep from laughing out loud at the thought of Waldo Orchid as a dove.
‘Don’t care what Mother Bizco say,’ Baby promised herself, ‘one kinda way or another that fat-ass motherfucker gon’ pay a serious price!’
WHITE NARCISSUS
baby was bothered throughout her pregnancy by a recurring dream in which she relived each moment of her final sexual encounter with Waldo Orchid. The hotel room he had rented for the purpose was dark, lit only by intermittent flashes of lightning from the thunderstorm that raged outside. As Waldo had instructed her to do, Baby stripped off her clothes in the living room of the suite and walked into the bedroom, where Waldo waited, seated on the bed. Waldo was wearing a turban and was naked to the waist, his flabby lower body wrapped in a gold lamé skirt.
‘Ah, the white narcissus,’ said Waldo, when he saw her.
Baby went to the closet and took out a gold lamé robe with a long train. She half-wrapped the robe about her, then took down a hatbox from a shelf, from which she removed a long-tressed golden wig.
‘Go ’head, darlin’,’ Waldo said, ‘put it on.’
Baby fitted the wig on her head, adjusted the robe, and turned toward Waldo.
‘That good?’
‘Baby, you poifec’.’
‘No, only almos’.’
Waldo slid off the bed and dropped to his knees in front of Baby Cat-Face. She began to dance and swirl around him, the thunder and lightning accentuating and punctuating her movements and gestures. Baby twirled the train and Waldo let it fall over his head and shoulders. He picked up the end of it and kissed the material tenderly, caressed it with his fingers, and rubbed it around his swollen breasts. As Baby continued her sinuous dance, which Waldo had choreographed in advance, he whimpered and writhed and crawled around her, seemingly in an attempt to inhabit the lamé by burying his head in it.
‘Princess! Princess! I am drowning in your ocean! Help me, princess! Save me!’
‘There is a flower, a white flower, the white narcissus,’ said Baby, repeating the words Waldo had made her memorize. ‘If you can find the flower, the fluted lips of the flower, the princess will sing.’
‘Oh, my princess, my lovely, lovely flower. Keep me near you, keep me, keep me, swallow me!’
Baby allowed Waldo to twine himself around her legs like a serpent. As he did, together they repeated the litany, ‘Keep me, swallow me! Keep me, swallow me! Keep me, swallow me!’
Waldo discarded the turban, buried his head beneath Baby’s robe, and moved his head up between her legs.
‘Say it now, Baby!’ Waldo ordered. ‘Sing to me!’
‘Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair
That likest thy Narcissus are?
O, if thou have
Hid them in some flowery cave,
Tell me but where.’
As Baby repeated these lines, Waldo made love to her, pulling the little Esquerita onto his lap, where she collapsed over him, riding out her own fever to the thunderous accompaniment of the storm.
When Baby awoke from this dream, she would be drenched in sweat and overwhelmed by a need to vomit, which she would into a pot she kept for this purpose on the floor beside her bed. Baby had never asked Waldo why he wanted her to participate in this peculiar routine. Neither did she ask what the words meant that he made her recite, although Waldo did tell her afterward that they were from a poem by a dead Englishman named Milton. Baby was not surprised to learn that Waldo read poetry; it was just further proof of her belief that he
was by far the weirdest person she had ever known.
BAD DUDES
balzac kicz corkscrewed his way through the Saturday night crowd in Ruby’s Caribbean Bar until he reached the door in the rear marked DU ES. He pushed it open, entered, and limped up to a vacant urinal. Standing next to him was a heavyset black man who had his eyes closed as he pissed. The two were alone in the restroom.
‘Keep paying ’em, don’t we?’ Balzac asked.
‘Say wha’?’ said the man.
‘What it says on the door to here: D-U-E-S. The second D is dropped off, so instead of dudes, says dues. Even doing so simple a thing as to take a pee, we are reminded.’
‘Mm, mm,’ the man mumbled, his eyes still closed as he rocked back on his heels, then tilted forward so far that his forehead bumped against the wall where a cretin had carved the words JESUS DESERVED IT.
‘Hey, fella, you all right?’ asked Kicz.
‘Mm, mm,’ he said.
The man then collapsed to the floor. Balzac interrupted his own micturition and knelt next to him. Kicz saw that the man, who appeared to be unconscious, was still holding his empurpled penis in his right hand. Balzac bent down and began to fellate his fallen pissmate. Just as Balzac Kicz’s own organ elongated, the door opened.
‘Hey!’ yelled the tall, skinny white man who had entered. ‘What you doin’ on Jimbo?’
Before Balzac could stand, the tall, skinny man, who wore a T-shirt proclaiming JIMI IS LORD, and whose exposed arms were littered with crude tattoos, mostly of women in various degrees of nudity, grabbed the Hungarian-Creole junkie-pervert by the neck and pulled him up.
‘Listen, I . . .,’ Kicz stuttered.
‘Fuckin’ faggot!’ shouted the man, who then proceeded to pummel him.
Southern Nights Page 26