Whooosh!
When the plane left the ground, Showlogo felt as if he were dying. Every part of his body pressed against the bay’s metal walls. The air was sucked from his lungs. As the earth dropped away from him, his world swam. This sense of death only lasted about thirty seconds. Then his body stabilized. In the next few minutes, Showlogo marveled at the fact that he would never be the same again. Who could be after feeling what he felt, seeing what he was seeing? Nigeria was flying away from him.
As the air’s temperature rapidly dropped and he pulled his thin coat over himself and thanked God that he’d worn his best and thickest jeans, socks and gym shoes. The undercarriage retracted. The clouds and distant earth below were shut away as the metal doors closed and Showlogo was pressed in tightly. “Shit,” he screamed. There was so much less space than he expected. The temperature was still dropping.
He shivered. “Sh-Sh-Showlogo no go sh-sh-shake. No sh-sh-shaking for Sh-Sh-Showlogo,” he muttered. Only a few yards above him, people sat in their cushioned seats, warm and safe. The flight attendants were probably about to offer drinks and tell them about the meal that would be served. Showlogo had flown twice in his life. The first was to Abuja with his parents when he was five. When his parents were still alive and telling him every day what a great doctor he would be. The second time was a few years ago to Port Harcourt, when his parents were long dead and he had business to take care of in Calabar. On both flights, he remembered, they’d served snacks. When he was five, it had been peanuts or popcorn. When he was an adult, it had been drinks and crackers. His cousin Success T told him that on international flights, there was an actual meal.
“It was shit,” Success T had laughed. “For this small small plate, the beef wey dem put dey tasteless, o! If I chop am, I go die before we reach Heathrow!”
Success T wasn’t exaggerating. He had been born with intestinal mal-rotation and lived on a very strict diet of seafood, fruits and vegetables and very selected starches. He could not eat fufu, much rice, foods soaked in preservatives and he could not eat most European or American cuisines. As Showlogo thought of his cousin who was practically solid muscle and scared anyone he competed against in boxing tournaments, yet could be felled by merely eating the wrong food, he chuckled. Then he shivered again. He brought out his torch and flicked it on. The light was dim despite the fact that he’d put in fresh batteries less than two hours ago.
He could see his breath as if he were smoking a giant mold. Speaking of which. He reached into his satchel and brought it out. He had to flick his lighter ten times before it produced a very weak flame. The large joint’s tip burned blandly and he managed three puffs before it went out. He shivered again and his flesh prickled as he lay back. The vibration of the plane’s engine shook his freezing body, causing his legs and arms to flex. He squeezed his palms and curled his feet and toes. He flexed his buttocks and straightened the tendons in his neck. Time was slowing down and he felt calm. He could see the black borders between the frames. Slowly, he ate his jollof rice, wheezing between bites. It was warm, red and spicy, heating his belly. Then he lay back and remembered nothing more.
*~*~*~*
As he laid on the sidewalk, the woman named Dolapo Tunde, the man named Mr. David Goldstein, and the black cat stared. Dolapo shuddered, as she grasped her lawnmower. She shuddered again and crossed herself. Then she pulled out her blue ear buds and let them fall and dangle at her thigh. Mr. Goldstein dropped his soapy sponge and leaned against his Chevy Challenger. All thoughts of work fled his mind as he tried to piece things together. The man could not have fallen from any house or building. There wasn’t one close enough. No tree, either. He’d fallen from the damn sky! But Mr. Goldstein had seen photos on the net of what was left of people who jump from tall buildings. He’d seen one of a man who’d jumped from a skyscraper. The guy was nothing but mush in the road! So Mr. Goldstein shuddered, as well, for he did not want to see or even know what the man looked like underneath.
Only Buster the Cat was brave and, of course, curious enough to inspect. He padded across the road. He hesitated for only a moment and then he walked right up to Showlogo’s body and sniffed the side of his head. Buster looked at the man’s nose, which was pressed to the concrete and dribbling blood. The smell of the blood was rich and strong, very very strong. Buster had never smelled blood with such a powerful scent. Buster was focusing so hard on the rich bloody aroma that when Showlogo grunted, Buster was so deeply startled that he leapt four feet in the air.
Across the street Mr. Goldstein shouted, “Holy shit! HOLY SHIT! Whoa!! He’s alive! How the fuck is that dude alive? What the hell!”
Showlogo lifted his head and looked around. He coughed and wiped his bloody nose. He sat up, stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles and smiled tiredly. He looked at Dolapo who was staring at him with her mouth hanging open. His brain was addled, so when he spoke, the language that came out was not the Pidgin English he meant to speak, not even the Standard English he should have spoken, for he was most certainly in America. Instead, he spoke the language of his birth, Yoruba.
“You see? I can never die,” he said. “Even death fears me.”
Dolapo tried to reply but all that came out was a gagging sound.
“I agree with you,” he said to her. “There are better ways to travel. Can you prepare some yam with palm oil for me? I have taste for that.”
Dolapo stared at him for several more seconds and crossed herself again. Then she quietly responded to him in Yoruba, “God is with me! I have no reason to fear evil. Be gone, fallen angel! Be gone, devil!” She switched to English. “In the name of Jesus!”
Showlogo stared blankly at her and then he laughed. “My eyes tell me I’m in America, my ears tell me something else.” He stretched his back and began to walk up the sidewalk. He was Showlogo and he could survive anything and anywhere. Behind him Buster the Black Cat followed, attracted and intrigued by the strongest smelling blood he’d ever sniffed.
JAYE WELLS is a USA Today-bestselling author of urban fantasy and speculative crime fiction. Raised by booksellers, she loved reading books from a very young age. That gateway drug eventually led to a full-blown writing addiction. When she’s not chasing the word dragon, she loves to travel, drink good bourbon, and do things that scare her so she can put them in her books. To learn more about Jaye's stories, please visit www.jayewells.com
The Bluest Hour
Jaye Wells
The old man takes a drag from his cigarette. Kools, menthol. The brown skin of his fingers bear yellow stains and his clothes smell of minty smoke and turned earth. “I sing to them, that’s all. There’s no real magic to it. Just sing a few bars and they come a runnin’.”
“That can’t be all,” I say. “Surely there’s more.”
He chuckles—a smoker’s sound full of phlegm. “You either got it or you ain’t, son.”
I lean back and cross my arms. On the table between us, my plastic cup of Abita beer drips with condensation that mimics the beads of sweat rolling down my back. It’s August in New Orleans, when nothing is dry. “Then how’d you know you had it?”
The old man rubs his lip and looks at me through rheumy eyes, the whites as yellow as the stains on his fingers. “Now that part wasn’t so easy.”
He takes a long pull from his Kool before tamping it out on the cobblestones. We’re sitting at a bistro table outside a bar in Pirate’s Alley. It’s full dark outside but still sultry as Neptune’s daughter. A tourist family eats ice cream at the next table. The mother scrunches her nose at the smoke. The old man tips his hat to her, and she turns away, chastened.
When he gives me his attention again, I find I am breathless. I’ve looked for someone like this old man for what feels like decades, and now, finally, we’re getting somewhere. But the whole scene doesn’t feel right: the heat, the crush of tourists, the scent of cheap beer. I feel like apologizing, but he speaks before I can find the words.
“Truth be told,” he be
gins, “I couldn’t always sing. Mama used to tell me not to sing in church ‘cause it sounded like the devil hisself skinnin’ a cat.” That chuckle again. I don’t understand. The thing he does—his gift?—it has to be a terrible burden. How can he laugh so easily? “Nah, it wasn’t until I met old Rambo Jones that I learnt how to sing like I do.”
The questions tumble from my lips. Who is Rambo Jones? Is he a singer, too? How does it work? Where do they go?
He holds up a hand. “Tell you what, you come to the cemetery tomorrow and I’ll show you.”
My heart stutters in my chest. I’m not sure if it’s excitement or dread. “Really?”
“Sure. Cemetery closes at sundown.” He winks at me. “That’s when the magic happens.”
*~*~*~*
The next day passes slow as molasses. Inspired by my new friend, I buy a pack of cigarettes and waste time chain smoking and watching people pass under my balcony on Ursulines Avenue. It’s too hot to walk around. Too hot for respectable clothes, too, so I sit in my undershirt and trousers and pretend I’m Stanley Kowalski.
Around two in the afternoon, I order room service. Steak with a side of bourbon. The meat is tough, but the bourbon is smooth. That’s how I end up with the phone in my hand. I don’t remember picking it up. Don’t remember dialing. But I remember asking for forgiveness and hearing, “Leave me alone, asshole,” before the line goes dead.
After that mistake, I sit on that balcony in the afternoon heat with bourbon burning in my gut and the phone cutting into my hand. Some part of my brain—the small, sober part—asks what the hell I’m doing, but I ignore it.
I’ve come to New Orleans looking for answers I’m not sure I really want. Just tired of always asking, I guess. Always wondering what happened.
I suppose people must exist who have never felt the sharp ache of loss. Probably those people smile a lot. But I don’t know anyone like that. Most people I know carry a crater in their chest. The walking wounded.
I heard it said once that you never really recover from loss—you just get used to the pain. Whoever said that was a luckier man than me—or a more numb one, anyway.
I light another cigarette. Drink some more. Maybe the only way to stop the nagging ache, I think, is to become someone else’s loss.
But I’ve managed to piss off everyone who ever might’ve cared if I die.
Leave me alone, asshole has become the refrain of every relationship I’ve had since that ice blue winter.
I try to count the years on my fingers, but they aren’t working too well. I squeeze my eyes to concentrate, but instead of a calendar, I see her.
Those laughing blue eyes and the bright red lipstick that made her teeth seem impossibly white when she flashed that dagger-in-the-heart smile. Creamy skin that felt like silk against my calloused paws.
But that was all before.
Before the icy road and the drunk. Before the phone screamed at three a.m. Before my heart deserted me to play house with her in a box six feet down.
She used to tease me about my lack of faith. But she was wrong. I had plenty. Used to, anyway. Before.
But then I’d heard whispers about the Soul Singers. People who collected the souls of the dead and helped them pass over to the other side, wherever that was.
I’d resisted believing the legends at first. But then my editor had called. Deadline was looming and he needed a story.
“Soul singers,” I said. “Need to do a research trip, though.”
“Where?” he’d demanded. Editors are tighter than priests’ assholes when it comes to travel expenses.
Truth was, I’d had no idea where to find the singers, but I’d picked New Orleans for three reasons. First, I hadn’t had a decent bowl of gumbo in a decade. Second, if the soul singer piece died on the page, the Big Easy was a generous muse. And third, if any city was the love child of Thanatos and Eros, it was New Orleans, which made it the perfect hangout for people who wooed the dead with song.
It hadn’t taken me long to find someone who’d heard of the Soul Singers. It’s near impossible to avoid making friends in the French Quarter. And when you got a few extra clams to rub together, you can get any sort of information you want. Especially if you visit the voodoo shops. Not the touristy ones on Bourbon Street, but the real ones hidden behind wooden doors bearing discrete plaques.
The woman who’d introduced me to the old man was a voodooienne by the name of Madame Lunesta Beauregard. Her skin had been black as midnight, and when I’d walked into her shop, she looked at me like she’d been expecting me. “Be careful what you go looking for, chere,” she’d said in a dire tone.
But she’d made a call and set up the meeting with the old man. Before I’d left the store, she’d pressed a grisgris bag in my hand. The red flannel pouch smelled of camphor and whisky. “For protection,” she’d whispered.
I laughed at her. “From what?”
“Yo’self.”
Now, I pull the bag from my pocket and watch it as I polish off the last of the bourbon. The felt is blood red in the dying afternoon light. My head feels full of static that I chalk up to the booze, but booze can’t explain the grave-walking chill in my bones.
A moment later, the spell passes and I rise to shower for my meeting at the cemetery. I leave the grisgris on the ledge next to the empty bottle of bourbon.
*~*~*~*
The late-day sun gilds the Victorian and Georgian mansions along St. Charles Avenue. Stately oaks posture above the warped sidewalks and moss hangs over the ancient arms like the hair of mourning women.
The streetcar isn’t air conditioned, and in moments I am sliding on the old wooden bench in a pool of my own sweat. The bourbon crawls up the back of my throat and the shrieks of delight from the tourists’ children pound behind my eyes like an aneurysm.
I haven’t been to a cemetery since that spring following that particular winter. Once the ground thawed, I had to sit next to the hole and try not to give into the urge to jump in there with her. My gut had been a cauldron of broken glass and acid. My brain, black as the bottom of that hole.
Real men don’t cry. My daddy told me that when I was twelve and we were standing beside my mother’s grave. That piece of advice and a genetic tendency toward alcoholism were the only two bits of legacy I’d gotten from my old man. According to everyone else, I’d gotten the rest from that Channel-scented ghost with the soft hands and the angel’s voice.
My shrink said that funeral set me on this path. It’s textbook, really, he said. I’m a God damned macabre cliché.
The squeal of metal-on-metal abrades my nerves. The streetcar stops at Second Street. I let the kids and their tired parents go first before hauling myself off the bench. I grab the paper bag containing the bottle the old man told me to bring and step onto the grassy median.
Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is a couple of blocks off St. Charles. By the time I reach its broad wrought iron arch, the sun is sinking low. A few tourists mill around the locked gates, snapping pictures. I wave through the bars at a fifty-something ex-convict-type in blue coveralls. He nods and unlocks the padlocks without a word, as if the old man had warned him of my arrival.
The gates shriek open on unoiled hinges. A few of the tourists mutter complaints about my being allowed entrance. He shoos them away with a grunt. “The cemetery’s closed.” He slams the gate shut again and locks it before pointing me toward a shack at the far end of the closest path.
Monuments to the dead rise from the soggy earth and squat cheek-to-jowl on wide avenues coated in gravel. Silk flowers and trinkets decorate some of the crypts, but it’s the moldering teddy bear on the grave of a five-year-old that makes me want run back to the refuge of the hotel’s bar.
The old man steps out from behind a columbarium at the end of the row. He raises crooked fingers and tips his hat. I walk toward him on heavy legs.
“I’m glad you decided to come.” He says it kindly, but I hate him for being so sure I considered standing him up. He looks d
own at the bag. “You brought it?”
He takes it as reverently as if I am handing over the baby Jesus. The brown paper crinkles as he pulls it off. “Four Roses,” he says, nodding as if I am finally catching on. “This’ll do just fine.”
I grimace. When my editor eventually gets the expense report with the two-hundred-dollar bottle of bourbon on it, I’m pretty sure his reaction will be a tad more expressive.
He takes me into the small building on the edge of the cemetery. Four concrete block walls, barred windows from the outside. Inside it’s not much more scenic. A small metal desk is shoved under one of the square windows and a shelving unit next to the door holds muddy boots, shovels, trowels, and other grave-minding implements.
From the deep drawer in the bottom of the desk, he pulls out an ancient-looking scrapbook. Cracked brown leather on the outside, yellowed photos inside. He flips a few pages and lands on a sepia-toned picture of an African American man sitting on the stoop of a row house. The man wears a fedora tipped to the side and a natty suit. Across his lap is a cane of some sort, but his strong posture and confident smile tell me he only uses the walking stick as an affectation.
The old man taps on the picture. “Rambo Jones.” His tone is reverent.
“He taught you how to sing?”
“Didn’t give me singin’ lessons, if that’s what you mean.” A smile, as if he’s made a private joke, appears on his lips. “He gave me his gift.”
I frown. “I don’t follow.”
“‘Course you don’t.”
“Listen—” I feel wrung out. It’s the heat and the humidity and the bourbon. It’s the trip all the way to the cemetery expecting to receive answers, but instead having riddles tossed in my face.
Fantasy For Good: A Charitable Anthology Page 30