Perfect Fit
A Teaser From My Newest Book “Perfect Fit” a m/m 1890’s hoodoo mpreg story
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
― Lao Tzu
March 1888
A river otter glides noiselessly across the fifty-foot-wide canal in one smooth movement. His fur was slick and shining. A wounded blue-green dragonfly with a wingspan as large as my hand flailed on the surface and was yanked below the water by a large catfish. An ancient-looking turtle pretends to be part of a stump and then plops like a stone into the water as I approach. Maybe he knew something I didn’t know yet. The only denizens that ain’t shy are small yellow horseflies with rainbow eyes. They are as brave as can be flitting around without a care in the world. If only that sense of freedom could fill my heart. A Great Blue Heron strides in confidence along a fern-bank; feathers ruffled from the slight breeze. Towering dark bearish like men framed against the sky were cutting shingles for a company out yonder in some other state; for some old mansion in the Garden District. Drops of sweat gather on their foreheads as they work with calloused hands. They poled slim rafts up the canals, while others drove two-wheeled carts along corduroy roads sunk in the peat. Most of these slave men dug the canals they now worked. But they didn’t think about the work they did on the canal years back. No sir. They didn’t even really think about the work they were currently doing making shingles. It was just another day, another job to do to keep a roof over the heads and food on the table nothing more. They lost their heart and soul years ago. Slavery had taken its toll on them, beat them down lower than anybody could get and of course it affected how they looked at the world.
A small group of penned birds sat on their nests laying eggs, but off just a few feet, rested in the shade a few wild pigs awaiting their slaughter who were afraid of their fate. Young women stood slathering making new earthen wares whose dreams were filled with hope that fate could change; it just took a little work that’s all. This plaster consists of grass, water, and dirt; the substance that made something permanent and of use. If only the skills needed to lead a life that was unstoppable were as easy as grass, water, and dirt. These young women and even those who are married, but who have not borne children, are not considered full adults until an offspring is born. Birth was the end of everything for their community. For without birth how could a community flourish and continue?
They lived in semi-freedom in meager shantytowns fifteen miles into the swamp where the white man rarely ventured, because they believed voodoo was practiced there. They had heard the legendary stories of Marie Laveau who they knew as being gifted with beauty and intelligence while very strong convictions and loyal confidentiality kept her a mystery to so many for so long. It was the disappearance of Marie’s daughters as well as first husband Jacque Paris. Maybe Jacque went down in a shipwreck, seeking to return to his birthplace, Saint-Domingue? Maybe he disapproved of his young wife’s devotion to voodoo and departed for parts unknown? Maybe he suddenly lost his mind? Or maybe Mr. Paris had an affair with another woman and skipped out to start a new life?
They somehow seemed to pass through what others thought impassable swamps, yet everyone who lived there had performed the task. Not all who lived in the swamp were slaves. Some were runaways, some Freedmen, and women, and even deeper into the swampy woods Indians. The day had been sweltering, and now as the sun began to set, as far-off a thunderstorm was mustering and rumbling its strength trying to either approve or condemn what some viewed as demonic orgies and out right blasphemy. Some went so far as to believe the hoodoo as well as voodoo was perceived as a threat to everyone and everything.
Many were never satisfied that Jacque just disappeared one day. It seemed to many that it was far too easy for him to simply disappear. Maybe part of the confusion and mystery about Jacque’s disappearance was his pseudonym, Santiago Paris. There were and are so many theories to this old story that one couldn’t help but talk about it and of course Cyrus grew up hearing these stories. But Cyrus was beyond intrigued by voodoo early on in his childhood.
A fire crackled and emitted small sparks from the center of where the buildings stood. Babatunde sits at the fire, as he does every seven to eight days to communicate with the ancestors on behalf of his family. The smoke is swirling counterclockwise, and he is mumbling a low undecipherable chant, pleading for the ancestors to hear him today. Babatunde stares into the smoke. He’s short, bearing a dark complexion, plump as a baby man with a rather receding hairline of graying hair and a vexatious rectangular face with a defined refined chin and sturdy jawline. There was something striking and deviant in the deceiving, elevated forehead, and the finely formed features, which indicated skill and competence. His eyes had intensity and fortitude of color that might cause them at first glance to appear black and are filled with sprightliness and energy. The face, with its strongly marked expression of honesty and sense, had about it many care-worn and thoughtful lines. His whole countenance spoke of his masculine ruggedness.
Babatunde observed the movements of the sun and moon very closely because they resembled the life-giving source of the God and Goddess his community worshiped. Babatunde would keep track of the sun and moon’s relative position with each other as well as with another star. He would then decide how best he could tap into the raw energy of the patron deities.
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Babatunde decided that in honor of the Goddess the community would go vegetarian and as a form of celebration, the entire community should be lit by candles. It was quite an affair, many huts filled with the refreshing smell of citrus, lavender, and ginseng. The tables are laden with boiled baby carrots, fried pineapple rice, orange juice, herbal soup, and other delicacies. The time came for Babatunde to beseech the Goddess for her blessings. He poured clumps of earth into a clay bowl before him, clasping his hands together and began a chant that sounded more like a song.
“Biouji limye, bouji fimen; pouvwa le mwen envoke. Majik nan mitan lannwit, majik nan jounen an bann tout mal lwen. Koute epi tande apel la nan ou jan mwen pral li, se knosa motel li dwe.”
(Biouji lights, smoking candles; power when I invoke. The magic of the night, the magic of the day is far away. Listen and hear the call in you as I will read, it is knosa motel it must be.)
A shallow, dithering groan writhed through the woods, and careened in haunting howls over the tops of the pines; and barbed shafts of lightning came dazzling down among the darkness of the limbs, as if ordered from the grasp of some gladiatorial angel. An infantry of massive clouds swept in an instant across the moon; then came an immense, blinding sheet of flame, settling itself on the top of a tall pine, and in a moment quavered all its branches to the ground, as a child strips the leaves from a twig.
Babatunde’s first wife, the eldest of three wives, Mukaakandinguahi, as she was called in Africa, thought he was just withdrawn and thinking about the recent drought. Her face was one of those calamitous ones, which set critique to submission and anger to peace. Her hair quivering, whirling, fawning hitherto and thitherto, seemed to have an undomesticated, eccentric comeliness of its own that made her like an earth goddess. Her hazel eyes shimmered like that of the nightly skies, while her mischievous nose, which bore the forbidden upward curve seemed to argue its very right to do so with freedom; and the earthen beads at her neck and in her hair seemed alive with kindness. Lanky and somewhat gaunt she held an imposing breed of loose-jointed and thoughtfulness to the way she held herself. She was a full feminine woman and she hung to her comeliness as easily as she drank water.
Years ago, droves of negroes, chained together in dozens and scores, all hand-cuffed in the chain gang, have been marched while chained together through our region in numbers far surpassing any other time, and these vile slave drivers and dealers were swarming like buzzards around a carrion. Through this county, you cannot pass a few miles in the great roads without having every feeling of humanity insulted and lacerated by this spectacle, nor can you go into any county or any neighborhood, scarcely, without seeing or hearing of some of these despicable creatures, called negro-drivers.
The moon shone only through murky and silvery clouds as the rising wind moaned fitfully amid the branches of the trees, voices of the ancestors trying to speak of the pending storm, but their voices were mute to Babatunde. The rain began to patter, and a dull horrible creaking seemed to bear an unbearable and tragically near misfortune.
“J ‘ai lancé ce sort dans la nuit pour lier mes ennemis et limiter leur combat. Par la terre, par le vent, par l’eau, par le feu ; Je souhaite arrêter leur mauvais désir. Les mauvaises paroles et les mauvaises actions qu’ils propagent ne feront que leur faire ressentir une grande terreur. Mener ce combat contre leurs actes, comme je le veux, qu’il en soit ainsi.” (I cast this spell in the night to bind my enemies and limit their combat. By earth, by wind, by water, by fire; I wish to stop their evil desire. The evil words and evil deeds they spread will only make them feel great terror. Lead this fight against their actions, as I want, so be it.)
“The sturdiest idols are African. I express to you it’s clear they could soar like birds in the skies, wings unfettered and only the heights of their flights laid before them; and they did what they enjoyed with their witchcraft, a sort of primal unspoken generational hoodoo,” Babatunde made very clear to those huddled around him as he cast that spell.
“Who is a negro-driver? One whose eyes dwell with delight on lacerated bodies of helpless men, women, and children; whose soul feels diabolical raptures at the chains, and handcuffs, and cart-whips, for inflicting tortures on weeping mothers torn from helpless babes, and on husbands and wives torn asunder forever,” from deep within the spell Babatunde’s body rocked wildly, his eyes rolled back in his head seeing a future yet to be. The words stunned the crowd that was now beginning to really gain momentum.
“Babatunde had long since made up his mind that he would not trust himself in the hands of any man, white or colored. The slave is brought up to look upon every white man as an enemy to him and his race; and twenty-one years in slavery had taught him that there were traitors, even among colored people,” to those present and still gathering Babatunde seemed to be speaking in tongues. There were mummerings from a few widows that possibly Babatunde was losing his mind.
“After dark, Babatunde emerged from the woods into a narrow path, which led him onto the main travelled road. But he knew not which way to go. He did not know north from south, east from west. He looked in vain for the North Star; a heavy cloud hid it from his view. He walked up and down the road until near midnight when the clouds disappeared,” the spirit left Babatunde and he was silent.
The book “Perfect Fit” can be found here
