Brown Girl in the Ring Read online

  “I go study that later, Mami. Right now, I need to know what happen to me out there by the highway.”

  Mami frowned. “I feel we start something when we had that ceremony last night. What happen to you is part of that. Tell me, doux-doux, what Osain say to allyou last night? I couldn’t hear, because is me he did riding.”

  “He say he vex with you. He say he done tell you already to find Rudy duppy pot and break it. He say . . .” Ti-Jeanne tried to remember the spirit’s odd words, “He say to tell you that it too late for you and the middle one, but maybe the end one go win through. I ain’t know what that mean.”

  Mami’s face was bleak. “The middle one is Mi-Jeanne. He telling me it too late to help she. God, God; my child gone for good.”

  Fear settled like lead in Ti-Jeanne’s stomach. “My mother? And the end one?” she whispered.

  “The end one is you. It look like you did dreaming true, doux-doux. I must be the one to set the trap for Rudy, but is you go have to stop he.”

  Ti-Jeanne remembered Rudy’s voice ordering their doom from the phone. “Mami, this ain’t my fight. I never do anything to get in Rudy way.”

  “Except today. He not going to forgive you for damaging his three generals.”

  “But that wasn’t me!”

  “I know. It was Legbara.” She looked at Ti-Jeanne. “He is a Eshu, you know, one of the guardians of the crossroads. When you black out, he must be did riding you. You never know what Legbara going to take it into he head to do. Him is a trickster. The Eshu-them too love to play games.”

  “Games?” Ti-Jeanne pulled away from her grandmother’s hands. “Is game allyou think this is? Eh, Mami? Is game you been playing with me and Tony all this time? With we lives?”

  “Ti-Jeanne, you know better than that.”

  She did, but it felt better to have someone familiar to accuse of all this. Legbara. That was the word she had been saying when she woke up with Crack’s chin in her hand. “Mami, I need to know how to deal with this. I need to know who is all these spirit names you does call all the time, and what it is does happen to me when I black out.” And how to make all of it go away, she thought, but she didn’t say it out loud.

  The old woman looked grim. “But ain’t is that I been trying to teach you all along? And is now you want to learn, eh? When is your man involved. Well, sweetheart, look like you have to learn your lesson now. Your Tony probably run away already to the ’burbs” (the words seared Ti-Jeanne’s heart like a new wound) “and leave you here. Well, good. I hope you learn your lesson.”

  Despair settled on Ti-Jeanne’s shoulders. Mami could always cut her down to size. But maybe Mami had the key to freeing her of the spirits that were haunting her. Let the old woman think Ti-Jeanne was feeling chastised. Mami was always more forthcoming then. She slumped her shoulders, put on a glum expression. “Yes, Mami. I sorry, Mami. I ready to learn from you now.”

  “Now you talking sense, sweetness. We go start right now. No time to waste.” The old woman settled herself comfortably on the floor, pulling her skirt up above her knees so she could sit cross-legged. As ever, Ti-Jeanne marvelled at Mami’s trim, strong body. Despite her small, almost child-like frame, Mami was as tough as a workhorse. “Now, doux-doux,” Mami said, “to start off, it have eight names you must know.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Shango, Ogun, Osain, Shakpana, Emanjah, Oshun, Oya, and Eshu.”

  Ti-Jeanne tried to memorise the sounds. “And explain to me exactly what them is, Mami.”

  “The African powers, child. The spirits. The loas. The orishas. The oldest ancestors. You will hear people from Haiti and Cuba and Brazil and so call them different names. You will even hear some names I ain’t tell you, but we all mean the same thing. Them is the ones who does carry we prayers to God Father, for he too busy to listen to every single one of we on earth talking at he all the time. Each of we have a special one who is we father or mother, and no matter what we call it, whether Shango or Santeria or Voudun or what, we all doing the same thing. Serving the spirits.”

  “Osain and Eshu I hear already today, Mami. And Legbara.”

  “Yes. Legbara is your spirit father, like Osain is my own. I already tell you what that mean.”

  “Yes, but I don’t understand. I supposed to watch over people dying, or something? I don’t like how that sound, Mami!”

  “Doux-doux, the spirits don’t call we unless we ready to accept the call, so you must be ready, even if you don’t want to accept it. Legbara is your guardian. He will watch out for you, if you is a good daughter.”

  And a good daughter single-handedly hunted down obeah-wielding gang lords, Ti-Jeanne supposed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Rudy was pissed off. Tony had blurted out his story to him in the limousine ride back to Rudy’s office. Only three more days left to collect the heart for the hospital, and this pissant boy had been wasting time. He’d even found a match, but he was too cowardly to do what had to be done. On top of it all now, Tony had put his three best generals out of commission. Rudy didn’t even know if Crapaud was going to live, and Jay and Crack were only lying there like babies, talking foolishness about how Tony’s girlfriend beat them up. He scowled at Tony across the oak dining table. He touched the linen napkin to his lips, put it down. The waiter moved in quickly to clear the table, glancing fearfully at Tony from time to time. Rudy watched him in silence, then, “All right. You could go now.”

  Tapping the fingers of one hand on the tabletop, Rudy glared at Tony again. I have a mind to just feed him blood to the calabash one time, Rudy thought. Lately the thing in the duppy pot had been demanding to be fed more often. And what about that message that Crack had brought him from Eshu? The Eshu in the Black Cape. The one that had shown him the way to control people, to work the dead.

  Rudy thought about it. Now that he knew where to find a match for Uttley, he could get some of his boys to beat the woman up, then just call the hospital to come and collect, and claim his finder’s fee. Less money, but still profitable. Maybe not yet, though. He still had a chance to use Tony to get the full fee. Rudy was sure he could give the man the right incentive. And it would get those blasted women and their nicey-nicey balm-yard spirits out of his way once and for all.

  “I figure,” Rudy said to Tony, “you must be did see what happen out there by the highway? You see the spirit that appear to Crack?”

  Of course, Tony couldn’t reply. He was flopped limply in the armchair in Rudy’s office, head flopped to one side. Only the panicked look in Tony’s eyes betrayed any awareness.

  “Some people call that spirit the One in the Black Cape, seen? Him does always dress in funeral colours. Him is the one you call when somebody work a obeah ’pon you and you want revenge. I call him. Twelve years ago. I wasn’t nobody then, you understand? Just a poor man who get kick out of he house by he ungrateful wife. Motherass woman take up with a next man behind my back. Them days, I was living in a flophouse, and I had one little problem, same like you. Buff. Used to spend all my money on it, then steal to get more. And just like you, I make a mistake. I steal from the posse.”

  Tony’s eyes were watering.

  “But your eyes must be stinging you, eh, Tony? It does burn when you can’t blink them, right? Is so the toad poison does take you. Temporary paralysis. Is them kinda things could happen when people cross me. Never mind, though,” he said in mock friendliness, “I go get Melba to fix you up, all right? Melba, take your hand and close that man eyes for him. Gentle, now. Don’t poke him like you jook the last one.”

  Melba shuffled out of the corner where she’d been standing. She’d been bathed, but the boys hadn’t known what to do with her hair. It hung matted and snarled from her scalp. She had lost a lot of weight. Her clothes sagged on her body, and her skin was grey and flaky. She wouldn’t last much longer. She went toward Tony, who started making “uh, uh,” noises. She ignored them, slid his eyelids down over his eyes, then stood where she was.

  “Now,” Rudy
said, “what I was saying?”

  Tony’s noises took on a more desperate tone. Rudy chuckled. “What, Master Tony? Me think say you would prefer if you could see what me a-do, eh? All right, brother. If you could stand the burning, who is me to tell you no? Melba, open up he eyes again.” She did.

  “Move away now, Melba. Go back to your corner.” The woman obeyed.

  “So yes, brother, me was telling you: me steal from the posse, and them find out, and the boys come for me. Me did slash all the buff one time. Me was flying high when them bruk down me door. I don’t like to tell you how bad them do me that night, me brother. Them nearly kill me.” He shook his head, remembering. Cool breeze, though. That was a long time ago. And the two men that had done it had lived to see their error. He went and stood over Tony. “Them break me one leg, here so,” he said, laying a hand on Tony’s thigh. Tony’s eyes were wild with terror. “And me hand, and them crack open me cheekbone, here so.” With his index finger, he touched a spot just under Tony’s left eye. A tear dripped down. He smiled and flicked it off his finger.

  “Oh, I know you can’t see no scar or nothing on me face now. Me does keep meself young and good-looking nowadays. No scar, no scratch, that me duppy don’t fix it for me. And it take away the craving for buff, too.

  “So yes, posse do for me that night. And them wasn’t the first one to do me bad, no, sir. From I born, people been taking advantage. Poor all me born days. Come up to Canada, no work. Me wife and all kick me out of me own house. Blasted cow. If it wasn’t for me, she woulda still be cleaning rich people toilets back home, and is so she treat me. Just because me give she little slap two-three time when she make she mouth run away ’pon me.” Anger at the injustice of it all burned again in Rudy. But it wasn’t like that now. Nobody took advantage of him now.

  “So lying there in me broken bones that night, me decide nobody nah go get nothing from me no more. Time to get my due back from them, you understand?”

  A line of spittle ran from Tony’s mouth to drip down his chin onto his shoulder, mixing with the tears that were now running freely from his tortured eyes.

  “Me face did swell up, the two ends of break bone in me leg rubbing every time me try to move. And me call the Eshu. The One in the Black Cape, just like me wife did show me. Me soul did already flying free from all the buff what me slash, and me reach out from them heights there, and me call, drumming the rhythm on the ground with me one good hand that leave. Me ain’t know how long me call, but me swear me see the sun come up and go back down again. And me ain’t stop. Mouth dry, leg a-pain me, and me ain’t stop for nothing. Finally him come, and me tell him me want him to kill everybody that do me bad. And imagine this: blasted Eshu tell me no! Him tell me say revenge is one thing, but him nah go help me to kill, for nobody I vex with ain’t kill nobody of mine. But killing is that me want, me say to him. And if you don’t give it to me, I go keep drumming you back here until you do it. And me do it, seen? So him go ’way, so me drum him back. Three times. The buff wasn’t keeping away the pain no more. Plenty times me nearly faint from it, but me bite me lip to keep me awake, and me keep on drumming. The third time him come back, him did vex, you see? Him say all right, if is death I want to deal in, he go tell me what it take for a man to deal in the dead. Stupid spirit. Him think say I woulda frighten at what I have to do, and I would back off with me tail between me legs. But I listen, and I learn. Him tell me must find a dead in the cemetery, somebody who just cross over. Him tell me must call the dead man duppy, and make him serve me. Him tell me how to keep the duppy by me, and what to feed it. He tell me if I do alla that, neither him nor the rest of the ancestors go want nothing more to do with me. Well, me didn’t business with that; what the ancestors ever do for me before?” Rudy chuckled, half to himself. “Is long time I had to wait till me leg heal good enough to follow he instructions. But you know what? I is a patient man.” He fell silent for a minute, remembering the smell of carrion and grave dirt on the night he’d gone to the cemetery. “Sometimes I wonder is what Eshu think when he watch me doing everything he say, and he see the duppy rise. It heal me, Mas’ Tony; heal me good good like you see me now. Then each day after that, one of my enemies dead. On the third day, was Dunston turn. Blasted man who steal my woman. When them find him, him had no skin left on him body, and his heart did rip out. Dogs, them say. Me know better. Then me tell the duppy me want more than that. Me want to run things in the posse. And so I ask, is so it go. Inside of a year, I was posse boss. Funny thing that, eh?”

  Tony made no sound.

  “What you think Eshu want now, eh, Tony? Why you think he warn me away from your woman? Ti-Jeanne, Mi-Jeanne, Gros-Jeanne; them fucking women been giving me trouble from since when!”

  Rudy turned Tony’s chair to face him. He reached out a big, powerful hand and closed the man’s eyes with a deliberate tenderness. “See now? Don’t that feel better?” Tony made a mewing sound. Rudy looked down at Tony’s body and chuckled. Funny how many of them this happened to. “But see how you pay me back for my kindness,” he told Tony. “You gone and piss up my good good chair. Is a good thing the seat make out of leather. Melba, get a damp cloth and clean up this chair.”

  Easily as he would a doll, Rudy lifted Tony out of the chair and lowered him to the floor. He removed Tony’s shoes and socks, undid his belt buckle, and began taking off the sodden pants. Tony’s moaning started up again, like a weak sobbing.

  “But what a way this man could fret, ee?” Rudy inquired gently. “Don’t you want to have fresh, clean clothes? I go get Melba to bring some for you.”

  Once the pants were off, Rudy sat back on his heels and looked at the helpless, half-naked man. Maybe he should have robbed Tony of his volition when he’d had the time to, the way he had done with Melba. Then the man would have done anything he told him to. But the mindless slaves could only follow simple instructions. He needed Tony to be aware so that he could use his medical training to transfer the live heart into its container.

  The paralysis must have begun to wear off a little. Tony had managed to open his eyes and was blinking slowly through his tears. His eyes seemed to beg. It was Rudy’s power alone to answer that plea. Or not. Rudy felt the familiar tightening in his crotch that that sense of power always brought him.

  “Well, boy, look at you. The time come to pay the piper. You been bringing me one set of trouble. You had a match for the heart all along, but you been wasting time? Boy, what wrong with you? Me a-go show you what me do with people who make me vex, then me a-go give you a choice: either you bring me the blasted heart by tomorrow, or you turn duppy food.”

  • • • •

  Barkodey, me buddy,

  Barkodey

  Them send me to shave you,

  Barkodey

  With me ten pound razor,

  Barkodey

  And if you laugh me go cut you.

  Barkodey

  —Call-and-response chant

  Sensation was returning to Tony’s feet in the form of an almost unbearable prickling. He’d been able to move his upper body for a few minutes now, to turn his head away from the ritual that Rudy was performing in front of him, but with his arms shackled to the chair he was sitting in, he hadn’t been able to shield his ears from the sounds of a knife ripping through skin or his nose from the smells of blood and human waste. Melba had been allowed to scream only once. After that, Rudy had told her to keep silent, and impossibly, she had. The drug that he had been feeding her had that much power to place her will under his control, though her muscles trembled and twitched with reaction from the pain he was inflicting on her. Most horribly, since Rudy had ordered her to lie perfectly still on the dining table, she had made no attempt to escape over the last minutes as Rudy methodically flayed her alive.

  Tony whimpered as he stared transfixed at the living anatomy lesson that Melba had become. Insanely, he remembered a lecturer at college informing them, “The average human has about twenty square feet of skin weighin
g about six pounds.” Tony’s medically trained mind persisted in identifying the structures that Rudy had exposed with his knife: anterior tibialis of the lower leg; the long bulge of the rectus femoris muscle of the thigh; external obliques covering the stomach region; flap of the platysma myoides muscle layered over chin and clavicle; sterno-cleido mastoid just visible behind the ear. The fat pads and gland tissue that had been her breasts had come off with the skin covering her torso. Lips, eyelids, and hair had come away, too. Her exposed eyeballs goggled, and lipless, her exposed teeth and gums gave her a ghastly grin. The drug that incapacitated her must also do something to delay shock. Deprived of their skin, the largest organ of the human body, any other human being would have died by now. Tony clenched his eyes shut and prayed that the ordeals both he and Melba were suffering would soon come to an end.

  Rudy said, “Look at me, my brother.” Tony didn’t dare disobey. He opened his eyes, feeling the tears start unbidden as he looked at Melba’s body again. Arms gory to the elbow, Rudy smiled happily at Tony from the other side of the table. “This is what I go do to your Ti-Jeanne if you nah get that heart for me.”

  “No!” Tony had control of his vocal cords again.

  “No? All right, Master Tony, tell you what. Me just decide a next thing, yes? You know say me can’t make word get out that a man try to cheat me and I make he get off scot free, right? I wouldn’t be able to keep no discipline if I carry on like that.”

  Tony stared at him, chest heaving.

  “So. You have to get punish. You go kill your Ti-Jeanne for me, boy. Is the price for your own life. Kill she clean, or I go do it like this.”

  Tears started down Tony’s cheeks again.

  “Like you nah like the sound of that, neither. Look like I go have to set my watchdog ’pon you to make sure you nah try to cheat me again. Me soon come back, Tony.” He disappeared through a door that led to the back of his office, returned wheeling a small, black-painted metal gurney, just wide enough for the bowl that was balanced on its top. The bowl appeared to be unvarnished wood, about the size of a watermelon. It had designs incised on its surface. Its bottom was round. It was sitting inside a ring of cloth that held it steady. “Look my watchdog here,” Rudy told him cheerfully. “My duppy. It need lifeblood for it to have the vitality to do what I go ask it, and you go get to watch me feed it.”