Through the open door I could smell the thick smoke of incense. As we negotiated the beaded doorway, a tall, skinny, dark-skinned man with a long black beard and thinning hair emerged. He wore an all-white cotton robe of the type usually worn by Muslims. In a low, deep voice with an African accent, he said, “Welcome, my friends. I am the great Mganga. Please sit.”
He pointed to two huge Indian pillows. The room had no furniture but the floor was covered with large pillows and oriental rugs. A wooden candleholder stood in every corner. Each candleholder contained a candle of a different color—white, black, red and green. Besides the entrance, the room had two doors. One was open, and I could see the kitchen. The other was closed and probably led to the rest of the home.
Four identical African masks hung on the white walls. Because none of them had holes cut for the eyes, I assumed they were purely decorative rather than ceremonial. The masks were made of dark wood—probably mahogany—and were shiny, as though they had been polished repeatedly. With their long straw beards, the faces appeared to belong to old men. On the floor was a wooden board made from a three-foot log sawed in half and then sawed flat on the bottom to keep it from flipping over.
We sat down. “Oh, I sense a great deal of evil around you,” he said, looking first at me and then at Fred. “Did you bring the money?”
I handed him the money.
Fred looked at me as if to say, “You idiot, why not just throw it out the window?” Mganga counted the money and went into the kitchen, apparently satisfied. He came back out with a bamboo tray containing two white mugs and a wooden bowl that held a brown egg. He placed the tray on the log and handed Fred and me the mugs. The liquid smelled of mint.
“It is tea,” Mganga said.
I drank from my cup. Fred did not.
Mganga rose and again went to the kitchen, this time returning with what looked to be a hollow wooden gourd with a long handle. Wrapped around the handle were strings of small beads of every color.
“What are the problems concerning which you have come?” Mganga asked.
I told him of my dreams and of Chloe. I told him of finding Thomas murdered and about Mark Zan’s suicide. I spoke with him about the chicken foot holding the tooth. He gave no reaction. Fred on the other hand looked increasingly horrified.
Mganga started chanting in a soft gentle cadence, dancing about me with the egg in one hand and the wooden gourd in the other. The gourd was filled with stones and made a strange rattle. He rubbed the egg over my head. “Hold the egg and think of the one you call Chloe,” he demanded. I did as I was told, picturing her naked with her green snake eyes. He took the egg from me and put it in the wooden bowl. Removing a leather bag from around his neck, he tilted it to sprinkle red powder over my head. This time when he left the room he returned with a wooden stick that had a chicken’s foot tied to one end by a leather strap. Three large feathers were tied at the other end. He told me to stand as he once again started the dance, moving the stick over my body.
All of a sudden he started to shake, as though he was having an epileptic seizure. His eyes rolled up into his head, showing only white. He fell backwards, convulsing. I went to help him but he was better as soon as I came to his side.
“Chloe is an evil spirit. I have vanquished her. I have taken her evil spirit into myself and disbursed it. She will bother you no more. I will show you.”
He went to the small table and took the brown egg from the bowl. He cracked it into the wooden bowl. The yolk looked like a giant blood clot and the white turned black before our eyes. The oozing black and red glob reminded me of a mixture of blood and phlegm. The blood clot started to separate from the rest of the egg. It moved like a black toad and then seemed to fold back, revealing a bright green eye with the pupil of a snake.
“What the fuck!” Mganga stood up, knocking over the bowl with his knees. His accent was gone. He sounded as if he had grown up on the south side of Chicago.
“What sorta shit are you white boys playing? Get the fuck outta my house!”
“We need your help!” I begged.
“You need someone’s help, but not mine.” He went into the kitchen and threw me an envelope containing my money. “Look, my name’s Jerome White. I grew up in the projects and wanted to scam your white ass out of some money you don’t need anyway. Some woman named MaMa lived near me when I was growing up. Said she was a Juju priest. I thought I could do the same and make some extra cash, that’s all.”
“I need help. Where is MaMa now?”
“Shit, that was twenty years ago. She’s probably in the cemetery.”
“I’m desperate; in fact, I may call the cops and tell them about your little scam.”
“I ain’t afraid of your threats. The cops got better shit to deal with than a small time hustler. I am, however, scared shitless of this Chloe bitch, now that she has seen me.”
“Then help me to help yourself. Give MaMa a call.”
“I don’t have her number, but my cousin still lives in the same project. I can find out if she knows anything.”
“Do it!”
Jerome left the room to start making phone calls.
“What the hell is going on?” Fred asked.
“I don’t think you would believe me.”
“No, maybe not, but a bloody eyeball omelet has a way of changing one’s perspective. Have you considered moving?”
“Where could I go to avoid this? There are eggs everywhere!”
A half hour later Jerome was back.
“She’s in one of the projects near the basketball stadium—third floor, number 309. She has no phone but she is waiting for us.”
“Us?”
“You don’t know her, and I thought you folks would be more comfortable with me there. I’ll go change.”
“I hope we’re not getting set up to be mugged,” Fred said.
“Me, too, but he is right. We don’t know the lady. This isn’t your fight. Why don’t you go home. I’ll head out with Jerome.”
“No, I’m going to see this through,” Fred said. “After this whole egg thing, I will never trust my refrigerator again.”
“Fridge-o-phobia is more common than you think,” I replied. “I have suffered from that ailment for a couple weeks now.”
“Yeah. I hear shrinks can’t help with that. Only witch doctors. Do you think she wears a bone in her hair and nose like in the cartoons?”
“Let’s go,” Jerome interrupted.
He was wearing ripped jeans, a white t-shirt, and a baseball hat.
“Should we change?”
“What? So you can blend in? You both are going to look like cops or social workers no matter what you wear. In case you haven’t noticed, you white.”
We got into Fred’s car. Jerome gave directions.
“This car oughta fit right in,” Jerome said sarcastically.
“I liked you better when you were a priest,” Fred said.
We found the address in about twenty minutes. It wasn’t the worst area of town but pretty close. I was glad it was still daylight. The twin buildings were fenced in and surrounded by concrete. They had four basketball courts and one pitiful looking tree. Each was eight stories high and constructed of gray cinderblocks.
The elevator was broken, so we had to use the stairs, which reeked of urine. Words, letters, and symbols were painted in a rainbow of colors on the walls of the stairwell in sharp contrast to the gray walls and floors. Some of the words were obscenities but most were initials or pictures of crowns and stars. These modern hieroglyphics made me feel as if we were in a tomb.
When we reached the third floor a young black man with a shaved head, cut-off shorts and no shirt saw us and started running the other way.
“Great, now everyone thinks I hang with cops,” Jerome said.