As I drove through the city, I paid little attention to the scenery; I was thinking about the ceremony. The streets were mostly quiet, and I arrived at my destination far sooner than anticipated.
The project where MaMa lived was a couple of blocks from where I parked. I carried the backpack containing the rum and cognac by one strap and tried to move with purpose so that no one would sense my fear.
When I got to the gate, two African American men blocked my path. One had a shaven head and wore a white muscle shirt and jeans. He had to be six foot three and was in his late teens. The other wore a white and baby-blue UNC warm-up suit. He had a short Afro. He looked a little older than the guy in the muscle shirt and was an inch or two shorter. He seemed jumpy and was constantly moving.
“You gotta pay the toll to come in here,” the guy in the warm-up suit said. The other was reaching for something in his back pocket that I hoped was a knife, not a gun.
“I’m not looking for trouble,” I said, sounding like the dumb white guy on a bad police drama.
“Neither are we. We’re looking for money. You can give me that pack as well,” the guy in the black shirt said as he pulled a long thin blade from behind his back and put it up to my neck.
The other guy, who was staring at my neck, grabbed the arm of his friend and said, “My friend here is just fucking with you. We don’t want no trouble, you see.” He turned to his friend, “My brother, you apologize to the nice white man with the Gris-Gris bag around his neck.”
“What the fuck you talking about?” the guy with the knife told the other man.
The guy with the warm-up suit struck his friend hard in the face with a closed fist. He fell to the ground, bleeding from both nostrils.
“You are delaying my white brother. If he is late you can explain it to MaMa.”
The man, wiping the blood from his nostrils, stood up and said, “I apologize, my brother. May I escort you to where you need to be?”
“No, I am fine,” I said, still in shock. As I walked toward the building, one of the men called after me, “There is no need to mention our indiscretion to MaMa, is there?”
MaMa wore an all-white cotton robe, and her hair was tied back in braids. She was eighty years old but looked fifty.
“It is time to go,” she said. “Could you bring my things?”
She pointed to a luggage cart. In a steel cage two chickens and a rooster were sleeping. The chickens were small and skinny with white feathers. The rooster was white and brown and had a long red comb. Under the cage was a cardboard box with three wooden bowls and some knives. Under that was a wooden box that looked like a cigar humidor.
“I’m afraid the elevator is broken, but that will give us time to talk. We are meeting in the basement.” I followed her to the stairwell as she continued speaking. “This ceremony has been handed down throughout the ages. So many religions spreading out across time and space. It all started in Africa, of course. Then Israel, Rome, Greece. All over the world. All religions call for sacrifice. All religions celebrate through music and dancing. The Jews and the Christians relied on sacrifice. Jacob was called upon to sacrifice Isaac. The Christians considered the loss of Jesus to be a sacrifice for their sins and their souls. It is not such a foreign concept, is it? Keep an open mind and Legba may help you. Chloe is an evil spirit and she will kill you. She is not as strong as Legba.”
As we reached the ground floor I could hear the pounding of drums and the chanting of voices echoing through the halls. MaMa stopped me.
“Take off your shirt and hand me your gun. You are about to enter a place of worship.”
I did as I was told. Feeling naked, I watched her put the gun and shirt in the black wooden box. At the base of the final set of stairs, I saw eight men and three women. Including myself and MaMa, thirteen people were in the basement. The moon was visible through a series of windows above us at the ground level. The floor was dirt rather than cement. In the center of the room, a clay chimney led to a metal spout attached to the cast-iron furnace. The chimney formed a bowl at the bottom like a giant onion. A fire was burning within it.
All the women were dressed in simple cotton frocks. The men were shirtless and wearing shorts or long pants tied with a string.
Even if I had not been the only white person present I would have looked awkward and out of place. Three men circled the fire, beating on simple wooden drums covered in animal skins. Despite being smack dab in the middle of Chicago, I felt as though I was taking part in a National Geographic special.
MaMa took a large glass bottle out of her cart and showed it to the group. A large black man with a shaved head took it from her. Everyone began to chant in some form of Creole French. The man with the shaved head took a large swig of the bottle and spit the liquid into the air. MaMa whispered in my ear, “It is holy water. Let it land on you and do not wipe it off.” The man with the shaved head continued spitting the holy water into the air. When it landed on me, I did not wipe it away.
Everyone abandoned their inhibitions and danced in the circle. I soon joined in. Sweat poured from our bodies as the heat from the fire increased. MaMa added herbs to the flames, creating a fragrant, earthy smell as smoke filled the room. She placed two long wooden bowls on the ground. She then took three knives from the wooden box. The first had a wavy Kris blade and rosewood scales. The second had a straight silver blade and an ivory handle. The third had a black stone blade wrapped in leather cord. She placed them all in a wooden bowl. Opening my backpack, she removed the rum and cognac and placed the bottles beside the bowl.
MaMa pulled the first chicken out of the cage by the neck and held it high in the air. The chanting grew louder. Grabbing the knife with the silver blade, she quickly severed the head of the bird. The blood stained her white dress red as she poured the remaining liquid into a wooden bowl. One of the other woman added cognac and rum to the chicken blood, forming a red soup. Soon MaMa held the rooster and remaining chicken by their necks. The woman who poured the liquor took the silver-bladed knife and slit their throats. MaMa danced with the energy of a young girl while the blood of the headless foul sprayed the room. A large black man fell to the ground, rolling about in the dirt. When he stood he was covered in the powdered dirt and clay from the floor. He grabbed the knife with the Kris blade and cut his own chest, causing a long line of blood to form where the knife had touched. The drums grew louder.
MaMa began to shake as though epileptic. It reminded me of Jerome’s act, but this was no performance. It looked as though she were being shaken by an invisible giant. She continued to tremble as she rose straight up into the air. She was no longer moving, just hovering a foot in the air and pointing at me. Her eyes went from blue to black as she spoke in a low voice nothing like her own. The drums stopped.
“Your sacrifice is not sufficient. The one you call Chloe is an evil spirit. Her name is Marinette-Bwa-Chech and she has been fed centuries of fire and blood. So much blood, human blood ... but it is not enough. She must have your blood.”
“Legba, you are more powerful than she,” I pleaded.
“You do not believe in what you do not see. I am shadow and illusion, no more real to you than smoke and dust,” she responded in Legba’s inhuman voice.
I picked up the knife with the stone blade and cut across my bare chest, allowing the blood to drip into a wooden bowl. Legba laughed a deep rich laugh. My blood clearly pleased him.
“Drink. Dance. If you continue to please me I will send the dreams from the material world back to the spirit world. They will be fleeting images no more. However, to stop Marinette-Bwa-Chech, you must find her in your world, not hers.”
I drank Cognac from the bottle and danced as the blood poured down my body. The music pounded in my ears. I don’t know if it was the loss of blood or the liquor, but I let the dancing erase every conscious thought.
I awoke in a brightly lit room, lying on a thick down comforter. The long cut on my chest had been mended with butterfly bandages. I smelled eggs and toast.
I was in MaMa’s apartment, and she was making breakfast.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Ten o’clock in the morning”
I found my cellphone and called Fred at work. He was pleased to hear I was still alive. I then sat down with MaMa and ate. She did not mention the previous night until I had consumed two eggs, hash browns and a cornbread muffin. The eggs tasted wonderful—despite my recent experience with the sighted yolk at Jerome’s apartment and the chicken sacrifice.
“I cannot help you any further. Legba will protect your dreams, but you must stop the source of the evil in the material world. I suspect the person who brought Marinette-Bwa-Chech to you is more evil than she is, and that person belongs to our world. The balance of good and evil depends on your success.”
“Why did you help me?”
“Because you would die if I didn’t. The question is, why would Legba help?”
“My charm and good looks?”
“Yes, all the charming, good-looking white guys have the Loas helping them. My guess is that Legba does not wish to see the scales of good and evil in the material world tip too much toward evil. So I would assume the problem you are dealing with is far greater than your meaningless existence. I suspect the fate of the world may be in the balance. Not to put too much pressure on you.”
She handed me a red leather pouch tied with a leather thong and removed the old one. “This is Legba’s gift. You may also need your gun and want your t-shirt back.”
“Thanks.”
“Remember, I will not and cannot help you further. You have good friends, they won’t disappoint you.”
“What, no mystical last words?”
“How about, ‘Since you will probably die anyway, do not worry too much about fat and cholesterol.’ Also, look for answers from the weak and helpless as well as the strong and powerful.”
“Thanks again.”
As I walked back to my car, I passed a few kids playing basketball. At the car the two guys from the night before were waiting. The shorter of the two was still wearing his warm-up suit; the other had the same white shirt.
“We made sure no one messed with your car.”
“Thanks.”
They walked away.
The guy in the white shirt had a broken car antenna in his back pocket that I assumed was a homemade crack pipe. I looked to see if my car was missing an antenna. It was not.