I came awake alone in Jo’s Compton cottage. She was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t know if it was day or night, because Jo’s place had no windows and it was always lit by oil lanterns and candles. Breezes came through the walls and ceilings to ventilate the place, but I never knew how this process was achieved.
On the worktable there was a plate of food under a flat-topped crystal cover. Standing on this glass protector stood a cat that had pointed ears like a lynx but weighed no more than five or six pounds. The feline hissed at me and I laughed.
I really enjoyed the soul food repast: pig tails, dirty rice, and collard greens cooked with ham hocks and finished with white vinegar. My stomach hardly complained. There was a cola bottle with a bottle opener next to the plate. Next to the meal sat the wooden tray of Gator’s Blood bottles with five rice paper–wrapped lumps, which looked like tar balls, wedged in between them.
I took one of the bottles, teased out the cork plug, and drank the contents, five or six ounces, in one draft. The concoction tasted like equal parts hard cider and swamp mud. The medicine was astringent against my tongue and throat. It felt like acid burning away the lining down to my stomach. This burning, which was at first painful, quickly spread through my chest, out along my arms, and finally up into my head. I broke out into a sweat and stood up because I had to.
I rose to my full height in the middle of Jo’s place shivering, witnessed by the avian, feline, and rodent roommates of the absent Southern witch. The heat in my chest turned to hilarity and the being in my soul was momentarily transformed into a hyena when the moon is full and the hunt is on.
After thirty minutes or so I was feeling better than I had in years. It was nighttime outside. There was a warm breeze blowing and the sky was both clear and black, except for a few stars.
I put the remaining Gator’s Blood bottles and tar balls in the trunk of the red Barracuda and then attended to the sky for a minute or two more.
I drove until coming to a World gas station, where I used the pay phone to call the Bel-Air house.
“Hello?” Feather answered.
“Hey, baby girl.”
“Daddy?”
“How are you?” I asked my daughter.
“Fine. Mama Jo called and said that you were taking a nap at her house. Are you okay?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Why? Because you had that accident. You just got out of the bed yesterday morning.”
It hadn’t yet been two days, but it felt like there were months between me and the partial coma.
“I’m going up to the Sunset Strip to do something for Uncle Ray,” I said. “Don’t worry about me. Jo gave me some of her special medicine and I’m as strong as a bull.”
“You sound funny, Daddy.”
“That’s the medicine working. It makes me feel good.”
“You should come home,” Feather said.
“And I will just as soon as I finish this job for Ray. Don’t worry, Feather; I will come back to you and I will answer every question you have about where you came from before you came to us.”
After that I jumped into the borrowed car and blazed my way toward the future.