Sketcher (8 page)

Ma Campbell was off in the kitchen area, fixing some Unidentifiable Fried Object on the stove for their supper. Pa Campbell, he kept looking to see how far away she was. Meanwhile, I saw she was listening to how much he was tellin' me.

“Now Pa, I told you to keep your trap shut and stop scarin' that boy with them swamp horror stories.”

She limped over with his pills. At the same time she dropped a big ol' plate full of some poor critter's fried skins between us, and I told Pa that I'd be headin' home, cos Moms would be waitin'. He said Moms been waiting a long time, so she wouldn't mind. He said there was lots that I should know, so I should go ahead and crunch on some o' them skins real loud so Ma Campbell couldn't hear what we were talkin' about.

“She's half-deaf as it is anyways.”

“I heard that,” she hollered from the kitchen area. “I may well be half-deaf, Lobo Campbell, but I'm all you got! And you still can't handle all this.”

Pa laughed and farted and continued. It turned out that my pops became a hoodoo conjurer after he went to San Tainos, met Moms and fell under her spell, so to speak.

“Your pops, his hoodoo was third-rate. He had to keep comin' to me to fix his conjurin'. But your momma's folk magic was special, cos she mixed it up a bit. She became known as a mojo queen, a root doctor, prob'ly one of the most powerful conjurer in these swamps before she stopped doin' them spells.”

Well, my head and neck were on fire like I had seen a ghost. Now I wasn't jumpin' to no conclusions, but that might start explaining Frico's sketchin' powers and all – but I wasn't about to say anything more 'bout that to nobody. Plus, this old man was on a roll, and I wish I had one of those new tape-recorder things that Pops promised to buy me.

“So, by the taam she was pregnant with that second boy theah, your other brother, she started goin' to that Long Lake Free Gossip church. And even though they say theah ain't nothing wrong with gettin' a little help on earth when God's got his hands full up in heav'n, your momma decided it was taam to stop all that mojo-conjuring.” He paused, then he looked up and leant forward, glaring at me all cataracky and filmy. “What I'm really try'na say, son, is that people say – don't quote me, but I hear tell that just by whistlin' – your momma could raise up things from under these muddy swamp waadas that could make Godzilla look like a goddamn gecko.”

I looked at him all blank.

“Aw, dammit son, you got a TV now! Watch some more, kid! Or ask your wannabe-Cherokee friend who Godzilla is. Jesus! Or look it up in da library fo' godssakes, I ain't got the taam wit' you kids these days! Anyway...”

And he went on about Moms and her skills in some Caribbean conjuring they call
obeah
, that is one powerful mixin' of African and Christian rituals and English magic – and she also knew the power of somethin' he called “Amerindian art”. I didn't catch what he said about that, cos as Pa Campbell went on and on, I could only see the pictures in my head of
Moms lockin' the doors and lightin' the candle and crushin' the goat-blood letter and burning somebody's name in the fire. And then it hit me and I said to myself: “Shit, Skid. Your old lady is a witch and your brother is a damn wizard.”

Well, you can bet I didn't sleep all week, and every time I looked up from my bed in the darkness, there was ol' Frico's outline, sittin' up, lookin' back at me, like he knew I found out somethin'. Hell if he was gonna get me to talk, though. I wanted solid proof of the originations of these powers before I went back to bribe him with somethin'. So I just rolled over and went back to sleep with one eye open.

PART TWO

An old broom knows where the dirt is.
– Everyday proverb

Eight

“Load up!”

It was Saturday, so Pa Campbell would be taking the gators in his old Ford truck over to Al Dubois Fish and Seafood in New O'lins East, and Moms said I could tag along. Harry T couldn't make it, cos he said he was “keepin' the Sabbath” that weekend, which prob'ly meant he would be recordin' movies on the second-hand VCR he bought off Belly, as soon as he figured out how to put the thing back together. I reckon he borrowed the VCR and pulled it apart and didn't know what screws went where, so he ended up buyin' the scraps. But it was no problem if Harry T didn't make it. I was diggin' Pa Campbell's stories, and on the way, he told me some more.

“Your pops and I don't get along no more, on account of yo' mother wantin' to stop all them conjurations. I told your pops, ‘Alrick, let her be.' He said if Valerie knows 'bout the spirits in the swamps and if she wanted to stop conjuring, that would be her entitlement, but she shouldn't be preventin' him from protectin' his chil'ren. So each taam one a y'all was about to be born, your pops made sure the baby would be under guard.”

“Under guard?”

I thought he was gonna blast me again about not watching enough TV, but he said, “Yeah. Now, this ain't necessarily hoodoo, but nine days or so before the baby is s'posed to be born, theah is a tradition to supplicate and ask an archangel to come protect the newborn.” I shivered. “Yeah, dat's right. These are things you need to know, son. Right now, I'm appointin' maself your Godfauder, and since I'm half-Catholic, that means ol' Pa Campbell is responsible fo' your spirichual
upbringin'. Now, lissen. They got spirits that like to harm li'le children, so that thirty-foot archangel is s'posed to hover over da house whirlin' all six brass wings and beatin' them forward like blades on his bronze armour. Terrible sight, if you saw it. He's a warrior angel, so he's ready with a fire sword in one hand and a burnished-metal mirror – yes – a mirror in the other hand. See, the only thing 'cept Almighty God dat can scare the ol' Devil or a spirit away from a poor soul is the Devil's or the spirit's own reflection. So the archangel goin' hafta hold that mirror up high so dat they can see themselves and git back, you understan'? And if they don't fly away, then the ol' sword of the Almighty's goin'-a hafta come down hard and discourage 'em some more, you understan'?” I shifted in my seat. Maan, that angel sounded scarier than the Devil.

We turned into the Fish & Seafood place. “Well, your momma, she found religion while she was pregnant, and told your pops that the archangel Michael, he knows his job already. Your pops asked me to intervene and git her to agree to ask for protection, cos if there is disagreement between the parents the archangel ain't gonna visit. But I said no: that was between she and him and God and the archangel. So, up to this day, your pops thinks I betrayed our years-long friendship and, worse, he's dead sure that the archangel never showed up and a female spirit called Old Hige, she flew up from the Gulf and rocked a cradle or two many nights.”

Well, I reckon that when he said that, I should've been all freaked out or riled up or I should've just thought Pa was plumb nuts. But no. Matter of fact, that was the best damn news I'd gotten all year. This was confirmin' that
fifolet
story and the fact that Frico had some kind of energy in him. But then again maybe Pa Campbell was missin' his pills or was kinda walkin' on a slant on account of that whiskey flask he kept throwin' back when he thought I wasn't lookin'.

The details didn't matter – but if that bastard Frico had powers, then I was sure I was born to help him use them. I wish
I was him to be honest. But with my luck, if I wasn't “under guard” and some entities came crowdin' around my crib, I'm dead sure all those bastards brought me was the gripes.

Anyway, Pa went in to the Fish & Seafood guy, Al, and while they were hawkin' over prices, up drove a noisy Mitsubishi Montero beside Pa's truck – and who was in the passenger seat but little Miss Vietnam, Mai. Her mother was takin' a nap in the back seat.

“Oh Mai, Mai, Mai,” I called out as soon as I saw her, but she didn't get it. When I was about to explain the joke, her grandpa, he leant across from the driver seat and looked at me. He had bags under his eyes, ready to pack every bad thing you ever did, and the permanent knitting of his grey brows was sayin': “Back off my granddaughter” or something worse. So I kinda slinked down in my seat and waited till he had taken two buckets of jumbo shrimp inside. Then I jumped back up in my seat and tried to flirt with Mai again. But she was all business that day. They had to drop off pounds and pounds of shrimp that they were growing themselves right in the swamp across from us, and then they were going to pick up somebody who just got in from Vietnam.

“You should come meet Kuan, you'll like her.”

I said, “Sure,” even though I wasn't no great fan of her grandpoppa and his talking eyebrows. Well, out comes the old guy again with Al Dubois behind him, and I see somethin' he does: he lets Al give Mai the money for the load of shrimp, like he didn't want to touch the dough. Strange man. And that Mai, she was so cute, she just unrolled that big coil of money and told Al to wait while she counted it, like she was some kind of responsible adult. Then, when the Montero rattled up again, Mai's mother woke up and counted the money one more time.

Well, they left as Pa Campbell was walkin' out, and he climbed back into the truck with money and one of those corny pine-cone air fresheners. He knew his van smelt like
stale fish. Now it would smell just gorgeous. He passed me two dollars. “You deserve it, cos I ain't talked to nobody like this in fourteen years, you heah?” I was goin' to say thanks when he said: “Now I jus' paid you to shuddup. So lissen, let me wrap up the story.” So we took off and he told me how my parents had both put bottle spells on each other.

“That's when you get a good sturdy bottle and you put cinnamon and spices and some hair or a picture of the one you love in it and seal it up real good. And the idea is that they should stay with you for ever, cos you locked them in.”

As much as it was hard to imagine my parents with that sorta groovy, magical relationship, I started feeling sad when Pa Campbell said it ended even before Pops moved out. After Moms started going to church and was born again, she decided to break her bottle, saying that love shouldn't be locked up. Pops got drunk and broke his soon after.

“He shoulda sealed up those bottle spells and thrown them in the Gulf o' Mexico, I tell ya. Dat's what I did with Ma Campbell – and now she's with me every single goddamn day that the Lawd sends! Hell, I cain't even go to the grave by maself!” He laughed and farted. “Anyway, after the bottle spells got broke, your folks just found it harder and harder to stay together. And you shouldn't blame yaself son. It has nothin' directly to do with you. Grown folks are strange and stay in the worst of places for all the wrong reasons. Matter o' fact your pops came back to me to conjure up a new love bottle spell after he moved out, and I said no. Seemed he was try'na win her back, but I tell ya, theah ain't no earthly power stronger than a woman who's made up her mind, y'heah me? Hell, he even drew three Xs on that priestess, Marie Laveau's grave, and made a wish to git your momma back. Now... your pops, he seemed OK 'bout me sayin' no to doin' another love bottle spell at the time, but then three week ago he came into the swamp and bought a goat kid off me sayin' he wanted to try ‘something different' for Thanksgivin'. Now, I sold
him the goat, but goats don't go ‘gobble-gobble', so I knowed somethin' was up. And now you're telling me your momma got a goat-blood letter, right?”

“Letters.”

“Goddammit, Skid. He made multiples to give the spell at least one chance ta work. Or prob'ly just to scare her into takin' him back, I reckon.” He paused. “Well, son, we need ta pray hard, cos if you're saying dat your momma blocked out the windows and crushed dat letter and burned all of them along wi' somethin' else... then in a coupla days, your pops has a serious conjuration comin' right back to him like a boomerang.”

We headed across the Lake. On the causeway, Pa Campbell stationed the radio. Shoehorn Johnny, a great street-performance old guy from downtown, was finally gettin' to playing his jazz trumpet live on the air.

“Well, at least somethin' is new for somebody roun' heah.”

That's when Pa gave me a grand tour and some history. “You know, your pops was a visionary. Do you know why I came to live in the swamps, kid? I came to live in the swamps to escape, to get off the grid again, perm'nently. To renunciate society.”

“Renounce society.”

“Yes, renunciate it. It means ‘to give it all up'. Look up the word son, I told you I ain't got the taam. Anyways, there were some other reasons, but deep inside I reckoned since e'rybody was waitin' for a bomb to be dropped, I might as well go somewhere I could be self-sufficient if there was a big kaboom. Close to a river with all the critters we could eat. Just kinda lay low until all this Cold War thawed out, if nothin' really happened. And you know you cain't lay any lower than Noo Orlins! This place is below sea-waada level, son. Somethin' else for you to look up. Anyway, Ma Campbell, she stuck around, and while her folks and my folks all got together and headed off to dig some bomb-shelter complex in the desert,
she came to Noo Orlins wi' me. Now ... your pops, he came to the swamps for the opposite reason. Progress. And he was on to somethin'... well... sorta.”

Later, when we got back from across the Lake and drove along Michoud Boulevard close to the crack on the map, Pa stuck his hand out the window and pointed. “See that whole area, kid? That was supposed to be a sprawlin' community called ‘Pontchartrain' or ‘Orlandia', dependin' on who you ask. They even built the levees for dat development.”

I looked where Pa was pointin', and all I saw was water and marsh. At one point, we passed a road that zoomed in over our heads off the highway and then just crash-landed in an open field. It was a ghost exit, a road that went nowhere. I reckoned that it was supposed to be one of those interchanges that Pops was excited about back in the day before I was born. The road headed into the bushes, and you couldn't see the end of it, like it just sliced into the earth and went all the way down to hell. I felt a chill. It was a strange sight. Pa went on:

“After a while your pops was figurin' he could get more business in his repair shop as soon as the community grew up around him. But now that the oil's gone bust, all that development is dead. These days, you can still see that big ol' concrete sign somewhere near one of these exits that says: ‘NOO ORLINS EAST'. They made that sign when they tried to get things goin' one final time. Well... some people say that's a gravestone, son, cos the project died. And your daddy's plans, they broke apart like that swamp soil does in the summer.”

My chest felt heavy. Pa was killin' me now. But he couldn't tell, so he kept on.

“But to be honest, I always wanted the swamp to stay the way it was. Even though in truth: it was never the same ag'in. I reckon all those critters that lost theah homes and survived, just had to keep coming east, cos they were wonderin' where the hell theah home went. Soon we had tons
of 'em when the development came to a halt. But gen'rally it was OK. Like they say, if there ain't nothing broke, then nothin' needs to get fixed... or something like that. I don't recall exactly. I ain't taken that damn pill t'day, and Ma Campbell is goin' to shoot me.”