The Good House

by Tananarive Due

  That time, he’d nailed it. He might not have impressed Sean that day they met, but this time Corey had sounded hard-core, his limbs loose, arms flinging, voice dropping. Suddenly, he’d sounded like the kind of thug who had a Nine hidden down the back of his pants, who could drop somebody without hardly thinking about it. He’d transformed himself into Super-Nigger, the only kind of black person a kid from Sacajawea knew, the ones from rap videos, movies, and TV.You better watch who you fucking with, or I’ma put a cap in yo’ ass .

  And he’d nailed it. He could see that by the way Bo blinked, the surprise that shifted over his face before he remembered his mask. When the other boys snickered this time, Corey was sure they were laughing at Bo.Look what you got yourself into now, man, the boys were thinking.

  “Like you could do something,” Bo said, but he didn’t sound sure.

  “Keep your boys out of it, chickenshit, and I’llshow you what I’m gonna do,” Corey said, sounding so good he believed it himself.

  Shit, he’d had three years of tae kwon do, and he’d placed third in a tournament once since he’d gotten his green belt. He wouldn’t have picked an opponent Bo’s size, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take him. He could kick him hard in the gut and follow up with a spin-kick to the head. Corey could see it in his mind.

  Chestnut whinnied behind him, popping Corey from his fantasy. With one hand grasping Sheba’s freed reins, Sean was already mounting Chestnut, keeping his nervous eyes on Bo and his friends. Last chance for a first strike to shut this guy up, Corey thought.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he made a dash for Sheba, grabbing the saddle-tree, his left foot finding the stirrup in time to leverage him up high onto the saddle with one leap, his most successful mount so far. His nuts hurt like hell when he sat, but he didn’t care about that. It was time to sayadiós to Pizza Jack’s.

  “Where you going? I thought you were gonna show me something,” Bo said.

  “Kiss my ass, dickhead,” Corey said, and he shot a gloating bird at Beaumont Cryer, leaning over in his saddle with his middle finger raised high. That one was for Philippe Toussaint, he thought, for the night his great-grandfather couldn’t say it himself.

  “You’re crazy,” Sean said beside him. “Let’smove .”

  “That’s a plan,” Corey said, and he was tempted to finish with “Hi-ho, Silver, away” as he took the reins from Sean. That was how good he felt, like leaving a gunfight at a western saloon.

  Except that he wasn’t leaving.

  Sheba moved, but she didn’t follow Sean and Chestnut, who had pulled ahead to the dusty path beside the Four. Instead, Sheba swung her long neck from one side to the other, snorting. When she did start walking, she walked back toward the pole behind Pizza Jack’s. She was circling.

  Suddenly, the fun was gone again.

  “Go,Sheba,” Corey said, digging his heels into her sides. The horse lurched, but backward, not forward. Then, she circled again. Sean whistled for her from the road—the high-pitched whistle that usually got her running—but she ignored it.

  Sheba was nervous. She knew trouble when she smelled it.

  Corey heard laughter from the other kids, and he prayed a good laugh would cool Bo off.

  “Kiss your ass? Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Bo said. “You want me to kiss your ass?”

  Corey heard the door to the truck open, and he didn’t like that sound. Getting beaten up was one thing, but people kept guns in their cars.

  He tried to whip his head around to see what Bo was doing. When all three girls started their frantic chorus ofNo, Bo, come on, Corey felt his heart thunder. He saw the blond girl squeezed next to Bo on the truck’s driver’s side, trying to take something out of his hands, but he couldn’t see what it was. The horse’s turn pulled his eyes away. The other boys weren’t laughing anymore.

  “Hey, Bo,don’t do that!” Sean yelled. No nonsense, no fooling. Scared shitless.

  Snakes of light flew from Bo’s hand, toward Corey. He saw pink and yellow flames, delicate weaves sparking in the air, a sight that thoroughly confused him. But when he heard the popping and a deafening whistle beneath him, he realized what Bo had done: That sonofabitch had thrown some kind of fireworks under his horse.

  The girls screamed, half-laughing as they ran back toward the building to get out of the spinning rocket’s way. At first, Sheba’s circling only became more frenzied, but when Corey felt a flare of heat near his right leg, Sheba began bucking.

  The jarring motion startled Corey, yanking him so hard he was sure he would bite his tongue off as his teeth slammed together. He was able to hold on, clinging to the reins, but the back of Sheba’s neck hit him in the face, crunching his nose and draping him in her mane.“Shit—” he said.

  Sheba crashed back down to all fours, and Corey shifted out of place in his saddle. He was slipping to the left side, so he struggled to lock his right leg in place, to stay astride. He had almost pulled himself upright again when Sheba bucked for the second time, jerking up her massive haunches, knocking him so far off-balance he couldn’t remember what balance was.

  This time, Corey flew. He felt himself soar, freed.

  Corey’s flight ended in a dark patch of soil behind the last picnic table, and Sheba’s huge front hoof landed with a haze of dust two inches from his nose. Corey’s mind was a dull roar, but his instincts kicked in soon enough for him to pitch himself into a roll when he fell, his right shoulder hitting the ground hard. The roll wasn’t smooth or pretty, but it helped him avoid hitting his elbow or knee, the kind of injury he wouldn’t walk away from. The worst came at the end of the roll, on the concrete. He scraped his right arm badly, and his shoulder knocked over one of the plastic chairs.

  A half-dozen faces stared while Corey lay still, waiting for the pain to kick in.

  “Are you okay?” Sean said, standing over him.

  He must have flown nearly a mile, Corey realized. Or two or three yards, anyway. He almost smiled, his adrenaline pulsing.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” he said, and sat up to show it. His left arm was afire from the bloody scrape from his wrist to his elbow, and his nose was sore, too, but it didn’t feel broken. Sheba’s hoof would have split his head wide open if she’d stepped on him. And if he’d fallen onto the concrete instead of the softer soil, he’d have broken bones. But all he’d gotten was bumps and jolts. This would be a good story back home, even though he’d fallen. He’d fallenwell .

  “You asshole!”Sean screamed at Bo. “You don’t traumatize a horse like that when somebody’s riding! People get killed like that. You better hope she’s not burned!”

  “What are you gonna do, sissy?” Bo said, giving Sean a sharp shove that made Sean fall to the ground in a heap, practically on top of Corey. “Send your retarded little sister after me? Or your nigger brother with the fucked-up hair?”

  The pizzeria manager and two men who had been eating inside heard the rocket’s whistling and came out, staring curiously from the doorway. The manager didn’t look happy, walking toward them in an apron while he pulled off his clear plastic gloves. Corey was glad to see adults. That meant this wouldn’t get any more out of hand, most likely.

  “Hey,”the manager boomed. “This ends right now, or the sheriff’s here in a minute flat.”

  That threat was enough to make Bo’s friends head back to the truck, but Corey had to lock his arms around Sean to keep him from lunging at Bo. Sean was so mad, he almost scrambled hard enough to free himself. His eyes were wild in a way Corey had never seen.

  “Man, just chill,” Corey said, laughing. “It’s over.”

  He couldn’t believe it. Corey had figured Sean would be one of those sheltered people who would go through his whole life never knowing what it would feel like to really want to hurt somebody. Corey remembered when he’d been one of those people, too.

  They didn’t talk about it, except to decide on their story: Sheba heard a car backfire, she reared up, Corey fell off and scraped his arm. No Beaumont Cr
yer. No racial slurs. No fireworks.

  They both agreed lying would be easiest. Sean said his dad was cool about most things, but he wouldnot be cool about someone setting off a rocket under his $8,000 purebred gray Andalusian show horse. His father would want to call the police (and so would Corey’s mother, he knew, and she’d probably call the NAACP to boot), and then they’d be in the middle of some modern-day Earps and Clantons shit. The police might arrest Bo on some kind of lame criminal mischief charge, but he had brothers, Sean said. And cousins. There were Cryers all over Sacajawea County.

  So, they didn’t tell.

  Corey went home and showed his parents his scrape, telling the lie he and Sean had agreed on. His mother got overexcited, talking about taking him to a doctor, but Dad rubbed antiseptic on the raw scrape and said,He’ll be all right. Let him spend the night at his friend’s house, probably because he was dying to have the house alone with Mom. And Mom gave in pretty fast, Corey noticed. Dad knew how to soften her. Maybe he was the only one who could.

  Tonight was going to work out for everyone, Corey thought.

  After Sheba had been bathed, combed, and fed, she seemed willing to put the scare behind her. Corey helped Sean groom her, gently pulling the rigid teeth of the horse brush through her mane after her bath. She cheerfully ate apples from his palm, rubbing him with her cold snout and rubbery wet lips. If this horse had taken a step the wrong way today, Corey realized, he would be dead now. This was definitely an animal you had to respect. “You did good today, girl,” Corey said, rubbing his hands across the horse’s sturdy, hulking shoulders.

  But he and Sean didn’t talk about it. For a lot of the night, they watched TV with Sean’s brother and sister while Mr. Leahy repaired a weak wall on the horse-stall outside. When the kids and Mr. Leahy went to bed, Sean put on a video,The Matrix. Although it was one of Corey’s three favorite movies, his eyes hardly moved from the blue-green glow of the clock on the VCR.

  He was waiting for the clock to show 11P.M. Finally, it did.

  “I’m going,” Corey said. In the video, bad-ass Morpheus was pulling himself free of his mind-control drugs and chains, running toward Neo’s waiting helicopter in a hurricane of bullets.

  Sean put down theVibe magazine he’d been flipping through at the other end of the sofa. “I’ll get my jacket,” he said. For some reason, he’d changed his mind about going too.

  The walk to The Spot wouldn’t be easy in the dark, Corey realized. He’d taken his parents out here a few days ago, but at night it was a different story, a blanket of darkness shrouding everything he recognized. He and Sean brought flashlights, but a tunnel of ghostly tree trunks hovered in their beams, penning them in, hiding the trail. With a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, Corey leaned on the wooden staff he’d brought from the junk room for his ceremony, digging hard into the soil with each step. They walked slowly, taking their time.

  Around them, the woods were having a party. There were so many insects hissing, rustling, chirping, and humming, Corey wondered how the noise outside his window didn’t keep him awake at night. There was nothing quiet about the country. His street in the suburbs was a lot quieter than this at night. But even now, when talking might have put him and Sean at ease, they didn’t make a sound as they walked.

  Finally, the tree trunks vanished, and the sky opened up. Crisp white stars and a half-moon shone above them like rescue lights. They were at The Spot, the clearing. There was a little more light here, but not much. From where they were standing, Corey couldn’t see the trail, and he couldn’t tell if it picked up again on the other side. He swept his flashlight beam over the ground, trying to get his bearings. He found a circle of stones covered by a grill. Good. He knew exactly where they were. He and his parents had grilled hot dogs out here, another family outing that had seemed more like a fantasy than real life.Please let them work it out, Corey thought again. “We need to start a fire,” he said.

  “Great minds think alike. Bet you’re glad I carry a lighter now,hombre.”

  It took fifteen minutes to get a good fire going because the wood they found at the edges of The Spot was damp, but persistence paid off. After only smoking for the first few minutes, their fire finally burst to life within the tower of twigs and branches. It cast so much light in its glowing circle, it reminded Corey of twilight, orange-yellow and beautiful. Moths circled the fire-pit, and the wood popped and spat embers at them.

  Once the fire was going, Corey admitted to himself that he’d been getting spooked in the dark. He didn’t want to be jumping at shadows all night. He needed the firelight.

  Corey breathed deeply, enjoying the air. This air wasn’t the same as daytime air, and it wasn’t the same air from downtown Sacajawea. It was so sweet and heavy, he had to close his eyes and appreciate it for a while. He could see why people would like sleeping outdoors, breathing this air all night. This was air for a gourmet, someone who took breathing seriously.

  “What time is it?” Corey said, not ready to open his eyes to check his watch yet.

  “Eight ’til,” Sean said.

  “Let’s do this.” Corey’s supplies were ready, waiting on the ground beside the fire in the duffel bag he’d brought. He’d rehearsed this ceremony in his room for three nights, recreating the different stages, and he could do it in five minutes flat. Less than that. Gramma Marie said he had toconclude the ceremony at midnight. It was almost time.

  “You in?” Corey said, rubbing his hands above the fire although his fingers weren’t cold. Summer nights were cool here, but not cold. Still, the raw heat felt good against his skin.

  Sean nodded. From where he stood at the other side of the fire, he could be a pale phantom.

  “Tell me what you want to bring back,” Corey said. Without realizing it, he’d dropped his voice to a whisper. It was almost midnight, and it seemed right.

  Sean whispered back. “Before she vanished for good, my mom sent me a letter when I was little. But I got pissed and threw it away when she stopped calling. There was a picture, too, wallet-sized. It’s the only one I had. I want them back.”

  “I saidone thing.”

  “They came in the same letter. Technically, it’s one thing.”

  Corey was surprised to realize his hands were shaking slightly, the way they had when he’d found the satchel in the closet. Standing close to the fire so he could see, Corey took the readied page from the satchel. In the firelight, the paper looked golden. He had to start now.

  Before any ceremony begins, you must ask permission of Papa Legba to speak to the otherlwas.As I have written earlier, Papa Legba is the doorkeeper between men and spirits, and you must take great pains not to offend him. Our history has been a stormy one, as you have read. When you speak to Papa Legba, speak from your heart with all the reverence that is due to him. Speak to him with love, as it is only love he craves.

  Gramma Marie had written many pages about Papa Legba in her book, and suddenly Corey wished he had read more about why her history with Papa Legba was so stormy. He couldn’t remember exactly—it was something about his feelings getting hurt, his toes being stepped on—but he hoped ancient history wouldn’t hurt his spell tonight. Corey didn’t want to butcher the Creole words Gramma Marie had written, so he read the prayer’s translation: “Papa Legba, open the gate for me Ago-e…Atibon Legba, open the gate for me. Open the gate for me, Papa, so that I may enter the temple….”

  The fire flared brighter with a loud crackle, then ebbed back down. Corey sensed something hidden outside their firelight, and he didn’t think it was his imagination. Was Papa Legba here? Suddenly, he felt exposed. It was a struggle to make himself go on. “Please accept my offerings, Papa Legba,” Corey said, his voice wavering.

  Corey laid out his gifts to Papa Legba in the dry soil beside the fire, as Gramma Marie had written: the wooden walking stick he and Sean had found in the upstairs closet, three shiny pennies, the last drops of rum from a tiny airplane-sized bottle he’d found in the back of the but
ler’s pantry at his house, a pinch of tobacco from one of Sean’s cigarettes, and two drum-stick chicken bones, which he crossed in an X.

  Still kneeling, Corey pulled a bottle of Evian and a bowl out of his duffel bag, carefully filling the bowl with water. Then, he dug inside a pocket and brought out a handful of leaves and twigs he’d gathered earlier. These were for the spirit of the Great Woods, Gran Bwa. He brought out a second bowl and also filled it with water; his hand was so unsteady now, some of the water spilled, but he had enough left to fill the bowl halfway. The second bowl was for Madame Lalinn, the moon spirit. He found a pocket mirror he’d bought at Downtown Foods and dropped it to the bottom of her bowl, peering down to see his image. His face was dark in the firelight, but he saw his grave expression. He looked older than he had expected to.

  For an instant, seeing himself, Corey hesitated. Was this a good idea?

  But he’d gone too far now to stop. Corey pulled a rusted medal out of his front pocket. This had been the hardest item to find, and he’d nearly given up on it until he’d visited an antique shop on Main Street. It was a St. Anthony medal, one that had belonged to a woman whose husband never came back from World War II, the shopkeeper had told him. He hoped he would have better luck with it.